Download or read book Soviet Power and the Countryside written by N. Melvin and published by Palgrave Macmillan. This book was released on 2003-11-04 with total page 279 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Drawing upon extensive archival and other original sources, Soviet Power and the Countryside offers a new approach to understanding the political dynamics that led to the collapse of the Soviet order. A detailed analysis of the design, implementation and collapse of Soviet policy toward the countryside is used to explore the implications of a broadening of participation in the policy process from the 1960s. Neil J. Melvin argues that the new knowledge about rural society created as a result of this process provided the basis for a fundamental change in the nature of power relations in the Soviet order, leading to the decay and eventual collapse of policy making institutions.