In his first book, The Russians the author concluded that the Soviet Union was too entrenched in dogmatic ideology - economic, social and political - to change. Following two years in Russia, where he travelled through the country witnessing the effects of Gorbachev's reforms, the author reassesses his earlier judgements in this book. Smith interviewed outspoken mothers, former Gulag executioners, neo-Stalinists, farmers and factory managers faced by new free market demands, TV producers released from old-style censorship and Gorbachev himself.