Gorbachev's perestroika transformed Soviet society and politics. One of the most striking aspects of that transformation was the emergence of thousands of pressure groups, operating to a large extent outside communist party control. This book, the first on the subject, examines the most numerous of those groups: charities and self-help organizations which strove to achieve a more equitable deal for disabled people, veterans of the Afghan war, army conscripts, large families and other groups whose problems had been largely ignored by the Soviet regime.

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