The union republics and contradictions in gorbachev’s economic reform

An American sovietologist assesses the economic pressures on the constituent republics of the Soviet Union from the outset of the Gorbachev era through early December of 1991. Following an overview of the center-periphery relations within the command-administrative system in the early 1980s, the author evaluates the impact of perestroyka on republic economies prior to the political transformation of the governments in the 1990s. The implications for territorial integration in the wake of the coup in August 1991 and the subsequent efforts to structure a new economic union between the republics are presented and analyzed in the concluding section.