The men in the Kremlin have never liked—or understood—the farmer. A distinguished student of the Soviets explains why the resulting blunders by Russia and her satellites might prove fatal to their power.

I am by profession an economist and economic historian. The bulk of my academic life has been taken up with studying the world’s economic development during the nineteenth century. I have just ended three years’ work on the Soviet Union and Communist China. The task there was
not to study Communist economies but to discern, if possible, the shape and prospects for change in the whole societies…