Books, Arts & Manners: Land of Kleptocracy

USSR: The Corrupt Society By Konstantin M. Simis

Simon & Schuster, 316 pp., $14.95 “Those who are not willing to accept corruption and who prefer to wage an open battle with it are doomed to failure.” This is a central conclusion of Konstantin Simis’s excursion through Soviet economic life, from which one gathers that these nay-sayers are a tiny minority indeed. High and low, party secretary and peasant, producer, retailer, and consumer—all are engaged in illegally compensating for an economy that, if one judges it by the satisfaction of everyday wants, lacks any sort of common sense in its basic design.

WC

About the Author

Walter D. Connor

Featured Tags

USSR: The Corrupt Society By Konstantin M. Simis

Simon & Schuster, 316 pp., $14.95 “Those who are not willing to accept corruption and who prefer to wage an open battle with it are doomed to failure.” This is a central conclusion of Konstantin Simis’s excursion through Soviet economic life, from which one gathers that these nay-sayers are a tiny minority indeed. High and low, party secretary and peasant, producer, retailer, and consumer—all are engaged in illegally compensating for an economy that, if one judges it by the satisfaction of everyday wants, lacks any sort of common sense in its basic design.