Katrina Vanden Heuvel

'We need to organise politically to defend the weak, empower the many and prepare the ground for reversing the absurdities of capitalism.' – Yanis Varoufakis 'Capitalism over the past twenty-five years has been an incredible moral good.' – David Brooks The Munk debate on capitalism There is a growing belief that the capitalist system no longer works. Inequality is rampant. The environment is being destroyed for profits. In some western nations, life expectancy is even falling. Political power is wielded by wealthy elites and big business, not the people. But for proponents of capitalism, it is the engine of progress, not just making all of us materially better off, but helping to address everything from women’s rights to political freedoms. We seem to stand at a crossroads: do we need to fix the system as a matter of urgency, or would it be better to hold our nerve?

An inside account of the events unfolding in the Soviet Union under Mikhail Gorbachev. In a series of interviews, 14 leaders of Gorbachev's reforms talk about their personal and political struggles to change the Soviet Union. They include the Politburo member often called Gorbachev's right-hand man; three other members of the powerful Central Committee; leaders of the revolt against the old cultural bureaucracy, including Russia's most outspoken actor, poet and film-maker; and equally prominent reformers in economics, science, journalism and foreign policy. Other works by Stephen F. Cohen include "Bukharin and the Bolshevik Revolution", "An End to Silence" and "Sovieticus".