Soviet Social Scientists Gauge Their Country's Collapse

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The question of where the USSR is today and is headed tomorrow - economically, politically, socially - provides a dominating backdrop to the Bush-Gorbachev summit now under way in Washington. It's evident that the country is in the midst of a revolution, in its own way as profound as that of 1917. The type of society which emerges, and its relative health, will obviously be key to US-Soviet relations in the years ahead.

For the first time free to explore all aspects of their society's performance and to publish their findings, Soviet social scientists are now generating a wealth of data on present conditions - the inescapable raw material from which the new order will …