Kremlin in Transition: v. 1 From Brezhnev to Chernenko, 1978-85

A systematic representation and interpretation of crucial decades in recent Soviet history - from the death of Kulakov in 1978 to Gorbachev's seeming mastery of the Kremlin in 1989. Reference work examines the daily events and attitudes in the Kremlin during administrations of Brezhnev, Andropov, Chernenko and Gorbachev, focusing on foreign political and security and issues and their domestic context. This is an attempt at a systematic representation and interpretation of a crucial transitional decade in recent Soviet political history - from the death of Fedor Kulakov in July 1978, which reopened the Brezhnev succession struggle and made possible Mikhail Gorbachev's promotion to Moscow, to Gorbachev's seeming mastery of the Kremlin by 1989, from the Soviet-provoked war of nerves against NATO's dual track INF decision, beginning in the late 1970s, to the unilateral force and defense budget reductions Gorbachev announced in December 1988 and early 1989 and from a Kremlin of mostly secretive elite politicking to a new order of "democratization" and expanding mass politics.