Gorbachev and a whole generation of Sovietpoliticians who grew up under Stalin and now fillthe highest echelons of Soviet politics also don'tsee the humor in all this.

In a radical change from past Soviet policies,in June of 1988 Gorbachev decided to allow smallgroups of Russians to lease land for 50 years andsell on the market any output they produce overthe state-imposed quota. Not quite privateownership, but this piece of legislation is aconcession that incentives--the bastion ofcapitalism--are necessary in any economy.

SMITH tries, when dealing with theinnovations and reforms, to narrate and providecolor rather than to judge. Being Smith, he hasaccess to practically everyone except for the verytop of Soviet leadership, and he is an adeptinterviewer, gleaning inner motives and fears fromevery source.

He speaks with Leonid Abalkin, Gorbachev's topadvisor on economic reform. He speaks with AnatolySobchak, a reformist Leningrad deputy. Moreinteresting, perhaps, is his afternoon with NinaAndreyevna, who gained nationwide notoriety as aGorbachev critic, an advocate of the Stalinistcommand system.

The Western mind often doesn't recognize, asSmith does, that Andreyevna's message has a lot ofresonance among Soviet citizens. Gorbachev'sreforms--allowing small "cooperatives" of privateenterprise, for example--have struck fear in manySoviets, conditioned to fear rapacious capitalistspeculators making money off of other people'smisfortunes. Glasnost, conservativescorrectly claim, has also led to a plethora ofanti-government messages bombarding the publicfrom sources such as the newspaperLiteraturnaya Gazeta and the wildly populartelevision program Vzglad.

What the Soviet Union needs right now, theysay, is a some tvordy poryadok--some firm,Stalinist discipline.

Which direction the Soviet Union willtake--towards Stalinist reaction or moreincentives, more freedom and more democracy--is anunanswered question. He and we can only hope.Because there's nothing funny, or even practical,about communism. Nothing at all