In Russian, rabotyagi means ``working stiffs,'' as opposed to rabochii (``worker''). This is an important distinction, because Mandel (political science, Univ. of Quebec) is concerned with ordinary workers who do not conform to the heroic ideals of official Soviet dogma. From summer 1988 to summer 1993 Mandel interviewed workers, surveying their impressions of life in the moribund Soviet Union and post-Soviet Russia and Ukraine. The opinions they offer are personal and without pretense. While a more systematic treatment can be found in Linda Cook's The Soviet Social Contract and Why It Failed (Harvard Univ. Pr., 1993), which examines the tacit agreement between the Soviet state and workers who traded economic security for political compliance, Mandel's volume is a purposeful (but admittedly unscientific) examination of what rabotyagi have thought of the momentous changes in the ``worker's paradise.'' For academic collections.-- Joseph P. Parsons, Columbia Coll., Chicago