In a revolutionary situation in which communism has been discredited and the Communist Party has been labelled a totalitarian organization, 'socialism' is a dirty word in the Soviet Union today. The polarisation between Gorbachev's communist apparat and Boris Yeltsin's new cadres of liberals has left little room for alternative ideas or movements.

Yet a handful of socialists are trying to carve out a third path. Led by Boris Kargalitsky and Mikhail Milutin, the Socialist Party of Russia has concluded that the peoples' interests are not represented by either the old system nor the new liberal agenda. Rather, they seek to build a truly socialist society out of the rubble of stalinism.