64 SOCIAL SCIENTIST and economic change*' (p 192). One of the characteristic features of this epoch was the involvement of members of small trading and also priestly class in the revolutionary movement. This was all the more necessary because revolution reached Turkestan on a barren socio-economic soil "by cable" only (p 194). Socialist 'Intelligentsia As a consequence, Soviet educational policy had to be designed to bring about radical change in the social structure. The number of educational ^institutions including universities increased significantly with a proportionate increase in the number of students. Thus "a new basis was laid for the emergence of a socialist intelligentsia" (p 201). The national development within a socialist framework of transformation not only through a shift in the cultural ethos but also by changes in social structure and pattern of family could get rid of "obsolete religious norms, morbid cultural traditions and [customs and the institutional social parasitism", (p. 218) the objective basis of the social inertia of the past. The author has taken a huge canvass to portray many faceted changes in Soviet Central Asia with economic transformation occupying the first place. In spite of the enormity of the task, he has been successful in achieving it by showing how, in the ultimate analysis, the various issues rcLited to change were solved by the Soviet strategy of revolutionary transformation of Soviet Central Asia. His treatment of the historical background is extremely informative. The detailed discussion on the emergence of the theory of non-capitalist path of development of the economies of the region is very competent but one cannot but feel that his criticism or rather condemnation of ^populism" in this regard speaks of his very orthodox Marxist stance and rejection of great insights reflected in similar theories by N. G. Chernyshevskii, which were rightly admired by Marx himself. In spite of the excellence of the work a reader may sometimes be confused by too many sociological judgements on the course and nature of economic development of different spheres which have otherwise been ably posited by the author. K K DAS GUPTA