This volume provides research and analysis to understand the role of the former Soviet Union and its involvement in the global economy through the end of the Gorbachev period. It lays essential groundwork for understanding the issues and problems encountered in the contemporary marketization efforts to reform and overhaul the planned economies of Russia and the republics. Various essays provide an analysis of Gorbachev's foreign economic reforms and their origins; the relationship of the republics to the world market (highlighting their strengths and weaknesses in terms of their domestic economics and import-export structures); foreign trade reforms under Gorbachev; and economic relations of the former Soviet Union with the EEC and the changing economic relationship with the Third World (Latin America in particular). A case study of a major joint venture project is provided. Also included is a chronology of foreign economic policy decrees shaping the market reform effort. The essays in this volume address political and economic problems associated with the integration of formerly planned economies into the world market system. This volume will be of interest to political scientists specializing in international politics, Russian and Eastern European specialists and economists interested in the area of the world once known as the Soviet Union.