17 December 1990
(next to be held NA);
results--NA;
seats--(2,250 total) CPSU NA, non-CPSU NA;
note--dissolved September 1991

USSR Supreme Soviet--consists of the Council of the Union and
the Council of Republics;

Council of the Union--last held Spring 1991
(next to be held Fall 1991);
results--NA;
seats--(271 total) CPSU NA, non-CPSU NA;

Council of Republics--last held Spring 1991
(next to be held Fall 1991);
results--NA;
seats--(271 total) CPSU NA, non-CPSU NA;
note--to be reconstituted as a new legislature--date not set

_#_Communists: prior to August 1991 about 15 million party members,
with membership declining

_#_Other political or pressure groups: formal parties, regional
popular fronts, trade unions, and informal organizations

_#_Member of: CSCE, ECE, ESCAP, IAEA, IBEC, ICAO, ICFTU,
IIB, ILO, IMO, INMARSAT, INTERPOL, IOC, ISO, ITU, LORCS, PCA, UN, UNCTAD,
UNESCO, UNIDO, UN Security Council, UN Trusteeship Council, UNTSO, UPU,
WFTU, WHO, WIPO, WMO, WTO

_#_Diplomatic representation: Ambassador Viktor KOMPLEKTOV;
Chancery at 1125 16th Street NW, Washington DC 20036;
telephone (202) 628-7551 or 8548; there is a Soviet Consulate General
in San Francisco;

US--Ambassador Robert S. STRAUSS; Embassy at Ulitsa Chaykovskogo
19/21/23, Moscow (mailing address is APO New York 09862);
telephone [7] (095) 252-2450 through 59; there is a US Consulate General
in St. Petersburg (formerly Leningrad)

_#_Flag: red with the yellow silhouette of a crossed hammer and sickle
below a yellow-edged five-pointed red star in the upper hoist-side corner

_*_Economy
_#_Overview: The first six years of perestroyka (economic and
political restructuring) have undermined the institutions and processes
of the Soviet command economy without replacing them with efficiently
functioning markets. The initial reforms have featured greater authority
for enterprise managers over prices, wages, product mix, investment,
sources of supply, and customers. But in the absence of effective market
discipline, the result has been the disappearance of low-price goods,
excessive wage increases, an even larger volume of unfinished
construction projects, and, in general, continued economic stagnation.
The Gorbachev regime has made at least four serious errors in economic
policy in these six years: the unpopular and short-lived antialcohol
campaign; the initial cutback in imports of consumer goods; the failure
to act decisively at