Ilya Zemtsov was born in the Baku region of Russia. He holds advanced graduate de-grees in philosophy and sociology. Prior to his departure from Russia in 1973, he was a member of the executive board of the Soviet Sociological Association, and di-rector of the department of social science at institutes of higher education in his -native Baku and in Yaroslav. After his emi-gration to Israel, he was a professor at the Hebrew University. Presently, he is the di-rector of the International Research Cen-ter on Contemporary Society, and editor in chief of Crossroads, a quarterly journal issued in England. He has authored sev-eral books on Soviet society and polity, including a major study of Gorbachev pub-lished earlier this year by Transaction. Dr. Zemtsov is a member of the American Academy of Political and Social Science.