Sources of Soviet Perestroika

8/13/2019 Sources of Soviet Perestroika

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The Sources of Soviet Perestroika

by John Lenczowski


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Contents

Part I: The Communist System: Collapse or Renewal?

1. Introduction

2. The Communist Ideology: Continuity or Change?

Part II: The Three Crises of the System

3. The Crisis of Legitimacy

4. The Crisis in the Economy

5. The Crisis of the Communist Party

Part III: The Communist Party's Response

6. Glasnost'

7. Perestroika

8. Democratization

9. Revolutions in East Europe and the Policy of "Love"

10. Conclusion


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I. The Communist System: Collapse or Renewal?

Introduction

It is now commonplace to say that recent events in theSoviet Union and Eastern Europe have irrevocably transformed the

geopolitical landscape. In East Europe, we have witnessed thebreaching of the Berlin Wall, the collapse of communist rule inHungary, a shift to a coalition government in Poland, theappointment of a non-communist President in Czechoslovakia, andelections in each country in the region. In the Soviet Union, wehave seen the diminution of fear, a greater freedom to speak, therevelation of historic state secrets, the defeat of unopposedcandidates in elections to a new parliament, the appearance ofprivate economic cooperatives, a meeting between the CommunistParty's General Secretary and the Pope, the formal abandonment ofthe Communist Party's monopoly of power, serious talk of a multi-party system, and the rise of a congeries of national movements.Indeed, some of these events have been so revolutionary that

thoughtful observers have variously pronounced the collapse ofcommunism, the disintegration of the Warsaw Pact, an end to thenuclear threat, and the conclusion of the Cold War.

The overall impression one gains from Western reporting onthese developments is that the Communist Party of the SovietUnion is relinquishing its economic and political decisionmakingauthority, and that it has abandoned Marxism-Leninism as theoperational ideology of the Soviet empire. Many of the recentdevelopments support such a view. The apparent turn toward freemarkets and a willingness to cooperate with Western businessesseems to indicate the renunciation of ideology in favor ofeconomic pragmatism. The toleration and even encouragement of

political criticism seems to mean the end of the Party's monopolyof information and its insistence on strict conformity with theParty line. The loosening of the Kremlin's grip on East Europesimilarly leads one to suspect that it no longer believes in theuniversality of Marxist-Leninist principles.

If all this is so, then what are we to make of the followingremarks made by Mikhail Gorbachev as recently as the autumn of1989?

...the Party has been, and remains, the main organizing andcoordinating force capable of leading the people along thepath of profound socialist renewal, playing an integratingand consolidating role in society and, let us be blunt,preventing an undesirable and dramatic development ofevents. Perestroika will not work without the Party and itsfundamental influence on all aspects of social life...


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...There are attempts to create the impression thatperestroika is founded upon deviation from the bases ofMarxist-Leninist thought and is therefore plunging thecountry into chaos. This is all slander against theParty...

...Socialism is one of the most powerful ideas which evergripped the minds of people. Paradoxically, just here, athome, you can hear voices saying that supposedly thesocialist idea is some kind of fruit of intellectualfantasy, a certain anomaly not corresponding to humannature, that is deprived of substance and future. Those arenot the voices which reflect the opinion of communists andworkers and the profound trends of the historical process.The CPSU firmly stands on principled positions. It remainsdevoted to the socialist ideals, socialist principles...

...Our people made a choice in October of 1917, and despitethe deformations of socialism and its Leninist concept which

have taken place in the past, we will firmly go along thispath. We say perestroika is the renewal of socialism, butnot its dismantling. We say perestroika is revolutionarytransformation, the elimination of the deformations ofsocialism, but not the restoration of capitalism. We sayperestroika is the revival of creative Marxism, a newawareness of Leninist ideas...

...Let us recall the main principles of the Leninistconcept...Do these principles maintain their significance?Undoubtedly. Moreover, perestroika is transferring them tothe category of being real, since they were often merelyproclaimed in the past.i

In the context of Gorbachev's campaign of astonishingreforms, these remarks sound a discordant note. How can they beexplained? Are they merely an atavistic ritual which Gorbachevmust perform before a nominally communist audience -- in otherwords, an audience most of which is not really communist at heartanymore? Could Gorbachev be a different kind of political animalthan his predecessors: a humane communist? Or is he a closetdemocrat lying to his communist comrades in an attempt to subvertthe very Party to whose pinnacle he has risen? If Gorbachev iswhat he says he is -- "a convinced communist" -- is he attemptingto achieve the original Marxist-Leninist vision through othermeans than those to which we have become accustomed? Could he bemerely engaged in a tactical maneuver of the Leninist type --taking "one step backward" in preparation for "two stepsforward"?ii


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Such questions cannot be answered without examining thesources of the Communist Party's campaign for perestroika --restructuring. These include, first, the animating spirit oridea behind the "new political thinking" and then the political,economic and social circumstances which have given rise to this"new thinking."

The search for these sources proceeds partly from theassumption that ideas have consequences -- especially ideas inthe hands of those with the power to act upon them. Power in theSoviet Union is still in the hands of the Communist Party, andtherefore it is necessary to examine its current ideas andattitudes. But since alternative centers of power have also beenemerging -- in the form of autonomous movements arising out ofnon-communist civil society, particularly the national democraticmovements -- it is also worth exploring the "correlation offorces" among these rival centers of power to see to what extentsome of the consequences we have been witnessing have emerged inspite of the Party's intentions.

Indeed it is essential to make the distinction betweenintentions and unintended consequences. As we shall see, fromall indications, the Communist Party's intentions spring from adesire to preserve and renew the socialist system, and not fromsome sudden change of political philosophy. It is true that anumber of the changes we have witnessed deviate from what hasbeen traditionally understood to be the totalitarian model. Butthese cannot be properly interpreted without consideration of twofactors. First, we must keep in mind that there have beennumerous historical precedents of policies which have deviatedfrom totalitarianism, but which, in the final analysis, wereundertaken with an eye to preserving the communist system.Second, we must also recognize that many of the Kremlin's

policies have given rise to unintended consequences. It is thethesis of this analysis that it is in this realm of consequences,and not in the hearts of the Communist Party leadership, that wefind the greatest potential for genuine revolutionary change.For the first time in thirty years, civil society in the Sovietempire has raised itself from under the Party's yoke in the formof a variety of movements which the Kremlin may find impossibleto control.

The Communist Ideology: Continuity or Change?

Perhaps the central question of all is whether the CommunistParty is still communist. Amidst all the changes, are therecontinuities in the nature of the Party and its modus operandiwhich testify to its commitment to a set of core values? Haveany of these core values been replaced by others as thefundamental animating spirit of Party policies?


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If a fundamental change has occurred in Soviet ideology --i.e., the kind that would make the USSR truly politicallycompatible with the West (or at least that part of the West whichstill subscribes to the principles which formed the basis forWestern democracy) -- then at least some of the following wouldhave to come to pass:

--The Party would have renounced its gnostic claim to vanguardleadership of the inexorable forces of history -- not just inwords specially crafted for Western consumption, but in deeds.It would have replaced its monopoly of power with an array ofcompeting political forces (which would have been given a levelplaying field on which to compete) and a system of checks andbalances.

-- The Party would have renounced -- again in deeds and notsimply in rhetoric targeted to Western audiences -- its conceptof conditional human rights: i.e., the idea that people haverights only on the condition that they do not belong to a

historically-doomed class or to one or another religious faith.And it would have adopted a theory of rights where those rightsare unconditional -- i.e. not subject to the whims and passionsof the flawed men who happen to be in power at any given time.

-- The Party would have abandoned its claim to defining the"truth" for its subject peoples.

-- It would have ceased to depend on the systematic use of liesas an instrument enforcing its continued hold on power.

-- It would have discarded the sophistic concept of dialectics asan instrument of analysis and political manipulation.

-- It would have rejected the Leninist "end-justifies-the-means"concept of morality.

-- It would have stopped twisting the normal meanings of words tosuit its political agenda.

-- The Party would have taken some steps away from thedeification of man. The belief in the perfectibility of manwould have yielded to acceptance of the possibility of theexistence of a human nature and that this nature may be possessedof intrinsic flaws.

-- Its belief that man is the source of all law, morals andrights would have yielded some ground to the possibility thatthese things may derive from a Higher Law -- as it says in ourDeclaration of Independence, "the Laws of Nature and Nature'sGod."


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-- The belief in man as an empty vessel shaped only by hisenvironment would have been replaced by a recognition ofindividual moral choice and personal responsibility.

-- Doctrinaire materialism would have been replaced by at least

some appreciation of the transcendant and the spiritual.Militant atheism would have been replaced by genuine tolerance orembrace of religion -- and not the Stalin-style harnessing andmanipulation of religion for purposes of state, which appears tobe the policy of the current regime.*

-- The traditional roles of ideology would have been abandoned bythe Communist leadership. For example, it would have ceased touse Marxist-Leninist ideas and the "ideals of the OctoberRevolution" as an essential instrument to legitimize its hold onpower. It would have rejected the use of ideologicalformulations as a tool to establish political conformity and,therefore, internal security -- in other words, it would have

ceased to set forth a "Party line." And it would have stoppedusing this line as the standard by which friends and enemies --both at home and abroad -- are determined.

While we have witnessed a great deal of activity --announcements of numerous "structural" reforms, avowals ofallegiance to freedom and democracy, declarations of all sorts ofhigh-minded intentions, and headlines upon headlines -- there hasbeen little or nothing in the way of actual deeds that couldjustify affirming the validity of any of these propositions. Nopolicy undertaken thus far has been either fundamental orirreversible in terms of changing the core of the Sovietideology.

_____________* For example, "A.S.," an anonymous author in the independentRussian news magazine Glasnost, observes that the Kremlin hasmade it a top priority to stop the moral, civic, social, and evenphysical disintegration of Soviet society by using any means,including religion. Promoting social and moral degeneration wasonce advantageous to the Communists in their efforts toconsolidate power. Now, however, when this process has gone toofar, to the point of harming the very pillars of Communist powersuch as the economy, the Party has found it necessary to turn toreligion to help reverse the process. As A.S. explains, "whatthe Soviet state needs from the Russian Orthodox Church issomething quite specific: that people should once again labor


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diligently at the workplace, support perestroika, campaign forpeace (at this moment), fight anyone anywhere (at the nextmoment) and obey Mikhail Gorbachev." By treating the moralteachings of Christ as acceptable -- to the extent that theypromote communist purposes, and by treating Orthodoxy as acustodian of national culture, the regime presents itself as

having a new, tolerant and even benevolent attitude toward theChurch, when in fact it remains as opposed to the Church'sspiritual essence as before.iii

In fact, there is every indication that the Partycontinues to be committed to the socialist idea, to itsmaterialist, humanist, secular and internationalistunderpinnings, to dialectical analysis and to its own continuedvanguard role in the political system. The ideas expressed inthe Communist Party platform approved by the Central Committee inFebruary 1990 make this clear.iv They include:

-- a commitment to a new society, "based on the humanist values

of our country's peoples and all mankind." As the platform alsostates: "man is the intrinsic goal of history."

-- "devotion to the socialist choice and the ideas of October"(i.e., the October revolution of 1917) and a restatement of theoriginal propagandistic slogans of that revolution: "power to thesoviets, factories to the workers, land to the peasants, peace tothe peoples, free self-determination to the nations."

-- a commitment to the primacy of "economic rights" as opposed toindividual, civil rights. The latter can only be exercisedaccording to the typical provisions of Soviet "fine print." Asit says in the platform: "Here there must be strict observance of

law and order and of the demands of Soviet laws." But Sovietlaws continue to restrict free exercise of individual rights.And insofar as laws may be revised in the context of all the talkabout establishing a "rule-of-law state," there is no rule of lawin Gorbachev's USSR. In fact, the prospects of the emergence ofsuch a system are nil so long as there is no independentjudiciary, and so long as the Soviet Constitution continues to benothing more than a piece of paper, whose provisions are notsubject to individual legal appeal.

-- a commitment to "patriotism," but one "which in our conditionsis inadmissible without internationalism."

-- the rejection of "unacceptable" forms of culture. Forexample: "A commercial approach toward culture is inadmissible tosocialism."


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-- the ritual reiteration of freedom of conscience and religion,restricted again by more fine print. Churches have theopportunity to act "freely," i.e., "within the framework of thelaws" and so long as they pay the state's traditional price fortheir lawful existence: "making their contribution to mutualunderstanding between peoples," which, in practice, means serving

the cause of Soviet foreign policy and its "peace" propaganda.Now that Gorbachev has met with the Pope and has indicated thatthe largest persecuted church in the world, the UkrainianCatholic Church, may soon be legalized, it would appear that anew freedom of religion has come to pass in today's reformedUSSR. This may be so -- if one defines freedom of religion asthe legal requirement to register one's church with the state,turn over the church's finances to state control, and submit toother forms of state penetration and regulation.

-- the desire to create a "planned, market economy," which inpractice means a planned economy with no renunciation by theParty of its desire to dictate the priorities of production and

distribution. According to the platform, "production isimpossible without centralized planned influence on itsdevelopment." For all its talk about "restructuring propertyrelations" and the passage of the new "law" on "citizens'property" (which happens to be at variance with the SovietConstitution), full-fledged private property is ruled out, whilethe Party continues to repeat the Marxist nostrum that "the useof any form of property must exclude the worker's alienation fromthe means of production and man's exploitation by man." Insofaras individuals may now be permitted limited ownership ofproperty, it would not be an unprecedented turn of events in anycase: Lenin's New Economic Policy of the 1920's also permittedlimited property ownership (to a greater extent than under

Gorbachev). And while collectivizing the agricultural system --from fields to farm animals -- even Stalin permitted the de factoownership of private agricultural plots and certain "means ofproduction" such as chickens. Lenin clearly explained thattactical retreats and compromises which appear to flout Marxistrules are often necessary to achieve Marxist objectives.

Keeping in mind these stated intentions of the Party, howthen can we explain the recent tumultuous events? The answer canbe found in three simultaneous crises in the Soviet system: thecrisis of legitimacy, the crisis in the economy, and the crisisof the Party -- all three of which have threatened the continuedpower of the CPSU and its role on the world stage.

II. The Three Crises of the System

The Crisis of Legitimacy


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The Communist Party has always had a problem establishingits legitimacy. Having seized power by conspiracy and force andhaving rejected the results of the first post-revolution election(in which it suffered a lopsided defeat at the hands of the non-communist Socialist Revolutionary party), the Communist Party has

felt compelled to establish some logical, moral or practicalreason why it deserves to be in power. Without such a reason, itfaces the threat of a precipitous decline of its authority. So,over the years, Marxist-Leninist ideology has been the instrumentwhich has consistently supplied that reason: the Party deservesto be in power, since it uniquely understands the immutable lawsof history. Because of that understanding, it has freed itselffrom being buffeted about by the forces of history (a feat whichcannot be achieved by those who do not understand). Thus, it isin a position to help the historical process along, serving asthe vanguard of the working class and its revolution against thecapitalist order.

Marxism-Leninism, however, has rarely been a sufficientlegitimizing force. Given the proliferation of democraticthinking throughout the world in the 20th century, and theconsequent need to combat democratic tendencies within the Sovietempire, the CPSU has regularly attempted to seek auxiliaryinstruments of legitimacy. The most successful has been theParty's invocation of its patriotic leadership of the Red Army'svictorious campaign in World War II. Here the Party has claimedthat it was the one force which could lead the country in defenseof the Russian fatherland against the aggressive forces offascism. In one fell swoop, the Party has succeeded inpresenting itself both as the direct opposite of fascist and Nazityranny and as the genuine guardian of the Russian nation.

But forty-five years have passed since that war, and theeffectiveness of that instrument of legitimacy has eroded. Thefailures of the socialist system have become clear for all tosee. The USSR cannot feed it own people without imports. It isa country with fewer telephones than Spain, a rate of automobileownership less than that among South African blacks, and a systemof "free" hospitals, one third of which do not have running water-- in short, a country with severe and chronic shortages of themost basic necessities of life.

The peoples of the Soviet Union are consequently sick of itall, and sick in more ways than one. Millions of people are fedup with living a life of duplicity: one life under thesovereignty of official propaganda and another in the limitedprivacy of their communal apartments. Millions are tired ofliving a life of cultural ennui. And millions more are sick ofstanding in interminable lines to buy rotten food, and working


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for worthless money to buy nonexistent goods, while watching theprivileged Party elite gobble up luxuries imported from the West.Tens of millions have taken to escaping the miseries of lifeunder this system through alcohol and drug abuse, while millionsof others suffer malnourishment of both body and soul. The rateof infant mortality is increasing, while life expectancy is

declining. The workforce refuses to work, and the intelligentsiahas become so alienated from the system that it has become a defacto ally of the Kremlin's greatest anti-communist critics inthe West. In short, society had no hesitation in blaming theParty and the idea it represents for these intolerableconditions.

Under these circumstances, the Party's prospects ofmaintaining its domestic and international positions of powerwere growing increasingly slim. There was no way that socialismcould be revived and sustained without the cooperation of theintelligentsia and the masses of workers in whose name the Partywas ruling. Radical measures had to be taken to secure this

cooperation by restoring the prestige of the socialist idea andthe legitimacy of the socialist regime.The Crisis in the Economy

While it can be argued that the structure of the socialistsystem, by its very nature, is inclined to be in a state ofeconomic crisis, there are crises of different severity in theUSSR. While by no means the worst in Soviet history, theeconomic conditions of recent years have been among the mostsevere in the post-war era. But before exploring the effects ofthese conditions, it would be useful to examine what is meant byeconomic crisis in the Soviet context.

"Crisis" normally connotes a decisive moment -- particularlyan unstable or crucial state of affairs, a period of acutedistress. To determine the nature of a given crisis, however, itis necessary to establish what exactly it is that is experiencingthe distress. Viewed through a Western lens, the Soviet economyis ostensibly designed to create and distribute wealth, just likeany Western economy. Thus, given the shortages of the most basicnecessities of life in the USSR, it would appear that it is thiswealth-creation capability that is in crisis. The problem hereis that such a mirror-image view of the purpose of the Sovieteconomy is misplaced. In fact, the purpose of this economy is tocreate and maintain power -- power for the Party, power for theUSSR on the world stage, and power for the international movementwhich the USSR still claims to lead.

From the perspective of wealth creation, the Soviet economyhas always visited privations on the people. But while suchconditions create distress in average people's lives, they should


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not necessarily be called a crisis of the system, except insofaras they threaten the power position of the Party and state. Infact, the manufacture of shortages can be a method of creatingpower, insofar as shortages divide society into two groups: onewith power and the other without -- those who give out therationing cards and those who scramble to get them. In light of

all this, it would be inaccurate to declare the existence of atrue economic crisis unless we could identify a crisis in one oranother of the economic pillars of Soviet power, such as themeans of acquiring and adapting foreign technologies which aretoo costly for the Soviets to develop themselves.

So what is it about the recent economic conditions that hascaused a crisis of power creation in the USSR? Keeping in mindMoscow's production priorities, several factors emerge.

Given that its highest priority by far has been militaryproduction -- one of its key instruments of power -- the Kremlinhas been concerned that significant parts of the military-

industrial infrastructure of the state may not be able to keep upwith the rapidly changing technological developments in the West.With computers and information technologies revolutionizing bothindustrial processes and end-products, Soviet military technologyrisks falling far behind that of the West unless radical stepsare taken to modernize the military-industrial base. While theKremlin invested an estimated $150 billion over a ten-year periodon strategic defense technologies such as lasers -- well beforePresident Reagan launched the Strategic Defense Initiative -- itmay still have grown concerned by the speed at which Westerntechnology could outpace Soviet efforts in this field. The samespeculation could be made about the Soviet reaction to U.S."stealth" technology. Indeed, the systematic efforts by the

Reagan Administration to prevent the transfer of militarilysensitive technologies to the East bloc may have proven to be asignificant factor in aggravating this situation. Under thecircumstances, the only ways of addressing the potential militarychallenge posed by lack of access to these technologies were: torevive the industrial infrastructure; acquire Western technologyby purchase, joint ventures or theft; eliminate the mechanisms ofWestern technology security, principally by undermining theirpolitical-strategic rationale; and restrain Western militarytechnology development through arms control, peace propaganda andpolitical-strategic deception.

Another factor making up the crisis of Soviet power creationis that the shortages of goods may now be so acute as to causethe physical deterioration of the very labor force which mustproduce Soviet weapons, man the army, run the internal securitysystem, and operate the many other institutions which ensure theParty's power at home and abroad. On top of the alcoholism and


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poor diet, the peoples of the Soviet Union have suffered therevival of diseases like smallpox and diphtheria which were longago eliminated from industrialized societies.

The shortages of basic necessities may also contribute tothe threat of increased civil unrest in the USSR. 1989 witnessed

major strikes in several of the coal mining regions of thecountry, which included the formation of independent strikecommittees. These committees proved to be influential enough toextract significant concessions from the regime. The repetitionand spread of such work stoppages could compound the challengesto Party authority already posed by the various national andseparatist movements which have emerged in recent years.

Finally, the acute shortages, which have increasinglyalienated the people from the socialist system, have driven themto seek alternative methods of survival, which, in turn, threatenthe Party's power. The principal method of survival in the USSR-- outside of seeking privileges through Party channels -- has

long been participation in the underground economy. For years,the Party had to wink at the black market because it wasessential to the survival of the population. As time passed,however, this second economy grew so large that it spawned twodevelopments inimical to Party power.

The first was the liberating effect on increasingly largesegments of the population: more and more people were able toearn a living without having to be dependent on the Party foraccess to goods and services. This de facto decentralization ofeconomic decisionmaking was necessarily eroding the Party'smonopoly of power. Secondly, the growth of this economy washaving a corrupting and weakening effect on the Communist Party

itself and contributed to the third crisis which gave rise toperestroika -- the crisis of the Party (see below).

Lest there be any misunderstanding about the nature of thecrisis in the Soviet economy, it should be noted that, given thecontinued secrecy of Soviet society and the persistent lack ofaccurate data concerning Soviet production, most diagnoses aboutthe health of the Soviet economy are derived either from:anecdotal evidence gathered by travellers; distorted Sovieteconomic statistics (which are doctored at many levels of theplanning, production or reporting processes); or the testimony ofSoviet economists of different political stripes, which, beinglittle more than hearsay evidence, may or may not be true.Therefore, reports about Soviet economic performance vary wildly.For example, the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency has reportedcontinued growth in the Soviet economy throughout the 1980's, andthat the Soviet gross domestic product is about half that of theUnited States. Meanwhile, visiting Soviet economists have


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charged that the CIA has grossly overestimated Soviet economicstrength, and have declared that the Soviet economy is anywherefrom one third to one seventh the size of America's. Some ofthem even have gone so far as to brand their own government'sstatistics as untrustworthy.v

Given the lack of satisfactory supporting evidence for anyof these estimates, it is worth considering two possibilities: 1)the Soviets may be exaggerating their economic weakness forvarious reasons, not the least among which may be to induce theWest to become complacent about its defense; or 2) the Sovietsmay be telling the full truth about their economy -- the truthwhich they have concealed for so long -- and may be doing so forsimilar reasons. In light of the Soviet history of distortingtheir various economic and military capabilities for variousstrategic purposes, these possibilities should not be dismissed.

The Crisis of the Communist Party

The crisis of the Party has been composed of severalelements, each of which has affected its strength, cohesion andauthority.

Perhaps the most threatening has been the growth of theunderground economy. Local Party bosses were lured into thisunderground system, first through bribery, and then throughdirect participation in black market deals. One consequence wasthe rise of regional Party "mafias" which controlled largesegments of private industry in the USSR. But another, moredamaging effect was that these bosses were developing forms ofself-interest that were at variance with the Party's interest.This burgeoning breakdown of partiinost' -- party-mindedness --

had a corrosive effect on the discipline and cohesion of theentire Party.

Too many Party members were being coopted by an institutionof normal civil society -- the free market, where commercialtransactions take place between consenting adults free ofpolitical constraint. As a result, the Party was threatened bythe prospect of being transformed from a revolutionary Party --operating separate from, but with decisive influence over, civilsociety -- into a traditional ruling class that is an actual partof that civil society. If the Party authorities were to permitsuch a transformation, they would lose not only the revolutionarypurpose underlying the Party's very existence, but also theproper distance from civil society that enables their cadres todo what is required to maintain internal security. In short, thecollective leadership of the Party first under General SecretaryYuri Andropov and then under Gorbachev recognized that theorganization was suffering from a bad case of ideological decay.


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The leadership also recognized that the Party was growingincreasingly out of control. Rather than remaining an elitevanguard Party, it had become a mass party with twenty millionmembers, bulky, unwieldy, and increasingly impervious toinstructions from Moscow central. Many had become plodding

functionaries -- a far cry from the model professionalrevolutionary laid out by Lenin and idealized by Gorbachev. TheParty had developed layers upon layers of bureaucracy, throughwhich every leadership decision had to penetrate and, in theprocess, suffer degradation. The central authorities identifiedthese bureaucratic layers as bottlenecks which impaired theefficiency of the production process, and which would have to betargeted for elimination. Altogether, the Party had to be ropedin again, put under strict control and ideologically purified.

III. The Communist Party's Response

Glasnost'

Glasnost' has been probably the most dramatic of the reformsadopted by the Gorbachev leadership. Our news media tell us,pursuant to the official Soviet mistranslation of the word, thatglasnost' means "openness." And Moscow's news managementapparatus has labored to have us believe that glasnost' isfreedom of speech. In reality, it means "publicity" or givingvoice to selected ideas or opinions. Traditionally it has beenused both by the Soviets and the Tsarist authorities before themto serve as an expedient substitute for real freedom of speech.

In practice, glasnost' represents a combination of policies

from increased press freedom to a reduction of overt politicalrepression. The most impressive feature of this policy has beenthe regime's willingness to tolerate the publication anddistribution of unofficial newspapers and magazines. This,however, has not been an unequivocal leniency. Independentpublishers have been continually harassed, occasionally arrested,their offices raided by police, and their publications andequipment confiscated from time to time.vi In spite of suchdifficulties, they have been able to expose a remarkable numberof previously hidden realities of the Soviet system. And in theprocess, they have served as important instruments to mobilize avariety of independent movements throughout the USSR. The factthat the regime has looked upon them with as much forbearance asit has is probably the most liberal and uncommunist feature ofthe entire reform program.

With respect to the official press, glasnost' has involvedthe revelation of selected facts about both contemporary life in


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the USSR as well as Soviet history. People have been permittedto criticize various political, social and economic problems aswell as selected targets that the authorities deem responsiblefor those problems. The policy also involves a relaxation ofcensorship in literature, film and theater. In practice,however, the subjects of the newly-permitted discussion almost

invariably concern information about which most people alreadyknow. Furthermore, there are limits beyond which officialpublications cannot go. In one recent example, paper supplieswere denied to the prestigious literary journal, Novy Mir, whichhad been serializing works by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. Officialcensorship, in other words, still exists. Only now, instead ofone uniform propaganda line emanating from thousands ofperiodicals and other media, a coordinated multiplicity ofmessages has issued forth -- as Vladimir Bukovsky has describedit, a "pluralism of lies." So, for all the new truths and half-truths which have been unveiled, there are many more that remainconcealed. As usual, it is the Party's interest which determineswhat is revealed or kept hidden.

It is quite likely that the tolerance of unofficialpublication would not occur if the regime did not simultaneouslytransmit its own multiplicity of controlled messages through theofficial press. As Bukovsky has explained, the shift to officialpluralism is designed to prevent the emergence of a singlealternative voice -- such as the Solidarity movement in Poland --around which civil society can rally. As it has transpired,there has been a substantial fragmentation of the politicalopposition in the USSR into a multiplicity of nationalist andother cause-oriented groups. The regime, in turn, has been ableto play one group against another, such as Armenians andAzerbaijanis, in classic divide-and-rule tactics, while

simultaneously getting credit worldwide for its liberalism.

The policy of glasnost' has been used to address each of thecrises faced by the Party. It addresses the legitimacy problemin several ways. First, glasnost' involves yet another round ofritual anti-Stalinism. Successive Soviet Party bosses havesought legitimacy by denouncing the policies of theirpredecessors. Part of this process has consistently involved theexcoriation of Stalin, his crimes, and his "cult of personality."This effort to distance the new Party leadership from Stalinismis designed to demonstrate how humane it is, and how radically ithas departed from what everyone has come to recognize was ahorrific regime. This focus against Stalin also serves a relatedpurpose: to distract attention from the fact that the Stalinistsystem (be it the Party, the Gulag, the KGB, state control of theeconomy, etc.) was actually set up by Lenin, and that theseoriginal Leninist institutions are still intact today.


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Glasnost' also helps the cause of legitimacy by permittingthe exposure of corrupt Party officials and attacks on opponentsof reform. When corrupt and "conservative" mid-level andregional Party bosses can be attacked in the media not just bytheir superiors but by their subjects and subordinates, averagepeople can suddenly feel as if they have some say in society's

affairs. Their new limited capability to lash out against manyof the objects of their hatred and frustration helps to overcometheir former feelings of helplessness. And simultaneously, itinclines them to be more favorably disposed toward the Partywhich is apparently purifying itself and giving the people thisnew lease on civic life. In this way, the Party bolsters itsinadequate Marxist-Leninist-based legitimacy with a component ofdemocratic legitimacy. And as with anti-Stalinism, the attemptto focus attention against villains in the mid-level apparatusalso serves to divert opprobrium away from the top-level bosses.

The literary thaw under glasnost' -- as well as the limitedfreedom for the publication of unofficial periodicals -- is the

way the Party makes a special appeal to intellectuals, a groupwith particular influence with the West. The publication ofbooks, plays, articles and poems which touch on formerlyforbidden subjects has been life-giving water to anintelligentsia thirsting in the desert. The almost immediatereaction of this group was to sing the praises of the reformersresponsible for the thaw and to encourage the West to supportthem. One can scarcely conceive of a single policy that couldcoopt such an influential class of people so quickly.

What is noteworthy about this attempt to gain new legitimacyis how it depends on the projection of a titanic clash betweenenlightened "reformers" and retrograde "conservatives." While

there may indeed be a split of some kind within the Partyapproximating this portrayal (although this is by no meanscertain), it is not always clear which personalities fit intothese popular categories. The conventional wisdom tells us thatthe conservative "Darth Vader" of the Kremlin in the recentperiod has been Yegor Ligachev. This may be true. But,unfortunately, politics in the Kremlin has always been shroudedin secrecy, so there is a great deal we do not know. If ComradeLigachev does fit the profile that some experts and our mediahave assigned him, then how does one explain apparent evidencewhich puts him fully in the reformist camp? For example: hissupport for the reformist Argumenty i fakty editor V.A. Starkov,whom Gorbachev personally threatened with dismissal; or hisenthusiastic support for the abandonment of Article 6 of theSoviet Constitution, which (rhetorically) establishes the"leading role" of the Communist Party in the USSR.


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Ligachev may indeed be one of the frightful "conservatives."But given such contrary evidence as well as our lack ofinformation about such matters, can we disregard one otherpossibility -- namely, that we are witnessing a repetition of thetime-honored Soviet disinformation ploy of "hawks and doves" inthe Kremlin? For years, the Soviet propaganda apparatus has

labored to convince the West: that there is a perpetual strugglebetween such hawks and doves (or "Stalinists and moderates")where no such differences exist; that whatever genuine tacticaldifferences may exist among factions within the Kremlin are muchmore pronounced than they really are; that whoever is GeneralSecretary at the time is invariably one of the doves; and thatunless we support him and make deals with him, we face the greatrisk that the hawks will come to power. This is nothing morethan the "good cop, bad cop" routine applied to internationalpolitics in order to gain negotiating leverage. Since there isgood reason for the Kremlin to attempt such a gambit in today'spolitical climate, can we be certain that it is not being usedonce again?

Glasnost' also serves to alleviate economic strains. To thedegree it gives people a greater sense of participation insociety, it boosts the morale of a demoralized workforce. To theextent that it impresses people on a daily basis that Partycontrol over civil society has loosened up somewhat, it givespeople freer rein to explore more creative solutions to theproblems of production, distribution and administration.Furthermore, by airing many of the formerly unacknowledgedproblems of the economy and society, it helps focus publicattention on a search for solutions to these problems.

More importantly, glasnost' helps the economy by attracting

aid from the West. For all its domestic functions, glasnost' hasbeen designed for foreign policy purposes as well. It hasimpressed the West more than any other reform, insofar as itprojects the appearance that the USSR is adopting genuine freedomof speech and is coming to grips with the full truth of itshistory. Under glasnost', the cascade of public revelations andcriticisms has won a continuous stream of headlines in the West.And each news story serves to reinforce the impression thatMoscow no longer has anything to hide and that everything haschanged in the Soviet Union -- including Soviet foreign policy.

A significant portion of this policy has been the militaryglasnost' campaign, which has involved: military-to-militarydialogue; the selective revelation to Western observers of secretmilitary installations, exercises, space facilities and launches;the acceptance of increasingly intrusive arms controlverification provisions; and a variety of related measures.These have been specifically designed to convince the West that


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the Kremlin has abandoned secrecy as a standard element of itspolicy and that military power no longer occupies the samepriority in its hierarchy of values.

As this author has documented elsewhere, however, there hasbeen an enormous component of strategic deception involved in

this campaign. For all the apparent "openness" displayed by thepattern of publicity stunts, it has served to distract attentionfrom the ongoing Soviet military buildup, which has proceeded farbeyond any legitimate requirement for defense, and in spite ofthe economic crisis.vii The following chart documents thiscontinuing buildup in what is perhaps its most strategicallyrelevant aspect: its relation to military production of theUnited States:viii

Major Weapons Systems Production: USSR and U.S.: 1985-1988

Weapon USSR US Ratio

Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles 450 56 8.0 to 1Sub-launched Ballistic Missiles 375 107 3.5 to1Sea-launched Cruise Missiles 4400 2250 1.9 to 1Short-range Ballistic Missiles 2150 0 2150.0 to 0Surface-to-air Missiles 63000 9800 6.4 to 1Tanks 13300 3475 3.8 to 1Other Armored Fighting Vehicles 18100 4175 4.3 to 1Towed Field Artillery 4400 1075 4.1 to 1Self-propelled Artillery 4100 475 8.6 to 1Multiple Rocket Launchers 1900 225 8.4 to 1Self-propelled Anti-aircraft Artillery 500 26 19.2 to 1Submarines 34 15 2.3 to 1


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Surface Warships 34 21 1.6 to 1Bombers 190 103 1.8 to 1Fighter/Fighter-bombers 2750 1850 1.4 to 1Anti-submarine Aircraft 20 26 .8 to 1Helicopters 1850 1500 1.2 to 1

Meanwhile, Soviet spokesmen have been explicit about theirpurposes. As a number of them have stated, the new reformprogram is designed to erode the "enemy image" of the USSR, tomitigate Western fears of the Soviet Union, and, in Gorbachev'swords, "to deprive [U.S.] militarism of its politicaljustification." By encouraging the West to believe that it nolonger needs a strong defense against the USSR, Moscow can reducethe pressure on its own military-industrial base and give it moretime to modernize.

With more and more people in the West convinced that Sovietstrategic intentions have changed as a result of the glasnost'

reforms, there has been a growing constituency in favor not onlyof unilateral Western disarmament, but also of helping the verypeople who have brought about these reforms. And help, ascommonly conceived in Washington, usually consists of sendingmoney in one form or another. In practice, this means proposalsto: grant Most Favored Nation trading status to Moscow; removetechnology security measures and increase the transfer of hightechnology items to the Soviets; offer increased credits at ratesfar below those charged to our own most credit-worthy customers;offer government-guaranteed loans; continue agriculturalsubsidies; and extend direct foreign aid. By attracting thesesorts of proposals, the Soviets continue their long-timetradition of seeking a Western rescue of their economy, without

having to undertake the internal reforms that would enable theirown economy to sustain the country by itself.

Glasnost' has been used as well to address the crisis of theParty. It is a classic purge mechanism, used originally byStalin as part of his many public campaigns against varioussegments of the Party. By keeping the Party vulnerable to publiccriticism from above and below, the cadres are kept on theirtoes, and therefore are induced to be more responsive to ordersfrom the leadership. Gorbachev has used this instrument, amongothers, to purge several hundred thousand cadres deemedundisciplined and undesirable by the central authorities. Thecurrent leadership has also used it to attack its opponentswithin the Party.

Finally, glasnost' has been used to revive the domesticpropaganda apparatus, which after many years was losing itseffectiveness despite the billions spent on it every year. The


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same propaganda line would appear in every newspaper, magazine,and television and radio program -- so monotonously that no onewould pay much attention to it. By inserting greater doses oftruth, some criticism of hated targets, as well as a variety ofviewpoints, Soviet media gained a new popularity. Entirepublication runs of various newspapers now sell out, whereas

before people relegated them to the trash. The best propagandais that which contains just the right mixture of truth and liesso as to contain some credibility. By following this formula,the Party has succeeded in maintaining its ability to managepeople's perceptions of reality without having to surrender togenuine freedom of speech.

The question arises here as to whether the policy ofglasnost' may have gone too far for the Party's continuedsecurity and even served to delegitimize it. For example, thelongtime practice of denouncing Stalinism has always held therisk of this consequence. When Khrushchev initiated this policy,the legitimacy of communism suffered a major blow throughout its

domain. But Khrushchev's calculation, which seems to beGorbachev's as well, was that by blasting the "deformations ofsocialism" practiced by his predecessors, he could gain, if notfull-fledged legitimacy, then greater public confidence. Withthis confidence, and the increased attendant public expectationthat real reform can be ushered in from the top rather than fromefforts at the grass roots, the destalinizing leadership cancement its authority and strengthen its power. If this was asfar as glasnost' was to go, it could very likely have succeededin its legitimizing role as in Khrushchev's time. But now, withthe rise of so many independent movements and their news andinformation organs, the entire system upon which the Partydepends for its power has sustained some severe blows -- and

perhaps enough to undermine rather than bolster the Party'slegitimacy. It is doubtful that these consequences were intendedby the Party authorities. They are now between a rock and a hardplace: if they want to continue to attract aid from the West, anyvisible effort to crack down on the independent press couldundermine this key purpose, while continued tolerance ofunofficial voices could further erode their authority.

Perestroika

While perestroika refers to the overall program of reformsin the USSR, it also represents the more specific economicmeasures taken both to "revive socialism" and to resuscitate themilitary-industrial infrastructure. Contrary to popular belief,these reforms did not spring from the imagination of MikhailGorbachev. They actually began under Yuri Andropov, and certainelements were begun even under Leonid Brezhnev. By the timeGorbachev became General Secretary, waiting for him were scores


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of position papers developed by the various institutes of theAcademy of Sciences and departments of the Central Committeewhich mapped out large segments of the reform program in detail.

In its initial stage -- both under Yuri Andropov andGorbachev -- perestroika took the form of a traditional, Stalin-

style labor discipline campaign. Exhortations to work harderwere accompanied by a restoration of collective punishment (wherethe laziness or mistakes of an individual would triggerpunishment of that individual's entire work collective). Soonthis was bolstered by the anti-alcohol campaign and a renewedeffort to remove "parasites" from the system.

When this effort failed to produce the desired results, theGorbachev regime began to experiment with a few genuineinnovations. New rules were promulgated which permit theformation of "private" cooperative enterprises. Some of thesehave had features of real private enterprises. But others haveproven to be state-controlled operations in disguise. And others

have been given monopoly status in their localities throughofficial restrictions against any competition entering themarket. The result has often been price-gouging by the favoredmonopoly -- a phenomenon which only plays into the hands oflongstanding anti-capitalist propaganda: the high pricesinfuriate the local populace, thus confirming communistindoctrination about the evils of capitalism. Still othercooperatives are forbidden from producing or distributingselected goods and services in certain regions of the country.And more recently, exorbitant taxes and onerous regulations havebeen imposed on those cooperatives with the tenacity to withstandall the other roadblocks.

During the same period in which the Party carried out theseradically divergent economic policies, it also conducted acampaign that went virtually unreported in the Western press: anattack against the private underground economy, the SovietUnion's only true free market, and its most efficient instrumentof production and distribution. Because the Gorbachev regimefeared the deleterious effects this economy was having on theCommunist Party's control -- both of civil society and its ownranks -- it made a concerted effort to reduce it to tolerableproportions. In the first years of the reform program, accordingto the Soviet press, 800,000 private underground entrepreneurswere either arrested (for "economic crimes") or fled theiroccupations for fear of arrest. Such an operation to restoresocialist legal norms seems strangely inconsistent with theapparent commitment to free markets.

Another innovation has been an effort to introduce "economicaccountability," "self-financing" and "profitability" of


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enterprises (measured, of course, by state-determined, and notmarket-determined, prices). But all these ostensible hallmarksof market economies are undermined by the fact that there areonly so many ways that an enterprise's costs can be kept undercontrol if production quotas and the allocation of resourcescontinue to be made by central authorities. The principal

instruments under the control of an enterprise are wage levelsand numbers of employees. While an unprofitable company in amarket economy can cut a variety of other costs before firing itsworkers or lowering their wages, the same cannot be said for mostSoviet enterprises. The result is that Soviet workers facegreater insecurity and increased demands for more productivity,despite the fact that there is nothing to buy with what moneythey manage to earn.

In addition to these innovations, the regime has begunexperimenting with leasing land to farmers, in order to offer thetype of production incentive that property ownership supplies tolandowners. And more recently, a new "law" on "citizens'

property" and "individual labor ownership" has been passed forthe same purpose. But in spite of these apparent moves toward afree market economy, the perestroika reforms have studiouslyavoided the genuine legal protection of private property.

Meanwhile, there has been no reform of the price system:prices -- even many of those charged by the "private"cooperatives -- continue to be determined by the state. And inthe case of goods which are so scarce that they cannot possiblybe sold to the general population, political privilege, and notprice, is the mechanism by which they are distributed.Furthermore, there has not been any monetary reform. The rubledoes not serve the functions that real money serves in a market

economy. It is neither a reliable unit of account, a store ofvalue nor a universal medium of exchange. Lacking theseattributes, it is not convertible into foreign hard currencies.

There has been much publicity given to Moscow's new "laws"concerning foreign participation in joint ventures with Sovietenterprises. Although foreign firms can now "own" a significantshare of such ventures, there are still provisos against therepatriation of hard currency profits. Nevertheless, the Sovietshave been working hard to make such arrangements as attractive onthe surface as possible to Western businesses. The reason forthis enthusiasm for joint ventures lies in the fact that suchventures are the most efficient vehicle for the transfer ofWestern high technology. It is here that we can see the realperestroika. As has historically been the case, it involvesseeking a Western bailout rather than undertaking the necessarydomestic reforms, and using the appearance of domestic reform as


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a lure. Long-time Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko wasremarkably candid about this:

The Soviet people do not hanker after what is not theirs,but neither will they give up their heritage. What are mostprecious to us are our socialist ideals which, combined with

the technical expertise of other countries, will raise ourpeople's standard of living. That is what perestroika isall about.ix

So, in the final analysis, the main efforts to decentralizeeconomic decisionmaking and move in a free market direction havestaggered to a halt. Notwithstanding the occasional headlinestrumpeting dramatic plans to move in a free market direction, inreality the Party leadership appears to have given up on almostall of the innovative experiments of perestroika, most of whichhave proven to be failures. As Soviet economist Gavriil Popovobserved: "Enterprises are drowning, not because they don't knowhow to swim, but because the center has tied their hands."x

Meanwhile, monetary and price reform have been postponed untilsome time in the indefinite future. And for all its rhetoricagainst centralized control, bottlenecks and bureaucracy, theParty has decided to perpetuate the command economy. Genuinereform was quietly interred in December 1989 when Prime MinisterNikolai Ryzhkov presented the Congress of People's Deputies withyet another Five-Year Plan.

Democratization

A large part of Soviet "restructuring" has consisted ofmoves to "democratize" the USSR. These include: the creation ofa new "Congress of People's Deputies;" a "restructured" Supreme

Soviet (which serves as a full-time parliamentary subdivision ofthe Congress); multi-candidate elections for both the Congressand the Supreme Soviets in each of the union republics; theestablishment of a new presidency; and copious talk about thecreation of a multi-party system. The parliamentary electionsheld in 1989 and the union republic elections of early 1990 werea startling change from past electoral practice in the SovietUnion. Previous "elections" -- with one candidate on the ballot-- were essentially exercises in mass mobilization and politicalconformity. This time, however, many Party candidates facedopposition on the ballot, were voted out of office, and, whenunopposed on the ballot, were defeated by an insufficient vote ofapproval. Results such as these so astonished Western observersthat they proclaimed that free elections had been held in theUSSR for the first time.

However much they were an improvement over past shamelections, these elections were not, properly speaking, free.


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The nomination process was rigged by the Party. Other partieswere not free to compete. Voter registration was rigged as well:for example, 80,000 Soviet soldiers stationed in Poland wereregistered to vote in the Byelorussian elections, despite thefact that most of them were not Byelorussians. There were manyother abuses and irregularities. When it came to the final

results, the new Supreme Soviet -- which is chosen not directlyby the voters but by the Congress of People's Deputies under anarrangement rigged in favor of the Communist Party -- contained alarger percentage of Party members than the old, discreditedSupreme Soviet, and these members were reminded by Gorbachev thatthey were all subject to strict Party discipline.

With such an outcome, the question arises: for what werethese candidates competing? First they run for election to theCongress and then maneuver for the possibility of being chosen tothe Supreme Soviet. But the Congress, which is more trulyrepresentative of the electorate than the Supreme Soviet, meetsonly twice a year (while the Soviet runs year-round) and the

legislation it passes which is not to the Supreme Soviet's likingis permanently tabled. Meanwhile, the new Supreme Soviet hasbeen busy holding hearings and passing its own laws. All thesturm und drang of this parliamentary activity gives one theimpression that this legislative body has genuine, independentpolicymaking power. But if this is so, then what are we to makeof the complaint of the Estonian deputy who denounced the newparliament as a "screen" to conceal the Communist Party'scontinuing monopoly of power? Indeed, if the USSR is still notrun by the rule of law, then what good are all the "laws" passedby this august assembly? Even if the authorities decide totransfer some power to this body, its overall control by Partymembers ensures that Party policy will continue, only with

different clothes.

If the parliamentary bodies in the USSR are, for now, simplyhollow organizations when it comes to real power, then what arethe purposes behind the entire exercise in quasi-democracy? Toanswer this, it is necessary once again to look at the variouscrises in the USSR. In the first place, "democratization" isdesigned to bolster the legitimacy of the regime -- to augmentthe Marxist-Leninist foundation of socialism with democraticlegitimacy. But this is a double-edged sword. On the one hand,by giving people a chance to have some choice -- even to vote out"Stalinist" types -- this policy makes the people feel that theyhave some voice in governmental affairs and thus strengthenspopular support for those who have given them this opportunity.On the other hand, this policy whets the people's appetite forreal democracy and raises expectations which may be increasinglydifficult for the Party to fulfill without threatening its power


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or being forced into some sort of crackdown which couldjeopardize all the good will it has won in the West.

As part of the effort to bolster legitimacy, the creation ofa new parliament is one of the vehicles used by the Party toencourage greater public participation in society's affairs -- an

effort that originally stressed involvement in "massorganizations." Armed with a sense that their participation hadsome effect on public policy, people might be more likely to givethe regime their willing cooperation -- particularly in helpingto solve the economic crisis through greater productivity.Insofar as the parliament is mostly a forum for lively debatesabout the direction of social and economic policy, it also servesto let off steam from a frustrated populace. By ostensiblysharing power with this parliament and other state andgovernmental structures, the Party can divert the blame foreconomic failure to others, which it was previously unable to do.

A "new, improved" parliament, chosen by "free," multi-

candidate elections, also gives the West the impression that amajor institutional change for the better has taken place in theUSSR. Influenced by a steady stream of such favorable images,the West is much more likely to extend the various types of aidsought by Moscow. The establishment of a new, strong"presidency" and the parliament's "election" of Mikhail Gorbachevto this position serves a similar purpose. The fact that he waselected by a vote of over four to one gives the West an extraincentive to send aid and do business with Moscow: it is a signof political "consensus" and therefore political "stability" --the climate most propitious for business investment.

Whether or not this new presidency and parliamentary system

represent a genuine institutional shift in the USSR, only timewill tell. It is conceivable that Gorbachev, in a maneuverreminiscent of Stalin, is attempting to gain greater personalpower for himself by establishing another competing power base inthe country. But whatever evidence there is that points to thispossibility is far from conclusive. For all its newly exposedweaknesses, the Party is by far the most formidable power base incomparison with any other institution on the Soviet horizon. Andfor all we know, Mr. Gorbachev may not be as decisive anindividual in the Soviet scheme of things as the West currentlyimagines. He could be little more than the first among equals ina collective leadership, the best front man and summiteer in thatleadership, and therefore the one chosen to do the job. IfGorbachev is so powerful, why was he not able to carry throughwith his publicly reported effort to dismiss Mr. Starkov, theliberal editor who offended him?


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"Democratization" has also been designed to address thecrisis of the Party. Along with glasnost', it has been anelectric shock administered to a Party apparatus which theleadership has diagnosed as stagnant, bureaucratic, careerist,opportunist, corrupt, undisciplined and, worst of all,ineffective. This apparatus had become too comfortable in its

hold on power, to the extent that the Party leadership began tosuspect it was incapable of withstanding a crisis such as aconcerted challenge to its leadership. A party with suchqualities is a party that has strayed far from Lenin's conceptionof an elite corps of tireless professional revolutionaries withthe energy, discipline and imagination to be effective in shapingthe consciousness of the masses. A strong case can be made,therefore, that the leadership has decided that a littledemocratic pressure on the cadres is not inconsistent with thisLeninist vision -- in that it requires each Communist to do hispart in the struggle to seize and maintain power. As FrancoiseThom has contended, Gorbachev had to teach them a lesson on theprecariousness of power.xi And insofar as certain candidates of

the apparatus were defeated in some contests, it may be arguedthat the elections were used as a mechanism to purge them. SomeParty candidates, after all, were subjected to greater electoralvulnerability than others through the Kremlin-controllednomination process.

A final and more ominous purpose may also be discerned inthis democratization exercise. This is the possibility that itis being used, among other things, to identify -- and eventuallypunish -- those who deviate from the Party line. This techniqueof internal security has a long history in the communist world,the most prominent examples being the "Trust" operation of the1920's and the "Let a Hundred Flowers Bloom" campaign in Mao's

China. According to Victor Sheymov, a prominent KGB defector whorecently surfaced publicly, the KGB's Second Chief Directoratehas been gathering data on dissenters "in a massive effort."xiiWhile there is precious little hard evidence to prove or disprovethis possibility at this writing, and while it seems unlikely inthe current atmosphere that the Soviets would be doing this sortof thing, the historical practice of communist regimes demandsthat it must not be dismissed.

Revolutions in East Europe and the Policy of "Love"

Given the evidence that the Soviet Union may have not onlytolerated, but even stimulated, the recent revolutionary eventsin East Europe, it is not inappropriate to include thesedevelopments as part of the overall perestroika program. BecauseMoscow has denied any direct intervention in the East Europeanrevolutions, any evidence of such involvement is necessarilylimited by whatever actions Moscow may have taken to conceal it.


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Nevertheless, the available evidence reveals a pattern ofdevelopments which strongly suggests a coordinating role playedby the Kremlin.

Almost every East European Communist Party was the recipientof Gorbachev's personal pressure to reform. Glasnost' has

emerged everywhere. The Communist Parties in each country haveundertaken a purge of the old-line bosses who have been replacedby "reform socialist" Gorbachev clones. Similarly, one by one,other communist regimes outside East Europe have been followingwhat appears to be the same Party line. Najibullah, Moscow'spuppet in Afghanistan, is now parading as a reform socialist.The supine Mongolian communists are now all "reformers" as well,and are conducting a "democratization" along Soviet lines. TheItalian Communist Party has declared its allegiance to the reformpath. And in Vietnam, the Communist Party has adopted a policyof "renovation" which parallels the Soviet reform program in onecategory after another. Meanwhile, Communist Parties in EastEurope have all decided that they should change their names so as

to present themselves as "social democratic." And everyone, itseems, is against "Stalinism."

The East German events of late 1989 began with the exodus ofthousands of people fleeing to West Germany throughCzechoslovakia and Hungary. How this could happen -- while theold-line bosses were still in office and while Soviet-controlledforces were in charge of the borders with the West -- isdifficult to conceive unless there was Soviet assent or directinvolvement. One can only speculate as to why Moscow should haveallowed this. A possible explanation may be that permittingpeople to flee without impediment or punishment may have been away of putting pressure on an old-line communist regime to

reform. The same purpose could also have been served by showingthe people that if there was no punishment for leaving thecountry, there would not be no sanction against demonstrating forchange.

Subsequently, Soviet interference seemed evident in thedecisions not to use violence to suppress demonstrations in EastGermany and Czechoslovakia. In East Germany, the streetdemonstrations began at the very moment when Gorbachev arrived inBerlin to put pressure on Erich Honecker to reform. The firsttwo days of demonstrations were met with violent suppression bythe police. But on October 9, the policy of suppression wasabruptly reversed. The enormous demonstration of 70,000 inLeipzig, the largest in East Germany since 1953, was permitted totake place without police intervention. The explanation for thisabout-face did not come until several weeks later, when formerWest German Chancellor Willy Brandt, having recently returnedfrom Moscow, reported that it was the Soviet army that acted to


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keep East German troops and tanks from moving on thedemonstration. Brandt even revealed that the Soviets had toldhim of Erich Honecker's forthcoming resignation the day before ittook place.xiii

In Czechoslovakia, the initial decision to suppress

demonstrations violently was also abruptly reversed, suggestingthe possibility that the Prague Communist leadership hadsimilarly been served notice to follow Moscow's new Party line oftolerating popular demonstrations for reform. Then, when thenon-communist opposition was on the verge of coming into office,it was faced with the possibility of a roll-back by the secretpolice. As Joseph Bartoncik, Chairman of the non-communistCzechoslovak People's Party, observed, "The danger of a coup bythe state security was imminent before we took over. There was awill and a means to implement such a solution." But this too wasapparently prevented by the Soviets. According to the new non-communist First Deputy Prime Minister Walter Komarek, "theSoviets had a role in subduing the security forces."xiv

At this writing, the latest news bulletins confirm not onlythis explanation of the Czechoslovak events, but also theanalysis made by this author in January 1990, that these eventswere precipitated in the first place by Moscow.xv According toPresident Vaclav Havel, the Soviet KGB was behind a plot toreplace his country's communist government with one more in linewith Gorbachev's reform program. The plotters engineered studentunrest and faked the police "killing" of a student demonstratorin an attempt to spark pressure for the change. The Czechoslovakfigures behind these maneuvers, including General Alois Lorenc,head of the secret police, "were in one way or another controlledby the KGB," according to Havel. The plan backfired when a

member of Alexander Dubcek's 1968 Prague Spring leadershiprefused to lead a new reformist government, and the populardemonstrations took on a momentum of their own.xvi

In Bulgaria, the old-line party boss, Todor Zhivkov, wasousted summarily by his comrades on the Politburo in a fashionstrongly suggesting that they had been given new marching ordersfrom higher up. A "reform socialist" was required at the helm,and the Bulgarian Party, historically most obedient to Moscow,appeared to comply. The crowds appeared in the streets demandingreform only after this palace coup had been engineered. Comingso handily in the wake of the other events in neighboringcountries, there was something remarkably unspontaneous aboutthis "revolution." One can further speculate that this change ofregime followed the script that Moscow would have ideally likedto see in each of the other countries if it had been fully incontrol of events.


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In Romania, there is considerable evidence that theoverthrow of the Ceausescu regime was not entirely the result ofa spontaneous revolution in the streets. The fact that there wasno breakdown in the military command structure is just one factorwhich should prompt this suspicion. If the revolution wereentirely spontaneous, one could reasonably expect that some

elements of the armed forces would stay loyal to the regime whileothers would rebel. But in this case, the entire militarystructure turned against the regime. It is highly unlikely thatthis could occur unless the military command structure hadassurances from some quarter that rebellion would be politicallyrisk-free. The only plausible way that such assurances could beseen as credible by the military command is if they came fromprecincts more powerful than Ceausescu. The only sure locus ofsuch power could have been Moscow.

Other factors do not rely nearly as much on suchspeculation. The Romanian National Salvation Front, which tookpower immediately, claimed that it had just come into being. But

there is evidence that it existed at least two months before: Anew group with the same name had issued an appeal to the 14thCommunist Party congress to dismiss Ceausescu on account of hiscatastrophic policies. Later, one of the Front's members, itsminister of defense, General Nicolae Militaru, disclosed that itexisted six months before. An examination of its members revealsthat some of them have had strategically significant ties toMoscow. For example, according to former Romanian intelligencechief Ion Pacepa (who defected to the West), the same GeneralMilitaru is reported to have been compromised by Soviet militaryintelligence at a time when he was up for promotion to beCeausescu's deputy defense minister.xvii And Ion Iliescu, theFront's new President, is reported to have been a classmate of

Mikhail Gorbachev in Moscow. His new regime has retained theservices of Ceausescu's secret police and diplomatic corps. Butnow the entire gang can call themselves "reform socialists."

Meanwhile, multi-candidate elections have been taking placeall over the region. It is here that whatever control theSoviets may have had over these events may have slipped away.Following the "democratization" pattern in the USSR, the EastEuropean elections quickly developed a momentum of their own. InHungary, the election of a center-right democratic governmentcodified the final collapse of a Communist Party which appearedto have lost the will to maintain its hold on power. In mostother cases, save Romania and Bulgaria, opposition groups andindividuals commanded the early allegiance of the respectiveelectorates, and the Communist Parties' efforts to rehabilitatetheir external appearance did not universally meet with theelectoral success that they had apparently anticipated. All ofthis may have been completely unexpected in Moscow. But despite


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the apparent victory of civil society over totalitarianism, eachcountry in the region, to a greater or lesser degree, has had tofollow the model established in Poland: namely, non-communistleadership of the state and government bodies, with continued defacto communist control (or Soviet remote control) over thesecret police, the foreign intelligence services, and in some

cases, the armed forces.

While efforts have been made -- in Czechoslovakia and EastGermany in particular -- to gain civilian control over theseinstruments of coercion, they have met with only partial success.It was discovered that the foreign intelligence services haddeveloped their own external sources of funding, such as specialfirms set up to do international business and narcoticstrafficking. The new non-communist authorities in thesecountries also admitted that it was difficult to remove theintelligence agents in question, since their identities remainedunknown, and since Moscow appeared to be assuming control overmany of them. The Czechoslovak case is particularly poignant: in

spite of the efforts of the non-communist government to gainsovereignty over the intelligence functions, President VaclavHavel and his non-communist Interior Minister Richard Sacher werecompelled to negotiate a new intelligence liaison agreement withthe Soviet KGB which enjoined the new government to continue toprovide Moscow with information gathered on its soil.

Meanwhile, as part of what appears to be a consistentpattern throughout Moscow's orbit, the Nicaraguan Sandinistassubmitted themselves to elections. Again, according to thelatest reports, it was the Kremlin that was responsible forpressuring its clients to hold these elections.xviii For all theSandinistas' efforts to rig the electoral process, the anti-

communist opposition won the contest. But before the actual votetally, a Sandinista spokesman indicated a lack of concern oversuch a possible outcome: if the Sandinistas were to lose theelection, they would simply follow the Poland model, and not loseactual power at all.

In light of all this, there is some question as to how muchcontrol Moscow has over the East European situation. On the onehand, civil society has resoundingly rejected the continuation ofthe old regime. New non-communist governments are establishingthemselves and are working to push communist institutions andpractices out of the picture. On the other hand, Moscow may beable to exercise a great deal of hegemony over the region throughits military power, its continued influence over the variousWarsaw Pact armies, its links with the intelligenceorganizations, its penetration of the opposition and itsexploitation of East European dependence on the USSR for energysupplies and other goods.


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But why should the Kremlin have risked opening up aPandora's box of anticommunist independence movements? Given thecontinued secrecy surrounding Soviet foreign policy, glasnost'notwithstanding, one can only speculate. Did it know so littleabout popular sentiment in these countries that it actually

thought "reform" communists could win elections? On the onehand, this seems unlikely, given the high priority assigned tointernal security throughout the Soviet bloc. The secret policeorganizations have been charged precisely with the task ofcollecting intelligence on civil society and keeping it fromcreating organizations which could challenge Party control. Injust one example of how this task was being undertaken withapparent effectiveness, Evangelical Bishop Gottfried Forck, amember of the East German citizens' commission overseeing thebreakup of the "Stasi" secret police, has reported that the Stasianalysis of the trends and moods within the fledgling oppositionmovement was extraordinarily accurate.xix

On the other hand, it is also possible that the variouscommunist parties and their secret police were quite skillful inmonitoring individual trees but failed to understand the forest -- i.e., the attitudes of society at large. The Soviets and theircommunist allies in East Europe may very well have fallen victimto their own propaganda. They may have come to believe that theywere ruling with a certain amount of popular consent, or at leastwithout pervasive mass disaffection. And this may have inclinedthem to feel that they could undertake various politicalmachinations to create a new "reform socialism." They may havecome to believe that by making various reforms at the margin,from increasing the standard of living to reducing politicalrepression, they could rehabilitate the socialist vision in the

minds of the people, or at a minimum, prevent populardisaffection from bringing down the entire order.

Whatever the case, it is possible that a large part of theexplanation for the Soviet policy in East Europe can be found inGorbachev's public declaration of the "Sinatra Doctrine," whichenvisioned a Finland-style arrangement for the region. Thisdoctrine, derived from a Frank Sinatra song, is the sobriquetused by Soviet Foreign Ministry spokesman, Gennadi Gerasimov, todescribe the new Soviet policy of letting Warsaw Pact nations "dothings their own way." This new policy enshrines the principleof "the freedom of choice" and the renunciation of "hegemonism"and "interference in the internal affairs of other countries."Among its other objectives are the withdrawal of foreign troopsfrom the territory of other countries, the elimination ofmilitary alliances, and the disbanding of COCOM (the CoordinatingCommittee on Multilateral Export Controls, which prevents thetransfer of military technologies to the Warsaw Pact states).xx


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This new doctrine represents the Kremlin's boldest move to dateto promote the creation of a "common European home."

The "common European home" is Moscow's modern-day attempt tocreate a "collective security" system in Europe which wouldincorporate the entire continent while excluding the United

States. It revolves around the Kremlin's idea of creating anexpanded sphere of economic "cooperation" that would benefit allof Europe. Here, in addition to the traditional Soviet policy of"peace," Moscow has now introduced the policy of "love."Gorbachev explained this during his visit to East Berlin:

In the last century, the remarkable poet, Fedor Tyutchev,worked for a number of years in the Russian diplomaticmission in Bavaria. Responding to Bismarck's program, hewrote:

"The oracle of our times has proclaimed unity,which can be forged only with iron and blood.

But we shall try to forge it with love.Then we shall see which is more lasting."

The lyrical poet Tyutchev expresses by the word loveeverything that we, at the close of the 20th century, putinto the notions of concord, cooperation, interaction, andhuman relations as applied to Europe.xxi

The impetus behind the policy of "love" and theextraordinary and risky attempt to achieve the goal of acollective security system in Europe at this point in history isprobably Moscow's concern over the impending economic integrationof West Europe in 1992. The new conditions slated to take place

that year -- particularly the breakdown of trade barriers -- willprompt West European countries to have greater interest ininvesting among themselves than in the East bloc. Moscow's fearis that this will accentuate the rift between East and Westexactly at a time when the Soviet empire is in need of increasedtrade, financing and technology from the West.

Whenever the Soviet Union has faced economic crisis in thepast, it has invariably turned to the West for help rather thanundertake the economic decentralization required to repair thecrisis internally. Real rather than cosmetic economicdecentralization poses too much of a threat to the central Partyauthorities. By endangering their ability to set economicpriorities from on high, it jeopardizes their ability to maketheir instruments of coercion the highest production priority.Thus, true reform threatens their power both domestically andinternationally. So today, as always, this option must be


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substituted by reliance on financial arrangements with, andsubsidies from, the West.

The only way Moscow can make investment in the East moreattractive than the prospects of intramural West Europeaninvestment under "Europe 1992" is by liberalizing conditions in

East Europe so dramatically that West Europeans are tempted bythe enormous growth possibilities of countries ostensiblyunshackled from communism. Moscow may have decided that EastEurope is now so drained economically that it can no longer beexploited profitably, and that it may have even become afinancial liability for the USSR. With the growth of nuclearweapons and Soviet global power projection, East Europe is lessessential as strategic territory for Soviet security purposes.And in any case, Moscow would still cast a long shadow of powerover a "Finlandized" East Europe. Therefore, to Finlandize EastEurope would represent a minimal loss while simultaneouslyopening up large possibilities for another Western financialbailout. The new East Europe could then become a conduit for

Western technology and financing for the USSR.

A Soviet retreat in East Europe could very well be avariant of the classic Soviet strategy of Brest-Litovsk. In1918, in the wake of the Bolshevik coup d'etat, some of the"Left" communists recommended seizing the momentum of therevolution and extending it to Germany, with which Russia was atwar. Lenin argued that this strategy was reckless given thevastly greater strength Germany enjoyed over the infant Bolshevikstate. Instead, he argued that Russia should sign a separatepeace, make the necessary concessions, and gain a breathing space(peredyshka) in order to consolidate power. The peace of Brest-Litovsk was signed, thousands of square miles of territory in the

western portions of the Russian empire were temporarily ceded toGermany, and Bolshevism succeeded in ensconcing itself to fightagain another day. Peredyshka was a success.

Lenin's regime undertook the same strategy when it retreatedin the face of a resistant peasantry in the early 1920's. Havingnationalized and collectivized large portions of industry andagriculture, the Bolshevik regime crippled the productivecapacity of its economy in its earliest years. The peasantsrefused to continue planting crops so long as their harvests wereto be seized from them. As the Soviet system faced disaster,Lenin had to retreat once again: he adopted the "New EconomicPolicy" (NEP) -- which reestablished various elements of a freemarket economy. In particular, NEP let peasants keep a share ofthe fruits of their labors and sell it on the open market. TheSoviets themselves called the new policy the "peasant Brest-Litovsk."


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This strategy of tactical retreat has thus been a mainstayof communist governance from the beginning. It was codified byLenin in various works and has been the focus of contemporarySoviet policy analysis as well.xxii Most recently, Gorbachev hasinvoked this strategy in his book Perestroika. Referringspecifically to Brest-Litovsk, he notes:

Lenin, however, kept calling for peace because he was guidedby vital, not immediate, interests, the interests of theworking class as a whole, of the Revolution and future ofsocialism. To safeguard them, the country needed respitebefore going ahead. Few realized that at the time. Onlylater was it easy to say confidently and unambiguously thatLenin was right. And right he was, because he was lookingfar ahead; he did not put what was transitory above what wasessential. The Revolution was saved. It is the same withperestroika.xxiii

By retreating in East Europe, and perhaps even sacrificing

one or more pawns on the global chessboard, Moscow may havecalculated that it could make the best of a dismal situation andperhaps even turn it into some strategic advantage. Thesacrifice of East Germany could achieve the neutralization ofWest Germany and its severing from NATO. The West Germanattraction to the possibility of enjoying major competitive tradeadvantages and a decisive influence in East Europe couldreinforce this neutrality. A new political landscape on thecontinent would deprive the United States of a compelling reasonto maintain a military presence in Europe and even a significantoverall military

Sources of Soviet Perestroika

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