Stealing the State

pattern, not of acrmuulating ferment, btit of deepening passivity. A survey in 1961 of 17,000 yotnig people reported tbat only one-quarter of them listed The Soviet collapse and ihe Russian collapse. building a Communist society as a goal of their lives. The rest singled out music, social activities, and the need to avoid blue-collar occupations. Youth league officials, at a gathering in 1968 devoted Stealing the State in part to a discussion of apathy among the rank and file, occupied themselves BY STEPHEN KOTKIN with trying to come to grips with Easy Rider, the American film that had been et's face it," said repudiation of socialism and the dissolu- officially banned. Some stalwarts scolded George Soios, ^\natoly tion of the Soviet Union seetned to come the others for enjoying tbe film, btu. as C-hubais is "tainted." out of tbe bitie. An instittitional loss of Solnick writes, "even the indoctrinators (.hubais is first deputy confidence turned into a self-fulfilling ... seem to have been inadequately in- prime minister of Russia and the former spiral. "Soviet institutions," explains Ste- doctrinated." chief of Rtissia's privatization. Soros has ven L. Solnick. "were victimized by the There was cynicism over a long time been the great champion of Russia's organizational eqtiivalent of a colossal among yotuh and older youth officials, transition, one of the few itidividuals to 'bank run.'" Soviet officials sensed the Solnick argues, and it indicates that match rhetorical support with financial Impending doom, and they "rushed to neither generational conflict tior ideo- support, first with philanthropy, now claim ... assets befote the buteaucratic logical decay can explain the regime's also with investment and with bridge doors shut for good." Of course, "unlike abrupt loss of contr<}l over instittitions loans to the Russian government. Soros [in] a bank run, tbe defecting officials such as the Komsomol in the 1980s. The was speaking about ('hubais at a sympo- were not depositors claiming their right- Kotusotnol deserted into opporttmisin, sitim at Harvard University on invest- ftil assets, but employees of the state btu tintil the "bank rtm" it functioned. ment in Russia; btit to point out, in 1998, that Chubais's reform machinations are The qtiestion, therefore, is why "Gorba- tainted is akin to ascending a soapbox chev's reforms apparently catised mid- and declaiming, with an air of intellec- Stealing the State: level and lower-level Soviet bureaticrats tual courage, tbat most French intellec- Control and Collapse in Soviet Institutions to abandon decades-long patterns of tuals in the 1950s were ... Communists! by Sicvcii L. Solnick subordination and to defy the autboritv' The Neil' York Times, another unvvaver- (Hiirvard University Press, 337 pp., $49.95) of their instittitional bosses." Solnick itig enthusiast for tbe Russian transition, contends that "discretionary behavior" has gone further, admonishing Chubais '/'/;(' Political History of Economic amotig "enterprising" officials was un- in an editorial to step down. This came Reform in Russia,'1985^1994 intentionally let loose. The reforms after the sore losers in Russia's first byMadimir Mau sought to achieve state aims by enabling apparently competitive bidding auction {Centre for Research into Communist greater local initiative. btU a divergence (for a 25 percent stake in Swazinvest, Economies, 132 pp.. £9.95) of interests between state officeholders a state telecomnuinications conglomer- atid top rtilers pushed decentralization ate) used their private media outlets Privatizing Russia much fnrther than intended. to divtilge that Chubais had accepted an by Maxim Boycko. Andrei Shleifer, "advance" for a coauthored book on pri- and Robert Vishny be Komsomol vanished vatization with dim sales prospects. A (MITPress, 165 pp., S12..50) along with its bank de- publisher's miscalctilation, one might Kremlin Capitalism: posits. So did the system conclude—except that the company was Privatizing the Russian Economy of mandatory job assign- subsequently acquired by the hank that mentsT for university gradtiates. But by Joseph R. Blasi. Maya Krt)uniova, won the Svyazinvest auction (with a ten- Solnick's third case, the Soviet draft, der of $1.87 billion). The amount of the mid Douglas Kru.se survived the events of 1991, notwith- book advance was s90,000. (Cornell University Press, 249 pp., $16.95) standing [he known prevalence of drunk- Boris EVtsin: ot rassveta do zakata enness, violent hazing, and noncombat For years, as part of Rtissia's dash to [Boris Yeltsin: From Dawn to Dusk] deaths in the army. Observing that the market, untold billions of dollars' by Aleksandr Kor/hiikov "assets" such as draft boards cotild not be worth of properties have changed hands (Inicrbiik. 479 pp.) easily expropriated, he overlooks the under (Îhubais's direction, with Western garage sales of Kalashnikovs, commtmi- cheerleading, consultants, and cash. But cations equipment, and tanks. He also neglects lo mention that the Komsomol all of a sudden we are shocked, shucked appropriating state assets." And they hy "robber-baron capitalism," and some- was linked to the Commtinist Partv' and grabbed everything that was "ftmgible." so went down with it. and that tbe system one must be beld accotmtable. The up- (From the wreckage Solnick himself roar over Chubais s petty greed reflects a of job assignments formed part of tbe plucked a valuable book.) planned economy and could not stirvive certain disappointment over the eotuse It looked like the end of history, but of events in Russia. But that disappoint- the latter's demise; but the army was a it was a bank rtin. Solnick's study of the state institution, not a party institution. It ment derives from an insufficient grasp "stealing" of the state proceeds through of what has transpired. could exist, whatever the nature of eco- three case studies: the Communist youth nomic organization, provided it received Amid lamentations over "reforms" league (Komsomol); the system of man- allocations from the state budget and stymied by Communist troglodytes, the datory job assignments for university drew on a sense of statehood. graduates; aud universal military con- STEPHEN KOTKIN is director of Russian scription. Examining archival materials, The state survived the party and Studies at Princeton Universitv. he fôund that Soviet youth displayed a socialism. Indeed, the Communist Party 26 THE NEW REPUBLIC APRIL I 3, I 998 had nt-vt'i di.splated Ilie siaie. Alter the Ministers, to be followed by in.structiotis the party and you got a voluntary tmion revolution in 1917, tsarist officers and from the (Genual (^ômmittee depart- of states, any one of which could choose bureaucrats were incorporated into the ments in charge of ideology and educa- to withdraw. new order for their much-needed ex- tion and the Ministry of Edtication. and Gorbachev had trouble grasping his pertise. But they were not trusted, and so on, right down to the eity and district country's structure. He also feared party so tlie revolutionarv autlioritics paired part) committees and the local branches conservatives, (ilasnost was introdticed the experts with polilital commissars. of tlie state edtication btireaticracy. to force "reform" on the recalcitrant, but Thf ncxr generation of officers and Why not, then, remove the party as it had the opposite effect, ft heightened bureaiicraLs were graduates of Soviet redundant, anti get on only with the conservative opposition, hi late 19H8, schools, but the party-state parallelism state? That is what CJorbachev half- to avoid a repeat of Octoher 1964, when was already inslittitionalized. Thus, the wittingly set out to do. But he had an im- a conspiracy of the apparat ousted Soviet Union acquired two separate pleasant surprise. The problem that Gor- Klirushchev by accepting his "request" bureaucracies, one of the party and one bachev enctJtmtered—the bank run— to resign, (iorhachev abolished the oC the state, mirroring eatli other in took place becatise the party under- Union-wide supervisory tun( tions of the function and in office fiom tlie lowest girded tlie I'nion. (k)ntrai y to common party. By sabotaging the appaiat, and in levels to the liii^hest. understanding, the Soviet state really such a masterly way that the con- By itself the Soviet state was ininienst', was a union comprising Ifi republics. servatives scarcely noticed, the wily geti- encompassing ihe whole system of Sovi- Each republic had fixed borders, a quasi- eral secretary secured his own posi- ets, or legislatures, and the executive, or parliament, a government, an academy tion—but he also inadvertently placed the various ministries, the planning of science, and a national langtiage, all the republics beyond Moscow's control. agencies, the KCiB, the aiiny. To conduct estah!ishe(f mostly as a result of (lelil> The Supreme Soviets of the sovereign business, the staff of each state institu- eiate policies undertaken hy the Sov- repuhlics, freed from party domination, tion usually held two meetings, once as iet regime. I'he constitution gave the hegan to pass laws stipeiseding tho.se of pai t\ niembi IS and f)nce as state iunc- reptiblits the right to secede. But self- tlie I'SSR. Hectoring and the inconclusive tionaiies. Since almost all state officials rtile was hioekecl, hec ause ihe party was use of force could not alter the new were party members, ihe two meetings not fedetal. The ("ommunist Party of, political balance. trequently seemed identical. At the same say, Georgia did not have even the nomi- How could the Soviet Union have time, the garganttian party hiireauctacy nal autonomy of a republic: it was sub- "survived decades of inescapably real held its own meetings alongside those ordinated to Moscow like the party com- challenges like war, famine, and crash of the stale bodies. Thus, a decision on mittee from any Russian province. As intkistriali/ation," yet perish as a result S(IK)O1 textbooks meant a resolution long as the centralized party apparatus of "the altogether less ominous chal- from botli the parly s Ontral Cotmnit- held sway, the federal institutions of the lenge of internal lefotin"? Solnick has lee aiKf the government's Council of state could be overridden.

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