DOCSLIB.ORG

Perestroika and Production : Management's Response to Reform

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Perestroika and Production : Management's Response to Reform PERESTROIKA AND PRODUCTION : MANAGEMENT'S RESPONSE TO REFORM Susan J . Lin z Michigan State Universit y Working Paper #5 7 March 198 9 Data for this study were produced by the Soviet Intervie w Project . The current Working Paper Series is supported b y Contract No . 804-13 from the National Council for Soviet and Eas t European Research, James R . Millar, Principal Investigator . International Programs and Studies of the University of Illinoi s Urbana-Champaign and the Institute for Sino-Soviet Studies o f George Washington University have also provided support that i s much appreciated . The analysis and interpretations in this stud y are those of the author, not necessarily of the sponsors . Copyright 0 Soviet Interview Project NOTE * This paper was distributed at the NATO Annual Economic s Colloquium in March, 1989 and has therefore been in the hands o f most Government specialists since that time . It contains : (a) A concise summary of Soviet economic reform in the firs t three years of Gorbachev's reign, already somewhat dated by event s since, but a useful reminder to the specialist of evolution an d contradictions, and a valuable account and reference for th e general reader . (b) An analysis of whether enterprise management, o r management training, has been a constraint on the effort t o accelerate economic growth, raise the technological level o f industry, and improve the quantity and quality of consumer goods . This analysis includes : (c) The results of surveys reported in the Soviet press t o gauge management's response to perestroika, as contrasted wit h evidence from intensive interviews with recent emigrants who hel d responsible positions in the Soviet economic bureaucracy . (d) An examination of management as a factor of productio n and the kinds of decisions Soviet managers make, and the element s which affect these decisions . (e) An analysis of management's response to new economi c conditions produced by perestroika, which concludes that Wester n analysts would be wise to question the view prevailing in th e Soviet press that Soviet managers are incapable of working in a competitive environment . Rather, rational managers will b e reluctant to alter their decisions in light of intrinsi c inconsistencies and partial implementation of reform . ---------- -------------------------------- - *Prepared by the staff of the National Council . Perestroika and Production : Management's Response to Reform Susan J . Lin z Associate Professo r Department of Economic s 101 Marshall Hal l Michigan State Universit y East Lansing, Michigan 48824-1038 (517) 353-796 1 This paper was prepared for the Annual Economics Colloquium at NATO (March 1989) . Perestroika and Production : Management's Response to Reform The economic reforms proposed in the first three years of Mikhai l Gorbache v ' s tenure as General Secretary have been impressive, embracing nearl y every sector of the economy and providing for changes in the economic syste m that most western experts previously thought would never be seriousl y considered by Soviet leaders .1 Reform rhetoric is not unique to the curren t leadership, however . Gorbachev's emphasis on reform stems in part from th e tradition in Soviet society of the political leadership seeking to improve th e performance of the economy through organizational changes, policy change s (investment, wage, or price level changes, for example), and changes in th e criteria by which economic performance is measured . So frequent have been th e reform efforts in recent decades that Gertrude Schroeder describes the Sovie t economy as trudging on a "treadmill" of reforms . 2 The tradition of reform is only part of the explanation for Gorbachev' s ambitious program for socioeconomic reconstruction . Perhaps more importan t are the complex problems the current leadership faces ; a "pre-crisis " situation which Gorbachev has argued could end catastrophically unless radica l measures are implemented . 3 Economic factors -- stagnating growth rates , rising energy costs, declining productivity, lagging technology, a growin g foreign trade deficit, regional labor shortages, a rising military burden , poor agricultural performance -- tended to dominate early discussions of th e need for reform . Social and political factors have since become equall y powerful motivating factors in the call for change . 4 In an effort to jump-start the Soviet economy and circumvent th e impending crisis, Gorbachev initially relied on "traditional" measures to improve economic performance . Labor discipline, anti-corruption, an d anti-alcohol campaigns, plus the wholesale replacement of administrativ e personnel, were implemented in 1985-1986 to reverse declining labo r productivity . 5 A capital modernization program, based on an increase i n total capital investment by 5 percent annually from 1986 to 1990, was t o permit the reconstruction, re-equipping, and retooling of existing industria l facilities . Gorbachev called for the replacement of over one-third of th e total capital stock by 1990 (doubling the retirement rates for capita l assets), and placed a greater emphasis on quality -- 90 percent of al l machinery was to meet "world standards" by 1990, compared to about 20 percen t in 1985 . 6 Finally, organizational changes were introduced in an effort t o streamline the economic bureaucracy by consolidating or eliminatin g administrative positions . 7 These traditional reform measures were t o generate sufficient productivity gains to achieve the economic growth rat e targeted by the Twelfth Five-Year Plan . Gains in economic performance achieved in 1986 by traditional refor m measures were insufficient to meet Gorbachev's goals of uskoreniye (acceleration in the growth of output), intensifikatsiya (improved efficienc y in resource utilization), and perestroika (restructuring the economi c bureaucracy) . 8 Rather than drop these goals, Gorbachev pushed forward i n mid-1987 with a series of "radical" reform measures to fundamentall y restructure the Soviet economy . 9 Central to this version of reform is th e decentralization of economic decision-making by curtailing central directiv e planning and expanding the rights and responsibilities of industria l enterprises over production and distribution . The components of the radica l reform package directed toward decentralizing decision-making include : (i) the law on state enterprise, (ii) the joint venture decree, and (iii) the laws o n cooperatives and leasing . Under the Law on State Enterprise, Soviet industrial firms are grante d more responsibility for formulating annual plans and acquiring the necessar y inputs by direct contracting . 10 Managers and workers' collectives ar e accorded more autonomy in production decisions, and are to be guided in thei r decision-making by improved performance criteria and enhanced materia l incentives . Improvements in the performance criteria are to include a comprehensive revision of wholesale and retail prices, profit as the primar y success indicator, and performance-based pay for workers . The law encourage s managers to negotiate all aspects of production and exchange, with the righ t to mutually determine selected prices . Firms are permitted to reinvest a portion of their profits on a self-directed basis to facilitate industria l expansion and technological advance . Firms also are granted the right t o allocate ruble credit balances to alternative uses . 11 Firms unsuccessful i n generating profitable production under the new conditions face bankruptcy . Gorbachev proposed the legalization of joint ventures as a secon d measure to decentralize decision-making in the economic bureaucracy . A decre e approved by the USSR Council of Ministers on 13 January 1987 authorized Sovie t and foreign firms to form limited liability companies, with foreign control o f up to 49 percent of the equity . Joint ventures represent a devolution o f Gosplan ' s control over the economic bureaucracy because these firms have th e right to make decisions regarding production and distribution independent o f Gosplan's material balance planning . Planners perceive potential benefit s that outweigh the loss of direct control over these firms -- an opportunity t o gain access to Western technology and managerial and technical training, t o increase exports of Soviet manufactured goods and obtain hard-currency, to generate additional investment, and to produce domestically what previousl y had been imported . Despite a rather adverse economic environment, 30 0 applications for joint ventures were submitted to the Ministry of Financ e within the first year, of which 50 were registered . 12 To accelerate th e formation of joint ventures with Western producers, the Soviet governmen t proposed new regulations, effective January 1989, that (i) allow Western firm s to own the majority of equity, (ii) make profit repatriation easier, (iii ) reduce the joint venture ' s tax liability, and (iv) lower tariffs on equipment brought into the USSR.13 As a consequence, Serge Raslovleff reports 25 2 joint ventures registered as of February 1989 . 1 4 The producer and consumer cooperatives allowed by the Law o n Cooperatives, approved by the Supreme Soviet in May 1988 and put into effect 1 July 1988, 15 are an important component of Gorbachev's efforts t o decentralize decision-making and accelerate the production of consumer good s and services in the Soviet economy . At the same time, however, cooperative s and leaseholding arrangements have been one of the most
Load more

Recommended publications
  • The Rise and Fall of Stalinism
    MARXIST EDUCATION PROGRAMME The Rise and Fall of Stalinism How and why did the bureaucratic dictatorship fail? 7 Marxist Education Series www.workerssocialistparty.co.za R10 CONTENTS The Rise of Stalinism.......................….................................................1 Richard Monroe & Philip Masters, 1990 The Nature of the Soviet Regime.....................................................12 Richard Monroe & Philip Masters, 1990 The Crisis of the Stalinist States.........................................................20 Marxist Workers Tendency, 1982 From Perestroika to Glasnost...........................................................30 Rob Jones, 2009 IF YOU AGREE WITH THEN WHAT YOU READ... JOIN tel: 081 366 7375 SMS: 081 366 7375 WhatsApp: 081 366 7375 US! web: www.workerssocialistparty.co.za/join-wasp email: [email protected] “The basis of bureaucratic rule is the poverty of society in objects of consumption, with the resulting struggle of each against all. When there are enough goods in a store, the purchasers can come whenever they want to. When there are few goods, the purchasers are compelled to stand in line. When the lines are very long, it is necessary to appoint a policeman to keep order. Such is the starting point of the power of the Soviet bureaucracy.” Leon Trotsky, The Revolution Betrayed, 1936 Cover image: the 1956 Hungarian Revolution against Stalinist rule The Rise of Stalinism (Chapter 2 of The Legacy of Leon Trotsky) by Richard Monroe & Philip Masters, 1990 On October 25, 1917, the Provisional Government was armies and to the working class across Europe, to support and overthrown in Petrograd. The Russian working class took take forward the Russian revolution. The old parties of the Second state power. The Congress of Soviets of Workers’ and Soldiers International split, with big sections, sometimes majorities, rallying Deputies, highest organ of workers’ democracy, was in session to the banner of the Third (Communist) International launched by in the capital.
    [Show full text]
  • Title of Thesis: ABSTRACT CLASSIFYING BIAS
    ABSTRACT Title of Thesis: CLASSIFYING BIAS IN LARGE MULTILINGUAL CORPORA VIA CROWDSOURCING AND TOPIC MODELING Team BIASES: Brianna Caljean, Katherine Calvert, Ashley Chang, Elliot Frank, Rosana Garay Jáuregui, Geoffrey Palo, Ryan Rinker, Gareth Weakly, Nicolette Wolfrey, William Zhang Thesis Directed By: Dr. David Zajic, Ph.D. Our project extends previous algorithmic approaches to finding bias in large text corpora. We used multilingual topic modeling to examine language-specific bias in the English, Spanish, and Russian versions of Wikipedia. In particular, we placed Spanish articles discussing the Cold War on a Russian-English viewpoint spectrum based on similarity in topic distribution. We then crowdsourced human annotations of Spanish Wikipedia articles for comparison to the topic model. Our hypothesis was that human annotators and topic modeling algorithms would provide correlated results for bias. However, that was not the case. Our annotators indicated that humans were more perceptive of sentiment in article text than topic distribution, which suggests that our classifier provides a different perspective on a text’s bias. CLASSIFYING BIAS IN LARGE MULTILINGUAL CORPORA VIA CROWDSOURCING AND TOPIC MODELING by Team BIASES: Brianna Caljean, Katherine Calvert, Ashley Chang, Elliot Frank, Rosana Garay Jáuregui, Geoffrey Palo, Ryan Rinker, Gareth Weakly, Nicolette Wolfrey, William Zhang Thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the Gemstone Honors Program, University of Maryland, 2018 Advisory Committee: Dr. David Zajic, Chair Dr. Brian Butler Dr. Marine Carpuat Dr. Melanie Kill Dr. Philip Resnik Mr. Ed Summers © Copyright by Team BIASES: Brianna Caljean, Katherine Calvert, Ashley Chang, Elliot Frank, Rosana Garay Jáuregui, Geoffrey Palo, Ryan Rinker, Gareth Weakly, Nicolette Wolfrey, William Zhang 2018 Acknowledgements We would like to express our sincerest gratitude to our mentor, Dr.
    [Show full text]
  • Raisa Gorbacheva, the Soviet Union’S Only First Lady
    Outraging the People by Stepping out of the Shadows Gender roles, the ‘feminine ideal’ and gender discourse in the Soviet Union and Raisa Gorbacheva, the Soviet Union’s only First Lady. Noraly Terbijhe Master Thesis MA Russian & Eurasian Studies Leiden University January 2020, Leiden Everywhere in the civilised world, the position, the rights and obligations of a wife of the head of state are more or less determined. For instance, I found out that the President’s wife in the White House has special staff to assist her in preforming her duties. She even has her own ‘territory’ and office in one wing of the White House. As it turns out, I as the First Lady had only one tradition to be proud of, the lack of any right to an official public existence.1 Raisa Maximovna Gorbacheva (1991) 1 Translated into English from Russian. From: Raisa Gorbacheva, Ya Nadeyus’ (Moscow 1991) 162. 1 Table of contents 1. Introduction ................................................................................................................................... 3 2. Literature review ........................................................................................................................... 9 3. Gender roles and discourse in Russia and the USSR ................................................................. 17 The supportive comrade ................................................................................................................. 19 The hardworking mother ...............................................................................................................
    [Show full text]
  • Bolshevism and National Federalism in Ethiopia DOI: 10.34663/9783945561577-05
    Max Planck Research Library for the History and Development of Knowledge Studies 14 John Young: Bolshevism and National Federalism in Ethiopia DOI: 10.34663/9783945561577-05 In: John Markakis, Günther Schlee, and John Young: The Nation State : A Wrong Model for the Horn of Africa Online version at https://www.mprl-series.mpg.de/studies/14/ ISBN 978-3-945561-57-7, DOI 10.34663/9783945561577-00 First published 2021 by Max-Planck-Gesellschaft zur Förderung der Wissenschaften, Max Planck Re- search Library for the History and Development of Knowledge under Creative Commons Attribution- ShareAlike 4.0 International License. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ Printed and distributed by: epubli / neopubli GmbH, Berlin https://www.epubli.de/shop/buch/111400 The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available in the Internet at http://dnb.d-nb.de Chapter 3 Bolshevism and National Federalism in Ethiopia John Young 3.1 Introduction Civil war broke out in Ethiopia on November 4, 2020 when the national army at the be­ hest of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed attacked the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) administered state of Tigray. There were many differences between Abiy and the TPLF, but foremost was the Front’s support of national federalism and the prime minister’s back­ ing of a return to the centralized administration of past Ethiopian governments. The issue of national federalism has been controversial since it was first introduced by the Ethiopian Peo­ ple’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) in 1991, but the war encourages the debate to be revisited.
    [Show full text]
  • Solidarity and the Fall of Communism
    Solidarity and the Fall of Communism Europejskie Centrum Solidarności Introduction Twenty years have passed since the 4th of June 1989, when the first non- fraudulent elections took place in the People’s Republic of Poland. Those ground-breaking elections were the starting point of the dismantling of the Communist system in Central and Eastern Europe and led to profound social and economic changes. The distinguished personalities of public life, scholars and most importantly, the heroes of those times, now congregate in Warszawa and Gdańsk to evaluate the last 20 years from historical, social and political perspectives. This auspicious assembly is also an opportunity to identify future challenges and find possible answers, using past experiences, of how to approach them. The events of 1989 were of great importance. Not only was it an unarmed fight but also the civic opposition had turned it into a peaceful revolution. Seldom in world history did the revolutions renounce violence bringing radical changes by peaceful means of accord and dialog. Peace and revolution, those usually contrasting words, in 1989 and through the following years described in the most suitable way, the unique changes of those times. The revolution commenced in August 1980. In Central Europe, separated from the rest of the world by the Iron Curtain, workers of the Gdansk Shipyard, paradoxically named after Lenin, supported by students, intellectuals, priests and journalists, utterly opposed the regime. They were followed by ten million Polish people who created a social movement with the symbolic name Solidarnosc. This solidarity led Poland to freedom. The same path was shortly followed by other nations.
    [Show full text]
  • Perestroika and the Decline of Soviet Legitimacy
    Western Michigan University ScholarWorks at WMU Master's Theses Graduate College 8-1993 Contracts in Conflict: erP estroika and the Decline of Soviet Legitimacy Karl Glenn Hokenmaier Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/masters_theses Part of the European History Commons, and the Political Science Commons Recommended Citation Hokenmaier, Karl Glenn, "Contracts in Conflict: erP estroika and the Decline of Soviet Legitimacy" (1993). Master's Theses. 775. https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/masters_theses/775 This Masters Thesis-Open Access is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate College at ScholarWorks at WMU. It has been accepted for inclusion in Master's Theses by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks at WMU. For more information, please contact [email protected]. CONTRACTS IN CONFLICT: PERESTROIKA AND THE DECLINE OF SOVIET LEGITIMACY by Karl Glenn Hokenmaier A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of The Graduate College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts Department of Political Science Western Michigan University Kalamazoo, Michigan August 1993 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. CONTRACTS IN CONFLICT: PERESTROIKA AND THE DECLINE OF SOVIET LEGITIMACY Karl Glenn Hokenmaier, M.A. Western Michigan University, 1993 Gorbachev’s perception of the Soviet Union’s socio-economic crisis and his subsequent actions to correct the economy and reform the political system were linked with attempts to renegotiate the social contract between the state and the Soviet people. However, reformulation of the social contract was incompatible with the conditions of a second arrangement between the leadership and the nomenklatura-the Soviet ruling class.
    [Show full text]
  • Russian Government 1
    GCBMUN XV Continuous Crisis Committee (CCC) Government of Russia GCBMUN XV CCC Government of Russia PRESIDENT Juan Felipe Osorio Aldana VICEPRESIDENT Santiago Baquero Rey MEMBERS OF THE JOINT CRISIS COMMITTEE Maria Jose López Daniela Monsalve Diego Ramirez Maria Alejandra Garcia Ana Fernanda Garcia TOPICS 1. 2008-2014 Contact e-mail: [email protected] (3012563752) - [email protected] (3144448244) Dear members of the Federal Cabinet of Russia, My name is Maria Jose Lopez and I’ll be your crisis director during this great experience. Currently, I’m an eleventh-grade student at GCB. It is with extreme importance that you know who your crisis director is. As for my experience, I have been in multiple crisis committees. In this moment, I am finishing my school life in school MUN’s so it’s a big pleasure for me to be part of GCBMUN XV, my alma mater’s conference, especially in a continuous crisis committee. Needless to say, crisis committees require delegates with a lot of preparation, that’s why, we will work till we consider you are prepared to participate in a committee of this level, with unexpected actions of the topic. This is precisely what makes a CCC the most thrilling and exciting of all committees. I’m sure that, thanks to the dedication that the GCBMUN staff has put into this project, this committee will no doubt be very intense and fun at the same time. Now, let's talk about the role that I will fulfill in this model. I will be heading what is called the Joint Crisis Committee, where I will play with the strategic moves that you will make.
    [Show full text]
  • Development of the Ussr Chapter 6
    DEVELOPMENT OF THE USSR CHAPTER 6 POLITICAL REFORM UNDER GORBACHEV How did Gorbachev`s policies bring change to the USSR? Economic reconstruction Mikhail Gorbachev was unanimously appointed General Secretary by the Central Committee in March 1985, just 24 hours after the death of Chernenko. Aged 54, he was significantly younger than the aging party members who had led the Communist superpower in previous decades and was the first Soviet leader to be born after the revolution. Being from a younger generation, it seemed, gave Gorbachev a new outlook on the challenges that faced his country. Gorbachev was aware of the significant problems that he had inherited. As the USSR vied with the USA for global power, its economy was struggling and its citizens had to endure poor living conditions and a lack of personal freedom. Such difficulties were also felt sharply in the Communist nations of Eastern Europe that were controlled from Moscow. Gorbachev never set out to totally remodel the Soviet system, but rather to modernise it by making adjustments. He aimed to discipline the work force with slogans calling for “intensification and acceleration.” His first reform in 1985 aimed to curb the Mikhail Gorbachev production and sale of alcohol in an attempt to combat wide- Image by Vladimir Vyatkin / CC BY-SA 3.0 spread alcoholism in the Soviet Union. Prices on vodka, wine, and beer were raised, and sales were restricted. People who were caught drunk at work or in public places were prosecuted. The reform did not have any real effect on alcoholism as it was driven underground, and the activities of a thriving black market were a serious economic blow to the state budget.
    [Show full text]
  • Joint Ventures in the Soviet Union: Problems Emerge*
    COMMENT Joint Ventures in the Soviet Union: Problems Emerge* I. INTRODUCTION On January 13, 1987, the Presidium1 of the USSR Supreme Soviet and the Soviet Union's Council of Ministers2 issued laws3 that authorized the establishment of joint ventures4 in * The author would like to thank Bill Frenkel, Esq. of LeBoeuf, Lamb, Leiby & MacRae for his generous advice and assistance. The author also acknowledges the valuable assistance and comments of Professor Michael Newcity of the University of Puget Sound School of Law and David Kelley of the Russian Research Center, Harvard University. 1. According to the Soviet Constitution, the Presidium is the highest policy making body of the Soviet Union. KONST. SSSR (Constitution) art. 118-20 (USSR). 2. "The Council of Ministers of the USSR, i.e., the Government of the USSR, is the highest executive and administrative body of state authority of the USSR." KONST. SSSR (Constitution) art. 128 (USSR). 3. The initial laws consisted of an Edict and a Decree. The Presidium of the USSR on January 13, 1987, passed the Edict On Questions Concerning the Establishment in the Territory of the USSR and Operations of Joint Ventures, InternationalAmalgamations and Organizationswith the Participationof Soviet and Foreign Organizations,Firms and Management Bodies [hereinafter Edict] (the official Russian text appears in Vedomosti Verkhovnovo Sovieta SSSR (1987), no. 2, item 35). The USSR Council of Ministers on January 13, 1987, enacted the Decree On the Establishment of the Territory of the USSR and Operation of Joint Ventures with the Participation of Soviet Corporations and Firms from Capitalist and Developing Countries [hereinafter Decree] (the official Russian text appears in the official gazette, Sobranie Postanovlenii i Pravitelstva SSSR (1987), no.
    [Show full text]
  • In Socialism's Twilight: Michael Walzer and the Politics of the Long New
    In Socialism’s Twilight: Michael Walzer and the Politics of the Long New Left David Marcus Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 2019 ©2019 David Marcus All Rights Reserved Abstract “In Socialism’s Twilight: Michael Walzer and the Politics of the Long New Left” David Marcus In Socialism’s Twilight is a study of the thought and politics of Michael Walzer and the travails of “democratic socialism” in the second half of the twentieth century. Using the methods of intel- lectual and political history, it situates Walzer’s political theory and criticism in the context of what might be called the “long New Left,” the overlapping generations of radicals that stretched from the beginning of the Cold War to its end and that supplemented the left’s traditional com- mitments to socialism with a politics of national liberation, radical democracy, and liberalism. By doing so, the dissertation hopes to trace the development not only of Walzer’s own commit- ments but also those of the socialist left. Caught in a period of frequent defeat and bitter contro- versy, socialists found themselves forced into a state of constant revision, as they moved from the libertarian socialism of the 1950s and 60s to the social democratic coalitions of the 1970s and 80s to the liberalism and humanitarianism of the 1990s and 2000s. Opening with the collapse of the Popular Front after World War II, the study follows Walzer’s search for a new left with radi- cals around Dissent and through his involvement in civil rights and antiwar activism.
    [Show full text]
  • Russian Politics and Journalism Under Mikhail Gorbachev's Perestroika
    2020-3988-AJMMC 1 Russian Politics and Journalism under Mikhail 2 Gorbachev’s Perestroika and Glasnost: 3 Why Hopes Failed 4 5 6 The terms perestroika (literally, “transformation”) and glasnost (literally, 7 “transparency”) refer to the social change that took place in the Soviet Union in the 8 late 1980s. Then USSR leader, the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the 9 CPSU, Mikhail Gorbachev, introduced perestroika as a necessary action to improve 10 the nation’s economy and its international relations. Glasnost was meant to promote 11 effective discussions regarding the country’s existing problems and shortcomings. 12 However, only a few years following their instatement, both processes did not 13 improve the sociopolitical situation. On the contrary, they led to the country’s 14 collapse. This article seeks to answer why gracious intentions, meant to actualize the 15 hopes and dreams of the Soviet people, eventually resulted in tremendously difficult 16 times. Special attention is paid to the role of the Soviet media, which became a 17 catalyst for many social problems. The authors raise the issue of the media’s level of 18 responsibility during this social transformation, which appeared to be one of the 19 most crucial conditions for its successful implementation. 20 21 Keywords: authoritarian culture, social transformation, civic society, perestroika, 22 glasnost, Soviet media 23 24 25 Introduction 26 27 Social transformation is a complex phenomenon achieved by shifting 28 traditional features of a country’s evolution and adopting new political insights 29 (Harvey, 1989; Blumler & Gurevitch, 1995; Coleman, 2001). It aims to change 30 both the existing system of governmental management and the relationship 31 between all political actors participating in it (Kelle & Koval’zon, 1981).
    [Show full text]
  • BORDERLAND FOREVER: MODERN BELARUS 1. See No Evil: Belarus In
    CHAPTER THREE BORDERLAND FOREVER: MODERN BELARUS 1. See no evil: Belarus in the twilight of the Soviet era Th e reforms started by Mikhail Gorbachev were originally intended to make the Soviet Union stronger without changing its political system. While the word “perestroika”, restructuring, soon entered dictionaries of many languages, the Gorbachev era started with another catch-word: “uskoreniye”, acceleration. According to this policy, the Soviet Union had considerable potential, unused in the Brezhnev era, to become the dominant world superpower, both economically and militarily. Not that there was something wrong with the systemic principles: the one Party rule, the impenetrable barriers to democratic political participa- tion, the suppression of national sentiment, the centralized economy buttressed by criminal penalties for private entrepreneurship, all these and many other features of totalitarian regime were there to stay. What was needed was not an overhaul of the system, but new men in high places who would be able to make the system work faster (for more on economic policies of the early Gorbachev era see, e.g., Aslund, 1991, p. 71; Bryson, 1995, pp. 60–61; Sutela, 1991, p. 147). Economically, it meant the channeling of resources to the newly established, more effi cient, more technologically advanced enterprises. Csaba (1995, p. 39) highlighted the main purpose of the new thrust towards economic effi ciency: Th e new Soviet leadership wanted to retain the country’s status of a military superpower. Militarily, the West had to be intimidated into accepting Soviet supremacy. A crucial role in this was assigned to the recently revealed ability of the Soviet armed forces to destroy much of Western Europe with brand new intermedi- ate range missiles.
    [Show full text]