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Searching for an Appropriate Concept of Soviet Politics: The Politics of Hesitant Modernization?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2009

Ronald Amann
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Extract

For most of the seventeenth century, natural philosophers in Europe were confronted with two opposing views of the universe: the traditional Ptolemaic view and the emerging Copernican view. The former was slow to give way to the latter because it could be adequately supported by evidence, and its adherents, for reasons of professional status, had a vested interest in maintaining its theoretical integrity. Initially, the Copernican view possessed only the advantage of elegance. After much heated and ‘incommensurable’ discussion, the argument was only resolved finally when the older generation of scientists died out and the growing volume of observational anomalies overwhelmed the capacity of the traditional approach to explain them away.

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Articles
Information
British Journal of Political Science , Volume 16 , Issue 4 , October 1986 , pp. 475 - 494
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1986

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References

1 Kuhn, Thomas, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962)Google Scholar and The Copernican Revolution: Planetary Astronomy in the Development of Western Thought (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1957).Google Scholar

2 For an assessment of the anticipated scale of these personnel changes see Rahr, Alexander, ‘Changes at the Top in the Soviet Union’, Radio Liberty Research, RL 394–85, 27 11 1985.Google Scholar Figures on the actual changes in Central Committee composition were provided by my colleague, Dr J. M. Cooper.

3 For example, throughout the Autumn Term 1983–84 Mary McAuley organised a special workshop at Essex University, on the ‘Soviet Political System’, to which outside specialists were invited. The purpose of the workshop was to attempt to resolve this precise issue.

4 Churchward, Lloyd, Contemporary Soviet Government (London: Macmillan, 1968).Google Scholar

5 Hough, Jerry and Fainsod, Merle, How the Soviet Union is Governed (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1979), especially Chap. 10Google Scholar; Hough, Jerry, ‘Political Participation in the Soviet Union’, Soviet Studies (01 1976), 3–21Google Scholar (critical comment by Rigby, T. H. in Soviet Studies (04 1976), 257–62).Google Scholar

6 See, for example, the literature surveyed by Hill, R. J., Soviet Politics, Political Science and Reform (Oxford: Martin Robertson, 1980)Google Scholar, and by Brown, Archie, ‘Political Science in the Soviet Union: A New Stage of Development’, Soviet Studies (07 1984), 317–44.Google Scholar

7 Schroeder, Gertrude E., ‘The Soviet Economy on a Treadmill of Reforms’ in Soviet Economy in a Time of Change (Washington, D.C.: Joint Economic Committee of the US Congress, 1979), pp. 65–88.Google Scholar

8 Draft of New Revised Edition of the CPSU Programme, Pravda, 26 10 1985.Google Scholar

9 Berliner, Joseph, ‘Managing the Soviet Economy: Alternative Models’, Problems of Communism (01–02 1983).Google Scholar

10 Burlatskii, Fyodor, ‘Mezhdutsarstvie…’ Novyi Mir, No. 4 (1982), 205–28.Google Scholar This is possibly a coded version of trfe process of transition. The so-called Novosibirsk document, written by Professor Tatyana Zaslavskaya and first reported in The Washington Post, 3 08 1983Google Scholar is the leaked version. The most outspoken published versions are: Kurashvili, B. P., ‘Gosudarstvennoe upravlenie narodnym khozyaistvom: perspektivy razvitiya’, Sovetskoe Gosudarstvo i Pravo, No. 6 (1982), 38–48Google Scholar and ‘Sud' by otraslevogo upravleniya’, EKO, No. 10 (1983), 34–55.Google Scholar

11 Hoffman, E. P. and Laird, R. F., The Politics of Economic Modernization in the Soviet Union (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1982)Google Scholar: the concept of ‘conservative modernization’ is used by the eminent political economist Professor Wlodzimierz Brus (see Brus, W. and Kowalik, T., ‘Socialism and Development’, Cambridge Journal of Economics, No. 7 (1983)Google Scholar and Brus, W., ‘The Soviet Bloc after Brezhnev – The Economic Perspective’, in Brus, W., Kende, P. and Mlynar, Z., The Soviet Systems after Brezhnev (Cologne: Research Project on Crisis in Soviet Type Systems, 1984), Study No. 5, pp. 5–15).Google Scholar Brus' formulation comes closest to my own view and is less open to the modifications I would wish to propose in relation to Hoffman/Laird and Breslauer.

12 Breslauer, G. W., Five Images of the Soviet Future: A Critical Review and Synthesis (Berkeley, Calif.: Policy Papers on International Affairs, Institute of International Studies, University of California, 1978)Google Scholar; Breslauer, G. W., ‘On the Adaptability of Soviet Welfare-State Authoritarianism’, originally published in Ryavec, K. W., ed., Soviet Society and the Communist Party (Amherst, Mass.: University of Massachusetts Press, 1978)Google Scholar, reprinted in Hoffman, E. P. and Laird, R. F., eds, The Soviet Polity in the Modern Era (New York: Aldine, 1984), pp. 219–45.Google Scholar

13 Breslauer, , Five Images of the Soviet Future, p. 17.Google Scholar This comment of Breslauer's is specifically addressed to the writings of Walter Connor.

14 Bunce, Valerie, ‘The Political Economy of the Brezhnev Era: The Rise and Fall of Corporatism’, British Journal of Political Science, XIII (1983), 129–58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

15 Bialer, Seweryn, Stalin's Successors: Leadership, Stability and Change in the Soviet Union (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980), Part VGoogle Scholar; Hanson, Philip, ‘Economic Constraints on Soviet Policies in the 1980s’, International Affairs, Winter (1980/1981), 21–43Google Scholar; Amann, R., ‘Technical Progress and Political Change in the Soviet Union’, in Schuller, A. et al. , eds, Innovatsionsprobleme in Ost und West (Stuttgart: Gustav Fischer Verlag, 1983), 197–212Google Scholar; Grossman, Gregory, ‘Some Implications of Low Growth for Soviet Economy and Society’, unpublished discussion paper, 1984Google Scholar; Hewett, E. A., ‘Soviet Economic Reform: Lessons from Eastern Europe’, paper presented to NASEES Conference, Cambridge, 1984Google Scholar; Campbell, R. W., ‘The Economy’, in Byrnes, R. F., ed., After Brezhnev (London: Frances Pinter, 1983), pp. 68–124.Google ScholarHardt, J. P. and Gold, Donna L., ‘The Soviet Economy: Can the Economic Programme of the Post-Brezhnev Leadership Make a Difference?’Google Scholar, paper delivered at conference organized by the CSIS of Georgetown University and the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung, Bonn, 1984.

16 For a survey of all this evidence see Amann's introductory chapter in Amann, R. and Cooper, J. M., eds, Technical Progress and Soviet Economic Development (Oxford: Blackwell, 1986).Google Scholar

17 A tentative attempt to quantify this, though this was not its explicit purpose, is Dzhafarli, T. M. et al. , ‘Niekotorye aspekty uskoreniya nauchno-tekhnicheskogo progressa’, Sotsiologicheskie Issledovaniya, No. 2 (1983), 58–63.Google Scholar

18 This term comes from Hough, Jerry, The Soviet Prefects (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1969).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

19 The procedure by which the military producers ‘plunder’ the economic system for supplies is described by Yanov, Détente After Brezhnev, Chap. 2. This picture is, of course, very much opposed to one which assumes that no military-industrial complex exists in the Soviet Union and that the economy is equally at home producing guns or butter (see, for example, Medvedev, Zhores, New Left Review, No. 130 (12 1981), 5–22).Google Scholar

20 Quoted by Burks, R. V., ‘The Political Implications of Economic Reform’, in Bornstein, M., Plan and Market: Economic Reform in Eastern Europe (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1973), p. 381.Google Scholar

21 Ignatovskii, P., ‘O politicheskom podkhode k ekonomike’, Kommunist, No. 12 (1983), 60–72.Google Scholar See also Rubik, E., ‘Antimarksistskie kontseptsii upravleniya sotsialisticheskim proizvodstvom’, Voprosy Ekonomiki, No. 7 (1983), 142.Google Scholar I am grateful to Bob Davies for pointing out to me that these kinds of arguments are not in the least new (see Davies, R. W., ‘The Socialist Market: A Debate in Soviet Industry 1932–33’, CREES Discussion Paper, SIPS No. 23, 1982).Google Scholar

22 Hoffman, and Laird, , The Politics of Economic Modernization in the Soviet Union, p. 70.Google Scholar

23 Berliner, Joseph, in Problems of Communism (01–02 1983)Google Scholar, sees this as one of the most realistic reform options.

24 Gabor, I. R., ‘The Second [Secondary] Economy: Earning Activity and Regrouping of Income Outside the Socially Organized Production and Distribution’, Acta Oeconomica, XXII (1979), 291–311.Google Scholar (I am grateful to Judy Batt for drawing my attention to this interesting article.)

25 Eremin, A., ‘Formy sobstvennosti pri sotsializme’, Voprosy Ekonomiki, No. 9 (1983), 3–13.Google Scholar

26 Zaslavsky, Viktor, The Neo-Stalinist State (Brighton: Harvester, 1982), Chap. 3, pp. 44–65.Google Scholar

27 Rakovski, M., Towards an East European Marxism (London: Allison & Busby, 1978), Chap. 2, pp. 18–32Google Scholar; Bauman, Zigmund, ‘Systemic Crises in Soviet-type Societies’, Problems of Communism (12 1971), 45–53.Google Scholar

28 Hill, , Soviet Politics, Political Science and ReformGoogle Scholar, concluding chapter.

29 Schon, Donald, Beyond the Stable State (London: Maurice Temple Smith, 1971)Google Scholar shows how all large bureaucracies will desperately hang on to an established pattern of relationships in the face of change.

30 Grossman, , ‘Some Implications of Low Growth for Soviet Economy and Society’, p. 8.Google Scholar

31 Chernenko, Konstantin, address to the plenary session of the Central Committee, Pravda, 15 06 1983.Google Scholar

32 Andropov, Yu. V., speech to party veterans in Pravda, 16 08 1983.Google Scholar

33 A similar argument focusing on the need to move from directive planning to indicative planning has been advanced by Kurashvili, B. P., Sovetskoe Gosudarstvo i Pravo, No. 6 (1982), 38–48.Google Scholar

34 The concept is elaborated by Friedgut, T. H., Political Participation in the Soviet Union (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1979), pp. 13–20Google Scholar to distinguish it from a narrow concern with input articulation, which is the more characteristic form of political participation in Western systems.

35 This disparity has been noted and discussed by Hanson, P., ‘The Reform Debate Expands’, Radio Liberty Research, 4 09 1985.Google Scholar

36 See, for example, Kurashvili, B. P., ‘Kontury vozmozhnoi perestroiki’, EKO, No. 5 (1985), 59–80Google Scholar; Zaslavskaya, T. I., ‘Ekonomika skvoz' prizmu sotsiologii’, EKO, No. 7 (1985), 3–23Google Scholar; Selyunin, V., ‘Eksperiment’, Novyi Mir, No. 8(1985), 173–95.Google Scholar

37 Aganbegyan, A., ‘Strategiya uskoreniya sotsial'no-ekonomicheskogo razvitiya’, Problemy Mira i Sotsializma, No. 9 (1985), p. 15.Google Scholar

38 Aganbegyan, , ‘Strategiya uskoreniya’.Google Scholar

39 See, in particular, Gorbachëv's speech to the special conference on ideology held in December 1984, reported in Pravda, 10 12 1984.Google Scholar This was probably his boldest and most explicit call for political reforms. His speech on ‘The fundamental issue of the party's economic policy’ to a special Central Committee conference on technical progress (reported in Pravda, 11 06 1985Google Scholar) is an equally clear clarion call for economic reform. More recent formulations have been more muted.

40 ‘Basic guidelines for the economic and social development of the USSR, 1986–1990 and for the period up to the year 2000’, Pravda, 9 11 1985.Google Scholar