Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-gb8f7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-24T18:48:37.077Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Dynamics of the Gorbachev Reforms: a Crisis of Reconstruction

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 August 2016

David A. Dyker
David A. Dyker*
Affiliation:
University of Sussex
Get access

Summary

The author investigates the reasons why the Soviet reform programme is running into increasing difficulties. He argues that the budget deficit is the central characteristic of the new crisis of stagnation. On the one hand, it represents a direct reflection of the severe structural problems of the Soviet economy, the deep-seated tendency to loss-making, the tradition of giving budgetary support to unprofitable economic activities. On the other, the inflationary pressure the deficit generates represents the biggest single obstacle to effective reform of the planning system, since it makes it impossible to liberalise and rationalise the price system without running the risk of hyper-inflation. At present the prospects for effective perestroïka are not good.

Résumé

Résumé

L'auteur analyse les raisons qui conduisent le programme soviétiques de réformes économiques au devant de difficultés croissantes. Il prétend que le déficit budgétaire est la caractéristique majeure de la stagnation actuelle. D'une part, ce déficit est un reflet immédiat des problèmes structurels graves de l'économie soviétique, de sa tendance profonde au maintien des pertes des entreprises et de la tradition de compenser ces pertes par des transferts au départ du budget de l'Etat. D'autre part, la pression inflationniste que génère ce déficit représente le plus formidable obstacle à la réforme du système de planification: elle rend impossible la libéralisation et la rationalisation du système des prix sans entraîner le risque d'une hyperinflation. Aujourd'hui, la perestroïka semble mal engagée.

Keywords

124134322124134322
Type
Research Article
Information
Recherches Économiques de Louvain/ Louvain Economic Review , Volume 56 , Issue 2: Economic Change in the East , 1990 , pp. 127 - 145
Copyright
Copyright © Université catholique de Louvain, Institut de recherches économiques et sociales 1990 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

The bulk of the research for this article was done during my tenure of a Volkswagen Foundation fellowship at the Bundesinstitut für ostwissenschaftliche und internationale Studien, Cologne, West Germany

References

Abalkin, L. (1989), Kakim byt novomu pyatiletnemu planu?, Kommunist, no 6.Google Scholar
Aganbegyan, A. (1989), O kontseptsii sotsial' no-ekonomicheskogo razvitiya na perspektivu, Izvestiya Akademii Nauk SSSR, Seriya Ekonomicheskaya, no 1.Google Scholar
Aksenov, D. (1989), Strategiya chistoi energii, Ekonomicheskaya Gazeta, no 16, p. 5.Google Scholar
Borozdin, Yu., (1989), Byudzhet, tsena, rubl', Ekonomicheskaya Gazeta, no 13, p. 13.Google Scholar
Bronshtein, M. (1989), Nuzhen edinyi rynok, Izvestiya, 29 June.Google Scholar
Butikov, I. (1989), Aktsii est, a birzha?, Ekonomicheskaya Gazeta, no 17, p. 16.Google Scholar
CIA (1988), USSR: Sharply Higher Budget Deficits Threaten Perestroyka, Washington, GPO.Google Scholar
CIA (1989), Report on Soviet Economic Performance in 1988, Washington, GPO.Google Scholar
Dyker, D. A. (1987), Industrial planning: forward or sideways?, in Dyker, D. A. (ed), The Soviet Union under Gorbachev: Prospects for Reform, London, Groom Helm Google Scholar
Dyker, D. A. (1990), Yugoslavia: Socialism, Development and Debt, London, Routledge.Google Scholar
Economist Intelligence Unit (1989) USSR Country Report, no 3.Google Scholar
Fedotov, A., and Stepanova, L., (1989), Tseli sotsial'no-ekonomicheskogo razvitiya i politika nakopleniya, Voprosy Ekonomiki, no 7.Google Scholar
Goldman, M. (1989), Nuzhny radikal'nye mery, Sotsialisticheskaya Industriya, 9 July.Google Scholar
Gorbachev, M. S. (1987), Speech in Murmansk, published in Ekonomicheskaya Gazeta, no 41Google Scholar
Gorbachev, M. S. (1989), Speech to the Supreme Soviet on 30 May 1989, published in Ekonomicheskaya Gazeta, no 23.Google Scholar
Hanson, P. (1989), Inflation Versus Reform, Radio Liberty Research, April.Google Scholar
Kalinko, V. and Stakhanov, V. (1989) Al'ternativa ocheredi – auktsion, Ekonomicheskaya Gazeta, no 39, p. 19.Google Scholar
Kunel Skii, L. (1989), ‘Chto proiskhodit s zarpiatoi’Ekonomicheskaya Gazeta, no 21, pp. 5–6.Google Scholar
Kunkin, B. A. (1989), Ktoostanovit' ekspansiyu vedomstv?, Voprosy Filosofii, no 5.Google Scholar
Loginov, V. (1989), Plany i realnost', Voprosy Ekonomiki, no 4.Google Scholar
Plan Fulfilment Report (1989), for first half of 1989, Ekonomicheskaya Gazeta, no 32.Google Scholar
Radaev, V. (1989), Novoe kachestvo ili starve tempy, Vbprosy Ekonomiki, no 7.Google Scholar
Selyunin, V. (1989), Prodolzhat'tupikovyi put nel'zya, Pamir, no 2.Google Scholar
Shatalin, S. (1989), Zakryvaem perestroiku?, Izvestiya, 26 June.Google Scholar
Shmelev, N. (1989), seminar at BlOst, Cologne, May.Google Scholar
Solovev, N. (1989), Nevygodnyi tovar?, Ekonomicheskaya Gazeta, no 35, p. 8.Google Scholar
Garantii, Sotsial'Nye (1989), Sotsialisticheskaya Industriya, 19 April.Google Scholar
Valovoi, D. (1989), Ekonomika na pereput'e', Pravda, 8 May, p. 3.Google Scholar
Vstrecha redkollegii zhurnala v Ministerstve finansov SSSR (1989), Voprosy Ekonomiki, no 6.Google Scholar
Yur'Ev, R. (1989), Raskryvaem tainy byudzheta, Pravitel'stvennyi Vestnik, no 18, p. 6.Google Scholar
Zaitsev, V. (1989), Da zdravstvuyet denezhnaya reforma?, Ekonomicheskaya Gazeta, no 38, p. 7.Google Scholar
Zotov, M. (1989), Avtoritet kredita, Ekonomicheskaya Gazeta, no 13, pp. 10–11.Google Scholar