Economic Reform and Democracy in the Soviet Union

Abstract

By far the most original aspect of the 'perestroika', the restructuring that is occurring under Gorbachev's leadership, is the explicit linking of economic reform and democratization. Gorbachev told the January 1987 plenary session of the Communist Party Central Committee that 'democracy is not simply a slogan; it is the very essence of the perestroika'. Except perhaps for the 'Prague Spring' of 1968 (and even here this was very much the work of forces from below), no other attempt at economic reform in the Soviet bloc has envisaged real change in the political system, characterized by the monopoly of power in the hands of the party-state bureaucracy. The opposite is actually closer to the truth: previous reforms were conceived largely with a view to averting pressures for political change.