Democracy and Authoritarianism in Perestroika Flashcards
What was Communism?
- Ideals diametrically opposed to capitalist ideals
- State wither away
- Distinctive political/economic system of rule
What was Soviet Communism?
- One party monopolised power
- Economic system of central planning under public ownership
- Ideology based on goal of building Communist society
What had happened by 1991?
- De-Communisation
- Leading and guiding role of party dismantled
- Acceptance of market and non-state economic ownership
- Policy of glasnost
Legacy of communism?
- Patronage based political culture
- Economies dominated by monopoly interests
- Highly personalised relations in politics and business
- Expectation state provides material benefits
How did perestroika influence transition from Communism?
- Splits between hard liners and soft lines
- Gorby’s leadership based on consensus and negotiation (dynamic centrist, Roeder)
- Collapse of Communism was peaceful
What were the drawbacks of transition framework?
- Gorby failed to achieve elite settlement
- Reforms could not accommodate demands of forces opposed to regime
Alternative views of Gorby’s democratic credentials?
- Gorby the commune democrat: anti statist but not willing to share power (Sakwa)
- Demokratizatsiya as a political strategy
- Faked democracy and established blueprint for successors (Wilson)
Skocpol’s definition of revolution
- States undermined by crisis (economic or military)
- Class-based revolts from below
- Result in reconstruction of the state
Was transition from Communism a democratic revolution?
- Evidence to suggest Communism could have survived under different leadership
- Division by scholars over levels of popular participation
- Destroyed Soviet institutions
- Paralysed coercive apparatus of state
- Creation of markets and rejection of central planning
What is Perestroika (Robinson, 2018)
- Reform involving radical change, has to be directed not just at economy but also political system
- Began in 1987
- Not specific targets, but limiting party to political activity
What is Perestroika (Holmes, 2013)
- Reconstruction or re-structuring
- Disagreement over how radical it was/was intended to be
- Initially focused on economy
What were Gorbachev’s standings? (Brown, 2013)
- Political: free elections in 1989, removal of party’s leading role feb 1990
- Economic: 1988 accepted different forms of ownership, Law on Cooperatives, did not make clear that mixed economy would include private sector
- Ideologically: opened way to disintegration of international Communist movement, positive endorsement of pluralism in 1987
Communism and Perestroika (Brown, 2007)
- Continued to pledge allegiance to socialism
- Invoked Lenin to legitimise policy (could be to appeal to public)
- Command-administrative system: party should provide leadership not just executive power
- Distinguished Lenin from Bolshevism
- Radical rejection in theory and practice of Leninism (distinct from Lenin)
Authoritarianism and Perestroika (Way, 2015)
- Under Lenin security services regularly engaged in violence against population
- By 1991 many elements of auth control remained: infrastructure of surveillance, state controlled economy, weak civil society
Four stages of democratisation (Chull-Sin, 1994)
- Decay of auth rule
- Transition: uncertainty, hybrid regime, varied
- Consolidation: no guarantee of survival
- Maturing of democratic political order
Democracy and Perestroika (Brown, 2007) - How Gorby differed from Lenin
- Accepted checks and balances
- Separation of powers in political system
- Social-democratic conception of socialism provided basis for more humane system
- Contested elections 1989
1991 draft policy programme (Brown, 2007)
- Affirmation of freedom
- Political system to consist of democratic federation of sovereign republics
- Rule of law and separation of powers
- Transition to mixed economy
- Humane, democratic socialism
Democracy and Perestroika (Holmes, 2013)
-Gorbachev ideological position shifted over time from Leninist social democracy to social democratic position
Transformation and Perestroika (Brown, 2007)
- 1988 moved from reformer to transformer
- Gorby said Perestroika revolution to be achieved in evolutionary means
- Beginning 1986, press more open
Transformation and Perestroika (Brown, 2013)
- Economic reform purely practical rather than ideological
- First break with CPSU thinking 1986, asked to reconsider social democracy
What was the Law on Enterprises?
-Businesses should have more independence from party and ministries and should operate on a profit maximising basis
What was article 6?
- Enshrined legal guarantee of party’s right to rule
- Removal undermined power of party
