Gorbachev's uncertain reformation
Hahn, Jeffrey W.
GORBACHEV'S UNCERTAIN REFORMATION Jeffrey w. hahn WHAT HAS CHANGED & WHAT HAS NOT When I was in Moscow, I was accom panied by some Soviet friends to that ...
...591 What strikes this observer most, however, is the tenuous-ness of a revolution from the top...
...The Stalin period is also explored critically by the contemporary Soviet writer, Anatoli Rybakov, in Children of the Arbat, and in the movie Pokaiania by the Georgian director, Tengiz Abuladze...
...The rush to judgment by many Western journalists and academics about whether Gorbachev will succeed in reconstructing Soviet society is premature...
...Such reforms could provide a measure of incentive within higher education which had all but disappeared...
...Moreover, this successor generation of leaders has adopted as its main goal the comprehensive reconstruction — perestroika — of Soviet society...
...Previous practice was for a few representatives of the local party committee, trade union, and Komsomol to hold a preliminary meeting to choose their candidates...
...Discarding their inhibitions with their clothes, my friends soon engaged in another favorite Russian pastime: the swapping of anekdoty, short stories satirizing the realities of daily Soviet life...
...What the ultimate outcome will be is impossible to assess at this point...
...Moreover, not all unofficial or semi-official dissent is equally welcome...
...Upon payment of about a ruble per item, I received a copy of each receipt and was told to come back in about four days...
...Nevertheless, in comparison with 1984, there have been some developments which deserve attention...
...In Izmailovsky Park, original paintings ranging in style from day-glow traditionalism to surrealistic modernism, and an equally wide variety of crafts, can be purchased for a price agreed upon with the producer...
...Although only about 5 percent of the total number of deputies to the local Soviets were elected in this fashion, there are over 2.5 million such local officials in the Soviet Union...
...In the Soviet Union, candidates are nominated at their place of work...
...For another, perestroika meant harder work, the possibility of higher prices, and less vodka — a three-hour wait in line instead of one...
...Moscovskii novosti (Moscow News) printed verbatim a letter by ten Soviet emigres to the effect that the Soviet Union was incapable of reform as long as it remained communist and that perestroika was a delusion designed for Western consumption...
...At the time, this struck me as a deliriously ironic description of much of Soviet reality in the waning months of Party Secretary Konstantin Chernenko's leadership —if it can be called that...
...It seems clear that the limits on what can be expressed publicly have greatly expanded in the first two years of Gorbachev's tenure...
...The central problem with respect to civil rights, however, is that organized dissent from official government policy remains severely restricted...
...Visible changes in the economic life of the country to date have been minimal, although these may be forthcoming if Gorbachev is able to implement the sweeping reforms he proposed in his speech to the plenary session of the Central Committee in late June 1987...
...After standing in line with my bundle for thirty minutes, I was instructed to remove all buttons from my clothes...
...On the level of high culture, changes ushered in by glasnost are also apparent...
...The driver offered to take me to my destination for 7 rubles, about 2 or 3 more rubles than the usual fee...
...Take, for instance, electric repairs...
...Increments in pay, though all but automatic, were small...
...But there are privileges, highly visible ones, like the sleek black Zhils and Chaikas scattering snow and people alike as they zip down the reserved center lanes of broad Moscow boulevards, and the system of special stores with better quality goods for those with diplomatic-ruble checks...
...Moscow intellectuals are heartened and excited by the new direction being taken...
...No one can be sure if the present leadership will stay in power, or that they will continue to pursue the policies they have begun...
...In other words, pay is linked to performance...
...The term "reconstruction" itself is intended to imply a return to those qualitites of Lenin's leadership which present leaders consider compatible with their goal of modernization and development, namely, tactical flexibility in dealing with problems, an openness toward experimentation, and a degree of tolerance for new ideas...
...The editor of Moscow News was taken to task for printing the open letter of the ten Soviet emigres, as was the editor of Ogonek for publishing an article about gangs of youths from the working-class suburb of Luberi, who were attacking their more privileged peers in the city whose clothing and tonsorial styles they considered decadent...
...A number of highly publicized cases have been resolved...
...Another important policy innovation is the introduction of a limited degree of privatization and market relations into the service sector of the Soviet economy...
...Candidates receiving more than 50 percent of the vote were elected...
...Thus we can estimate that roughly 170,000 candidates competed for 125,000 positions...
...If, in the Fall in 1984, some soothsayer had predicted that two years later I would witness in the Soviet Union the introduction of competititve elections, that I would ride in a legal private cab, that Doctor Zhivago would be published, that Gorbachev would have accepted Reagan's zero-option proposal on intermediate-range missiles, and that I would watch Margaret Thatcher telling millions of Soviet viewers that nuclear weapons are the greatest hope for peace since the coming of Christianity, I would have expressed some skepticism...
...The real problem, however, is the dominant role enjoyed by the party in all spheres of Soviet life...
...What we can do at this point is to describe what has changed JEFFREY W. HAHN is professor of political science at Villanova University, specializing in Soviet politics...
...Jewish activist Joseph Begun, was released from prison after demonstrations on his behalf in Moscow...
...Unless Gorbachev is able to move effectively to improve conditions at this level, his changes in other areas may not mean very much or last very long...
...He had to get permission from the State Automobile Inspection station, which verified his driving record and the condition of his car...
...Indeed, some have argued that the procedures which have been introduced are intended primarily to remove Gorbachev's opponents and replace them with individuals loyal to the new administration after which talk of democratization will disappear...
...For many Soviets, food shopping means trekking to half a dozen different stores, one for milk products, one for breads, one for vegetables, and so forth...
...Although other candidates were proposed from the floor, they declined nomination, and the incumbent was reelected by secret ballot with about 60 percent in favor, 40 percent against...
...My wife would have to throw out as much as half of the bag of potatoes or carrots which I bought because they were spoiled...
...they are being tested...
...Nevertheless, such changes are essential if the Soviet Union is to overcome its economic stagnation...
...the least satisfied are the members of the party apparatus and the state bureaucracy for whom the reforms pose the threat of a lossin power and position...
...Just what the boundaries of tolerance are is as yet unclear...
...Nevertheless, it is obvious that the limits of public expression are broader than they were...
...Alongside the usual articles condemning Western imperialism and extolling the virtues of exemplary collective farms and socialist heroes of labor are complaints of shortages, exposures of corruption or ineptitude, and attacks on environmental pollution...
...In that system, output, costs, prices, and distribution are allocated by one or another central ministry all linked to a central planning agency, Gosplan...
...Their policy prescriptions are occasionally radical in the Soviet context...
...Equally important, advancement will depend on merit, with the latter to be determined by a council of peers...
...Whether or not elections to the Supreme Soviet, also scheduled for 1990, will be held on a competitive basis is a subject of debate among Soviet legal scholars...
...But in the "second economy" you agree to pay the serviceman privately the whole cost of his services the next time you need repairs...
...Shortages and long lines are only part of the story...
...With respect to the movement for civil rights in the Soviet Union, which is, in the end, also a demand for public expression, the record so far is mixed...
...In fact, there are deep divisions between refuseniks, who are Jewish and whose main goal is to leave the Soviet Union, and dissidents, like Sakharov, who are more often Russian and who want to stay and encourage those aspects of perestroika they consider progressive...
...The publication of such a view would have been unthinkable in 1984...
...Crime and disaster stories and the personal lives of public figures — common fodder for Western news media — are not found in the Soviet press...
...Demonstrators on behalf of Joseph Begun were severely beaten for their troubles...
...Pasternak's Doctor Zhivago is only the most prominent example of a long suppressed work soon to be published...
...Since he receives the same wage whether he provides the service tomorrow or in six months, chances are you will wait...
...In his speech to the January 1987 plenum of the CPSU Central Committee, Gorbachev stated that democratization was a key component of "reconstruction" and proposed that a degree of competition be introduced in the selection of party and government officials, as well as of managers of factories and enterprises...
...In recent years, advancement from one position on the wagescale to another had become largely a function of seniority...
...The basis for my answers to these questions comes from living in Moscow with my family from early February to June of 1987 while I was teaching in the Law Faculty of Moscow State University as a Fulbright exchange scholar...
...Soviet academics in the fields of sociology, government, .and economics argue in Moscow dailies and in intellectual journals for greater freedom of research and debate...
...In part this is because the government refuses to allow public demonstrations against unfair treatment, though the recent protests by Crimean Tatars in Red Square suggest that this too may be changing...
...While the number of steps will be fewer, moving from one to another will mean something monetarily...
...The operating costs were, of course, his own...
...Champagne and wine are more readily available, but buffets at Moscow theaters, including the Bolshoi, now serve only soft drinks and juice...
...It was not easy...
...Milk, though ostensibly pasteurized and which we kept refrigerated, would turn sour after a day or two...
...Yet an automotive factory worker said he and his peers were looking forward to the opportunity to replace incompetent bureaucrats with skilled workers from among their own ranks who at least knew what they were doing and who would be more responsive to innovations proposed from below...
...Even basic items are often "de-ficitny," in short supply...
...When I questioned this he informed me, without rancor, that he was a licensed private driver, not a gypsy cab, and if I preferred a regular cab he would leave me, free of charge, at a taxi stand to wait in line for the next state cab...
...Jews who apply for emigration still face enormous difficulties including, in most cases, the loss of their jobs and the censure of their Russian neighbors...
...had to see two doctors — one to attest that he was not an alcoholic or on drugs, and the other to certify his mental competence — had to appear before a special committee established by the local district council ("a board of incompetents," he called them) who questioned him about his work record and required him to pay an annual fee of 560 rubles...
...Thus, one economist, Nikolai Shmelev, writing in the June issue of Novyi Mir, argued enthusiastically for greater use of the profit motive in 586 economic development, noting that "over the centuries, humankind has found no more effective measure of work than profit...
...By legalizing such activity, Gorbachev hopes to make the "second economy" part of the first, enabling the state to receive its share of taxes and fees, while raising the level of consumer services...
...Anatoli Sharansky, Yuri Orlov, Anatoli Koryagin, and the pianist Vladimir Feltsman have emigrated to the West...
...Obviously, such an arrangement is both illegal and highly beneficial to both parties...
...Several election districts, each represented by one deputy, were combined into a new, larger district which was required to have more candidates than the number of seats available, on the order of seven to eight candidates for five seats...
...These developments need to be seen in a larger context...
...so far and what has not...
...The meeting, attended by staff as well as professors and teachers, lasted eight hours and was marked by an openly critical discussion of the way in which the organization was being run...
...Those who see in perestroika a return to capitalism are mistaken...
...There is some evidence that members of other non-Russian nationalities — Germans, for example — will also have an easier time receiving permission to leave if they so choose...
...Pornography also remains taboo...
...Although the number of hours he could work was not restricted, he was only able to work after his regular job as a gym instructor, on weekends, holidays, and during vacations...
...In a district in Orlov province, the official candidate was rejected...
...A major goal of the anti- alcoholism campaign is to improve labor productivity...
...Moreover, most stores nearer to the center of the city still operate on akassa system requiring the consumer to stand in three lines: one to order the item, one to pay for it, and one to pick it up...
...The alternatives are not appealing...
...My periodic excursions to the dry cleaner's — located in the basement of our apartment building — held a particular terror for me...
...In the minds of Soviet leaders, the question is not of abandoning socialism, but of improving it...
...Naturally those who benefit most from the status quo are the most reluctant to support changes in it...
...A literal translation of glasnost would be awkward — something like "voicedness...
...Factory managers and ministers were asked pointed and sometimes embarrassing questions, and scholars debated the merits of government policies...
...In Za rubezom, a weekly compilation of foreign news, one could read articles by American conservatives, including Richard Pipes and Richard Perle, on the evils of communism in the Soviet Union...
...The results of this experiment are to be analyzed prior to the next election in 1990, and on the basis of this analysis a new election law is to be adopted for the nation as a whole...
...Those who are most satisfied are the intelligentsia for whom civil rights, democratization, and freer expression are important...
...In one meeting in Moscow, the "official candidate" to the Moscow city government, an incumbent, was renominated only after severe criticism and a divided vote...
...His new book, Soviet Grassroots (Princeton), will be published in February...
...For this reason, a good friend of mine, old enough to know the past, and a shrewd observer of the present, confided to me shortly after my arrival, "Jeff, these are dangerous times...
...He also called for prices to more nearly reflect costs, a policy which would cause the price of many basic items such as food and housing, now subsidized, to rise sharply...
...I was unwilling to do this, and as we proceeded, I asked him about how he got his license...
...With respect to government officials, this proposal received concrete expression in the legislation adopted on February 26, establishing a limited number of multiple candidacy districts for the election to village, city, and regional councils...
...Millions of Soviet viewers were able to watch British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher vigorously defend nuclear deterrence as the key to peace in Europe, French Premier Jacques Chirac condemn Soviet civil rights policies, and American talk-show host Phil Donahue inquire (albeit unsuccessfully) into the sexual practices of Soviet youth...
...It would be wrong to conclude that glasnost has resulted in the freedom of expression or "openness," if you will, as this term is understood in the West...
...The press is freer in Moscow today than in 1984, but it is not free...
...In my view, while these changes are important, real, and demonstrable, they are only a beginning...
...At the same time, there is a strong Slavophile component to the Pamiat movement...
...In the case of China, the kinds of reforms Gorbachev has proposed were begun ten years ago and the results are still being evalutated...
...When I asked if he thought he was going to make money, he said he would try it for a year and see...
...On the contrary, it is proposed as an effort to revitalize a system which had lost its dynamism and revolutionary promise...
...Arguably, the most dramatic of these is the anti-alcoholism campaign...
...Also a small number of cooperative restaurants in Moscow are run by groups of individuals who lease property from the state and retain whatever profit they make after costs and taxes...
...How successful the 588 government has been in this regard is difficult to measure, as is the extent to which the reduced availability of vodka is offset by increased production of the illegal home-made variety known as samagon...
...Whiletthis approach probably is still common in most cases, friends who attended such meetings report candidates being nominated from the floor, followed by a lengthy discussion of the various candidates' merits, and ending with a secret ballot...
...It is for this reason that Gorbachev's speech in the June 1987 plenum of the Central Committee is so important...
...Some people I talked to cautioned that those elected in this fashion might well be chosen not because they were capable managers, but because they would be more accommodating to their friends and less demanding in the workplace...
...Such simple tasks as sending books to the United States, arranging meetings with other scholars, traveling to other Soviet citites to give lectures, or purchasing our train tickets to Beijing absorbed formidable amounts of time, energy, planning, patience, and, above all, paper...
...Information about each item was written on a small piece of cloth which I then sewed into a designated area of my pants, shirt, or jacket...
...The receipt for each piece was then written out at length and in triplicate...
...One-hundred-forty political prisoners were freed in March and a similar number is to be let go as part of an amnesty in connection with the seventieth anniversary of the October Revolution...
...More significantly, the depth of support in the Soviet Union for the policies of reconstruction is uncertain...
...Now many Soviets subscribe to such mass dailies as the Vechernaia Moskva (Moscow Evening News) mdSovetskaiaRossiia (Soviet Russia) because they sell out so quickly...
...meaning is often implied and the use of language Aesopian and elliptical...
...One case with which I am familiar involved the election of the head of a large and prestigious academic organization...
...those without connections are out of lUck...
...The changes in economic life I have described are important, but they do not touch the basic structure of the centrally-planned economic system inherited from the Stalinist years...
...The 140 political prisoners freed represents only about 10 percent of those incarcerated for dissent, according to Amnesty International estimates...
...The price of vodka has doubled and production cut by a third...
...Much has been written about the changes taking place today in the Soviet Union...
...Experience of this kind in Poland in 1980 resulted in the riots which gave rise to the Polish trade union movement, Solidarity...
...The appearance of, say, laundry soap, yeast, or cheese on my wife's shopping list would fill me with dismay...
...Although no one is satisfied, they always vote in favor...
...of the twenty-seven or so members and candidate members of the Politburo and the Secretariat who make decisions for Soviet society, only nine remain from the last Brezhnev Party Congress in 1981, including the current General Secretary of the CPSU, Mikhail Gorbachev...
...This term is usually translated in the Western press as ' 'openness," but the translation is not altogether accurate...
...Only rarely would these be available in our grocery store, "which meant taking mass transportation to several other stores often located kilometers from where we lived...
...Only the most ardent ideologue can ignore the evidence of change or seek to dismiss it as a pretense whose sole purpose is to lull the West into mistaking the "evil empire" for something it is not...
...There seem to be fewer drunks on the streets and vodka consumption at dinner parties is subdued...
...Andrei Sakharov, returned from exile in Gorky, continues to speak out on,civil rights issues...
...Their choices were then unanimously ratified by a show of hands at an official nomination meeting for the work collective as a whole...
...Now, as I understand it, several wage categories will be combined...
...Important changes are also underway in the Soviet political process...
...Since then, there has been a nearly total change of political leadership at the top...
...There is the zakaz system far special orders of otherwise unavailable goods Which exists for trade union members in good standing in the workplace, and where the quality of selection varies with rank and position...
...About forty-five of these are supposed to be in operation by the end of the year...
...The only loser is the government...
...Now, while I may not agree with everything, all 300 pages are worth reading...
...Who you know remains essential in getting things done in Moscow...
...One that I recall was an explanation of the five contradictions of Soviet socialism: In the Soviet Union, there is no unemployment, because nobody works...
...More significantly, the process by which candidates are nominated has been opened up...
...Although there is nothing in the stores, everyone has everything...
...Yet, all of these things have come to pass...
...Other difficulties of daily life in Moscow, untouched by perestroika, are the quantities of paperwork required by a bureaucratic labyrinth that would tax the ingenuity of Theseus...
...The root of the word glasnost is glas which is derived from golos meaning "voice" or "vote...
...For these people, the issues of civil rights, competitive elections, and a freer press are less compelling than the quality of daily life, and it is precisely here that the changes have been least apparent...
...At least some of their members blame Soviet problems on "International Zionism" — often a code word for anti-Semitism — and on Western secret service agencies allegedly trying to undermine the Russian way of life by introducing decadent Western influences...
...The whole process rarely took less than forty-five minutes...
...What follows represents a rather personal inventory of what is happening today in the Soviet Union, or at least in Moscow...
...590 What has not changed since 1984 are the difficulties of everyday life, especially shopping...
...Still, the worst aspect of daily consumer life in Moscow is the rudeness of service personnel...
...For many basic items, there is little variety and inferior quality...
...But for most Soviet citizens, the mood seems to be one of uncertainty...
...Anna Akhmatova's anti-Stalinist poem Requiem is published and read in Moscow theaters...
...In it he proposed a fundamental overhaul of the ministerial system, including Gosplan, and the decentralization of economic decision making even if it means dislocation in the workplace, including temporary unemployment and bankruptcy...
...Until and unless Gorbachev introduces democratic procedures into the selection of party secretaries and in the relations between the party — which accounts for only about 10 percent of the adult population — and the rest of Soviet society, democratization will remain an unfulfilled promise...
...Still, the attempt by Gorbachev to reverse the prodigious drinking habits of a people accustomed to overindulgence through centuries of Russian history deserves comparison to the enforced removal of beards by another famous "Westemizer," Peter the Great...
...I prefer the term "public expression...
...Much Soviet scholarly writing still tends to be cautious and self-censoring...
...The absence of an organized dissident movement in the USSR reflects differences among the dissenters themselves, a fact often overlooked by the Western media which tend to overestimate the 587 homogeneity of dissidents' views...
...At the same time, it is important to understand that this new policy is not intended as a retreat from the long-term geal of achieving communism in the Soviet Union...
...If these stores were not closed for lunch, inventory, repairs, or sanitation, and in the unlikely event that the time I needed was available, there would almost certainly be a long line where I would wait anxiously hoping that the supply would not be exhausted when it was my turn...
...As a result, the Soviet media have become more interesting to read and to watch...
...If your refrigerator, television, or telephone is not working properly, you can request a repairman from a state-run service shop who will fix your appliance at a fixed rate, his own wage& amounting to, say, 20 percent of the price...
...The possibilities and problems of this approach became clear when I was picked up, quite accidentally, by one of the thirty or so private taxicabs operating in Moscow...
...Conversations with cabbies, cooks, and secretaries suggest an attitude ranging from lukewarm enthusiasm to indifference...
...The reforms won't even go into effect until 1988...
...The legitimacy of the CPSU to make decisions for Soviet society is never questioned, at least by Soviet writers, nor is Soviet foreign policy, especially where it concerns the military...
...Democratization in the Soviet Union is likely to be a slow and painful process, partly because people are unaccustomed to making real choices and partly because the democratic process is demanding and involves the risk of losing in open competition...
...Exit visas for "refuseniks" — those whose applications to leave were refused — are supposed to reach 10,000 this year, a ten-fold increase over 1986...
...On the one hand, their goals seem positive enough: the preservation of Russian historical monuments, protection of the environment, anti-alcoholism, and the strengthening of the family — goals consonant with perestroika...
...One of the most visible changes striking a foreign observer comparing Soviet life in 1984 and 1987 is the policy of glas-nost...
...GORBACHEV'S UNCERTAIN REFORMATION Jeffrey w. hahn WHAT HAS CHANGED & WHAT HAS NOT When I was in Moscow, I was accompanied by some Soviet friends to that venerable Russian institution, the steam bath...
...The effects of this policy can be seen in the university where I worked...
...Elections to managerial positions in the workplace have also begun to take place in recent months...
...Although everyone has everything, no one is satisfied...
...Although Gorbachev has spoken frequently about cost accounting, self-administration, and self-financing, and about the need to modernize the economy through the introduction of the new technologies, in fact, central planning remained largely intact, and prices bore, at best, a spurious relation to the costs of production...
...In short, if the balance of news in 1984 was tilted toward the achievements of Soviet socialism, the emphasis now is on the problems that need to be resolved...
...The goal of this limited privatization is to undermine the so-called "second economy," a longstanding alternative for many Moscow consumers to the inefficient services provided by the state-run sector...
...One final economic policy worthy of note is a reemphasis on wage differentials...
...And then there are the restrictions on information resources — including libraries, computers, and xerox machines — and on meeting foreigners, to mention only a few which affected my life...
...In an apparent reversal of the trend toward wage equalization characteristic of the Khrushchev and Brezhnev years, Gorbachev has chosen to emphasize that under socialism the principle of wage distribution is "from each according to ability, to each according to work...
...No alcohol is sold, even in restaurants, before 2 p.m...
...In fact, the Soviet Union in that fall of 1984 was going nowhere...
...In May, for example, the unofficial group Pamiat was given permission to hold a demonstration in Moscow...
...One woman, when asked her opinion of Gorbachev andperestroika, cited an old Russian proverb, "When the dog barks, the wind carries the sound away...
...Because nobody works, there is nothing in the stores...
...The esoteric art of reading between the lines is still essential...
...As one poet and literary critic put it to me over dinner, "You know, three years ago, if I found 30 pages ofNovyi Mir (a 300-page literary journal) interesting, I would think it a successful issue...
...The law on individual labor which went into effect in May gives individuals the right to engage lawfully in activities such as taxi driving, home repairs, and legal services on their own time and according to ternis arranged between buyer and seller...
Vol. 114 • October 1987 • No. 18
