The Communist Collapse
Howe, Irving
The remarkable events in the Soviet Union since the failed coup of August 18 - remarkable both for the depth and rapidity of change-make it almost reckless to venture a serious comment as we...
...nothi ng about sav ing commu nism or endi ng it ei ther . They appealed for "o rder ." that is...
...True, Gorbachev hesitated regarding economic policies, but here one ought to be careful and avoid the glibness (when it isn't just reactionary bile) of those commentators who keep talking about "economic reform" and the "free market...
...And for their own pan . they were a feckless group...
...That changes are needed we all recognize, but I can understand Gorbachev's uncertainty about the various "reform plans" of the untested economists in Moscow...
...Whole generations were destroyed, vast resources of human energy turned to dust...
...Ideologues of the right, joyous in refusing discriminations, use the collapse of the communist dictatorship in order to discredit anything that relates to democratic socialism...
...Behind this shift was not only Yeltsin's admirable role during the days of the coup but the growth of nationalist sentiment...
...This winter could be crucial...
...If Gorbachev deserves very strong criticism, let it also be remembered that the possibility of open, public speech in the Soviet Union is largely the result of a democratization initiated by him and his colleagues...
...Yeltsin does not inspire much democratic confidence, and it is a good sign that he had to back down from some of his decrees because of criticism from supporters...
...But let us stop for a moment—we shall return to the topic of nationalism—and consider the two main historical actors...
...Why were they unable to put up a show of resistance...
...q FALL • 1991 • 605...
...In the West Yeltsin has been picked up by right-wing commentators who prefer him to 604 • DISSENT The Communist Collapse Gorbachev...
...only later did his unattractive side become glaring...
...For decades the absolute ruler of the nation, it could offer no resistance— hardly a peep!—once Yeltsin "suspended" the party and Gorbachev resigned as its general secretary...
...Aid is not only a humanitarian obligation but also the precondition for establishing the kind of Europe in which there could be major reductions in armaments...
...Probably, the wrenching process of economic transformation will not, in the immediate future, produce a Soviet economy— assuming one survives!—that can be given a clear label...
...The leaders of the coup failed to recognize that the army was no longer a monolithic whole entir ety at their dis posal for whatever brutalities they might require...
...Bureaucrats find a way...
...It's far more likely that the Soviet apparatchiks are, like their colleagues in Poland and Hungary, preparing to make a comfortable transition from yesterday's nomenklatura to tomorrow's capitalist enterprise...
...evidently well supplied with vodka and lacking the old Stal inist readiness to kill in the " necessary" quantities...
...fear...
...Probably, there will be no single economic policy...
...There is a danger that the democratic left, long among the most principled critics of communist dictatorship, will also suffer some of the consequences...
...Our century is approaching its end, and so too what has been probably its most significant, surely its most tragic political experience...
...hoping to placate the party...
...It would also be appropriate if the United States, in recognizing insurgent republics, were to speak out in defense of the rights of minorities—a matter on which the record of the once independent Baltic states is by no means spotless...
...The masters cou ld crac k the whip, but the serfs did not kneel...
...the coup leaders had not one political or ideolog ical word to say...
...Who knows the extent and pace at which they should be introduced...
...And we know you will bear in mind the date at the top of this paragraph...
...No, this was a coup of thick-headed apparatchiks trying to shore up their power and privilege...
...the preservation of their power and privilege...
...Why did they miscalculate so badly ? Because they failed 10 see that this was no longer the Russia in which a Khrushchev could be removed by palace maneu vers . This was a Russia in which there were elected offic ials in Moscow and Leningrad . chosen by the peop le, and in which public opinion could now play a critical role...
...Being a political man, he also had to estimate the suffering and upheaval such reforms might entail...
...Nationalism, authentic in its claims but easily debased into repressive modes, is now very strong, and even if some sort of union is organized, it will be less powerful by far than anything we have seen in the era of communism...
...This vast, swollen bureaucracy employing some 150,000 people, with its enormous wealth, its buildings and enterprises, its stranglehold over the country's socioeconomic life, its interpenetration of all state agencies— this authoritarian monster was, it appears, already dead, certainly brain dead, even before it was shut down...
...While the top of the communist bureaucracy has been rendered helpless, there remain major segments of the nomenklatura, the vast politicaleconomic bureaucracy that dominates industrial enterprises and governmental agencies...
...Already, made nervous by Yeltsin's bluster, some of the republics have begun to show signs that, despite formal declarations of independence, they may seek mutual protection in a loose union...
...especially through the massing of c itizens in the streets . Obedience was no longer automat ic...
...state . KGB...
...The communist experience has represented an incalculable waste...
...a coup by the spiritual sons of Brezhnev...
...as Caspar Weinberger mindlessly said on televis ion...
...he remarkable events in the Sovie t Union since the failed coup of August IS - remarkable both for the depth and rapidity of change-make it almost reckless 10 venture a serious comment as we prepare this issue of Dissent for the press . But if the risks are great...
...For who really knows which economic changes are needed...
...He was ev idently uwure of the depth of their oppos ition to him...
...During the three days of the coup Yeltsin behaved with courage and intelligence...
...When Boris Yeltsin pointed out that the leader s of the coup had all been members of Gorbachev' s regime . the charge was dam ning...
...though at terr ible cost in life...
...No sooner had the coup failed than a large measure of power shifted from Gorbachev to Yeltsin, from "the center" to the Russian Republic...
...It will be a long time before the sclerotic structure of the nomenklatura can be removed, but that removal is essential no matter in which economic direction the Soviet Union moves...
...so is the temp tation...
...There are likely to be mixed and confusing economic forms and relationships...
...At first sin ister...
...A comic aside: Gus Hall, head of the American Communist party, after recommending North Korea as a vacation resort, declared that the Soviet communists were probably organizing "underground clubs" —they used to be called cells—in order to return to power...
...The)' had partly been "contaminated" by the political atmosphere they detested . Afte r the coup Mikhail Gorbachevs standing and authority decl ined -and for good reason...
...Still, it's true that Gorbachev did not show the sure hand with regard to perestroika that he had shown with regard to glasnost...
...No matter...
...but he lacked the ability or desire 10 confront them outright...
...and ever yone who cares about democracy rejoiced...
...In parts of Europe the very word "socialism," identified as it, alas, is with the party's rule, meets with disdain...
...a Stalinist coup: had it been thai . it might have succeeded...
...One thing is clear: the West must provide help, far more abundant than George Bush has thus far proposed...
...If there are serious food shortages, the danger could follow in some of the republics of a shift to authoritarian regimes...
...All that was necessary was to give it a final push...
...In their public appeal...
...then farcical, the coup collapsed...
...So Yeltsin and others were right in saying that Gorbachev was guilty of installing in office the very peop le who set out to (Continued on paR':' 6(4 ) -Q-l z o•-< o, -z -< oo ~ The Communist Collapse The Communist Collapse, from back cover destroy him...
...This was not...
...Neither is exactly a Jefferson, but in Yeltsin one senses the potential of an authoritarian demagogue, which is what he appeared to be shortly after the coup, issuing his "decrees" to ban newspapers and the Communist party...
...Yes, Gorbachev made grave mistakes, but I have the impression that he has gradually developed more of a democratic personality than has Yeltsin...
...You will surely be watching the events of the next few months with the same absorption that we shall, and you may also check out the ways in which these hasty notes become outdated or seem mistaken...
...and military apparatchi ks by ceding power to them...
...Where did they all go, those leaden bureaucrats...
...The present circumstances do not seem very favorable for the kind of society Gorbachev has said he wants...
...In some of the republics, communist bosses have shrewdly placed themselves at the head of nationalist administrations—if you can't beat them, join them...
...Perhaps with good reason, from their point of view...
...How significant these differences between the two leaders will be, it is hard to say...
...Yet communism was also able to elicit the idealism and self-sacrifice of millions of people who honestly thought it would create a better world...
...It was the regime of Gorbachev that introduced glasnost, that broke the communist monopoly of power, that acquiesced in the liberation of Eastern Europe, that helped end the cold war, that accepted the legitimacy of multiparty politics...
...It's not as if Yeltsin has been especially lucid about economic policy, either...
...he has expressed admiration for "Swedish socialism...
...things will vary from republic to republic...
...In that way, too, we are paying the price for Stalinism, one of the two great blights of the century...
...Enough for now...
...Communism evolved all too quickly into Stalinist dictatorship, a totalitarian regime of blood, terror, and ideology...
...Gorbachev has continued to speak about shifting Soviet society toward a "socialism, democratic and humane...
...we shall come back to these topics in future issues, again and again...
...Historians will be asking such questions, but we may speculate that during the last few decades the party had already lost its confidence, its authority, and its ideological rationale...
...no longer paralyz ing...
...And accurate , 100 . For too long Gorbachev had equ ivocated...
...The most remarkable of the events following the aborted coup was the rapidity and ease with which the communist apparatus was toppled...
...Long held down by the communist dictatorship, the national aspirations of the various Soviet peoples now came into bloom...
...trying to bala nce reformers against hard- liners...
...How could it happen that power slipped out of their hands so quickly...
...Yeltsin has not deigned to speak about such matters, though some of his advisers seem to favor the kind of "shock therapy" in behalf of a capitalist economy that has been applied, with poor results, in Poland...
Vol. 38 • September 1991 • No. 4
