A New Soviet Politics?

Abstract

Until quite recently there was no difficulty in identifying a ’ soviet political system’. Its central feature was a Communist Party based explicitly upon Marxism-Leninism, and organised in a highly centralised manner. The party played a ‘leading role’ in the society, directing the work of the elected soviets, the courts, the trade unions and all other forms of organised life. It also directed the economy, which was based upon public ownership and state planning. Its decisions were unanimous — it was, after all, a party of ‘monolithic cohesion’ — and its leadership’s reports were greeted with ‘stormy, prolonged applause’, in some cases turning into an ‘ovation’. The party’s direction of the elected bodies of state was never challenged — indeed they too adopted their decisions unanimously and by open vote. The party’s leading role was sustained, moreover, by a definition of human rights which assumed that there could be no real conflicts of interest between working people, as all of them shared the same relationship to the means of production. Those who took a different view, including nationalists and a small but active group of dissidents, were accused of anti-Soviet behaviour and whenever necessary imprisoned.