Democratization in Russia under Gorbachev, 1985-91: The Birth of a Voluntary Sector by Anne s> White (review)

Abstract

776 SEER, 79, 4, 2001 White, Anne. Democratization inRussiaUnder Gorbachev, I985-9I.- TheBirthofa VoluntaySector. Macmillan, Basingstoke and London, and St Martin's Press,New York, 1999. iX+ 260 Pp. Notes. Bibliography.Index. ?42.50. THIs book standsout from the plethora of worksdiscussingthe high politicsof the Gorbachev era by getting under the skin of that time. Although it makes large claims about the evolution of Soviet society between I985-9I and how its relationshipwith the party-statechanged and to a degree it does make a valuable contribution to this literature the work's main strength is in its detailed analysis of how society came to understand itself in this period. It does this throughthe prismof an analysisof the emergence of an independent voluntary sector. The associations in this sector were mostly pressuregroups (that is, trying to modify the behaviour and policies of others),but there was also a 'charitable'component: groupsproviding servicesto a client group. In addition to these 'charities',White identifies'self-help'associations,where the target group are less 'clients' than agents trying to shape their own destinies by co-operative activitiesaswell as lobbying the relevantstateagencies. Pre-revolutionary Russia had enjoyed a rich tradition of charitable, philanthropic and mutual aid activity. Like all other aspects of civil society, these were closed down by the Bolsheviks, and indeed delegitimized to a degree as representing an anarchic and chaotic approach to social management . The state took social welfare under its own wing, and distributed functions between a special Ministryof Social Security (Minsobes),the trade unions and other dedicated ministries(above all health and education).White convincingly demonstrates(on the basisof case studiesof residentialcare and employment provision for disabledpeople) that this systemwas in deep crisis by I985: it was unable to deliver what it promised; it failed to recognize a multiplicity of old and many new needs; and it was not even able to speak about its own inadequacies and instead covered the problems with a wall to wall 'propagandaof success'.White insiststhat the crisishad both ideological causesand ideological consequences. White examines developments after I985 on the basisof a nuanced reading of the existing secondary literature on the emergence of independent movements in this period, a sensitive reading of letters written by disabled people from the I96os to the I980s, numerous interviews, and above all, a postal survey of voluntary organizations conducted in 1992-93. All this provides a rich texture to the discussion, with the voices of the participants allowed to speakfor themselves.The work illustrates,for example, the extent of informal activity that preceded Gorbachev's liberalization of the system. Although rarelytakingpolitical form, the sub-strataof social activism(mostly taking negative forms)demonstratesthe social roots ofperestroika. These roots then supportedthe efflorescenceof social activismin the years of demokratizats 'ya.White is careful to note, however, that a static model of a nascent civil society againstthe state is wholly inadequate; and she provides nuanced gradations of official responses to the new charitable and self-help organizations , ranging from the conflictual to the co-operative. In broad terms the Party'sgrasp over social activity had to be prised open finger by finger, but some state agencies and local officials and indeed Gorbachev himself REVIEWS 777 came to recognize the legitimacy and utility of the nascent third sector. This does not quite add up to a study of democratization under Gorbachev, as promised in the title, but it does provide theoretical and empirical depth to our understandingof the contradictionsand resistancesthat accompanied the emergence of civil society in the carapace of a decaying authoritarianregime. This is, then, a fruitfuland encyclopedic study conducted within a robust theoretical and analytical framework. It provides much source material to examine the way that the old regime dissolved from below as well as from above. Some of the new voluntary associations quite consciously saw themselves in the vanguard of reconstitutingcivil society, while otherssought to find a niche in a deconcentrated society. All elements in the new voluntary sector, however, added to the avalanche of social mobilization of this period, although the degree to which the emergence of the voluntarysector is typical of the broadermovement is not made clear. Social activism from below, perse, was only part of the story. As...