Soviet Reforms Research Articles

The Aftermath of the 19th Conference of the CPSU: A Soviet Economy Roundtable

The aftermath of the 19th Conference of the Communist Party, held in Moscow from June 28 to July 1, 1988, is analyzed by eight Western observers. The discussion covers impacts of the Conference on Soviet society and abroad, General Secretary Gorbachev's speech at the Central Committee Plenum on July 29, 1988, and reviews results of his policies since 1985. It proceeds to look at the current transitional period of Soviet reforms, including the formation of new enterprise forms and horizontal links in the economy. Finally, the discussants view prospects for political and economic development in the future. journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: 052, 124, 113.

Outside Moscow (review)

BOOK REVIEWS 273 for his blindness to Stalin's dark side, fares slightly better in this account than elsewhere, partly because Hendersen makes great efforts to be fair. Unfortunately, Loy Hendersen died before he could take his memoirs far past the beginning of World War II. The reflections contained in A Question of Trust, however, cover the early years ofU.S.-Soviet relations more thoroughly than those of Kennan and Bohlen. Hendersen's memoirs, as theirs, should be required reading for anyone interested in the formation of the superpower relationship. Outside Moscow. By Donna Bahry. New York: Columbia University Press, 1987. 230 pp. $30.00/cloth. Reviewed by Andrew Kuchins, Ph.D. candidate, SAIS. Donna Bahry's work is a useful addition to the body of literature that disputes the totalitarian model of Soviet politics. She illuminates the nature of centerperiphery relations in Soviet domestic politics by analyzing the interrelationship of national, republic, and local powers in the allocation of state funding. Bahry admits that even with the post-Stalin evolution of Soviet center-periphery relations to the benefit of the periphery, the center still holds overwhelming sway over economic decisionmaking. But feedback from outside Moscow is too important for the Soviet Union to fit neatly into a directed-society model. Similar to the rise of the postwar welfare state in the West, the Soviet commitment to social welfare after the Stalin era gTew to assume a larger slice of the state budget. The sweeping centralization of government expenditures of the Stalinist economic revolution has broken down to some extent as the Soviet republics have stormed the barricades of state spending policies. The power of the republics over government spending peaked during Khrushchev's sovnarkhozy reform, but even today the Soviet republics hold the purse strings for about twice as much of the Soviet budget as they did at any time during the Stalin years. While subnational levels of government have more state funds to allocate than in the past, their responsibilities have grown perhaps a degree faster. Bahry draws a scenario that reminds one of a cat chasing its tail. Republics and local and regional governing bodies are never appropriated quite enough funds to complete the projects assigned, and they are left to their own devices to fill the gaps. Echoes of Gertrude Schroeder's seminal article on Soviet reform attempts are heard when Bahry calls this situation, "the treadmill of appeals." The fundamental question the author poses is, Does activism below the national level matter? And the answer is yes, politics do matter, but it is a brand of politics involving compromise and glacial adaptations that spawn new problems and new appeals. A shrewd regional leader can lobby for various causes and achieve results that over the long term can add up to substantial results for local needs. The emphasis is on persistence because changes in the regime's allocation policies are incremental and the result of bureaucratic compromise. U.S. executive and congressional budgetary deliberations seem an appropriate 274 SAIS REVIEW analogy. In fact, Bahry makes an effort to put the Soviet political economy in an international perspective. Despite a much higher degree of centralization than found in Western advanced industrial economies, Soviet planners and bureaucrats must deal with many of the same structural issues that are haggled over in such world capitals as Washington, Paris, and Tokyo. After analyzing allocations data and speeches of republic and local leaders, which she admits are not totally reliable, Bahry draws some interesting conclusions that counter conventional Sovietological wisdom (if such a beast exists). She finds little or no evidence to support the thesis that Politburo or Central Committee representation gives a republic or local leader more clout in the investment arena. Whether a leader has been in power for a short or long period does not seem to matter, either. Nor does the ethnic background of leaders help or hinder their causes in Moscow. (Evidence supporting the last conclusion exists only at the republic level because of the paucity of available biographical information.) Finally, subnational leaders tend to make the same appeals regardless of who is general secretary. Although Bahry notes that calls for reorganization have substantially increased under...

Efficiency wages and enterprise behaviour in China

The issue of a ‘floating wage’ is central to the discussions about the reform of the wage system in China. This wage reform should have resulted in a ‘structural wage system’ in 1985 but such an overall reform never took place. One of the consequences of the debate about floating wages was a radical and interesting redefinition of the limits to enterprise independence. The discussion about reform in China, as with a similar discussion in Hungary, seems to gravitate inevitably from the ‘collective contract system’, familiar from present‐day Soviet reform proposals, towards the previously taboo subject of ‘ownership relations’.

Soviet reform of education

Soviet reform of education

The Soviet Reform of Higher Education

In June 1986, the Soviet Union published a draft decree on the restructuring of higher education and released the final version in March 1987. This study first characterizes the main purposes of the reform: linking higher education more directly to the economy through work experiences for students and faculty; improving the quality and quantity of scientific research; tightening admissions requirements and improving student services; refitting universities with advanced technology and new laboratory facilities; revising procedures for ideological education; and changing the administrative structure of the postsecondary education system. Next, it examines the wellsprings of the current reform: population and demographic changes, shifts in technology and popular attitudes about education, and the need to improve economic output. Finally, it considers the discussion that the reform proposal itself generated. The long-term fate of the reform is linked to other changes now under way in Soviet society. If fully enacted, the reform could provide the USSR with a quite different and powerful system of higher education.

The U.S.S.R. in Decline

THE U.S.S.R. IN DECLINE T JL. he news from the Soviet Union is enthralling?nothing so interesting or exciting as Mikhail Gorbachev's reforms has happened in Russia in modern times. The world is rightly transfixed by the spectacle of Russians telling the truth about their past and their present, encouraging private enterprise, urging a diminished role for the Communist Party and gener ally committing mayhem against Marxism-Leninism. But there is a paradoxical aspect to perestroika that deserves more attention. The rhetoric of Soviet reform emphasizes renewal and progress, but the facts that made reform necessary describe failure?the failure of the Soviet system. For the foreseeable future, the fact of that failure is likely to be more important for the world than Gorbachev's efforts to overcome it. That is because the failure is a fact, while the reforms?at least the practical ones affecting the economic life of the country?remain just a hope. It is likely to remain a forlorn hope for years to come. The failure of the Soviet system?Joseph Stalin's system, which organized Soviet life for more than half a century?is a larger event than many have yet acknowledged. It signals more than the collapse of Stalin's dream of a centrally planned economic powerhouse that might someday dominate the world. We are also witnessing the beginning of the end of the Soviet empire. The fear of Soviet conquest and hegemony that dom inated world politics for more than a generation should now dissipate. We have passed the high-water mark of Soviet power and influence in the world.

Glasnost, perestroika and Eastern Europe

The dramatic economic and political reforms taking place in the Soviet Union under the leadership of Mikhail Gorbachev are intimately connected with changes in Eastern Europe. Some of the Soviet reforms have been inspired by reforms in Eastern Europe; some are being pressed on the East Europeans, often in the face of reluctance or even outright hostility from East European leaders. However that may be, if Soviet-style refogrms are implemented in some of the East European states, there could be fundamental changes in the ways those societies are organized and run. Mr Gorbachev calls his reform programme for the Soviet Union 'restructuring' or perestroika. The economic side of perestroika includes a reduction in the role of central planning, the decentralization of decision-making, an expanded role for market mechanisms, and increased opportunities for private initiative in services and production. The political side includes greater openness and publicity in the media (glasnost), greater 'pluralism' of opinions in the political arena, competitive and secret elections for state (and perhaps even Party) bodies, and an enhanced political role for workers in state enterprises through 'self-management' and employee selection of managers and directors. Many of these ideas have already been advocated by reformers and dissidents in Eastern Europe. But past efforts to apply them have sometimes led to severe repression, as in Poland in 1981, or Soviet intervention, as in Czechoslovakia in 1968. The chances of such reforms succeeding now, with a Soviet leadership in place that is supportive rather than sceptical and fearful, are of course much greater.1 But even if substantial reforms in Eastern Europe do not take place, the 'new thinking' in the Soviet Union still promises dramatic and perhaps even revolutionary change in the nature of Soviet-East European relations. Gorbachev and his Politburo colleagues have called on the East European leaders to abandon old ways. They have begun to redefine the relationship between Moscow and the capitals of Eastern Europe. 'Socialist internationalism', the standard formula that was used to justify the Soviet interventions in Czechoslovakia and Afghanistan and which formed the core of the Brezhnev Doctrine of limited sovereignty, now seems to be being down-played. If the Soviet leaders mean what they say, and if the East Europeans take them at their word, Eastern Europe will move even further along the road of polycentrism as a result of the Soviet reform initiative. Furthermore, change and reform in Eastern Europe are likely to feed back into the Soviet Union, further accelerating the reform process there.

What Kind of Soviet Reform?

What Kind of Soviet Reform?

Science is key area in Soviet reforms

Science is key area in Soviet reforms

Soviet reforms stop careers in mid-stream

Soviet reforms stop careers in mid-stream

Soviet and Chinese Economic Reform

Soviet and Chinese Economic Reform

A comparison between the recent Chinese and Soviet reforms

A comparison between the recent Chinese and Soviet reforms

Soviet Politics, Political Science and Reform. By Ronald J. Hill. White Plains, N.Y.: M. E. Sharpe, Inc., 1980. xii, 221 pp. $27.50.

Soviet Politics, Political Science and Reform. By Ronald J. Hill. White Plains, N.Y.: M. E. Sharpe, Inc., 1980. xii, 221 pp. $27.50.

Ronald J. Hill. Soviet Politics, Political Science and Reform. White Plains, N.Y.: M. E. Sharpe, Inc., 1980. x, 221 pp. $27.50.

Ronald J. Hill. Soviet Politics, Political Science and Reform. White Plains, N.Y.: M. E. Sharpe, Inc., 1980. x, 221 pp. $27.50.

Soviet Politics, Political Science and Reform. By Ronald J. Hill. (White Plains, N.Y.: M.E. Sharpe, 1980. Pp. x + 221. $27.50.)

Soviet Politics, Political Science and Reform. By Ronald J. Hill. (White Plains, N.Y.: M.E. Sharpe, 1980. Pp. x + 221. $27.50.)

Ronald J. Hill. Soviet Politics, Political Science and Reform. Pp. xii, 221. White Plains, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 1980. $27.50

Ronald J. Hill. Soviet Politics, Political Science and Reform. Pp. xii, 221. White Plains, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 1980. $27.50

On Soviet Managerial Incentive Structures

For the past decade, the painfully slow groping of a command economy in search of more effective planning procedures would aptly describe economic reform in the USSR. The industrial reform of 1966, following on the famous Liberman debate, introduced a price for capital and trumpeted the arrival of profits as an important managerial motivator. Although the number of centrally determined constraints on managerial decisions was reduced, quantity targets are still used to implement planners' objectives within the materials supply network, hereafter MSN. During the implementation of the reform, some retrenchment occurred as previously discarded targets were reapplied. In 1973, a second reform was begun with a less heralded organizational change in which production units are to be integrated into larger decision-making units called associations. The purpose of this note is to understand the logic of these reforms by analyzing the effect of various combinations of incentive structures and quantity targets on the production decisions of the socialist manager. Recently in this journal, W. Leeman [3, 434] has argued that value considerations, implicit in managerial reward schemes, should be examined. Following this suggestion, we calculate optimal expansion paths for Soviet reform managers and find the implicit own factor price ratio to contain the

Soviet Economic Performance and Reform: Some Problems of Analysis and Prognosis (A Round-Table Discussion)

Henry Roberts: In extending my invitation to this informal discussion, I remarked that for the layman at least, and possibly for the economist, there are a number of interesting questions to be explored with respect both to the performance of the Soviet economy and to our shifting appraisals of it. In pursuance of this I suggest that we discuss today three or four related, though not identical, themes concerning the Soviet economy: its performance, the possibility and practicability of reforms, and also the question of our own appraisals of this economy-the means available to us, changes in our views over the last decade, and the prospects for useful prognostication.