PART THREE

The New Thinking: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow

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Part One

THE OCTOBER REVOLUTION: ITS SENSE AND SIGNIFICANCE

More than eighty years have passed since the event which in our country, until recently, was generally called the Great October Socialist Revolution. Today debates about its character, content, and consequences are intensifying and often sound just as irreconcilable as the positions taken by the participants in the revolution who found themselves in opposing camps.

But then, what is surprising about that.^ More than two hundred years have passed since the great French revolution of the eighteenth century, but to this day that revolution inspires sharply conflicting judgments and opinions. This is all the more true of the October revolution—not only because it is closer to us in time but because, just as the French revolution shaped the entire course of the nineteenth century, the Russian revolution, whatever one might say about it, largely determined the course of the twentieth century. And this century has proven to he a turning point for all humanity,

A contemporary of the revolution, the celebrated American journalist and writer John Reed, called his eyewitness account of the revolution Ten Days That Shook the World. A contemporary of ours, the Englishman Eric Hobsbawm, a historian and sociologist whose name is no less well known than John Reed’s, considers the October revolution to have been a “global constant in the [twentieth] century’s

Both these men were right.

Today we know much more about the October revolution than

»

did its participants, and more than^the heirs of the revolution in our country were allowed to know. Glasnost and perestroika have given us the opportunity to learn many fundamental facts about the revolution which had been classified or falsified—and about the decades after it. The disclosure of the truth that was begun^under glasnost— even though it caused shock and aroused protest on the part of many people, and for many different reasons—became a stimulus toward reviving the moral health of our society.

Today, incidentally, a system of secrecy is being revived—not in relation to October but toward many subsequent events, including quite recent ones. Lies and half-truths have again become an essential part of politics. As in the past, this is a symptom of the unhealthy moral character of the regime.

The policy of glasnost in the perestroika era and its continuing, unstoppable momentum allow us to look at ourselves with open eyes, providing us with new knowledge about the many-sided nature of October and its consequences, and enabling us to reflect on various aspects of post-October developments in their true dimensions and significance.

How, then, does the October revolution present itself to our view today, more than eighty years later.^

CHAPTER I

A Blunder of Historij, Accident, or Necessity?

This chapter’s title states three of the various explanations for the October 1917 revolution and its place in history. Discussion and disagreement over these different versions continue, with virtually endless variations on these themes. Everything or anything can be found here—from the assertion that October was merely a successful putsch by a handful of revolutionaries headed by Lenin to the claim that it was the result of a secret plan by the German General Staff.

Today, after eight decades, with the enormous amount of material available to researchers, one thing may be stated absolutely and definitively: In the specific situation that arose in Russia and around it, the October revolution was historically inevitable.

Russia was pregnant with revolution from the beginning of the twentieth century. This does not mean that the revolution necessarily had to take such a destructive, and veritably apocalyptic form.

We need to go back a little at this point and ask what Russia was like before World War I. There is a commonly encountered opinion—it was virtually the official line in the Soviet era—that, back then, Russia was a slumbering, backward, savage or semisavage country, one that was vast and powerful but at the same time impoverished and miserable. That is not true—or to put it more precisely, that is not the full truth.

The phenomenal growth of Russian industry during the decade and a half before World War I, especially after 1906, would today be called an “economic miracle.” The gross national product increased by 220 percent. The most advanced types of production were introduced as industry was rapidly modernized. Russia outpaced the West in the degree of concentration found in the primary sectors of its economy. Fixed capital was expanding three times faster than the rate of such expansion in America. The

THE OCTOBER REVOLUTION

growth of savings bank deposits was indicative. In 1914 they had reached 1,704 million gold rubles. The internal market was expanding swiftly, not only in the production of producers’ goods but in items of ma§s consumption, such as sugar, butter, kerosene, footwear, and clothing.

The cooperative movement in the countryside was the second largest in the world, second only to the movement in Great Britain where this form of organization had originated. Siberia was being colonized at a furious pace. Its population doubled during the nine-year period between the Russo-Japanese War and World War I. Agricultural production increased more than threefold, and agricultural exports rose tenfold. Siberia had entered a genuinely “American” period of economic and cultural development.

In the eight years before World War I there was an increase of 12,000 versts of railroad track, bringing the total to 64,500 versts of track for the country as a whole. The profitability of the railroads tripled in a period of three years, reaching a level of 449 million gold rubles in 1912.

Preparations for the introduction of a system of compulsory public education had begun. Before war broke out in 1914 there were 122,000 primary public schools in Russia with eight million pupils. Each summer, school teachers had the opportunity to travel to Italy, France, Germany, and other European countries to gain wider experience and learn about setting up a system of secondary education for Russia.

In the prewar years, especially under the impact of the 1905 revolution, Russian society acquired the features of a distinctly organized system. Political parties and elections to the Duma raised the level of political consciousness. The court system, which began to operate more and more independently, attained a level of authority that was unusual for Russia. There were significantly expanded opportunities to exercise freedom of speech, to criticize the authorities, and to criticize government policies, not only in the Duma. Newspapers were sprouting like mushrooms after rain.

There was still, of course, a great deal of lawlessness and arbitrary rule. But from the point of view of social activism and the involvement of large numbers of people in public activity, Russia was no longer what it had been.

As for culture, this was the time of the celebrated “Silver Age” in Russia, when our country played a vanguard role in world art and literature, creating new schools and trends that lasted for decades.

All the testimony of people at that time tells us that no one was thinking about having a war. No one wanted it, up to and including a significant portion of the higher imperial aristocracy. Until the last moment no one knew

A BLUNDER OF HISTORY?

that the rulers in St. Petersburg had become entangled in a web of military intrigue. The tsar himself, tor a period of several days, a long time under the circumstances, hesitated on whether to respond with a military mobilization to the ultimatum issued by the tsar’s relative and “friend” Kaiser Wilhelm II.

This look backward at Russia before World War I is not out of place, I think, as a confirmation of the thesis that objectively it was not necessary for Russia to become involved in World War I. It could have remained on the sidelines, as the United States did. It was only as the curtain was falling, in ^ 1917, that the United States entered the war.

Nevertheless, we should not allow anything said here to lead us astray in our image of Russia at the turn of the century. At the time of the revolution it was by no means a country of “prosperous capitalism.” It was true that Russian capitalism, which began its journey belatedly in comparison with the West, was moving ahead at an intense pace. But society as a whole remained semifeudal, with an archaic sociopolitical system that gave rise to very sharp class antagonisms. From the beginning of the twentieth century Russia found itself in a condition of profound crisis. The need for change was felt tangibly in all strata of society. Attempts at reform were undertaken in the last years of the nineteenth century and the early twentieth century, but they went nowhere because they did not dare infringe on the power of the autocracy, the rule of the. tsar. History teaches us, however, that when the times are ripe for change and the government refuses or is unable to change, either society starts to decay or a revolution begins.

Something further should be added on this point. A crisis-filled or critically explosive potential had built up almost everywhere in the world by the beginning of the twentieth century. The tension in social relations was reflected in a rising wave of strikes by workers, protest actions by farmers, and the increased influence of socialist parties in many countries. The first anticolonial revolutions in the outlying areas of the world capitalist system had already taken place. In relations between the most powerful countries the time had grown ripe for a redivision of spheres of influence around the world. Germany had made a great leap forward in economic development, and its military potential was being promoted openly, including in the realm of naval power. An increasingly aggressive German foreign policy resulted in tough and knotty international crises, one after the other.

World War 1 laid bare the crisis of international relations in all its intensity. The contradictions that had built up erupted in a tremendous explosion, and during the war these contradictions continued to develop new modifi-

THE OCTOBER REVOLUTION

cations, which varied with the changing fortunes of war. For Russia, the war into which the tsarist government plunged our country, flying in the face of its real national interests, when it could have stayed on the sidelines, soon provoked an internal explosion that spread through the entire nation.

The beginning of 1917 saw the spontaneous outpouring known as the February revolution. For a long time in our country it was customary not to acknowledge the full significance of this revolution, to dismiss it merely as a prologue to the October revolution. In fact it was a major event in and of itself. The “great empire of the tsars” was overripe for change on a colossal scale, and the February revolution made the breakthrough toward the changes that were needed. At the time that this revolution succeeded, the further course of events was by no means fatally predetermined.

February was a revolution of the masses in the full sense of the word. The people of Russia, its citizens, who were yearning for freedom, peace, and bread, made this revolution. Hunger protests by the women of Petrograd were the spark that ignited the flame. As John Reed wrote, “it was the masses of the people, workers, soldiers, and peasants, which forced every change in the course of the Revolution.” The political groups were caught off guard. Today the unfalsified documents of the Russian political parties of that time are being published—ranging from the left to the extreme right—and it is evident how unprepared the politicians were for the actions of the masses. On the very eve of February 1917, Lenin, who was then in Zurich, said that the present generation was not fated to see the revolution. Confusion and dismay are the most appropriate words with which to characterize the attitudes prevailing in the headquarters of the various political parties at that time. February was a proclamation of freedom. The three-hundred-year-old monarchy collapsed. A republic came into being, and the possibility of democratic change emerged. For a short time Russia became the freest of all the countries in the war.

But the February revolution quickly played itself out. Those who came to replace the tsar proved to be helpless, cowardly, and self-seeking; they were unable to rise to the historical needs of the time. Consequently the war continued, although it was universally hated. Neither peace nor relief from hunger and economic dislocation was granted to the people. Even democratic liberties began to erode. Antigovernment demonstrations were dispersed by force of arms. Troublesome newspapers were simply closed down. Political opponents of the government were persecuted and arrested. It was at that time, not only after the October revolution, that there appeared food-requisitioning units, which took grain from the peasants.

A BLUNDER OF HISTORY?

Russian democracy—which had great diversity but was fragmented and divided—was unable to take realistic action toward resolving all the problems that had come to a head. It was unable to bring the country out of crisis and back to normalcy.

The Provisional Government proved incapable of implementing fundamental change. Expectations were left hanging. Under these conditions October was inevitable. Of course the February revolution and its subsequent development deserve continued study. But taking into account every-thing we know today, certain conclusions seem evident.

One of the main conclusions is this: The October revolution undeniably reflected the most urgent demands of the broadest strata of the population for fundamental social change. The central slogans of the revolution, which arose from below and were not manufactured by anyone, were for freedom, for peace to all, for the factories to go to the workers, for the land to go to the peasants, for bread to go to the hungry. These slogans concisely stated the basic demands of the people.

A question arises: Was there, could there have been, an alternative to October.^ Could events have developed differently.^

A democratic alternative, in the form of a positive development of the February revolution, as we have said, was buried as the result of the weakness of the post-February regime. It was not possible to go back to the first days of the February revolution, and the tsarist regime had completely discredited itself. Only one alternative remained—as many even in monarchist circles admitted—and that was a new, more radical revolution.

Nevertheless, another variant potentially existed—that of an extreme, right-wing, reactionary military dictatorship. I will cite the authoritative testimony of General Denikin, who was, of course, a leader of the Whites. Referring to the attempt by General Kornilov to carry out a coup d’etat in August 1917, Denikin wrote: “By his own firm and sincere conviction and under the influence of public opinion, Kornilov saw in a dictatorship the only way out of the situation created by the spiritual and political prostration of the [Provisional] government.” Denikin stated further: “Kornilov, and especially those in his immediate entourage, were inclined toward a one-man dictatorship.” It must be said that this kind of “solution” to the problem was regarded as virtually the optimal solution by many on the right and even by some liberal bourgeois politicians. The Bolsheviks presented their variant in opposition to these plans for a coup and in opposition to the helplessness of the Provisional Government. And they were victorious.

THE OCTOBER REVOLUTION

This, of course, created a tremendous rift in Russian society, one fraught with civil war. Could that kind of war have been avoided.^ Let us turn to the authority of Vladimir Lenin. Here is what he wrote on this question: “If there is one absolutely indisputable lesson of the revolution, one absolutely demonstrated by the facts, it is that only and exclusively an alliance of the Bolsheviks with the Socialist Revolutionaries and Mensheviks and exclusively an immediate transfer ot all power to the soviets could have made a civil war in Russia impossible” (Lenin, Collected Works [Russian ed.] 34:222). No such alliance, however, was formed. One may scrupulously follow the course of events day by day and hour by hour to determine who bore the responsibility for this failure. The general conclusion will be that all those to whom Lenin referred were responsible—that is, the Bolsheviks, the Mensheviks, and the Socialist Revolutionaries.

A certain parallel suggests itself here, or if not a parallel, at least a consideration. The February revolution did not produce the expected and possible results, because Russian democracy was weak and fragmented. Rivalry and ideological prejudice proved to be stronger than the need for unification of all democratic forces on a national basis to win peace and land and to combat hunger and economic ruin. After October the civil war broke out for the same reason. In the years since October—in other countries and in other situations—has it not been true that the inability to come to agreement has prevented leftist and democratic parties, including Communists, from uniting to forestall a negative course of events—as, for example, in Germany before Hitler’s rise to power.^

I will go further. During the years of perestroika the fragmentation of the democrats, the back-biting among them, the attempts by each group to show that it was “more democratic” than the others, ultimately became one of the reasons for the undermining of democratic change and then the interruption of perestroika as a result of the August 1991 coup attempt. The same has happened in Russia since 1991- Our country has not accepted Yeltsin’s reforms nor does it wish to return to the past, but a democratic alternative has not been created among the divided and fragmented democratic forces, and a destructive rivalry among leaders of tiny parties disrupts the democratic part of the spectrum in Russia.

This is a lesson for everyone who is seriously concerned about the future prospects of their own country and of the world community. Even today the wearing of ideological blinders, adherence to abstract schemes, and egoistic concern exclusively with gaining advantage for one’s own party in many

A BLUNDER OF HISTORY?

cases prevent a genuinely democratic choice. Yet history, with rare exceptions, contains many possible variants and is by no means lacking in alternatives.

There is, of course, another aspect ot the truth regarding the civil war in Russia. It would unquestionably have been less savage, and would not have lasted so long, if not for foreign^military intervention. In seeking to prevent the spread of the Bolshevik infection” (and that was standard terminology among leaders of the Entente), the West did not hesitate to send interven-^ tionist forces from fourteen different countries. This was in response to the Bolshevik calls for, and practical actions promoting, the bonfire of world revolution. That is all true, but it had far-reaching consequences.

The goal that was openly proclaimed in the West at that time was to strangle the infant Soviet republic, and this goal persisted even after the civil war. In later times this allowed Stalin and the government subordinated to him to portray any opponent of his regime, any political opposition, even those who simply disagreed with him within the ranks of the Communist Party, as “for-eign agents and to whip up the “patriotic wrath of the masses” against them. Actually it can be said that the West lowered an iron curtain against Russia long before Churchill’s speech in Fulton, Missouri. Indirectly this provided powerful nourishment for the Stalinist dictatorship and helped to preserve it, enabling it to justify not only errors but crimes as well.

The civil war, without question, was a colossal tragedy for our country and our people. The human losses were enormous. More than two million citizens emigrated, creating a “second Russia” outside our country. The question remains: Was the civil war inevitable.^

The harsh and embittered feelings of that time are understandable of course. Maxim Gorky, in his Thoughts Out of Season, wrote that “war brought out naked, bestial instincts.” A huge number of people lost everything they had. Hundreds of thousands were left without a shred. From then on they had nothing to lose. Others took up war as a profession. And all this—on both sides—was reinforced and illuminated by ideology, with colorful and dramatic slogans used to stir up frenzied passions. Also, there were vast quantities of weapons, and it became an everyday affair to put them to use for almost any reason. Physical losses were not the only result. The moral damage was tremendous. Our people suffered a psychological degradation that left a very deep imprint on the whole subsequent history of our country.

The Reds, who were defending the cause of the revolution, were fighting for Russia and for its future. But the Whites, who preached a different

THE OCTOBER REVOLUTION

set of ideals, were also fighting for Russia, for what they considered its salvation. In this case patriotism did not unite but separated the two sides. In fact, however, ideological fanaticism suppressed true patriotism. Qur country reached the brink of destruction as a result of this double-headed “patriotism.” And our population found itself fragmented and divided for decades afterward.

I am not in any way questioning the feelings or motivations of Red Army fighters—they were sincere. The “Soldiers of October believed in the rightness of their cause. Their exploits deserve to be honored and memorialized. But the soldiers on the other side, the Whites, also believed in their cause.

During the Great Patriotic War [the Nazi-Soviet phase of World War II, from 1941 to 1945], many White emigres sided with the Soviet Union against Nazi Germany. Thousands of them perished. They did not (in most cases) give up their faith in Russia, although they had lost their country, nor did they give up their views. Their feelings for their native land took precedence.

Is this not a lesson for the present time and for the future—in Russia but not only in Russia.^ Ideological and political intolerance, even with the best and most sincere intentions, produces results that are the direct opposite of those intended.

The outcome of the civil war was, of course, the victory of the Bolsheviks. Why.^ Let us listen to someone who was by no means “Red”— Leonard Shapiro. In his book The Russian Revolutions of igij^ he wrote:

. the people as a whole, in spite of the unpopularity of the Communists, preferred the Soviet regime to the available alternatives. The peasants disliked both sides and wanted above all to be left alone; but when it came to the choice, they preferred the Communists who gave them land to the Whites who took, or threatened to take, it away.

Despite an element of oversimplification, this explanation goes to the heart of the matter.

The slogans of the October revolution, especially those that were put into practice in the early period of the revolution, were decisive in bringing victory to the Bolsheviks. The historical necessity embodied in these slogans is confirmed by this fact; that is, there was a necessity for a profound transformation of the country along the lines indicated by the slogans call-

A BLUNDER OF HISTORY?

ing for bread, peace, land, and so forth. This has enormous significance in and of itself, not only for Russia. Nevertheless, in reflecting on the revolution, its course of development, and its gains in comparison with its losses— and in comparison with the experience of other revolutions—one is drawn to the conclusion that the general question of the role of revolutions in history needs further, serious study.

Marx s formula that revolutions are the locomotives of history was very much in vogue for a long time and remains so even today. Nevertheless this ^ formula is worth rethinking. Have revolutions really been the locomotives of forward or upward movement by society.^ Or have they been extreme solutions to situations in which the ruling powers were incapable of solving problems that had come to a head while the masses were no longer able to endure the existing situation.^

Revolutions have undeniably been the sources of great change in the life of society. But they have also been very costly. Revolutions have been referred to as festivals of the oppressed and exploited masses. But haven’t these same masses suffered great losses as a result of revolutions.^ Moreover, revolutions have often been followed by retrogressive movements. The term Thermidor has entered the vocabulary of political science as a kind of symbol for such retrogressive movements, which have sometimes been quite painful and unhealthy.

At the very height of perestroika I, as general secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, stated publicly from the highest public platform in the Soviet Union: renounce revolu-

tion as a means of solving problems,” although our country was ripe for change to such a profound extent that it was truly in need of a revolution. My concern was that a new revolution might cause destructive upheavals as in the past—or worse, since this is the atomic age.

In my view, the optimum form of social development, corresponding to the interests of all citizens, is evolutionary reform. When the necessity for change arises, the pace at which reforms take place, as experience has shown, depends on many factors. But it depends primarily on the level of maturity of civil society, the degree of responsibility among the ruling circles, and a general agreement to renounce intolerance and extremism.

What has been said is not intended to deny the unquestionably great significance of, let us say, the French revolution or the October revolution. They occupy an unshakable place in history. The main question is this: Did these revolutions, especially the October revolution, set an example as the

THE OCTOBER REVOLUTION

optimal way of resolving the social problems which had come to a head at that time? Did such revolutions provide the most suitable and advantageous means for resolving the actually existing conflicts and contradiqtions? Did these revolutions in fact bring about what they had promised?

CHAPTER 2

Wds Socialism Built in the Soviet Union?

The October revolution was termed a socialist revolution, and the Soviet Union was proclaimed a socialist state and even held up as a model. Later it was argued that what we had in our country was “developed socialism.” Was it really a socialist revolution that took place in October 1917, and was the system created by that revolution a socialist one.^ This is a valid and important question from the point of view of history and historical truth and from the standpoint of the future for all who continue to profess socialist ideas.

Let me quote a statement by Lenin: “Our revolution up until the summer of 1918 and even until the autumn of 1918 was, to a significant degree, a bourgeois revolution” {^Collected Works [Russian ed.] 38:143). What did Lenin mean here.^ Certainly he himself never renounced the socialist aims of the revolution.

Lenin had in mind one very simple circumstance or fact of life. The revolution accomplished in October 1917 was obliged objectively, before all else, to carry out the tasks of a bourgeois revolution. In Russia in 1917 such tasks as reorganizing the structure and character of the government, making a fundamental transformation in the system of land ownership, and resolving the nationalities question were all problems that had not been solved despite the great progress in the last years before World War I. Without their being solved it was impossible to move forward.

In October 1917 the victors in the revolutionary struggle confronted a society shaken to its foundations by the unprecedented slaughter and destruction of the world war.

After the revolution many Social Democrats, both in the West and in Russia (Plekhanov, for example), said that in a society like Russia there could be no talk of socialism. The material basis for socialism had not yet

THE OCTOBER REVOLUTION

been created by capitalism. The Menshevik author Sukhanov wrote: Rus sia has not reached that height of development of the productive forces under which socialism would be possible.” In Lenin’s last waitings he answered his opponents—writings that are referred to as his political testament. What was his reply to Sukhanov in particular.^ Lenin agreed that Sukhanov’s was **an undeniable argument that had to be considered (45:380). Lenin continued:

If for the creation of socialism a certain level of culture is required (although no one can say exactly what that level of culture should be, for it is different in every Western European state), why could we not begin with the conquest by revolutionary means of the prerequisites for such a particular level of culture and then, on the basis of workers’ and peasants’ power, move toward catching up with other countries. (45:381)

Here the question is presented in a sober, well-reasoned way.

But it was not until the years 1921—23 that policies based on such a reasonable approach made their appearance. In the first days and years of the revolution the Bolsheviks pursued a line of direct introduction of communist principles. The Kronstadt revolt and peasant uprisings, especially in Tambov province in 1921, signaled the defeat of this policy line. Lenin acknowledged this when he said, among other things: “You can t leap over the people.”

Nevertheless it must be said that the October revolution did carry out the first part of the tasks facing it—those Lenin characterized as the tasks of the bourgeois revolution. It destroyed the autocratic machinery of state and put an end to the legacy of feudalism in the countryside. It opened up a certain opportunity for national development in what was called the borderlands,” the outlying colonial areas of the Russian empire. The cooperative movement also grew—not the kind that was later identified with all-out collectivization in the countryside but the civilized kind that had arisen earlier, before 1917. In addition, basic principles for industrial development were sketched out in the State Plan for the Electrification of Russia (GOELRO). Of course this was only a beginning, but one full of promise. What happened then.^

After Lenin’s death, and up to the end of the 1920s, a struggle went on in Russia between differing conceptions of how to move forward into the future. By the beginning of the 1930s Stalinism had triumphed in the Soviet

WAS SOCIALISM BUILT IN THE SOVIET UNION?

Union. The term Stalinism of course is a conditional one, although its usage has become customary. The one-sidedness of the term tends to flatten out the entire Soviet past, to paint it a single, uniformly dark color. In fact it was a multicolored, profoundly contradictory, and multilayered phenomenon.

Today in Russia, and also outside our country, a debate is going on. What was the nature of the system built in the Soviet Union.^ The most varied of answers are given to this question. Here, some say: Yes, it was socialism, if not outright communism, and it was very nearly a model system. Others object: No, it wasn t socialism; it was either state capitalism or even feudal capitalism or something of that kind. Still others disagree with both these views. They say: Yes, it was socialism but not a full-fledged kind of socialism; it was distorted, deformed, and incomplete.

A similar variety of views may be found in the West. But one other point of view is held in the West to which I would like to call particular attention. Proponents of this view hold that indeed socialism was built in the USSR. They argue that thanks to the Soviet experience we now know what socialism is and therefore can reject and write off this kind of antihuman system once and for all and forget about it.

This argument is false. My view is that in the Soviet Union a harsh and even cruel totalitarian system triumphed. It underwent an evolution to be sure; after Stalin’s death its harshness and cruelty were modified and blunted somewhat, but in essence it remained the same.

Totalitarianism in the Soviet Union cannot of course serve as a model for anyone. That is indisputable. But it is also true that the kind of system that triumphed in the Soviet Union in the 1930s cannot be an argument against the socialist idea. I will return to this question below. For now there are other questions to consider.

The first of them is this: How was it possible for Stalinism to triumph.^ A complete answer to this question would require quite an extensive discussion in the course of which it would be necessary to review almost the entire history of the past eight decades. That is beyond the scope of the present work, but it is necessary to touch on some aspects of the matter.

We have already discussed one aspect—the particular features or characteristics that had developed in tsarist Russia, its social, economic, and political backwardness. Because of this backwardness the Russian people were not prepared to accept genuinely democratic ideals. Stereotyped ideas about “our good father, the tsar” had taken deep root in the mass consciousness, the idea of an omniscient, all-knowing leader who was always

THE OCTOBER REVOLUTION

right. In the Stalin era wide use was made of such stereotyped thinking, and this was the psychological soil in which Stalinism was able to grow. Alas, such stereotypes have not been overcome even today.

It also cannot be forgotten that the Bolsheviks inherited a country in the depths of chaos. Harsh measures were required to overcome this especially because, even after the end of the civil war, the resistance of the former ruling classes continued to make itself felt. Of course inexperience, even ignorance and fanaticism, among the revolutionaries themselves also played a role. Many of them considered the power they had won to be a carte blanche, that anything was permitted. The personal qualities of the leaders were also a very important factor that must be taken into account, especially those of Stalin, whom Lenin proposed to remove from the leadership. To me, Stalin was a cunning, crafty, cruel, and merciless individual, and a morbid suspiciousness was an innate part of his character.

In Russia today one can hear people saying at times: “We need a new Stalin.” Such slogans tell us, first, that our population is still not living in genuinely democratic conditions, still has not lived in a genuinely human way: second, such slogans reflect the profound disillusionment and despair people feel regarding the existing order in Russia today. The majority of Russians, nevertheless, do not support such slogans. They favor freedom and liberty.

One of the reasons for what happened (that is, the rise of Stalinism) and the chief error the Bolsheviks made even before Stalin—was the “model” of socialism they chose, the conception of socialism that took shape in the minds of the Bolsheviks and in their writings even before the revolution.

As is generally known, Marx and Engels did not work out a detailed blueprint of the future socialist society. And this was no accident. They were both opponents of “recipes.” They stressed the need to take specific conditions into account, the particular changes needed in one or another country, and the mutability of circumstances in which change was to be implemented.

We must also recall that the views of Marx and Engels evolved. Thus, toward the end of his life, Engels came to the firm conviction that a democratic republic is the best form of government for the construction of socialism.

On the eve of October, during his last period in the underground, Lenin wrote the booklet State and Revolution (which remained uncompleted). This

WAS SOCIALISM BUILT IN THE SOVIET UNION?

was in fact a systematic presentation, with commentary, of selected ideas about a socialist system drawn from his teachers, Marx and Engels. Lenin’s work, however, remained utopian and schematic, and the experience of the first few years of the revolution refuted that document.

In the spring of 1918 Lenin published an article entitled “The Immediate Tasks of the Soviet Government.” This was a more or less realistic program of action adapted to the conditions that had developed at that time. In this work, incidentally, the first hints of ideas that later developed into the ^ New Economic Policy may be detected. Later those ideas were set aside in favor of the policy of so-called war communism. After the civil war Lenin returned to those ideas and worked out the full program of the New Economic Policy. He admitted that major mistakes had been made during the previous four years. This was a serious matter. To me, it is obvious that Lenin, a man of tremendous intellect, analyzed the postrevolutionary experience with the maximum of candor and rigor. He rejected a great deal and called much into question. In his article of early 1923, “On Cooperation,” he uttered the celebrated phrase that it was now necessary to “acknowledge a fundamental change in our entire point of view toward socialism” (45:37b). This indicates the direction in which he was searching. But many enigmas remain regarding his point of view.

It is clear that Lenin wanted to promote pacification and reconciliation both in Russian society and in international relations, to bring people back together who had been divided by cruelty and hatred so they could jointly engage in constructive work and activity for the sake of the future. It is worth emphasizing that Lenin at that time paid attention not only to the economic side of things. In his “Letter to the Congress” he wrote about the problems of democracy. He began his thoughts on this question with these words: “I would strongly recommend that a number of changes in our political structure be undertaken at this congress” (45:343).

His plans had not only a tactical aim but a strategic one as well. He did not have time to give full and final shape to his strategy. But knowing all of Lenin, not just bits and pieces quotable for one or another propagandistic purpose, I can state that his strategy excluded the revival of anything like war communism. Nevertheless Stalin imposed a new variation of war communism on our country.

I do not think that the New Economic Policy was just a tactical retreat in Lenin’s view, as is often said. Serious and objective study is required on this point. What was involved evidently was a search for an approach to rethink-

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ing the place of the October revolution and of the new Russia in relation to the destiny of world civilization as a whole. Several propositions in Lenin s last writings speak along these lines, although various shadings and nuances can be found in these writings. Were these shadings not a reflection of the disputes within the Communist Party about the New Economic Policy.^ After all, many party members were accusing Lenin of revisionism at that time, of retreating, of betraying the cause of the revolution.

What I see in Lenin’s last writings is a different person—a person who, after leading the country into and through the revolution, understood that mistakes had been made. This was a dramatic moment for the revolution. I understood this, and it influenced me greatly. These ideas of Lenin’s and his New Economic Policy, however, were completely cast aside by Stalin.

What was it that was defective in the Bolshevik model of socialism.^

First, it was a crudely schematic model based on ideological principles and standards that could not withstand close examination. Stalin’s interpretation of these principles and standards deepened their harsh and dogmatic character. His version became a quasi-religious doctrine based on intolerance and ruthless suppression of all who in any way did not fit on this bed of Procrustes.

Second, the most generalized principle of the Bolshevik “model” was the “dictatorship of the proletariat.” Borrowed from Marx, this idea was carried to the point of absurdity.

Before the revolution Lenin wrote that the proletariat cannot conquer power in any way except through democracy, that it cannot construct a new society in any way except democratically. In fact the proletarian dictatorship in Russia almost from the beginning, and especially under Stalin, represented a complete break with democracy. The dictatorship of the proletariat was said to be nothing less than the highest form of democracy. Yet there was not a true dictatorship of the proletariat in the sense of a mass movement, based on a major stratum of society. It was a dictatorship by a small ruling group at the top and by the hierarchical apparatus (the nomenklatura) that served it.

The banning of non-Communist parties after the revolution and the curtailment of freedom of speech were an obvious sign of a break with democracy. Such measures may be taken in conditions of extreme emergency but only as temporary measures. Also, the introduction of a one-party system and “unanimity of opinion” as a principle inevitably led to the distortion of the natural course of events. It inevitably led to arbitrary rule and ended with very severe consequences.

WAS SOCIALISM BUILT IN THE SOVIET UNION?

No matter what arguments were used to justify the need to suppress and disperse other parties in Russia after 1917 ,1 think that the final establishment of a one-party system was perhaps one of the most serious errors. It prevented the October revolution from becoming a source for powerful democratic development and prevented our country from truly flourishing.

By the end of the 1920s Soviet society was completely monopolized by the party and its ideology. A repressive and essentially totalitarian system was solidly established. Different figures are given for the number of Soviet ^ citizens who were destroyed or became victims of the Gulag system. At any rate, they number in the millions.

The question is often asked: Did the Soviet people understand what Stalin’s “purges” really were—or to put it more simply—what the terror of the 1930S and 1940s really was.^ There is no easy answer. Not many knew the full extent of the “purges.” A great many people considered them justified. The closed nature of our society, the aggressive and obsessive anti-Western propaganda, and the deeply rooted awareness that we were in a “besieged fortress” (which incidentally was a result of Western policy)—all this made it possible for repression to be justified as a necessary defense against foreign and internal enemies.

Quite a few people had their doubts about the repression and condemned it, although of course not openly. I must remind readers that the majority of Soviet citizens had long become accustomed to the situation of so-called doublethink. When speaking aloud in public they supported the actions of the authorities, but at home among themselves or in a circle of close friends they would express doubts and even indignation. Not until perestroika was this system of doublethink overturned.

Another fact is even more surprising. People arrested for nonexistent crimes, unbreakable Bolsheviks, who had many times looked death in the eye while fighting for their ideas, in this new situation ended up broken. They slandered and denounced themselves and their comrades, confessed to being “enemies of the people,” criminal evildoers! What an amazing turn of events. Yet today this is not so much a problem for historians— historically everything has basically been explained—as it is for psychologists.

Stalin destroyed virtually the entire Leninist old guard. Moreover, he sought to erase from memory all the revolutionary merits and distinctions of those who had made the October revolution. He robbed others of their achievements and attributed them to himself. Indeed the entire history of

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our country after October was rewritten until it was unrecognizable. Stalin’s aim in all this was solely to consolidate his absolute personal power.

Some of my relatives were among those affected by the repression of the 1930s. And although I surely did not know everything that had happened in our country, nevertheless—through my relatives and as a result of the fate they had suffered—I learned a lot. My mother’s father supported the revolution, became a Communist and organizer of a collective farm, and never questioned the Soviet government or its policies. In fact he felt, being a peasant, that Soviet power had given him the land he farmed and had thereby saved his family. In the thirties he was arrested and sentenced to death. The story he related to me once (only once—he never took up the subject again) was horrifying. Over the course of fourteen months he was tortured many times in very cruel ways. By chance he survived. An assistant prosecutor in a higher judicial body, apparently someone with a conscience, did not consider his “case” grounds for execution or for any charges whatsoever. My grandfather was released. But his strength had been undermined, and he died at the age of fifty-nine.

My other grandfather was arrested for not fulfilling the plan for the sowing of crops. In 1933 in the Stavropol region, as in the Ukraine and indeed the entire southern part of the Soviet Union, there was a fierce drought; its consequences were worsened by the harsh government policy toward the peasants. Half my paternal grandfather’s family died, and, sure enough, he was unable to complete the plan for the sowing of crops. He was exiled to Siberia. Later he was able to return to his home where he joined the collective farm and labored conscientiously into his old age.

I wish to make a special point: to speak about the tragedy of the Russian Orthodox Church. Even before the revolution the Bolsheviks regarded the Church as an ideological opponent. From the realm of belief and conscience, religion was transferred to the realm of politics. This laid the foundation for the terrible drama of the future. On the other hand, when the civil war deeply divided our society, it was the former ruling classes who began the resistance to the revolution, and the Church became a refuge for them; it entered politics on their side. Understandably the Bolsheviks regarded the Church as a political opponent against which it was necessary to struggle.

Certainly this was understandable during the acute phase of internal conflict. But later, after the civil war had ended, in time of peace, they continued to tear down churches, arrest clergymen, and destroy them. This was

WAS SOCIALISM BUILT IN THE SOVIET UNION?

no longer understandable or justifiable. Atheism took rather savage forms in our country at that time. During perestroika a firm course was taken toward freedom of conscience. I based this on my belief that religious people are worthy of respect. Religious faith is an intensely private matter, and each citizen should have the unqualified right to his or her own choice.

Of course the totalitarian regime disguised itself with democratic decorations: a constitution, laws of various kinds, and “representative” bodies of government. In fact all the life activity of society was dictated and guided— /rom beginning to end—by the party structures, by the resolutions, decisions, and orders of the top echelons of the party. Even the legislative and executive bodies of the various union republics existed in fact in a state of lawlessness, even though under the constitution they were proclaimed to be sovereign states with full powers of their own. Only in rare cases in history has such a concentration of power, such supercentralization, ever been encountered. Most important was that, for all practical purposes, the citizens of the USSR were deprived of any real opportunity to influence the government or have any control over it.

The monopoly of power rested on a monopoly of state ownership. Collective farm property and the property of cooperatives was in fact government property. Peasants and members of cooperatives in general could not take a single step without the permission of the local and central authorities.

I am familiar with all this from my own personal experience, and I myself made broad use of the peculiar features of this system in my activities.

The backbone of the system that took shape in the USSR was, of course, the Communist Party. The Bolshevik party was formed in special circumstances—it operated in the underground, constantly harassed and persecuted by the tsarist authorities. This determined not only its structure, which was adapted to working illegally, but also the forms and methods of its functioning. During the revolution and civil war these methods demonstrated their effectiveness, and they were kept intact when peace was restored.

While Lenin was alive the party still maintained strong democratic traditions. The stenographic records of the party congresses of that time contained sharp debates and criticism without regard to persons and indicate that real voting took place when resolutions were adopted. Later, all that disappeared. Secrecy, rejection of dissidence of any kind, intolerance, and iron discipline—all that was revived and magnified by Stalin, who described

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the party as a crusading order. In this way he sought to conceal his own power-hungry designs.

In combination with the “model” of society discussed previously, all this developed into a system of totalitarian rule in which the following became typical; rejection of political pluralism, a “party-state, harsh, all-encompassing, and supercentralized administration of the country based on the monopoly of state ownership.

In the post-Stalin period much changed, but the party remained inviolable. Khrushchev’s attempt to relax the party’s tight hold on everyone and everything by granting a larger role to the government apparatus cost him the post of general secretary of the party.

During perestroika a policy was adopted of fundamentally reorganizing party activity, democratizing it internally, and later changing its very role in society. However, the structure of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) and its methods of work, even the composition of its personnel (the bureaucrats of the nomenklatura), were so thoroughly instilled with old habits, traditions, and standards, as though set in concrete, that reforming the party and transforming it into a normal political organization proved to be an extremely difficult task. This difficulty marked the entire process of change, which took place in contradictory fashion, engendering sharp resistance and conflict between the reform forces and the conservative forces.

We must be precise and fair in our assessment of the party during perestroika. The fact is that the CPSU began the reforms when leaders who were adherents of reform were in its leadership. Moreover, those changes would not have begun at all if the initiative for them had not come from the CPSU. And it is not just a question of the reform group at the head of the party. A large section of the rank-and-file party membership favored change in our society. In the last analysis, it was the Central Committee of the CPSU that spoke in support of democracy, political pluralism, free elections, the creation of a mixed economic system, reform of the system of federated states, or republics, belonging to the Soviet Union, and so forth. In 1990, at the Twenty-eighth Congress of the CPSU, all these changes were approved by that body.

Nevertheless the CPSU did not fully pass the test. It never truly became a party of reform. And it condemned itself by its own action in supporting the August coup in 1991; that is, the majority of the Central Committee and many local and provincial committees supported the coup.

WAS SOCIALISM BUILT IN THE SOVIET UNION?

In the end, the “model” that came into existence in the USSR was not socialist but totalitarian. This is a serious matter to be reflected on by all who seriously aspire to progress for the benefit of the human race.

A natural question arises: How could people put up with all this, this cruelty, this complete alienation from property and power.^ Did they fear repression.^ Were they kept down by this fear.^ Or were they convinced by propaganda that everything was all right.^ The answer to these questions reveals the profoundly paradoxical nature of Soviet society.

^ Undeniably there was fear. Millions of people had heard about the Gulag, and it was a rare family that had not felt its deathly grip to one extent or another. Propaganda was also able to achieve its aims under the conditions of a closed society, singing the praises of the existing system in every possible way as the best in history. Aiid of course all the so-called educational work from kindergarten to the university, and in factories and offices, also played a role. But it is impossible to explain everything just by these facts, and it would be wrong to try.

For a considerable number of people, probably the majority, the Soviet system was a product of a great and glorious people’s revolution. Millions of people believed in the ideals proclaimed by the revolution, and they considered the principles of Soviet society to be just. They were sincerely convinced that this society was better than other, bourgeois societies, and for a long time they kept their faith and hope that socialist ideas would be realized—ideas that in fact are quite noble and lofty. That is how they were presented to us in the schools and in Soviet literature, and that is how they appeared in films, the art form with the greatest mass appeal. These hopes and beliefs were reinforced by certain realities of Soviet life.

To demonize all Soviet “leaders” at all levels, to portray them as unqualified villains and evildoers, unprincipled self-seeking scoundrels who were indifferent to the interests and needs of the people—that is a shallow and frivolous approach. Of course there were villains, quite a few of them. But most of those who came to power had the intention of serving the “toiling masses” from which they themselves had come. That the system rendered their aspirations useless, reduced their efforts to nothing, and ultimately snuffed out their finer impulses—that is a separate question.

The upper echelons of the party and government sought to maintain in the mass consciousness the conviction that it was necessary to pursue the ideals of October and that no deviation was permissible from the choice made in 1917. At the same time, those at the top understood that society

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could not be ruled by fear alone. Therefore the economic development plans, whose main purpose was in fact to strengthen the Stalin or post-Stalin regimes, did provide for the satisfaction of the minimum necessary economic and social development of the population.

The aims and ideals of the Soviet revolution inspired the patriotic enthusiasm of millions of people in the 1930s, during World War II, and in the postwar reconstruction period.

This explains the Soviet Union’s great leap forward, the achievement of a high level of industrial capacity in a very short time,'the transformation of the Soviet Union into a major power in terms of science and culture. The historic victory in the Great Patriotic War against Nazism, which was a surprise not only for Hitler but also for the Western democracies, is also explained by what we have said above.

All this is true. But the historical truth is also that the regime and the system abused the faith of the people in these high ideals, turning them to its own advantage. Rule by the people, equality, justice, and the promise of a happy future—all these ideas were utilized for the sake of maintaining and strengthening totalitarianism. The essence of these methods was outlined accurately by Alexander Solzhenitsyn in his speech accepting the Nobel Prize: “Violence has no way to conceal itself except by lies, and lies have no way to maintain themselves except through violence. Anyone who has proclaimed violence his method inexorably must choose lying as his principle.”

Dissatisfaction with the existing situation always existed among Soviet people. Many refused to be reconciled with the cruel system imposed on them. Over the course of time the level of education and culture of the Soviet people rose, and that contributed to the number who refused to accept the cruel system. The system needed skilled personnel, but these very cadres, once they had been trained, entered into confrontation with the system, which denied people a great many things, above all, freedom.

When the ineffectiveness of the system became obvious and the promises of a better life proved deceptive, people lost confidence in the government and the party. The growing gap between the government and its citizens was the fundamental cause of the weakening of the system. Of course the system could have continued to rot away slowly for many more years, but the denouement was approaching faster and faster. Conditions had ripened—not only economically but also politically and psychologically— for a fundamental change in the entire vector of development. Conditions had grown ripe for perestroika.

CHAPTER 3

Let’s Not Oversimplify! ^

A Balance Sheet of the Soviet Years

I HAVE ALREADY mentioned the debates going on in Russia over social-ism whether it existed or not. There are also disputes, which are no less sharp and sometimes even sharper, over what balance sheet to draw on the decades since October, during the existence of the totalitarian system.

Here, too, we find viewpoints that are polar opposites, ranging from total rejection (it was a black hole ’ in the history of Russia) to unstinted praise and calls for a return to the past. Reflected in these disputes is the complexity and intensity of present-day political battles over the question of what path our country should take in its further development. These debates also reflect the disastrous situation in which the people find themselves. Yes, the path that our country and people have traveled has been complex in the extreme. The results are also not all of one kind. However, the more complex the past has been, the more cautious, careful, painstaking, and objective we must be in approaching the assessments of that past.

The task that faced Russia at the time of the October revolution was to break tree of the fetters of feudalism and absolutism, to make a leap forward in economic development, to pull the country out of backwardness and onto the road of progress and modernity.

The ruling circles in prerevolutionary Russia did not believe in the possibility of even posing such a task, let alone solving it. Here, for example, is what Kokovtsev, the head of the tsarist Cabinet of Ministers, said in a speech to the Duma in May 1913; “To propose that in the space of some twenty years and a little more that we could catch up with states that have cultures centuries old, this is the kind of demand that should not be made.”

Here is another piece of evidence. In 1925 a Russian emigre by the name of A. Kaminka, a former big shot in banking in tsarist Russia, took up the task of outlining the Russian economy of the future as he envisaged it. “Over the

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course of decades, several decades at least,” he wrote, “the course of development of our economic life will be such that agriculture and raw materials will be the main source of exports for us, in exchange for which we will restore the riches that have been destroyed, and in the field of industry, as a general rule, we will be in a position to carry out only the simplest tasks.

In fact, however, in the Soviet era, and in a very short time at that, former tsarist Russia was transformed into what for those times was a leading industrial power. That is a generally recognized fact. A civiliiing turn of events took place—instead of a backward agricultural country, Russia became an industrial-agrarian power comparable to the advanced countries of the world. This cannot be denied.

While fully appreciating this achievement today, we cannot help but see another aspect as well. The modernization of Russia over the course of the entire Soviet period had the character of catching up. The official slogan was “overtake and surpass the West.” But the question was how to do that and in what respects.

In terms of quantitative indexes, for example, the amount of steel produced or the number of combines, the Soviet Union actually did catch up, even with America. But the quality of production in the overwhelming majority of cases was not high. The efficiency of production was incomparably lower than in the Western countries, and energy consumption and the consumption of raw materials was incomparably higher. People attempted to pass over all this in silence. Frank and public discussion of the real situation in our country took place for the first time only in the summer of 1985, that is, after perestroika had begun.

To be sure, the task of going from extensive to intensive development of the economy was posed in the 1970s, but nothing was actually accomplished along these lines. Our country continued to develop extensively, and in the final years before perestroika was able to exist only by virtue of oil and gas exports.

Ideological blinders—the dogmas of Stalinist ideology—did great harm to the development of our society. Let me recall, if nothing else, the persecution of geneticists and the rejection of advanced methodology in many other spheres of science and technology. Cybernetics was declared to be false, a pseudoscience, even though Soviet scientists achieved quite a bit in working out some of the principles in this field and some practical solutions. Our country was closed to contacts with foreign science and technol-ogy5 yet worldwide experience shows that a country s isolation, its being

LET’S NOT OVERSIMPLIFY!

closed off and turned inward upon itself, results in backwardness. So then, if we evaluate our country s great leap forward in industrial development as it deserves to be evaluated, we cannot forget that there was a certain limited character to our industrialization, an unjustified delay in passing over to intensive development, development that would outstrip and leave behind the previous phase.

There is another, very important aspect of the matter—the price paid for what was achieved. We understand that in the very short time allowed to jjs by history, creating the industrial potential that would enable us to withstand the war with Nazi Germany could not have been accomplished without extraordinary measures. The question is. What kind of measures should those have been.^

Unquestionably during those years there was a great enthusiasm for this labor among our people, a mass willingness to sacrifice the present for the sake of the future. And it is useless for people today to try to deny this, as many do.

Unfortunately enthusiasm was not the only factor in industrialization. Under Stalin, industrialization was also carried out with reliance on forced labor, using the prisoners in the Gulag. Industrialization was accompanied as well by the ruination of the peasantry, for whom collectivization was in fact a new form of serfdom.

Collectivization can be compared to the “fencing off” process in England in the period when capitalist relations were first coming into existence. The expulsion of the English yeomen from the land was not in any way a voluntary process; in similar fashion, almost everywhere in the Soviet Union peasants were forced to join the collective farms; they were simply driven into them like cattle. The local authorities used the cruelest methods, fulfilling quotas set by the central government. Many peasants who had received land as a result of the October revolution had grown stronger, that is, they had improved their economic status; they had become what in the Soviet Union was called “middle peasants.” They did not want to give up what they had earned by honest labor. The cruelty with which collectivization was carried out is astonishing. People who were able to produce better than others, the competent and industrious, were destroyed. A terrible blow was dealt to the countryside, the consequences of which have not been outlived to this day. This had its effect on all the rest of the country.

Alternatives were possible (for example, the variant proposed by Bukharin). But those alternatives were condemned and cast aside. Yet experi-

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ence in other countries has shown that the modernization of agriculture creates new resources and lays the basis for the development of the economy as a whole.

In the USSR, methods used in collectivization were justified by the argument that the country had to be quickly raised to a higher level; otherwise, as Stalin said, “they will wipe us out.” But who could say that our country could not have been raised to a higher level using a different approach, one of respect for working people, a democratic approach.^ The “rules of the game” might have been harsh, but there should have been rules, not utter barbarism, not complete inhumanity. Collectivization and the Gulag together destroyed the human potential of our nation; both drained the blood from the most important and vital base of our economy—agriculture—and they strengthened the dictatorial regime.

Much of what happened afterward and much of what is going on in Russia today has roots in the Stalin era. It is clear that the choice of a path of development for the USSR had been made in the late 1920s, but it was flawed. That is the essence of the matter. The excessively high cost for the successes achieved cannot be justified. On the other hand—and this is of great importance—the heroic feats accomplished by our people cannot be rendered valueless by reference to this excessively high cost. The high cost of what was achieved was because of the system. The results achieved were because of the self-sacrificing labor of our people.

In evaluating the results of the Soviet period, we cannot limit ourselves, of course, simply to the economic aspect. Especially because, from the social and cultural point of view, the Soviet Union made astonishingly great achievements in the decades after October 1917.

From 1930 on, employment was guaranteed for the entire able-bodied working population. For the people of the Soviet Union, income increased slowly but steadily. During the entire period of the Soviet government’s existence since the civil war, with the obvious exception of World War II, there was not a single year in which income fell. The statistics for urban housing by 198.5 had increased from 180 million square meters to 2,561 million square meters. Before the revolution, three-quarters of Russia s population was illiterate. By the mid-1980s, 70 percent of the population as a whole and 88.3 percent of the employed population had had primary and secondary education, which was free of charge. As the American historian Melvin S. Wren has written, “One of Communist Russia’s most outstanding achievements has been the conquest of illiteracy.”

LET’S NOT OVERSIMPLIFY!

Another American professor, George Z. F. Bereday, wrote in the book Transformation of Soviet Society: “The provision of libraries, the advances of the theater arts and the film industry, the development of sports, the activism of youth organizations—these are among the most successful and most obvious of Soviet achievements.”

I should add that one of the major social achievements of Soviet power was the establishment of a publicTealth system and of other social protections, These are all undeniable achievements, but on a purely material level ^he standard of living in the Soviet Union remained significantly lower than in most developed countries. Payment for labor was minimal, and the social benefits that were provided free of charge or for a very small sum did not supplement people’s incomes to a very great degree. Be that as it may, Soviet citizens generally felt confident about their future: Things would not get worse and perhaps would even get better.

The colossal changes that took place in our country did not just affect Russia. The so-called borderlands—the outlying regions of the former empire—also experienced tremendous changes, especially regarding literacy, education, public health, industrialization, and urban construction, and in the sense of being linked up with world culture. The non-Russian areas developed their own intelligentsia. For dozens of nationalities of the former Russian empire this was a time when nations were formed and state systems came into existence. The prominent American historian Frederick L. Schu-man commented, “The forgotten men of Transcaucasia, Turkestan, and remote Siberia not only learned how to read and write their own tongues but came into possession of schools, libraries, hospitals, and factories, with resulting living standards far above those of other Asian peoples beyond the Soviet frontier.”

To put it briefly, October played a civilizing role in the vast expanses of Asia and southeastern Europe. As in the other areas of social life, these processes affecting the non-Russian nationalities proceeded in a highly contradictory way. To the extent that totalitarianism became entrenched in our country, the particular cultural life of each nationality was squeezed into an alien ideological framework. Revolutionary changes imposed from Moscow were, to a considerable extent, an artificial superstructure alien to the traditions and mentality of the bulk of the population. After Stalin’s theory of “autonomization” was implemented, even the union republics such as Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and Georgia were treated merely as parts of a unitary state, although formally, under both the Soviet constitution and the consti-

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tutions of the Soviet republics, they remained “separate countries. The term union republic was supposed to mean that they were part of a union^ together with other republics, not that they were mere provinces to be administered by the central government.

The reforms of the perestroika era were aimed at a qualitative renewal of society and at overcoming the totalitarian structure blocking the road to democracy. Fundamental reforms were begun under very complex conditions, but they were cut short by the August coup attempt and the Belovezh agreement that dissolved the Soviet Union.

In the period of “shock therapy” reforms, which began in 1992, the historical achievements of the Soviet period were lost to a large degree. Social rights were constricted. The material well-being of the people was reduced nearly by half. More than one-third of the population now lives below the poverty line. And how many are just on the edge of that line! Unemployment has become a reality, the health care system is being destroyed, science and education are in a bad way: There is not enough money to address these problems, and, above all, there is no government responsibility for the future of the country.

To return to our original topic, I must say that in economic and social respects the Soviet Union achieved a great deal. On the political level, it kept retreating further and further from the original ideals of October. The Soviet period was a time in which democracy was suppressed and systematically denied in practice. I draw this conclusion knowing the figures in this regard: There were 2.3 million deputies (elected representatives) in Soviet institutions at all different levels. There were more than 6 million members of permanent “production conferences,” almost 8 million trade union activists and more than 10 million participants in so-called committees of popular control, and so on.

It would be a mistake to think that all this meant nothing. Certain elements of democratism existed in the functioning of these organizations, especially at the grass-roots level. On the whole, though, the entire gigantic system functioned only for one purpose: to consolidate and strengthen the power of the party-state. The government bodies that were called instruments of popular rule did not have genuinely democratic rights or powers. They were controlled by the party leadership. And on all essential questions of policy and power, no one had the possibility of choosing an alternative. The orders were handed down from above. Pluralism of thought or deci-

LET’S NOT OVERSIMPLIFY!

sion making was considered a retreat from the principles of so-called socialist democracy.

Russia had more than enough capable people. They could have accomplished a great deal had they been given freedom and rights, but they were paralyzed by the dictates of the party, by the narrow and rigid framework of party directives, by the rules of the system of command from above. Decades of existence under conditions of totalitarianism and the personality cult inevitably resulted in apathy, anemia, loss of initiative, and the extinguishing of social energy in our country.

Of course there were periods during the Soviet era when society seemed to straighten up and throw its shoulders back. One of the high points, ironically, was during World War II. It was a very difficult experience. Our victory in the war was later attributed to the stability and effectiveness of the system. That was true only in the sense that it was able, through the methods of harsh dictatorship, to concentrate all the country’s resources, above all, material resources. The true victor, however, was the people, the Russians first of all, but also the many other nationalities who sincerely considered the Soviet Union to be their fatherland.

The people displayed the most powerful and impressive qualities in that difficult time. Despite Stalin’s terror, which on the very eve of the war mowed down thousands of talented generals and officers of the Soviet army, that army nevertheless was victorious in the war, as was the Soviet military school that produced the army. World-class leaders were forged in the heat of battle.

On the home front, the workers and peasants, engineers and scientists, women and teenagers learned to create the necessary military equipment in a very short time, equipment that in many respects was superior to that of the enemy. This despite the fact that a large number of industries had to be relocated hundreds, even thousands of kilometers away from the front lines and away from the occupied zones, to safe rear areas where essentially an entirely new military system of production was built up.

This tremendous victory aroused great expectations among the Soviet people, but these expectations were not fulfilled. Frightened by a population that had grown proud as the result of its victory, that felt itself to be free and sovereign because of that victory, the system cruelly intensified ideological and political pressures. Millions of people, beginning with former prisoners of war, were made victims of repression. A new wave of terror swept the

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country. Official anti-Semitism was added to the arsenal of government techniques, and a shameful campaign against so-called cosmopolitanism was unleashed. Totalitarianism made use of every means possible, every lever of power, to shield itself from the slightest possible encroachment by the people.

This trend altered after Stalin’s death, a change connected, above all, with the activities of Nikita Khrushchev. He was without doubt an outstanding public figure. The overthrow of the “personality cult” of Stalin as a result of the Twentieth Party Congress, in 1956,'and other ideas proclaimed at that congress, such as the firm determination to travel the road of peaceful coexistence with the West, renunciation of the idea that war between socialism and capitalism was inevitable, and the idea of equal rights among so-called socialist countries and among Communist parties, promised a fundamental change in the life of our country and in international relations. Change began, and the entire social atmosphere was transformed. While this was the first step toward emancipation from totalitarianism, it must be said that the decisions of the Twentieth Congress did not meet with a uniform reaction in our society.

Khrushchev’s report on the personality cult was distributed to all local areas, so that people could become familiar with it. Many were confused and would not accept the decisions of the Twentieth Congress. I remember this from my own experience. I had the chance to participate in explanations of the essence of the congress’s decisions in a rural district of the Stavropol region. The speeches, given in large auditoriums, simply were not accepted. When I began to hold meetings with small groups of people, some discussion began. Nevertheless quite a few remained silent, and from some you could hear remarks such as, “Stalin’s reprisals were against those who forcibly drove the peasants into the collective farms. That was how reality was refracted in some people’s minds.

In fact this kind of reaction was not surprising. After all, the Stalin “personality cult” had essentially consisted in the myth that Stalin was a man of genius, the leader and father of all the peoples. This myth had been instilled in people’s minds by an all-powerful propaganda machine with no alternative sources of information. The effectiveness of this propaganda, backed up by repression, the reality of a deeply rooted delusion bordering on mass psychosis—these were impressively confirmed by the feelings of shock that affected millions of people when Stalin died.

LET'S NOT OVERSIMPLIFY!

I was a university student at the time, and I remember that, for the majority, Stalin s death was a tremendous shock. Etched in my memory are the words spoken with great emotion by my recently deceased friend Zdenek Mlynar, who was my fellow student at Moscow University and who later became one of the organizers of the Prague Spring, Mlynar said to me: “Mishka, what will become of us now.^”

I never saw Stalin when he was alive. The desire to say farewell to him in his casket was a very intense one. For days on end people came in huge x:rowds to the Hall of Columns where his body was lying in state. People wept, even sobbed.

Today, after so much has become clear and comprehensible, my ideas about Stalin naturally have changed. If they had not, I obviously would not have begun perestroika. To set about making reforms meant, above all, overcoming the Stalin within. And not only Stalin but the entire subsequent experience of the era of stagnation. During perestroika we acquired a very clear idea of what Stalinism meant, what Stalinism represented in people’s consciousness. And this still makes itself felt even today.

There are many contradictions in Khrushchev’s record. These had to do with the specific circumstances of his career, the road he traveled in life. (Politically and ideologically he was a product of the Stalin school, and some of the crimes of the Stalin regime were on his conscience.) His contradictions are also related to aspects of his individual character. He would take one step forward and two steps back. He would rush this way, then that, back and forth. Khrushchev gave our society a taste of freedom and then turned off the tap himself. In his memoirs, incidentally, he stated rather clearly his reason for this. “When we decided to allow a period of thaw and consciously moved in that direction,” he wrote, “the leadership of the USSR, including myself, at the same time feared doing this: What if the thaw gave rise to a flood that would sweep over us and with which it would be difficult to deal.^” Fear of democracy is the product of a totalitarian regime and an obstacle to any serious progress.

Nevertheless I would like to stress that Khrushchev was a precursor of perestroika. He gave the first impetus to a reform process that could develop further and only succeed as a democratic process. In principle, his was an important precedent in our history.

The most important event remaining from Khrushchev’s legacy is his denunciation of Stalinism. The attempts undertaken in the Brezhnev era to

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turn the clock back in this respect failed. They could not restore the Stalin system. That was one of the conditions that made the beginning of perestroika possible. Thus I recognize a definite connection between perestroika and what Nikita Khrushchev accomplished. In general, I have a high regard for the role he played historically.

After revolutionary enthusiasm had subsided and receded into history (which is only natural), after the patriotic upsurge inspired by the war had been quickly curtailed, after the euphoria of the Twentieth Party Congress had been stifled in short order by its own initiator, our society seemed to become ossified. The incentive to work efficiently disappeared, as did people’s desire to participate in a socially conscious way in public affairs or to take any kind of initiative aside from criminal activity. Political conformism and a primitive leveling psychology took deep root. The stagnation in society was fraught with serious consequences that actually began to make themselves felt in literally all areas. During the era of stagnation our country was creeping toward the abyss.

My understanding of the depths to which totalitarianism had brought our country impelled me to make a decisive and irreversible choice in favor of democracy and reform. To be sure, democratic methods of leadership and openness are much more complicated than totalitarian methods of rule. Here everything is transparent and leaders are fully subject to public scrutiny. They can be criticized, just like any other citizen. It has already become a cliche that despite all its insufficiencies democracy is superior to other forms of rule. Nevertheless it, too, needs to be renewed, but we will discuss that in the final section of this book.

For now, returning once again to our theme, I wish to say something about the Social Democratic leaders of the 1920s and 1930s. The bulk of them took a hostile attitude toward October and toward what came after the revolution. The division in the working-class movement, the atmosphere of hostility between Communists and Social Democrats, prevented mutual understanding and often blocked objectivity in approaching any problem. Nevertheless, on the whole, the most outstanding representatives of the Second International tried to make an honest assessment of what was going on in Russia from their standpoint as proponents of socialism. While criticizing Soviet power, they did not deny its achievements. What is fundamental for me is that coinciding assessments come to light regarding the main point: Lack of freedom and democracy can destroy the cause of the revolution, or, to a certain extent, had already destroyed it.

LET'S NOT OVERSIMPLIFY!

One of the most prominent theoreticians of the Second International, Friedrich Adler, in his book Socialism and the Stalinist Experiment (1932), said the following:

In the first phase of war communism the dictatorship served the purpose of destroying feudal ownership, distributing the land, and rooting out the capitalists; in short, eliminating the former ruling classes. They no longer exist . , . But the dictatorship persists just as powerfully, ruthlessly, and cruelly as before. What are its socialfunctions now I There is only one: to suppress the workers themselves, in order to carry through industrialfation at their expense, and in order to crush in the egg any attempt by the workers to resist the sacrifices they are forced to endure ... What has happened and is happening in Russia will never be recognized by us as a necessary experiment for the sake of constructing a socialist social order.*

It is common knowledge that Karl Kautsky supported the Bolsheviks before the revolution, but afterward,he made a sharp break with them, above all, once again, over the question of democracy. In 1920 he wrote:

The last bourgeois revolution has apparently become the first socialist one, which has had a tremendous impact on the revolutionary proletariat in all countries. From that revolution, however, the proletariat can take only its goals-, its methods are applicable only to the unique circumstances in Russia; they are not applicable in Western Europe. The contradiction between methods and goals in the final analysis is bound to affect the revolution itself.

Today, half a century later, it is quite obvious that Kautsky was right. Totalitarianism undermined itself with its own methods.

Finally, let us quote from Otto Bauer, the father of the Austrian school of Marxism, so-called Austro-Marxism, one of the leaders of Social Democracy who sincerely sought to get to the root of what had happened in our country. “If that is socialism,” he wrote in his work entitled Bolshevism or Social Democracy,

then it is socialism of a unique kind, a despotic socialism. Inasmuch as in this case socialism does not mean that the working people themselves control the

* Emphasis in original.

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means of production, they do not direct the labor process themselves, and they do not distribute the product of their labor. On the contrary, in this case socialism means that the itate power, separated and estranged from the people, and representing only an insignificant minority of the people, which has raised itself up over the mass of the people, has control over the means of production and over labor power, over the process ol labor and the products of labor, and it subordinates to its own labor plan all the living forces of the people using the methods of force and violence, and involves them in its own way of organizing labor.*

Bauer, while seeing everything from the point of view of Social Democracy, did not lose hope. In the same work quoted above he expressed an interesting thought: “The dictatorship of the proletariat in Russia is ... a phase of development toward democracy ... it is more of a transitional phase in the development of Russia which in the best of cases will last only until the mass of the Russian people have become ripe for democratic government.” Otto Bauer’s optimism, as subsequent history was to show, was solidly based.

Even today, after the democratic breakthrough of perestroika, Russia’s progress toward democracy is going very slowly and with difficulty. Here the past has its effect; it holds people tightly in its embrace. There is no alternative except to train oneself every day to live under democratic conditions. In the West this process took centuries.

Another issue is perhaps more important: The present authoritarian regime is putting the brakes on Russia’s development toward democracy. For this regime, democracy is becoming more and more ot a burden. The political forces that came to power on the democratic wave have been removed from power or have removed themselves from power today. A bureaucratic-oligarchic regime has taken shape, and under the disguise of democratic phraseology it has imposed a neoliberal course of so-called reforms on our society.

In trying to achieve its aims, it does not consider the price that ordinary citizens have to pay, and it has not hesitated to attack the democratic gains of perestroika. The Russian parliament is paralyzed and can do little under these circumstances. The mass media are controlled by the government and the oligarchy. The courts and the public prosecutors are not free to act. A

* Emphasis in original.

LET’S NOT OVERSIMPLIFY!

new wave of reforms is being attempted whose aim is by no means the well-being of the citizenry but satisfaction of the interests of bureaucratic finance capital.

What nevertheless inspires us with hope for the future is the attitude of Russian citizens toward the rights and freedoms they have gained. A recent poll of twelve thousand Russians, covering virtually every region of the country, showed 82 percent supporting the statement: “We want to live in a free country ; that is, people who find themselves in the most difficult of circumstances nevertheless want freedom. The greater part of those who voted for Boris Yeltsin in the 199^ presidential elections did so in order that the Communists would not win. People do not want to go back to the past.

This means that today it is no longer possible to turn Russia back to totalitarianism.

CHAPTER A

October and the World

\

One of the basic features of the twentieth century has been the division of the world community into two opposing camps, East and West. By this I mean the dividing line drawn, first, between the Soviet Union and the West and, later, after other states began taking the road first traveled by the Soviet Union, between the countries of the so-called socialist camp and the developed Western countries.

This division has fundamentally determined the whole course of world history since 1917. It did not, however, have an equal effect on both sides. The negative consequences are obvious and have been much studied. The positive consequences—and there were some—have so far remained in the realm of propaganda. I think that historical science still has a long way to go toward making a genuinely objective and dispassionate analysis of all the ups and downs of the century now drawing to a close.

It is not of course a question of speculating on what the world might have been like if the October revolution had not happened. There is no basis for scientific analysis in that. But to try to weigh the actual effect of the USSR on the course of international relations—that would be an important undertaking.

Let us ask a question: While it was impossible to prevent the division of the world into two opposing systems after the victory of the revolution in Russia, might it not have been possible to avoid those extreme consequences that ultimately resulted in an endless series of confrontations culminating in the Cold War.^

Reasoning theoretically, one might say: Yes, it would have been possible if both sides, immediately after the civil war in Russia and the failure of Western military intervention, had taken the road of recognizing each other’s right to exist. In the real world, however, it proved impossible. Espe-

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OCTOBER AND THE WORLD

cially because, not only in Russia but to a considerable extent in what one might call the popular consciousness worldwide, the victory of October was seen as the beginning of a “new era.” The division of the world into two opposing social systems was depicted by Communist ideologists as a good thing. Lenin spoke of it as final and irreversible. This is fully understandable in view of the “model” of social to put into effect.

They took as their starting point the view that October was the begin-^ing of a worldwide revolution. Following their example, similar revolutions would be victorious in Western Europe, then in other countries, and finally the whole world would “go socialist.” But the world revolution did not happen. “Soviet” revolutions (or insurrections) were defeated in several countries. At the end of his life Lenin admitted this fact and proposed that a new course be taken, oriented toward the prolonged existence of the Soviet state under “capitalist encirclement.” A new policy was proclaimed—“peaceful coexistence” (Lenin’s own term) with the capitalist world.

First, the West had no confidence in this “new course.” Although the West recognized the USSR diplomatically and economically, it continued its attempts by various means to overthrow the Bolsheviks. Second, the Soviet leadership—both secretly and openly—continued to support revolutionary forces whose aim was to overthrow capitalism.

The Twentieth Congress of the CPSU renounced the idea that a new world war was inevitable and spoke in favor of “peaceful coexistence.” Yet five years later the party’s new program, adopted at its Twenty-second Congress, declared peaceful coexistence to be “a form of the class struggle.” This formula was not renounced until 1986, when a new version of the party program was adopted at the Twenty-seventh Congress.

Until that time the old orientation remained in force. In the name of an ideology that placed the peoples of the Soviet Union in hostile opposition to most of the world, our country increased its participation in the arms race, exhausting its resources and turning the military-industrial complex into the primary factor governing all politics and public consciousness in the USSR. We were feared, and we considered this to our credit, because the enemy should be afraid. And it was not just a question of our immense nuclear arsenal but also the provocative actions in which the Soviet Union engaged, such as the invasion of Czechoslovakia and intervention in Afghanistan.

development the Bolsheviks were seeking

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All this is true, but the responsibility for the many decades of tension cannot be laid solely at Soviet feet. In the West, from the very beginning of the Russian revolution, a policy w'as adopted of trying to suppress that revolution.

In December 1917, for example, Leonido Bissolati, a minister of the Italian government, stated: ‘‘The influence of the Bolsheviks has reached proportions that are not without danger for us. If in the near future the Russian government does not fall, things will go badly for us. O Lord, punish the Bolsheviks!” In March 1918 Arthur Balfour, summing up the results of the London Conference of prime ministers and foreign ministers of France, Italy, and Britain, wrote the following in a dispatch to U.S. President Woodrow Wilson: “What is the remedy.^ To the Conference it seemed that none is possible except through Allied intervention. Since Russia cannot help herself [!], she must be helped by her friends.” In early 1919 President Wilson also spoke in very definite terms: “We must be concerned that this [Bolshevik] form of ‘rule by the people’ is not imposed on us, or anyone else.”

Wilson’s “concern” was expressed in the deployment of armed expeditionary forces on the territory of Soviet Russia. And it must be acknowledged that this was not done merely to prevent “rule by the people” from spreading to other countries. The intentions of the Western powers went much further, as historical documents show.

On October 30, 1918, President Wilson approved a document (not for publication of course!) with commentary on the famous Fourteen Points, the American peace program. In this document the recommendation was made that Russia not be regarded as a unitary state. The document suggested that separate states, such as Ukraine, should arise on Russian territory. The Caucasus region was seen as “part of the problem of the Turkish empire. Another suggestion was that one of the Western powers be authorized to govern Central Asia as a protectorate. As for the remaining parts of Russia, the idea expressed in this document was to propose to Great Russia and Siberia that a government “sufficiently representative to speak in the name of these territories be created.”

All this happened eighty years ago. But to judge from certain lightly tossed-off phrases and the highly “selective” diplomacy pursued by some Western countries, one gets the impression that even today “nothing has been forgotten.”

I will not pursue this theme further. The documents and facts on this issue are numerous. The main point is to recognize that both sides, over

OCTOBER AND THE WORLD

the course of all the years since the revolution, have engaged in rough confrontation, sometimes openly, sometimes secretly. After World War II this was expressed in the arms race, above all, the nuclear arms race (although both sides feared it and neither side wanted a head-on military clash, especially not with weapons of mass destruction). This struggle was also expressed in rivalry on other continents (a race to see who could win more supporters or allies). Only after perestroika began did the situation start to change. Both sides altered their approach and, to a certain extent, nought to meet each other halfway. This led to the end of the Cold War.

I should note that surviving elements of that era of confrontation have not been eliminated to this day. Most of the “holdovers” are found in the West, but in Russia, too, not all the prejudices and habits of that era have been overcome. That, however, is a separate topic.

It was apparently not possible to avoid the world’s many decades of confrontation and division. But it is important to draw lessons from the past for future use. This mutually confrontational approach to international relations does no one any good; everyone has to pay the price. It should not be forgotten, moreover, that a hostile, confrontational attitude by each side toward the other only embitters both and intensifies all the dangers that may arise.

More than seventy years of confrontation, as we have said, left their mark on the entire course of world history. Even under these conditions, and despite all the contradictory aspects of the Soviet past, in which tragedy and heroism were interwoven, giving rise to totally unexpected situations, the existence and development of the Soviet Union had an enormous impact on the rest of the world.

At first, in the years right after October 1917, this impact took the outward form of mass movements that swept like waves across many countries. October inspired hope in a great many people, especially working people, that improvement in the conditions of their lives was possible. That was when the Communist movement was born, the best organized of all mass movements known to history.

We cannot close our eyes of course to the fact that Soviet Russia was a bulwark of decisive support and aid to these movements, but we also cannot keep quiet about the main consideration: What was involved was a spontaneous reaction by working people to the example set by October, on whose banners were inscribed the same kind of slogans for which they themselves had been fighting for decades in their own countries.

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As Karl Kautsky wrote in 1920:

If the low level of economic development in Russia today still rules out a form of socialism that would be superior to advanced capitalism, still the Russian revolution has performed a truly heroic feat, freeing the peasantry from all the consequences of feudal exploitation from which it had been suffocating. No less important is the fact that the Russian revolution instilled the workers of the capitalist world in a consciousness of their own power.

After World War II there emerged a large group of countries (the so-called socialist camp), representing nearly one-third of the human race. These countries not only took up the ideas of October; they also borrowed forms of government from the Soviet Union. The question of the nature of the revolutions that took place in Eastern Europe and East Asia deserves further study, particularly regarding their origins: What was the “balance” between the native popular movements in those countries and Soviet policy in bringing them into existence.^

The creation of democratic, antifascist regimes was the natural result of the defeat of fascism in World War II and of the fact that the forces that had collaborated with the fascists were completely discredited. The subsequent stage, however, in which for all practical purposes one-party systems were established on the Soviet model (or something close to it), was not such a natural result. It was the result of open or secret pressure from Moscow. This also had to do with the Stalinist conception of proletarian internationalism and ideological unity among all Communist parties. Those parties, too, bear their share of responsibility for what happened. In addition, we cannot forget about the Cold War—that is, the responsibility the West also had for the policies Moscow pursued in relation to its allies.

When we began perestroika, one of the first steps we took was to declare an end to intervention in the internal affairs of our allies, to what was known as the Brezhnev doctrine. It could not have been otherwise. Having charted a course toward freedom, we could not deny it to others. Reproaches are often directed at me today, asking what I “gave up” or who I “gave it up” to. If such terminology is to be used, then we ‘ gave up those countries to their own people. We “gave up” that which did not belong to us. In general, I consider freedom of choice indispensable for every nation and one of the most meaningful principles in politics today.

OCTOBER AND THE WORLD

In the opinion of George F. Kennan, the Russian revolution unquestionably accelerated the disintegration of the European colonial empires. Here, too, it was not a question of “exporting the Russian revolution.” The anticolonial revolutions unfolded as a reaction to the emancipation of the nationalities of Russia, to the transformations that began to take place in the former borderlands of the tsarist empire.^It was precisely the presence of the Soviet Union as part of the world balance of forces, and the attractive force of the Soviet example for the people in the colonies, that forced the colonial powers in a number of cases to make concessions to the liberation movements and grant independence to the colonies. From this point of view it is interesting to hear the opinion of a respected specialist Victor Gordon Kiernan, a professor at Edinburgh University. He wrote: “The fear that India would start to lean too far toward Moscow and socialism explains, in many respects, the granting of independence to India in 1947. Fear of the expansion of Soviet influence in the final analysis forced the West to take the road of decolonization in general.”

Even from the point of view of sober-minded Westerners who are not socialists, this aspect of Soviet influence cannot be underestimated. What was involved here was a genuine quickening of the pace of social progress on a world scale.

The existence of the Soviet Union had an impact on the capitalist world itself, on everyday life in the West. As many Westerners have admitted, social policy in the Soviet Union acted as a stimulus toward the introduction of similar social programs in the West, the granting of social benefits that had not existed before October or that had generally been considered unacceptable. It turned out to be simply impossible, even dangerous, to lag behind “Communism” in such matters.

I will cite testimony from sources connected with two quite different ideological tendencies. In a Belgian socialist magazine, Le Socialisme, we find the following: “There is no question that the Russian revolution of 1917 and the general rise of the revolutionary movement after World War I forced the capitalists to make numerous concessions to the workers, concessions that otherwise would have required much greater effort to extract.” Here, on the other hand, is a statement by Walter Lippmann, the well-known columnist, who for several decades was one of the chief molders of opinion in American society: “But we delude ourselves if we do not realize that the main power of the Communist states lies not in their clandestine

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THE OCTOBER REVOLUTION

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activity but in the force of their example, in the visible demonstration of

what the Soviet Union has achieved.”

Both statements come from the period before the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Have opinions changed since then.^ In 1997 1 had an interview with Arrigo Levi, a prominent Italian writer and commentator. Our conversation dealt with the eightieth anniversary of October. The interview was later shown on television. I can recall verbatim much of what was said, especially Levi’s comment: “Communism was unquestionably a powerful

catalyst for progress in other countries.”

Yes, that was so. Now, on the other hand, with Russia in its present condition of crisis, when the power of its social example has faded, a new policy is gaining strength in many Western countries, a policy of cutting back on people’s social rights and benefits, a desire to solve all problems connected with intensified global competition by making cutbacks in social programs at home. The French authors Jean Francois Kahn and Patrice Picard have written in this regard:

The pathetic fiasco of the collectivist utopia had the inevitable result of spurring on the savage race for individual success, a race that of course proceeds on unequal terms. If the illusory successes of Communism contributed at first to a rejuvenation of capitalism, there is no question that the downfall of the Soviet system hastened the emergence of ultraliberal tendencies.

These are “tendencies” that in the final analysis can prove to be extremely dangerous.

In this part of the present work it seems appropriate to share my thoughts on the experience of various countries, because the entire world is changing before our eyes and an intensive search is under way for roads to the future.

We need the experience of the past as a lesson, as the source of all that is best in the cumulative achievements of the human mind, the creative product of many nations and populations. The eighty years that have passed since October demonstrate this—and they do so in two ways. The fruitful exchange of experience has truly enriched life, enriched every nation that took part in this exchange. But artificial self-isolation, the refusal to make use of the experience of others, places a brake on development and reduces the range of possibilities for every nation that takes or has taken the isolationist path. The example of the Soviet Union, which barricaded itself not

OCTOBER AND THE WORLD

only from the social experience of the West but also from its scientific and technical progress, is highly instructive. Japan and Southeast Asia provide the opposite example. Energetically assimilating the experiences of other countries and enriching them with their own contributions, they were able in a very short time, historically speaking, to break through to the high ground of contemporary progress.

The same experience shows, however, that simply to copy from others’ achievements in a mechanical way, especially in socioeconomic respects, to ,^ake one s own country over in the image of other models—even if those were very successful models—is dangerous and counterproductive. Sooner or later a high price must be paid for such a mistake.

Testifying to this in the most obvious and dramatic way is the example of Russia in the last few years. The Russian leadership has been warned many times against copying others in a formalistic way, against following outside advice that is by no means unselfish or disinterested. An important book was published in Russia in 199^’ Rcformy gla:^ami amerikanskikh i russkikh uchenykh [The reforms seen through the eyes of American and Russian scholars]. Among the authors were several recipients of the Nobel Prize in economics. This book called attention, among other things, to the inadmissibility of mechanically applying a general **model” to the very specific conditions in Russia.

Also, of course, the history of past decades has shown quite clearly that the imposition of any recipes or “models” from the outside, especially with the use of forcible measures (economic or political) is, without question, ruinous. That is what happened to the Eastern European countries on which the Soviet Union imposed its model. The results are well known. Incidentally, wherever local leaders tried in some way to correct or revise the “advice from their (Soviet) elder brother,” taking into account their own national traditions and conditions, things went better.

Today the whole world is watching as Washington attempts to impose on others its model of how to approach major political, economic, and social problems. It is necessary to study the American experience; there definitely is much of interest in that experience. But to copy everything that is done across the ocean is unproductive and dangerous. This is well understood in Europe. It was no accident that at a recent G -8 summit in Denver the European leaders displayed no inclination whatsoever to follow the American president’s exhortations on how to stimulate economic development and solve social problems.

t

THE OCTOBER REVOLUTION

The natural interaction and mutual influence of different experiences, the study and utilization of whatever corresponds to one’s own interests that is another question altogether. Today that kind of interaction has become an imperative necessity not only for international progress but for national progress as well.

In recent years, especially after the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the changes in Eastern Europe, some people have triumphantly proclaimed that everything has returned to the way it should be. (This was done particularly by Francis Fukuyama in The End of History?) But to take this approach is a profound error. Today’s world is an entire solar system in which the West is only one of the planets. The influence of October has been very great, as seen in the fact that the world has changed so strikingly and irreversibly. A process of change on a world scale began in October 1917. The world continues to change. And it is in no one’s provenance to turn back the course of history.

The many years’ experience since October allows us to consider matters more broadly and to draw lessons from the past for the sake of the future.

One More Balance Sheets Something Worth Thinking About

Let me cite a certain episode. In the summer of 1991 a regular session was held in Prague by the Interaction Council, an organization founded by the former German premier Helmut Schmidt to bring together a number of highly qualified and experienced men who had formerly been presidents or prime ministers of their countries. A copy of the concluding declaration adopted at this session was sent to me, It proved to be quite interesting, and I asked the newspaper Pravda to print it in full. The responses we received to this document were quite varied. But most of the discussion and debate it provoked centered on a passage in the document stating something we were not at all accustomed to hearing, because it contradicted a notion that had been instilled in us for decades—that the Soviet system was superior in all respects. The passage in question stated: “Neither the capitalist market system nor the socialist command economy has proved that it can satisfy both individual and collective needs or that it can distribute income fairly.”

This conclusion was completely justified. Indeed, neither the Western socioeconomic system nor the system created under the name of socialism has been able to solve many of the fundamental problems of the twentieth century. We could go further and state that neither system has been able to avoid acute contradictions, crises, and social or national upheavals. Neither has been capable of making progress toward solving global problems, beginning with ecological problems, the severity of which threatens the very existence of civilization.

Of course the balance sheet on the two existing social systems is not uniform. On the economic plane, the Western countries undeniably have achieved significant results in terms of production efficiency and the quality and quantity of goods produced. In the Soviet Union, in a number of areas connected with the development and application of high technology.

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above all, military technology, impressive achievements were made. It is enough to mention the field of space exploration. But in most other areas in production efficiency, the quality and quantity of goods produced, and, above all, consumer goods and technology applied to civilian use the Soviet Union obviously lagged behind the West.

Until the mid-1970s (mainly in quantitative respects) the gap between the two systems was reduced somewhat, but subsequently it began to increase again. The phenomena of stagnation made themselves felt in our country with growing force.

In making this comparison and analyzing it, we cannot help but conclude that the key to Western success was the utilization of the advantages of the market economy. The Soviet Union ignored those advantages and lost the incentive toward development. The administrative-command system, that is, the supercentralized administration of the economy, deprived the Soviet Union of flexibility and maneuverability. The economic mechanism was geared toward willful types of decisions that did not take into account economic and ecological considerations, decisions that in many cases were harmful immediately or later on.

The experience of the past eighty years, however, reveals something else as well. On the social level, and on the environmental level, even the most advanced market economy has not proved very effective.

The efficiency of the market economy results from its central law, that of profits and the maximization of profits, but it proved incapable of eliminating poverty for millions of people. As a result, the global North-South problem has arisen and remains a terrible menace hanging over the entire world community.

In the most highly developed countries the market has greatly improved productivity, but it has imposed a harmful consumer mentality on the population and created a situation in which unemployment has steadily increased, affecting many millions with all its dramatic social and moral consequences.

Unemployment is one of the basic defects of the market-based system. This defect should be overcome or at least minimized in terms of its consequences for working people. But how.^ The answer is by means of a rational social policy. But this requires revision of some of the present-day dogmas, which many “experts” have raised to the level of “indisputable laws of development.” If development makes masses of people superfluous, re-

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moves them from a life of useful activity, and throws them on the scrap heap, does it not follow that either the content or the direction of development (or both) must be changed? The same can be said about the environmental consecjuences of market economics. The present system of economic management based on the pursuit of profits is destroying nature. In the West, measures are being taken to make production safer ecologically. But this occurs only when the situation reaches extreme limits, or it happens under pressure from public opinion. In many cases, attempts to “solve” ^environmental problems are made by exporting harmful production to other countries. Thus, in the final analysis, improving environmental conditions in one place is accomplished at the expense of worsening the world ecological situation in general.

All these considerations, which have become cjuite evident, have had the result that in recent times the market economy is being criticized more and more in the Western countries themselves. A report by the Interaction Council, entitled “In Search of a Global Order,” noted:

The market mechanism has demonstrated that it is not a panacea for solving intractable world problems nor for achieving fundamental social aims. On the one hand, there is no better system than the market economy for achieving economic growth and prosperity. On the other hand, a market in and of itself cannot ensure a satisfactory distribution of income and tends to result in the exclusion of the weak, the unorganized, and the vulnerable. . . . The market has demonstrated that it is not capable of solving the fundamental problem of the environment which it regards as ‘external.’ There are no market solutions for such problems as poverty, hunger, and population growth.

An equally sharp expression of views has been heard from the Nobel Prize-winning U.S. economist James Tobin, who wrote:

The Invisible Hand deserves two cheers, not the three or four proposed by its zealot ideologues. Individual self-interest can be a motivation for actions of great benefit to society, but only if disciplined and channeled . . . the Invisible Hand theorem has to be modified by recognizing externalities and public goods, where individual and societal interests diverge. These require treatment by governments to protect collective interests.

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We have spoken above about the advantages and flaws of the centralized planned economy in the Soviet Union as far as the social sphere was concerned. Without repeating what has been said, it should be noted that despite its weaknesses the system that was called socialist gave people (at least the majority of working people) a minimal income necessary for life and confidence in the future, which working people in the West as a rule do not know. But on the ecological plane, this system did not pass the test.

The lesson, it seems, is obvious: There needs to be a search for solutions that would provide for active utilization of market rrtechanisms, but these would have to be combined without fail with measures of social and ecological protection. In my view, the search for these solutions is not being conducted seriously except by a few left-wing parties.

Meanwhile the market economy, which has been established solidly throughout the world, faces a new test. The economy has become a global one, and of course so has the market. Under these conditions, all the virtues of the market as well as all its shortcomings are likewise being globalized, and both positive and negative qualities are emerging more and more strongly. This is especially true since the market economy currently has no “rival” in the form of an opposing system in the East, which previously prevented the West from ignoring the social aspects of the economy. The problem of combining social and ecological imperatives is becoming acute.

A comparative analysis of the results of the competition between the two systems could be continued. There is a vast amount of material here, but it is a subject for a separate book. What we would like to do now is to think about a way out of the general crisis of world development, a crisis that confronts the world community with the need for radical transformation flowing in one common channel as a new civilizing process in order to provide salvation for all. Here there arises, first, the question of the role of government. I do not think there are any grounds for removing government from all consideration, as proponents of the invisible hand theory do. Incidentally, the role of government as a key regulator of economic and social life is recognized by numerous foreign authors who belong to the most varied shadings on the political spectrum. We have already quoted James Tobin on the need for government action when individual and social interests diverge. Tobin also noted that “Adam Smith himself was quite aware of government’s

role.”

It is impossible not to notice that even in countries where liberal, even ultraliberal, views prevail, the role of government has by no means disap-

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peared. The forms this role takes are of course changing. For example, government-owned property is being qualitatively reduced as a result of several waves of privatization, and direct intervention by government agencies in solving economic problems is being restricted. But government continues as a major source of purchasing orders for businesses, and it regulates economic development through tax policies and other financial devices, distributing quite a large part of the national income through the budget.

As for the experience of the Soviet Union, it showed that when govern-jnent assumes the role of the sole or primary property owner, it is transformed into an instrument for unrestricted domination by a bureaucracy, while the producers are deprived of the opportunity to display initiative and cultivate the spirit of enterprise. These qualities find no room for expression under conditions in which government dictates economic policy. In the final analysis, this system acts as a brake on progress and a deadening influence on those forces that provide dynamism in the national economy and give it the capacity for modernization and innovation. Incidentally, in some countries that belonged to the so-called socialist camp there existed a fairly well-developed cooperative sector of the economy (for example, in Hungary and East Germany), and this sector demonstrated its capability and efficiency. Of course certain national traditions played a role here, too, but this simply confirms that even limited attempts to optimize the role of government in the economy can produce substantial results.

A conclusion suggests itself: Finding the optimal correlation between the role of government and that of private “actors” in the economy, with self-management by those “actors,” that is, finding an appropriate combination of the role of government and that of the market—this is a task that remains unresolved. This applies as well to Russia today, where the idea of separating the government from the economy and the social sphere during a transitional period has had distinctly disastrous results. It seems that there have been recent attempts in Russia as well to find the necessary balance between the role of the market and that of government. But so far these are only attempts.

Generally speaking, an ideal solution to this problem is unlikely ever to be found. In each country, each society, at any given time, it takes on its own particular features, its own special twists and turns. The search for an ideal solution will probably continue. But the extent to which it is successful depends in large part on democracy in the economy, in politics, and in the society as a whole.

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This is one of the most important lessons of our history. The Soviet Union, in the final analysis, experienced its tragedy because democracy was suppressed as a matter ofi principle over a long period ofi time. On the^other hand, the signs of a revival in public life, the'restored ability of citizens to display initiatives—these began with the revival of democracy that is linked with perestroika. Recent years—especially since 1993, after the dissolution of the Russian parliament and the shelling of the parliament building, and the adoption of a new constitution granting authoritarian powers to the executive branch—have been marked by the constriction of democracy, distortion of it, and the depreciation of its most vivifying aspects. This is dangerous. A feeling of hope rises, nevertheless, because in spite of everything, the majority of Russian citizens consciously and voluntarily have refused to go along with the antidemocratic choice.

Today the development of democracy in the West is held up as an example for the future. While acknowledging what has been achieved there, we cannot help noting that Western democracy is not well; It is in a crisis. Democratic institutions persist, but the citizenry seem more and more alienated from those institutions, which are simply degenerating. Vitally important decisions are made behind citizens’ backs, without their participation and beyond their control. These decisions are made by political elites and are the result of political trade-offs that often serve the interests of narrow groups. As a result, the political activity of most people has lessened and the gap between government and society has increased. Thus, even in the most-developed Western countries, democracy itself needs to be renewed; it needs, if I may say so, a democratization.

Of course the situation varies from country to country. But the chief political question for the present and the future is to find up-to-date forms of democracy and to fine-tune them in their most essential aspects while of course taking into account the unique evolution of each society. This problem is further discussed below.

In the light of the entire Russian post-October experience, we have solid criteria for evaluating the potentials of one or another economic system or sociopolitical regime. And thus we can hope to obtain useful solutions in our search for the road to the future.

In drawing the balance sheet on the past eighty years, we cannot fail to touch on a key question for the future, namely, “Who won the Cold War.^

The Cold War ended as a result of the interaction of various factors. We must be honest about this. If there had not been a change in Soviet policy, if

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the new thinking had not emerged, the Cold War might have continued for much longer. That point deserves emphasis.

It is customary for Westerners to claim that the West was victorious in the Cold War and that the East—above all, the Soviet Union—was defeated. This analysis of the issue is very convenient for those who would like to impose conditions on the so-called losing side, to bend it to their will. True, quite a few people in Russia admit they were defeated, but they also seek to avoid any serious analysis of what actually occurred. What happened is this: In the rivalry between the two social systems—the one that was established in the Soviet Union and other countries allied with it, and the other that existed and still exists in the W^est—the positions held by the Western system turned out to be superior. In what respect, and why, are the questions at issue. As discussed above, the responsibility for this lies in the “model” of social development established by the Bolsheviks and the policies pursued throughout their years in power, especially after Lenin’s death.

The system founded by the Bolsheviks has now passed from the historical scene. Although I emphasize that’fact, it would be a major mistake to consider the “Russian experiment” useless, as though it had made no contribution to humanity. Since that is surely not the case, certain conclusions need to be drawn not only by the successor governments of the former Soviet Union but also by the West. Both Soviet developments and those in the West have posed many problems that remain unresolved. In seeking solutions to these problems, everything must be taken into account, both the experience of the USSR and that of its former opponents. To ignore any part of our common world experience would be irresponsible and would not bring us closer to solving the problems before us.

As for who won the Cold War, the answer, in my opinion, lies simply in rephrasing the question. We should ask. Who gained by the termination of that war.^ Here the answer is obvious: Every country, all the peoples of the world, benefited. Because the confrontation has been overcome, we have all been delivered from a terrible danger, the threat of nuclear catastrophe. We all have a unique opportunity—the first in many centuries—to organize a truly peaceful coexistence among people of different nations and governments all over the planet. We can engage in development under conditions of cooperative and constructive activity.

Of course simply because such a possibility exists does not mean these prospects will be realized. It is evident thus far that not much has been

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achieved. There is a saying, “The dead hand of the past lays hold of the living.” The legacy of the past is so heavy, with so many layers, that the world has not yet been able to free itself, from that legacy. Moreover, pressing new problems confront us that were previously unforeseen.

The lessons of the past nevertheless encourage us to do all we can to rid ourselves from the burdens of that legacy so that we may transform the future, if not into a golden age (probably an exaggerated hope), then into a period of humane progress corresponding to the interests of all humanity.

f

October and Perestroika

T HERE HAS BEEN 3 Continuing debate over when reform actually began in our country. Politicians and journalists have been trying to locate the exact point at which all our dramatic changes began. Some assert that reforms in Russia did not really begin until 1992.

The basis for reform was laid by Khrushchev. His break with the repressive policies of Stalinism was a heroic feat of civic action. Khrushchev also tried, though without much success, to make changes in the economy. Significant attempts were made within the framework of the so-called Kosygin reforms. Then came a long period of stagnation and a new attempt by Yuri Andropov to improve the situation in our society. An obvious sign that the times were ripe for change was the activity of the dissidents. They were suppressed and expelled from the country, but their moral stand and their proposals for change (for example, the ideas of Andrei Sakharov) played a considerable role in creating the spiritual preconditions for perestroika.

Of course external factors were also important. Thus the Prague Spring of 1968 sowed the seeds of profound thought and reflection in our society. The invasion of Czechoslovakia, dictated by fear of the “democratic infection,” was not only a crude violation of the sovereignty and rights of the Czechoslovak people. It had the effect, for years, of putting the brakes on moves toward change, although change was long overdue both in our country and throughout the so-called socialist camp. I should also acknowledge the role of such phenomena as Willy Brandt’s “Eastern policy” and the search for new avenues toward social progress by those who were called Euro-Communists. All this contributed to deeper reflection in our country, reflection on the values of democracy, freedom, and peace and the ways to achieve them.

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Thus we see that attempts at change were made, quite a few of them in fact. But none of them produced results. This is not surprising: After all, none of these attempts touched the essence of the system—property relations, the power structure, and the monopoly of the party on political and intellectual life. The suppression of dissidence continued in spite of everything.

Clearly what was needed was not particular measures in a certain area, even if they were substantial, but rather an entirely different policy, a new political path. Since early 1985, especially after thevApril plenum of the CPSU Central Committee, this kind of policy began to be formulated. A new course was taken.

Today, in retrospect, one can only be amazed at how quickly and actively our people, the citizens of our country, supported that new course. Apathy and indifference toward public life were overcome. This convinced us that change was vitally necessary. Society awakened.

Perestroika was born out of the realization that problems of internal development in our country were ripe, even overripe, for a solution. New approaches and types of action were needed to escape the downward spiral of crisis, to normalize life, and to make a breakthrough to qualitatively new frontiers. It can be said that to a certain extent perestroika was a result of a rethinking of the Soviet experience since October.

The vital need for change was dictated also by the following consideration. It was obvious that the whole world was entering a new stage of development—some call it the postindustrial age, some the information age. But the Soviet Union had not yet passed through the industrial stage. It was lagging further and further behind those processes that were making a renewal in the life of the world community possible. Not only was a leap forward in technology needed but fundamental change in the entire social and political process.

Of course it cannot be said that at the time we began perestroika we had everything thought out. In the early stages we all said, including myself, that perestroika was a continuation of the October revolution. Today I believe that that assertion contained a grain of truth but also an element of delusion.

The truth was that we were trying to carry out fundamental ideas that had been advanced by the October revolution but had not been realized: overcoming people’s alienation from government and property, giving power to the people (and taking it away from the bureaucratic upper echelons), implanting democracy, and establishing true social justice.

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The delusion was that at the time I, like most ot us, assumed this could be accomplished by improving and refining the existing system. But as experience accumulated, it became clear that the crisis that had paralyzed the country in the late 1970s and early 1980s was systemic and not the result of isolated aberrations. The logic of how matters developed pointed to the need to penetrate the system to its very foundations and change it, not merely refine or perfect it. We were already talking about a gradual shift to a social market economy, to a democratic political system based on rule of law and the full guarantee of human rights.

This transition turned out to be extremely difficult and complicated, more complicated than it had seemed to us at first. Above all, this was because the totalitarian system possessed tremendous inertia. There was resistance from the party and government structures that constituted the solid internal framework of that system. The nomenklatura encouraged resistance. And this is understandable: Since it held the entire country in its hands, it would have to give up its unlimited power and privileges. Thus the entire perestroika era was filled with struggles—concealed at first and then more open, more fully exposed to public view—between the forces for change and those who opposed it, those who, especially after the first two years, simply began to sabotage change.

The complexity of the struggle stemmed from the fact that in 1985 the entire society—politically, ideologically, and spiritually—was still in the thrall of old customs and traditions. Great effort was required to overcome these traditions, as mentioned above. There was another factor. Destroying the old system would have been senseless if we did not simultaneously lay the foundations for a new life. And this was genuinely unexplored territory. The six-year perestroika era was a time filled with searching and discovery, gains and losses, breakthroughs in thought and action, as well as mistakes and oversights. The attempted coup in August 1991 interrupted perestroika. After that there were many developments, but they were along different lines, following different intentions. Still, in the relatively short span of six years we succeeded in doing a great deal. The reforms in China, incidentally, have been going on since 1974, and their most difficult problems still remain unsolved.

What specifically did we accomplish as a result of the stormy years of perestroika.^ The foundations of the totalitarian system were eliminated. Profound democratic changes were begun. Free general elections were held for the first time, allowing real choice. Freedom of the press and a multi-

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party system were guaranteed. Representative bodies of government were established, and the first steps toward a separation of powers were taken. Human rights (previously in our country these were only “so-called, reference to them invariably made only in scornful quotation marks) now became an unassailable principle. And freedom of conscience was also established.

Movement began toward a multistructured, or mixed, economy providing equality of rights among all forms of property. Economic freedom was made into law. The spirit of enterprise began to gain strength, and processes of privatization and the formation of joint stock companies got under way. Within the framework of our new land law, the peasantry was reborn and private farmers made their appearance. Millions of hectares of land were turned over to both rural and urban inhabitants. The first privately owned banks also came on the scene. The different nationalities and peoples were given the freedom to choose their own course of development. Searching for a democratic way to reform our multinational state, to transform it from a unitary state in practice into a national federation, we reached the threshold at which a new union treaty was to be signed, based on the recognition of the sovereignty of each republic along with the preservation of a common economic, social, and legal space that was necessary for all, including a common defense establishment.

The changes within our country inevitably led to a shift in foreign policy. The new course of perestroika predetermined renunciation of stereotypes and the confrontational methods of the past. It allowed for a rethinking of the main parameters of state security and the ways to ensure it. I will return to this subject.

In other words, the foundations were laid for normal, democratic, and peaceful development of our country and its transformation into a normal member of the world community.

These are the decisive results of perestroika. Today, however, looking back through the prism of the past few years and taking into account the general trends of world development today, it seems insufficient to register these as the only results. Today it is evidently of special interest to state not only what was done but also how and why perestroika was able to achieve its results, and what its mistakes and miscalculations were.

Above all, perestroika would have been simply impossible if there had not been a profound and critical reexamination not only of the problems confronting our country but a rethinking of all realities—both national and international.

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Previous conceptions of the world and its developmental trends and, correspondingly, of our country’s place and role in the world were based, as we have said, on dogmas deeply rooted in our ideology, which essentially did not permit us to pursue a realistic policy. These conceptions had to be shattered and fundamentally new views worked out regarding our country’s development and the surrounding world.

This task turned out to be far from simple. We had to renounce beliefs that for decades had been considered irrefutable truths, to reexamine the very methods and principles of leadership and action, indeed to rethink our surroundings entirely on a scientific basis (and not according to schemes inherited from ideological biases).

The product of this effort was the new thinking, which became the basis for all policy—both foreign and domestic—during perestroika. The point of departure for the new thinking was an attempt to evaluate everything not from the viewpoint of narrow class interests or even national interests but from the broader perspective: that of giving priority to the interests of all humanity with consideration for the increasingly apparent wholeness of the world, the interdependence of all countries and peoples, the humanist values formed over centuries.

The practical work of perestroika was to renounce stereotypical ideological thinking and the dogmas of the past. This required a fresh view of the world and of ourselves with no preconceptions, taking into account the challenges of the present and the already evident trends of the future in the third millennium.

During perestroika, and often now as well, the initiators of perestroika have been criticized for the absence of a “clear plan” for change. The habit developed over decades of having an all-inclusive regimentation of life. But the events of the perestroika years and of the subsequent period have plainly demonstrated the following: At times of profound, fundamental change in the foundations of social development it is not only senseless but impossible to expect some sort of previously worked out ‘'model” or a clear-cut outline of the transformations that will take place. This does not mean, however, the absence of a definite goal for the reforms, a distinct conception of their content and the mam direction of their development.

All this was present in perestroika: a profound democratization of public life and a guarantee of freedom of social and political choice. These goals were proclaimed and frequently reaffirmed. This did not exclude but presupposed the necessity to change one’s specific reference points at each stage as matters proceeded and to engage in a constant search for optimal solutions.

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An extremely important conclusion follows from the experience of perestroika: Even in a society formed under totalitarian conditions, democratic change is possible by peacejul evolutionary means. The problem of revolution and evolution, of the role and place of reforms in social development, is one of the eternal problems of history. In its inner content perestroika of course was a revolution. But in its form it was an evolutionary process, a process of reform.

Historically the USSR had grown ripe for a profound restructuring much earlier than the mid-1980s. But if we had not decided to begin this restructuring at the time we did, even though we were quite late in doing so, an explosion would have taken place in the USSR, one of tremendous destructive force. It would certainly have been called a revolution, but it would have been the catastrophic result of irresponsible leadership.

In the course of implementing change we did not succeed in avoiding bloodshed altogether. But that was a consequence solely of resistance by the opponents of perestroika in the upper echelons of the nomenklatura. On the whole the change from one system to another took place peacefully and by evolutionary means. Our having chosen a policy course that was supported from below by the masses made this peaceful transition possible. And our policy of glasnost played a decisive role in mobilizing the masses and winning their support.

Radical reforms in the context of the Soviet Union could only have been initiated from above by the leadership of the party and the country. This was predetermined by the very “nature” of the system—supercentralized management of all public life. This can also be explained by the inert condition of the masses, who had become used to carrying out orders and decisions handed down from above.

From the very beginning of the changes our country’s leadership assigned primary importance to open communication with the people, including direct disclosure in order to explain the new course. Without the citizens’ understanding and support, without their participation, it would not have been possible to move from dead center. That is why we initiated the policies of perestroika and glasnost simultaneously.

Like perestroika itself, glasnost made its way with considerable difficulty. The nomenklatura on all levels, which regarded the strictest secrecy and protection of authorities from criticism from below as the holy of holies of the regime, opposed glasnost in every way they could, both openly and secretly, trampling its first shoots in the local press. Even among the most