GORBACHEV'S PERESTROIKA

John E. Elliott

Contemporary Economic Policy, 1989, vol. 7, issue 1, 35-52

Abstract: In its broadest sense, perestroika may encompass economic reforms or restructuring, openness to criticism, and democratization. One may attribute perestroika significantly to low performance, if not failure, in the Soviet system—notably, the need to modernize and to rectify lagging growth rates. The economic content of perestroika embodies fairly radical and comprehensive changes—notably, expanding enterprise autonomy and price mechanisms, reducing the scope and intensity of centralized planning, and allowing a larger role for individual and cooperative enterprise. Soviet experience supports the view that economic and political reforms are connected. Glasnost (openness) and democratization have expanded, partly as means to foster public support for economic restructuring. Such support is crucial, due to competing factions within the Communist Party and to the Party's opposition to more radical or democratizing reforms. Mikhail Gorbachev, after rejecting both Stalinism and post‐Stalinism, has turned to pre‐Stalinist sources—the Bolshevik Revolution, Lenin, Bukharin—for intellectual inspirations. Obstacles to reforms are substantial, and one may identify several alternative scenarios.

Date: 1989
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