Did Gorbachev as General Secretary Become a Social Democrat?

Archie Brown

Europe-Asia Studies, 2013, vol. 65, issue 2, 198-220

Abstract: As General Secretary, Gorbachev evolved from a Communist reformer to a socialist of the social democratic type. The most important programmatic documents of the CPSU in 1990–1991, on which Gorbachev had the predominant influence, were essentially social democratic. (Many in the Party apparatus had no intention of implementing them.) From 1988, Gorbachev was advocating fundamental change of the Soviet system, although there were zig-zags in his public pronouncements under the pressure of events. Ill-understood both at home and abroad, Gorbachev's social democratic ideas were ‘outflanked’ by the market fundamentalism and political impatience of his radical opponents and frustrated by the implacable enmity of conservative defenders of the vanishing Communist party-state.

Date: 2013
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DOI: 10.1080/09668136.2012.759713

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