Gang of Four

Mao Zedong
Deng Xiaoping

Hua Guofeng
China

*The 1970s: A Decade

of
Events and New Hope
In 1976 the "Gang of Four" was toppled, and a
tremendous change took place in Chinese society. In
1978 Deng Xiaoping initiated the reform and opening-up
policy, ushering China onto a new track of development.

Deaths of State Leaders Millions of people in Beijing attended

the funeral ceremony mourning the
The year 1976 saw the deaths of three revered state death of Chairman Mao.
leaders. The death of Mao Zedong in particular plunged
the whole country into grief.

The atmosphere in Tian An Men Square was solemn and reverent. A huge black streamer
running across the rostrum on Tian An Men carried the words in white: "Mass Memorial
Meeting for the Great Leader and Teacher Chairman Mao Zedong."

......

The national flag in the square flew at half mast. The people of the capital and Party,
government and army cadres stood in orderly formation in the square and along the five
kilometers of Changan Avenue which passes through the square. They had converged on the
square from factories, mines, enterprises, stores, rural people's communes, army quarters,
offices, schools and homes.

......

At 3 p.m. sharp the memorial meeting began. The million mourners stood at attention and
observed three minutes of silence as a 500-man military band played solemn funeral music. Live
transmissions over radio and television carried the meeting to innumerable homes. As the
funeral music reached every corner of the land, 800 million people stood in silent tribute with
tears in their eyes and at the same time sirens and whistles were sounded all across the country,
in factories and mines, from moving trains, ships and naval vessels.

(From "One Million People in Peking at Solemn Mass Memorial Meeting for Chairman Mao
Tsetung," November-December 1976.)
In 1981, the death of Soong Ching Ling deprived China of a great state leader, the world of a
great woman, and China Reconstructs of its founder. To commemorate this great woman of the
20th century, this magazine published a memorial issue, which included reminiscences from
revered state leaders and noted personages. At the beginning of the issue was a commemorative
article by Deng Yingchao, wife of late premier Zhou Enlai and a long-time friend of Soong
Ching Ling.

I remember the winter of 1924 when you accompanied Dr. Sun Yat-sen to Tianjin on your
journey to the north. You came up on the ship's deck to face the welcoming throng. I, standing
among them, saw Dr. Sun, the great revolutionary forerunner and ceaseless fighter for the
overthrow of the Qing dynasty monarchy and for independence, freedom and democracy in
China, standing straight and firm, although age and illness already marked his face, warmly
acknowledging the acclamations of the people. And on his right, I saw you -- erect, slim,
graceful, young, beautiful, dignified, tranquil, inspired by revolutionary ideals. As an image of a
young woman revolutionary, you remained clearly in my mind from then on.

In Beijing in 1925 you walked, dressed in mourning, in the funeral procession for Dr. Sun.
Through your black veil I saw that you were not in tears but firmer than ever, full of inner
strength. You passed the test of dire sorrow.

......

From your youth you devoted yourself to the revolution. With regard to your marriage, you did
not give way to the opposition of your whole family. Living in semi-feudal, semi-colonial old
China, surrounded by such kin, exposed for long years to hostility and threats from the
degenerated Kuomintang, you were able to fight on your own at the forefront of the battle. Your
unyielding will, your unbreakable strength, your noble quality of remaining unsoiled amid the
mire, has made you a true heroine of the people, a true heroine among women. Great
revolutionary fighter! You are purer than the lotus, stronger than the pine. Comrade Zhou Enlai
called you "the gem of the nation," and he was right.

(From "Salute to Comrade Soong Ching Ling" by Deng Yingchao, August 1981.)

Tangshan Earthquake

The year 1976 was indeed eventful. In July an earthquake sundered Tangshan into debris and
deprived China of 240,000 lives. Tremors from this huge earthquake were also felt strongly in
neighboring areas, including Beijing and Tianjin. The Chinese people suppressed their sorrow
and worked tirelessly to rescue, help and comfort the survivors of this dreadful natural disaster.
This magazine sent reporters to the ruins of Tangshan and reported what they saw to the world.

The violent 7.5 earthquake that hit the Tangshan-Fengnan area in Hebei province, North China,
at 3:42 a.m. last July 28, caused great losses in life and property. Strong shocks were felt in
Tianjin and Beijing.
......On July 30 a delegation of Central Committee and State Council leaders went to the areas
separately in three subdivisions. With the direct concern of Chairman Mao and the Party
Central Committee, and with prompt assistance from the people of the entire country, the
inhabitants of the disaster areas fought the results of the quake and began relief and
rehabilitation work.

......

Destruction was the greatest in the million-population city of Tangshan. The Tangshan
prefectural and city Party committees and local army units immediately set up a command post
for relief work. Leaders and workers of the area's factories and mines, including the Kailuan
Coal Mines, Tangshan Iron and Steel Company, and Tangshan Power Plant rescued workers
and their families and braved continued tremors to check installations and buildings. The great
majority of the miners on night shift in the Kailuan Coal Mines under the city returned to the
surface safely. Aid flowed in from all directions.

......

In Beijing, a hundred miles away, the shock was lighter and damage slight. The municipal Party
committee directed what relief and further precautionary
measures were needed. The entire population quickly
erected temporary shelters in the open. Water,
electricity, coal and gas supplies were maintained
without interruption. Communications and transport
were kept open. People were able to buy food and daily
necessities as usual.

(From "First Days After the Earthquake," October 1976.)

"First Love"

Reform and opening up came quietly to China with the

spring rain of 1978, foretelling the arrival of a new
development period. This spring rain not only moistened
the dry soil but also revitalized the thirsty hearts and
humanity of the Chinese people. This magazine is one of
the first few periodicals that reported on love after the
"cultural revolution." China Today has recorded the
changes in Chinese people's attitude
On July 26 last year the Peking Daily published a report towards marriage and personal
entitled "Two Minds with the Same Ideals." It was a true relationships.
story about Zhang Lihan and Wang Chengkuang, both
workers in a parts factory. Response from readers both in and out of Beijing was immediate.

Communist Youth League members in the Electrical Appliances Factory in Peking asked Zhang
Lihan to tell them more about her story......
Last autumn "The Position of Love," a short story by Liu Xinwu, published in the literary
monthly October, drew even stronger reactions throughout the country.

......

Young men and women all over the country wrote the papers and authors what they thought
about the questions the story and Zhang Lihan's article raised. Below are excerpts from some of
these letters:

Liu Shumin of the Peking Post and Telegraph Bureau wrote: "I read about love in stories when I
was a child. I didn't understand much but I had a feeling it was something noble that brought
happiness. But later I was told that love was something vulgar. One should never fall in love.
Chang Li-han's story showed me what real love is."

......

Chen Chieh-fang, an army man of the military sub-command in southern Gansu province:
"Zhang Lihan and Wang Chengkuang's story tells us that love doesn't at all prevent young
people from working well, but helps them mature properly. As Gorky once wrote, 'Without love,
there will be no happiness. True love elevates the spirit and inspires people to work and live
better.'"

......

Recently, stories and plays about love have appeared one after another in Chinese newspapers,
magazines, radio and television programs. They have received wide acclaim, especially from the
young people. They demand that this should continue, in order to help restore love's proper
place in people's minds and lives. Such favorable responses have naturally penetrated the
Communist Youth League.

(From "Reevaluating Attitudes on Love" by Yu Yuwen, January 1979.)

The Four Modernizations

Although the Four Modernizations are associated with Deng Xiaoping this program was
articulated by Zhou Enlai in 1975. The Communist Party from Lenin was committed to
industrialization but Maoism took a different attitude, that modernization was a "road to
capitalistic restoration." Zhou Enlai was suffering from cancer and was politically too weak to
confront Mao's wife, Jiang Qing, on this issue. But Deng Xiaoping was more combative. In the
fall of 1975 he published three documents which were to be the basis for the Four
Modernizations. The Gang of Four labeled these documents "Three Poisonous Weeds" and made
Deng the target of the "Antirightist Deviationist Wind Campaign." In his New Year's Message of
1976 Mao warned against emphasizing material progress. By April Deng had been dismissed for
all his official posts.
By October of 1976 Mao was dead and the Gang of Four under arrest. Deng was rehabilitated
and the Four Modernizations promoted. By August 1977 Deng was reinstated and he delivered a
speech to the Eleventh Party Congrees stressing the Four Modernizations of :

 Agricuture
 Industry
 Science and Technology
 National Defense

In practical terms this meant "electricity in the rural areas, industrial automation, a new
economic outlook, and greatly enhanced defense strength."

The Ten Year Plan

In February of 1978 Chairman Hua Guofeng revealed a ten year plan for the period 1976-1985.
The Plan involved 120 projects consisting of:

The Ten Year Plan

Sector Plan

Iron and Steel 10 complexes

Nonferrous Metals 9 complexes

Oil and Gas 10 fields

Coal 8 mines

Electricity 30 power stations

Railroad 7 trunk lines

Water Transportation 5 harbors

The turmoil that Mao and the Maoists imposed upon China can be seen reflected in the statistics
on iron and steel production. In 1960 steel production was almost 19 million tons, up from 1.35
tons in 1952. But the Great Leap Forward caused production to fall back to 8 million tons in
1961. After recovering and reaching a peak of 25.5 million tons in 1973, leadership of the Gang
of Four during the Cultural Revolution brought a fall to 21 million tons in 1976, a net gain of
only 10 percent over the 1960 figure.

The Ten-Year Plan called for an increase in steel production to 60 million tons per year by 1985
and to 180 million by 1999. The leadership didn't expect to achieve such gains by homegrown
development, instead they entered into a $14 billion contract with a German steel company to
build a major steel complex in eastern Hebei province and a $2 billion contract with a Japanese
firm to build another on the outskirts of Shanghai. Other plants were also to be built.

Major petroleum discoveries were made in the 1960s and the Ten-Year Plan called for investing
$60 billion in ten new oil and gas fields. China relies very heavily on coal for energy and the
Ten-Year Plan called for doubling coal production to 900 million tons per year through the
creation of eight new mines. China at the time of the formulation of the Ten-Year P;an was
relatively weak in the use of electrical power. The Ten-Year P;an called for the development of
20 hydoelectric power plants and 10 other types of power plants.

In 1977 China was still a predominantly agricultureal economy but the government had not
supported institutional and technological measures to increase productivity and, as a
consequence, per capita production of grains had remained at 1955 levels. The Ten-Year Plan
called for a $33 billion investment in the mechanization of agriculture and improvement of
irrigation. One important side-effect of this program is that if it worked there would be 100
million workers who would be released from farming and for whom the government would have
to make proviisions for in other sectors. The institutional structure was modified to encourage
higher production through individual initiative and more flexible production arrangements.
Commune farmers were encouraged to pursue sidelines of production on small plots.

The Ten-Year Plan called for the modernization of its military but with China already spending 7
to 10 percent of its GDP on the military in 1978 a modernization called for in the Plan would
cost an enormous $300 billion.

Capital was definitely scarce at the beginning of the Ten-Year Plan. It was estimated that the
Ten-Year Plan goals would cost between $350 billion and $630 billion in 1978 prices. The
government had been relying very heavily upon the revenue it gained by requiring the sale of
agricultural products to the Stae at artificially low prices and selling them at a higher price. But
this policy did not encourage productivity in agriculture and agricultural development stagnated.
The percapita output of grains, as stated previously, was not any higher in 1977 than it was in
1955. The State Enterprises, instead of being a source of profit for the State, required large
subsidies necessitating the milking of agriculture.

For the Ten-Year Plan the government sought other sources of revenues. One source it tried to
develop was tourism. Hotels and other tourist facilities were built and there was some success,
but notably the vast majority of the tourists were overseas Chinese.
In desperation China turned to encouraging foreign investment as a way of financing the
development projects. German and Japanese companies provided the capital for major projects in
return for a share of the benefits.

China also reversed its policy concerning foreign loans. In December of 1978 China arranged a
$1.2 billion loan from a consortium of British banks and by mid-April China had received or
arranged for $10 billion in foreign loans.

China in 1978 had a serious shortage of technical personnel. The Cultural Revolution had
disrupted the system of higher education for about twelve years. Estimates of the total size of the
technical and scientific workforce in China in the 1970's were in the neighborhood of sixty
thousand. For a nation of one billion people sixty thousand is a miniscule amount. By the early
1980's the scientific and technical workforce had grown to about 400,000, a substantial increase
but still a quite small amount for a nation of over one billion people. There is even more of a
shortage of middle level technicians and skilled workers.

Problems of Implementation of the Ten-Year Plan

In the first year of the Ten-Year Plan the government began 100,000 projects which would cost
in total $40 billion. The total investment the government committed itself to in 1978 was about
36 percent of China's GDP. It was not possible to sustain this level of investment financially or
technically.

The $2 billion steel complex that a Japanese company was to built in the vicinity of Shanghai ran
into major difficulties. The site chosen by the Chinese government planners was in swamp land
on the edge of the Chang Jiang (Yangtze River). The swampy character of the land required
hundreds of thousands of steel pilings be driven into the ground before the steel complex could
be built. After construction started in 1979 it was discovered that the electrical power supply in
the area was inadequate for the steel plant and the site was not accessible by the ships that were
to bring iron ore from Australia and Brazil. The first stage of the projected $2 billion complex
cost $5 billion. The government stopped construction on the second stage leaving the Japanese
firm which had agreed to build the steel plant in financial difficulty.

The bigger ($14 billion) steel complex the Chinese government contracted to be built in Hebei
by a German company was also in difficulty. The site was found to be at risk for earthquakes.
Another planned development was located in the city of Wuhan. It was to process raw steel into
a higher quality steel but it was found to require so much electricity that if it operated there
would be no power left for anything else in the province. But even if there had been adequate
power the area could not supply an adequate amount of the raw steel for its operation.

Revision/Retrenchment of the Ten Year Plan

By 1979 even official government sources like the newspaper Renmin Ribao (People's Daily)
acknowledged that the initial phase of the Ten Year Plan was seriously flawed by lack of proper
preparation which led to enormous wastes. Hua Guofeng announced in June of 1979 a period of
adjustment, reconstruction, consolidation and improvement for the economy. Priorities were
shifted, away from heavy industry toward agriculture and light industry. Planned investment in
agriculture was increased from $26 billion to $59 billion. The Ten-Year Plan target for steel
production was cut from 60 million tons to 45 million. Light manufacturing industries,
particularly those that could earn foreign currency, were to be encouraged. Construction as well
as heavy industry was cut back. But the cuts were not uniform, across-the-board cuts. The
production goals for several key sectors were as follows:

The Ten Year Plan Revisions

Sector Output 1985 Targets

  1979 Original Revised

Steel
34.5 60 45
(million tons)

Coal
635 900 800
(million tons)

Petroleum
106 500 300
(million tons)

Cement
74 100 100
(million tons)

Altogether 348 major projects in heavy industry were halted, including specifically projects in
steel, machine production and chemicals. Over four thousand smaller such projects were also
stopped. China's shortage of investment capital was worsened by the high cost of its 1979
invasion of Viet Nam.

Institutional and Structural Reorganization

Generally the 1980's brought a relaxation of control by the Communist Party. Communes and
enterprises were allowed to sell over-quota production at prices above the government-set prices.
Workers were allowed more freedom in making decisions concerning their own welfare.
Enterprises were allowed to borrow funds and in special area seek foreign joint-venture partners.
Five Special Economic Zones (Guangdong and Fujian in the south and Beijin, Tianjin in the
north, and Shanghai) with power to negotiate arrangements with foreign businesses.were created
China tried to model this institutional change on the Yugoslavian and Romanian experiences
which were thought to have successfully melded socialist and capitalist systems.

With a new awareness of the productivity of capital rates of return became a concern. The
figures differed considerably among industries. The profit margin is not the same as the rate of
return on capital but profit margins give some indication of the variation among industries. In
petroleum the profit margin was 40 percent while in coal minimig it was only one percent.

With relaxed control more internal migration has developed and China began to experience an
overt unemployment problem. Previously any surplus labor in the cities was forced to go to the
countryside. This may have solved the problem of people being without a job but to put people in
unproductive or underproductive jobs may simply have hidden the unemployment.

*June 3-4, 1989: Carnage in Tiananmen Square

After crackdown, change comes slowly to China

By Greg Botelho
CNN
Friday, June 4, 2004 Posted: 7:27 AM EDT (1127 GMT)

(CNN) -- One man, alone and unarmed, boldly shuffles to

confront a column of tanks, climbs atop one, then berates its
occupants. For many, this image defined the tumultuous 1989
clash between Chinese armed forces and anti-government
protesters.

Yet this scene, broadcast to millions worldwide, ran counter to what transpired in Beijing that
bloody week. Whereas that still unidentified man walked away unscathed, hundreds of fellow
demonstrators did not, killed as troops tore through the city. Ultimately, the military showed
little restraint, and protesters could claim few victories.

When the massive Tiananmen Square rally ended, so did many Chinese hopes for immediate,
drastic political reform. Much like after similar student-led protests in 1919, 1976 and 1986,
quiet quickly displaced pro-democracy chants, industriousness took the place of rebellion in the
capital and throughout the country.

"They had come close to the edge of chaos and looked over, and they didn't like what they saw,"
UCLA Professor Richard Baum said of the millions of Chinese, including many of his friends,
who had backed the students. "Now they were saying that China needs time to heal its wounds,
that we'll have gradual change instead."

But outside China, the reverberations were far more pronounced. Unlike at the earlier, large-
scale protests, the global media -- having flocked to Beijing to cover Soviet leader Mikhail
Gorbachev's summit with China's Deng Xiaoping -- witnessed the huge demonstrations and stern
crackdown.
"The students in the square rained on Deng's parade," noted Baum, calling the incident a "public
relations disaster" for China's leadership. "The world press turned their cameras on the more
interesting show... Internationally, China suffered a huge amount of damage."

Leaders worldwide swiftly and strongly condemned China's leadership. Many subsequent
sanctions, including U.S. and EU bans of arms and certain technical sales, remain in place to this
day, as China plays an increasingly vital role in the global economy.

"China was viewed as a pariah state -- it was catastrophic," said University of Pennsylvania
Professor Avery Goldstein. "It catalyzed the redefinition of the American view of China" from
being a useful ally to being a close-minded, authoritarian nation without respect for human
rights.

A Communist exception

Most everywhere else, state communism -- like one of its preeminent symbols, the Berlin Wall --
crumbled in the late 1980s.

In 1988, Gorbachev announced massive military cuts and

pulled forces from Afghanistan, while Soviet citizens voted
The ruling Communist regime in legislative members three years ahead of the regime's fall.
acted militantly after the number
of activists topped 1 million. The next year, the Solidarity movement swept out the ruling
Communist party in Poland, long-time dissident Vaclav
Havel became Czechoslovakia's first freely elected leader,
and Romania's army joined its citizenry to evict then execute strongman Nicolae Ceaucescu.

The wave seemed set to hit China, the world's most populous Communist state, in spring 1989.

A once modest demonstration marking the death of Hu Yaobang, a party leader ousted two years
earlier for being soft on student protesters, had swelled in two months. Not only had Chinese
leaders refused to listen to the 1989 protesters' demands, but Deng blasted them as unpatriotic --
actions that fueled popular discontent.

"The government [claimed] this was turning into massive civil unrest," said Goldstein. "In fact,
that was not the case. There was some turmoil, but these were peaceful demonstrations."

By early June, hundreds of thousands had gathered in Tiananmen Square urging not just anti-
corruption measures, but democracy and an end to Communist rule. Demonstrations took place
throughout China, particularly fervent in major northern and eastern cities.

"In every city, the majority of the citizens supported the students and what they were doing," said
Baum, who spent much of May 1989 in China and observed huge rallies in Shanghai and
Nanjing.
"They shared the grievance that the government wasn't paying attention to ordinary people, that
it was time to respond to the negative byproducts of economic reform. They considered the
government to be arrogant, haughty and unresponsive."

In early June, government leaders toughened their stance, ordering soldiers to break up the
demonstrations in Beijing. Troops began rolling through the streets late June 3, firing on
dissenters. The following morning, protesters ceded to regime demands and departed Tiananmen
Square.

Although exact fatality figures are unknown, estimates range from 300 to several thousand dead.
The government, to date, has resisted calls for an open inquiry into that week's events, including
a full account of victims.

"There was a sense of disbelief after June 4," recalled

Baum. "People in China, even liberal intellectuals, were
sobered by the crackdown and its ferocity."

New age

Twentieth century China has seen many examples of the

state's heavy-handed approach to dissent, particularly under
the rule of Communist leader and icon Mao Zedong. The demonstrations built up
gradually, spreading their
But after the bloody Cultural Revolution and Mao's 1976
death, China inched toward a "more open, more pluralistic, message to an international
more tolerant society" in the 1980s, said Baum. audience.

Chinese authorities initially pushed economic and political

reforms simultaneously, before deciding to accelerate the former while stunting the latter --
learning from what happened in Poland, where the ruling Communists cession on small issues to
Solidarity leaders had opened the floodgates for regime change.

After Tiananmen, China's leadership continued to resist major political reforms in favor of
promoting financial development -- ironically, making many 1989 demonstrators wealthy in the
process.

"They wonder if the authoritarian order may have facilitated economic growth," Goldstein said,
referring to the mixed feelings many student protesters and their supporters now feel. "They
realize that political stability made it easier to carry out reforms and attract foreign investment."

Still, Goldstein said the poor health of Zhao Ziyang -- the former Communist party secretary
exiled for his conciliatory views in 1989 -- may now worry Chinese leaders, fearful the large
demonstrations might erupt should he die.

"If they're helping defray his medical expenses, they're making sure he lives well past June," said
Goldstein.
But he adds that a repeat of the 1989 Tiananmen Square events -- both in terms of matching the
number of demonstrators, or the prospect of a heavy-handed response from the Chinese
government -- is unlikely, given the strength of China's economy.

Economic globalization has opened the country up to new information, new ideas and new
personal and national aspirations. Today, there are 280 million cell phones, 120,000 lawyers, 42
million satellite dishes, 60 percent home ownership and an "enormous middle class" in China,
according to Baum.

While a total political overhaul -- such as open national elections, an end to one-party rule or a
full accounting of what happened in 1989 -- may be decades away, Baum said Chinese "are freer
now than ever before."

"Leaders at the top may still cling to power but, in the meantime, bubbling up is a healthy,
vibrant society," he said.

"For the first time, I hear more and more Chinese say in open forums that they understand China
will [become] more open," seconded Goldstein. "They recognize that eventually tight control
will no longer be viable, but they want an orderly process."

By the late 1980s, when perestroika had reached a very advanced stage, the Communist Party of
the Soviet Union had become an open core of anti-communism. For those that went to the Soviet
Union at that time it was very hard to talk to medium and high ranking cadres of the CPSU. In
the late '80s the leadership of what became the movement in 1992-93 began to organize, forming
various groups like the Communist Initiative, and some other groups that later formed communist
parties that are well known abroad. In 1989 and 1990 this movement came out into the streets in
small groups in Moscow, Leningrad and other places, exposing Gorbachev as being openly anti-
communist and anti-Soviet, who would lead to the collapse of the Soviet Union. And this is what
happened.

At that time, the ideological shape of the movement was very different; it was a small movement
that raised basic questions such as the unity of the Soviet Union. Some people in that movement
had already come to the position that the dictatorship of the proletariat had been dismantled by
Khrushchev, some already talked about Stalin at that time. It was militant, but it was an
elementary way of approaching the situation. The ideological shape, both in theory and practice,
has changed a great deal since then.

In August 1991 the events in Moscow took place. The CPSU was banned and the Soviet Union
was formally dismantled in late '91. These new parties began to arise on the political scene and
enlisted many honest communists who were still faithful to the CPSU as well as working class
people who had been critical of the CPSU in the last decades and never joined it. They
reorganized and tried to form a communist movement. It was in 1991 that the All-Union
Communist Party (Bolshevik) (AUCP(B)) of Nina Andreeva was formed, and later the Russian
Communist Workers Party (RCWP) that included Victor Tiulkin and Victor Anpilov was
formed. In 1992 Labor Russia, the mass movement of the RCWP, was built. In 1992 this
movement grew large by catching up with the popular protests against the Yeltsin regime which
was cutting social guarantees, wages, all the things that raised the mass movement. In February
1992, Labor Russia became a very big organization. It held a huge demonstration in Moscow
with over a hundred thousand people, while in '91 they could not gather more than several
hundreds. So this was a big leap forward in the formation of the mass movement.

In 1993 the bloody events took place, beginning with Luzhkov's provocation in Moscow during
the May Day demonstration when he blocked the road and forced the demonstrators to fight the
police. One policeman was killed and Viktor Anpilov was kidnapped shortly after. It clearly
showed that Yeltsin's regime was willing to crush the movement. May 9th was a big
demonstration of the communist opposition, in which large crowds came out into the streets and
this forced Yeltsin's regime to release Viktor Anpilov. He came out in bad shape but alive.

Then came the October events. The regime did not expect such a large popular response. At
some point it lost control of the city, the demonstrators took over and the police withdrew. For
24 hours, the situation was not clear, and Yeltsin had to use the military force of the units over
which he still had control. They confronted unarmed demonstrators. About 1,000 people were
killed or disappeared, both Muscovites and many people who came from the regions to support
the mass movement that existed at that time.

The period after 1993 was a very hard, dark one for the opposition. All the leaders of the militant
opposition formed during 1992-93 were in jail for about half a year. They were brainwashed, if
one can use that term. They all came out under an amnesty of the Duma that had been elected
thanks to the participation of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (CPRF) led by
Zyuganov which, despite the deaths and the fascist repression, participated in the election in
order to support the regime and the peaceful transition to open forms of capitalism that we have
right now in Russia.

First, let me discuss the positive elements of this movement of the early '90s. We all know that
the 1980s saw the dismantling of the regime that had been created by Khrushchev and Brezhnev.
In the Soviet Union it was forbidden to talk about the dictatorship of the proletariat, about
workers' power and workers' control. It was forbidden to talk about Stalin, about what we know
to be Marxism-Leninism. So the positive thing that the movement had brought, despite the
terrible historical experience that the Soviet people had gone through, especially after
perestroika, was that many popular and working class forces came to the surface. People brought
out portraits of Stalin, they discussed the elementary basics of Marxism-Leninism, the
dictatorship of the proletariat. These basic revolutionary theses of Marxism-Leninism arose
spontaneously from many rank and file communists, most of whom were not members of the
CPSU. They brought out the historical line of the revolutionary traditions of Lenin and Stalin, of
the times in history when the Soviet Union was building socialism and communism, when the
revolution was progressing. Those times had remained in the historical memory of many people
and came to the surface at that time. The restoration of the figure of Stalin that took place in the
early '90s was something great. The majority of the communist movement agrees on the positive
role played by Stalin.

On the other hand, this movement, and Labor Russia, led by Anpilov, as the most militant trend
of this movement, never went beyond the level of a mass, popular movement. Basically they
believed that socialism with all its problems existed until 1991, and since it collapsed only a
short time ago, all that they had to do was to organize the Soviet masses on a large scale. They
did not talk about classes, they spoke of the Soviet people in general, that would unite the
working class, the peasantry and the intelligentsia. They wanted to raise those masses in a
popular struggle that would wipe away the bureaucrats in power, the Yeltsinites, etc. They
brought out the famous thesis of the organization of an All-Russia general strike that would be
the culmination of the struggle to wipe away the counter-revolutionaries and the stronghold of
capitalist repression. Needless to say, this was wrong, and the 1993 events showed what the
result of that thesis was. This was a very strong blow to the movement in 1993, and since it was
not rooted in the working class but in a popular movement that was not consistent, it was
basically defeated very easily. So, the negative part of this movement was that it denied the work
in the factories, with the working class, the classical Bolshevik work based on the traditions of
Lenin and Stalin. It concentrated on work in the streets, to build the mass movement that it
believed would restore the Soviet Union and eventually socialism.

Today, we are seeing the day-by-day shrinkage of this movement since it is not rooted in the
working class. This is a big paradox, since Russia is now going through a pre-revolutionary
situation, especially in the regions excluding Moscow and Leningrad. Not a single day goes by
without a strike, without a hunger strike, there is not a single factory without a strike committee,
where the working class is not organized. So even in these conditions, when the anti-communist
hysteria that affected large layers of the working class in 1990 and '91 has basically faded away,
when it is much easier to go to the factories and organize the working class into revolutionary
struggle, when the working class is now more receptive than ever to Marxism-Leninism and the
hammer and sickle, this movement is shrinking.

Marxist-Leninists are trying to organize on the basis of Marxism-Leninism, on the basis of work
in the factories with the working class, on the organization of the revolutionary struggle of the
working class for the overthrow of capitalism and the construction of socialism. These basic
features of Marxism-Leninism have not been put forward in any of the programs that exist now
and the question of the violent overthrow of the bourgeoisie was basically ignored by this
movement. This is the basis for the reorganization of the Marxist-Leninist forces in Russia today.

There are two basic and fundamental questions that I would like to discuss today, a theoretical
question and a question with direct practical significance. The first question that is under
discussion among Marxist-Leninists in Russia today is the contributions of Stalin to theory: what
is Marxism-Leninism today? The second question, which follows from the first one, is: "What is
socialism?," "What are we fighting for, are we capable of constructing socialism?" "What do we
have to tell the working class in the factories that socialism is, whether the working class is
capable of fighting against capitalism and building a new state?" "What happened in 1991, was
this the collapse of socialism or the collapse of something else?" We have to clarify this to the
working class; without this the formation of a party and the accomplishment of a revolution is
basically impossible.

For the first question, I will give some quotations to show the basics of Stalin's contributions to
Marxism-Leninism as a higher stage in the development of theory and Leninism. We think this is
a fundamental question for communists today.
*Communism's convulsions. (political changes in both China and the Soviet Union)

Communism's convulsions

The people are unhappy in both China and Russia. The party stands between them and what they
want

IN CHINA it is student-power, in Russia it is voter-power. In the past month communists in both

countries who had never before questioned their right to rule have been humbled by the people
on whose behalf they claim that right.

In Beijing not only did 100,000 students pack Tiananmen Square last weekend in defiance of
party instructions, but several thousand had already had the cheek to shout their defiance right
outside the party bosses' compound. China's once remote and all-powerful leaders suddenly
looked simply remote as the mood in China turned sour (see page 62). Meanwhile in Moscow
this week the party elders gathered to ponder the recent parliamentary election in which voters
had their first chance in 70 years to swipe at some candidates and watch them tumble.
Communism's two great experiments in reform have taken different paths, yet both have now
come up against, not popular rejoicing, but popular discontent.

Blame it on unbalanced reform

Ten years ago Deng Xiaoping had the people behind him as he led the dash for economic
growth. Communists had the reforming ideas, and hardly anybody questioned their right to lead.
But in the past two years inflation has overtaken them. Clamps on credit and prices threaten
farmers and small businesses and have already thrown many people out of work. Privileged
students demonstrating for political freedom used to have little in common with China's toiling
masses. But now public sympathy for the students suggests that people who have enjoyed the
new economic freedoms have little faith that the party will defend them.

In Russia Mr Gorbachev has the Deng problem in reverse. He has made bold strides towards
political reform, partly because economic reform still does not work and partly to chivvy party
foot-draggers who realise that their powers will be threatened if it ever does. The recent slightly
free election was an effort to take the argument to the people over the heads of party blockers.
But glasnost has raised expectations that perestroika still cannot meet. How long can the
spectacle of a few fallen communists--even the 100 or so "dead souls" cleared out of the Central
Committee this week (see page 29)--make up for emptier shelves and longer queues?

Their problems are different, yet Russia and China have much in common. Mr Deng's four
modernisations (of industry, agriculture, science and defence) and Mr Gorbachev's perestroika
are huge undertakings, on the scale of the industrial revolution in nineteenth-century Europe. It
would be a miracle if the inevitable dislocation of people, jobs and even whole industries
happened tidily and peacefully. But the task is all the greater since, by official order, the changes
have to be managed within a straitjacket of single-party rule.

Some of the old restraints have gone. In both countries communists have realised that Stalin was
wrong: that state ownership of factories and farms gives power, not to entrepreneurs who would
use it to produce things people want, but to bureaucrats who serve only their own interests. Both
parties are trying out new sorts of ownership: a bit of private enterprise, co-operatives, and leases
that turn over land and factories to those who can make good use of them.

But ditching Stalin in favour of a touch of economic pluralism is one thing, ditching Lenin--and
the party's claim to power--is another. When bold Mr Gorbachev talks of "socialist pluralism", he
means encouraging debate within the Communist party, not allowing its authority to be
challenged by other parties. As China's students are complaining, Mr Deng cannot bring himself
to go even that far. Which is why, when the problems pile up, the know-it-all parties find their
authority challenged on the streets and the picket lines.

China's leaders are facing their challenge fresh out of ideas. In Russia ideas are all Mr Gorbachev
has to his credit. His chances of survival would be better than Mr Deng's if he could turn his
ideas into more food in the shops. If not, then Russians, too, may soon be out on the streets
protesting at one-party perestroika. How awful for communists who claim to speak for the
people to be talked back at so rudely.

*Although the Cultural Revolution largely bypassed the vast majority of the people, who lived in
rural areas, it had highly serious consequences for the Chinese system as a whole. In the short
run, of course, the political instability and the zigzags in economic policy produced slower
economic growth and a decline in the capacity of the government to deliver goods and services.
Officials at all levels of the political system had learned that future shifts in policy would
jeopardize those who had aggressively implemented previous policy. The result was bureaucratic
timidity. In addition, with the death of Mao and the end of the Cultural Revolution, nearly three
million CCP members and other citizens awaited reinstatement after having been wrongfully
purged.

Bold actions in the late 1970s went far toward coping with those immediate problems, but the
Cultural Revolution also left more-serious, longer-term legacies. First, a severe generation gap
had been created in which young adults had been denied an education and had been taught to
redress grievances by taking to the streets. Second, corruption grew within the CCP and the
government, as the terror and accompanying scarcities of goods during the Cultural Revolution
had forced people to fall back on traditional personal relationships and on extortion in order to
get things done. Third, the CCP leadership and the system itself suffered a loss of legitimacy
when millions of urban Chinese became disillusioned by the obvious power plays that took place
in the name of political principle in the early and mid-1970s. And fourth, bitter factionalism was
rampant, as members of rival Cultural Revolution factions shared the same work unit, each still
looking for ways to undermine the power of the other.
*RUSSIA'S struggle to understand its past is taking new directions. Some 35,000 Muscovites
have just seized a rare chance to see an exhibition devoted to victims of Stalinism. The
unprecedented show was the talk of Moscow in the eight days it ran at the end of November.

A group called "Memorial" mounted the project with active support from Moscow News and
Ogonyok, two pro-perestroika publications, and more distant backing from a party commission
studying the repressions of the 1930s and 1940s. This commission is to consider proposals for a
"lasting memorial" to victims of the terror.

The exhibition was housed in a salmon-pink theatre serving as the cultural centre of the Moscow
Electric Bulb Plant. In the hall was a map of the Soviet

Union on which visitors had chalked names of camps. By the end of the week, some $80,000 in
rubles had been tossed into a wheelbarrow as part of a collection for the permanent memorial.
Visitors crowded into the room with the Memorial bulletin board: a wall of victims' photographs,
identity papers, or letters. A large red book was available for families to record details of
relatives lost in the purges. For many this may have been the first time to confront the past in
such a public, yet personal, way.

On an upper floor were plans for a monument, many by amateurs. There were recreations of
prison camps, great neo-classical tombs of the sort that mark military graveyards across the
world, broken and bloody Soviet symbols or, more simply, large sculptures of single, unknown
victims.

In a special supplement on Memorial Week, Moscow News published letters from dissenting
readers who hoped it would also be remembered that Stalin was Russia's victorious wartime
leader. It published, too, a letter from an East German communist who lost his father in the
1930s, calling for a museum of the terror. Many Russian historians and writers would go further.
They want a library and archive devoted to the purges. Their idea is to gather, where possible,
the documents of the period, so that history once recorded cannot easily be reburied.

*Union have understandably captured the attention of Western observers assessing the prospects
of perestroika and glasnost. But Mikhail S. Gorbachev's revolution from above has spawned no
less significant developments that have gone virtually unnoticed: The intellectual foundations of
the Soviet political order are eroding under the relentless pressure of increasingIy radical assaults
against the basic dogmas of Communism.

The regime's creed, moreover, is being undermined in an atmosphere of foreboding. A poll of the
readers of Literaturnaya Gazeta, taken last March, found that 8 5 per cent of the respondents
believe a catastrophe will strike the USSR. A succession of train disasters and shipwrecks, and
the revelation of far higher levels of radiation contamination from the Chernobyl accident than
were initially predicted, have only fueled the spreading angst. The feeling is that "things fly
apart, the center cannot hold."

Apocalyptic fears have been accompanied by a deepening polarization of Soviet society. The
rock band DDT, appearing on one of the USSR's most popular television shows, wails to an
audience of millions about" a boiling presentiment of civil war."A well-known Moscow writer,
Benedikt Sarnov, referring to the divisions within the intelligentsia, also speaks of civil war.
Rumors are even heard of an impending military putsch, and Defense Minister Dmitri Yazov
merely exacerbates the situation when he insists that a coup would be both "impossible" and
"very difficult to carry out."

The editor of a Moscow publishing house, who asks to remain anonymous, describes Soviet life
at the moment as "a feast in the midst of the plague. A carnival of masks, terrifying bleached
white faces on the eve of the end of the world . . . . We live in an atmosphere of hate. The animus
explodes in stores, on public transportation, wherever one must stand in tightly compressed
groups. . . .

There has indeed been an astonishing surge in violence. In the first five months of 1989, the
number of crimes in Moscow involving firearms more than tripled over the same period a year
ago. "On the face of it we have a crime crisis," says a high official in the Internal Affairs
Ministry, "Such is the grim reality."

Th "contradictions of Communism" wracking the economy are a major catalyst for the
enveloping sense of doom. Conditions in the industrial city of Kirov are typical. Soap is rationed
at one bar per person every three months; the norm for bologna that, according to one news
paper," a cat wouldn't eat,"is set at slightly more than one pound per person per month; the
allotment of scarce sugar, now called "white caviar," has been reduced by a fourth.

Amid the gloom there is a seemingly unquenchable thirst for fundamental explanations. As the
official crimes and blunders of the past are progressively revealed by the dialectic of glasnost,
the Soviet people grapple with the riddle inside the enigma that has exercised Western Marxists
for the last half century: Was Stalinism an aberration or a logical extension of Marxism-
Leninism? Aleksandr Yakovlev, Gorbachev's Pontburo confidant, asserts that "Today we are
tortured by confusion about how the country and the Leninist Party could have accepted the
dictatorship of mediocrity and tolerated the Stalin years and rivers of innocent blood."

Until recently, the accepted answer heaped blame on Stalin and the "cult of personality" for all or
most of the "mistakes" of his regime and its legacy. This Manichean explanation was reflected in
Anatoly Rybakov's bestseller, Children of the Arbat. Its depiction of a scheming Stalin
contending with a kindly Sergei Kirov was as accessible to the common man as it was
serviceable to the architects of the new thaw. The anti-Stalinist orthodoxy was further
consolidated with the translation of Stephen Cohen's biography of Nikolai Bukharin, in which
the Princeton political scientist vigorously argues that there were Bolshevik alternatives to
Stalin's program of forceddraft industrialization.

BUT BY THE fall of 1988 facile denunciations of Stalin were beginning to prove too confining
for Russian intellectuals. A series of searching inquiries appeared in the mass circulation press
with titles Eke, "The Sources of Stalinism," "One Shouldn't Be Afraid of the Truth, "On Zones
that Are Dosed to Thought," and "'My Is It Difficult to Speak the Truth? Aleksandr Tsipko, Igor
Klyamkin and other critics attempted to locate the roots of Stalinism not in Stallin but in the
Marxist-Leninist soil that nurtured him. Millions of reprints of their officially sanctioned yet
subversive articles were put on sale and quickly bought.

What was at that time the most farreaching excavation of previously forbidden ground was
carried out by Tsipko, an ideological consultant to the Party's Central Committee. His critique, a
fervent indictment of the Party's guiding ideas, was forged of an improbable meld of the ideas of
Edmund Burke, Leszek Kolakowski, Friedrich Hayek, and Lenin. Tsipko dismissed revolutions
because "by themselves, they create nothing." In his words, "only the constructive Labor of
culture, art, thought, and the development of religious feeling can create a personality." He
traced his country's Ms to a utopian strain in Marxism that fused, to disastrous effect, with
Russian messianism in the late 19th century. The "idolatry of the future, or of some sort of
exalted idea," he asserted, "is not a weakness, a romantic enthusiasm, but a great sin before
humanity, before one's own people. "

Marx, Tsipko went on, drew an irremediably flawed blueprint of a marketless society with "real
commodity exchange and absolute direct planning from above." A current in Bolshevism that
Tsipko called "Left-wing radicalism" attempted to realize this "demagogic fantasy," a proletarian
Kingdom of Heaven on earth in a country of peasants, at the price of millions of lives. In his
view Stalinism was decidedly not, as the traditional apologia maintained, a "deformation" of
Marxism; it was, rather, testimony to the impossibility of constructing a "democratic Socialism"
on the foundation of a nomnarket economy. "Why in all cases," Tsipko asked, "in all countries,
without exception . . . does the absence of free money-commodity "change lead to
authoritarianism, to the strangulation of the rights and values of the individual, and the
omnipotence of the bureaucratic apparatus?"

The very pillar of Marxism, the class analysis of politics, was overturned in Tsipko's analysis. As
the Bolsheviks themselves proudly proclaimed, he observed, "the class approach 'does not know
the so-called laws of war, the laws of humanity, and does not show mercy to the old or to the
young, to women arid children. "' In a country where 80 per cent of the population were
considered "obstacles on the path to the idea," the result of the "class approach" during
theCivilWarandcoflectivizationwasa level of "brutality" unprecedented in European history.

For all that Tsipko's analysis repudiated the core ideas of Soviet Socialism, though, it included
old justifications that stood out in bald contrast to his iconoclasm. He skirted the whole question
of the Party's responsibility, for example, by blaming "the administrative system," "the
bureaucratic system" and "command methods. "Similarly, while he claimed that Stalin's
conception of Socialism did not differ significantly from that of other Marxists of his
dayimplying that liability for the Soviet Union's tragedy could not therefore rest with him alone-
he also flirted with the "if only Lenin had lived" school of thought. "A confluence of many
circumstances, in particular, the death of V. I. Lenin," he argued, "explains the victory of Stalin
in 1929."

At the close of 1988, to attack Lenin apparently still meant to attack the very legitimacy of the
Revolution, and Tsipko's stature notwithstanding, that was something he would not do. Nor
would the dissident Marxist historian Roy Medvedev, who declared at the time that Aleksandr
Solzhenitsyn's Gulag Archipelago, in which Lenin is featured as the Gulag's founding father, is
"fined with slander" and its publication would be "impermissible" without the deletion of its
"mendacious fragments."

On the other hand, even as Tsipko and Uke-minded writers danced a jig around Lenin's tomb
they seemed fully aware of the lacunae in their position. Almost in the same breath that they
inveighed against the existing order as a "carcass" and a "collapsing structure, "commentators of
a year ago were already noting the fragility of the intellectual edifice being erected in its place. In
fact, Klyamkin warned that the descent into lying is inevitable "if the sources of the lies are alive.
And they do five." Tsipko spoke in a corresponding vein: "In many cases, the debunking of one
easily exposable myth leads to the affirmation and propagation of other more plausible and
therefore more dangerous myths."

SINCE THIS SPRING, however, a new and more radical wave of criticism has been galvanizing
the in

telligentsia. Tsipko has come to appear almost timid in comparison with some of the enrages
who are displacing him. Several have publicly targeted Lenin, labeling him Stalin's tutor in
crime.

In the pages of Literatunaya Gazeta, Sarnov has held Lenin responsible for the atrocities
committed under his rule: "We should not pretend that everything that happened was done
without Lenin's knowledge, despite his will." At the end of June, in the 21 million circulation
Soviet weekly, ArgumentyiFakty, a front page article recalled that in 1917 the "father of Russian
Marxism," Georgi V. Plekhanov, diagnosed Lenin as "raving" and termed his program of
introducing Socialism to backward Russia "utopian"-the ulitimate insult to a fellow Marxist. And
Solzhenitsyn's Gulag, it has recently been announced, will be published after aB this fall.

Voices have begun to clamor for a multiparty system, too. One Soviet newspaper has mockingly
reported that candidates in the USSR's latest elections were often asked their views about such a
reform and were simply unable to answer, because they did not have "the slightest possibility of
running to thetelephone for supplementary instructions."

To protect the Party from the swelling tide of discontent, its senior ideologists have borrowed an
old formulation from an old Repent and ye shall be saved." Nevertheless, the most authoritative
Party organ, Kommunist, has said in an editorial: "[Our] critical analysis of the mistakes of the
distant and recent past has been first and foremost honest and penetrating self-criticism. But
repentance does not at all mean that we renounce our ideas arid programmatic goals." The
introduction of a multiparty system "as the so-Wed chief guarantee of democracy" is not
necessary, Kommunist concludes. That the Party embarked on perestroika is proof that it "is sdU
capable of a lot," and that its "healthy foundation" has not been undermined.

Many of the Soviet intellectuals peering beneath the freshly varnished superstructure o
"democratization" have grown bitter and fatalistic. Some believe that neither a scrupulously
honest reckoning with the past, nor the establishment of the most beneficent parliamentary
institutions could save the Soviet Union from what they see as its tragic destiny.
L.V. Krushinski, a correspondent member of the Soviet Academy of Science, ponders "the
genetic consequences of the October Revolution and the Civil War . . . and collectivization." So
does Vladiniir Shubkin, one of Russia's preeminent social analysts. Writing in Novy Mir, he
reasons that repeated cycles of war, terror, famine, and emigration have left their ineradicable
stamp. When th "most healthy, active, vigorous" segments of the population are "systematically
eliminated from the gene pool over the course of sucha relatively short historical period, this
must have an im pact on the quality of the composition of the population," Shubkin says. He then
goes on to contend that "the experiences of the October Revolution represent not only a
demographic but a genetic catastrophe. We and our descendants will be compelled to reckon
with its consequences for many decades, and perhaps hundreds of years." In other words,
totalitarianism may be reversible, but its legacy is not.

Undeterred, the Soviet leadership is bolting forward with reform at an accelerating pace. Exactly
where the changes are leading remains unclear, perhaps even to those orchestrating them.
Simultaneously-or possibly as a result-the whirlwind of increasingly radical voices gnawing
away at the ideological underpinnings of the existing order is gaining in intensity and reminding
everyone, "all that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned."

Can a political system that only a few years ago rested on the most rigid control of political
thought remain standing when its brace is kicked out from under it? The Chinese Communitst
leadership has answered this question in one way. What the response will be in the Soviet Union
may shortly become apparent.

*Can radical reforms from above prevent a revolution, an upheaval from below? This classical
question must now be applied to the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe as a whole. And it must be
answered within a historical context. I ask the reader's forgiveness in advance if my summaries,
definitions, and propositions, aimed simply at starting a debate, sound and really are
oversimplified.

One can't discuss this subject without stating one's own position first. (Indeed, the fashionable
question in Paris in the 1960s was "Where are speaking you from?") I am a socialist for whom
1917, the attempt by the workers to seize power, is an epoch-making event, whatever happened
afterwards; a date on a par with 1789 in the saga of humankind's struggle for mastery over its
own fate.

Secondly, I greeted perestroika with tremendous relief I am one of those who never accepted the
idea that history comes to a stop, that neo-Stalinism is eternal in the East anymore than
capitalism is in the West. Even so, the Brezhnev interlude had lasted so long that one could begin
to have doubts. The sweep and scope of the Gorbachev reforms were, therefore, extremely
welcome. My pleasure was increased by the troubles the changes brought to our pundits and
propagandists, who could no longer proclaim that the "empire of evil" is frozen forever. I
enjoyed seeing all the Kirkpatricks eat their words.

But, in all fairness, it must be said that they have since more than recovered. The things that are
being done, said, and written, not just in Poland and Hungary but also in the Soviet Union, have
enabled them to produce an even more convenient message: Socialism is a dead end; the market
is the only guarantee of prosperity and freedom. Of course, it is quite easy to respond to the
arguments coming from both the Left and the Right that socialism is being dismantled in the
Soviet bloc with the obvious reply that it is not possible to dismantle something that does not
exist. This argument is perfectly true, but it is not enough. For this reason, we cannot dispense
with a little bit of history.

One issue now being argued is whether the Soviet Union would have been better off, in material
terms, without the revolution. Personally, I don't think so, but in fact the question itself is
irrelevant. Revolutions don't happen because of neat calculations that changing the system will
increase the rate of growth by so many percentage points. They happen because an oppressive
system has become unbearable and people are ready and able to bring it down. Personally, I am
not shocked by the current revival of arguments, echoing Kautsky and the Mensheviks, that
Russia in 1917 was only ripe for a bourgeois revolution. After all, that's what the Bolsheviks
believed until 1917. Then they found themselves with power in their hands and the hope that the
revolution would spread westward to the advanced capitalist countries for which it had originally
been designed. But it falled to spread. The Bolsheviks could either give up power or preside over
the industrial revolution of backward Mother Russia. "Primitive socialist accumulation"-the
contradictory definition invented by Preobrazhensky-sums up this Marxist tragedy. We shall
leave the question of whether Stalinism was the inevitable outcome of this attempt to "drive
barbarism out of Russia by barbarian means" to historians for the time being.

The actual pace of pre-Second World War development was fairly rapid. The combination of
crude central planning, large production units, and coercion from above did work. The industrial
revolution was carried out at breakneck speed. By the time war broke out, the Soviet Union had
the economic potential to stand up to the Nazis. This is something we should never forget.
(Indeed, if it were not for the resistance of the Red Army, I would not now be writing these
words.)

This said, I must add at once that Stalinism as a system had nothing to do with socialism. The
peasants did not join the kolkhozy because they were attracted by their superior efficiency or the
virtues of cooperation: They were driven into them. Neither were the workers the masters of the
nationalized factories. Planning had nothing to do with democratic control and a great deal with
imposing discipline on uprooted peasants. This mechanism of command from above could not be
equated with Marx's conception of the associated producers attempting to gain mastery over their
labor and their fate; but it was described as socialism.

The price that was paid then was very high, and we still continue to pay it. It involved a bloody
process of collectivization, the creation of concentration camps, a Byzantine cult and system of
government. It also involved economic costs. Stalinism contained the seeds of its own
destruction. As the economy became more complex and people became more educated, the
system designed for illiterate muzhiks became clearly obsolete, an obstacle to further
development. Stalin's successors knew this. The first attempt to reform the system, the attempt
associated with the name of Nikita Khrushchev-the halfpeasant, half-towndweller who
personally symbolized a Soviet Union in transition-failed because he tried to implement it with
the party apparatus as his constituency. What the apparatchiki and all the privileged wanted was
Stalinism plus security of tenure. Even Khrushchev's half-measures were too much for them. The
secret of the unexpectedly long reign of Leonid Brezhnev lay in his pledge to the privileged to do
nothing that might threaten or undermine their privileges. The price paid for this long reign was
immobility, stagnation, and a slackening of the pace of growth.

But while the economy was slowing down, society kept on changing. New generations were
growing incomparably more educated and less frightened than their predecessors. The removal
ofthe neo-Stalinist straitjacket was becoming inevitable. How reluctant the bureaucracy was to
bring it about was illustrated by the appointment of the decrepit, discarded Chernenko ("the man
who sharpened pencils for Leonid Brezhnev") . But by then the situation had become intolerable,
and the selection of a reformer, of somebody like Gorbachev, had become an imperative.

Let us now sum up crudely the situation on the eve of this succession. Firstly, the economy was
grinding to a halt as returns on investment were diminishing and it was no longer possible to rely
on migration from country to town to compensate the declining gains in productivity. Secondly,
while society was changing in terms of education, it was no longer offering scope for massive
social advancement. Stagnation meant stratification, consolidation of privileges, and discontent
among people whose positions did not correspond to their qualifications. Thirdly, class interests
began to crystallize, although they did not yet express themselves openly. Privileges had not
been fewer under Stalin, but their beneficiaries were threatened by the permanent purge. This
was no longer true, but the different social groups had not yet found their own voice. Fourthly,
while the party kept on ruling, cleavages appeared within its leadership between the faithful and
the doers, the apparatchiks and the managers; the pressures and ambitions of the professional
intelligentsia had also become a factor. Fifthly, Brezhnev was not only reassuring the privileged.
To keep things quiet, he had to extend the compromise to the working class (don't meddle in
politics and we won't increase the pace of assembly lines, leaving you time and energy to earn
something on the side). But with the growing deficit and rising defense budget, the regime could
no longer afford such a compromise.

Against this background, we can examine the four years of Gorbachev in office, dividing our
subject roughly into glasnost, conceived here as the extension of the frontiers of freedom, and
perestroika, seen as the still unaccomplished economic reform.

Glasnost itself has several aspects. First there is the reduction of censorship. Previously shelved
films, forbidden plays, and manuscripts kept in the drawer were given a new life. Soviets can
now read Akhmatova and Pasternak, or Vassili Grossman's Life and Fate. They can, if they
choose, read Orwell or Koestler's Darkness at Noon. Then, there is the new role of the press.
Reading Soviet papers was once a boring but easy enterprise. Now it is fascinating but takes a
great deal of time. You have papers converted to liberalism like the Moscow News under
Yakovlev or Ogonyok under Korotich, and on the other side you have, say Sovietskaya Rossiya.
You also have the fat monthlies and their passionate controversies. Indeed, this battle of the
magazines is, to some extent, a substitute for an open controversy within the leadership.

Thirdly, glasnost is the nation's vital struggle to recover its memory. This aspect is crucial,
because a country is paralyzed by amnesia just as an individual is. The past is now catching up
with the present. If one can revive, say, the passionate debate between Bukharin and
Preobrazhensky, why should there be no open debate on the nature of perestroika between, say,
Alexandr Yakovlev and Igor Ligachev? The past is being perceived through the prism of the
present. The boosting of Bukharin is not accidental, nor is the new description of Trotsky,
changed from being an "enemy of the people" to another Stalin, if not worse. Uri Afanasyev, a
champion in this struggle for historical truth, still has plenty to do, but there is no denying the
magnitude of what has been achieved these past four years.

If glasnost has quite a record, perestroika must still be judged by the project rather than the
achievement. True, several things have been done. There is a new law governing enterprises, and
cooperatives have been granted greater powers. The number of compulsory norms has been cut
down. So has the number of ministries and of employees within them. But wholesale trade in
investment goods is still to be introduced. And the new mechanism of management will only
function, in the best of cases, in the next five-year plan, from 1991-1995. And even this is not
certain, since the crucial price reform has been put off for two to three years. The toughest
predicament for perestroika is the absence of tangible economic progress. (How can you have
"socialism with a human face," ask Moscow wits, when you don't have any soap?)

The project is to move rapidly from a system of extensive to one of intensive production through
the use of the market to apportion resources, through still undefined changes in property relations
and through increased incentives coupled with greater wage differentiation. I am not heresy
hunting or crying over the dismantling of socialism. But I must confess that the vision ofthe
"socialist market" that is being painted is not very vivid. It is not clear to what extent the market,
as opposed to some form of democratic planning, is to shape investment policy. Indeed, some of
Gorbachev's economic advisers who have "discovered America" seem to be so dazzled by the
market as to perceive only its virtues and not its vices, missing the link between the two and
underestimating the problems that will face an economy with lower productivity when
confronted with the full blast of international competititon. I am not pleading here against the use
of the market or against the undoubted advantages of an international division of labor. A mixed
economy is inevitable in the period of transition. I am simply asking where this economy is
heading and what its project is. Some of Gorbachev's advisers are giving the impression of
people who dive first and. discover whether they can swim afterward.

Before concluding, I want to warn against two temptations. One is to say that the development of
this Byzantine empire has nothing to do with socialism. But we cannot ignore the origins of the
Soviet Union, its vocabulary, its professed ambitions. We cannot ignore the dream and get rid of
our heritage so easily. But there is another temptation. It is to take Gorbachev's word as a new
gospel, thrilled by the fact that the Soviet Union is breathing again and speaking with a new
voice. It is to say amen when Gorbachev and his companions seem to reduce socialism to
inequality and Marxism to the principle "from each according to his labor."

What we should try to do, in my opinion, is to look at the Soviet Union through Marxist eyes as a
society in which the productive forces are clashing with the existing institutions and, therefore,
imposing reforms. The would-be reformers represent, within the party, the dynamic sections of
the massproduced technical and professional intelligentsia which are tiying to replace the rule of
the nomenklatura of faithful apparatchiks by what they would like to describe as a meritocracy.
Politically, in terms of glasnost, their role is positive. They are opposed by Stalinist diehards
allied to nationalists ofthe worst kind, like the reactionaries of Pamyat. In economics, the
alignments are more complicated.

Mikhall Gorbachev, more aware of the political realities than his advisers, knows that economic
reform, which hurts the immediate interests of the workers, must have some backing from them.
He knows that the resistance of the bureaucracy will not be broken without pressure from below.
Hence his early promise to give workers more power on the shopfloor, including the right to
elect their managers; but little has been done so far to extend this basic democracy. Hence his
revival of the slogan, "All power to the soviets," but with the provision that local soviets should
be headed by local party secretaries. Hence the elections to the Supreme Soviet with more than
one candidate for a seat, but with safeguards and without a real debate over programs.

To sum up, the Gorbachev regime is implementing within the existing institutions a substitute for
the unaccomplished bourgeois revolution. But he is doing so in a country where private property
had been largely uprooted. Sooner rather than later, the problem of the ownership of the means
of production will be at the heart ofthe struggle. One can imagine the Soviet experiment as a
historical interlude unless the country manages in the near future to invent new forms of social
property and of socialist democracy, the two being intimately connected.

Let me mention three crucial aspects. There is the field of international relations, altered
altogether by the initiatives of Mikhail Gorbachev, revealing incidentally how much was due to
the clumsiness of Brezhnev and his associates. Here the unanswered questions are whether
Moscow is still principally interested in making a deal with the nuclear giant, and how far it is
ready to enter the international capitalist market.

Secondly, there is the national question-not just 'in Armenia or the Baltic states, but in the
Ukraine and in Russia itself-a national question revealed but not provoked by perestroika.

Finally, there is the impact ofthe changes in the center on the periphery, and here the case of
Poland should enable me to express both my fears and my hopes. Poland, for all its peculiarities,
is interesting because in the last twenty years the pace of reform from above was dictated by a
movement from below. During the recent negotiations there over a historical compromuse
between government and opposition, one could sometimes be forgiven if one thought that they
were talks between Margaret Thatcher and Professor Friedman, so great was the emphasis on the
virtues of the market and the vices of public property. But when it came to brass tacks, the
spokespeople for Solidarity had to remember that they were the representatives of a labor
movement, without which they were nothing. Therefore they had to ask for wages to be indexed
on prices, not just proportionately but with higher increases for the lower paid. They had to talk
of workers' control, self-management, and other heresies so hated by our liberal pundits. You
have only to read The Wall Street journal or The Economist to perceive that our financial
establishment is no longer happy with Lech Walesa and the Polish opposition. It is on such social
realities, rather than the benevolence of rulers, that I pin my moderate hopes. And this provides
also the answer to my original questions: Whatever the importance of the reforms from above, a
socialist transformation, by definition, cannot take place without a movement from below.
*CURRENT developments in Russia can perhaps best be seen through the prism of three rather
unconventional assertions dealing, in turn, with the nature of Soviet society, the structure of the
Soviet economy, and the posture of Soviet Communist Party General Secretary Mikhail S.
Gorbachev. They are (1) that the society's ruling class has adopted a profoundly religious
character; (2) that economic planners here use much the same analytic tools as American
corporate managers; and (3) that Gorbachev's basic drives are in many respects quite similar to
those seeming to motivate Ronald Reagan.

A visit to Moscow in the midst of a Party congress--an event normally held once every five
years, which this year also marked the first anniversary of Gorbachev's ascent to the Party's high
priesthood--allows one to view close up all the votive rites of Leninism. Opening day of the 27th
Congress of the CPSU, Gorbachev addressed some 5,000 Party delegates and another 1,000
foreign guests. With several breaks for rest and refreshment, he spoke from 10 o'clock in the
morning until well after five o'clock in the afternoon. It was a speech that, on paper, weighed two
full pounds. Nearly every page, homage was paid to Vladimir Ilyich Lenin. Gorbachev's frequent
citations of chapter and verse, parenthetically bracketed into his text, dogmatically treated the
secular sayings of Lenin in much the same manner that Pope John Paul II, in his Vatican
homilies, treats the biblical gospel of Jesus Christ.

At the outset, for example, the Secretary characteristically called upon the Party faithful--after
thinking broadly, "in Lenin's style,' about our times-- to fashion a plan that will "organically
blend the grandeur of our aims with the realism of our capabilities.' Many hours later, he
concluded his verbal marathon by once more exhorting his presumably benumbed, if still
faithful, flock to pull up their collective Socialist socks, because that is "the only way to carry out
the great Lenin's behest to move forward with united vigor and resolve.' As Gorbachev spoke,
the television camera occasionally panned a 35-foot-high poster of a determined Lenin hanging
behind the rostrum, the sole stage prop for the gathering. Just about everybody present, following
Gorbachev, wore red-and-gold bas relief Lenin pins in their lapels.

Leninism was thus fully enshrined at this congress as the official established religion of the
Soviet Union, a process that did not in any respect require the assent of the country' 280 million
citizens. To be sure, the Russian Orthodox Church continues to have its adherents here. It even
qualifies for a modicum of State subsidies through its bedrock support for present domestic
arrangements and for the USSR's "peace' campaign abroad. Islamic values are said to be thriving
within Soviet Asia, too, and in the Baltic republics Roman Catholicism is under going a revival.
For his part, Gorbachev castigated these trends as "localism' and urged the true believers in the
modern Kremlin palace to stamp them out beneath their Leninist banners.

By accident or design--in Russia an outsider is rarely able to make such distinctions-- Gorbachev
spoke 30 years to the day after Nikita S. Khrushchev's secret speech before the same body,
condemning his longtime predecessor, Joseph Stalin, as a mass murderer of the people he ruled,
including many veteran Communist Party members. In 1961, at the next congress, Khrushchev
shocked his listeners anew by demanding that the dictator's remains be removed from the granite
mausoleum on Red Square he was sharing in death with Lenin, and that Stalin's name be blasted
off the tomb.
GORBACHEV dismissed all who had stood in his place after Lenin died in 1924. He mentioned
none of them by name as he spoke of their failed prophecies. It was left to an ambitious
lieutenant, Boris N. Yeltsin, the new Moscow Party boss, to connect the dots on his chief's
outline. At the previous congress in 1981, presided over by an enfeebled Leonid I. Brezhnev,
Yeltsin had talked about the problems of logging in Sverdlovsk. This time, he felled taller trees.

"Why do we raise the same old problems at one congress after another?' Yeltsin inquired. "Why
have we brought this alien word "stagnation' into use? Why for so many years have we been
unable to root up bureaucratism, social injustice and other abuses? Why do demands for radical
reform get stuck in the sluggish layer of time-servers with Party cards?'

His was a daring oratorical flight to the limits of Socialist protocol. But it kept faith with the
confessional nature of the proceedings. The congress was, in that sense, a religious conclave
where secular penitents enumerated their sins-- mainly sloth, greed and pride of place-- while
exposing the sins of living and dead Leninist divines. This brought absolution from the new Holy
Father of Leninism. In forgiving, Gorbachev reduced internal anxieties, at least for the moment,
by magnanimously insisting that a top-to-bottom Party purge was not necessary. Naturally, he
suggested, in a few instances the worst of the old lot must be surgically extracted and replaced by
younger, bolder, more courageous, innovative Gorbachev men-- men such as Yeltsin.

And just how did Yeltsin answer the disquieting questions he had raised? The key, he told the
delegates, lay in the sad fact that prior Soviet leaders (unlike, of course, the venerated Mikhail,
son of Sergei, the onetime secular bishop of Stavropol) lacked the guts to "tell the bitter truth'
about what had gone amiss. Gorbachev, however, since coming up to Moscow from Stavropol,
had shown he was made of the right stuff. That, presumably, would make the difference in
Russia.

(What Gorbachev had said was: "When the subject of publicity comes up, calls are sometimes
made for exercising greater caution when speaking about shortcomings, omissions and
difficulties that are inevitable in any ongoing effort. There can be only one answer to this, a
Leninist answer: Communists want the truth, always and under all circumstances.')

Standing before the delegates, Yeltsin had also asked: "How often can we present certain Party
heads as miracle workers?' One wonders how prudent that question will sound if it is repeated at
the next congress in 1991. In contrast to most of his predecessors, it should be noted, Gorbachev
appears to be in no hurry to canonize himself. Although he acts as if he plans to stay in charge
forever, a la Jimmy Carter, circa 1977, he has trimmed some of the usual trappings of the top
Kremlin post. He sent an early signal of his style by naming Andrei A. Gromyko the Soviet head
of state, a post Khrushchev and Brezhnev had eagerly assumed.

In allowing Gromyko to become President, in return for his support in the only Soviet election
that ever amounts to anything, Gorbachev ensured the aging Foreign Minister that he will
ultimately be interred in Soviet soil, rather than cremated and shoved into the Kremlin wall--the
final fate that awaits run-of-the-mill Politburo members. Being buried in the earth after a full
State funeral is the highest accolade the Leninist order can bestow on one of its chief disciples.
As Khrushchev recounted Stalin's horrible crimes at the secret session of the 1956 congress--
held, incidentally, in the dead of night--someone shouted from the back of the hall: "Where were
you, dear comrade, while all this was going on?' Khrushchev demanded that the speaker rise and
identify himself. His demand was met by a frosty, queasy silence. Khrushchev then pounded his
fist on the lectern and said: "You see, comrades. That's where I was!'

In the politically calmer daytime atmosphere mosphere of 1986, no one had the temerity of 1986,
no one had the temerity his criticisms back in 1981, when Brezhnev was tottering but still
around. Yeltsin told the delegates anyway: "I probably lacked the courage and political
experience at that time.'

LIKE ANY mature religion, modern Leninism regularly favors certain incantations and eschews
others. In particular, the phrase "radical reforms' has long been taboo, because Brezhnev once
held that all the necessary basic radical reforms were carried out in 1965 and henceforth
Communists should simply implement them.

So why did Gorbachev stress the need for radikalnaia reforma? He was, it appears, sending a
signal to the Communist elite that a debate on Russia's economic future was in order. Where that
debate might lead is more difficult to gauge. No one here, inside or outside the establishment,
believes the new Kremlin crew is prepared to go as far as China or Hungary or even East
Germany in altering the certrial system. "For one thing, Gorbachev doesn't see anything wrong
with the system,' Arthur A. Hartman, the astute American ambassador, told me. "He has made it
work for him and he thinks he knows how it can be made to work for others,' Gorbachev, for
instance, wants to plop more high-tech dumplings into the Socialist stew. It is doubtful whether
these computers will have any appreciable impact, though, without a parallel shift in attitude
both within and toward a society that has long been purposefully starved of information.

The tinkering with the Soviet economic model, in a bid to extract more juice from the orange,
bears a striking resemblance to those what-if spreadsheet formulas that are an integral feature of
American corporate life. The essential difference, besides the obvious one of scale, is that Russia
remains a monopolistic corporation which deals, often in multiple roles, with millions of
managers, workers, pensioners, dependents, and would-be customers.

Under the Soviet setup, Gosplan (State planning) managers compare columns of resources with
rows of demands. Top priority might go to, say, the care and feeding of the Politburo or a new
space station or huge nuclear rockets poised to strike the United States. It is a fairly safe bet that
there are sufficient resources at hand to accomplish any of these tasks.

But what happens when the consumer economy shows up way down on the list? What occurs
when the planners are told the price of bread, last raised in 1962, cannot be touched because
bread is held to be a sacred symbol of stability in the Socialist motherland? Well, at the
minimum, distortions enter an economy that does not react satisfactorily to the laws of supply
and demand.
At the congress, Gorbachev spoke about the importance of more closely relating prices to costs.
This idea is so ingrained in Western thinking that it is difficult for outsiders to fathom exactly
how radical the concept is within the Soviet framework.

Moreover, Gorbachev wants Gosplan and other key ministries to stick to their spreadsheet-type
knitting. That would, by his lights, commendably increase the autonomy of individual Soviet
enterprises--making their managers responsible for producing higher quality goods and services
and achieving profitable results.

Yet changes that allow prices to reflect the actual cost of production, that allow them to reflect
levels of demand, and that even allow them to respond to competitive imports could ultimately
unleash vast internal pressures in the USSR, with profound economic and ideological
consequences. For the freedom to choose implies the freedom to fail. Over the years, many a
Soviet enterprise would have gone belly up and many a Soviet citizen would have found himself
jobless had the Soviets attempted some sort of rational bookkeeping These enterprises have
stayed open and their employees continue to be paid, as if they were truly earning a living
instead of serving time. This has happened because of the widespread conviction, in Gorbachev's
own words, "that any change in the economic mechanism should be seen as almost a retreat from
the principles of socialism.'

Indeed, it is reasonable to speculate on how much would change were Gorbachev to attain the
Stalinoid powers he lacks. Keep in mind that although he is a generation younger than the
American President, the Soviet First Secretary essentially shares Reagan's view of the world
from the opposite political pole: Gorbachev is as genuinely mistaken about what makes the
democracies of the West tick as Reagan is basically ignorant about the official weaknesses and
the personal virtues of modern Russia. If life for some Americans is surely less than hunky-dory,
it nevertheless holds more in store than, as Gorbachev would have it, social slaughter by a
"massive and brutal offensive of the monopolies on the rights of the working people.'

At bottom, both leaders deeply believe in their respective systems. In Soviet terms Gorbachev
has done well for himself, just as Reagan has successfully lived his Hollywood fantasies.
Gorbachev, like Reagan, is a small town boy who scored very high in the big city. Unlike
Reagan, he left the relatively bright lights of Moscow to go back home and climb his way up the
ladder until his patrons recognized his worth. But now these two men are both on top and they
intend to stay there as long as they can.

Gorbachev says that the Soviet system will work, once it is properly tuned and citizens adopt a
better attitude. The problem is that Gorbachev might succeed in making workers work and
managers manage--and he still may fail because the system is rotten. Should that occur, public
cynicism, private corruption and the general decline which has marked Soviet life in recent times
could grow worse, with potentially dire consequences for us all.