Alfred B. Evans - Soviet Marxism-Leninism - The Decline of An Ideology-Praeger (1993)

SOVIET
MARXISM-
LENINISM
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SOVIET
MARXISM-
LENINISM
The Decline of
an Ideology
ALFRED B. EVANS, JR.
Westport, Connecticut
PRAEGER London
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Evans, Alfred B.
Soviet Marxism-Leninism : the decline of an ideology / Alfred B.
Evans, Jr.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index.
ISBN 0-275-94549-9.-ISBN 0-275-94763-7 (pbk.) (alk. paper)
1. Communism—Soviet Union—History. 2. Ideology. 3. Soviet
Union —Politics and government. I. Title.
HX311.5.E93 1993
320.5'32'0947 - dc20 93-19089
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data is available

Copyright © 1993 by Alfred B. Evans, Jr.
All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be
reproduced, by any process or technique, without the
express written consent of the publisher.
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 93-19089
ISBN: 0-275-94549-9
0-275-94763-7 (pbk.)
First published in 1993
Praeger Publishers, 88 Post Road West, Westport, CT 06881
An imprint of Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc.
Printed in the United States of America
The paper used in this book complies with the

Permanent Paper Standard issued by the National
Information Standards Organization (Z39.48-1984).
P
Excerpts from "The Crisis of Marxism-Leninism,, reprinted with permission of
Duke University Press and The Macmillan Press Ltd. from Developments in
Soviet and Post-Soviet Politics, edited by Stephen White, Alex Pravda, and
Zvi Gitelman. Copyright 1992 by Alfred B. Evans.
Excerpts from "Changing Views of Social Differentiation in Soviet Ideology"

extracted from: Restructuring Soviet Ideology: Gorbachev's New Thinking,
edited by Sylvia Woodby and Alfred B. Evans, Jr., 1990, by permission of
Westview Press, Boulder, Colorado.
Excerpts from "Ideology under Khruschev and Gorbachev: Contradictions and

the Future" from The Sons of Sergei: Khrushchev and Gorbachev as Reformers,
edited by Donald R. Kelley and Shannon G. Davis, copyright 1992 by Donald
R. Kelley and Shannon G. Davis, pages 91-121, Praeger Publishers, an imprint
of Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc., Westport, CT. Reprinted with permission.
In order to keep this title in print and available to the academic community, this edition
was produced using digital reprint technology in a relatively short print run. This would
not have been attainable using traditional methods. Although the cover has been changed
from its original appearance, the text remains the same and all materials and methods
used still conform to the highest book-making standards.
To my mother
and to the memory of my father
Contents
Introduction 1
1 Marx and the Stages of Communism 9
2 Lenin on Socialist Construction 17
3 The Consolidation of Stalinism 29
4 Mature Stalinism: Continuity within Transition 45
5 Khrushchev: The Full-Scale Construction of Communism 57
6 Khrushchev: Social and Political Change 77
7 Brezhnev: The Stage of Developed Socialism 105
8 Social Structure and Social Transformation
in Developed Socialism 131
9 The Socialist Way of Life 141
10 Gorbachev on Stagnation and Restructuring 151
11 The Hope of Reform: Socialist Pluralism 169
12 The Collapse of the Dream 193
13 Conclusion: The Revenge of Politics 211
Bibliography 227
Index 233
SOVIET
MARXISM-
LENINISM
Introduction
There is an abundance of writings describing the intellectual trends that led

to the shaping of the official ideology of the Soviet regime in the form in
which it appeared by the middle of the 1930s,1 but no single volume provides
an overview of developments in Soviet Marxism-Leninism from the 1930s
until the time of the disintegration of the USSR. Some of the most crucial
issues addressed by that ideology in its last decades as an official belief sys-
tem have attracted little attention among Western scholars. Such large gaps
in the narration of the story of Soviet Marxism-Leninism have fostered the
impression that there was virtually no change in the ideology for several
decades after the elaboration of its key concepts under Stalin in the 1930s. A
number of scholars have offered perceptive analyses of revisions in the Soviet
leadership's views on international relations,2 but most specialists studying
Soviet affairs seemed to assume that there had been no corresponding alter-
ations in the leadership's perceptions concerning domestic Soviet institutions.
Although this author argued against that assumption in an essay published
in 1977,3 and although the volume of scholarly analysis of changes in the
ideology's depiction of Soviet society subsequently increased, general aware-
ness of ferment and change in Soviet Marxist-Leninist ideological theory
only dawned after Mikhail Gorbachev came to power as head of the Com-
munist party of the Soviet Union in March 1985 and launched his drive for
the restructuring (perestroika) of the official belief system and established
institutions. Western specialists' analysis of changes in doctrinal tenets and
policy prescriptions in one area after another revealed that the radical
changes in the ideology, which apparently exploded suddenly after Gorbachev
called for reform in the Soviet system, were in fact the result of pressures for
2 Soviet Marxism-Leninism: The Decline of an Ideology
changes in thinking that had been building up for a long time and had en-
gendered debates among Soviet scholars and policy analysts at least since
the early 1960s.4 The perspective offered by this book not only reaffirms
that conclusion but also suggests that pressures for change in the official
Soviet ideology had been evident ever since it had taken shape as the intel-
lectual rationale for the mature Stalinist system by the middle of the 1930s.
Indeed, the need for constant adaptation was inherent in official doctrine as
was the demand to resist revision of essential doctrinal principles. Thus,
Soviet leaders from Stalin to Gorbachev struggled to reconcile contradictory
demands on Marxism-Leninism, and although their struggle was ultimately
unsuccessful, it did produce constant revisions in ideological theory.
Enough has been written about the functions of ideology in the Soviet
system as it existed until December 1991 that it is unnecessary to repeat that
discussion here.5 It should be noted, however, that two of the functions
usually ascribed to Marxism-Leninism6 had contradictory implications,
which were reflected in conflicting demands on the Soviet political leader-
ship. On the one hand, the ideology was used for the purpose of legitimation
of the Soviet political regime and the network of social and economic insti-
tutions that it controlled. The claim that Marxism-Leninism was a scientific
system of analysis of social forces and an objective basis for policy decisions
justified the monopolization of decision making by the leadership of the
Communist party. The use of ideology as a tool of legitimation of authority
discouraged open revisions in its teachings, since explicit changes in doctrine
would have called into question the success of the party7 leadership in pre-
vious attempts at theoretical interpretation and raised doubts about the value
of the theory as a guide for decision making. On the other hand, the ideology
also performed the function of interpretation of social, economic, and polit-
ical reality, serving as a framework of perception of major divisions in
society, trends of change in all spheres, and the primary tasks to be addressed
by the party elite in its molding of policy. For the ideology to maintain any
credibility as a means of interpreting reality, however, it needed to be adapted
in each period and under each leadership, since the conditions with which it
dealt were constantly changing and since perceptions of social forces and
trends which had taken shape years or decades earlier would become obsolete
if not subjected to periodic updating. This was the paradox of a political
system in which ideology was presented as the source of authority and the
guide to decision making: for the ideology to remain unchanged would ren-
der it irrelevant to the problems faced by new generations of leaders and cit-
izens, while revising the doctrines would expose the lack of a special quality
to the ideology that justified rule by those most thoroughly initiated in its
meaning.
Perhaps such contradictory imperatives do not necessarily doom an ideo-
logically based political regime to the collapse eventually suffered by the
Soviet regime, but surely they do require the political elite to maintain a del-
Introduction 3
icate balance between the demand for continuity and the need for change in
its exposition of the official ideology. By the early 1990s, the Soviet leader-
ship found it impossible to sustain that balance any longer. From Stalin's
time until the late 1980s, each leadership tried to maintain the necessary bal-
ance by prohibiting open questioning of the basic principles of the ideology,
which purportedly were drawn from the writings of Marx, Engels, and Lenin,
and by presenting each innovation in the ideological interpretation of reality
as an application of the cherished teachings of the classic sources to specific
contemporary conditions. Some students of Soviet, Chinese, and East
European Marxism have distinguished between the more basic and general
assumptions of the ideology, which were not subjected to change by Com-
munist leaders, and the applied and more concrete conclusions of the belief
system, which were regularly subjected to adaptation.8
In order to maintain the appearance of consistency between the more
rigid and the more flexible elements of the belief system, each of the succes-
sive General Secretaries of the Communist party of the Soviet Union pre-
sented his view of the stage of development reached by Soviet society in the
time of his ascendancy and attempted to show the way in which trends of
change in that period would contribute to the realization of the ultimate goals
set forth by the ideology. From the middle of the 1930s until the end of the
1980s, each leadership endorsed the view that Soviet society could be char-
acterized as socialist, or as somewhere in the "first phase of communist
society" foreseen by Karl Marx, and insisted that the ultimate destination of
the society was full communism, or the "higher phase of communist society"
envisioned by Marx. This book will show that each Soviet leader from Stalin
to Gorbachev showed an awareness of the need to explain how the trends
promoted by the regime in the stage attained by Soviet society in his time
would lead to the introduction of the features of a fully Communist society
and will also indicate that each of those leaders evidenced some recognition
of the difficulty entailed in weaving the then-current trends and the expecta-
tions for the Communist future into a smooth fabric. By the beginning of
the 1990s, that effort was written off by the Gorbachev leadership as a
hopeless project, and the promise that a Communist future would be the in-
evitable result of history for the USSR was openly abandoned. Within a
short time after that concession was made, the Communist party of the Soviet
Union had lost power, and the Soviet Union had ceased to exist.
The treatment of the writings of Marx, Engels, and Lenin in this book will
be brief, since a number of excellent works deal with the thought of the pre-
cursors and founders of Soviet Marxism. Nevertheless, a concise review of
the main ideas of those thinkers will furnish a background that will make
the rest of this book intelligible for those who are not specialists on Marxism
or Russian studies. Throughout the discussion that follows, Soviet Marxism
is treated not only as thought but also as ideology. An ideology may be de-
fined as a system of interrelated beliefs about politics and society that is
4 Soviet Marxism-Leninism: The Decline of an Ideolgy
directed at a large popular audience.9 Ideology may favor or oppose change.

In either case, it is not merely an exercise in philosophical reasoning but is
meant to have practical consequences by influencing people's actions. Any
ideology may be viewed as having three main components: (1) a statement
of social values or goals, (2) an analysis of existing society, and (3) a set of
guidelines for action. Ideology is not only normative, but also interpretative;
it not only shows what ought to be but explains the crucial factors in the
contemporary situation. Its action program tells us how to move from the
actual to the ideal or, if the actual is identified with the ideal, how to preserve
what already exists. In Marx's scheme, the ideal was communism, the inter-
pretative content was an analysis of capitalism, and the means of transition
from capitalism to communism were the proletarian revolution and the dic-
tatorship of the proletariat. Marx's ideology was revolutionary, but Soviet
Marxist ideology became mainly conservative. The use of radical and even
Utopian symbolism to legitimize a political regime that enjoyed a high degree
of stability for several decades was an inherent source of tension in ideologi-
cal theory. In the final analysis, the ideas associated with the Soviet regime
failed in both ways, as in December 1991, when it became apparent that the
regime had neither achieved Utopia nor maintained lasting stability.
It is still worthwhile to study the trends in the official Soviet belief system,
however, even though that set of ideas has been discredited in the eyes of
most people in the former Soviet republics and the political order in which it
played a major role has passed into history. After all, it is desirable to try to
understand history, and it is impossible to understand the outlook of the
leadership of the Soviet regime in each period of its history without compre-
hending the version of Marxism-Leninism molded by each new "administra-
tion" that came to power in that system. The story of the last several decades
of change in official Soviet doctrines also forms part of the material for the
comparative study of political ideologies. The dilemmas of ideology and
power that are described in this book have been played out in many arenas
outside the Soviet Union and may manifest themselves in new forms in the
future. Finally, the reader should become aware of the trends in the politi-
cally dominant ideas in the USSR during the last decades of existence of that
political union in order to ensure an adequate background for investigation
of possible residual influences of Marxist-Leninist thinking on the values,
beliefs, and mores of citizens in the former Soviet republics in the time of
post-Communist politics. This author does not deny the evidence of discon-
tinuity between official Soviet culture and the emerging post-Soviet cultures,
which in some ways has proved so extreme as to be startling, and which
makes it clear that personal faith in the official belief system had been erod-
ing in the Soviet Union for a long time before 1991; but he does suspect that
the stock phrase of the Soviet system referring to vestiges of the past fperez-
hitki proshlogo) in people's consciousness and conduct may find new appli-
cation in the vastly changed circumstances of the post-Soviet era. At any
rate, we cannot begin to study questions of change and continuity in relation
Introduction 5
to the doctrines of the regime in power in the USSR until 1991 unless we
know what those doctrines were and how they had changed before the fall
of the Soviet regime.
This volume will attempt to convey the theme that dilemmas of intellectual
continuity and change are not new to Russia and the other former Soviet
republics but were continually faced by the leaders of authoritative Soviet
institutions. The official ideology of the Soviet system was constantly being
subjected to revisions under each leadership from the time at which that set
of doctrines assumed the character of a well-recognized orthodoxy under
Stalin in the 1930s. The main focus of innovation in ideological theory for
each leadership was the effort to redefine the stage of development entered
by Soviet society and reconceptualize trends of change moving the society to
its future. Excellent scholarly works by Sarah Meiklejohn Terry and Terry
Thompson have justifiably emphasized that such efforts by Khrushchev and
Brezhnev were influenced by rivalry between the Soviet leadership and the
leaders of other Communist party-state regimes.10 Those authors emphasize
that Khrushchev's introduction of the thesis that the Soviet Union had
entered a stage of "full-scale construction of communism" and that Brezhnev's
claim that his country had reached the stage of "developed socialism" were
intended to discredit Maoist ultraradicalism in China and repudiate reform-
ist stirrings in Eastern Europe.
While it is true that such major innovations in the official Soviet ideology
were designed to impress international Communist audiences as suggested
by Meiklejohn Terry and Thompson, however, it is doubtful that such con-
siderations were sufficient or even primary in explaining Soviet leaders'
periodic reconceptualizations of the stage of development of Soviet society.
The decisive evidence in favor of analyzing those leaders' efforts to redefine
the stage of development of the Soviet system primarily in terms of their
need to combine legitimacy within the USSR with viable reinterpretations of
domestic policy priorities is that, first, Stalin initially showed a desire to ad-
dress the problems of conceptualizing a new stage of development of Soviet
socialism and reconciling the description of trends in that stage with the re-
quirements for the transition to communism in the late 1930s, when there
were no Communist regimes in the world other than that in the USSR; and
second, that Stalin actually offered his depiction of the new stage of Soviet
socialism and its contribution to the realization of communism in 1952, when
in Soviet and international communist doctrine it was universally conceded
that no country other than the USSR had built a socialist society, so the
pressure of competing visions of a higher stage of socialism was not yet a
factor in the thinking of the Soviet leadership. The contribution which Stalin
had made to furnishing a Marxist-Leninist answer to the questions of where
Soviet society was and where it was going posed problems, however, which
every successive leader in the system from Khrushchev to Gorbachev strug-
gled to resolve. The story of their struggles is the principal focus of this
volume.
NOTES
1. Some works which deserve special mention in that connection are R. N. Carew
Hunt's brief classic, The Theory and Practice of Communism, 5th ed. (Baltimore:
Penguin Books, 1963); Leszek Kolakowski's Main Currents of Marxism, 3 vols. (Ox-
ford: Clarendon Press, 1978), the best extended survey of Marxism; and Alfred
Meyer's Leninism (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1957), a brilliant
study of the thought of the founder of Soviet communism.
2. William Zimmerman, Soviet Perspectives on International Relations, 1956-
1967(Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1969), is the work that set the
standard in that area. Subsequent writings on changes in Soviet scholarly and ideo-
logical thinking concerning international relations included contributions by Paul
Marantz (concerning Soviet thinking about East-West relations), Elizabeth Kridl
Valkenier, and Sylvia Woodby (concerning Soviet thinking about the Third World).
It should be noted that under the Soviet regime there was no clear distinction between
ideological theorizing and social science scholarship so that a large number of indi-
viduals could have been viewed both as scholars and as ideologists. The term "ideolo-
gist" is not used in this book in a pejorative manner, and the title "social scientist" is
not intended to convey praise or honor.
3. Alfred B. Evans, Jr., "Developed Socialism in Soviet Ideology," Soviet Studies
29 (July 1977): 409-428.
4. That is one of the conclusions of the essays collected in Sylvia Woodby and
Alfred B. Evans, Jr., eds. Restructuring Soviet Ideology: Gorbachev's New Thinking
(Boulder, Colo.: Westview, 1990).
5. See Sylvia Woodby, "Introduction," in Restructuring Soviet Ideology, ed.
Sylvia Woodby and Alfred B. Evans, Jr. (Boulder, Colo.: Westview, 1990), 4-7; also
see the earlier discussions by Alfred Meyer and Michael Waller cited in footnote 12
of that source.
6. Though it should be recognized that in fact through several decades of existence
of the Soviet regime there were several other national versions of Marxism-Leninism
in addition to the Soviet version, for the sake of brevity the term "Marxism-Leninism"
will be used in this book without qualification to refer to Soviet Marxism-Leninism
unless otherwise specified.
7. The term "party" will be used to refer only to the Communist party of the Soviet
Union. That was the only political party allowed to operate legally in the Soviet Union
from the early 1920s until 1990.
8. Zbigniew K. Brzezinski, The Soviet Bloc: Unity and Conflict, rev. ed. (Cam-
bridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1967), 489; Franz Schurmann, Ideology
and Organization in Communist China, 2nd ed. (Berkeley and Los Angeles: Univer-
sity of California Press, 1968), 22-23; Richard T. De George, "Philosophy," in Science
and Ideology in Soviet Society,ed. George Fischer (New York: Atherton Press, 1967),
48-52.
9. Lyman Tower Sargent, Contemporary Political Ideologies: A Comparative
Analysis, 8th ed. (Pacific Grove, Calif.: Brooks/Cole Publishing Co., 1990), 2-4,
and Leon P. Baradat, Political Ideologies: Their Origins and Impact,4th ed. (Engle-
wood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1991), 6-10, are among many works that offer def-
initions of ideology. Baradat*s definition in particular reflects the widespread influence
of Frederick M. Watkins, who, in The Age of Ideology—Political Thought, 1750 to
Introduction 1
the Present (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1964), 3-4, argued that ideologies
are inherently revolutionary. I have not chosen to include radicalism or utopianism
in my definition of ideology because I do not wish to reject a priori the possibility of
a conservative ideology.
10. Sarah Meiklejohn Terry, "Theories of Socialist Development in Soviet-East
European Relations," in Soviet Policy in Eastern Europe, ed. Sarah Meiklejohn Terry
(New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1984), 221-253; Terry L. Thompson,
"Developed Socialism: Brezhnev's Contribution to Soviet Ideology," in Soviet Society
and Culture, ed. Terry L. Thompson and Richard Sheldon (Boulder, Colo.: West-
view, 1988), 206-235; and Terry L. Thompson, Ideology and Policy: The Political
Uses of Doctrine in the Soviet Union (Boulder, Colo.: Westview, 1989).
1
Marx and the Stages
of Communism
MARX'S INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY

From the 1920s until the early 1990s and the disintegration of the USSR,
Soviet sources' use of the term "Marxism-Leninism" was meant to suggest
direct continuity between Marx and Lenin. In the official Soviet view, Marx-
ism-Leninism included the theoretical legacy of the Soviet Communist party
and the other Communist parties closely allied with the Soviet regime. Soviet
ideologists vehemently rejected the suggestion that other interpretations of
Marx's ideas, such as Maoism in China and revisionism in Eastern and West-
ern Europe, were genuinely Marxist. According to Soviet doctrine, there
was only one kind of Marxism, and that was the kind dominant in the Soviet
Union.
The Soviet presentation of Marxism-Leninism glossed over important
differences between Marx's ideas and Lenin's. We find a process of reinter-
pretation not only in Lenin's treatment of Marx's works but also in the
speeches and writings of later Soviet Marxists. That process continued until
the time of the collapse of the Soviet regime. A recurring theme of this book
is the adaptation of Soviet ideology in interaction with changing political
and social conditions.
Marxism had its origins in the writings of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels.
Marx (1818-1883) as a young student of philosophy was converted to Hegel-
ianism, and although Marx later repudiated some of Hegel's most crucial con-
clusions, even his mature works posed questions drawn from the Hegelian
tradition. The method of philosophical analysis, according to Hegel, needed
to be the dialectic because reality itself was inherently dialectical. Hegel at-
tempted nothing less than a philosophy which would comprehend the result
of all previous stages of thought. He saw a restless movement of philosophy
caused by the inherent contradictions within and between its concepts in
each age. The resolution of contradictions was possible only through the
cancellation of systems of thought and their replacement by higher systems,
which preserved elements of the systems they had replaced. The culmination
of the history of philosophy would be a philosophy that would encompass
all that had gone before. Thus, philosophy is thought whose subject is
thought. Though Hegel's approach to philosophy was profoundly historical,
he did not see the philosopher as a shaper of history. "Philosophy escapes
from the weary strife of the passions that agitate the surface of society into
the calm realm of contemplation."1
Interpretations of Hegel's writings vary, but in one perspective, Hegel's
work is a unique expression of faith in progress. The final meaning of prog-
ress is to be revealed and made real in the realm of philosophy, of mind. The
working of reason toward its final end is the source of movement both in
nature and intellectual life. World history is nothing other than the course
of development of Spirit, or the striving of Spirit of self-realization, for a
knowledge of itself. The dialectic is the progressive overcoming of Spirit's
estrangement from itself, but Spirit can only reach its destination through
the medium of human consciousness. Spirit will be united with itself through
the attainment of the absolute idea, in the stage when human consciousness
fully grasps the meaning of Spirit. Since the articulation of Spirit is through
the human mind, the Absolute will represent philosophy's complete knowl-
edge of itself.
Hegel also characterized history as the realization of human freedom.
Hegel did not take the individualistic position that freedom is the absence of
coercion, or that freedom is epitomized by the individual's being left alone.
For Hegel, freedom meant the ethical aspect of the highest level of conscious-
ness. The person who is free is one who, through his own reason, knows the
general principles of law and right and willingly accepts those principles as
his own convictions. Thus, freedom involves the individual's submission to
the regulations of reason and also requires each person's participation in an
ethical community. In Hegel's work, freedom signifies self-realization and
implies harmony with other members of the community.
Hegel's philosophy of history seized the imagination of many young Ger-
man intellectuals. The Left Hegelians were attracted by Hegel's promise of
the realization of the ideal in and through history but were dissatisfied with
his assignment of a passive, contemplative stance to the thinker. The Left
Hegelians introduced Marx to the notion that philosophical criticism could
attack the basis of existing social institutions. Marx, as a young man easily
disposed to be radicalized, found such a viewpoint congenial. He took up
the call for a f'ruthlesscriticism of everything existing."2
Marx and the Stages of Communism 11
Early in his intellectual career, having turned to the study of politics and
economics, Marx decided on the necessity of the proletarian revolution and
the transition to communism. Throughout the remainder of his life, his
work was guided by unswerving devotion to those objectives. His interpre-
tation of the process by which the revolution would come about occupied
him with the details of economic theory. But before Marx was thirty years
old, he had arrived at his basic view of human society, which we may call
the materialist interpretation of history. The core of historical materialism
is the belief that the superstructure of society must be explained in relation
to the economic base or mode of production. "The sum total of these rela-
tions of production constitutes the economic structure of society, the real
foundation, on which rises a legal and political superstructure and to which
correspond definite forms of social consciousness. The mode of production
of material life conditions the social, political and intellectual life process in
general."3 For Hegel's interpretation of the state as the external manifesta-
tion of the absolute Spirit in the current historical setting, Marx substituted
his view of the state as based on the economic substructure of society.
Like Hegel, Marx saw society as being in constant movement, evolving
solutions to its internal contradictions. At the beginning of a new stage of
social development, there would be a tendency for productive relations to
be consolidated in a manner consistent with the productive forces of that
stage. However, as the productive forces continued to develop, they would
come into conflict with the productive relations predominant in society. The
contradictions between productive forces and the relations of production
would grow more severe until the productive forces could progress no more
within the framework of existing society. Beyond that point, advancement
would take the form of explosive, radical change. "Then begins an epoch of
social revolution. With the change of the economic foundation the entire
immense superstructure is more or less rapidly transformed."4 Marx charac-
terized social and political development in terms of an alternation of gradual,
evolutionary change and rapid, revolutionary transformation. Each form
of change was a necessary prerequisite for the other form. Change as such,
in both forms, was impelled by contradictions and led to the awakening of
new social conflicts.
Marx distinguished four broad stages in the formation of bourgeois society:
Asiatic society, ancient society, feudal society, and capitalism. A prior
society, primitive communism, was treated by Marx as prehistorical. Social
development from the lowest stage to the highest was marked by increases
in human powers of production, the elaboration of the division of labor,
and the rise of the institution of private property. The contradictions within
the highest existing stage (i.e., bourgeois society) would lead to its replace-
ment by a still higher stage, that is, communism. Marx's scheme of history,
though emphasizing conflict and radical change, tended to describe an orderly
succession of stages. The precondition for the appearance of each stage was
a substantial degree of development within the previous stage. "No social

order ever perishes before all the productive forces for which there is room
in it have developed; and new, higher relations of production never appear
before the material conditions of their existence have matured in the womb
of the old society itself."5
Within each stage of society's development, the interests of the main social
classes are mutually exclusive. The owning class finds the basis for its suste-
nance in the squeezing of wealth from the sweat and toil of the non-owning
class. It would be in the interest of the laboring class to destroy the owner-
ship of property by the advantaged class and thereby wipe out the economic
basis for the existence of that class. The natural relationship between eco-
nomic classes is that of conflict so that as productive forces develop within
any stage of society, the struggle between the major social classes of the
society intensifies. The class struggle is resolved with the social revolution,
the abolition of the property relationships, and the destruction of the super-
structure of the dying stage. A new form of property ownership and a new
ruling class are ushered in. However, the new society is subject to its own
contradictions, which must eventually destroy it also. Each revolution sets
the stage for a renewal of the class struggle in a new form and for the advance
of society toward another revolution.
The stages of human history have represented the progressive expansion
of people's control over nature with the development of people's productive
powers. However, there has been no such progress in people's control over
their social life. With the increasing sophistication of the productive process
and elaboration of the division of labor, there is a growth in the complexity
of the relationships between people in the sphere of production. These rela-
tionships hold sway over people and are perceived by people as objective,
the product of "laws" of social interaction. Thus, the relationships that have
been created by people as the result of their own labor appear to be alien
powers over people. For Marx, the great riddle of economic history is how
to combine the highest mastery over nature with people's control over social
relationships. The key to solving the riddle is communism, but it is a key
which may be found only in the workings of the highest stage of exploitation—
capitalism.
CAPITALISM, REVOLUTION, AND COMMUNISM

In Marx's theory, the economic logic of capitalism sets in motion the forces
that will destroy the capitalist system. The economic trends in capitalism
mean the polarization of society between the great social classes of bour-
geoisie and proletariat. The result of competition is an ever-decreasing num-
ber of capitalist property owners: "One capitalist kills many."6 With the
accumulation of capital, each remaining capitalist controls a larger concen-
tration of the means of production. On the other side, the number of prole-
tarians grows, while their misery increases. The workers are gathered in large
cities and herded into large factories. They are taught the discipline of con-
certed action in the factory. The simplification of labor and the drawing of
wages closer to a uniform minimum obliterate distinctions of sex, age, race,
and nationality within the working class. As capitalism advances, the class
struggle grows sharper. In a famous passage, Marx envisioned the inevitable
result:
Along with the constantly diminishing number of the magnates of capital, who
usurp and monopolise all advantages of the process of transformation, grows the
mass of misery, oppression, slavery, degradation, exploitation; but with this too
grows the revolt of the working-class, a class always increasing in numbers, and dis-
ciplined, united, organized by the very mechanism of the process of capitalist pro-
duction itself. . . . Centralization of the means of production and socialization of
labor at last reach a point where they become incompatible with their capitalist integ-
ument. The integument is burst asunder. The knell of capitalist private property
sounds. The expropriators are expropriated.7
Marx considered capitalism to be a historically progressive economic for-

mation. He was unstinting in his praise of the development of technology
and the growth of productive machinery achieved within capitalism. "The
bourgeoisie, during its rule of scarce one hundred years, has created more
massive and more colossal productive forces than have all preceding genera-
tions together."8 However, each technical advance and each accretion of
productivity were bought at the price of the exploitation and suffering of
the workers. As the capitalist system grew richer, the majority of the people
in it were impoverished. Marx thought that the attendant social contradic-
tions would become so strong that the framework of capitalism would not be
able to contain them. The resolution of the contradictions developing within
capitalism could only come about within the next stage—communism.
The amount of Marx's writing on the new society to follow the workers'
revolution was very small in comparison with the volume of his treatises on
capitalism. Marx believed it to be futile to set up an ideal of communism
before the conditions which would make possible the realization of that state
of society had appeared. Communism would develop, not primarily out of
the theory but out of the experience of the workers' movement. However,
Marx did sketch some outlines of the Communist future. In his most exten-
sive observations on the subject, Marx foresaw two phases within Commu-
nist society.9 His point was that immediately after the proletarian revolution,
society would not be fully communistic but would still contain major social
and cultural elements of the previous stage (i.e., capitalism). The members
of the classes of the proletariat and bourgeoisie would remain. Marx implied
that in a society that had just emerged from a long experience with capital-
ism, people would still think of work as a necessary evil in which they
engaged for material compensation. A process of transformation would

precede the establishment of a society free from the influence of capitalism.
The "first phase of Communist society" would begin with the victory of
the workers' revolution. The working class would seize the levers of political
and economic power. The proletariat would replace the bourgeois state with
its own instrument of political power, which Marx called the "dictatorship
of the proletariat." When the working class asserted its control over the
means of production, the association of the producers would replace the
anarchy of capitalist production with the regulation of production according
to a common plan. However, during the first transitional phase of commu-
nism, an appeal to the individual's self-interest would still be required to
stimulate labor; hence, society would distribute reward according to each
person's labor. Marx acknowledged that such a rule would lead to inequali-
ties in material reward between individuals. Those who were stronger, more
skilled, or more diligent would receive a larger return for their labors; how-
ever, no one could subsist off profits derived from private property. The
surplus value created by labor would be disposed of by society as a whole.
In the absence of private property in the means of production, there would
emerge a society in which all worked and all simultaneously shared in owner-
ship of the productive means. When it is recalled that Marx characterized
social classes in relation to ownership and toil, it will be understood that the
society being described would be without classes. The "higher phase" of
Communist society would have passed beyond the influence of capitalism.
In that phase, each would contribute to society according to his/her ability,
and receive means of consumption according to his/her needs. The link be-
tween productive effort and the individual's survival would be broken. As-
sured of satisfaction of his/her material needs, each person could engage in
a variety of forms of creative labor. The "enslaving subordination of the in-
dividual to the division of labor,"10 or the specialization of each person in
one occupation, would be no more. Given the opportunity to explore several
forms of activity as avocations, the individual would realize the true, human
meaning of labor as self-expression. Labor in itself would become rewarding
and would be appreciated as "life's prime want."11 The higher phase of com-
munism would be a society which had transcended the problem of economic
survival and had gone on to enhance the quality of the individual's life and
of his/her relations with others. It would be a society in which "the free de-
velopment of each is the condition for the free development of all."12
The movement to the higher phase of communism would also entail the
disappearance of the state. If the state is the agency for exercising the rule of
one class over another, a society that abolishes class distinctions will remove
the condition for the existence of the state. Marx repeatedly stated his ex-
pectation that the state as we know it would not be found in a fully Commu-
nist society. He offered no details about what would happen to the state
during the transition to complete communism, but he was inclined to use
language which suggested that in a dialectical transformation, the state would
be abolished and transcended. Marx and Engels had identified the state with
the exercise of coercion, and Marx seemed to be saying that with the elimi-
nation of class conflict, the coercive means of the organization of society
would become superfluous and would vanish. A new pattern of coordination
of productive activity, which would not be political in character, would arise.
Marx wrote in 1872, "Once the aim of the proletarian movement, the aboli-
tion of classes, is attained, . . . the state power disappears and governmental
functions are transformed into simple administrative functions."13 Engels,
in referring to the dying off or withering away of the state, offered substan-
tially the same interpretation: "The government of persons is replaced by
the administration of things, and by the conduct of processes of production."14
Marx's belief in the future society of communism was dependent on the
possibility of what we might call a radical transformation of human nature.
Communism would be a society in which each person's freedom would be
compatible with profound social harmony. People would contribute their
labor to society without being promised a material reward for doing so and
would conduct their relations with each other to obviate the need for the
threat of coercion by a governing body. Such a state of affairs presumes
motivation and behavior quite different from that of most people today or
of most people in the history of human societies. Marx would not have
described communism as demanding a transformation of human nature but
would have insisted that people's true nature was manifested in distorted
form in existing society. The human individual as known in history, accord-
ing to Marx, is the product of economic institutions that alienate him/her
from his/her human essence, and foster a spirit of selfishness, competition,
and materialism. When the economic barriers between people are removed,
there will be a natural tendency toward harmony in the human community.
As a philosophical justification for revolution, Marxism ultimately depends
on the assumption of the goodness of human nature and the belief that rad-
ical social change will bring about conditions for the full unfolding of that
goodness. Marx's faith that history will culminate in the resolution of con-
tradictions between people in society was not derived from his research on
the economics of capitalism; it was achieved through his youthful studies of
German idealist philosophy.
NOTES
1. G. W. F. Hegel, from "The Philosophy of History," in The Philosophy of
Hegel, ed. Carl J. Friedrich (New York: The Modern Library, 1954), 157.
2. Karl Marx, "For a Ruthless Criticism of Everything Existing," in The Marx-
EngelsReader, 2nd ed., ed. Robert C. Tucker (New York: W. W. Norton, 1978), 13.
3. From the preface to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, in
The Marx-Engels Reader, 2nd ed., ed. Robert C. Tucker (New York: W. W. Norton,
1978), 4.
4. Ibid., 5.
5. Ibid.
6. Karl Marx, from Capital, vol. 1, in The Marx-Engels Reader, 2nd ed., ed.
Robert C. Tucker (New York: W. W. Norton, 1978), 437.
7. Ibid., 438.
8. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, "Manifesto of the Communist Party," in The
Marx-Engels Reader, 2, 477.
9. Karl Marx, "Critique of the Gotha Program," in The Marx-Engels Reader,
2nd ed., ed. Robert C. Tucker (New York: W. W. Norton, 1978), 525-541.
10. Ibid., 531.
11. Ibid.
12. Marx and Engels, "Manifesto of the Communist Party," 491.
13. Karl Marx, from "The Alleged Splits in the International," in David McLellan,
The Thought of Karl Marx (New York: Harper & Row, 1971), 194.
14. Friedrich Engels, "Socialism: Utopian and Scientific," in The Marx-Engels
Reader, 2nd ed., ed. Robert C. Tucker (New York: W. W. Norton, 1978), 713.
2
Lenin on Socialist Construction
THEORETICAL EXPECTATIONS BEFORE OCTOBER 1917

Lenin's works on the tasks of the proletarian state must be divided into
two main groups: those written before the Russian Bolshevik Revolution of
October 1917, and those authored after that event. Before October 1917,
Lenin made some attempts to predict the features of socialist society, but
his writings on that subject were of necessity, speculative, and not very de-
tailed. He was reluctant to tie his hands with respect to measures that he
might take if he came to power. After the October Revolution, Lenin was in
power. His writings and speeches were addressed, not primarily to theoretical
questions but to the problems of running a major state under extremely dif-
ficult conditions. The assumption of power by Lenin's party led to an increase
in the realism in his views on the proletarian dictatorship and socialism.
Lenin's pre-October speculations concerning the society that might come
about after the revolution were prompted by his expectation that a revolu-
tion with participation by the proletariat was imminent. Lenin's hopes rose
during the Russian Revolution of 1905 and again during the European crisis
brought on by World War I. From the time of the collapse of the Tsarist
autocracy in February 1917 until the Bolshevik Revolution in October,
Lenin was engaged in maneuvering for the seizure of power. During that
period, Lenin did not make pronouncements on socialist society for the pur-
pose of presenting a blueprint for the future; his statements on the postrev-
olutionary society occurred in the course of polemics against other socialists.
Lenin, in trying to discredit socialist theoreticians of different varieties, was
striving to win the right to define the Marxist doctrine on the state and
socialism.
Lenin's thoughts on socialism in 1917 were expressed in several essays, the

chief one of which was State and Revolution.1 In that work, though not in
most of his other writings around the same time, Lenin was writing in theo-
retical terms meant to be applicable generally to the more economically
developed European countries as well as to Russia. Lenin was acutely con-
scious that Russian conditions were different from those of Western Europe.
In fact, Lenin never believed it possible for the Russian Revolution to be
purely socialist, but that distinction was not apparent in State and Revolution.
Lenin's approach in that, as in many of his other works, can be understood
in relation to the target of his essay. His objective was to discredit the school
of thought which is often labeled "Orthodox Marxism" and which was headed
by the principal theoretician of the German Social Democratic party, Karl
Kautsky. The orthodox Marxists of the early 1900s were in the position of
watchfully waiting for the type of revolution forecast by Marx, which they
expected to come about in the conditions detailed by Marx. Lenin could not
have directly criticized Kautsky and others for such a strategy without openly
questioning some of Marx's ideas, but he didfindgrounds on which to attack
Kautsky. He accused the orthodox Marxists of an incorrect view of the
socialist revolution, since, according to Lenin, Kautsky expected socialism
to triumph by parliamentary means. Lenin claimed that Kautsky's argument
represented a "deviation" from Marxism, since Kautsky allegedly looked
forward to the proletariat's taking control of the existing machinery of the
state, while, according to Lenin, Marx and Engels had taught the necessity
of the destruction of the bourgeois state. State and Revolution, which mainly
consists of commentaries on quotations from Marx and Engels, has as its
central thesis the requirement of the "smashing" or "complete destruction"
of the established state by the proletariat.
Lenin charged that the belief in the possibility of a peaceful takeover of
government from within the parliamentary system was based on a funda-
mental theoretical error, the distortion of Marx's conception of the state.
What, in the Marxist perspective, is the state? Lenin answered that it is
nothing more than "special bodies of armed men."2 He identified the essen-
tial function of the state as the exercise of coercion, and he argued that, for
Marx and Engels, the reason for the existence of the state was the class
struggle. The division of society into "irreconcilably antagonistic classes"3
calls forth the construction of organized means of violence controlled by the
ruling class. Thus, the key question of revolution is that of organized mili-
tary force. The ruling class has its armed force, while the revolutionaries
muster theirs; if the force organized by the representatives of the oppressed
classes triumphs, the revolution succeeds. A revolution is open, armed, class
warfare. "The necessity of imbuing the masses with this and precisely this
view of violent revolution lies at the root of the entire theory of Marx and
Engels."4 The necessity of smashing the bourgeois state "is the chief and
fundamental point in the Marxist theory of the state."5
Lenin on Socialist Construction 19
Lenin described the proletarian revolution as consisting of two stages. The

first stage was destructive and anarchistic, consisting of the abolition of the
bourgeois state apparatus. The second stage was constructive and authori-
tarian, bringing the creation of a new, proletarian state. A subsidiary purpose
of State and Revolution was to demonstrate the necessity of the dictatorship
of the proletariat during the period following the workers' revolution. The
dictatorship of the proletariat will suppress resistance by the remnants of
the exploiting classes. The proletarian state will exercise coercion over a
minority in the interests of the majority. As for the first time the organized
use of force will be supported by the majority and opposed only by a minority
in society, the need for force will decrease. In that sense, the state will begin
to wither away immediately. However, Lenin repeatedly insisted that the
dictatorship of the proletariat would last for a long time. While Marx had
treated the dictatorship of the proletariat as a transitory feature of a transi-
tional phase, Lenin (even before October 1917) regarded it as the dominant
institution of a prolonged stage. Lenin announced that the dictatorship of
the proletariat would be necessary "for the entire historical period which
separates capitalist society from 'classless society,' from communism."6 The
time that the proletarian state would disappear was indefinite. "Clearly there
can be no question of specifying the moment of the future 'withering away,'
the more so since it will obviously be a lengthy process."7
State and Revolution contains more in the way of description of the dic-
tatorship of the proletariat than any of Lenin's other works of the prerevo-
lutionary years. However, the same ideas on the nature of the proletarian
state were expressed in brief form in several of his other works. State and
Revolution is filled with rhetoric, evidently of inspirational and exhortatory
character, about rule by the workers themselves. "The majority can directly
fulfill all the functions" of state power.8 But what was that to mean in prac-
tice? Lenin forcefully rejected notions of decentralized workers' self-gov-
ernment, saying that the proletariat would need a "centralized organization
of force" and claiming that "Marx was a centralist."9 If workers' and pea-
sants' communes arose, they would be transitory forms of organization for
the expropriation of capital and the transferring of productive property to
"the entire nation."10
Lenin did not have in mind direct democracy as the model of proletarian
rule. What he advocated was the transfer of authority to councils of elected
representatives of workers and peasants.11 The first Soviets, or councils, of
workers' representatives had sprung up spontaneously in Russia during the
insurrections of 1905. Soviets reappeared in the chaotic conditions following
the abdication of the Tsar in early 1917. Lenin was often at odds with those
supported by the majority in the Soviets, but he consistently spoke of the
Soviets as the model of organization for the dictatorship of the proletariat.
After the revolution, all offices in the workers' state would be elective, all
officials would be subject to recall by the voters, and no official would receive
wages higher than those of an average working person. The old army and
police would be replaced by a workers' militia. The state would take over
economic enterprises, and all citizens would become employees of a "single
country-wide 'syndicate.'"12 The workers and peasants would be introduced
into the apparatus of administration to perform the tasks of "control and
accounting"; however, the socialized syndicate would absorb capitalistic
economic units, leaving their internal structure virtually intact. The prole-
tariat would smash the capitalists' instruments of coercion but would take
control of their banks and factories.13 (A few months later, Lenin was to
say, concerning the appropriation of capitalist enterprises, "We shall not in-
vent the organization of the work, but take it ready-made from capitalism."14
That notion already had been implied in State and Revolution.) The prole-
tariat would even retain the services of technical specialists who had been
working for capitalism.15 Lenin viewed hierarchical organization as indis-
pensable for the workers' state; but each worker would take part in the state,
through voting, election to office, and participation in administration. The
machinery of administration would be subordinated to the elected Soviets.
There would be rule by the masses in two senses: each worker would have
the opportunity to take part in the execution of policy, and authority would
be concentrated in bodies reponsible to the workers as a whole.
Lenin's scheme for the organization of the proletarian state attempted to
reconcile contradictory values. On the one hand, Lenin hoped to provide
great scope for initiative by the masses, as he believed that the proletarian
revolution would unleash an outburst of creativity in organization by the
workers. On the other hand, he wanted to maintain adherence to the value
of centralized organizational direction. The workers would be allowed chan-
nels of participation only in a single, centralized, nationwide apparatus.
Lenin even made a direct, concise, statement of the role of the revolutionary
party: it is that vanguard, "capable of assuming power and leading the whole
people to socialism, of directing and organizing the new system, of being
the teacher, the guide, the leader of all the working and exploited people in
organizing their social life without the bourgeoisie."16 That was a capsulized
version of the doctrine later to be referred to as the "guiding and directing
role" of the Communist party in Soviet society. Yet if the party were to con-
tinue to exercise leadership after the revolution, how could real power rest
with the workers' Soviets? In practice, the Soviets were subjected to control
by the Party within a short time after the October Revolution.
State and Revolution presented a highly optimistic forecast of the early
days of the proletarian dictatorship. Lenin completely ignored most of the
difficulties that would beset the Communist regime in Russia. He repeatedly
said that the workers would be the vast majority, and opposing forces a small
minority, in the aftermath of the revolution. He promised that the workers
would take over a well-developed productive apparatus. In short, he tacitly
assumed the conditions of proletarian revolution described by Marx—the
conditions of advanced, Western capitalism. Yet Lenin was well aware that
those conditions were absent in Russia. His optimism may be explained by
three considerations. First, it should be remembered that his purpose in
writing State and Revolution was not to analyze but to justify. He was pri-
marily concerned, not with drawing a blueprint for future actions, but with
convincing his audience of the necessity of taking the revolutionary road to
power. Second, Lenin did not intend his essay to apply only to Russia. State
and Revolution was meant to have general validity for proletarian revolution
in Europe.17 Third, Lenin did not contemplate the prospect of a proletarian
dictatorshipfightingon in isolation in Russia. Lenin, like other Bolsheviks,
tended to attach secondary importance to the internal social and economic
changes that might result from a Russian Revolution, since he assumed that
the dynamic of the revolution would be international. The Russian Revolu-
tion would be significant mainly in precipitating revolution in the West, and
victorious workers' revolutions in the advanced countries would create a
favorable setting for the revolutionary Russian state.
Lenin referred to the first stage to follow the proletarian revolution as
"socialism," which he equated with Marx's "first phase" of Communist so-
ciety. The foundation of the new society would be social ownership of the
means of production, but a state would still be needed, and inequality be-
tween individuals would be linked with reward according to labor in that
stage. For the transition to a higher phase, Lenin particularly emphasized
psychological transformation. People would become willing to work volun-
tarily, to the extent of their ability, without a direct material incentive, and
they would become accustomed to observing "elementary rules of social in-
tercourse" without compulsion.18 In other words, people would freely come
to prefer the interests of the community to those of their own. The inner
promptings of conscience would make the organization of coercion super-
fluous. Thfe withering away of the state would mark the entrance into the
stage of "communism" as Lenin called Marx's "higher phase of Communist
society." In communism, material goods would be distributed according to
needs, and the regulation of society would have been absorbed into the con-
sciousness of society itself. There might be occasional violations of the rights
of others by a few individuals, but such excesses would be dealt with swiftly
by the spontaneous reaction of members of society. Lenin assumed that the
basic causes of social conflict were private property ownership, class ine-
quality, and economic exploitation, and he believed that when those causes
were removed, a fundamental harmony between the members of society
would assert itself.
Lenin's treatment of the distinctions between socialism and communism
corresponded fairly closely to Marx's remarks on the first phase and higher
phase of communism. The only difference was in a nuance of interpreta-
tion. Implicit in Marx's description of the first phase was the notion of a
continuous, rather rapid transition, but even before the October Revolution
Lenin looked on socialism as a "special stage," an "entire historical period"

between capitalism and communism.19 He warned repeatedly that the time
of the disappearance of the dictatorship of the proletariat, and the beginning
of the phase of communism, could not be predicted.20 The withering away
of the state "will obviously be a lengthy process."21 Lenin's works contain
the hint of a potentially important idea: that socialism might not be merely
a transitional mixture of some elements of capitalism and some elements of
communism but that it might have an identity of its own, with some features
unique to that stage itself. Yet the question might be raised: How could the
institutionalization of socialism as a stable entity be compatible with its self-
transformation into the higher phase, that is, communism? It was easy to
see the importance of that problem several decades later, since it grew into
the central question in official Soviet ideology, but it would have taken a
very keen observer to see that the question was implied by Lenin's writings
on socialism in the months before the October Revolution.
THE TRANSITION TO SOCIALISM

The experience of power, while perhaps exhilarating for Lenin, had a
sobering effect on his theoretical analysis after he found himself as the chair-
man of the Council of People's Commissars in the infant Soviet republic.
The Soviet state struggled for survival in nightmarish conditions—world
war, civil war, foreign intervention, economic ruin, famine, and, finally,
massive unrest among the Russian workers and peasants themselves. That
state struggled in isolation, since despite abortive insurrections in Central
and Eastern Europe, the international revolution did not arrive. That fact
had more influence than any other in reshaping Lenin's approach toward
the building of the new society.
Marx had believed that the workers' revolution would succeed in condi-
tions of advanced capitalist development. Lenin had seen the opportunity to
take power in a country with a less developed economy but had expected
that the proletarian state in that country soon would receive assistance from
workers' regimes in the advanced countries. The failure of European revolu-
tion forced the Soviet state in Russia to face its internal tasks. Lenin soon
realized that in a long-range perspective, the main work of the Soviet state
was the overcoming of Russia's underdevelopment. In Lenin's view, the
Bolshevik Revolution had not created a socialist society, but it had estab-
lished a state of the workers and poor peasants. The workers' regime operated
in a mixed economic and social setting, containing elements of precapitalist
and capitalist formations, as well as some socialist elements. In that perspec-
tive, Soviet Russia had not entered the phase of socialism; it had only begun
a transition from capitalism to socialism. The idea of a distinct historical
stage of transition between capitalism and socialism was one of Lenin's
original theoretical contributions. He argued that the transition would be
carried out through the growth in dominance of the socialist sector and that
the principal condition of the spread of socialist features would be the intro-
duction of modern industry and technology.
Lenin also saw the international situation as impelling Russian economic
modernization, since he described Soviet Russia as a fortress besieged by
world capital. He warned that peace between Russia and the West was only
temporary and that, sooner or later, the forces of international capitalism
again would attack the Soviet state. As long as Russia remained "backward"
and poverty-stricken, it would be vulnerable to onslaughts from the outside.
The potential of strong national defense depended on industrialization. As
the Soviet state's internal strength grew, Soviet Communism could encour-
age revolts in colonial areas and struggle in advanced countries, eventually
leading to proletarian revolution in the West. The transition to socialism on
the scale of the whole world would not come about overnight but would re-
quire an entire historical epoch.
During Lenin's last years, the Soviet economy suffered from devastation
that made great progress toward industrialization impossible. It was enough
of an effort to attempt a recovery of production to the level it had reached
before World War I. However, Lenin clearly set forth an argument for the
transformation of Russia from a less developed to an economically advanced
country. He lectured on behalf of electrification, adoption of modern tech-
nology and techniques of organization, and investment in the growth of
industry. What Lenin had in mind was capital accumulation—without the
capitalist class. The Soviet state would take the place of the capitalists in
directing the industrialization of Russia. "The possibility of building social-
ism depends exactly on our success in combining the Soviet power and the
Soviet organization of administration with the up-to-date achievements of
capitalism."22 Marx anticipated the development of the economic foundation
for socialism during the stage of capitalism. He expected that the proletarian
revolution would transform productive relations to bring them into corres-
pondence with already-existing productive forces. Lenin knew that the devel-
opment of the machinery of production required for socialism had not taken
place in Russia before the revolution, and he insisted that the proletarian
state would have to develop the basis of a modern economy. The resolution
of the tasks of transition, therefore, would take much longer than Marx had
expected. Marx had treated economic transformation as the prerequisite for
the political revolution, but Lenin looked on the political revolution as the
prerequisite for economic transformation.
A long transition to socialism implied that the state would continue to
function for a long time. The achievement of the stage of communism, with
the withering away of the state, was relegated to the distant future. The no-
tion of the weakening of the state was deprived of immediate relevance by
Lenin's conception of the transition period. In fact, the magnitude of its
tasks of economic development and social reconstruction suggested the need
for strengthening the Soviet state. Within a few months after coming to
power, Lenin's speeches became marked by a growing distrust of the spon-
taneous, anarchistic impulses that had been unleashed during the destruction
of the old regime, and by a growing emphasis on the conscious, disciplined
consolidation of order in the new society. "Hysterical impulses are of no use
to us. What we need is the steady advance of the iron battalions of the pro-
letariat."23 Lenin defended the dictatorial organization of the workers' state.
Several years before the revolution, he had bluntly characterized dictatorship
as "unlimited power based on force, and not on law," leaving no doubt that
those terms were intended to apply to the dictatorship of the proletariat.24
He returned to the same theme after taking power: "Dictatorship is rule based
directly on force and unrestricted by any laws."25 To socialists who accused
the Bolshevik state of violating the principles of democracy by forcibly sup-
pressing opposition, he replied: you are taking a formal, abstract view of
democracy. The question to be answered in any historical situation is not
whether actions conform to rules of democracy, but whether they serve the
interests of the proletariat or the bourgeoisie. If the "class content" of polit-
ical institutions is proletarian, it does not matter if their form is undemo-
cratic. In his last years, Lenin often voiced misgivings about the actual
operation of the Soviet state, and he searched for organizational reform that
would cure the tendency of "bureaucratism" in the state. Yet his proposed
organizational experiments were superficial, providing no real limitations
on the powerholders and no effective means of holding leaders responsible
to the citizens.
The proletarian dictatorship was described by Lenin as a single-party
state. In State and Revolution,he had given a brief, but forceful, statement
of the guiding role of the party in socialist society. The same idea recurred
in Lenin's works after the revolution. Just as the Leninist party was to lead
the workers' movement before the revolution, after taking power the party
was to assume the leadership of society as a whole. Lenin proudly announced
in 1920 that, in Russia, "no important political or organizational question is
decided . . . without the guidance of the Party's Central Committee."26 The
party's guidance was to extend not only to the state, but to all organizations.
"Marxism teaches . . . that only . . . the Communist Party is capable of
uniting, training, and organizing a vanguard of the proletariat and of the
whole mass of the working people . . . and of guiding all the united activities
of the whole of the proletariat" and of all the working people.27 Lenin was
too modest; it was he and not Marx who had taught that the dominance of a
single party was an integral part of the dictatorship of the preletariat. All
parties other than Lenin's Communist (Bolshevik) party were suppressed by
the early 1920s. Lenin referred to labor unions as "transmission belts" of the
will of the party, and he jealously guarded the Communist party's monopoly
of political power.
While Lenin urged the tightening of control beginning in 1918, at the same
time he evidenced a willingness to beflexiblein the use of power. The tran-
sition to socialism in a relatively backward country had not been mapped
out in the writings of Marx and Engels. Lenin frankly admitted that the Bol-
sheviks would have to learn the means of transition, not from "books"—the
classics of Marxism—but from experience. We shall not attempt to follow
the twists and turns in the domestic policies of the Soviet state under Lenin.
It is sufficient to note that Lenin presided over a complete reversal of eco-
nomic policy during his time in power, when his New Economic Policy
(NEP) of 1921 made substantial concessions to capitalism and the free mar-
ket in Russia. Lenin's writings of 1921 and later presented the NEP as a
framework for gradual, long-term evolution toward socialism.
Lenin considered the most important problem of the transition to be that
of winning the Russian peasants over to socialism. He recognized that the
psychology of the great bulk of the small landowners, or "middle peasants,"
was that of petty proprietors. The peasants could be guided to socialism
over the long term through expanding cooperative farms only when they
saw such ventures as practically advantageous. The benefits of cooperative
farming would be realized when industry made large amounts of modern
machinery available for the cooperatives. The growth of industry and of the
urban population demanded an increase in the production of foodstuffs
and raw materials by agriculture. To revive agricultural production, it was
necessary to extend a material stimulus to the peasants by allowing a free
market for most agricultural goods, thus encouraging petty capitalism among
the peasants in the short run. The contradictions inherent in Lenin's program
were obvious. What should be emphasized is the tacticalflexibilityembodied
in his proposals. Even favoring elements of capitalism was permissible, as
an indirect means of transition, in the style of a sailor tacking into the wind.
Lenin repeatedly insisted on one point: The peasants should be guided to
cooperation by persuasion and force of example, not by compulsion. At-
tempts to coerce the peasants into socialism would arouse their hostility. A
break in the "alliance" (or in fact the truce) between the party-state regime
and the peasants would disrupt the gradual evolution of Soviet society toward
socialism.
Lenin analyzed Russian society following the revolution in terms of its
multistructured or multisectoral character (mnogoukladnost). Marx had
surveyed the emergence of bourgeois society through the succession of sev-
eral stages. Each social-economic formation (such as feudalism or capital-
ism) appeared full-blown only after the previous stage was swept away. In
consequence, the more developed society appeared, the less developed the
image of its future. Lenin's experience suggested a different conclusion.
European bourgeois society had been the result of a progression through
distinct stages, each in order after another. But the European pattern was
unique, since Europe was the first part of the world to develop modern cap-
italism. All areas that began economic development later shared something
that the advanced countries had not known—exposure to the influence of
those advanced countries. The expansion of capitalism in the international
arena in the form of imperialism inserted a capitalistic social-economic sec-
tor into societies that still contained larger, agrarian, feudal sectors. The
realization that Russia, as a backward country, included a combination of
different forms of class struggle that had been associated with successive
stages in the history of the West played a crucial role in Lenin's strategy for
coming to power. Now that the Communists ruled, the mixture of social-
economic sectors in society posed their greatest challenge. Lenin identified
five social-economic structures in Russia in 1918: (1) patriarchal peasant
farming, (2) peasant small-scale commodity production, (3) private capital-
ism, (4) state capitalism, and (5) socialism.28 He argued that the Communist
state should promote the development of both the socialist and state capital-
ist structures. An alliance between the socialist and state capitalist sectors
could prevail over the resistance of elements of feudalism and small-scale
capitalism. The long-term goal of the regime should be to overcome the his-
toric unevenness of development of Russian society.29
NOTES
1. That essay was completed by Lenin in September 1917, except for one section
added later. This author's thoughts on the purposes of that essay and on the charac-
ter of the political order which it described are contained in Alfred B. Evans, Jr.,
"Rereading Lenin's State and Revolution," Slavic Review 46 (Spring 1987): 1-19.
The content of State and Revolution promised a much more centralized and hierar-
chical political system than most writings commenting on that essay have recognized.
Both an emphasis on elite direction and a stress on mass initiative were expressed in
that essay, and those themes are found consistently in Lenin's other writings. It is
true that his optimism for the potential of mass initiative and enthusiasm was voiced
more strongly in Lenin's writings of 1917 before the Bolshevik Revolution than in his
later speeches and writings. But it is not true that Lenin was so carried away with en-
thusiasm for the energy of the masses in the summer of 1917, or at any other time,
that he endorsed the prospect of an anarchic society in which the spontaneous initia-
tive of the masses was to be given full sway.
2. V. I. Lenin, The State and Revolution, in Selected Works, vol. 2 (Moscow:
Progress Publishers, 1970), 292.
3. Ibid., 293.
4. Ibid., 301.
5. Ibid., 306.
6. Ibid., 311.
7. Ibid., 348. See also 353.
8. Ibid., 317.
9. Ibid., 304, 325.
10. Ibid.
11. V. I. Lenin, "The Tasks of the Proletariat in Our Revolution," in Selected

Works, vol. 2 (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1972), 63; idem, The State and Revo-
lution, 353, 358. However, from July until September of 1917, Lenin opposed giving
power to the existing Soviets, which at the time were dominated by parties other than
his own.
12. Lenin, The State and Revolution, 361.
13. Ibid., 318, 322, 360.
14. V. I. Lenin, "Can the Bolsheviks Retain State Power?" in Selected Works,
vol. 2 (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1970), 412.
15. Lenin, The State and Revolution, 322, 360.
16. Ibid., 304.
17. Stanley W. Page, Lenin and World Revolution (New York: New York Uni-
versity Press, 1959), 56.
18. Lenin, The State and Revolution, 352, 357.
19. Ibid., 349.
20. Ibid., 348, 353, 357.
21. Ibid., 348.
22. V. I. Lenin, "The Immediate Tasks of the Soviet Government," in Selected
Works, vol. 2 (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1970), 663.
23. Ibid., 677.
24. V. I. Lenin, "The Victory of the Cadets and the Tasks of the Workers' Party,"
in Collected Works, 4th ed., vol. 10 (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1965), 216. See
also 243-247.
25. V. I. Lenin, "The Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade Kautsky," in Se-
lected Works, vol. 3 (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1970), 75.
26. V. I. Lenin, "'Left-Wing' Communism—An Infantile Disorder," in Selected
Works, vol. 3 (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1970), 371.
27. V. I. Lenin, "Preliminary Draft Resolution of the Tenth Congress of the
R.C.P. on the Syndicalist and Anarchist Deviation in Our Party," in Selected Works,
vol. 3 (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1970), 586.
28. V. I. Lenin, "'Left-Wing' Childishness and the Petty-Bourgeois Mentality," in
Selected Works, vol. 2 (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1970), 691.
29. Actually, the problem was not limited to unevenness within Russian society.
As the Bolsheviks established control over most of the territory that had been part of
the Russian Empire, they drew a large number of nationalities into the Soviet Union.
The Russians were the most numerous group, but others made up nearly one-half of
the population of the USSR. There were enormous differences in the levels of mod-
ernization of different nationalities. Lenin saw the overcoming of unevenness of
development as necessary for the elimination of inequality between the nationalities.
3
The Consolidation of Stalinism
SOCIALISM IN ONE COUNTRY

Lenin's death in January 1924 was followed by several years of bitter
struggle within the Soviet leadership. Of the contenders for power, Stalin
was the first to appreciate the need to build an ideological base for his posi-
tion. As Stalin sought preeminence in defining the doctrinal heritage of
Leninism, he raised ideological questions designed to weaken the position
of his opponents. Stalin's attempt to discredit Trotsky led to Stalin's most
important theoretical contribution of the 1920s—the idea of "socialism in
one country."
In a series of lectures delivered in early 1924, "On the Foundations of
Leninism," Stalin attempted to codify Lenin's ideological principles in a
simple and compact form. He also reminded his audience of disagreement
between Lenin and Trotsky before the Bolshevik Revolution. Although
Stalin did not mention Trotsky's name, he recalled Lenin's repudiation of
Trotsky's theory of "permanent revolution." Trotsky had foreseen a rapid,
continuous progression from the stage of bourgeois, democratic revolution
to proletarian, socialist revolution, leading to the emergence of a socialist
dictatorship from the Russian Revolution. However, he had believed that
the revolution's assumption of a proletarian character would arouse the an-
tagonism of the peasantry. The workers' dictatorship in Russia could survive
in the face of opposition by the peasant majority only by linking up with the
proletariat of the Western countries. The fate of the Russian Revolution
depended on the success of proletarian revolution in Western Europe. The
uninterrupted progression of revolution at home in Russia and its uninter-
rupted spread abroad were what was meant by "permanent revolution."
Stalin accused those who had advanced the theory of permanent revolu-
tion of underrating the revolutionary energy of the Russian peasantry and
underestimating the capacity of the Russian proletariat to draw the peasantry
to its side. He claimed that Trotsky lacked confidence in the potential of
Russian revolutionary forces. Stalin implied—unjustly—that Trotsky's
thought led to a defeatist assessment of the prospects of the Russian revolu-
tionary dictatorship in the 1920s. In fact, Trotsky vigorously advocated the
socialist industrialization of Russia, but he had rendered his position vul-
nerable by such statements as that of 1917 that without revolutions in other
countries, it would be "hopeless to think . . . that, for example, revolution-
ary Russia would be able to stand in the face of conservative Europe";l of
1922, that "contradictions in the position of a workers* state in a backward
country, with an overwhelming majority of peasant population, might find
their resolution only on the international scale, in the arena of the world
revolution of the proletariat";2 and again of 1922, that "a genuine advance
of the socialist economy in Russia will become possible only after the victory
of the proletariat in the most important countries of Europe."3 With such
quotations in hand, Stalin was able to charge that "Trotsky does not feel the
internal strength of our revolution."4
In the initial stage of his criticism of Trotsky's position, Stalin in early
1924 argued for the possibility of the victory of a socialist revolution in one
country, in the absence of successful revolutions elsewhere. Stalin derived
that possibility from what he described as the Leninist law of the uneven
development of capitalism. Uneven development in the period of imperialism
sharpened the contradictions within the international system of capitalism,
weakening the system so that the proletariat in one country might achieve a
revolutionary breakthrough. Stalin said that, according to Leninism, the
revolution would come at the point of the weakest link in the chain of im-
perialism, which might be a country that was less developed economically
instead of one with a more developed productive base. The concepts of
uneven development and the "weakest link" were indeed faithful to Lenin's
views. In December 1924, Stalin attributed to Lenin the authorship of the
thesis of the possibility of the victory of socialist revolution in one country.
Stalin referred to a passage in Lenin's essay, "On the Slogan for a United
States of Europe," written in 1915:
Uneven economic and political development is an absolute law of capitalism. Hence,

the victory of socialism is possible originally in several or even in one individual cap-
italist country. The victorious proletariat of that country, having expropriated the
capitalists and organized its own socialist production, would rise againstthe rest, the
capitalist world, attracting to itself the oppressed classes of other countries, stirring
uprisings in those countries against the capitalists, in case of necessity setting out even
with military force against the exploiting classes and their states.5
The Consolidation of Stalinism 31
Stalin cited those words from Lenin's 1915 essay again and again in po-
lemics against Trotsky. It is doubtful that the quotation supported Stalin's
point. Lenin suggested that the proletarian revolution might achieve success
initially in one country; he did not say that the revolution could survive in
isolation for very long. Lenin assumed before October 1917 that revolution
in any European country, including Russia, would set off revolutions in other
countries. Perhaps Lenin acknowledged the possibility of a temporary lag in
the chain reaction. Of course, Lenin was disabused of his optimism con-
cerning the European revolution by experience encountered after the Bol-
shevik Revolution. However, it was Stalin's objective to demonstrate that
before 1917 Lenin had introduced an argument specifically opposed to
Trotsky's thesis of permanent revolution. Stalin aimed to show that a per-
manent theoretical split between Lenin and Trotsky had occurred.
In his campaign against Trotsky, Stalin gradually and cautiously developed
his own theoretical position. In his lectures of early 1924, Stalin, while con-
tending that the victory of socialist revolution in one country was possible,
still denied that the full realization of socialism in one country was possible.
"For the final victory of socialism, for the organization of socialist produc-
tion, the efforts of one country, especially of such a peasant country as
Russia, are insufficient—for that are necessary the efforts of the proletarians
of several advanced countries."6 It was not until May 1925 that Stalin ad-
vanced the thesis of the possibility of the constructionof socialism in one
country. At that time, he distinguished between two groups of contradictions
faced by the Soviet state. The first consisted of the contradictions internal
to the Soviet Union—between the proletariat and peasantry. Those contra-
dictions could be overcome through the efforts of the proletarian dictator-
ship in promoting the union of the workers and peasants. By overcoming
internal difficulties, the Soviet state could construct a fully socialist society.
The other set of contradictions noted by Stalin were external, arising between
the Soviet Union and the capitalist countries. As long as capitalist encircle-
ment of the Soviet Union continued, there would be a danger of intervention
from capitalist countries and attempts at the restoration of capitalism in
the USSR. The efforts of the Soviet state would by themselves be insuffi-
cient to remove the threat of such intervention. The full guarantee against
depredations from abroad would come only as a result of the victory of the
revolutionary proletariat in several advanced capitalist countries. Stalin's
formulation x>f 1925 separated the question of the complete construction of
socialism from that of the decisive victory of socialism. The construction of
socialism fully and completely in one country was possible, but the final,
decisive victory of socialism in the USSR, assuring the security and irrever-
sibility of the attainment of socialism, would require successful international
revolution.
Stalin's thesis of the possibility of constructing socialism in one country
did not imply any change in the policies of the Soviet regime. All the Bolshe-
vik leaders agreed that their revolution had opened a period of transition
from capitalism to socialism, and all agreed that the Soviet state should give
guidance and aid for international revolution. However, the implications of
Stalin's argument for the interpretation of the relationship between Russia
and the European revolution were enormously important. Before October
1917, the Bolsheviks had assumed that the main significance of the Russian
Revolution would be in setting the European revolution in motion. Stalin's
theory represented a decisive break with that premise. Stalin denied that the
October Revolution had been only a "signal, shove and point of departure
for socialist revolution in the West."7 For Stalin, the Russian Revolution
had not been a mere instrument of the international revolution but had
established the main base and source of inspiration for proletarian revolu-
tions abroad. Foreign revolution was an extension of the victorious Russian
Revolution. Russia, previously a backward country on the periphery of
European culture, moved to the center of the world revolutionary movement.
While Russia would continue to support revolutions in other countries, her
main contribution to the cause of the international proletariat would be to
build socialism within her own borders. (It would be a short step to regarding
the first duty of Communists everywhere as the protection of the attainments
of revolutionary Russia and to manipulating foreign Communist parties in
accordance with the state interests of the Soviet Union.) In Stalin's reasoning
was the suggestion that the socialist state might, in the long run, solve the
problem of Russia's economic and technological inferiority in relation to
the West.
In November 1926, Stalin summarized his position confidently. Engels
had forecast that the socialist revolution would proceed simultaneously in
all "civilized" countries. (Stalin might have attributed the same statement to
Marx. Perhaps he did not feel bold enough to tamper with Marx's words.)
Stalin announced that Engels's dictum was incorrect in the conditions of the
twentieth century. The emergence of imperialism and the transformation of
uneven development into the decisive force of imperialist growth had made
the old formula obsolete. Stalin replaced Engels's statement with the thesis
of the possibility of the victory of socialism in a single country. For the first
time, Stalin had explicitly revised a principle enunciated in the works of one
of the founders of Marxism.
Stalin's most telling point was that there was no alternative to the con-
struction of socialism in Russia. In the circumstances of the mid-1920s, it
was obvious that European revolution was not imminent. If socialism could
not be achieved in one country, the October Revolution must have been a
futile effort. To say that the tools and resources at hand for the Russian
Communists were inadequate would be to discourage hope for the future.
Stalin accused Trotsky of regarding the revolutionary forces as only on biv-
ouac in Russia, while Stalin maintained that the Russian proletariat was
constructing a fortress to guard the gains of revolution under the eyes of a
hostile world.
THE GREAT CHANGE: COLLECTIVIZATION

AND INDUSTRIALIZATION
It is often supposed that the logic of Stalin's thesis of socialism in one
country led directly to the sharp reversal of policy in the late 1920s, resulting
in the forced collectivization of agriculture and the violent acceleration of
industrialization. A careful examination of the textual evidence demonstrates
that the opposite was true and reveals that Stalin's speeches on socialism in
one country were filled with a spirit of moderation, and promised continuity
in policy. Stalin contended that the stabilization of conditions in the camp
of international capitalism and within the Soviet Union was favorable for
the growth of the strength of the Soviet state, and he repeatedly took Trotsky
to task for his lack of faith in the capacity of the peasants to be attracted to
socialism. The sources on which Stalin drew most often for support of his
thesis were Lenin's last writings, which contained Lenin's strongest endorse-
ment of a gradual, evolutionary transition to socialism. By citing those
works, Stalin implied that the path of socialism in one country would con-
tinue within the guidelines of NEP—compromises with capitalism and cau-
tious avoidance of antagonizing the peasants. It must have seemed to most
party workers in Russia during 1924-1927 that, while Trotsky promised in-
ternational alarms and adventures, Stalin held out the prospect of peace and
stability.
Stalin's concept of socialism in one country represented a significant in-
novation in theory, but involved no change in practice. On the other hand,
his policies of collectivization and industrialization represented a sharp turn
in policy while requiring no fundamental change in Soviet Marxist theory.
Stalin was able to discover in Lenin's works a justification for changes in
policy, while his opponents were able to find in Lenin's writings reasons for
continuing the NEP.
The key question was whether the NEP was a practical compromise or an
expression of ideological principle. Nikolai Bukharin, following Lenin's
later essays, regarded the NEP as a framework within which a gradual tran-
sition from capitalism to socialism in the Soviet Union was possible. In
Bukharin's view, NEP represented a relatively long-range commitment, to
be abandoned only upon attaining a socialist society. Stalin had seemed a
staunch supporter of that view during the mid-1920s, but he began to shift
his position during the "grain crisis" in the winter of 1927-1928. Stalin
responded to a shortage of marketed grain by demanding the forcible con-
fiscation of peasants' grain reserves. The extraction of produce by the state
commended itself to Stalin with increasing attractiveness as a means of solv-
ing the problem of economic exchange between industry and agriculture. In
one of his more candid statements, Stalin admitted that the peasants would
have to pay "something in the nature of a tribute," a "super tax" to finance
industrialization.8 While Western economists have argued over whether
Stalin's measures did in fact result in the pumping of a net surplus out of
agriculture, it seems clear that Stalin expected collectivization to make it

possible to draw off such a surplus.
In April 1929, the targets for growth in the First Five-Year Plan for the
Soviet economy were raised radically as the country embarked on a course
of breakneck industrialization. Vast and heroic construction projects set the
tone for the era of the plan as the energies of society were focused on the
massive expansion of heavy industry. From late 1929, wholesale collectivi-
zation swept through the villages with powerful force so that within a few
months a majority of the peasants had become members of collective farms.
The working resources and implements of the peasants became the property
of the collective farms, and individual, small-scale peasant proprietorship
was ended. The period of thefirstplan (1929-1932) was one of a social and
economic revolution initiated by the Soviet state.
By the spring of 1929, Stalin had rejected the contention that the com-
promises of the NEP could persist throughout the transition to socialism.
Stalin implied that NEP had been appropriate only for a period of recovery
by the Soviet economy and that the time had come to enter the period of
reconstruction of the entire economy in accordance with the principles of
socialism. In Stalin's view, the fundamental contradiction of NEP Russia
was between large-scale, socialist industry and small-scale, private farming.
Stalin derided Bukharin's hope for the gradual growth of capitalist elements
into socialist ones, and charged that the NEP had permitted a mixed eco-
nomic system which left a stronger base for capitalism than socialism in
Soviet Russia. Further spontaneous growth would strengthen the hand of
the capitalist classes. Stalin alleged that the domestic capitalists—entrepre-
neurs, bourgeois specialists, and the upper stratum among the peasants —
were already launching attacks against the socialist order. The dictatorship
of the proletariat should wage class struggle against hostile elements in order
to redirect the economic development of the USSR.
Stalin's analysis of 1928-1930 did not change the goal of Soviet Marxism,
which still was recognized by all to be the construction of a socialist society;
but Stalin did revise the interpretation of existing conditions in the Soviet
Union. In the mid-1920s, the dominant view in the Communist party had
been that there was an equilibrium of classes in Soviet society. Now Stalin
announced that the reality was of intensified class warfare. He also altered
the party's prescription for change: from encouragement of the gradual
growth of socialist elements the party turned to the immediate imposition of
the socialist mode of production.
While arguing for the adoption of the First Five-Year Plan, Stalin justified
a rapid tempo of industrialization in terms of the necessities of class warfare,
contending that accelerated industrialization would strengthen the position
of the working class in the struggle with the capitalist elements in the Soviet
economy.9 For Soviet Marxists, industrialization meant the expansion of
the urban, industrial working class. Further, industrialization was a prereq-
uisite for the development of productivity and the attainment of affluence

necessary for the ultimate transition to communism. However, during the
next few years, Stalin began to turn increasingly to another justification for
industrialization, one hardly prefigured in Marx's works.
In November 1928, Stalin took note of the centuries-old "backwardness"
of Russia, and referred to Peter the Great's efforts to overleap the barriers
of backwardness. Stalin seemed to link the Soviet Communist party with
the tradition, established by Peter, of the autocracy's periodic assaults on
hindrances to the development of Russia.10 In a speech to Soviet economic
managers in February 1931, Stalin described the penalties paid by Russia
for her backwardness:
One feature of the history of old Russia was the continual beatings she suffered
for falling behind, for her backwardness. She was beaten by the Mongol Khans. She
was beaten by the Turkish beys. She was beaten by the Swedish feudal lords. She was
beaten by the Polish and Lithuanian gentry. She was beaten by the British and French
capitalists. She was beaten by the Japanese barons. All beat her—for her backward-
ness: for military backwardness, for cultural backwardness, for political backward-
ness, for industrial backwardness, for agricultural backwardness.11
Stalin implied that the Communists had assumed the mission of overcom-
ing Russia's historic underdevelopment, and he warned that the liquidation
of that backwardness was necessary in order to protect the independence of
the socialist fatherland. "We are fifty or a hundred years behind the advanced
countries. We must make up this distance in ten years. Either we do it, or we
shall be crushed."12 According to Stalin, a sense of backwardness and vul-
nerability imparted the frantic pace to Soviet industrialization. His words
offered growing recognition of the importance of industrialization in enhanc-
ing the military strength of the Soviet Union. In January 1933, reviewing
the results of the First Five-Year Plan, Stalin voiced his opinion that, before
the achievements of that first plan, the Soviet Union had been threatened
with mortal danger because of her backwardness. The threat was one of
military intervention in the USSR by the imperialist powers. "We could not
know on what day the imperialists would fall on the USSR and interrupt
our construction, but that they might attack at any moment, taking advan-
tage of the technical-economic weakness of our country—of that there could
be no doubt."13 Slower industrial growth would have left the Soviet Union
without the means for defense, resulting in a war in which the Soviet state
would have been "almost defenseless" in the face of its enemies. Stalin
claimed that the attainments of the first plan period had forestalled such a
danger. "Finally, all that led to the fact that, from a country weak and not
prepared for defense, the Soviet Union was transformed into a mighty
country in the sense of defense capability, into a country ready for all even-
tualities, a country able to produce on a mass scale all the contemporary
weapons of defense and to equip its army with them in case of attack from
36 Soviet Marxism-Leninism: The Decline of an Ideol gy
outside."14 By the early 1930s, Stalin described the main immediate accom-
plishments of rapid industrialization as solving the problem of his country's
economic, technological, and military inferiority in relation to the West.
Stalin acknowledged that a severe price had been paid for the high rate of
industrialization in the years of the first plan. The accelerated growth of in-
dustry demanded great investments of financial and material resources. The
means for such investments could not have been obtained from abroad, Stalin
said, since the Soviet Union could neither depend on loans from the capitalist
countries nor resort to the exploitation of underdeveloped countries. The
country could rely only on its own resources. The party had imposed "the
strictest regime of economy" in order to make possible the accumulation of
capital. Stalin implied that an economy closed off from external sources
could only increase investment by decreasing current consumption. Rapid
industrialization was bought at the cost of sacrifices in the standard of living
of a population that already enjoyed only a modest margin above the sub-
sistence level. The real wages of Soviet workers were lower in 1940 than they
had been in 1928, before the implementation of the First Five-Year Plan.
When it is remembered that the years following 1940 saw the enormous mate-
rial and human losses of World War II and the prolonged tasks of economic
recovery after the war, it will be appreciated that very heavy burdens were
borne by a generation of Soviet citizens.
SOCIALISM AND SOCIAL CLASSES

In November 1936, Stalin proclaimed the victory of socialism in the USSR,
asserting that Soviet society had completed the transition from capitalism to
socialism that it entered in 1917. Capitalism had been banished from Soviet
industry, while individual peasant farming had largely been replaced by
collective farming. Since socialist ownership had become the prevailing
principle of the entire Soviet economy, the Soviet Union was said in 1936 to
be a "basically socialist society" or a "socialist society whose foundations
were constructed."15 The Soviet Union was considered to have entered the
stage of socialism, said to correspond to the "first phase of Communist
society" foreseen by Marx.
The confirmation of socialist ownership of productive property was said
by Stalin to have conditioned the class structure of Soviet society. The abo-
lition of private ownership of the means of production had removed the basis
for the existence of exploiting classes, so that the classes of landowners,
capitalists, wealthy peasants, and merchants had been liquidated. The two
classes remaining in Soviet society were the workers and collective farm
peasants. The working class was composed of those who worked for the
state or for state-owned enterprises, while the peasantry consisted of those
who worked for collective farms. The distinction between the classes of
workers and peasants was described as arising out of a difference in the
forms of ownership of productive property. The means of production of a

factory or other state enterprise belonged to the state; the implements of
production on a collective farm, such as tools, barns, and livestock, were
the property of the collective farm. Thus, workers were said to work with
state property, and collective farm peasants with group (collective farm)
property. The distinction between workers and peasants did not correspond
precisely to the difference between industrial and agricultural labor. The
employees of state farms were classified as members of the working class.
Both of the classes remaining in Soviet society were said to be laboring classes.
Since private ownership in the productive economy had been eliminated,
neither class exploited the other; and neither was subjected to exploitation,
so the relationship between the workers and peasants was characterized as
friendly and cooperative. The third major group in Soviet society in Stalin's
analysis was the intelligentsia, which was referred to as a "stratum" and not
a class. It was made up of the members of each class—the workers and
peasants—whose work was primarily mental rather than physical. The
intelligentsia was distinguished by the nature of its work rather than by a
particular relationship to the means of production. The stratum of mental
workers was a toiling intelligentsia, serving the people and not the exploiting
classes, as in previous stages of history.
Stalin made it clear that the achievement of socialism did not mean a
greater emphasis on equality among individuals in Soviet society. His pro-
gram of full-scale industrialization placed a premium on the introduction of
modern technology into production, and the desire for more advanced tech-
nology enhanced the value of technical specialists and skilled laborers. In
June 1931, Stalin sounded a retreat from the practices of wage equalization
of the 1920s, when he addressed the problem of excessive turnover of labor
in Soviet enterprises, a problem which he attributed to "leftist leveling in the
area of wages."16 He called for the elimination of wage-leveling (uravnilovka)
and the replacement of the existing system of pay for labor with a new system
which would consider the differences between skilled and unskilled labor as
well as between heavy and light work. Stalin reminded his audience that
reward in socialism should be organized according to labor and not according
to need, and he asserted that equality-mongering reflected petty-bourgeois
prejudices. The advocacy of equalization of wages was, henceforth, regarded
in the Soviet Union as anti-Marxist and anti-Leninist. Stalin's underlying
argument was that socialism required industrialization, that industrialization
necessitated incentives to labor and that such incentives were possible only
with differentiated wages. Inequality was inherent in socialism and was a
positive Marxist virtue. Socialism meant the abolition of class distinctions
based on the private ownership of property but not the effacement of differ-
ences between individuals in levels of wages or consumption.
It might be expected that the entrance of society into the stage of socialism
would be associated with the moderation of conflict between social classes.
However, Stalin from the time of the First Five-Year Plan offered two themes
concerning the class struggle in socialism, each of which was in contradiction
to the other. Upon proclaiming the beginning of the stage of socialism in the
USSR, Stalin stressed the theme of peace between classes. The realization of
socialism had abolished the contradiction between exploiting and exploited
classes, and the remaining contradictions between the toiling classes of
workers and peasants were being erased. By the middle of the 1930s, the
theme of growing harmony between classes in socialist society gave rise to
the assertion of the moral, ideological, and political unity of Soviet society.
On the other hand, in July 1928 Stalin had introduced the thesis that
advances in socialist construction, by evoking more desperate opposition
among the exploiting classes, caused the intensification of class struggle. He
said that "in the measure of our movement forward, the resistance of the
capitalist elements will grow, the class struggle will be sharpened," and the
Soviet state would be forced to deal more harshly with the enemies of the
working class.17 By 1933, he was to argue that the socialization of industry
and the collectivization of agriculture had largely destroyed the basis for the
existence of the exploiters as classes. However, Stalin warned that remnants
of the defeated exploiting classes had adopted more insidious forms of
opposition as former capitalists and other exploiters had infiltrated Soviet
economic and political institutions for purposes of wrecking and sabotage.
Those sinister groups appealed for support among backward strata of the
population and attracted former members of opposition parties and of
opposition groups within the Communist party. The myth of the existence
within the USSR of a vast network of subversive agents, headed by Trotskyites
and Bukharinites, aided by the intelligence services of capitalist powers, and
scheming to undermine the Soviet state and restore capitalism in the USSR,
was to figure prominently in Soviet propaganda of the late 1930s. It was
said that further development even within socialist society stimulated the
sharpening of class struggle. Stalin implied that the intensification of class
struggle would continue even as society approached communism; the aboli-
tion of classes would be achieved, not by the extinction of class struggle, but
by its intensification.18 The doctrine of the intensification of class struggle
during the construction of socialism and communism provided the ideological
justification for the broadened use of terror by the Soviet security police.
THE STATE AND NATIONALISM

The thesis of the sharpening of the class struggle was associated with
another of Stalin's distinctive contributions—the argument of the strength-
ening of the state in socialism. That argument also was introduced by Stalin
during the collectivization of agriculture and early Soviet industrialization,
when the active intervention of the state was carrying out a far-reaching
transformation of Soviet society. In such conditions, Stalin reexamined the
traditional Marxist teaching of the withering away of the state.
We are in favor of the withering away of the state, and at the same time we stand
for the strengthening of the dictatorship of the proletariat, which represents the most
powerful and mighty of all forms of the state which have existed up to the present
day. The highest possible development of the power of the state, with the object of
preparing the conditions of the withering away of the state: that is the Marxist for-
mula. Is it "contradictory"? Yes, it is "contradictory.* But this contradiction is a living
thing and wholly reflects the Marxist dialectic.19
Stalin returned to the same theme in his report to the Seventeenth Party
Congress in January 1934, in which he contended that a classless society
could not come of its own accord but would be achieved by strengthening
the organs of the dictatorship of the proletariat. He ridiculed a "section of
Party members" (apparently Bukharin and his followers) for believing that
the advance toward a classless society would mean the weakening of the
state. Those party members, Stalin said, had fallen into "a state of foolish
rapture," expecting that the class struggle would soon cease.20 Stalin insisted
that a strong and vigilant dictatorship of the proletariat was indispensable
in conditions of sharpening class conflicts. In November 1936, when he
announced that Soviet society had entered the stage of socialism, Stalin
introduced the draft of the new constitution for the USSR. Though on that
occasion Stalin stressed the theme of the diminishing of class contradictions,
he ignored the question of preparations for the withering away of the state
and described the constitution as strengthening and stabilizing the structure
of the state. Whether the class struggle was regarded as intensifying or mod-
erating, Stalin's insistence on the strengthening of the state was unwavering.
Stalin's fullest discussion of the theory of the state was offered in his
report to the Eighteenth Congress of the Soviet Communist party in March
1939. In that speech, Stalin's emphasis was on class peace, the friendly and
cooperative relations of workers and peasants, and the moral and political
unity of Soviet society. He indicated that with the building of a socialist
society the function of the state had changed. Because of the elimination of
exploiting classes in the USSR, the state had lost the function of the sup-
pression of hostile classes. The state had acquired the function of protecting
socialist property from some ill-intentioned individuals ("thieves and pilferers
of the property of the people"), but the main function of the state in socialism
was "peaceful economic organization and cultural education."21 The state
had ceased to be primarily a coercive, negative force and was defined in the
new society mainly in terms of its positive, constructive role; yet the Soviet
state also retained a function with which it had been charged since the October
Revolution—the defense of the country from foreign attackers.
Stalin raised the question of whether the state would die off during the
transition to the higher stage of communism. He noted that Engels had
written of the withering away of the state under communism. Stalin argued
that Engels had assumed that socialism would be victorious in all or a majority
of the countries of the world. In such circumstances, the doctrine of the
withering away of the state in communism would prove valid; however, the
situation in which socialism had triumphed only in one country was different,
since, as long as the Soviet Union was surrounded by capitalist states, the
state would be needed to provide for national defense. For a number of
years, capitalist encirclement had been the main justification offered by
Stalin for the negative, coercive functions of the Soviet state. He had described
vividly the menace of capitalist encirclement in 1930:
The resistance of the classes of our country which have outlived their time proceeds
not in isolation from the outside world, but encounters support from the side of
capitalist encirclement. Capitalist encirclement should not be regarded simply as a
geographical conception. Capitalist encirclement means that around the USSR are
hostile class forces, ready to support our class enemies inside the USSR morally,
materially, by means of financial blockade, and, on occasion, by means of military
intervention.22
The capitalist states not only posed a military threat. After the achievement
of socialism in the USSR, their influence became, in Stalin's view, the main
cause of domestic subversion and sabotage in the USSR. As long as capitalist
encirclement continued, the state would remain necessary to guard against
attacks and infiltration from abroad —so that the state would not wither
away even with the realization of communism—until capitalist encirclement
had been liquidated.
Seeking popular support for the authority of the state, Stalin encouraged
the infusion of Communist ideology with the spirit of nationalism, even
though in its origins Marxism had been an internationalistic and antinational-
istic creed. Lenin had hoped for the defeat of Russia in the Russo-Japanese
War and World War I. After the Bolshevik Revolution, however, he had
initiated a tentative effort to appeal to patriotic sentiment with his exhorta-
tion to the Red Army to defend the socialist fatherland. In the 1920s, Stalin's
theory of socialism in one country had suggested national pride in the Soviet
Union as the center of international communism. A redirection of the Bol-
shevik ideology was suggested by Stalin's words, charging the Soviet regime
with responsibility for overcoming the historic backwardness of Russia, which
implied that the deliverance of the nation from her suffering had become a
mission at least equal in importance to the building of communism.
By 1934, the Soviet Communist party openly attempted to promote Soviet
nationalism. An editorial in Pravda revived the use of the term rodina (home-
land or motherland), previously avoided by the Communists, declaring that
"the defense of the rodina is the supreme law of life."23 While bourgeois
nationalism was still stigmatized as counterrevolutionary, Soviet, socialist
patriotism came to be regarded as one of the highest qualities of the model
Soviet citizen. The homeland was the ultimate focus of collective loyalties,
for it was infused with far more emotional significance than the international
proletariat.
The revival of patriotism coincided with the rediscovery of positive features

in Russia's past. In the years following the Bolshevik Revolution, Soviet
history writing had emphasized the evils of conquest, aggrandizement, exploi-
tation, and oppression in the Tsarist Empire, but by the middle of the 1930s,
a conscious attempt was made to establish a linkage with the Russian pre-
revolutionary heritage. Peter the Great and Ivan the Terrible were credited
with strengthening national defense. The study of Russian history was re-
quired in Soviet schools. Alexander Pushkin was recognized as the father of
Russian literature, and the accomplishments of prerevolutionary Russian
writers were regarded as a source of national pride. On November 7, 1941,
when the anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution found Moscow threatened
by the advance of the German Army, Stalin exhorted Soviet troops in Red
Square: "In this war you must draw inspiration from the brave examples of
our great ancestors." Those named by Stalin as "great ancestors" were mili-
tary leaders of old Russia, most of whom had belonged to the upper classes.
Orders of military merit in the Soviet Army were created bearing the names
of the Grand Duke Alexander Nevskii and the Tsarist generals Suvorov and
Kutuzov.
Soviet patriotism involved a degree of accommodation with Russian
nationalist sentiments, even though the Russians were united with over one
hundred other nationalities in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, and
the Russians made up little more than one-half of the population of the
USSR. Lenin had warned against "Great Russian chauvinism" in the sense
of favoritism for the Russian nationality by the agents of Soviet rule. In his
report to the Sixteenth Congress of the Communist party of the Soviet Union
in 1930, Stalin described the principal deviations in the party in relation to
the nationality question as Great Russian chauvinism and local (non-Russian)
nationalism and identified Great Russian chauvinism as the greater danger.
In his speech to the Seventeenth Party Congress in 1934, however, Stalin
warned that it was pointless to ask which deviation on the national question
was the chief danger, and he directed pointed criticism toward manifestations
of local nationalism by Communist leaders in some of the non-Russian
republics of the USSR. Though it was still claimed that all nationalities were
treated equally, by the late 1930s, references to the "leading role" of the
Russian people in Soviet society had become common. 24 From World War
II on, the Russians were called the "elder brother" in the Soviet family of
nationalities. The retrospective view of nationality relations under the Tsars
was subjected to sweeping revisions. Before Stalin's rule ended, Soviet his-
torians were to depict the conquest of non-Russian nationalities by the Rus-
sians as historically progressive and to claim that a great friendship between
the peoples of the Soviet Union had existed since the establishment of the
earliest contacts among them.25
At the same time, in official Soviet ideology, the relationship between
Soviet patriotism and Russian nationalism remained ambiguous, since the
rodinaof Soviet citizens was the Soviet Union, not Russia. The term "Soviet
people" (sovetskii narod) came into usage during the 1930s with vague and
uncertain connotations but clearly implying that socialist patriotism was
supposed to transcend narrow national affiliations, and that patriotism was
an aspect of the moral and political unity of Soviet society. Stalin described
the USSR as a multinational state in which the relations among nationalities
were those of brotherly cooperation.26
NOTES
1. Leon Trotsky, quoted by Iosif V. Stalin in "Oktiabr'skaia revoliutsiia i taktika

russkikh kommunistov,** December 1924, in Sochineniia, vol. 6 (Moscow: Gospolitizdat
1947), 373-374.
2. Ibid., 367.
3. Ibid., 376.
4. Ibid., 375.
5. Ibid., 371.
6. Leon Trotsky, quoted by Iosif V. Stalin in "K voprosam leninizma,** February
1926, in Sochineniia, vol. 8 (Moscow: Gospolitizdat, 1948), 61.
7. Iosif V. Stalin, "Ob oppozitsionnom bloke v VKP (b),** October 1926, in
Sochineniia, vol. 8 (Moscow: Gospolitizdat, 1948), 217.
8. Iosif V. Stalin, "Ob industrializatsii i khlebnoi probleme,** July 1928, in
Sochineniia, vol. 11 (Moscow: Gospolitizdat, 1949), 159.
9. Iosif V. Stalin, "Na khlebnom fronte,** May 1928, in Sochineniia, vol. 11
(Moscow: Gospolitizdat, 1949), 93.
10. Iosif V. Stalin, "Ob industrializatsii strany i o pravom uklone v VKP (b),**
November 1928, in Sochineniia, vol. 11 (Moscow: Gospolitizdat, 1949), 248-249.
11. Iosif V. Stalin, "O zadachakh khoziaistvennikov,'* in Sochineniia, vol. 13
(Moscow: Gospolitizdat, 1951), 38-39.
12. Ibid., 39.
13. Iosif V. Stalin, "Itogi pervoi piatiletki,*' in Sochineniia, vol. 13 (Moscow:
Gospolitizdat, 1951), 183-184.
14. Ibid., 180-181.
15. There is no comfortable translation into English of the words, sotsialisticheskoe
obshchestvo, postroeno v osnovnom. Those words have the connotations of both
translations given above.
16. Iosif V. Stalin, "Novaia obstanovka—novye zadachi khoziaistvennogo stroi-
tel'stva," in Sochineniia, vol. 13 (Moscow: Gospolitizdat, 1951), 56.
17. Stalin, "Ob industrializatsii i khlebnoi probleme," 171.
18. Iosif V. Stalin, "O pravom uklone v VKP (b)," April 1929, in Sochineniia, vol.
12 (Moscow: Gospolitizdat, 1949), 32; idem, "Itogi pervoi piatiletki," 211.
19. Iosif V. Stalin, "Politicheskii otchet Tsentral'nogo Komiteta XVI s"ezdu VKP
(b),w June 1930, in Sochineniia, vol. 12 (Moscow: Gospolitizdat, 1949), 369-370.
20. Joseph Stalin, "Report to the Seventeenth Congress of the Communist Party
of the Soviet Union (Bolshevik) on the Work of the Central Committee,** in The
Essential Stalin, ed. Bruce Franklin (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1972), 277.
21. Iosif V. Stalin, "Otchetnyi doklad na XVIII s"ezde partii ob rabote TsK
VKP (b),** March 1939, in Sochineniia, vol. 14 (Stanford, Calif.: Hoover Institution
Press, 1967), 394.
22. Stalin, "Politicheskii otchet Tsentral'nogo," 302-303.
23. Pravda, June 9, 1934.
24. Frederick C. Barghoorn, Soviet Russian Nationalism (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1956), 38.
25. Lowell Tillett, The Great Friendship: Soviet Historians on the Non-Russian
Nationalities (Chapel Hill, N.C.: University of North Carolina Press, 1969).
26. Iosif V. Stalin, "O proekte Konstitutsii Soiuza SSR,** in Sochineniia, vol. 14
(Stanford, Calif.: Hoover Institution Press, 1967), 148.
4
Mature Stalinism: Continuity

within Transition
THE FIRST PHASE OF COMMUNISM

In 1936, Stalin asserted that the Soviet Union had achieved socialism, the
first phase of communism. The general goal of Soviet society was the attain-
ment of the higher phase of communism, referred to most often simply as
"communism." From 1936 on, Soviet ideologists officially regarded the
Soviet system as engaged in the gradual transition to communism. However,
for over fifteen years, Stalin discouraged discussion of changes in Soviet
institutions that would be involved in the movement from socialism to com-
munism. Soviet society was actually treated in works of the Stalin years, not
as in the midst of a transition from the lower stage to the higher stage of
communism but as having entered into a long period of preparation of the
preconditions for such a transition. Yet Stalin showed that he thought it
important to show a connection between the course of policy that he charted
for the Soviet regime and the promise of movement toward the goals implicit
in Marx's vision of full communism.
The principal theme of Stalin's pronouncements concerning Soviet society
from the middle of the 1930s until his death in 1953 was the necessity of
maintaining the continuity of socialist development. As early as 1934, in his
report to the Seventeenth Congress of the Communist party of the Soviet
Union, Stalin repudiated expectations of the introduction of features of full
communism in the Soviet Union.1 He ridiculed those who advocated the
replacement of trade and money by the direct exchange of products, those
who reasoned that class struggle would weaken and the state begin to wither
46 Soviet Marxism-Leninism: The Decline of an I
away in socialism, and those who wished to accelerate the transition from
collective farms to agricultural communes. Stalin made it clear that such
naive, "leftist" optimism was to be regarded as the main internal deviation
in the party.
In his November 1936 speech on the new constitution of the USSR, Stalin
again expressed his irritation with those who tried to initiate a premature
discussion of the features of the transition to communism. He revealed that
during the discussion of the draft of the new constitution, some had sug-
gested including in the document an indication of the final goal of Soviet
development—the construction of a fully communist society. He rejected
that suggestion as based on a misunderstanding of the nature of a constitu-
tion. In introducing the basic features of the draft constitution, Stalin had
warned against confusing a constitution with a "program." "At the same
time that a program speaks of that which still does not exist and which still
should be attained and won in the future, a constitution, on the contrary,
should speak of that which already exists, which already has been attained
and won now, in the present."2 Stalin insisted that a constitution should not
be concerned with goals for the future but should be an instrument of con-
solidation of existing gains—"a registration and legal strengthening of that
which is already attained and won in actuality."3 Thus, the detailing of
a commitment to achieving full communism was excluded from the new
constitution.
Stalin's remarks might have served as a reminder of the need to write a
new program for the Soviet Communist party. The party's first program,
adopted in 1903, had set forth the goal of socialist revolution. After that
goal was attained, the party adopted its second program in 1919, declaring
its aim to be the construction of socialism in the Soviet Union. When Stalin's
speech of November 1936 advanced the claim that a basically socialist society
had been realized, the second program became obsolete. Yet Stalin did not
offer a new party program in 1936, nor at that time did he even mention
plans for the writing of a new program. His speech on the new constitution
implied that the discussion of the features of the future phase of communism
was to be postponed. However, there were to be repeated indications that
Stalin recognized the need for a new programmatic document showing how
his objectives for the future of Soviet society would contribute to the reali-
zation of the higher phase.
Stalin's speech to the Eighteenth Party Congress in 1939 described the
result of socialist construction in the preceding years as the "further consoli-
dation of the Soviet system."4 Stalin spoke of a "stable internal situation
and a stability of government" based on advances in industry and agriculture
and growth in social harmony in the USSR.5 He listed the moral and political
unity of society, the friendship of nations within the USSR, and Soviet
patriotism as the motive forces of the system. Stalin's report to the Eighteenth
Mature Stalinism: Continuity within Transition 47
Party Congress, at a time when the danger of a major European war was
growing, was distinguished by its emphasis on the tasks of consolidation
and its assertions of internal unity and stability.
Stalin did cast a glance at the prospects for the Communist future, how-
ever, at one point in that speech. He stipulated that the Soviet Union would
have to "outstrip the principal capitalist countries economically"6 to make
the transition from the first phase of communism to its second phase. Over-
taking the principal capitalist countries would provide an abundance of
consumers' goods. The mention of future abundance was not used by Stalin
to encourage hopes for an easing of the burdens of industrial expansion in
the time immediately ahead. On the contrary, catching up with the capitalist
world would require "the readiness to make sacrifices and invest very consid-
erable amounts of capital for the utmost expansion of our socialist industry."7
Stalin warned against excessive optimism, since building up production to
the level in the advanced capitalist countries would require considerable
time. The Eighteenth Party Congress elected a commission charged with the
responsibility of preparing a new party program.8 Considering Stalin's
remarks in 1936 on the purpose of a program, it might have been expected
that the party's new program would clarify the tasks of the transition to
communism in the USSR. However, the commission never reported publicly
on its work.
Stalin's report to the Eighteenth Party Congress showed that he was deter-
mined to maintain the continuity of policies stemming from his decisions in
the late 1920s. The choices during the period of the First Five-Year Plan had
set a course of collectivization of agriculture, rapid industrialization, and
intensification of the state's control of society. Each Five-Year Plan was
followed by another. In 1939, Stalin, by setting for the Soviet Union the
goal of surpassing the advanced capitalist countries, urged a programmatic
commitment to further sacrifices, investment, and accumulation of industrial
strength. Further Soviet development was characterized in Stalin's time
as neuklonnyi—consistent, in the sense of being steady, unswerving, and
undeviating. Stalin viewed change within the phase of socialism as the linear
accumulation of measureable advantages. His view negated Marx's inter-
pretation of social development as inescapably discontinuous, with periods
of linear, cumulative change alternating with bursts of destruction and
transformation. Stalin's characterization of Soviet development also posed
an implicit problem of the relationship between socialism and communism.
Marxists agreed that communism would differ from socialism with respect
to many features. How could the accumulation of more of the assets of the
present stage and the consolidation of socialist social and political relations
lead to the replacement of those relations by Communist patterns? The
problem was one of reconciling the continuity of development with the
belief in the transition to a different and higher stage.
48 Soviet Marxism-Leninism: The Decline of an Ide
THE TRANSITION TO COMMUNISM

For more than fifteen years after the announcement that the Soviet Union
had reached the first phase of communism, Soviet ideology avoided discus-
sion of the details of a transition to the higher phase. In 1952, Stalin took
the initiative toward opening an examination of the future transition by
authoring a series of essays published under the title, Economic Problems
of Socialism in the USSR. In those essays, Stalin showed himself to be troubled
again by the criticisms of those who found in the Marxist conception of
socialism the promise that imminent changes in the Soviet system would
bring some relaxation in discipline and stringency. Stalin reported that "some
comrades" denied the "objective character" of laws of economics under
socialism, believing that the Soviet state could abolish existing laws of eco-
nomics and create new ones. He attributed such a view to younger party
workers, "dazzled by the extraordinary successes of the Soviet system," who
"begin to imagine that the Soviet government can 'do anything,' that 'nothing
is beyond it,' that it can abolish scientific laws and form new ones."9 Stalin
denied that socialism made it possible to destroy or transform laws of eco-
nomic development. He contended that the laws of economics, like the laws
identified by the natural sciences, were objective laws operating independently
of human will. Human beings could discover such laws and, by recognizing
them, could take advantage of their operation; but human beings could not
change such laws. Stalin's deterministic emphasis on objective and immutable
laws of economics would seem to contradict the stress on the guiding forces
of reason and will in his writings on the active role of the state. The apparent
contradiction may be resolved if it is realized that in Stalin's mind the unchang-
ing laws of socialist economics were identified with Stalinist principles of
economic policy. As Robert C. Tucker has noted, the Soviet dictator wanted
to establish that the dictates of his reason were objective economic laws not
to be tampered with by others.10
A second source of criticism dealt with by Stalin was "certain comrades"
who thought that the Soviet Communist party should have done away with
commodity production immediately after socializing the means of production
in the USSR. Stalin acknowledged that Engels had said that the seizure of
the means of production by society would put an end to commodity produc-
tion. However, Stalin described as profoundly mistaken those who attempted
to apply Engels's formula to the USSR. The abolition of commodity pro-
duction would have been feasible only if all the means of production in the
country had become public property. After the collectivization of agriculture
in the Soviet Union, there were two main forms of socialist productive prop-
erty: state property, which was completely publicly owned, and collective
farm property, owned by collective farmers as a group. Stalin used the
distinction between those two forms of productive property to justify the
continuation of commodity production. He contended that collective farms
were willing to part with their produce only in exchange for money or other
products. Stalin argued that commodity relations were a necessary bond
between industry and agriculture in Soviet circumstances. When the two
sectors of production (i.e., the state sector and the collective farm sector)
were replaced by "one all-embracing production sector," then commodity
production, commodity circulation, and the use of money would disappear.
Stalin suggested that the most likely means of replacing commodity relations
would be the establishment of a "single national economic body," which
eventually would acquire the right to distribute all consumer products in a
system of product exchange.] l It is noteworthy that Stalin saw the distinction
between town and country as primarily a distinction between two types of
formal property relationships, and that he saw the probable manner of
overcoming that distinction as the extension of a single, centralized mecha-
nism of administrative control over the entire economy. The elimination of
urban-rural differences had ceased in his view to be a matter of doing away
with social and economic inequality and had become a question of estab-
lishing uniform property ownership and administrative direction by widening
the state's control over economic activity.
Stalin attempted next to dispel ambiguity concerning the operation of the
"law of value" (i.e., the influence of supply and demand in market relation-
ships) in the Soviet economy. He argued that, while the law of value had a
limited sphere of operation in a centrally planned economy, that law did
perform the positive function of encouraging economic executives to pay
attention to cost accounting and profitability. However, Stalin repudiated
the suggestion that the laws of supply and demand should be allowed to
play a wider role by determining the proportions of labor and capital devoted
to various branches of production. Placing primary emphasis on the maxi-
mization of profit would lead to the transfer of resources from heavy industry
to light industry. The effect would be to "cease giving primacy to the pro-
duction of means of production in favor of the production of articles of
consumption" and "to destroy the possibility of the continuous expansion
of our national economy."12 Stalin was trying to extirpate a Communist
heresy that, if triumphant, would have detracted from the unbroken expan-
sion of industrial production. He sought to suppress yearnings for immediate
improvements in Soviet popular welfare and to reassert the necessity of con-
tinuing the policies stemming from the early Five-Year Plans.
The crux of the problem addressed by Stalin was revealed in his own words.
"I think that our economists should put an end to this incongruity between
the old concepts and the new state of affairs in our socialist country, by re-
placing the old concepts with new ones that correspond to the new situation."13
Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSR took the form of a series f
comments on the draft of a textbook on political economy. Stalin's purpose
in those comments was to warn that a number of traditional concepts of
Marxist economics were inconsistent with the general line of economic policy
50 Soviet Marxism-Leninism: The Decline of an Ideol
in the Soviet Union. Marxism's promise of Communist abundance might, if

discussed carelessly by Soviet economists, become a focus for popular aspi-
rations whose satisfaction had long been deferred. The old concepts of
Marxism should be replaced so that theory might be brought into conformity
with Stalinist policy commitments.
Rare glimpses of the Communist future were offered by Stalin's comments
on economics. The operation of the law of value would be superseded in the
second phase of Communist society by the regulation of production by plan-
ning bodies which would compute "the requirements of society."14 The dis-
tinctions between agriculture and industry and between physical and mental
labor would be affected by the movement to full communism, but Stalin
emphasized that not all the distinctions between agriculture and industry or
between physical and mental labor would disappear. In each instance, only
the essential distinctions would disappear. Stalin for the first time made it
clear that some class distinctions would exist even in a fully developed Com-
munist society. He took care to point out that some distinction between
mental and physical labor would remain because of differences in the condi-
tions of labor of managerial staffs and workers. It could be seen that com-
munism would include central planning bodies and professional managers.
It was apparent that Stalin did not contemplate the abolition of the central-
ized direction of economic life but, rather, the extension and perfection of
such control.
Stalin's most explicit statement of the conditions for the transition to
communism in the USSR came in his commentary on the theoretical errors
committed by a certain Comrade Yaroshenko. Stalin reported that Comrade
Yaroshenko had sought to be chosen as the author of the proposed text on
political economy. According to Stalin, Yaroshenko's chief error was the
supposition that arranging a rational organization of productive forces would
make possible an abundance of products and the transition from socialism
to communism. Stalin rejected the notion that an abundance of goods and
distribution according to need could be brought about readily, without es-
tablishing preconditions through the development of productive forces and
relations of production. "Comrade Yaroshenko does not understand that
before we can pass to the formula, to each according to his needs,' we shall
have to pass through a number of stages of economic and cultural reeduca-
tion of society."15
Stalin specified "three main preliminary conditions" as necessary "to pave
the way" for a transition to communism. First, it was necessary to ensure "a
continuous expansion of all social production, with a relatively higher rate
of expansion of the production of the means of production." He emphasized
that a high rate of investment in industrial growth and the priority for invest-
ment in capital goods production would be maintained. Second, it would be
necessary, as Stalin had already implied, to change collective farm property
into public property and to replace commodity circulation by a system of
exchange of products under the control of the central government or some

other central agency. Stalin again stressed the transitory status of collective
farm property and commodity circulation. He observed that such factors
already were beginning to hamper the development of productive forces and
would do so even more with further economic development. The third con-
dition mentioned by Stalin was such a "cultural advancement of society as
will secure for all members of society the all-round development of their
physical and mental abilities."16 By "cultural advancement" Stalin meant an
increase in popular education, to be associated with the shortening of the
working day, the freeing of the citizen from a lifelong tie to a single occupa-
tion, a radical improvement in housing conditions, and at least a doubling
of the real wages of workers and employers.
A careful reading indicates that Stalin did not set forth the conditions to
be realized during the transition to communism but, rather, the conditions
to be satisfied prior to undertaking the transition. Stalin had prefaced his
list of conditions with the warning that the Soviet Union would have to pass
through "a number of stages" of change before realizing communism. He
referred to the conditions that he enumerated as those "of preparation for
the transition to communism."17 He suggested that the Soviet Union was
entering a stage of preparation for the transition, to be followed by a later
stage in which the transition would be carried out. Stalin did not wish to
stress the imminent appproach of communism but, rather, the necessity of
establishing all preliminary conditions for the transition. He made it clear
that the coming stage would be one of continuation of sacrifices on behalf
of industrial development. The needs of consumers would still be regarded
as of secondary importance in that stage.
In Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSR, Stalin initiated the c
sideration of future stages of growth in Soviet society and directed attention
toward the transition to communism. He also revealed his approach to solv-
ing the problem of the relationship between the lower and higher phases of
the Communist formation. Inconsistency between socialism and communism
was to be reduced through the progressive assimilation of the features of the
higher phase to the principles of the lower phase. The main lines of Stalinist
economic policy were to be projected further and further into the future.
Nevertheless, some tension and ambiguity were evident in Stalin's views. The
postponement of the transition to communism and the reluctance to describe
changes that would take place within the stage of transition constituted a
tacit admission that no satisfactory resolution of the contradiction between
the continuity of socialist development and the dialectical transformation of
socialism into communism had been discovered. The Nineteenth Congress
of the Communist party of the Soviet Union in October 1952 chose a com-
mission which was assigned the task of rewriting the party's program. It is
generally supposed that this commission was expected to provide detailed
objectives for Soviet society in the new stage in accordance with the guide-
lines set forth in Stalin's last essays. The failure of the commission to produce
a public report on its work may have been due to Stalin's death in March
1953. Stalin had not solved the problem of reconciling continuity with trans-
formation in Communist construction; the problem was deferred for the at-
tention of his successors.
THE DIALECTIC AND SOCIALISM

Stalin's treatment of development in socialist society as continuous and
uninterrupted raised problems in the Soviet interpretation of the dialectic.
Marx and Engels had assumed that historical development was interrupted
periodically by bursts of discontinuous transformation. Engels listed the
three "laws of materialist dialectics" as (1) the transformation of quantity
into quality, (2) the mutual interpenetration of opposites, and (3) the nega-
tion of the negation. Lenin had been persuaded of the importance of dialec-
tics, particularly through his reading of Hegel's works. By the 1930s, it was
axiomatic for Soviet Marxists that the laws of the dialectic were universally
valid, to be observed in the operation of all nature, thought, and society.
Yet if the dialectic was universally applicable, it hardly was compatible with
Stalin's view of extended gradualism and continuity in Soviet development.
Stalin overcame the inconsistency between the laws of the dialectic and his
notion of uninterrupted Communist construction by revising those laws so
as to deprive them of any significance in relation to changes within socialist
society. The result was to remove from the dialectic any revolutionary im-
plications for socialist development.
Stalin's revisions of the laws of the dialectic began with his essay, "Dialec-
tical and Historical Materialism," which first appeared in 1938 as the fourth
chapter in the History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Short
Course), which, until the early 1950s, was the core text of all Communist
political indoctrination in the Soviet Union. In his contribution to the book,
Stalin did not clearly delineate Engels's three laws of the dialectic. Rather,
he introduced four "principal features of the Marxist dialectical method"1*
two of which were general statements of the relatedness and interconnections
of things and of the universality of movement and change in phenomena.
The other two "features" consisted of two of Engels's "laws"—the transfor-
mation of quantity into quality and the unity and struggle of opposites.
The negation of the negation was absent from the list of "principal fea-
tures" of the dialectic. As Stalin applied the dialectic in his discussion of his-
torical materialism, it became apparent that the principles of struggle and
revolution had practical reference only to exploitative, antagonistic societies,
the most prominent example of which was contemporary capitalism. Stalin
repudiated the evolutionary, reformist conception of the transition from
capitalism to socialism, for he insisted that all Communists should be com-
mitted to the proletarian revolution. In contrast, Stalin's brief discussion of
the socialist stage avoided the use of the dialectical language of conflict and
revolution, treating development after the establishment of socialism in the
USSR as continuous, uninterrupted, and free of crises.19 The conclusion
that socialism must experience qualitative, discontinuous transformation
into a higher stage was clearly unacceptable to Stalin. The Soviet dictator's
list of features of the Marxist dialectic, without the negation of the negation,
became obligatory in the Soviet Union after his 1938 writing was published.
Stalin's revision of the dialectical interpretation of change in socialism
continued in his essays of 1950 on Marxism and Linguistics. Stalin declare
that a transition in language does not take place in the form of a "sudden ex
plosion." He informed those "comrades who have an infatuation for such
explosions that the law of transition from an old quality to a new by means
of an explosion is inapplicable not only to the history of the development of
languages; it is not always applicable to some other social phenomena of a
basal or superstructural character." Stalin denied that the doctrine of "ex-
plosions" was applicable to socialist society. "It is compulsory for a society
divided into hostile classes. But it is not at all compulsory for a society which
has no hostile classes."20
Stalin gave as an example of a gradual, qualitative transition the collectiv
ization of agriculture in the USSR, which, he said, had not required an ex-
plosion or political revolution because it had been "a revolution from above,"
though allegedly supported by "the overwhelming mass of the peasantry."21
(Russian and Western scholarly sources would generally agree today that
Stalin's claim that most peasants had supported collectivization was sharply
at variance with the facts.) In socialist society, the political regime guides
social change in accordance with the laws of historical materialism, insuring
smooth, uninterrupted development. Stalin indicated that in socialism there
might be "leaps" of qualitative change, but those would not be violent or
disjunctive transitions. In socialism, qualitative changes would tend to take
place, like transitions in languages, "by the gradual accumulation of the ele-
ments of the new quality and hence, by the gradual dying away of the ele-
ments of the old quality."22 From 1950 on, Soviet ideology admitted of two
different types of qualitative transitions: sudden qualitative transitions and
gradual qualitative transitions. The distinction between qualitative change
and quantitative change (previously defined by its gradualness and continui-
ty) was blurred with the admission of the category of gradual "leaps."
Stalin's final revision of the dialectic came in Economic Problems of
Socialism in the USSR in 1952. In discussing relations between town an
country, Stalin noted that "the antithesis between town and country under
capitalism must be regarded as an antagonism of interests."23He also pointed
out that workers and collective farm peasants represented different classes
in socialist society. However, he contended that the two classes in Soviet
society shared common interests in socialist construction, as indicated by
the doctrines of the "friendship" between the two toiling classes and the
moral-political unity of Soviet society. Now, in 1952, Stalin declared that

the "antagonism of interests between town and country, between industry
and agriculture" in the USSR had disappeared. He added that, although re-
lationships of exploitation and antagonism no longer existed, the distinction
between the working class and peasants persisted in the Soviet Union. 24
In the Soviet treatment of the dialectic, distinctions were seen as incipient
contradictions.
Stalin's brief remarks indicated his approval of the idea of the difference
between two types of contradictions. The development of all societies pro-
ceeds through the unfolding and resolution of contradictions. In societies
with exploitative relations of production, contradictions are antagonistic,
expressing a fundamental opposition and exclusivity of class interests, inevi-
tably taking the form of class struggle. However, in socialist society, the re-
maining contradictions are nonantagonistic, based on a fundamental unity
of interests, and not prohibiting mutual cooperation. Stalin did not broadly
explore the possibilities of the distinction. To do so would have undermined
the justification for the terror associated with his regime; if antagonism had
vanished from Soviet society, how could a Marxist explain the extent of the
secret police's activities? Nevertheless, Stalin must be regarded as the source
of the concept of "nonantagonistic contradictions" in Soviet society.25
By 1952, Stalin had reinterpreted the laws of the dialectic so as to legitimize
his program of continuous, cumulative development in the Soviet Union.
The law of the negation of the negation had been forgotten, the transforma-
tion of quantity into quality did not have to involve sudden disruptive
change, and contradictions within socialist society were found not to be an-
tagonistic. Development in socialist society was, in effect, exempted from
the operation of the laws of the dialectic presented by Engels. The material-
ist dialectic was seen to permit gradual, continual accretions of change, to
be contained for a long time within the phase of socialism. In a letter to a
Comrade Notkin, included in Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSR,
Stalin summarized the thesis of gradualism.
The fact of the matter is that in our socialist conditions economic development
proceeds not by way of upheavals, but by way of gradual changes, the old not simply
being abolished out of hand, but changing its nature in adaptation to the new, and
retaining only its form; while the new does not simply destroy the old, but infiltrates
into it, changes its nature and its functions without changing its form, but utilizing it
for the development of the new.26
However, those words overstated the growth of the "new" in Soviet society
as depicted in the ideology of mature Stalinism. In Stalin's later writings,
the gradual infiltration of new features was less important than the steady
accumulation of greater amounts of existing assets.
NOTES
1. Iosif V. Stalin, "Report to the Seventeenth Congress of the Communist Party
of the Soviet Union (Bolshevik) on the Work of the Central Committee," in The Es-
sential Stalin, ed. Bruce Franklin (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1972), 271, 277.
2. Iosif V. Stalin, "O proekte Konstitutsii Soiuza SSR," in Sochineniia, vol. 14
3. Ibid., 150.
4. Iosif V. Stalin, "Otchetnyi doklad na XVIII s"ezde partii," in Sochineniia, vol.
14 (Stanford, Calif.: Hoover Institution Press, 1967), 366.
5. Stalin, "Otchetnyi doklad na XVIII s"ezde partii," 347.
6. Ibid., 352.
7. Ibid.
8. L. A. Openkin, "I. V. Stalin: poslednii prognoz budushchego," Voprosy istorii
KPSS, 1991, no. 7: 114. This source also reports that in October 1938, two drafts of
a new program for the CPSU were circulated among members of the party Politburo
and that another draft of a new party program was prepared in 1947. Openkin*s arti-
cle, based on the inspection of documents in the Central Party Archive, reinforces
the impression that the updating of the program was a constant concern of some
members of the highest party leadership from the late 1930s until Stalin*s death (and,
as we shall see, even beyond that time), except in all likelihood during the years of
World War II.
9. Iosif V. Stalin, Ekonomicheskieproblemy sotsializma v SSSR, October 1952,
in Sochineniia, vol. 16 (Stanford, Calif.: Hoover Institution Press, 1967), 198.
10. Robert C. Tucker, The Soviet Political Mind, rev. ed. (New York: W. W.
Norton, 1971), 140-149.
11. Stalin, Ekonomicheskie problemy, 206-207. Stalin referred to an obshchen-
arodnyi (national or all-people's) economic organ.
12. Ibid., 215.
13. Ibid., 209.
14. Ibid., 214.
15. Iosif V. Stalin, "Ob oshibkakh t. Yaroshenko L. D.," in Sochineniia, vol. 16
(Stanford, Calif.: Hoover Institution Press, 1967), 268-269.
16. Ibid., 271.
17. Ibid., 272.
18. Iosif V. Stalin, a O dialekticheskom i istoricheskom materializme," in Sochineniia
vol. 14 (Stanford, Calif.: Hoover Institution Press, 1967), 281-290.
19. Ibid., 315-318.
20. Iosif V. Stalin, Marksizm i voprosy iazykoznaniia, in Sochineniia, vol. 16
21. Ibid., 142.
22. Ibid., 141.
23. Stalin, Ekonomicheskie problemy, 217.
24. Ibid., 217-218.
25. The concept of nonantagonistic contradictions was foreshadowed in the dis-
cussion of social classes in socialist society in the History of the CPSU (b): Short
Courseof 1938. The term Nonantagonistic contradictions" apparently began to ap

pear in Soviet writings by the late 1930s. It seems likely that Stalin at least shared in-
direct responsibility for the introduction of the concept, which he endorsed most
clearly in Economic Problems of Socialism in the USS
26. Stalin, Ekonomicheskie problemy,252
5
Khrushchev: The Full-Sca

Construction of Communis
OUTLOOK AND ASPIRATIONS

In each period since the October Revolution, new themes in the ideology
of the Soviet state have borne the stamp of the most prominent Soviet leader
of the time. The impression made on ideology by the personal style of the
highest leader was never manifested more vividly than during the years of
Khrushchev's ascendancy. Nikita Khrushchev was crude, energetic, impa-
tient, optimistic, bold, innovative, reckless, thoroughly pragmatic, and,
yet, imbued with a simple-minded belief in articles of Communist faith and
equally capable of benevolence and ruthlessness. Those qualities were re-
flected in the ideological innovations stimulated by Khrushchev. However,
his power to reshape ideology was more limited than that of Stalin. Ideolog-
ical theory of the Khrushchev period often moderated Khrushchev's own,
bolder intiatives as the apparent result of compromises with more cautious
elements within the Soviet leadership. It also should be observed that Khrush-
chev's ideas were not merely the expression of his personality but a result of
his interpretation of the conditions existing in the USSR after Stalin's death
in 1953.
Khrushchev was impressed with the distance traveled by the Soviet Union
in the development of industry since the time of the early Five-Year Plans.
He accepted the argument that Stalin had offered—that when the Soviet
Union was economically underdeveloped and encircled by capitalist states,
sacrifices had been inevitable in order to build the base for modern industry.
Khrushchev noted, however, that by the 1950s, the Soviet Union had become
a mighty industrial power.1 "Today our level, our potential and our possi-
bilities are different."2 The USSR had reached a level of economic develop-
ment high enough to enable it to turn to the accomplishment of its main
economic task—overtaking and surpassing the most advanced capitalist
countries in production—as a long-range goal to be associated with fulfilling
the prerequisites for achievement of communism. Khrushchev was the first
Soviet leader to pose the task in immediate, specific terms. At the Twentieth
Party Congress in 1956, he suggested that the USSR was in a position to sur-
pass the most advanced capitalist countries in per capita production in "an
historically very short period."3 He announced to the Twenty-first Party
Congress in 1959 that by the early 1970s, the Soviet Union would surpass
the United States economically and becomefirstin the world in total volume
of production and in per capita production.4 Khrushchev recognized that
decades of high rates of investment in industry, along with the ravages of
war with Germany, had exacted severe sacrifices from the people of the
USSR. He argued, however, that the higher level of production reached by
the Soviet economy in the 1950s had made it possible to create an abundance
of material goods and that the fuller and better satisfaction of the demands
of the people was a "paramount obligation" of the party.5 A high level of
productivity and an abundance of consumer goods would make possible the
transition to communism in the USSR.
Khrushchev, in effect, said to the Soviet people, we have carried off the
world's first successful socialist revolution; we have won the struggle for in-
dustrialization; we have crushed the Nazi invaders; anything is possible for
us. Now we shall outstrip the leading capitalist country and build a Commu-
nist society. Khrushchev's optimism was inspired by his own experience, in
which he had seen the horizons of personal opportunity expand in equal
measure with the growth of the might of the Soviet system. He seemed to
reason that if so much could have been achieved by half-educated, poorly
fed, shabbily housed peasants and sons and daughters of peasants, rising to
power in one of the most poverty-stricken and war-torn countries in Europe,
then far more could be achieved by newer, better trained and educated gen-
erations, disposing of the wealth created by a major industrial economy.
Implicit in Khrushchev's hopes was the wish to rekindle the revolutionary
enthusiasm he had witnessed as a young recruit to Bolshevism. His vision
was of the world's second largest economic power on the verge of new revo-
lutionary and heroic exploits.
Khrushchev believed that by the end of the Stalin period, the Soviet regime
had achieved a much greater measure of security than it had enjoyed when
Stalin had come to power. The expansion of its industry had given the Soviet
Union the base for formidable military strength, and its acquisition of nu-
clear weapons made an attack on the country unlikely. The capitalist encir-
clement of the USSR had been liquidated with the emergence of a system of
socialist states, which had become a powerful counterbalance to the influ-
Khrushchev: The Full-Scale Construction of Communism 59
ence of imperalism. With the disintegration of the colonial empires and the
rise of the movement for national liberation in Asia and Africa, imperialism
was in retreat. Khrushchev proclaimed in 1959 that the construction of social-
ism in the USSR had been made decisive and final. "The danger of capitalist
restoration in the Soviet Union is ruled out. This means that the triumph of
socialism is not only complete but final"*
With the elimination of capitalist encirclement and the realization of
greater security for the accomplishments of socialism, the need for repression
as a means of rule over the Soviet population was sharply reduced. Khrushchev
assumed that one accomplishment of socialist construction was a growing
consensus within Soviet society. After several decades of rule by the Soviet
regime, forces and movements within the USSR that were hostile toward the
Soviet system had been wiped out. Khrushchev supposed that since new
generations of citizens had reached maturity within socialist society, the
overwhelming majority of the Soviet people regarded the Soviet state as legit-
imate. He believed that it had become possible to build relations between
the regime and society on the basis of greater mutual confidence. The time
had come to extend trust to all major groups of the population.7 In a con-
sensual society, the means of motivating the efforts of the population would
necessarily be altered. The heavy use of negative coercive sanctions over the
average person would no longer be appropriate, while ideologically inspired
enthusiasm, although vitally important, would not in itself be sufficient to
motivate Soviet citizens to build the material-technical base of communism.
The strengthening of the legitimacy of socialism and the enhancement of the
productivity of labor would be possible only if greater material benefits were
granted to Soviet people.
In the past, the development of the means of production had been inade-
quate for the task of creating an abundance of goods in the USSR. However,
Khrushchev believed that by the 1950s, a level of industrial development
had been reached that provided the necessary base for addressing the prob-
lem of bringing affluence to the Soviet Union. He was convinced that the
physical factors of production, such as machinery and natural resources,
were present in large enough quantities to allow for rapid increases in out-
put. Khrushchev attributed virtually all difficulties in the performance of
the economy to a lack of proper leadership. He repeatedly voiced his distrust
of the Soviet bureaucracy, complaining that the rigidity, indifference, and
conservatism of officials were the main reasons for the failure to exploit the
enormous potential of the economy. The culture and habits of those serving
in the intermediate link between the leader and the people were retarding the
progress of the system.
Khrushchev did not seek, through organizational reforms, mere mech-
anical restructuring but, rather, the transformation of the roles and attitudes
of party and state functionaries. His ideal was of the lower level official as a
bold, energetic, and innovative leader who willingly and eagerly would accept
the function of taking risks. Khrushchev called on Soviet bureaucrats to get

involved, not with routines and paperwork but with solving economic tasks
and mobilizing people. He argued that active mass participation in adminis-
tration would purge the bureaucracy of conservative attitudes and unleash
torrents of popular initiative, while greater participation in administration by
Soviet citizens would intensify the identification of the people with the regime
and stimulate growth in production in the economy. Though Khrushchev
distrusted much of the new Soviet middle class for its selfishness and mate-
rialism, he retained a great deal of trust in the virtue and common sense of
the unspoiled peasants and workers.
THE FULL-SCALE CONSTRUCTION OF COMMUNISM

Khrushchev increasingly emphasized the imminence of the transition to
communism in the USSR. At the Twentieth Party Congress, in the same
speech in which he declared that the Soviet Union would in a historically
short period overtake and surpass the most advanced capitalist countries
economically, Khrushchev hinted at the approach of communism by saying,
"We have climbed to such summits, to such heights, that we can see the wide
vistas leading to the ultimate goal, a communist society."8 The Twentieth
Congress of the Soviet Communist party, like each of the last two party
congresses before it, selected a commission charged with drafting a new party
program. At the Twenty-first Party Congress in 1959, Khrushchev announced
that the Soviet Union had entered a new period of development, the stage of
the "full-scale construction of communist society,"9 which he described as a
stage in which "socialism grows into communism."10
In 1961, the Twenty-second Congress adopted a new program for the
Communist party of the Soviet Union, outlining the tasks of the full-scale
construction of communism in the USSR during the period from 1961 to
1980. The party program promised that between 1961 and 1970 the Soviet
Union would surpass the United States of America in per capita production,
that between 1961 and 1980 the material and technical base for communism
would be created, and that by 1980 a Communist society would be built "in
the main" in the USSR.11 The party program contained more specific details
of the transition to communism than had been offered by Soviet sources
before. Announcing a timetable for reaching communism was a marked
departure from Soviet ideological tradition. The new program asserted that
Soviet society would pass from socialism into communism by the early 1980s,
and the document ended with the pledge, "The Party solemnly proclaims:
the present generation of Soviet people will live under communism/'12
In the analysis of the relationship between socialism and communism in
Soviet ideology during the early 1960s, the key term was posledovatefnost,
or consistency. Development from socialism to communism was not regarded
as simply the continuous extension of previous trends but, rather, as posle-
dovatetnyi—consistent, proceeding in successive stages, with achievement

logically resulting from established conditions. The characteristics of Com-
munist society would not be identical to those of socialist society, but they
would be the logical consequence of the accomplishments of socialism. Ac-
cording to Khrushchev, the classics of Marxism-Leninism "emphasized that
communism is not separated from socialism by a wall, but that they are rathe
two phases of the same socio-economic formation."13 The socialist and
Communist phases belonged to the same formation, characterized by social
ownership of the means of production and the absence of exploiting classes.
There were important elements of similarity between the lower and higher
phases, such as collective ownership and the growth of production. However
there were also "essential distinctions" between socialism and communism
with respect to the degree of material abundance, the distribution of material
benefits, relations between social classes, and the role of the state in society.
Khrushchev's notion of consistency took into consideration both that the
transition to communism involved major changes and that "communism
grows out of socialism and is its direct continuation."14 His formulation
tended to minimize the diffficulties of transition, however.
A crucial point in Khrushchev's interpretation was his insistence on the
transitional nature of socialism. He argued that socialism does not develop
on its own foundations: Since the building of socialism begins amid the socia
and economic conditions created by capitalism, socialism bears the impres-
sion of the old order from which it has sprung. Socialism's imperfections
are the result of the remaining influences of presocialist historical phases.
Communism, however, does develop on its own foundations. The construc-
tion of the basis for full communism takes place in socialist society, after
the foundations of the Communist socioeconomic formation have been laid.
Fully developed communism will not reflect the influence of capitalism. The
phases of socialism and communism within the same socioeconomic forma-
tion are distinguished from each other by their levels of economic develop-
ment and maturity of social relations. In Khrushchev's theory, socialism was
regarded as immature communism, and it was assumed that the perfection
of socialism had no meaning apart from its transformation into communism.
The period of the full-scale construction of communism was thought to
include trends of three varieties. First, those features common to both the
socialist and Communist phases of the Communist formation would con-
tinue to develop. Second, the potential of those features distinctive to the
socialist phase would be exhausted, leading to the "atrophying of old forms
of life."15 Third, new features distinctive to the phase of communism, already
visible as sprouts or shoots (rostki)in socialist society, would grow stronger,
beginning to replace distinctively socialist features. The stage of full-scale
construction of communism would be one of the interweaving and interac-
tion of old and new forms.
Khrushchev spoke of three main tasks to be accomplished during the full-
scale construction of communism. The main economic task would be to

build the material and technical base of communism. The principal social
task would be the elimination of distinctions between social classes, resulting
in the creation of a classless, Communist society. In politics, society would
prepare itself for the "complete implementation of the principle of commu-
nist self-government."16 Khrushchev introduced a change in the Soviet un-
derstanding of the relationship among the tasks of Communist construction.
Stalin had tended to speak of a sequence of tasks, with construction of the
material-technical base of communism preceding qualitative changes in
social relations and political institutions. Khrushchev indicated that eco-
nomic, social, and political changes would proceed more or less simulta-
neously, with change in each area contributing to the success of change in
other areas. Socialist society would tackle the tasks of economic, social, and
political transformation at the same time. However, Khrushchev still main-
tained that the most crucial task was that of building the material-technical
base of communism, and he did not promise that each of the main tasks of
full-scale construction of communism would be completely resolved within
the same span of time. While the material-technical base of communism
would be built within twenty years, the full merging of social classes would
take longer, and the withering away of the state might take even longer.
In 1980, the USSR would become a basically Communist society, or a
Communist society whose foundations were constructed. The basically Com-
munist society would take up the work of finishing the construction of com-
munism. The features of Communist society would be realized fully only
after the completion (zavershenie)of Communist construction. In short, in
Khrushchev's view, socialism was a historical phase consisting of two stages:
basic socialism and the full-scale construction of communism. Communism
would be a phase that also would include two stages: basic communism and
finished communism. The distinction between the first and second stages to
come within the Communist phase relieved Soviet ideologists of the necessity
of promising the completion of all processes of transformation of socialism
into communism by the early 1980s. Nevertheless, Khrushchev had infused
the transition to communism with operational significance. It is an under-
statement to observe that the boldness and optimism of his expectations seem
startling today.
THE MATERIAL-TECHNICAL BASE OF COMMUNISM

Khrushchev followed the tradition of Soviet thought in regarding the most
important prerequisite for communism as the construction of its material-
technical base. He also accepted the notion advanced by Stalin at the Eight-
eenth Party Congress in 1939 that the satisfaction of that prerequisite would
be associated with surpassing the most advanced capitalist countries in eco-
nomic competition. However, according to Khrushchev and the new party
program, the building of the economic base necessary for communism would
not be completed until a decade after the Soviet Union had passed the most
advanced capitalist country in production per head of the population. The
definition of the level of economic development adequate for communism
in terms of victory in economic competition in the West was, from the view-
point of Marxist theory, purely arbitrary. A literal reading of the party pro-
gram would suggest that the association between passing the American
economy in 1970 and satisfying the economic standard for communism in
1980 was coincidental. In actuality, the two achievements were to be linked
for psychological and political reasons. The party program was not only a
guide to transformation within Soviet society but also an attempt to answer
the problem of the Soviet Union's relationship with the West.17 Russia's
perceived backwardness in relation to the West had been regarded by nine-
teenth-century Russian thinkers as a crucial problem. Stalin had insisted that
the only tenable solution to that problem was to compete with the Western
countries in those areas in which they enjoyed the clearest superiority—eco-
nomic and technological development and military armament. Khrushchev
boasted that the Soviet Union already had made giant strides toward over-
coming its backwardness and that the achievement of superiority over the
West was at hand. Exceeding the level of per capita production of the United
States and attaining the highest level of productivity in the world would
demonstrate the advantages of the Soviet system, and weaken the psycho-
logical and political position of the West. As Khrushchev said, "The victory
of the USSR in economic competition with the USA, the victory of the social-
ist system over the capitalist system, will be the greatest turning point in his-
tory, will exert mighty revolutionary influence on the workers' movement of
the whole world. Then even to the most skeptical it will become clear that
only socialism gives all that is necessary for a happy life for each person,
and they will make their choice in favor of socialism."18
Khrushchev repeatedly and confidently voiced the conviction that the
USSR would win the economic race with the West. His words were filled
with pride and audacity.
Not long ago I again read the book of the well-known English writer Herbert Wells
Russia in the Mist, in which he tells of his conversation with V. I. Lenin. Herber
Wells called Lenin the great fantasizer. When you read that book, you are filled with
great pride for your Homeland and people, for the Party of Communists. The pages
of the past especially clearly emphasize the greatness of the present.
When V. I. Lenin said that we would electrify the whole country, while the work-
ers and peasants at that time went barefoot and hungry, the bourgeois leaders laughed
at us. What sort of people are those Communists? The country was hungry and dev-
astated, but the party and V. I. Lenin thought about catching up with the most eco-
nomically developed capitalist countries. They told us: You are a backward, half-savage
country, and you want to catch up with the most developed capitalist countries.
But the years passed, the country grew strong, our heroic people scored one victory
after another. They stopped laughing at us. And now our country inspires fear in the
capitalist world. And not, of course, because the Soviet Union is the strongest state
militarily, but because socialism creates a better life for the people. That is the great
force attracting the toilers.
Few abroad now say that we are fantasizers. Even many bourgeois leaders, blinded
with class hatred toward our country, now are calculating the time when we shall catch
up with the United States of America in production per head of the population.
Earlier some foreign figures asked the question: Mr. Khrushchev, do you really
think you will catch up with the American economy? Now nobody puts the question
that way, but they ask: Mr. Khrushchev, what do you think, in what year will the
Soviet Union catch up with America? That's already a different question, that's a
different story.
They have stopped doubting that the Soviet Union will catch up with the USA.
Now only one question troubles them—when? I*ve answered them: You can write it
in your notebook—in 1970 we shall catch up with you in the measure of industrial
production per head of population; we shall catch up and go farther.19
The party program set ambitious goals for the Soviet economy during the
full-scale construction of communism. In twenty years, the production of
Soviet industry would increase fivefold, and the production of agriculture
would rise by three and one-half times. Mechanization and automation in
all major sectors of production would lead to the elimination of heavy man-
ual labor from the performance of most operations. Labor productivity in
industry would rise by 350 percent. By 1980, the Soviet Union would have
the world's shortest, most productive, and most highly paid work week. The
production of electricity would expand rapidly with the construction of a
large number of new power plants and the employment of new sources of
energy. While the output of steel would increase to 250 million tons a year,
the development of chemical production would be speeded up even more.
With the growth of mechanization of agriculture, the wider use of agricul-
tural chemicals, and an extensive program of land improvement, the Soviet
Union would overtake the United States in per capita output of basic agri-
cultural products by 1970. Grain production would more than double, meat
production would almost quadruple, and milk production would almost tri-
ple by 1980. Within two decades, the Soviet Union would have the most
highly developed, most affluent economy in the world.
What was most distinctive in Khrushchev's economic program was the
promise of enormous advances in output in a short time. It seems surprising
today that under Khrushchev the Soviet Communist party explicitly predicted
extraordinarily rapid rates of growth of production in the Soviet economy.
It is difficult to believe that Khrushchev would have committed the prestige
of the party and the entire Soviet system to the goals set by the party pro-
gram if he had not expected that those goals could be reached. In fact, after the
program had been adopted by the Twenty-second Party Congress, Khrushchev
blithely revealed that, although the program allowed twenty years for build-
ing the material-technical base of communism, he personally thought that

the task could be finished in less time than that.20
What accounted for Khrushchev's extreme optimism concerning Soviet
economic growth? In the first place, it should be remembered that the rate
of economic growth in the USSR had been very high since the beginning of
the First Five-Year Plan period, except during World War II and the years
of recovery immediately after the war. The growth of the Soviet gross na-
tional product had continued at a high rate during the 1950s, averaging close
to 10 percent a year. The projection of such a growth rate into the future
from 1961 to 1980 promised impressive results. However, Khrushchev indi-
cated that he thought it was within the reach of the Soviet economy to improve
substantially on the performance of previous years. If the Soviet system had
performed well despite the encumbrances of Stalinist rigidity, bureaucratic
conservatism, a scarcity of material rewards for the population, and a widen-
ing separation between the authorities and the people, then it must contain a
virtually unlimited potential for accelerated growth.
The second factor behind Khrushchev's optimism was his belief that im-
provement in the political climate of Soviet society would stimulate an ex-
pansion in the exploitation of the productive reserves of the Soviet economy.
Khrushchev's initiatives would break down bureaucratic resistance and har-
ness mass enthusiasm in order to make the maximum use of economic re-
sources.21 In a speech to agricultural workers in 1957, Khrushchev revealed
that he had asked Soviet economists how long it would take for the Soviet
Union to catch up with the United States in the production of meat and milk
per capita. The economists, as Khrushchev put it, handed him a piece of
paper on which it was written that the achievement of that goal would come
about in 1975. His response was to accuse the economists of holding back
the progress of the Soviet economy. To delay the achievement of equality in
the production of meat and milk until 1975 would give the propagandists of
capitalism too long to talk about the alleged weaknesses of socialist agricul-
ture. Although the economists' calculations undoubtedly contained no arith-
metical errors, Khrushchev admitted, they failed to take account of crucial
political factors. "The strength of the collective farm system, the patriotism
of Soviet people, and socialist competition allow us to resolve this task in the
near future."22 Khrushchev's accounting of this episode revealed not only
his capacity for politically motivated wishful thinking but also his faith in the
capacity of political-psychological factors to affect economic performance.
Third, Khrushchev saw improvements in the material well-being of Soviet
workers as giving further impetus to increases in their productivity. The
higher level of economic development of the Soviet system in 1961 made it
possible to make fuller use of material incentives for labor. Fourth, Soviet
science and technology, much more advanced than during earlier plan periods,
would enhance returns to investment, particularly in several newer sectors
of the economy for which especially high rates of expansion were foreseen.
Fifth, the vision of the future presented by the party program would inspire
Soviet workers to redouble their efforts. The realization that affluence could
be achieved within a short time and that communism would soon become
reality would arouse popular enthusiasm. Accelerated growth rates, leading
to victory in the economic competition with the most advanced capitalist
country, would demonstrate decisively to the Soviet people the correctness
of the principles of Marxism-Leninism, stimulating a further upsurge in ide-
ological dedication. Such appear to have been the reasons that Khrushchev
promised extremely rapid economic growth during the full-scale construction
of communism.
The construction of the economic basis of communism would make pos-
sible the production of an abundance of material benefits. Khrushchev prom-
ised immediate improvements in the Soviet people's standard of living during
the period of full-scale construction. Yet he had no intention of paying for
short-term increases in consumption by decreasing investment in industry.
The growth of industrial production remained as important for Khrushchev
as it had been for Stalin. Khrushchev affirmed, "Development of industry,
growth of the means of production—this is our powerful steed. If we have
this steed, we shall have everything else as well."23 The insistence on rapid
growth in production in industry and agriculture precluded any relief of
pressure for a high rate of investment. The party program candidly noted
that "the creation of the material and technical base of communism will call
for huge capital investments."24 The proportion of the Soviet gross national
product (GNP) devoted to investment did not decrease during the Khrushchev
years. In actuality, that proportion rose steadily during the 1950s and early
1960s, while the percentage of GNP used for current consumption declined
somewhat under Khrushchev.25 Yet Khrushchev repeatedly pledged that the
greater enjoyment of material benefits by the Soviet people would no longer
be deferred. How could he hope to keep his word?
For one thing, Khrushchev pressed for shifting a greater proportion of in-
vestment into branches of the economy that would furnish more benefits
for Soviet consumers. More investment would be devoted to expansion of
the means of production for consumer goods industries, agriculture, and
closely related sectors, such as the chemical industry. Soviet authorities'
promise that the rate of growth of production of consumer goods would
come closer to the rate of growth of production of producers' goods during
the full-scale construction of communism was significant at least on the level
of doctrine in displacing Stalin's dogma that in every period the production
of producers' goods must grow faster than the production of consumers'
goods. Of more material effect were reductions in defense spending as a
percentage of GNP following 1953. Khrushchev tried to take resources away
from the military in order to increase investment without excessively tight-
ening the proportion of gross national product accorded to consumption.
But Khrushchev's strategy for combining increases in investment with im-
provement in consumption was based mainly on the anticipated effects of

economic growth. Even if a constant percentage of GNP is devoted to a cer
tain purpose, as GNP grows, the absolute amount dedicated to that purpose
expands. As Khrushchev put in reference to investment, "The further we
move forward, the more weight each percent of the national income used
for accumulation will have, and consequently the more funds will be avail-
able for capital investment."26 Some Soviet authors promised that from 1961
to 1980 the shares of investment and consumption in national income would
remain the same. If that were so, the rapid growth of national income would
make possible the attainment of a higher level of consumption.27 Growth
would make it possible to achieve immediate increases in popular welfare
without sacrificing investment priorities so that within twenty years, Soviet
consumers would reap the benefits of a fabulously high level of national
production.
The feature most prominently mentioned in Khrushchev's references to
Communist society was material abundance. "The cup of communism," he
said in introducing the new party program, "is a cup of abundance, and it
must always be filled to the brim."28 The program promised that by 1980,
the creation of the material-technical base of communism would ensure an
"abundance of material and cultural benefits for the whole population" of
the USSR.29 At the point when a basically Communist society came into be-
ing, according to Khrushchev, the demand of all Soviet people for consumer
goods would be met in full,30 or, as the program put it, the demand of all
sections of the population for high-quality consumer goods would be amply
satisfied.31 The components of abundance available to all Soviet consumers
by 1980 would include a wide assortment of food products, corresponding
to the nutritional needs determined by Soviet science; a sufficient quantity
of high-quality, comfortable, practical, and attractive clothing and shoes;
appliances for the mechanization of much labor in the home; and the satis-
faction of demands for "cultural objects," such as radios and television sets.
By 1980, the construction of housing would have gone far enough to provide
every Soviet family with a separate, comfortable, well-appointed apartment.
Abundance was defined in Soviet ideology as a supply of goods sufficient
to allow reward according to need, although the transition to Communist
distribution would not be completed for some years after the entrance into
basically Communist society. The problem is that no precise meaning of
abundance is accepted by all people and all societies. As one Soviet thinker
acknowledged not long after the adoption of the new party program, abun-
dance is not a term that can be assigned a concrete expression, given and
conclusive once and for all.32 His position, like that of other Soviet sources,
was that abundance could only be defined by Marxist-Leninists as the provi-
sion for the satisfaction of the demands of a "highly conscious and cultured"
member of Communist society. Only the reasonable demands of people with
a high degree of Communist consciousness would be satisfied, and Com-
munist society would consist largely of such people. Society would not be
overwhelmed by excessive demands, since people would not feel the need to
make such demands. Abundance, as understood in the party program, pre-
sumed the presence of two conditions: first, a relatively plentiful supply of
articles of consumption, and second, a high degree of ideological conscious-
ness on the part of Soviet citizens.33 The full development of Communist
consciousness by all members of society would not be completed until some
time after Soviet society had become Communist in its foundation. However,
the material requirements for the satisfaction of the needs of Soviet citizens
would be fulfilled by 1980.
The construction of the material and technical base of communism also
would bring about changes in relationships among forms of productive prop-
erty in the Soviet Union. Since the 1930s, the two forms of socialized pro-
ductive property in the USSR had been state property, belonging to all the
people of the country, and collective farm (cooperative) property, belonging
to the members of each collective farm. Khrushchev, like Stalin, viewed state
property as superior to the "cooperative" property of collective farms, though
he did not regard the collective farms with the distrust and suspicion that
had colored Stalin's attitude toward them. Khrushchev noted that both forms
of property shared a basically socialistic character, warned against opposing
one form to another, and admonished the party not to think of the collective
farms as alien organisms.
While Khrushchev spoke of the collective farms as a positive force, he
made it clear that their days were numbered. His prescriptions for the devel-
opment of Soviet collective farms reflected Khrushchev's belief that the way
to the realization of Communist social relations lay in the consistent devel-
opment and perfection of socialist social relations. Both state and collective
farm production would be developed to the fullest in order to narrow the
differences between them and ultimately bring about their merger. Much
discussion was devoted to the development of productive relations in the
collective farms, where change was described as "raising the level of sociali-
zation of collective farm production." With greater state aid to collective
farms and increases in revenue for those farms resulting from higher prices
paid by the state for the purchase of produce, the capital assets of collective
farms would rise to approximate those of state enterprises. Differences be-
tween collective farms and state enterprises in the skills and productivity of
labor and in the payment for work would gradually diminish. Collective
farms would increasingly participate in interfarm enterprises for construc-
tion, food processing, repair services, the operation of schools and hospitals,
and other purposes. The development of agricultural production would in-
evitably cause collective farm property to transcend the limits of individual
farms and approach the scale of public property. When the distinction be-
tween collective farm property and state property was eliminated, both forms
of property would merge into one form, the property of all the people
(obshchenarodnaia sobstvennosf).34The merging of forms of productive pro

erty was to be completed by 1980, the end of the period full-scale construc-
tion of communism. The removal of differences between state and collective
farm property was seen in the Khrushchev period as an essential criterion
for the attainment of a Communist society.
While socialist agriculture in the Soviet Union included production on
state farms and collective farms, the private sector consisted of farming on
private plots.35 That which was produced on a family's private plot could be
disposed of as the members of that family wished. According to Khrushchev,
the private plots reflected the survival of the influence of small-scale capital-
ism in the minds of Soviet farmers and revealed the inability of socialist
agriculture to satisfy all the demand for food by the population of the USSR
in the early 1960s. In theory, Khrushchev was opposed to attempts to elim-
inate private plot farming by "administrative measures," that is, by decree
or informal pressure from above. In practice, he did initiate campaigns of
restriction and harrassment of private plot production by collective farmers.
But in theory, the withering away of personal subsidiary farming was to be
the natural consequence of the development of production in the collective
farms. The expansion of the output of socialist agriculture and the growth
of the compensation of labor in collective farms would eventually make it
possible to satisfy the demands of the nation for food and fiber and to pro-
vide for the needs of collective farm families without resort to private re-
sources. As private plots gradually became superfluous, collective farmers
would "voluntarily" renounce them. It was strongly implied that the elimi-
nation of collective farm property as a separate category would be accom-
panied by the elimination of the legal right of collective farmers and others
to have the use of private plots.
REWARD, MONEY, AND PERSONAL PROPERTY

The transition from socialism to communism was said by all Soviet Marx-
ists, following Marx's words, to entail the replacement of reward according
to labor with distribution according to need. In Khrushchev's time, attention
was directed to the goal of distribution according to need in discussions of
the coming of communism. However, Khrushchev in theory emphatically
rejected any suggestion of wage leveling (uravnilovka), since he considered
the use of material incentives for labor to be an essential stimulus for the in-
creases in production which would create Communist abundance. The task
set by Khrushchev was that of more consistently and fully employing the
principle of reward according to labor. The improvement and perfection of
the socialist system of reward would prepare the way for the introduction of
the Communist principle of distribution. During the period of full-scale
construction, two trends in reward would evidence themselves. The first
trend would be the "improvement" of the system of reward according to
labor. In the course of a general rise in wages, the upgrading of the training
and productivity of unskilled workers would lead to particularly rapid in-
creases in wages for the lower paid ranks. The minimum would be brought
up, allegedly not as the result of redistribution from higher to lower strata
but as part of a generally shared increase in affluence. Economic growth
would provide the increments that would make possible improvements in
the living standards of the poor without taking anything away from those
whose were better off. Though reward according to labor would continue to
be the dominant principle of distribution throughout the two decades of
full-scale construction of communism, the fuller implementation of that
principle would reduce the differences between lower and higher incomes.
The second trend in distribution during the transition to communism was
to be the expansion of "social funds of consumption" (obshchestvenny
fondy potrebleniia). Those funds alreadyfinancedpublic education, medica
care, and pensions. In addition, in the Soviet Union, a number of other ben
efits, including housing in apartments built by the state, utilities for resi-
dences, and public transportation, were subsidized by the state. The party
program announced that spending out of social consumption funds would
increase more rapidly than wage payments and that the proportion of the
personal needs provided for by social funds would grow. There was a ten-
dency to speak of the public funds of consumption as putting into practice
the principle of distribution according to need, but a more accurate discus-
sion classified the social funds as a transitional phenomenon in which ele-
ments of distribution based on labor and need were mixed.36 While benefits
were distributed from such funds free of direct charge to the recipients or at
a reduced price, the magnitude of some benefits was coordinated with in-
centives to labor. The size of an individual's pension, for example, was af-
fected by that person's previous job and length of service. The occupations
more valued by the state tended to yield both higher wages and higher pen-
sions. In the Soviet Union, the size of one's apartment, the quality of the
kindergarten that one's children attended, the resort to which one's family
traveled on vacation, and other factors in one's standard of living were in-
fluenced by which institution or enterprise one worked for and what position
one had within that place of work.37 Nevertheless, Soviet sources of the
Khrushchev period asserted that, on the whole, the enlargement of spending
from social funds was most beneficial to those with lower wages and larger
families. (That assumption was to be disputed by some Soviet scholars in
the late 1980s.)
According to the party program, by 1980 social funds would account for
approximately one-half of the real income of the Soviet population. Educa-
tion, medical care, public child care, housing, intracity public transportation,
and midday meals in cafeterias at places of work would be offered entirely
at public expense. Subsequently, charges for utilities; many everyday services
such as barbers, hairdressers, and cleaners; and vacation facilities would be
lowered or eliminated. By 1980, Soviet society would have "come right up
to" the stage of distibution according to needs. The transition to Communist

distribution would be completed with the finishing of Communist construc-
tion (i.e., within the phase of communism). The full realization of the prin-
ciple of distribution according to need at a later time would mark the entrance
of society into the stage of finished communism.
The movement toward distribution according to need would mean the
withering away of "commodity-money relations," involving the use of money
to purchase goods. In the stage of full-scale construction of communism,
the use of money, prices, wages, and profit-and-loss accounting would assist
the growth of productivity. During the transition to the Communist system
of distribution, however, the potential of commodity-money relations would
be exhausted. The production of goods for sale and the use of money as a
medium of exchange would be absent from finished or fully developed com-
munism. The market and money would be replaced by some sort of direct
distribution of the products of labor. Each person would obtain goods from
society's supplies without paying money, in accordance with rationally de-
termined needs for consumption.
With satisfaction of each individual's needs from society's wealth, the
necessity of private ownership of personal property would diminish. Personal
property consists of items that are not part of the means of production but
are used to satisfy the needs of individual consumers. The fate of personal
property in communism was the subject of uncertainty and controversy in
discussions among Soviet sources during the Khrushchev period.38 Most
Soviet writers contended that personal property would continue to exist in
some form in communism. Yet at the least, the sphere of personal property
would be contracted, and the boundary between personal and social property
would be less sharply delineated. Most sources were wiling to concede that
articles whose use was particularly personal, such as clothing, shoes, and
eyeglasses, would remain objects of personal ownership. Since each person
might draw such items from society's stores as the need arose, the accumu-
lation of objects for personal use would lose its importance in the minds of
the citizens of Communist society. Durable consumer goods which might be
shared, such as automobiles and cottages in the country, might not be re-
garded as personal property at all but might be borrowed from society to be
used temporarily by any person. With the full application of Communist
distribution, the tendency to make a clear distinction between that which
belongs to the individual and that which belongs to the collective would
disappear.
COMPETITIVE COEXISTENCE WITH THE WEST

Khrushchev saw success in the building of the economic base of com-
munism in the USSR as crucial to the achievement of victory in the historic
competition with capitalism. Soviet works of the Khrushchev years described
the main conflict in international relations as that derived from the contra-
72 Soviet Marxism-Leninism: The Decline of an Ideo
diction between socialism and capitalism, which was so basic as to shape the
nature of all other conflicts.39 Such sources commonly asserted that there
were two social systems in the world—the socialist and the capitalist—and
that those systems developed "by way of diametrically opposite laws" giving
rise to "opposite principles of foreign policy."40 The socialist system, which
had emerged after World War II, was headed by the Soviet Union, while the
capitalist system was much older and its leading power was the United States.
The relations between those two systems were said to be a projection of the
class struggle onto the scale of the entire world.41
Khruschev's interpretation of the relationship between socialist and capi-
talist states mixed traditional Leninist and Stalinist thinking with significant
modifications reflecting the changed reality of the post-World War II and
post-Stalinist world. Lenin had depicted international relations as dominated
by the principle of class struggle, and Stalin had erected the thesis of the po-
larization of international relations between the camps of socialism and cap-
italism into ideological orthodoxy by the late 1940s. In the 1950s, Khrushchev
repudiated the tendency of the "two camp" conception to neglect the gray
areas between the Soviet bloc and the Western alliance, and he directed at-
tention to the role of newly liberated and nonaligned states in international
relations.42 Yet he persisted in seeing the conflict between the camps of so-
cialism and capitalism as the main factor in international politics, and he
considered the intermediate zone between the camps to be primarily a field
of competition between socialist and capitalist states.
The mixture between old and new thinking was also evident in Khrushchev's
main theoretical contribution to Soviet ideology concerning international
affairs, his introduction of the notion that peaceful coexistence (mirnoe
sosushchestvovanie) was the central principle that should govern the rela
tionship between the socialist and capitalist systems.43 He insisted that there
was no alternative to peaceful coexistence because of the potentially disas-
trous consequences of military conflicts in the nuclear age. Yet Soviet sources
of the Khrushchev period insisted that peaceful coexistence was a form of
class struggle in which the antagonism between the two world systems would
continue.44 They were most adamant in asserting that peaceful coexistence
would signify no weakening of the ideological struggle between socialism
and capitalism.45 Along with the struggle for ideological victory, socialist
and capitalist states would wage economic and political competition in every
way short of direct military conflicts.
Khrushchev's emphasis on peaceful coexistence did not imply Soviet ac-
ceptance of a static balance of strength between the two camps in the inter-
national arena.46 Soviet sources of the late 1950s and early 1960s argued
that the world had entered a stage of transition in which the "correlation of
forces" (sootnoshenie sil) was shifting in favor of socialism. They reported
that capitalism had already lost its dominance of international relations and
that the influence of the socialist camp was steadily growing. As Nikolai
Inozemtsev, one of the guiding figures in the expansion of the study of in-
ternational relations in the USSR in the post-Stalin years, put it:
The loss by imperialism of its dominating role in world affairs and the utmost ex-
pansion of the sphere in which the laws of socialist foreign policy operate are a dis-
tinctive feature of the present stage of social development. The main direction of this
development is toward ever greater changes in the correlation of forces in the world
arena in favor of socialism.47
Khrushchev was the first Soviet leader to endorse the thesis that war could
be avoided throughout the period of the transition to worldwide socialism.
That thesis emphasized the importance of averting military clashes between
the Soviet Union and the United States, but it also suggested that the leaders
of capitalism might have to acquiesce with a degree of resignation in the de-
cline of their system. Khrushchev conveyed his confidence in the growing
superiority of the socialist camp when he told William Randolph Hearst,
Jr., that "society develops in accordance with its laws, and now the era has
come when capitalism must make way for socialism as a higher social system
than capitalism."48 Khrushchev emphasized that the main and decisive sphere
of rivalry between socialism and capitalism was that of economic competi-
tion, which was a major reason for his projection of ambitious goals for
economic growth in the USSR. He argued that the realization of the highest
living standard in the world and the capability to distribute material benefits
according to need in his country would demonstrate the superiority of social-
ism as a social system. Such a victory in economic competition would be of
incalculable psychological value, demoralizing the proponents of capitalism
and attracting many whose preferences were wavering.
The building of the world's most developed economy in the Soviet Union
was expected to provide encouragement for movements of revolutionary
change aroimd the globe. One of the central arguments of Soviet sources by
the early 1960s was that of the unity of revolutionary struggle, or the con-
tention that all revolutionary movements in the world had a common enemy
and therefore ultimately a common purpose. V. Korionov said of the revo-
lutionary forces in various countries that "in as much as their common enemy
is imperialism, all these streams in their final result are objectively directed
against capitalism. That is why all the liberating movements of the contem-
porary time necessarily should be viewed as component parts of a single
world revolutionary process."49 Khrushchev asserted that socialist revolu-
tions, national liberation revolutions, and democratic revolutions were
merging "into a single world revolutionary process undermining and destroy-
ing capitalism."50 It was implicit in that reasoning that the Soviet Union
served as the central focus of hope and the principal source of inspiration
for progressive forces everywhere around the world.
Khrushchev displayed great optimism concerning what he perceived as
the natural tendency for all national liberation forces in the Third World to
align themselves with the camp of socialism. He thought that the further
radicalization of national liberation movements was imminent as the leaders
of new states struggled to use their political sovereignty to gain genuine eco-
nomic independence from Western imperialism. Increasingly, such leaders
would realize that the only path to full independence from imperialism and
rapid advancement toward affluence involved the renunciation of capitalism.
Thus, nationalistic and anti-imperialistic regimes in the Third World were
looked on as in the early stages of transition to socialism of the Soviet style. M.
Marinin voiced that optimistic assessment, saying that "in the contemporary
situation the boundaries between the socialist and national-liberation revo-
lutions are becoming extremely mobile. Factors are objectively acting in the
world to stimulate the acceleration of the process of growth of national-lib-
eration, anti-imperialist revolutions into socialist revolutions."51 Khrushchev's
tendency to place excessive faith in the socialist and radical rhetoric of some
leaders of newly independent states in Asia and Africa paralleled his exag-
gerated confidence in the potential for his own grandiose economic objectives
to be translated into reality in the Soviet Union. However, a vein of realism
was evidenced in his emphasis on the importance of avoiding war with the
United States, and his exaggerated optimism concerning the prospects for
progress toward socialism in the Third World may have been necessitated in
part by his desire to deflect criticism from those within Soviet and interna-
tional communism who charged that his stress on peaceful coexistence had
led him to abandon the hope of anti-imperialist struggle in the less-developed
countries.
NOTES
1. Nikita Khrushchev, "On Control Figures for Development of the USSR Na-
tional Economy in 1959-1965," Report to the Twenty-first Congress of the Commu-
nist Party of the Soviet Union, January 1959, in Current Soviet Policies III, ed. L
Gruliow (New York: Columbia University Press, 1960), 41.
2. Ibid., 55.
3. Nikita Khrushchev, "Report of the Central Committee of the Communist Party
of the Soviet Union to the 20th Party Congress," February 1956, in Current Sovie
Policies II, ed. Leo Gruliow (New York: Praeger, 1957), 55.
4. Khrushchev, "On Control Figures," 55-56.
5. Khrushchev, "Report to the 20th Party Congress," 41.
6. Khrushchev, "On Control Figures," 68.
7. George Breslauer, "Khrushchev Reconsidered," Problems of Communism 2
(September-October 1976): 21.
8. Khrushchev, "Report to the 20th Party Congress," 61.
9. Khrushchev, "On Control Figures," 42.1 have translated razvernutoe stroite
stvo kommunisticheskogo obshchestva as "full-scale construction of communis
society," while the phrase is translated in Current Soviet Policies III as "extensiv
building of communist society."
10. Ibid., 64.

11. "The program of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union," in Current Soviet
Policies IV, ed. Charlotte Saikowski and Leo Gruliow (New York: Columbia Uni-
12. Ibid., 33.
13. Nikita Khrushchev, "On the Program of the Communist Party of the Soviet
Union," Report to the Twenty-second Congress of the Communist Party of the
Soviet Union, October 1961, in Current Soviet Policies IV, ed. Charlotte Saikowski
and Leo Gruliow (New York: Columbia University Press, 1962), 88.
15. Khrushchev, "On the Program," 89.
16. Ibid. The word samoupravlenie might be translated as "self-government" or
"self-administration." The two translations will be used interchangeably in this text.
17. George Lichtheim, "The Programme and the Marxist-Leninist Tradition," in
The USSR and the Future, ed. Leonard Schapiro (New York: Praeger, 1963), 24-27.
18. Nikita Khrushchev, Sotsializm i kommunizm (Moscow: Izdatel'stvo Literatury
na Innostrannykh Iazykakh, 1963), 56-57.
19. Nikita Khrushchev, "Uspeshno pretvorim v zhizn' resheniia ianvarskogo
plenuma TsK KPSS," January 1961, in Stroitetstvo kommunizma v SSSR i razvitie
setskogo khoziaistva, vol. 4 (Moscow: Politizdat, 1963), 396-397.
20. "Our Party has worked out a program of construction of communism in twenty
years. But I am convinced, that if we would better use our possibilities, we could sig-
nificantly shorten that time, much more rapidly develop the Soviet economy, and
create an abundance of material goods for the people." Nikita Khrushchev, Kazhdaia
sovetskaia respublika dolzhna vnesti dostoinyi vklad v stroitetstvo kommunizma
(Moscow: Gospolitizdat, 1962), 7.
21. Breslauer, "Khrushchev Reconsidered," 20.
22. Nikita Khrushchev, "Rech' na soveshchanii rabotnikov sel'skogo khoziaistva
oblastei i avtonomnykh respublik severo-zapada RSFSR v gorode Leningrade," May
1957, in Stroitetstvo kommunizma v SSSR i razvitie setskogo khoziaistva, vol. 2
(Moscow: Politizdat, 1962), 450.
24. "Program of the Communist Party," 15.
25. Stanley H. Cohn, Economic Development in the Soviet Union (Lexington,
Mass.: D. C. Heath, 1970), 71. The proportion of GNP devoted to investment in-
creased under each leadership in the USSR from 1928 until the later years of the
Gorbachev period.
27. T. Khachaturov, "Voprosy sozdaniia material'no-tekhnicheskoi bazy kom-
munizma v SSSR," Voprosy ekonomiki, 1961, no. 9: 4.
32. I. Anchishkin, "Problema izobiliia i perekhod k kommunisticheskomy ras-
predeleniiu," Voprosy ekonomiki,1962, no. 1: 75.
33. Jerome M. Gilison, The Soviet Image of Utopia (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins
34. That form of ownership was referred to as all-people's property and not state
property, since in communism the state would cease to exist.
35. That type of agriculture was termed "private plot farming" by virtually all
Western sources and "personal subsidiary agriculture" (lichnoe podsobnoe khoziaistvo)
by Soviet authors. There were generally larger allotments of land for private plots for
collective farm families than for the families of state farmers. Some nonagricultural
workers, and even some living in urban areas, also worked small private plots.
36. V. Komarov, "O razvitii obshchestvennykh fondov potrebleniia v period raz-
vernutogo stroitel'stva kommunizma," Voprosy ekonomiki, 1961, no. 1: 38.
37. For a full discussion of the relationships described above, see Mervyn Matthews,
Privilege in the Soviet Union: A Study of Life-Styles under Communism (London:
George Allen & Unwin, 1978).
38. Gilison, The Soviet Image of Utopia, 124-126.
39. William Zimmerman, Soviet Perspectives on International Relations, 1956-
1967 (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1969), 161.
40. N. Inozemtsev, "Results and Prospects in the Development of International
Relations," International Affairs, 1961, no. 11: 16.
41. I. Lemin, "Leninskii printsip mirnogo sosushchestvovaniia i sovremennost',"
Mirovaia ekonomika i mezhdunarodnye otnosheniia, 1963, no. 4: 10.
42. Khrushchev, "Report of the Central Committee" (1956), 33-34.
43. Khrushchev's conception of peaceful coexistence is explored by Robert C.
Tucker, The Soviet Political Mind, rev. ed. (New York: W. W. Norton, 1971), 240-
261; and Paul Marantz, "Prelude to Detente: Doctrinal Change under Khrushchev,"
International Studies Quarterly 19 (December 1975): 501-528.
44. G. Starushenko, "Mirnoe sosushchestvovanie i revoliutsiia," Kommunist,
1962, no. 2: 81; V. Korionov, "Leninizm i mirovoi revoliutsionnyi protsess," Mirovaia
ekonomika i mezhdunarodnye otnosheniia, 1963, no. 6: 16.
45. Lemin, "Leninskii printsip," 13; idem, "Mirnoe sosushchestvovanie ne oznachaet
oslableniia ideologicheskoi bor'by," Kommunist, 1962, no. 8: 61.
46. Merle Fainsod, "Khrushchevism," in Marxism in the Modern World, ed. Milorad
M. Drachkovitch (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1965), 116.
47. Inozemtsev, "Results and Prospects," 21.
48. Quoted in Fainsod, "Khrushchevism," 116. A similar statement by Khrushchev
to Adlai Stevenson is quoted by Paul Marantz, From Lenin to Gorbachev: Changing
Soviet Perspectives on East- West Relations (Ottawa: Canadian Institute for Interna-
tional Peace and Security, 1988), 46.
49. Korionov, "Leninizm," 5.
51. M. Marinin, "Leninizm i segodniashnii mir," Mirovaia ekonomika i mezh-
dunarodnye otnosheniia, 1962, no. 4: 14.
6
Khrushchev: Social an
Political Change
TOWARD THE CLASSLESS SOCIAL COLLECTIVE

Khrushchev inherited from Stalin a simplified depiction of the social struc-
ture of Soviet society. It is true that some Soviet scholars evidenced interest
in offering a more sophisticated and penetrating analysis of social stratifica-
tion in the USSR in the early 1960s and that such stirrings of interest were to
lead to the emergence of sociology as a separate intellectual discipline in the
Soviet Union during the late 1960s. However, efforts to describe social dif-
ferentiation in a more complex fashion had left little impression on Soviet
ideology in the early 1960s. It was still said that Soviet society consisted of
two classes (i.e., the workers and collective farm peasants) and that the in-
telligentsia composed a distinct stratum of mental workers within each
laboring class. Soviet ideologists also continued to claim that with exploita-
tion and antagonism absent from socialist society, the relations among classes
and strata reflected the moral, ideological, and political unity of the Soviet
people.
Khrushchev saw the period of full scale construction of communism as a
stage in which the removal of distinctions between social classes was being
accelerated, and in which the achievement of a classless society was an im-
mediate task for the Soviet system. Soviet ideologists in Khrushchev's time
tended to assume that each major stratum in society was largely internally
homogeneous, and equated the effacement of distinctions between classes
and between strata with progress toward social homogeneity (odnorodnost).
The building of communism would create the prerequisites for "the destruc-
tion one after another of all basic distinctions between classes and groups of
people."1 Communism would be the product of a transition to "the full
homogeneity of society, the disappearance of any division of society into
social groups."2 When social distinctions had been liquidated, there would
remain "only producers and workers, among whom there will not be any
sort of social distinctions."3 Khrushchev expected that group identities would
dissolve in the collective consciousness of Communist society and that full
social harmony would express the unity of personal and public interests.
The development of socialism, according to the ideologists of the Khrushchev
period, naturally facilitated the elimination of major social distinctions. A
crucial question for theorists of the transition to communism was, what were
the sources of the most important social cleavages in socialist society? Were
such cleavages inherited from the old, prerevolutionary order; or did they
arise out of the development of socialism itself? Khrushchev's answer was
that socialism "does not develop on its own foundation; for all its gigantic,
world-historic achievements, socialism in many respects—economic, moral,
legal, and in the minds of people—still bears the stamp of the old order from
whose depths it sprang."4 Class divisions were part of socialism's inheritance
from capitalism.5 The differences between workers and peasants, and be-
tween mental and physical labor, had originated in previous stages of history,
and those divisions continued in socialist society, although the classes and
strata in socialism were profoundly transformed. Socialism had not created
the differences between classes but, rather, the features common to all classes6
so that what was inherent in socialism was the moral, ideological, and polit-
ical unity of society. With the continued development and perfection of
socialism, the class differences left from the old order would fade, while the
unity between classes would grow stronger until all classes would merge in a
homogeneous society.
The principal distinctions between workers and peasants were to be elimi
nated for the most part with the building of a basically Communist society
by 1980.7 The differences between workers and peasants were seen as differ-
ences between social classes, primarily determined by each class's relationship
to the means of production. Though ideologists under Khrushchev recog-
nized the existence of several differences between workers and peasants, in-
cluding differences in the qualifications and rewards of labor, they insisted
that the main difference between those classes was derived from the distinc-
tion between two forms of property, with workers toiling on state property
and peasants laboring on collective farm property. Consequently, the decisive
factor in overcoming the distinctions between workers and peasants would
be the reduction of the differences between state and cooperative property,
resulting finally in the merging of both into a single form of public property.
The difference between town and county was treated on a theoretical level
as principally derived from the distinction between workers and peasants.
In actuality, the cleavage between city and countryside did not coincide pre-
Khrushchev: Social and Political Change 79
cisely with that between workers and collective farm peasants. In the Soviet
Union, as in any other country, some agricultural workers resided in urban
areas, and many in nonagricultural employment lived in rural areas. In ad-
dition, in the USSR, not all who were employed in agriculture were classified
as collective farm peasants. Those who worked for state farms were consid-
ered members of the working class. Nevertheless, during the Khrushchev
period, Soviet ideology tended to regard differences between the urban and
rural population as a secondary concern for immediate policy and as differ-
ences whose fate would be determined by the resolution of differences be-
tween classes and between forms of property. Grigorii Glezerman asserted,
"That which is main and decisive in the problem of overcoming the essential
distinctions between town and country still remains the convergence, and
then the merging of the two forms of socialist property."8 Or as Khrushchev
said, "The merging of collective farm-cooperative property with state prop-
erty into unified public property . . . is the solution of the profound prob-
lem of overcoming the essential distinctions between town and country."9
The interpretation of the distinctions between town and country and be-
tween the classes of workers and peasants in terms of differences in forms
of ownership of productive property was a tradition of Soviet thought from
the Stalin period. However, under Khrushchev, Stalin's Economic Problems
of Socialism in the USSR was criticized for reducing the problem of elimi-
nating the differences between forms of socialist property to a question of
"organizational-economic restructuring."10 Stalin was charged with having
proposed to eliminate the distinction between state and collective farm prop-
erty by reorganizing relationships of ownership and exchange—by transfer-
ring collective farms to state ownership and replacing the market with product
exchange —while having neglected the development of productive forces
necessary to bring collective farm property up to the level of state property.
Ideologists of the Khrushchev period continued to attach great importance
to the distinction between forms of socialist property but emphasized that
the difference between forms of property was related to the unequal levels
of development of agriculture and industry.
The reduction of the differences between town and country, between
workers and peasants, and between the two forms of socialist property
would flow directly from the rapid development of agriculture. The expan-
sion of agricultural production was valued not only for its contribution to
economic growth but also as a condition of reaching the classless society.
Increases in mechanization would bring the productivity of labor in agricul-
ture up to the level attained in industry. The mechanization of agricultural
work and the raising of the education and skills of agricultural laborers
would transform agricultural labor into a variety of industrial labor. Soviet
ideology under Khrushchev promised that the full-scale construction of
communism would liquidate the backwardness of Soviet agriculture in rela-
tion to industry, a legacy both of Stalin's selective strategy of economic
growth and of the pattern of Russian economic development before the Oc-
tober Revolution.
In Khrushchev's view, differences between the living conditions of workers
and peasants and of urban and rural dwellers were the result of uneven eco-
nomic development. The elimination of urban-rural inequality would follow
the development of agricultural production. Khrushchev made that point
clear in his speech to the Twenty-first Party Congress in 1959: "In the com-
ing seven years we intend to take a decisive step in further advancing agri-
cultural output and on that basis radically improving the cultural and living
conditions of the rural population."11 Khrushchev was reluctant to increase
state investments in the provision of services and amenities for the rural
population. He expected that as agricultural production expanded, improve-
ments in rural living standards would result naturally from rises in the earn-
ings of collective farmers and state farm workers and from the growth of
the collective farms' own funds for investment in schools, kindergartens,
hospitals, and other public facilities. The party program noted that improve-
ments in the pay and communal services for collective farmers would depend
directly on growth in the productivity of labor in collective farms.1The
2
pri-
ority of tasks set by Khrushchev and the program was, first, to advance
agricultural production in the immediate future; second, to eliminate the
difference between state and collective farm property by 1980; and third, to
bring the living conditions of the rural population up to the level of the urban
population, perhaps by the time of the completion (zavershenie)of the co
struction of communism. Complete urban-rural equalization might thus be
achieved in the stage of finished communism but not during the period of
extended construction of communism from 1961 to 1980.
The full-scale construction of communism also was to speed up the elimi-
nation of the social distinctions between mental and physical labor, which
were said to be based primarily on the type of work done by those in each
stratum. The means of removing that difference would be changes in labor,
infusing greater intellectual content into the work performed by physical
laborers. Mechanization and automation of production would progressively
eliminate heavy, monotonous, and unskilled labor. As manual workers were
freed from performing most simple tasks in the production of goods, they
would assume the roles of supervising the operation of machines and per-
forming repairs. The training and education of workers and peasants would
come closer to those of skilled professionals so that differentiation in pay
between mental and physical workers would decrease. At some time within
the phase of communism, mental and manual labor would merge organically
in each person's work, and the boundary between the intelligentsia and phys-
ical laborers would disappear. The complete effacement of the differences
between mental and manual workers would be a prerequisite for the achieve-
ment of the stage of finished communism.
In the ideology of the Khrushchev period, the elimination of distinctions

between classes and between social strata was seen as the corollary of tech-
nological advancement and economic growth. In each case, a less modernized
class or stratum was to be assimilated to the type of labor and life char-
acteristic of a more modernized class or stratum. Khrushchev placed on the
agenda the task of removing the social disproportions that had been widened
by Stalin's strategy of uneven economic development. The causal linkage
was to proceed from change in the machinery and techniques of production,
through change in relations of production, to change in relations of distri-
bution. Khrushchev retained great faith in the capacity of changes in pro-
ductive technology and property ownership to transform the social character
of peasants and manual workers and to bring decreases in inequality among
classes and social groups. Nevertheless, Khrushchev did not interpret social
differentiation primarily in terms of inequality in incomes and living stan-
dards but, rather, in reference to distinctions between classes in their rela-
tions to the means of production. In interpreting Khrushchev's conception
of a society of "communist equality," an ideological authority bluntly re-
marked in the party's theoretical journal, Kommunist, that "for communists,
equality is not an end in itself,"13 and made it clear that the removal of ine-
quality was a means of achieving social harmony. Equalization was an aspect
of the destruction of divisions that detracted from the unity of the social
community. The establishment of Communist equality would contribute to
the attainment of "harmony between the individual and society based on the
organic combination of personal public interests."14
The emphasis on the goal of social homogeneity in Soviet ideology of the
Khrushchev period stimulated a debate on the future of the division of labor
in Communist society.15 Varied and conflicting opinions were offered by the
authors of articles in Soviet journals. Some theorists argued that the auto-
mation of production would free the worker from specialization in a narrow
task—creating the conditions for the emergence of the worker-engineer
whose knowledge and skills would be broad enough to permit supervision
or repair of many different types of mechanized and automated productive
processes. Stanislav Strumilin offered the thesis that in communism there
would be a division of labor, not among people but among machines.16 Thus,
the more radical position in the early 1960s was that through the generaliza-
tion of technical knowledge and the blending of professions, the division of
labor between occupational specializations would be abolished.
The dominant viewpoint, however, among those who provided the stan-
dard interpretation of Soviet Marxist ideology was that occupational differ-
ences would persist in Communist society. Those sources predicted, not that
the division of labor as such would be abolished but that the old division of
labor would be replaced by a new, Communist division of labor. The prob-
lem was not that of occupational differentiation but of the social division of
labor; the distinction between mental and physical labor was associated with
differences in education, income, and other social characteristics. It was
agreed that the intellectualization of mental labor would make it possible to
combine mental and manual functions in each person's labor. Each worker
would have a high level of education with broad knowledge of science and
technology. With the freeing of each worker from the performance of mo-
notonous, repetitive tasks, each person's labor would combine a wide range
of responsibilities. Further advances in mechanization would shorten the
work day, giving each individual more free time in which a variety of avoca-
tions might be pursued. It might even be true that in Communist society,
each person might work a few hours each day at a job which was creative
and enjoyable and also spend a few hours at another job which was less in-
teresting but indispensable for society. Since each type of work would still
require the accumulation of specialized knowledge, functional specialization
in productive activity would continue but would lose its social significance.
The raising of all people to approximately the same level of education, the
participation by all in a common mode of mental-physical labor, and the
destruction of the connection between labor and economic reward would
deprive occupational differences of social importance. The essential social
distinctions associated with differences in types of labor would be eliminated.
NATIONALITY RELATIONS
During his first several years as head of the Soviet Communist party,
Khrushchev stressed his solicitude for the rights of the non-Russian nation-
alities of the USSR. In his report to the Twentieth Party Congress in 1956,
Khrushchev declared that "in its nationalities policy the Party has proceeded
and continues to proceed from the injunction of the great Lenin that only
enormous attentiveness to the interests of the various nations removes the
ground for conflicts, removes mutual distrust."17 Khrushchev called for en-
larging the economic powers of the union republics of the USSR to give
greater freedom for initiative by local, national cadres. He admonished the
delegates to the Twentieth Congress that "far from erasing national differ-
ences and peculiarities, socialism, on the contrary, assures the all-round
development and flourishing of the economy and culture of all the nations
and peoples. It is our duty, therefore, not to ignore these peculiarities and
differences, but to take most careful account of them in all our practical
work in directing economic and cultural construction."18 The only centraliz-
ing themes in his report to that congress were the relatively mild ones of pur-
suing "still greater unity" and further strengthening the "great friendship" of
the people of the USSR. He suggested that the way to strengthen friendship
among Soviet nations was not by attempting to reduce the differences among
nations but, rather, by respecting that which was distinctive to each nation.
In addition, in his speech to the Twentieth Party Congress on Stalin's mis-
deeds, Khrushchev accused Stalin of "gross violation" of Leninist principles

of nationalities policy in ordering the deportation of several smaller Soviet
nationalities from their places of residence during World War II.
At about the time of the Twentieth Congress, Khrushchev may have been
appealing for support from non-Russian leaders in regional posts in the party
and state organizations. Yaroslav Bilinsky has presented the interpretation
that from 1953 to 1958, Khrushchev "deliberately courted Party officials in
the outlying republics, where he faced less challenge than in Moscow itself."19
During 1956 and 1957, measures of decentralization broadened the authority
of ministries in the union republics of the USSR and seemed to place greater
responsiblity for control of the economy in the hands of regional party lead-
ers. There is also some evidence that the central leadership became more
favorable toward the filling of positions of power in party organizations of
non-Russian republics by members of the local nationalities.
Khrushchev's concessions to the non-Russian nationalities were part of
his efforts to promote mutual trust among major groups in Soviet society.
A limited strengthening of the rights of the union republics was meant to
contribute to voluntary rapprochement among Soviet nationalities. Appar-
ently, Khrushchev's hopes in that regard were disappointed as he encountered
increasing pressure from regional elites in defense of the interests of their
own nationalities. The experience of decentralization through regional eco-
nomic councils, for instance, led to the revelation by the central press of ten-
dencies toward "localism," or excessive preoccupation with the interests of
one's own region in economic administration. It also might be supposed
that as Khrushchev triumphed over his principal rivals and consolidated his
position in the central leadership, he felt less dependent on support from the
regional party elite, Russian or non-Russian. At any rate, there can be no
doubt that the Khrushchev leadership's stance on nationality relations shifted
markedly during the late 1950s.
The turning point in the ideological analysis of nationality relations was
signaled by an article in Kommunist in 1958 by B. Gafurov,20 which argued
that the movement of Soviet society into a period of transition would bring
changes in relations among nationalities. "In connection with the transition
from socialism to communism, the question of the further coming closer
together of socialist nations in the USSR, and also the problem of the future
merging of nations and the forming of a single language, cannot fail to interest
us."21 The party had long claimed that theflourishing(rastsvet) of each social-
ist nation in the USSR—the development of the economy and culture of each
was paired with the coming closer together (sblizhenie) of nations. Gafurov
stressed the importance of sblizhenie while according little attention to rast-
svet, but what was startling in his essay was the discussion of the prospect of
fusion or merging (sliianie) of nations. There had never been any doubt that
Lenin had foreseen the eventual disappearance of distinctions between nations
and that such a result was considered by the party to be the ultimate solu-
tion to problems of nationality relations. Yet faced with the necessity of

governing a multinational state, Soviet leaders scarcely mentioned the aim
of fusion of nationalities from the early 1920s until the late 1950s. Gafurov
conceded that the merging of nations was "an enormously complex and
lengthy process" and that national distinctions would continue to exist for a
long time even under communism; however, he added, "it can hardly be
doubted that in the higher stages of communist society the disappearance of
national differences and the fusion of nations are inevitable."22
At the Twenty-first Party Congress in 1959, the leadership's treatment of
nationality questions was still cautious. Khrushchev's major address to the
congress largely avoided the subject of nationality relations. Khrushchev
did, however, attack sectionalist views of economic development and did
advocate concentrating supervision of the economy at a higher level. N. A.
Mukhitdinov, who seemed to serve as the spokesman for the leadership on
nationality politics at the Twenty-first Congress, coupled the development of
nations in the USSR with their drawing even closer together. Of great indi-
rect importance for the interpretation of nationality relations was Khrushchev's
announcement that the Soviet Union had entered the stage of the full-scale
construction of communism, since the discussion of the convergence and
merging of social classes raised the question of the dissolving of differences
between nationalities.
The themes of homogenization and centralization were accentuated during
the Twenty-second Party Congress in 1961, which adopted a party program
declaring that the full-scale construction of communism signified a "new
stage in the development of national relations in the USSR." During that
stage, nations would draw still closer together and would achieve "complete
unity."23 It was said by the program that due to growth in the geographical
mobility of the population and in the closeness of contacts among nationali-
ties, "the boundaries between the union republics of the USSR are increas-
ingly losing their former significance."24 The program also asserted that with
the rapprochement of the cultures of nations, an "international culture
common to all the Soviet nations" was developing, and that the further
mutual enrichment and coming closer together of the cultures of the peoples
of the USSR would help to prepare the way for "the formation of a future
single worldwide culture of communist society." The program announced
that the Russian language had become the "common medium of intercourse
and cooperation among all the people of the USSR."25 Finally, that docu-
ment called for "an uncompromising struggle against manifestations and
survivals of any kinds of nationalism and chauvinism, against trends of na-
tional narrow-mindedness and exclusiveness, . . . and against customs and
ways that impede Communist construction."26 The program avoided any
direct mention of the fusion of nations, thus implying that the merging of
nations was not a task to be resolved by Soviet society in the current stage.
However, the document reminded Soviet citizens that the party regarded
national distinctions as transitory, and the program indicated that the elimi-
nation of differences between social classes would be associated with changes
in relations among nationalities.
Soviet ideology of the Khrushchev period showed evidence of a clash be-
tween the integrative, homogenizing demands of the central leadership and
the growing self-assertiveness of the non-Russian nationalities of the USSR.
Over several decades, the policies of the Soviet regime had promoted social
mobilization—industrialization, urbanization, and education—among the
non-Russian peoples and had advanced indigenous elites to positions within
the party and governmental leadership of the non-Russian republics. As a
result, the Soviet Union entered the 1950s with a latent potential for conflict
among nationalities. Teresa Rakowska-Harmstone has reported that issues
of the allocation of economic resources, of competition for promotions,
and of political autonomy for local leadership had merged with "traditional
ethnic antagonisms and the desire to preserve distinct cultural heritages" to
produce a new nationalism within the Soviet system, articulated by non-
Russian, Soviet-trained elites.27
A number of circumstances of the post-Stalin period, such as the absence
of a figure with Stalin's personal authority, the subsiding of the threat of
mass terror, Khrushchev's reliance on non-Russian regional officials for
support, his gestures of concern for the sensitiveness of non-Russian nation-
alities, and the partial loosening of centralization in economic administration
during the mid-1950s, allowed the repressed demands of non-Russian na-
tionalities to come to the surface. Khrushchev's speeches and actions suggested
that he was appalled by the tenacity of national rivalries that was revealed
and that he saw efforts to defend the interests of particular nationalities as
an impediment to his program of the confluence of all groups into an undif-
ferentiated social collective. Khrushchev made no secret of his determination
to overcome nationalistic resistance to homogenization. The party program,
as we have seen, endorsed uncompromising struggle against "national nar-
row-mindedness and exclusiveness." In his speech on the party program during
the Twenty-second Party Congress, Khrushchev admitted that "people are
to be encountered, of course, who complain about the effacement of national
distinctions. Our answer to them is that Communists are not going to freeze
and perpetuate national distinctions. With uncompromising Bolshevik im-
placability we must eradicate even the slightest manifestations of nationalist
survivals."28 The denunciation of resistance to homogenization as a "survi-
val" of bourgeois nationalist consciousness indicated that such resistance was
beyond the limits of legitimacy in the Soviet system.
Soviet writings of the early 1960s implied that there was a shared commit-
ment among the central leadership to a relatively high degree of political
centralization and ideological uniformity within the Soviet Union, as would
have been expected of the national leadership of an authoritarian, single-
party system. Nevertheless, Soviet publications of Khrushchev's last several
years in power disclosed disagreement on a number of questions concerning

the future of nationality relations, which seemed to reflect uncertainty within
the Soviet leadership as to the best means of resolving conflicts among na-
tionalities.29 Different emphases were apparent in the general ideological
treatment of nationality relations by different authors, as indicated by the
degree of recognition granted to the themes of flourishing, coming closer
together, and fusion of nations. Different points of view were also expressed
on more specific questions.
A debate over the future of federalism in the Soviet political system broke
out into the open during the Khrushchev period.30 In the 1920s, at Lenin's
insistence, a federal form had been chosen for the state structure of the
USSR, with each compact national group granted its own regional political
unit—a union republic or lesser subdivision. In the early 1960s, discussion
of the question of the persistence of the federal structure was encouraged by
Khrushchev's announcement that Soviet society had entered the transition
to communism and that by his urging that a new constitution be adopted for
the USSR. Some authors took the position that the preservation of a federal
state was desirable. Those authors advocated the "development and perfec-
tion" of national forms of statehood, implicitly precluding the replacement
of federal institutions by a unitary structure. Others implied that federalism
had already performed the task assigned it by Lenin and had, therefore, be-
come superfluous. National-territorial state divisions would wither away
rapidly during the progression toward the merging of nations. Those authors
opposed the inclusion of a guarantee of the sovereignty of the union repub-
lics in a new constitution.
The official formulation on the question of federalism was a compromise
cast in ambiguous language. Both Khrushchev's major report on the party
program and the program itself spoke of the growing heterogeneity of the
national (ethnic) composition of each of the union republics of the USSR.
The program made the statement, to be repeated in many Soviet ideological
writings, that the boundaries between the union republics were losing their
former significance; but that document offered no more explicit prediction
of the future prospects of federalism. Khrushchev offered the suggestion
that "full advantage" should be taken "of all the potentialities inherent in
the Soviet principles of federation and autonomy,"31 and he immediately
added that there was a need to set up "several interrepublic zonal agencies" to
coordinate the economic development of union republics. Khrushchev appar-
ently foresaw the organization of new party bureaus and economic councils,
each of which would supervise activity in several union republics. Perhaps
each of those intermediate bodies would later take on the character of a state
structure, replacing the authority of the republics under it. Khrushchev made
it clear that he regarded the status of federalism in the Soviet system as
transitional.
Khrushchev also argued that in the course of their development, the cul-
tures of the nations of the USSR were drawing close together as ideological
indoctrination and the interaction between cultures intensified their common
features. The party had traditionally been willing to allow cultural expression
by people of each nationality that was "national in form, socialist in content."
For instance, literary works could be produced in different languages, mak-
ing use of somewhat different national styles, as long as those works com-
municated identical ideological themes. However, some Soviet sources of
the Khrushchev period treated "national in form, socialist in content" as a
transitional formulation to be replaced in the future with the elimination of
national differences in the forms of socialist cultures. Those sources con-
tended that the cultures of the nations of the USSR already were drawing
closer together in form as well as in content,32 in consistency with the party
program's assertion that national forms of culture were not hardening but,
rather, were changing, improving, and growing closer together.33
Ideological declarations on language policy also embodied a compromise
but also were weighted in favor of homogenization. The party pledged to
protect the "free development" of the languages of the USSR and the free-
dom of each citizen to speak and to rear children in any chosen language. On
the other hand, the party program spoke favorably of the "voluntary study"
of Russian by members of non-Russian nationalities. Under Khrushchev,
there were frequent references to Russian as the "second native tongue" of
the peoples of the USSR, and that language was said to be the common
medium of communication among the peoples of the USSR. Some com-
mentators viewed the choice of Russian as the primary native language by
individuals from non-Russian nationalities as a positive phenomenon.34
Though the party program conceded that the effacement of differences
among languages would take considerably longer than the elimination of
distinctions between classes, it was apparent that trends which were already
proceeding were considered to have begun to erase language differences.35
The most distinctive element in works on nationality relations during the
Khrushchev years was the open discussion of the prospect of the fusion or
merging of nations. Fusion would mean the withering away of all features
which distinguished one nation from others and the replacement of various
national languages by one common language. The party program did not
use the word "fusion" (sliianie) at all and only made a brief reference to the
"formation of a single worldwide culture of communist society."36 Khrushchev
mentioned fusion in his major speech on the program only to caution that
even after communism had been built in the main, it would be "premature
to pronounce the fusion of nations."37 The consensus was that the merging
of nations would take place on the scale of the entire world some time after
the global victory of socialism. That consensus rejected any notion of the
merging of Soviet nationalities into one Soviet nation and implied that the
fusion of all the nations in the world would take place only in the remote
future. Yet Khrushchev clearly regarded the stage of full-scale construction
as a stage of preparation of the prerequisites for fusion. Moreover, explicit
emphasis on the fusion of nations as an ultimate goal placed national differ-
ences in a category similar to that of class distinctions. Discussion of fusion
served as a reminder that differences among nations in Soviet society were
not fully legitimate, were tolerated only out of necessity, and were regarded
as transitory.
Soviet ideology under Khrushchev did not place primary emphasis on the
distinctive characteristics of various nationalities but, rather, on those traits
shared by all Soviet nationalities. At the Twenty-second Party Congress,
Khrushchev claimed that as a result of the solution of the problem of rela-
tions between nations in the USSR, there had formed "in the Soviet Union a
new historical community of people who are of different nationalities but
have characteristic features in common—the Soviet people[sovetskii narod]"
The term "Soviet people" had been used often in the Soviet Union since the
Stalin years. Khrushchev's words implied that a particular significance was
to be attributed to the term which had not been attached to it before, but he
refrained from calling the Soviet community a "nation" (natsiia), which
would have suggested that all Soviet nations had already been blended into on
The forming of a single Soviet nation had never been a stated goal of the
Soviet regime, but Khrushchev implied that the Soviet people had acquired
many of the traits of a nation. He enumerated a series of features said to be
shared by the Soviet people: a common homeland, economic base, social-
class structure, Marxist-Leninist world view, goal (the building of commu-
nism), "and many common traits in their spiritual makeup, in their psychol-
ogy." The features said by Khrushchev to be common to the Soviet people
were strikingly similar to some of the characteristics said by Soviet sources
to be essential for the existence of a nation. In accordance with an essay
written by Stalin in 1913, Soviet ideology beginning in the 1930s defined a
nation as a community of people with a common language, territory, eco-
nomic life, and psychological makeup and culture.39 Khrushchev had attrib-
uted all those characteristics to the Soviet people except a common language,
and he had described Russian as an increasingly common medium of com-
munication among all Soviet nations.
After Khrushchev's speech to the Twenty-second Congress, a number of
articles in Soviet journals imitated his reference to the Soviet people as a
"new historical community." Yet the significance of the new term remained
ambiguous, since it was used both by the most vigorous advocates of central-
ization and homogenization and by those who defended the maintenance of
a degree of national cultural diversity. Did the new historical community
provide a focus for common loyalties that would increasingly replace identi-
fication with particular nationalities, as something closely resembling the
merging of nationalities took place within the USSR during the transition to
communism? Or did the introduction of the concept of the new historical
community constitute reassurance that the party would not seek a merging
of peoples into a single Soviet nation but would allow the preservation of
two sets of loyalties for each Soviet citizen, both to a particular nationality
and to the single Soviet people? Such issues were not resolved during the
Khrushchev years. The concept of the new historical community did not ap-
pear in the party program nor was it explored in Khrushchev's speeches after
the Twenty-second Party Congress. The party's leadership seemed undecided
on the interpretation to be given to the concept.
MOLDING THE NEW PERSON

It is clear that the achievement of communism would be impossible with-
out fundamental change in the values and conduct of members of society. A
system that abandons police and courts as means of controlling people's be-
havior and does so without economic rewards as means of motivating their
labor presumes the existence of people who are radically different from most
of those now found in any society. The program, which promised the reali-
zation of communism in the USSR within twenty years, focused considerable
attention on the task of molding the new person of Communist society. Along
with the transformation of the productive base and relations of production,
the transformation of consciousness was seen as a prerequisite for reaching
the higher phase, that is, communism. It was implied by the party program
that the behavior of Soviet citizens, although superior to that of the inhabi-
tants of capitalist nations, still had not been perfected to the degree essential
for the stateless society.
The reshaping of the consciousness of members of Soviet society would
eradicate survivals of capitalism from their outlook. Among the most serious
survivals of the past were said to be parasitism, dishonesty, careerism, and
money grubbing, all of which were considered to be manifestations of the
tenacity of bourgeois selfishness and individualism in people's minds. The
persistence of such tendencies in Soviet society more than forty years after
the Bolshevik Revolution was explained with reference to objective and sub-
jective conditions. One of the objective conditions behind the existence of
survivals of capitalism was the phenomenon of psychological lag. It was re-
garded as axiomatic that changes in beliefs and values tended to lag behind
changes in social conditions. Therefore, in Soviet society of the early 1960s,
as in any society, the thinking of many people would include elements that
were not grounded in contemporary economic and social reality but that re-
flected the influence of social conditions that had passed away some time
before. The problem of psychological lag would be solved almost automati-
cally as consciousness adjusted itself to the conditions already established in
socialist society. As generations of people born under the old order were re-
placed by younger generations raised in Soviet socialist society, the psycho-
logical lag would be overcome.
A second objective factor behind survivals of capitalism in people's
thought was said to be the incompleteness of satisfaction of the material
needs of the Soviet people. In the stage of socialism, the level of production
still fell short of meeting the growing demands of the population, resulting
in scarcities that encouraged the perpetuation of selfish impulses in the
minds of citizens. The gap between the achieved level of production and the
demands of consumers was being closed with the development of the ma-
terial-technical base of communism. The realization of the new person would
be conditioned primarily by the growth of productive forces and transfor-
mation of productive relations. "The molding of the new person," Khrushchev
noted, was to be influenced not only by the "educational work" of political
and social organizations "but by the entire pattern of society's life."40 Soviet
ideology under Khrushchev attached particular importance to productive
labor as a force shaping attitudes, emphasizing that "the basis of communis
education, of the all-round development of the individual, is creative la
Khrushchev introduced changes in the structure of Soviet education designed
to blend secondary education with productive labor and to open higher edu-
cation only to those with experience in full-time work. Participation in
building Communist society was to foster the development of Communist
consciousness, which, in turn, was to stimulate the more rapid construction
of communism. Work in the building of communism was valued not only
for adding to the material wealth of society but also for teaching workers
the necessity of productive and cooperative endeavor.42
A third objective reason for the survival of remnants of bourgeois ideology
in Soviet society was said to be the existence of a hostile capitalist world, at-
tempting by many means to exert influence on the people in the USSR.
Western popular culture, transmitted through films, music, television, and
literature, was feared as a source of ideological contamination, particularly
of Soviet youth. Visits to the Soviet Union by people from capitalist coun-
tries and visits to capitalist societies by Soviet citizens were bound to expose
the inhabitants of socialist society to some alien ideas. In addition, major
capitalist states financed deliberate efforts to revive bourgeois ideology
among the Soviet people, mainly through the operation of radio stations
broadcasting to the USSR. To combat the subversive influence of propa-
ganda from the capitalist world, Soviet leaders called for vigilance and de-
termined struggle against bourgeois ideology.
Finally, the "subjective" condition helping to perpetuate survivals of
bourgeois thinking among Soviet people consisted of errors and shortcom-
ings in the conduct of ideological indoctrination by party, state, and social
organizations in the USSR. Pro forma activity, repetitiveness, and frequent
neglect of ideological education were cited as producing apathy and cynicism
among the citizens who were the subjects of indoctrination. The Communist
Youth League and other agencies were exhorted to intensify their work of
moral and ideological education fvospitanie). Khrushchev's chief prescrip-
tion for increasing the effectiveness of official organizations' influence on
Soviet citizens was the enlistment of support from the public (obshchestven-
nosf). Khrushchev insisted at the Twenty-second Party Congress that "the
public must be asked to pay more attention to people's conduct and be more
exacting with regard to it. The moral weight and authority of public opinion
must be brought to bear more vigorously in dealing with those who trespass
against the norms and rules of socialist community life."43
Beginning in the 1930s, Soviet thought had placed great stress on the im-
portance of the collective, or peer group, in shaping the outlook and behavior
of its members. Khrushchev encouraged increasing reliance on comrades'
courts and peoples' detachments in dealing with minor, yet common, devia-
tions from socialist principles of conduct, such as loafing, drinking on the
job, rowdiness in public, and damaging public property. One of the reasons
for Khrushchev's general emphasis on informal public participation in polit-
ical and social administration was his hope of arousing the force of an active
public conscience. Soviet ideologists of the Khrushchev period did not believe
that the reshaping of the individual would come about automatically, solely
as the result of changes in economic and social circumstances. The reshaping
of consciousness would require not only the development of productive
forces and productive relations but also the active, conscious, and organized
indoctrination of Soviet citizens. During the late 1950s and early 1960s, ex-
plicit discussion of the ethics of Communist society and the inculcation of
Communist morality became prominent in Soviet publications for the first
time.44 A precondition for the growth in attention to ethics may well have
been Stalin's introduction into Soviet thought of the thesis of the active role
of the superstructure in the development of society, which remained an ac-
cepted part of Soviet ideology after Stalin's death. Khrushchev's expression
of belief in an emerging socialist consensus in Soviet society also stimulated
interest in popular morality by suggesting that moral incentives would in-
creasingly take the place of coercive means of control. The transition to
communism would mean that legal norms, backed by the authority of the
state, would be transformed into ethical commands, upheld by the individ-
ual's conscience and by social pressure.
For a few years after 1961, the main focus of the burgeoning Soviet writ-
ings on moral philosophy was the "moral code of the builder of communism"
in the party program. According to the program:
The party holds that the moral code of the builder of communism includes su
principles as:
• devotion to the cause of communism, love of the socialist homeland, and the social-
ist countries;
• conscientious labor for the good of society: He who does not work, neither shall
he eat;
• concern on the part of each for the preservation and growth of public wealth;
• a high sense of public duty, intolerance of violations of the public interest;
• collectivism and comradely mutual assistance: One for all and all for one;
• humane relations and mutual respect among people: Man is to man a friend, com-
rade, and brother;
• honesty and truthfulness, moral purity, guilelessness and modesty in public and
private life;
• mutual respect in the family and concern for the upbringing of children;
• an uncompromising attitude to injustice, parasitism, dishonesty, careerism, and
money-grubbing;
• friendship and brotherhood of all peoples of the U.S.S.R., intolerance of national
and racial animosity;
• an uncompromising attitude toward the enemies of communism, peace and the
freedom of peoples;
• fraternal solidarity with the working people of all countries and with all peoples.45
The moral code of the builder of communism identified the principles of

conduct to be expected in the 1960s and 1970s of the most active and leading
participants in the construction of the new society and those to be demanded
subsequently of virtually all members of the Communist social order. There
was nothing particularly new to Soviet thought in the content of those prin-
ciples. One of the central values traditional to Soviet ideology and articulated
in the new moral code was collectivism. The spirit of collectivism supposedly
found in Soviet society and expressed in the comradely mutual assistance
among members of that society was said by Soviet sources to be the antithesis
of the individualism and selfishness allegedly prevailing in capitalist societies.
In addition, for Marxist-Leninists, collectivism included the idea that the
conscience of the individual should be guided by and subordinated to the
norms of the group to which that individual belonged.46 Group thinking
and conformism were traditionally seen in Soviet ideology as positive fea-
tures, as long as the consensus of each group was consistent with the teach-
ings of the party.
Another attribute of particular importance in the moral code was a Com-
munist attitude toward labor. In fact, Soviet ideologists of the Khrushchev
years made it clear that the willingness to labor productively was the crux of
Communist moral consciousness. The program declared, "The Party places
the development of a communist attitude toward labor in all members of
society at the center of its upbringing work."47 A leading ideological theorist
wrote that a "main, determining feature of the growing communist con-
sciousness of the masses is the attitude toward labor as the first vital necessity,
toward social property as the foundation of foundations of the communist
order."48 The emphasis on socializing the individual to productive labor was
drawn from Soviet tradition, which was influenced by Marx's view of labor
as the definitive and formative human experience and by the drive for rapid
industrialization in the USSR. The inculcation of a dedication to labor took
on an enhanced significance in Khrushchev's time, since the approach of
communism implied not only that Soviet citizens would have to work more
productively to create a base for affluence but also that those citizens should
learn to labor willingly without the promise of specific material rewards for
their work.
THE STATE AND PARTY OF THE ENTIRE PEOPLE

In 1961, the party program announced that the Soviet state had entered a
new period of development. The dictatorship of the proletariat, having ac-
complished its historical mission, had ceased to be necessary for the internal
development of the USSR so that the socialist state had become a "state of
the entire people" or "all-people's state" fobshchenarodnoe gosudarstvo)
The original goal of the dictatorship of the proletariat had been the building
of socialism. During the transition to socialism, the dictatorship of the work-
ing class had been necessary in order to suppress resistance by the exploiting
classes, but with the realization of socialism, the exploiting classes had been
liquidated. Soviet sources of the early 1960s contended that the dictatorship
of the proletariat had begun to develop into a state of the entire people after
the achievement of socialism in the USSR in 1936 but that certain factors
had hindered progress toward the all-people's state. Stalin's "cult of the per-
sonality"—the adulation of the individual leader and the lack of limitations
on his power—had distorted the activity of the state. Also, the Soviet Union
had found itself in a perilous international setting in the 1930s, encircled
completely by capitalist powers and facing the growing danger of a new
world war. Inside the country there had not been time to consolidate socialist
social changes or to create an advanced economic base.49 Ideological author-
ities of the Khrushchev period asserted that only when Soviet society had
entered the period of full-scale construction of communism had the Soviet
state become a state of the entire people.
The concept of the state of the entire people carried a number of distinc-
tive connotations in Soviet works of the late Khrushchev years, including
the notion of the widening of the social base of the state. As we have seen,
Khrushchev argued not only that the former exploiting classes had been
eliminated but also that a consensus of attitudes and values had been achieved
in Soviet society. In Khrushchev's view, no major groups within the society
were hostile to the existence of the regime. After several decades of socialist
construction, and with the consolidation of the collective farm system and
party control in the countryside, a bond had been forged between the state
and the people. "Every worker, every peasant, every member of the intelli-
gentsia can say, 'we are the state, its policy is our policy, and the task of
developing and strengthening it and of defending it against any and all en-
croachment is our common task.'"50 Khrushchev advanced the claim that

the base of support for the state had broadened to include all classes and
groups in Soviet society.
Interpreters of the concept of the state of the entire people contended
that, as the socialist consensus was strengthened and the state became more
secure, the necessity for the exercise of compulsion over the population di-
minished. Soviet ideologists still agreed that the state would grow stronger
during the preparation of the prerequisites for a Communist society, but
they gave a markedly different interpretation to the strengthening of the
state than that offered earlier by Stalin. Soviet Marxist-Leninist theorists of
the Khrushchev period criticized Stalin for equating the strengthening of the
state with the strengthening of its organs of compulsion and repression. In
Soviet ideology under Khrushchev, the strengthening of the state meant
broadening the base of support for the state and developing closer ties be-
tween political institutions and the citizens. Already in 1956, Khrushchev
had repudiated Stalin's thesis of the sharpening of class struggle with further
advances of socialism, condemning that thesis as a transparent rationale for
the unleashing of the security police for a campaign of terror. In the early
1960s, Soviet sources charged that Stalin's words on the strengthening of the
socialist state had served the same purpose and that Stalin's method of rule
had relied heavily on terror and compulsion when the objective necessity for
such means was decreasing. Khrushchev assumed that at a higher level of
socialism, the use of coercion to control the behavior of the population
could be increasingly replaced by ideological appeals and material incentives.
The sphere of compulsion in the activity of the Soviet state was said to be
narrowing, while the sphere of persuasion was said to be widening.51
Stalin had treated the strengthening of the socialist state and its withering
away as separated in time, coming in sequence. Withering away would begin
only after the state had reached its maximum strength and the material pre-
requisites for communism had been fully satisfied. Khrushchev viewed the
further development of the socialist state and the progressive withering away
of the state as proceeding simultaneously and depicted the all-people's state
as a stage in which the process of withering was already under way, with the
transformation of socialist statehood into Communist social self-govern-
ment. Though the transition to social self-administration was a central theme
of Khrushchev's speeches and the new party program, however, there was
considerable debate as to how that goal might best be attained.
In 1958 and 1959, Khrushchev's initial discussions of the transition to social
self-government placed primary stress on the transfer of functions from the
state to social organizations. At the Thirteenth Congress of the Communist
Youth League of the Soviet Union in 1958, Khrushchev called for more in-
dependent activity from social organizations, suggesting that in Communist
society, public organizations would be the instruments of social self-regula-
tion.52 At the Twenty-first Congress of the Soviet Communist party in 1959,
Khrushchev characterized the transition to social self-government almost

exclusively in terms of the passing of functions from government agencies
to public organizations. He noted that the government agency that had been
in charge of sports was being replaced by a nongovernmental organization,
the Federation of Public Sports Societies; and he argued that responsibilities
for cultural services, health services, and the protection of public order could
be taken over or shared by public organizations. Khrushchev envisioned
both the transfer of state functions to existing social organizations, such as
trade unions, the Communist Youth League (Komsomol), and voluntary
associations, and the creation of new forms of public organizations, such as
comrades' courts and public militia detachments.53
Evidently, however, Khrushchev's emphasis on the devolution of respon-
sibility for the performance of many services from the state to social organi-
zations encountered opposition. It has been demonstrated that the theme of
transfer of functions received distinctly less emphasis by the early 1960s.54
The new party program and Khrushchev's speech on the program at the
Twenty-second Party Congress in 1961 described the role of public organi-
zations in modest terms, although the party program did promise that the
role of public organizations would increase during the full-scale construction
of communism. The transfer of functions from state to public organizations
was still endorsed by many Soviet writers and in authoritative interpretations
of Soviet ideology. What had changed in discussions of the growth of social
self-administration? The leadership had abandoned the assumption, implicit
in Khrushchev's remarks of the late 1950s, that social organizations had the
potential to become forums of independent popular initiative, while the state
embodied the activity of an administrative apparatus standing above the
people. In Soviet ideology of the early 1960s, the assumption of more func-
tions by social organizations was seen as only one of two processes in the
evolution of public administration.
The party program heightened emphasis on the other process —that of in-
creasing popular participation in governmental organizations. That trend
was depicted as the expansion of socialist democracy within the state itself.
A variety of organizational means of popular participation, many of a
decidely experimental character, proliferated as a result of Khrushchev's en-
couragement. Much of the expansion of participation was to be achieved
through the enhancement of the role of the Soviets, the elected legislative
councils found on all levels in the USSR from the village or urban district to
the central government. At the Twenty-second Party Congress, Khrushchev
called for the transformation of the Soviets into organs of public self-gov-
ernment.55 Those who expanded that theme advocated the strengthening of
the accountability of administrative organs to the Soviets, but the main thrust
of the argument for broadening the role of the Soviets favored the direct in-
volvement of those elected councils in the business of administration.
The standing committees of Soviets and a number of newly created coun-
cils and committees attached to the Soviets were to provide close supervision
of departments in the executive branch of government. Advisory committees
of elected representatives and social activists were to be upgraded from con-
sultative to decision-making bodies. Eventually, the standing committees of
the Soviets would take over responsibility for many of the tasks of adminis-
tration.56 Khrushchev contemplated the evolution of the Soviets into "fork-
ing corporations,' engaged in the practical work of directing economic and
social processes."57 Several other means of popular participation in the af-
fairs of administration also were introduced in the Khrushchev period,
including production conferences, committees for public inspection, inspec-
torates of people's control, and factory union committees.58 Even the party
apparatus was not immune from Khrushchev's populist experimentation;
there were efforts to reduce the number of salaried party functionaries and
to recruit more nonsalaried party members into staff work.59 Khrushchev,
with his distrust of career bureaucrats, sought to enlist the energy of social
activists or citizen volunteers (obshchestvenniki) and decrease reliance o
professional party officials and state administrators (apparatchiki).60
The meaning of the withering away of the state was understood in relation
to two types of functions of the state. The function seen by Soviet Marxists
most distinctively and inherently as that of the state was the exercise of com
pulsion. In Communist society, as the necessity for compulsion disappeared,
the state organs of compulsion, such as the armed forces, courts, police,
and prisons, would wither away.61 The state in socialist society also per-
formed functions other than the exercise of coercion, however, including
economic management and cultural development; and the performance of
those functions would still remain necessary under communism. State agen-
cies providing guidance and assistance for economic and cultural develop-
ment would not simply wither away but would be transformed into organs
of public self-government. Some of the functions of state administration
would be transferred to social organizations; however, by 1961, primary
emphasis was placed on adapting state agencies themselves to the tasks of
social self-administration. The party program said that "public functions
similar to the present state functions of economic and cultural management
will be preserved under communism. But the character of the functions and
the ways in which they are carried out will be different than under socialism
The agencies for planning, accounting, economic management, and cultural
development, now state bodies, will lose their political character and will
become agencies of public self-government."62
While Khrushchev believed that the withering away of the state had alread
begun, he gave no specific timetable for the completion of the process. It
was clear that the state would not be replaced by the time of Soviet society's
entrance into the phase of communism, although the growth of social self-
administration was to be accelerated in the higher phase. The party program
said that the conditions necessary for the complete withering away of the
state were the building of a "developed communist society" and "the victory
and consolidation of socialism in the international arena."63 The first condi-
tion referred to the attaining of the second and more advanced stage within
the Communist phase, a stage described by other sources as "finished" com-
munism. The withering away of the state would be associated with such
trends in the completion of Communist construction as the transition to dis-
tribution according to need and the elimination of social distinctions between
mental and manual labor. The second condition, of the international victory
and consolidation of socialism, would have to be satisfied in order for the
Soviet state to be relieved of the necessity of providing for national defense.
The role of state administration was to narrow during the construction of
communism, but the role of the Communist party was to expand. As the
Soviet state was said to have become a state of the entire people, the Com-
munist party was said to have become a party of the entire people. The party
had become the vanguard of the whole Soviet people, expressing the interests
of all strata and groups of the population, with its ideology accepted by all
groups in society. According to the party program, the period of the full-
scale construction of communism was characterized by "a further rise in the
role and importance of the Communist Party as the leading and guiding
force of Soviet society."64 Sources of the Khrushchev period cited three main
reasons for the heightening of the significance of party guidance and direc-
tion.65 In the first place, it was a fundamental assumption of Soviet ideology
that as social life evolved into higher forms, the degree of conscious guidance
of social development grew. The function of conscious guidance, or planning
direction of social life through the application of theoretical principles, be-
longed to the party. In the higher stage of socialism in which Soviet society
supposedly found itself by 1959, the growth of economic abundance, the
greater penetration of society by organizations sponsored by the party, and
the emergence of a consensus in favor of socialism were seen as making
society more amenable to guidance by the party than in the early years of
Soviet power.
The second reason for the growing need for guidance by the Communist
party was that the transformation of socialist statehood into Communist
public self-government meant a gradual decrease in dependence on compul-
sion and an increase in the use of persuasion in regulating social relation-
ships. The narrowing of the sphere of compulsion spelled a decline of the
role of the state, while the growth in the need for voluntary compliance re-
quired greater reliance on the persuasive and educational influence of the
party. Third, the enhancement of the authority of social organizations and
local Soviets would invite an excessive emphasis on local and departmental
interests unless all the organizations of mass participation were coordinated
by the unifying force of the party. In Khrushchev's view, popular participa-
tion constituted an antidote to bureaucracy but not a replacement for lead-
ership. Social organizations and elected Soviets would be channels for genuine
popular initiative guided by the party's leaders. As George Breslauer has

noted, Khrushchev "envisaged a society in which the masses would contrib-
ute actively, enthusiastically, and voluntarily to the pursuit of centrally-
prescribed goals."66
In a society from which class struggle had largely disappeared, the mission
of the party had become leadership in the struggle between the old and the
new. Awareness of the conflict between the old and the new ways of life in
socialist society had been present in Stalin's speeches of the 1930s; but for
Stalin, the old consisted of the remnants of the previous, pre-socialist order,
while the new represented the features of the young, socialist system. Thus,
the clash of old and new social patterns was intimately connected with the
struggle between exploiting and laboring classes. The consolidation of social-
ism required the annihilation of the social forces left over from the old soci-
ety. What was novel in Khrushchev's thought was the notion that, while the
struggle between pre-socialist survivals and socialist norms still went on, a
different struggle had also begun—that between old and new forms of work
within socialism itself. The old forms arising from socialist development
were the habits surviving from the Stalinist past, the vestiges of an earlier
stage of socialist development. Those outdated habits included conservative
modes of thinking, heavy reliance on coercion, "bureaucratic" methods of
execution of policy, and an imperious and distrustful attitude toward the
Soviet people.
Though such failings were said to be the consequences of the "cult of the
personality," or Stalin's irrationality and egomania, it was implicitly ack-
nowledged that many of the old habits had been formed under the pressure
of economic want, internal social divisions, and international insecurity. But
now, with Stalin gone and conditions changed, the old patterns were out-
moded. One of the main tasks of the party was to purge the old, Stalinist
habits from the Soviet system. To become suited for the performance of that
task, the party itself must be subjected to a thorough renewal. Khrushchev
attacked bureaucratic rigidification within the party by means of experi-
ments in organizational restructuring, pressure for the replacement of older
officials in posts in the party hierarchy, and efforts to increase participation
by activist nonprofessionals in the work of the party organization. Khrushchev
demanded that the party adapt itself to the role of stimulating activism and
innovation, particularly in economic work.
During the full-scale construction of communism, while the state began
to wither away, the role of the party assumed heightened importance. Under
Khrushchev, Soviet ideologists explicitly admitted that the Communist party
would survive in Communist society for some time after the state had disap-
peared. There would be a period in which the exercise of compulsion as a
means of directing behavior had become unnecessary but in which the direc-
tion of agencies of social self-government by the party would still be required.
The discussion of the timing of various changes during the full realization
of the characteristics of communism seemed to serve as a means of indicating

the relative degrees of importance of problems that were to be solved and of
ranking institutions in Soviet society in the order of their legitimacy. Soviet
ideology of the Khrushchev period accorded greater legitimacy to the party
and less to the state bureaucracy. The role of leadership or guidance of soci-
ety, played by the party, was to acquire additional importance; but the task
of administration, as carried out by the state bureaucracy, was to become
more and more superfluous.
COMMUNISM
Khrushchev's insistence that Communist society would be highly organized
and coordinated was reflected in the 1961 party program.
Communism is a highly organized society of free, socially conscious working people

in which public self-government will be established. . . . The planned organization
of the whole of the public economy reaches the highest stage. . . . Communist pro-
duction demands high organization, precision and discipline. . . . Communism rep-
resents the highest form of organization of the life of society. All production units,
all self-governing associations will be harmoniously linked by a common planned
economy and a single rhythm of social labor.67
Khrushchev argued that the necessity of the planning and coordination of

people's activity flowed from the requirement of insuring the smooth, consis-
tent operation of all the components of a highly developed economic system.
Punctuality and discipline of labor would be dictated by the requirements of
mechanized production; the schedule of work would have to conform to the
rhythm of operation of the machine.68 The planning and supervision of the
relations among a multitude of units of production and distribution would
demand centralized organization embracing the entire economy.69
It was clear that communism would involve centralized economic planning
and some means of implementing or administering plans; however, in discus-
sions during the Khrushchev years, there was no clear consensus on the details
of organization of Communist society. Sketchy suggestions were offered by
several authors, most of whom considered it likely that, in communism, the
Soviets, unions, cooperatives, and other social bodies would at some point
merge, forming a single unified system of social self-government. For some
time, the party would provide direction for the organization of social self-
administration. When the level of consciousness of all members of society
had been raised to that of members of the party, the need for the party would
disappear; and it would merge with the organs of public self-government
into one, all-embracing organization of society. The party would have ful-
filled its historic mission and would have been absorbed into society. The
resulting pattern of social self-government would include representative
bodies whose members were elected by the people. There would probably be
frequent rotation of those in elective offices, for all citizens would, in turn,
participate in administration. Yet there were a number of hints that some
citizens might retain positions of leadership on a regular basis. A revealing
comment was that of an author who said that the replacement for the party
in communism would have the character, not of a political party but of a
learned society.70 There might be a special group of people whose expertise
would enable them to offer valuable advice to society's organs of self-
government.
In the view of Soviet ideological theorists of the early 1960s, decision mak-
ing would take place in Communist society, since the making of decisions is
an essential part of the framing of economic and social plans. Also, there
would be an organization which would enforce plans once they were adopted
Thus, in some sense, there would still be leadership and compliance with the
direction provided by leaders. One author even went so far as to say that
authority and power would continue to exist in communism but that they
would have lost their political character.71 In the traditional point of view
of Soviet Marxists, authority had a political character when it was associated
with the exercise of compulsion. Authority would cease to be political when
it was no longer based on compulsion. In Communist society, compliance
with binding decisions would be voluntary, since the individual would feel
an inner need to implement the directives of decision-making bodies. The
pressure from the social group would reinforce its members' tendency to
fulfill their obligations under plans of economic and social development.
Cooperation with authority would be so thoroughly instilled in all citizens
that they would impulsively accept as their own desire the wishes of the social
collective articulated by its leadership. Communism would represent the
complete and consistent subordination of spontaneous social interests to
conscious control.
What would make it possible to obtain compliance with authoritative de-
cisions without the use of compulsion? One condition of voluntary compli-
ance would be the intensive indoctrination of all members of society to accept
some common rules of decision making. Each person would have learned to
accept a decision based on technical expertise, arrived at by a majority vote,
or reflecting some other proper principle. If the recognized rules of decision
making were followed, all citizens would accept the resulting decisions as
legitimate. But Soviet theorists never argued that consensus on the procedures
of decision making would be sufficient for the withering away of compulsion.
Agreement with the results of decision making could not be purely voluntary
if decisons conflicted with the values of major social groups.
The consensus of communism would reflect a harmony of interests among
individuals, social groups, and the whole society. It was assumed that politics
involved the resolution of the conflicting demands of classes and groups
and that, with the elimination of essential distinctions between classes and
strata, all groups would merge into a monolithic, solitary social collective.
According to traditional Soviet Marxism, the fundamental causes of social
conflicts were the economic divisions that separated people from each other.
Such divisions were not seen as eternal but, rather, as grounded in the eco-
nomic conditions of successive stages of development. When those conditions
were changed with the transition to a higher phase of development, the bar-
riers between people would fall. Basic conflicts among social interests would
disappear, and all groups would share the same values.
In Communist society, decision making would consist of discovering so-
lutions to technical problems. The task of the decision makers would be to
apply their technical skills and knowledge in the analysis of pertinent infor-
mation and the selection of optimal policies. The making of decisions would
not require the resolution of basic conflicts of values, since no such conflicts
would exist in a homogeneous society. The function of leadership in com-
munism would be to find the most efficient means of implementing the goals
embodied in the consensus of the community. There would be decision
making without politics in communism, while authority would have a tech-
nical rather than a political character.
NOTES
1. V. Simenov, "Na puti k besklassovomy obshchestvu," Kommunist, 1962, no.
1:45.
2. G. E. Glezerman, "Ot klassovoi differentsiatsii k sotsial'noi odnorodnosti,"
Voprosy filosofii, 1963, no. 2: 39.
3. V. Platkovskii, "Formirovanie kommunisticheskikh obshchestvennykh
otnoshenii," Kommunist,1962, no. 5: 29.
Union," Report to the Twenty-second Congress of the Communist Party Union,
October 1961, in Current Soviet Policies IV, ed. Charlotte Saikowski and Leo Gruliow
(New York: Columbia University Press, 1962), 88.
5. Glezerman, "Ot Klassovoi," 39, 41.
6. P. N. Fedoseev et al., O zakonomernostiakh vozniknoveniia i razvitiia sotsial-
isticheskogo obshchestva (Moscow: Nauka, 1960), 49.
7. Khrushchev was more specific on that point than was the party program.
Compare Khrushchev, "On the Program," 89, with "The Program of the Communist
Party of the Soviet Union," in Current Soviet Policies IV, ed. Charlotte Saikowski
8. G. E. Glezerman, "Perekhod ot sotsializma k kommunizmu i stiranie klass-
ovykh granei," in Ot sotsializma k kommunizmu, ed. P. N. Fedoseev et al. (Moscow:
Nauka, 1962), 241.
9. Nikita Khrushchev, "On Control Figures for Development of the USSR Na-
tional Economy in 1959-1965," Report to the Twenty-first Congress of the Commu-
nist Party of the Soviet Union, January 1959, in Current Soviet Policies III, ed. Leo
Gruliow (New York: Columbia University Press, 1960), 66.
10. L. M. Gatovskii, "Ob ekonomicheskikh osnovakh perekhoda k kommunizmu,"

in Ot sotsializma k kommunizmu,ed. P. N. Fedoseev et al. (Moscow: Nauka, 1962),
53.
12. "The Program of the Communist Party," 20.
13. P. Mstislavskii, "Kommunizm i ravenstvo," Kommunist, 1961, no. 15: 59.
15. Jerome M. Gilison, The Soviet Image of Utopia (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins
University Press, 1975), 132-147.
16. Ibid., 134.
of the Soviet Union to the 20th Party Congress," February 1956, in Current Soviet
Policies II, ed. Leo Gruliow (New York: Praeger, 1957), 52.
18. Ibid., 53.
19. Yaroslav Bilinsky, "The Rulers and the Ruled," Problems of Communism 15
(September-October 1967): 17.
20. B. Gafurov, "Uspekhi natsional'noi politiki KPSS i nekotorye voprosy inter-
national'nogo vospitaniia," Kommunist, 1958, no. 11: 10-24.
21. Ibid., 16.
22. Ibid.
24. Ibid.
25. Ibid., 27.
26. Ibid.
27. Teresa Rakowska-Harmstone, "Nationalism in the USSR," Problems of
Communism 23 (May-June 1974): 9.
29. Grey Hodnett, "What's in a Nation?," Problems of Communism16 (Septem-
ber-October 1967): 2-15.
30. Grey Hodnett, "The Debate over Soviet Federalism," Soviet Studies 18 (April
1967): 458-481.
32. Fedoseev et al., O zakonomernostiakh vozniknoveniia irazvitiia, 241-242; A.
Azizian, "Stroitel'stvo kommunizm i razvitie natsional'nykh otnoshenii," Kommunist,
1961, no. 15: 53.
34. M. S. Dzhunusov, "Sblizhenie kul'tur sovetskikh natsii i preodolenie perezhit-
kov v oblasti natsional'nykh otnoshenii," in Ot sotsializma k kommunizmu,ed. P. N.
Fedoseev et al. (Moscow: Nauka, 1962), 412; Fedoseev et al., Ozakonomernostiakh
vozniknoveniia i razvitiia, 244.
35. E. V. Tadevosian, "Dal'neishee sblizhenie sotsialisticheskikh natsii v SSSR,"
Voprosy filosofii, 1963, no. 6: 11.
38. Ibid., 84.
39. Hodnett, "What's in a Nation?," 15.
41. Ibid.
42. Richard T. De George, Soviet Ethics and Morality (Ann Arbor, Mich.: Uni-
versity of Michigan Press, 1969), 90.
44. De George, Soviet Ethics and Morality, 4.
45. "The Program of the Communist Party," 27-28.
46. De George, Soviet Ethics and Morality, 92-94.
48. Ts. Stepanian, "Formirovanie kommunisticheskogo soznaniia mass," Kom-
munist, 1962, no. 11: 22.
49. F. M. Burlatskii, "O nekotorykh voprosakh teorii obshchenarodnogo sotsial-
isticheskogo gosudarstva," Sovetskoe gosudarstvo ipravo, 1962, no. 10: 8.
51. Burlatskii, "O nekotorykh voprosakh," 5; P. S. Romashkin, "O pererastanii
sotsialisticheskoi gosudarstvennosti v obshchestvennoe kommunisticheskoe samou-
pravlenie," in Ot sotsializma k kommunizmu, ed. P. N. Fedoseev et al. (Moscow:
Nauka, 1962), 431.
52. Nikita Khrushchev, "Vospityvat' aktivnykh i soznatel'nykh stroitelei kommu-
nisticheskogo obshchestva," April 1958, in Stroitetstvo kommunizma v SSSR i raz-
vitie setskogo khoziaistva, vol. 3 (Moscow: Politizdat, 1962), 171.
54. Solomon M. Schwarz, "Is the State Withering Away in the USSR?," in The
U.S.S.R. and the Future, ed. Leonard Schapiro (New York: Praeger, 1963), 161-178;
Roger E. Kanet, "The Rise and Fall of the 'All-People's State': Recent Changes in the
Soviet Theory of the State," Soviet Studies 20 (July 1968): 81-93; George A. Brinkley,
"Khrushchev Remembered: On the Theory of Soviet Statehood," Soviet Studies 24
(January 1973): 387-401.
of the Soviet Union to the 22nd Party Congress," October 1961, in Current Soviet
Policies IV, ed. Charlotte Saikowski and Leo Gruliow (New York: Columbia Uni-
56. "The Program of the Communist Party," 23; Romashkin, "O pererastanii,"
452; Yu. A. Tikhomirov, "Predstavitel'nye organy vlasti i razvitie gosudarstvennogo
upravleniia v period stroitel'stva kommunizma," Sovetskoe gosudarstvo i pravo,
1962, no. 2: 13.
58. A. E. Lunev, "The Further Development of Democracy in Soviet State Ad-
ministration," Soviet Review 4 (Summer 1963; reprinted from Sovetskoe gosudarstvo i
pravo, 1962, no. 7): 41-46; Breslauer, "Khrushchev Reconsidered," 27-28.
59. Paul Cocks, "The Rationalization of Party Control," in Change in Commu-
nist Systems, ed. Chalmers Johnson (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press,
1970), 165-166.
61. Fedoseev et al., O zakonomernostiakh vozniknoveniia irazvitiia, 282-283; A. K.
Belykh, "O dialektike otmiraniia gosudarstva," Sovetskoe gosudarstvo ipravo, 1963,
no. 1: 15.
63. Ibid.
64. Ibid., 31.
65. See, for example, S. Mezentsev, F. Petrenko, and G. Shitarev, "Partiia i
stroitel'stvo kommunizma,"Kommunist,1961, no. 18: 17-29; F. R. Kozlov, "KPSS
partiia vsego naroda," Kommunist, 1962, no. 8: 10-21; N. Lomakin, "Partiia vsego
naroda," Kommunist, 1963, no. 12: 12-22.
67. "The Program of the Communist Party," 14-15.
68. "Production by machine has a definite rhythm that is impossible without a
corresponding scheduling of people's work." Khrushchev, "On Control Figures," 66.
70. D. I. Chesnokov, Ot gosudarstvennosti k obshchestvennomu samoupravleniiu
(Moscow: Gospolitizdat, 1960), 27-28.
71. Romashkin, "O pererastanii," 440.
7
Brezhnev: The Stage

of Developed Socialism
INTRODUCTION OF A NEW CONCEPT

In the first few years following Khrushchev's fall from power in 1964,
Soviet sources placed less emphasis on the claim that the USSR was in the
stage of full-scale construction of communism and on the specific timetable
for economic achievement set forth in the party program. However, there
was evidence of some reluctance in the Soviet leadership to abandon the
promises of the 1961 program. Even in November 1967, in his speech on the
fiftieth anniversary of the October Revolution, Leonid Brezhnev still used
the phrase "full-scale construction of communism" and implied that the
program represented a solemn pledge undertaken by the party. Brezhnev in-
sisted that "the entire path traveled by our country over half a century has
shown convincingly that the word of our Party does not diverge from its
deed. The Third Program of the Party—a program of construction of the
foundations of communist society—will also be fulfilled."1 Yet in the same
speech, Brezhnev for the first time made conspicuous use of the term "devel-
oped socialist society" (razvitoe sotsialisticheskoe obshchestvo) and hinte
that developed socialism was a new and distinct stage of development.2
During subsequent years, it became apparent that the idea of developed
socialism was a replacement for Khrushchev's concept of the full-scale con-
struction of communism.
The terms "developed" (razvitoi)socialism and "mature" (zrelyi)socialism
had occurred here and there in the writings of Soviet ideologists during the
early 1960s without attracting any particular attention. No meaning was at-
tached to developed socialism at the time other than that of a synonym for
the stage of full-scale construction of communism. The term first received
heightened emphasis in relation to the Eastern European Communist coun-
tries. In the late 1940s, each of the East European nations subjected to soviet
ization was said to be a "people's democracy," which supposedly had begun
the transition from capitalism to socialism. By the late 1950s or early 1960s,
each of those countries was considered to be completing the construction of
socialism. What would be the aim of the Soviet Union's allies once they had
achieved socialism? A statement of representatives of Communist and work-
ers' parties, meeting in Moscow in November and December 1960, declared
that some socialist countries had entered "the period of construction of
developed socialist society."3 The implication of that statement seemed to
be that Eastern European countries, upon becoming socialist in the main,
had begun to move toward the stage of full-scale construction of socialism
already reached by the Soviet Union. The assertion that several of the East
European countries were engaged in the construction of a developed social-
ist society was carried over into Leonid Brezhnev's speeches of the middle
and late 1960s.4 From the time of the seventh congress of the Socialist Unity
Party (SED) of the German Democratic Republic in April 1967, the East
Germans placed major emphasis on the shaping of the "developed social
system of socialism." During the late 1960s, the head of the SED, Walter
Ulbricht, seemed to fancy himself and his party to be the leading sources of
original thought on the subject of developed socialism.5 Perhaps Soviet
leaders were not inclined to defer to East German wisdom in interpreting
the achievements and problems of advanced socialism.
The gradual acceptance of the concept of developed socialism in Soviet
Marxist-Leninist theory beginning in 1967 has to be understood partly in th
context of international Communist relations, since the Soviet leadership
needed to counter attempts by Mao Tse-tung in China and reformist Com-
munists in Eastern Europe to present superior models of socialism.6 The
most fundamental theoretical problem faced by the Brezhnev leadership,
however, was the ideological vacuum left by the suppression of Khrushchev's
depiction of the 1960s and 1970s as a period of rapid transition to commu-
nism. If Soviet society was not in the stage of full-scale construction of commu
nism, then where was it? For the leadership to remain silent on that question
would have been tacitly to sacrifice its function of application of Marxist
and Leninist theory to Soviet reality. One leader who apparently argued for
replacing Khrushchev's ideas with a more realistic view of the current stage
was Mikhail Suslov, a member of the Politburo acknowledged to have pri-
mary responsibility for ideology and indoctrination. In an article published
in 1967, Suslov implied that the optimism of the Khrushchev period had
been excessive, since "for correct policy it is insufficient to have only a goal,
no matter how great and honorable it may be. In order to realize that goal,
to achieve the successful construction of communism, the policy of the party
Brezhnev: The Stage of Developed Socialism 107
should always be based on real ground, consider the real stage attained in
the development of our society, and all the more deeply recognize and utilize
the objective regularities and possibilities contained in the socialist order."
Suslov added, "we should not forget that we are still in the conditions of the
first phase of the communist socio-economic formation and that our policy
consequently should be constructed with consideration of and on the basis
of knowledge of the economic laws of the first stage of socialism."7 It seems
likely that Suslov was among the proponents of the approach that was to
eventuate in the concept of developed socialism. However, it is generally
agreed among observers of the Soviet regime that the late 1960s was a time
of intense, behind-the-scenes maneuvering and debate among the Soviet
collective leadership over questions of power and policy. Such conflicts were
resolved sufficiently by the early 1970s for Brezhnev to emerge as the "gen-
erally recognized leader," or the regime's primary spokesman on all major
issues, and for Brezhnev to publicize a strategy of economic policy apparently
supported by a consensus of the Communist party's Politburo.
The occasion of the full-blown introduction of the idea of developed social-
ism was Brezhnev's report to the Twenty-fourth Congress of the Communist
party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) in March 1971. In that speech, Brezhnev
reminded the delegates to the congress that Lenin had emphasized that the
art of politics consisted of "considering the uniqueness of the tasks of each
of the periods, the uniqueness of the conditions, in which the Party operates."
Brezhnev therefore concluded that economic policy "should consider the
main, particular features of each stage of development on the country."8 He
went on to repeat the claim that socialism had achieved victory in the USSR
in the last half of the 1930s. "Our economy of that period and the contem-
porary economy are based on the same type of productive relations, on the
same set of economic laws—the laws of socialism. At the same time we can-
not fail to see important new features, distinguishing the contemporary econ-
omy from the economy of the end of the thirties." Brezhnev again had indi-
cated that the Soviet economy had entered a distinctively new stage of devel-
opment. He announced that 'the developed socialist society, of which in
1918 V. I. Lenin spoke as the future of our country, has been built by the
self-sacrificing labor of the Soviet people."9
Soviet authors produced an abundance of books and articles on developed
socialism in the years following the Twenty-fourth Party Congress. Attention
to the concept of developed socialism was heightened by the introduction of
a new constitution for the USSR in 1977. In his speech in May of that year
on the presentation of the draft of the new constitution, Brezhnev explained
the necessity of adoption of a new fundamental law. The constitution still in
effect was that adopted in 1936, when the Soviet Union had just created the
foundations of socialism; that constitution had met the needs of a basically
socialist society. But Brezhnev argued, "Now in the Soviet Union a devel-
oped socialist society has been built,"10 and it was necessary to restructure
108 Soviet Marxism-Leninism: The Decline of an Id
the Soviet constitution to correspond to the new stage in the development of

society. The new constitution proposed by Brezhnev and adopted in October
1977 contained the statements that "a developed socialist society has been
built in the USSR," and that "the developed socialist society is a logically
necessary stage on the path to communism."11 Brezhnev later announced
plans to write a new party program embodying the concept of developed
socialism. At the Twenty-sixth Congress of the CPSU in 1981, while offering
the opinion that the latest program "on the whole correctly expresses the
regularities of social development," he noted that twenty years had passed
since its acceptance, suggesting that the program had become somewhat
outdated.12 Brezhnev said that experience since 1961 indicated that the Sovie
Union was advancing to communism through developed socialism and that
such a conclusion should be "duly reflected" in the party program. He re-
quested that the party congress instruct the party's Central Committee to
prepare a new version of the program.13 Suslov presented the formal pro-
posal to entrust to the Central Committee the task of preparing a new pro-
gram to appear by the time of the next party congress; his proposal was
unanimously approved by the delegates to the Twenty-sixth Congress.14
Thus, it was promised that the draft of a new party program would be pub-
lished before the Twenty-seventh Congress of the CPSU met in early 1986.
THE STAGES OF SOCIALISM

Developed socialism was in fact an ideological innovation of the Brezhnev
leadership; for the first time it was argued that a distinct stage of progress
separated basic socialism from communism. Soviet ideologists of the Brezhnev
period emphasized that socialism was not considered a single stage but,
rather, a historical phase divided into different stages. The result was a new
periodization of the experience of the Soviet Union and other socialist states.
The contrast may be summarized as follows:
Marx wrote, in sketchy fashion, of two periods which would follow the proletaria
revolution:
1. the "first phase" of communism, and
2. the "higher phase" of Communist society.
Lenin foresaw three periods from the Bolshevik Revolution to communism:
1. the transition from capitalism to socialism, when the proletarian dictatorship, op-
erating in a mixed socioeconomic setting, would lay the foundations of socialism
2. socialism—a higher but still transitional stage; and
3. communism—the classless, stateless society.
Soviet ideologists under Brezhnevdelineated four periods of Soviet develop
from the Revolution until the full confirmation of communism:
1. the transitional stage, through which the Soviet Union supposedly passed betwee
1917 and 1936;
Brezhnev: The Stage of Developed Social 109
2. a society, socialist in the main, engaged in the construction of developed socialism,

beginning in 1936;
3. developed socialism, which the Soviet Union was said to have reached during the
1960s;15 and
4. communism, still said to be the goal of Soviet society.
Under Brezhnev, basic socialism and developed socialism were classified as

stages of development within socialism, while socialism and communism
were termed historical phases.
A general trend in Soviet Marxism-Leninism from October 1917 until the
early 1990s was to extend the time required to reach the ultimate objective
of communism. The major deviation from that trend occurred during the
Khrushchev years with the assertion that Soviet society had begun a direct
transition to communism. The conception of the stage of developed social-
ism replaced Khrushchev's thesis of the full-scale construction of communism
and signified a major postponement of the transition to communism. Soviet
sources of the Brezhnev period insisted that socialism was not a brief stage,
but a long historical phase consisting of an orderly succession of stages.
They added that developed socialism would itself prove to be a prolonged
stage.16 Khrushchev's schedule for attaining communism had been quietly
abandoned, and there was no hint of the time when Soviet society would
reach communism. It was obvious, however, that the date would be far off.
The addition of a further stage on the way to communism implied a reval-
uation of the nature of the entire phase of socialism. Previously, it was
assumed that socialism was a transitional state of society's development,
combining features inherited from capitalism with the characteristics of
immature communism. In that perspective, the development of socialism
consisted of the fading of the birthmarks left by capitalism and the strength-
ening of Communist relations. The maturation of socialism had no logic
other than that of the progressive realization of communism. Socialism
could not develop on its own basis, since, as a stage in the growth of the
Communist socioeconomic formation, it had to develop on the basis of the
principles peculiar to that formation and fully expressed in the functioning
of the higher phase (i.e., communism). The belief that socialism would be a
period of fluid transition was derived from Marx's works. In contrast, Soviet
theorists of the Brezhnev years described socialism as a distinct, relatively
independent phase of historical progress and emphasized that there were
important, qualitative differences between socialism and communism.
As Anatolii Butenko (who differed sharply with the dominant elements in
the political leadership and with antireformist ideologists on many other
issues) put it, "Socialism is not at all a temporary combination of features of
immature communism and 'birthmarks of capitalism,' but a social order,
characterized by socialist features, signs, and principles, united in their social
nature."17 Socialism, after being established and firmly consolidated, devel-
oped on its own basis; it was based on socialist relations of production and
functioned according to its own laws. The essence of the process of develop
ment and maturing of socialism was that "the features and properties imma
nently inherent in socialism are disclosed more fully, they become more
mature, and the regularities and principles of socialism receive ever greater
scope for their manifestation and utilization."18 The features distinctive to
socialism were not to be regarded as the result of the influence of capitalism;
to be regarded, therefore, as tainted with evil; and to be purged from societ
as rapidly as possible. What was most distinctive to socialism was contrib-
uted by its own development and should be consolidated and expanded as
much as possible.
Butenko argued that there were sharp differences between tendencies
which pertained to the development of the socialist phase on its own basis
and those which would be revealed during the direct growth of socialism into
communism. He criticized other Soviet theorists for having devoted attention
mainly to the regularities of the growth of socialism into communism while
having neglected the principles of development proper to the socialist phase.
In other words, he contended that at the time at which he was writing, the
consideration of the transition to communism was less important than the
study of the maturing of socialism.19 Though Butenko's position was un-
usually forthright, approval of some of his arguments was suggested by the
statement in the 1977 constitution that in the stage of developed socialism,
socialism was developing on its own basis.20
The dominant theme of trends in the stage of developed socialism, ac-
cording to the Soviet authorities of the 1970s and 1980s, was not the trans-
formation of socialist relations into Communist patterns but, rather, the
further improvement and perfection (sovershenstvovanie) of socialist inst
tutions.21 Khrushchev had also advocated the perfection of socialist relations
but in connection with their transformation into Communist relations. In
Soviet writings under Brezhnev, the connection was severed. Prognoses for
the stage of mature socialism were based on the assumption, articulated by
Suslov, that the possibilities of progress for Soviet society within the limits
of the first phase of communism were "far from exhausted."22 Developed
socialism presented the prospect of the further exploitation of the potential
of socialist society and the fuller realization of the principles of socialism.
Butenko described socialism as "a social order, characterized by the all-round
disclosure of the advantages of socialism, . . . distinguished by the fullness
of operation of the objective regularities and principles of socialism."23 The
laws that governed the trends of change in that stage were still those peculiar
to socialism.
Brezhnev's definition of developed socialism as "that stage of maturity of
the new society, when the restructuring of the totality of social relations on
the collectivistic principles internally inherent to socialism is being com-
pleted"24 was quoted widely by Soviet sources. Note that Brezhnev did not
say that the restructuring of social relations was being carried out in accor-
dance with the principles of the higher phase of communism. It was argued
that much time would be required to perfect socialist institutions and fully
realize the potential of socialism. Brezhnev cautioned in 1977 that "practice
has shown that the development and perfection of socialism is a task no less
complex and no less responsible than the creation of its foundations."25 The
stage of developed socialism was not seen as essentially transitional. Petr
Fedoseev, a vice president of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, made
that point clearly: "The developed socialist society is not considered by us as
something midway between socialism and communism, combining in itself
both one and the other. It is a socialist society, attaining a developed condi-
tion, characterized by the all-round disclosure of the advantages of social-
ism."26 The then-current stage was not defined in terms of a process in which
socialist forms were giving way to Communist forms.
The definitive property of developed socialism was said to be the increas-
ing integrity (tselostnost) of society. In the judgment of Soviet ideologists
of the Brezhnev years, in earlier stages the development of socialism in the
USSR necessarily contributed to major inconsistencies within society, such
as those between the development of the means of production and the satis-
faction of the demands of consumption, and between the socioeconomic
development of urban society and the development of rural society. The
principal, overall task in developed socialism was to remove the inconsisten-
cies inherited from earlier stages27 and to bring different sectors of society
into consistency with each other. As Grigorii Glezerman put it:
Mature socialist society in its essence presumes the complex development of all
spheres of social life and the elimination of the inconsistencies between them that to
one degree or another were inevitable in the preceeding stages of construction of
socialism. . . .
Developed socialist society is an integral system of social links and relations. . . .
The achievement of optimal proportions among the branches of the economy, the
balanced development of all sides of social life, the overcoming of the backwardness
of separate sectors of socialist construction, is one of the characteristic features of
developed socialism.28
Ideologists of the Brezhnev leadership expected that overcoming the un-

evenness of development accentuated by the Stalinist strategy of economic
growth by integrating all sectors into the modernized socialist society, would
enhance harmony among the parts of the social system. It followed from
that interpretation that Soviet society was not moving into a period of tran-
sition but, rather, toward greater internal equilibrium. The integration of
society supposedly resulted from the closer coordination of all spheres of
life and the fuller implementation of the principles of socialism. That ideo-
logical perspective gives us striking insights into the degree to which the
Brezhnev leadership was unaware of serious tensions building up in Soviet
society.
The thorniest problem faced by Soviet theorists of the Brezhnev period

was that of the relationship between the trends of the then-current stage and
the transition to communism. Paradoxically, after proclaiming the advent
of developed socialism, Soviet leaders continued to urge Soviet scholars and
ideologists to show in detail the way in which developed socialism would
grow into communism. Suslov was particularly emphatic on that point. In
1975, he identified the question of the further development of socialism and
its transformation into communism as having "first level significance." He
contended that reaching developed socialism made the study of the transi-
tion to communism more timely. "When the Soviet people under the leader-
ship of the Communist Party constructed the developed socialist society,
the concrete problems of its further progress and transition to communism
became the order of the day both theoretically and practically." He added
that "the Party does not limit itself to the characterization only of that which
already is, which had become actually existing. In its documents is also
given a scientific elaboration of the ways of the growth of socialism into
communism, of the maturing of future forms of communist society."29 Yet,
after having led up to the subject, Suslov said nothing about the way in whic
developed socialism might generate the growth of Communist social rela-
tions. His message was only exhortatory.
Brezhnev attempted to provide a decisive answer to the question of the
relationship between developed socialism and communism in his speech on
the final text of the new constitution in October 1977. He described mature
socialism as a "relatively long stage of development on the path from social-
ism to communism," but went on to say that "the knowledge and utilization
of all the possibilities of developed socialism is at the same time the transi-
tion to the construction of communism. The future does not lie beyond the
limits of the present. The future is rooted in the present, and, resolving the
tasks of today—of the socialist present—we are gradually entering tomor-
row—the communist future."30 The assertion that the future did not lie
beyond the limits of the present was in agreement with the view that Soviet
society still faced the long and difficult task of solving the problems en-
countered in the socialist phase of development.
At first glance, it might have seemed that Brezhnev had said that solving
those problems was identical with moving into the phase of communism.
However, closer examination of his remarks reveals a more complex thesis.
He did not say that "the knowledge and utilization of all the possibilities of
developed socialism" constituted in themselves the transition to communism,
but that the knowledge and use of the possibilities of the present stage were
at the same time the transition to the construction of communism. In othe
words, the stage of mature socialism was to make its contribution to the
achievement of communism largely through the preparation of the precon-
ditions for a future transition. With the introduction of the idea of developed
socialism, Soviet leaders implicitly abandoned the conception of the stage
that Soviet society was in during the 1970s as one of direct transition and
adopted the view that the relationship between the perfection of socialism
and the emergence of communism was indirect.
A few Soviet writers of the Brezhnev years even predicted that developed
socialism would be succeeded by another stage of socialism. They would
have postponed to that still later stage of "highly developed socialism" the
process of transition to communism. The most authoritative sources attempted
to discourage such a conclusion, perhaps fearing that the introduction of
still more stages on the way to communism might appear ludicrous. How-
ever, making a clear distinction between the stage of developed socialism
and a still later stage would have helped to resolve the apparent contradic-
tion between the further institutionalization of socialism in mature socialism
and the replacement of socialism by communism in a later period. In line
with his argument for separating the consideration of the further develop-
ment of socialist relations from the description of their transformation into
Communist relations, Butenko suggested that the direct transition to com-
munism would come about in a later, separate, historical stage, when the
potential of socialism had been exhausted and a much higher level of ad-
vancement of productive technology had been reached. "Only in the con-
cluding stages of socialism . . . inevitably will unfold the intensive process
of elimination of those features which are inherent only in socialism and the
creation of those elements which, coming to replace the former, are charac-
teristic only of communism." Butenko added, "That inevitably will be a
whole historical stage of qualitative and complex changes in social life."31
While Butenko argued against expecting an imminent expansion of the
features foreshadowing full communism because he saw the need for reform
within Soviet socialism, others were interested in postponing the transition
to the higher phase of communism because they favored the further consoli-
dation of the base of stability of established institutions in the USSR. Richard
Kosolapov ventured the notion in the early 1970s that developed socialism
itself might contain two substages, in the first of which the drawing closer
together of forms of socialist property and of social classes would take place,
and in the second of which forms of property would merge into one and
society would become classless.32 Kosolapov's scheme of subdivision of de-
veloped socialism was cited with approval in the authoritative work, Devel-
oped Socialist Society, in the late 1970s.33 Kosolapov went on to become
editor of the party's theoretical journal,Kommunist.In 1981, an article in
that journal by a prominent Soviet historian, M. P. Kim, endorsed the idea
of delineating two stages in the growth of socialism into communism.
In the first stage, in all the substantial changes in socialist reality will dominate,
evidently, the regularities, principles, and norms of socialism. (Attempts ahead of
time to limit their action would mean an unjustified forcing of events and harmful
haste.) Only in the following stage, when socialism will attain higher perfection and
all the necessary prerequisites for the transition to communism will be created, will
socialist regularities, principles, and norms give way to communist ones. In those
two stages the transformation of thefirstphase into the second will be carried out on
two different historical levels with significant peculiarities.
In the first stage, when the center of weight will fall on the general perfection of
the socialist organization of society, on strengthening its principles and norms, that
transformation will have an indirect [oposredovannyi] character, that is, the trans
tion to communism will not be thought of as other than through the strengthening
and full realization of the demands precisely of socialism. In the second stage the
transformation of socialism into communism should have a direct [neposredstvenny
character, that is, the transition to the second phase will be completed by means of
the replacement of the principles and norms of socialism by the principles and norms
of communism. That, obviously, will begin when socialism fully exhausts its creative
possibilities and decisively creates all the prerequisites of its transformation into
communist society.34
Soviet society was still considered to be in the period within developed

socialism in which the possibilities of socialism had not been exhausted.
Thus, the tasks of direct transformation had been postponed to some point
in the indefinite future.
Mature socialism represented not only an interpretation of the character
of Soviet society of the 1970s but also a claim on the future of other societies.
Developed socialism was adopted by ideologists of the Soviet Union and its
allies as a model and a goal for all countries that had come to socialism more
recently than the USSR. Those sources asserted that developed socialism
was an inevitable and logically necessary stage which the law-like regularities
of socialism made obligatory for any country prior to reaching communism.
Soviet authors took pains to stress the necessity of the gradual, long-term
building of the material and technological prerequisites of developed social-
ism. An implicit use of such arguments was to put the Chinese in their place
by suggesting how far they still had to go before achieving the level already
reached by the USSR and to discredit any pretense by China of being closer
to communism than was the Soviet Union. Among the allies of the USSR,
several Eastern European States—East Germany, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia,
Hungary, Poland, and Romania—were said to have completed the construc-
tion of the foundations of socialism and to have begun the building of
developed socialism. The goal of developed socialism was set forth in the
constitutions of some of those states, and was endorsed by the leaders of all
those states.35 The socialist allies of the USSR whose economies were at a
more rudimentary level of development, such as Cuba, Mongolia, Vietnam,
and Laos, were classified as still carrying out the transition to socialism;
such countries supposedly would later begin the shaping of developed social-
ism. The Soviet Union allegedly remained at a uniquely high stage of devel-
opment as the world's first and only developed socialist society. Soviet
authors avoided using any single quantitative indicator as the criterion for
Brezhnev: The Stage of Developed Soci 115
the entrance into developed socialism. They insisted that the degree of ma-
turity of socialism could not be specified only by reference to the level of
development of productive forces but depended on the maturation of a vari-
ety of factors, both quantitative and qualitative. If the gross national product
per capita or some other conventional measure of economic development
had served as the standard, some East European systems, such as East Ger-
many and Czechoslovakia, would have been shown to have reached devel-
oped socialism already—before the Soviet Union. Soviet leaders would not
have relished the implications of that conclusion. Although some other
socialist countries might be more economically advanced, the Soviets claimed
the benefit of much longer experience in consolidating socialist productive
relations, social structure, cultural norms, and political institutions.
THE ECONOMY OF DEVELOPED SOCIALISM

Although Soviet authors under Brezhnev insisted that developed socialism
should be defined in relation to a set of systemically interrelated factors,
they identified the most important criterion of developed socialism as the
level of development of the economy. At the Twenty-fourth Party Congress
in 1971, Leonid Brezhnev introduced developed socialism as a conceptuali-
zation of a new stage in the development of the Soviet economy. He empha-
sized that the differences between the Soviet economy of the 1930s and the
Soviet economy of the 1970s pertained not to the fundamental principles of
its operation but to its sheer scale—"its entirely new magnitude."36 Socialist
ownership of the means of production and central planning of economic ac-
tivity had persisted and would be preserved, but the economy had attained a
qualitatively higher level of development. The concept of developed socialism
was, above all else, an interpretation of the economic, social, and political
consequences of a higher level of industrialization for a socialist society of
the Soviet type.
According to Brezhnev, the main implications of the new scale of devel-
opment of the Soviet economy were twofold. On the one hand, there was a
"considerable growth" of the "possibilities" which the economy might achieve.
"These days we set for ourselves, and perform, tasks of which we could only
dream in the preceding stages." On the other hand, there was also an expan-
sion of the demands which society placed on the economy. "Not only do we
wish to—for we have always wished it—but we can and must simultaneously
resolve a wider range of tasks."37
Brezhnev distinguished sharply between the strategy of economic devel-
opment rationale for an earlier stage and that appropriate in the stage of
developed socialism. During the first several decades of Soviet power,
according to Brezhnev, a certain single-mindedness in the allocation of
economic resources was inevitable. "In the early stages of building socialism,
as is well known, we were compelled to concentrate on the top priorities, on
which the very existence of the young Soviet state depended."38 Brezhnev
accepted the premise that in the 1930s, investment had to be concentrated
on expanding heavy industry and strengthening national defense because
those needs had to be satisfied before the state could turn to the solution of
other problems. Theorists of developed socialism assumed that such an or-
dering of priorities had been unavoidable for early socialism, especially in a
hostile international environment, and that an essential, definitive charac-
teristic of basic socialism was a scarcity of societal wealth. They explicitly
justified the Stalinist strategy of uneven development as practiced in those
conditions.
According to the proponents of the concept of developed socialism, how-
ever, the logic of the Stalinist strategy expired when Soviet society reached a
higher level of industrialization. At that point, devoting investment to a few
purposes while neglecting others became unnecessary. The output of the
economy of mature socialism was thought to be sufficient to provide for the
continued expansion of industrial capacity and military forces while, at the
same time, increasing the resources devoted to agriculture, the manufactur-
ing of consumer goods, the service sector, and the other previously neglected
areas of the economy. Society could afford to tackle a wider range of tasks,
and Brezhnev believed that it must do just that. The strategy of earlier dec-
ades had become not only unnecessary but also irrational. To attempt the
continued pursuit of a program of uneven development would be detrimental
to a number of objectives, the most crucial of which was the development of
the economy itself. The further growth of production presumed the enhance-
ment of the productivity of the labor force, but it would be impossible to
stimulate increases in the productivity of labor without providing higher
wages for workers and ensuring the availability of a growing supply of con-
sumer goods. In addition, Brezhnev's references to the "political" signifi-
cance of increasing the supply of goods to the population were thinly veiled
hints that providing a greater abundance of material benefits for the Soviet
people after several decades of sacrifices on behalf of industrialization and
military strength might be necessary to maintain the legitimacy of the Soviet
political regime.39
Most of the "wider range of tasks" to be dealt with by the Soviet state in
the stage of developed socialism were related to the goal of improving the
standard of living of the population of the USSR. In his report to the Twenty
fourth Party Congress, immediately after speaking of the necessity of tackling
a wider range of tasks, Brezhnev added that "while securing resources for
the continued growth of our economy . . . we must at the same time con-
centrate even more energy and means on the resolution of tasks related to
the improvement of the well-being of the Soviet people."40 Stressing the
necessity of expanding the production of consumer goods, Brezhnev appealed
to the Communist party to make good on the promises of years past. "Behind
us, comrades, are long years of heroic history when millions of Communists
and non-party people consciously accepted sacrifices and deprivations, and

were content with the bare essentials, denying themselves the right to de-
mand comforts. . . . But what was explicable and natural in the past, when
other tasks and other undertakings stood in the forefront, is unacceptable in
present conditions."41
Brezhnev looked to economic growth to provide the means for the expan-
sion of the production of consumer goods as had Khrushchev. In contrast
to his predecessor, however, Brezhnev did not promise a highly accelerated
rate of economic growth but held out the promise of growth at a more mod-
erate pace with a more balanced pattern. He implied the intention of shifting
the balance between productive investment and current consumption so as
to carry out a degree of redistribution in favor of the consumer. The Ninth
Five-Year Plan, which was adopted by the Twenty-fourth Party Congress,
projected a rate of increase in the production of consumer goods higher
than the rate of growth in the production of capital goods. Brezhnev also
urged heavy industry to take on more responsibility for producing consumer
goods. He favored a reallocation of resources sufficient to furnish immediate
improvements in popular living standards.
The interdependence between the standard of living and the growth of
productive forces became one of the central principles in writings on eco-
nomic development in the Brezhnev period. As early as 1967, Brezhnev had
stressed the reciprocal nature of the relationship. "All sides of communist
construction are closely interrelated. It is well known that the resolution of
socio-economic tasks depends on economic achievements. In turn, economic
development is determined to a large extent by how successfully socio-political
tasks are resolved."42 Brezhnev's report to the Twenty-fourth Party Con-
gress in 1971 described improvements in the standard of living as a prereq-
uisite for further economic development in the stage of developed socialism.
"The Party also proceeds from the fact that the raising of the well-being of
the toilers is becoming an ever more urgent requirement of our economic
development, one of the important economic conditions for the rapid growth
of production." Brezhnev noted that more advanced techniques of produc-
tion demanded higher levels of education, training, and skills of larger num-
bers of workers. "And all of these depend to a considerable extent on the
standard of living, on how fully material and spiritual requirements can be
satisfied."43 That is, workers with higher levels of education and skills ex-
pected a more plentiful and more varied selection of public and private ben-
efits. Thus, it would be unworkable to wait for increases in production to
generate future improvements in consumption.
According to some Soviet writers of the Brezhnev period, the interdepen-
dence between improvements in the standard of living and growth in pro-
duction became stronger when a socialist system reached a higher stage of
economic development.44 At that stage, it was no longer possible to address
the tasks of raising production and enhancing popular welfare in sequence,
since improving the standard of living was not only a desirable goal but also
a necessary means to the achievement of economic objectives. When the
concept of developed socialism was first fully endorsed by the Brezhnev
leadership in the early 1970s, the concept was closely associated with the
promise of policies oriented toward greater satisfaction of the demands of
Soviet consumers and with optimism concerning the possibility of readily
satisfying those demands without chancing attempts at economic reform
which could carry heavy political and social costs.
INTENSIFICATION AND THE

SCIENTIFIC-TECHNOLOGICAL REVOLUTION
Along with the emphasis on increasing the satisfaction of the material
demands of the population, the second theme receiving the greatest empha-
sis in descriptions of the economy of developed socialism was that of the
transition to intensive development. It was said that in previous periods, the
Soviet Union had relied on the "extensive" mode of development to achieve
growth in production in that increases in output were obtained mainly through
pouring more inputs into the process of production. More land was brought
into cultivation, more raw materials were exploited, more labor was em-
ployed, and more capital was pumped into industry. However, by the early
1970s, Brezhnev argued that the possibilities of further growth through the
use of extensive factors were being exhausted. Both Soviet and Western
commentators agreed on that point. The expansion of the area of cultivated
land in the USSR virtually came to an end in the late 1950s; further additions
to agricultural land would be possible only with expensive programs of irri-
gation or drainage. Key mineral resources in the western areas of the country
were being depleted; the exploitation of new sources, such as oil and natural
gas fields in Siberia, would require heavy capital investments. Little reserve
of unused labor in the villages and among housewives remained, while a
decrease in birth rates of the previous generation was to lead to the slowing
of the growth of the labor force in the 1970s and 1980s. Finally, the attempt
to deal with a wider range of tasks simultaneously would mean spreading
capital to try to provide for growth in heavy industry, a sharp increase in in-
vestments in agriculture, the expansion of the manufacturing of consumer
goods, and steady growth in spending on military forces.
The only way to sustain economic growth while raising consumption and
enhancing military capabilities, Brezhnev concluded, would be through a
shift to the 'Intensive" mode of development. Intensification would mean
getting a greater return from each unit of labor, capital, and natural resources
put into the productive process, or, in other words, increasing the efficiency
of the use of inputs into the economy. As Brezhnev phrased it in 1971 while
introducing his economic strategy for developed socialism, "The main thing
on which we must rely is heightening the efficiency of production. To speak
Brezhnev: The Stage of Developed Soc 119
more simply, the essence of the problem is to achieve a substantial increase

in the volume of production and national income for every unit of expendi-
ture—labor, material and financial."45 The Stalinist approach had been to
mobilize as much investment as possible, at all cost, in order to obtain max-
imum increases in output in key sectors. Brezhnev argued that the Soviet
economy could no longer afford an exclusive preoccupation with the quan-
tity of investment and production but would have to be reoriented toward
raising the quality of inputs and final products. Soviet leaders recognized a
need for a thorough restructuring of the criteria of economic success. Nikolai
Tikhonov, who became Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR
in 1980, told the Twenty-sixth Congress of the Soviet Communist party in
1981 that "in terms of its historical dimensions, importance, and conse-
quences, the changeover of our economy to a footing of intensive develop-
ment that is currently underway can rightly be ranked with such a profound
transformation as socialist industrialization, which fundamentally changed
the appearance of the country."46
A strategy of intensive development supposedly ruled out the possibility
of achieving increases in production through continual increases in the rate
of growth of investments. How did Brezhnev promise to raise the produc-
tivity of labor without a massive infusion of new productive capital? The
answer was provided by Brezhnev's words at the twenty-fourth congress.
"Before us, Comrades, is a task of historic importance: organically to unit
the achievements of the scientific-technological revolution with the adv
tages of the socialist economic system"*Those words became one of th
most widely quoted slogans in Soviet writings of the 1970s and early 1980s.
The payoffs of the scientific-technological revolution (nauchno-tekhn
cheskaia revoliutsiia), or STR, were seen as the key to Soviet economi
growth in the stage of developed socialism.
In the view of most Soviet scholars of the Brezhnev period (and in the
view of scholars in the Commonwealth of Independent States at present),
the essence of the STR has not been revealed in any particular scientific dis-
coveries or technological innovations but, rather, in a changed relationship
between science and technology in general. Soviet analysts of the 1970s ack-
nowledged that both science and technology had made progress for a long
time and that, occasionally, breakthroughs in science had coincided with
advances in technology. However, those sources said that until the decades
after World War II, science and technology, for the most part, developed
independently of each other. Scientific research had a theoretical nature
aiming at understanding of natural laws as an end in itself. The work of
scientists was not usually directed by the needs of production, and often
several decades elapsed between the time of a scientific discovery and the
time its effects were felt in the productive process. Most technological devel-
opment proceeded through empirical experimentation, not relying on scien-
tific theory.
However, Soviet authors by the 1970s asserted that in the twentieth cen-
tury, there had been a trend toward closer interaction between science and
technology. The point was not that the pace of scientific discovery had ac-
celerated nor that recent theoretical discoveries had a particulary revolu-
tionary impact, though those facts were widely acknowledged; rather, the
trend making the scientific-technological revolution possible was the trans-
formation of science into a "direct productive force." The improvement of
technology in production by the 1970s depended primarily and directly on
the results of scientific research. In turn, the investigations of scientists re-
sponded increasingly to the problems and demands of the development of
production. In addition, linking departments of research and development
with economic enterprises created greater organizational integration of sci-
ence into the process of production. It was also claimed that technological
innovations of practical economic usefulness often provided the means for
testing hypotheses suggested by new scientific theories. The growing inter-
dependence of science and technology was said to shorten the time between
the appearance of new ideas and their implementation in production, vastly
speeding the pace of technological progress.
According to Soviet theorists of the Brezhnev period, the scientific-tech-
nological revolution was taking place throughout the whole world. How-
ever, those theorists asserted that the consequences of the STR were markedly
different in capitalist and socialist societies. Like socialism, capitalism was
attempting to harness the force of scientific and technological advances to
drive productivity to higher levels. The theorists of developed socialism
credited capitalism with considerable technological success, yet they contended
that the STR would lead to the sharpening of the inherent contradictions of
capitalism. In conditions of private ownership of the means of production,
the introduction of new technological processes would be used by capitalists
to heighten the exploitation of labor and throw more laborers out of work.
It was claimed that in socialism, the state used technological advances V
lighten the burden of labor, and protected workers against unemployment.
The criticism of capitalist societies that seemed to be the most forceful
and sincere concerned the pluralism engendered by their competitive, dem-
ocratic political institutions and market economies. Under Brezhnev, Soviet
authors theorized that the scientific-technological revolution was radically
increasing the complexity of society and the interdependence between dif-
ferent, rapidly changing segments of the social system. The crucial vulnera-
bility of capitalism was said to be its lack of a single center of control that
could manage the interaction among multiple spheres of activity and assure
the coherence of changes emanating from those subsystems. The great ad-
vantage of socialism, those sources argued, was its capacity for centralized,
conscious planning of social activity, which made it possible to eliminate
contradictions among different trends of change and to attain a high degree
of integration among the subsystems of society. Socialism had inherently
superior potential for dealing with the fundamental problem posed by the
scientific-technological revolution, the management of organized complex-
ity.48 "The high degree of complexity of the tasks posed by the STR, the
dynamism and complexity of the interrelationships between its component
elements, and the global character of its consequences require a level of
socialization, concentration, and planning of social production . . . that
are incompatible with capitalist conditions and its production relations and
that are possible only under socialism and communism."49 In that view, the
scientific-technological revolution found a suitable setting in socialist society,
and socialist society found in the scientific-technological revolution the
means to its improvement and perfection.50
In the early 1970s, Brezhnev's words werefilledwith optimism concerning
the benefits of the scientific-technological revolution, which was presented
as something akin to a magical solution for all the problems of inefficiency
and stagnation in the Soviet economy. Taking advantage of the achieve-
ments of modern science and technology appeared to be a generally accept-
able substitute for more controversial reforms, such as the introduction of
larger elements of market relations. However, during the 1970s, Soviet
leaders came to realize that infusing the economy with the attainments of
the STR was not an easy or painless task. It was soon appreciated that to
achieve rapid advances in the technology of production, it was not enough to
carry out scientific research, although that activity was extremely important.
Brezhnev and many others began to argue that the key problem was that of
implementation of the results of new discoveries. At the Twenty-fifth Party
Congress in 1976, Brezhnev declared that "the practical implementation of
new scientific ideas is today no less an important task than their elabora-
tion,"51 while at the Twenty-sixth Congress in 1981, he went farther, argu-
ing that "the decisive, sharpest sector today is the introduction of scientific
discoveries and inventions."52 The acceleration of technological progress
depended on reducing the time required for movement of ideas from the
stage of invention to the stage of application in mass production on a na-
tional scale. Such remarks constituted a tacit admission that slowness in the
adoption of technological innovations was a particular weakness of the
Soviet economy.
The terms of discussion of the STR and intensification broadened to in-
clude consideration of problems of organization, of retooling the links be-
tween science and production. Thus, debate over the consequences of the
scientific-technological revolution impinged on questions of revisions of
economic administration, or "improving the economic mechanism." Erik
Hoffmann noted that Soviet writings of the 1970s on the STR reflected "an
understanding that new technical hardware cannot simply be grafted onto
the existing processes of labor production and management, but that these
processes themselves must undergo considerable change in order to generate
and assimilate the new machines, materials, and inventions produced by the
technical revolution."53 From the mid-1970s to the early 1980s, Brezhnev

voiced increasingly frank criticisms of the operation of the Soviet economic
bureaucracy, complaining that middle- and lower-level economic adminis-
trators were bound by tradition and routine. The attitudes of Soviet bureau-
crats, inherited from an earlier period of chronic scarcity and pressure for
quantitative results, impeded technological innovation and the improvement
of efficiency in the stage of developed socialism.
Brezhnev did not push for changes radical enough to get at the roots of
those problems, however, because he did not regard the basic characteristics
of a centrally planned and controlled economy as the cause of the persistence
of such attitudes. He did not see the mission of the Soviet leadership in the
stage of developed socialism as the dismantling of that structure but, rather,
as its improvement and perfection. At the Twenty-fourth Party Congress,
after his exhortation "organically to unite the achievements of the scientific
and technological revolution with the advantages of the socialist economic
system," he added that the task was "to develop more broadly our own,
intrinsically socialist forms of uniting science with production."54 Erik
Hoffmann observed that Soviet theorists of the 1970s assumed the "mallea-
bility and manageability" of the scientific-technological revolution, which
led to a belief that the technical advantages of the STR could be adapted to
fit the characteristics of socialist systems.55 It was thought that even though
some changes in organization in the Soviet economy were required to speed
up technological innovation, those changes could be confined to fine-tuning
some of the parts of the economic mechanism in order to enhance the per-
formance of institutions of planning and administration. In Hoffmann's
words, "Soviet writers predict very confidently—and perhaps uncritically—
that the new technical advances and modes of production will strengthen,
rather than undermine or significantly alter, the fundamental political, eco-
nomic, and social features of the present systems."56 For analysis of Soviet
economic reforms of the Brezhnev years, the reader must be directed else-
where;57 but it might be noted that in general terms, Soviet sources of the
period referred to the main trends in the structure of the Soviet economy as
the "further specialization, concentration, and socialization of production."
Nothing could better symbolize the viewpoint of Soviet ideology and policy
under Brezhnev than that statement, which was both forward-looking and
conservative at the same time. On the whole, it was the rhetoric that was
more progressive and the actual content of policy that was more conservative
in his leadership's response to economic problems.
RELATIONS OF PRODUCTION
Khrushchev had described the stage entered by Soviet society in 1959 as
involving the direct transition to communism. In the stage of developed
socialism, the Soviet Union was said by Brezhnev to be building the material
and technical base of communism. The difference was that in Khrushchev's

perspective, Soviet society was going through changes in all areas of life
signifying the realization of the features of the higher phase, whereas in the
view of theorists of mature socialism, the Soviet Union was engaged in pre-
paring the technological, productive prerequisites for a transformation of
society that will take place at a later time. Yet it should not be supposed that
writings on developed socialism excluded the possibility of social change in
then-contemporary conditions. On the contrary, Soviet sources expressing
the dominant outlook under Brezhnev insisted that the connection between
economic and social change was growing stronger and needed to be taken
into account more consciously by policy makers.
In the 1970s, however, the further development of relations of produc-
tion was described as the improvement and perfection of existing socialist
relations rather than their transformation into new, Communist forms. In
introducing the concept of developed socialism, Brezhnev took pains to em-
phasize that the distinction between the earlier stage of basic socialism and
the current stage of developed socialism pertained to the scale of production
and not to relations of production or fundamental economic laws. The rela-
tions of production and economic laws prevailing in mature socialism were
still those of the first phase of Communist society (i.e., socialism). In the
stage of developed socialism, the principal trends in the development of re-
lations of production represented the fuller application of socialist principles
and the further exploitation of their potential. The expectation for mature
socialism was for slow, evolutionary changes in productive relations.58
One of the clearest implications of the assertion that developed socialism
was a prolonged stage within the phase of socialism was that the socialist
principle of distribution would continue to be preserved for a long time.
Under Brezhnev, most Soviet economists argued that the principle of reward
according to labor should be implemented more fully and effectively in the
stage of developed socialism. They advocated strengthening the stimulating
effects of wages by tying payments more closely to the quantity and quality
of labor expended by each worker. Some economists said that efforts to
stimulate the efficiency of labor would rule out decreases in wage differenti-
ation or would even require some increases in wage differences.59 (That
thinking was not to prevail until several years later, however. In practice,
the tendency toward decreasing differentiation in wages continued from the
Khrushchev period into at least the first part of Brezhnev's time in office.) It
was still reported that the provision of benefits from public consumption
funds was rising faster than the growth of wages. But Soviet authors of the
Brezhnev period still insisted that increases in wages remained the principal
means of raising the incomes and living standards of the people.
Soviet citizens heard nothing in the 1970s of the promises offered in the
Khrushchev period that within a short time benefits from social funds of
consumption would account for one-half the real income of the population,
that the expenses of furnishing several additional types of services would be

taken over by the collective budget, and that Soviet society soon would be
on the verge of realizing distribution according to need. In the 1970s, some
economists argued in favor of increasing the fees for some types of services
that were partly subsidized by the state on the grounds that such a change
would help absorb some of the growing cash incomes and savings of the
population and might increase the availability and quality of those services.60
As those economists acknowledged, widening the use of fees would have
strengthened the dependence of consumption on wages. The more common
position among Soviet economists under Brezhnev was that payments and
benefits from social funds should be increased quantitatively in order to
reduce inequality in income. The intention of proponents of that approach
was to decrease the influence of the number of nonworking members on
each family's income—by increasing public child care, stipends for students,
and pensions for the elderly—so that the level of real consumption of each
working person would be determined more fully by his or her labor. The ex-
pansion of social consumption funds was still expected to aid in the fuller
implementation of reward according to labor.61 Commodity-money rela-
tions also were expected to persist in developed socialism, since the use of
prices, accounting, profits, credit, and wages was seen as helpful in raising
the efficiency of economic enterprises and the productivity of labor.62
Ideologists of developed socialism described the improvement and perfec-
tion of property relations in terms of the strengthening of both forms of
socialized property—state and collective farm property—and the continued
drawing closer together of both types of ownership. Though state-owned or
all-people's property was still said to play the leading role, after Khrushchev
fell from power there was a tendency to deemphasize the importance of in-
creasing the relative weight of state property in agriculture, for there was a
decrease in enthusiasm for the absorption of collective farms by the state. It
was often remarked in the Brezhnev years that the possibilities of further
development of collective farm property, as well as state property, were far
from being exhausted. The main tendency of development of each form of
property was considered to be "raising the level of socialization" of each,
which did not mean increasing the size of factories, state farms, or collective
farms but, rather, creating new types of structural integration among them.
Under Brezhnev, most Soviet sources regarded interfarm cooperation and
agro-industrial integration as the most promising forms of development of
the organization of production in the agriculture sector. While interfarm
cooperation and agro-industrial associations had been mentioned promi-
nently in the early 1960s, they received much more emphasis by the
mid-1970s. Agro-industrial combinations involving collective farms and
state-owned enterprises were seen as bridging the gap between property
forms. The stage of developed socialism was described as one of the further
convergence of the two types of socialist property and of the preparation of
the preconditions for their merging.
In the early 1970s, Richard Kosolapov, a Soviet ideologist particularly

hostile to economic liberalization, suggested that the distinction between
state and collective farm property might be eliminated fully while society
was still in the stage of developed socialism.63 Kosolapov elaborated his
position in later works. He reasoned that the formation of a single type of
all-people's property would take place prior to the maturing of other prereq-
uisites for communism, such as the motivation to work voluntarily without
material reward.64 A single form of socialized property would probably
take shape within the historical limits of the first phase of communism.
During the late 1970s and early 1980s, Kosolapov's theory was endorsed by
several other authors. At the Twenty-sixth Party Congress in 1981, Brezhnev
strongly implied approval of the prediction of the merging of property forms
within the stage of developed socialism.65 Kosolapov's position suggested
that the elimination of distinctions between property forms was more man-
ageable and less crucial than a series of other tasks, such as effacing the es-
sential differences between city and countryside and between mental and
physical labor and teaching people to labor freely for the good of society.
Widely varying degrees of emphasis on changes in property relations were
observable in Soviet works of the 1970s. In 1978, Lev Nikiforov, a Soviet
economist writing in the journal, Voprosy ekonomiki, went so far as to sa
that, "speaking of the convergence and subsequent merging of the two forms
of socialist property, one should keep in view the fact that merging should
not be looked on as an end in itself."66 While Nikiforov treated the elimina-
tion of differences between property forms as subordinate to other ques-
tions, such as increasing the mechanization of agriculture and raising the
standard of living in rural areas, some other Soviet sources of the Brezhnev
period saw property relations as having more of an effect in determining
economic factors. However, the very raising of the issue represented real in-
novation; in the Stalin years, the merging of property forms was regarded as
an end in itself and was considered one of the most important criteria for
the achievement of communism.
The means of transition to communism were not discussed in great detail
in works on developed socialism. Trends in the development of the economy
of mature socialism were said to prepare the way for the realization of com-
munism, but analyses of the manner in which socialist patterns would give
way to Communist relations tended to be vague. Perhaps the greatest prob-
lem of theorists of developed socialism was that of explaining how the tran-
sition from socialist to Communist distribution might become possible. It
was agreed that distribution according to need would presume that each
member of society would contribute labor to the collective good primarily
because of the promptings of conscience and without concern for personal
material reward. Several trends that were said to be already evident were
supposed to be preparing for the elimination of the connection between
reward and labor. Many Soviet writers asserted that technological change
was gradually liquidating heavy manual labor and combining mental and
manual labor, making work more attractive and enjoyable, and reducing
the amount of time that people needed to spend working. It was also claimed
that as society approached abundance in the supply of material goods, the
possibility of distribution according to need came closer. But what would be
the specific factor that would lead to a decline of the socialist principle of
reward, and when would such a change come about? In the Brezhnev period
as before, most Soviet sources avoided those questions.
An ingenious attempt to identify the turning point in the transition from
socialism to communism was made in an article in Voprosyfilosofiiin 1976
by Anatolii Butenko. As was mentioned earlier, the main theme of that arti-
cle was that Soviet society was in a stage of development in which the domi-
nant trends should be understood as belonging uniquely to socialism, not as
part of the emergence of Communist society. What conditions would set the
limits for the socialist phase? According to Butenko, from the time it took
over the means of production created by capitalism, socialism was associ-
ated with the level of development of the material-technical base in which
the person remained the main agent of production, and the quantity of
labor time expended continued to be the decisive factor in the creation of
social wealth. As long as labor determined the amount of value produced, it
would be necessary to use measures of labor and consumption and to em-
ploy commodity-money relations in order to implement reward according
to labor. The goal of the socialist economy was to reach a level when, as the
result of the automation of all branches of production, direct human labor
would cease to be a major factor in production and when the person, "the
former main agent of production, will occupy the place of its controller and
regulator." At that stage, the quantity of expended living labor would no
longer determine the creation of wealth for society, and the measurement of
the value of labor and the use of commodity-money relations would become
"not only superfluous, but impossible."67
Butenko suggested that socialism was based on machine industry and that
it would be rendered obsolete when the STR and automation introduced a
higher form of production. Communism would come when technological
change abolished the validity of the labor theory of value. The period of
direct transition from socialism to communism would begin only after the
technology of production had advanced far beyond the level of the present
time. Butenko's suggestion was highly creative, and made a real effort to
address crucial theoretical problems. His idea also was consistent with some
Soviet writings on the STR, automation, and labor. Of course, his essay
raised a host of questions. In communism, how will people be induced to
control and regulate production in the manner needed by society? Will all
the processes of producing goods and services ever be fully automated? What
will lead people to stop thinking in terms of material self-interest? In pub-
lishing Butenko's article, Voprosy filosofii announced its intention of offer-
ing a forum for discussion of the questions raised by the essay, but no such
discussion appeared in subsequent issues of the journal.
NOTES
1. Leonid Brezhnev, "Piat'desiat let velikikh pobed sotsializma," in Leninskim
kursom, vol. 2 (Moscow: Politizdat, 1970), 134-135.
2. Ibid., 92, 99.
3. "Informatsionnoe soobshchenie o soveshchanii predstavitelei kommunistich-
eskikh i rabochikh partii, sostoiavshemsia v Moskve v noiabre 1960 goda," in Pro-
grammnye dokumenty bofby za mir, demokratiiu i sotsializm (Moscow: Politizdat,
1961), 46.
4. Leonid Brezhnev, Leninskim kursom, vol. 1 (Moscow: Politizdat, 1970), 187;
vol. 2, 373, 450, 461.
5. Martin McCauley, Marxism-Leninism in the German Democratic Republic
(New York: Barnes & Noble, 1979), 134-135, 165-171; Melvin Croan, "East Ger-
many," in The Communist States in Disarray, 1965-1971, ed. Adam Bromke and
Teresa Rakowska-Harmstone (Minneapolis, Minn.: University of Minnesota Press,
1972), 85-89; A. G. V. Hyde-Price, "The Concept of developed Socialism' in the
German Democratic Republic: Origins and Implications," paper presented to the
Political Studies Association Conference, Aberdeen, Scotland, April 1987.
6. The sources of the concept of developed socialism and the implications of the
concept for international Communist relations are discussed by Sarah Meiklejohn
Terry, "Theories of Socialist Development in Soviet-East European Relations," in
Soviet Policy in Eastern Europe, ed. Sarah Meiklejohn Terry (New Haven, Conn.:
Yale University Press, 1984), 221-253; and Terry L. Thompson, Ideology and Policy:
The Political Uses of Doctrine in the Soviet Union (Boulder, Colo.: Westview, 1989),
Chapter 2.
7. M. A. Suslov, "Velikoe piatidesiatiletie," originally published in the book,
Velikii Oktiabf i mirovoi revoliutsionnyi protsess (Moscow: Politizdat, 1967); re-
printed in Suslov, Naputiakh stroitetstvo kommunizma, vol. 2 (Moscow: Politizdat,
1977), 115.
8. Leonid Brezhnev, "Otchetnyi doklad Tsentral'nogo Komiteta KPSS XXIV
s"ezdu Kommunisticheskoi partii Sovetskogo Soiuza," March 1971, in Leninskim
kursom, vol. 3 (Moscow: Politizdat, 1972), 234.
9. Ibid., 234-235.
10. Leonid Brezhnev, "O proekte Konstitutsii Soiuza Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh
Respublik," in Leninskim kursom, vol. 6 (Moscow: Politizdat, 1978), 374.
11. Robert Sharlet, The New Soviet Constitution of 1977: Analysis and Text
(Brunswick, Ohio: King's Court Communications, 1978), 75.
12. Leonid Brezhnev, "Otchetnyi doklad Tsentral'nogo Komiteta KPSS XXVI
s"ezdu Kommunisticheskoi partii Sovetskogo Soiuza i ocherednye zadachi partii v
oblasti vnutrennei i vneshnei politiki," February 1981, in Leninskim kursom, vol. 8
13. Ibid., 726-727.
14. Suslov, XXVIsf,ezd Kommunisticheskoi partii Sovetskogo Soiuza: stenografi-
cheskii otchet, vol. 1 (Moscow: Politizdat, 1981), 376.
15. Most Soviet sources of the Brezhnev period affirmed that the stage of devel-
oped socialism had begun in the USSR around the beginning of the 1960s, but some
argued that the transition to developed socialism had come later in the 1960s. V. I.
Kas'ianenko, "Some Questions of the Historiography of Developed Socialism in the
USSR," Soviet Studies in History 16 (Spring 1978; reprinted from Voprosy istorii,
1976, no. 8): 55-57.
16. Leonid Brezhnev, "O proekte Konstitutsii (Osnovnogo Zakona) Soiuza Sovet-
skikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik i itogakh ego vsenarodnogo obsuzhdeniia," speech
to the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, October 1977, in Leninskim kursom, vol. 6
(Moscow: Politizdat, 1978), 537; Grigorii Glezerman, "Etapy stanovleniia sotsialisti-
cheskogo obshchestva i kriterii razvitogo sotsializma," in Razvitoe sotsialisticheskoe
obshchestvo: sushchnosf, kriterii zrelosti, kritika revizionistskikh kontseptsii, ed.
Grigorii Glezerman and Oscar Rheingold (Moscow: Mysl', 1973), 18.
17. Anatolii Butenko, "Razvitoe sotsialisticheskoe obshchestvo: sushchnost' i
problemy," Voprosy filosofii, 1976, no. 6: 31.
18. Ibid., 33-34.
19. It should be reemphasized that Butenko had sharply different policy objectives
for advancing that theoretical position than did others, such as Richard Kosolapov,
who also favored a decrease of attention to the dynamics of transition to commu-
nism. Butenko advocated reforms in established institutions, while Kosolapov called
for further consolidation of those institutions.
20. Sharlet, The New Soviet Constitution of 1977, 75; Brezhnev, "O proekte Kon-
stitutsii (Osnovnogo Zakona)," 537.
21. Sovershenstvovanie is usually translated into English as "improvement'' and,
sometimes, as "perfection." It carries the meanings of both words and connotes proc-
esses of improvement and perfection within the framework of existing society. There
is a Russian word which simply means "improvement" (uluchshenie), but it was not
given a key status by theorists of developed socialism.
22. Quoted by M. V. Iskrov, "O razrabotke vazhneishikh problem razvitogo sot-
sializma v istoriko-partiinykh issledovaniiakh," Voprosy istorii KPSS, 1981, no. 12: 34.
23. "O razvitom sotsialisticheskom obshchestve," Kommunist,1972, no. 6: 53.
24. Brezhnev, "O proekte Konstitutsii (Osnovnogo Zakona)," 536; idem, "Istori-
cheskii rubezh na puti k kommunizmu," published in Problemy mira i sotsializma,
1977, no. 12; reprinted in Leninskim kursom, vol. 6, 627.
25. Ibid., 623.
26. Petr Fedoseev, Dialektika sovremennoi epokhi, 2nd ed. (Moscow: Politizdat,
1975), 260.
27. It should be noted that disparities in the degree of modernization of different
segments of society were the result of conditions inherited by the Bolsheviks from
Tsarism, as well as of Stalin's policies.
28. Glezerman, "Etapy stanovleniia," 21-22.
29. M. A. Suslov, "Po zavetam velikogo Lenina," April 1975, in Na putiakh
stroitefstva kommunizma,vol. 2 (Moscow: Politizdat, 1977), 440.
30. Brezhnev, "O proekte Konstitutsii (Osnovnogo Zakona)," 537.
31. Butenko, "Razvitoe sotsialisticheskoi obshchestvo," 41; see also 37.
32. Richard Kosolapov, "The Approach to the Study of Developed Socialism,"
World Marxist Review 17 (September 1974): 60-70; idem, Socialism: Questions of
Theory (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1979), 464.
33. Grigorii Glezerman, "Etapy stanovleniia sotsialisticheskogo obshchestva i
kriterii razvitogo sotsializma," in Razvitoe sotsialisticheskoe obshchestvo, 3rd ed.,
ed. Grigorii Glezerman and Oscar Rheingold (Moscow: Mysl', 1979), 25.
34. Maksim P. Kim, "O periodizatsii protsessa stroitel'stva sotsializma v SSSR,"
Kommunist,1981, no. 7: 40.
35. See Alfred B. Evans, Jr., "Developed Socialism in Soviet Ideology," Soviet
Studies 29 (July 1977): 426; and William B. Simons, ed., The Constitutions of the
Communist World (Germantown, Md.: Sijthoff & Noordhoff, 1980), 38, 39, 140,
and 164.
36. Brezhnev, "Otchetnyi doklad XXIV s"ezdu," 235.
37. Ibid.
38. Ibid.
39. Leonid Brezhnev, "Otchet Tsentral'nogo Komiteta KPSS i ocherednye zadachi
partii v oblasti vnutrennei i vneshnei politiki," speech to the Twenty-fifth Congress
of the CPSU, February 1976, in Leninskim kursom, vol. 5 (Moscow: Politizdat,
1976), 503; idem, "Otchetnyi doklad XXVI s"ezdu," 690.
41. Ibid., 250.
42. Brezhnev, "Piat'desiat let velikikh pobed sotsializma," 104.
44. A. G. Aganbegian, "A New Stage in the Evolution of the System of Economic
Management," Problems of Economics 23 (July 1980; reprinted from Ekonomika i
organizatsiiapromyshlennogoproizvodstva,1979, no. 10): 5; I. P. Oleinik, "Ekono-
mika razvitogo sotsializma," in Razvitoe sotsialisticheskoe obshchestvo, 3rd ed., 83-
84; G. Sarkisian, "Ekonomicheskii rost i narodnoe blagosostoianie," Voprosy ekon-
omiki, 1981, no. 5: 14.
46. Nikolai Tikhonov, "Report on the Five-Year Plan," in Current Soviet Policies
VIII, ed. Frederich C. Schulze and Ronald Branch (Columbus, Ohio: The Current
Digest of the Soviet Press, 1981), 40.
48. Daniel Bell, in The Coming of Post-Industrial Society (New York: Basic Books,
1973), 28, offered the opinion that "the methodological promise of the second half
of the twentieth century is the management of organized complexity" and the devel-
opment of "a new intellectual technology" to make the management of large organi-
zations and systems possible. Bell, however, disagreed with the Soviet leadership of
the Brezhnev period on the content of that intellectual technology.
49. S. A. Kheinman, "The Scientific-Technical Revolution: Essence, Directions,
and Stages," Problems of Economics 20 (April 1978; reprinted from Ekonomika i
organizatsiia promyshlennogo proizvodstva, 1977, no. 3): 16.
50. M. MiUionshchikov et al., The Scientific and Technological Revolution: Social
Effects and Prospects (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1972), 164. For a discussion of
the background to Soviet thinking about the STR, see Julian M. Cooper, "The Sci-
entific and Technical Revolution in Soviet Theory," in Technology and Communist
Culture: The Socio-Cultural Impact of Technology under Socialism, ed. Frederic J.
Fleron, Jr. (New York: Praeger, 1977), 150.
51. Brezhnev, "Otchet Tsentral'nogo Komiteta KPSS," 502.
52. Brezhnev, "Otchetnyi doklad XXVI s"ezdu," 682.
53. Erik P. Hoffmann, "Soviet Views of The Scientific-Technological Revolu-
tion,'" World Politics 30 (July 1978): 620.
54. Brezhnev, "Otchetnyi doklad XXVI s"ezdu," 257.
55. Hoffman, "Soviet Views of The Scientific-Technological Revolution,"' 623.
56. Ibid., 626.

57. Gertrude E. Schroeder, "The Soviet Economy on a Treadmill of Reforms," in
Soviet Economy in a Time of Change, vol. 1, ed. Joint Economic Committee o
Congress (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1979), 412-430;
idem, "Soviet Economic 'Reform' Decrees: More Steps on the Treadmill," in Sovie
Economy in the Nineteen Eighties: Problems and Prospects, vol. 1, ed. Joint Ec
nomic Committee (Washington, D.C.:U.S. Government Printing Office, 1982), 65-88
58. V. N. Cherkovets, Sotsializmkakekonomicheskaiasistema(Moscow: Eko
mika, 1982), 232.
59. E. I. Kapustin et al., Ekonomika razvitogo sotsialisticheskogo obshchestva
(Moscow: Ekonomika, 1977), 53; V. Maier, "Urgent Problems in Improving the
People's Well-being," Problems of Economics 20 (February 1978; reprinted from
Voprosy ekonomiki, 1977, no. 11): 11; N. E. Rabkina and N. M. Rimashevskaia,
"Distributive Relations and Social Development," Problems of Economics22 (July
1979; reprinted from Ekonomika i organizatsiia promyshlennogo proizvodstv
1978, no. 5): 47.
60. V. Z. Rogovin, "Rost narodnogo blagosostoianiia i problemy sovershenstvov-
aniia raspredelitel'nykh otnoshenii," Voprosyfilosofii,1981, no. 5: 14.
61. Kapustin et al., Ekonomika razvitogo sotsialisticheskogo obshchestva,
62. Brezhnev, "Otchetnyi doklad XXIV s"ezdu," 271; Glezerman, "Etapy stanov-
leniia," 1979, 38.
63. Kosolapov, "The Approach to the Study," 69-70.
64. Richard Kosolapov, "Vklad XXIV, XXV, i XXVI s"ezdov KPSS v razrabotku
teoreticheskikh i politicheskikh problem razvitogo sotsializma i perekhoda k kom-
munizmu," Kommunist,1982, no. 5: 58.
65. In his report to that party congress, Brezhnev predicted that the establishment
of a classless social structure would be carried out "mainly and basically within the
historical limits of mature socialism." Brezhnev, "Otchetnyi doklad XXVI s"ezdu,"
695. In Soviet theory, the creation of a classless society would come about through
the merging of the classes of workers and collective farmers, which would presume
the elimination of the distinctions between state property and collective farm property
66. L. V. Nikiforov, "Razvitie kooperativno-kolkhoznoi sobstvennosti i ee sbiliz-
henie s gosudarstvennoi," Voprosy ekonomiki,1978, no. 11: 130.
67. Butenko, "Razvitoe sotsialisticheskoe obshchestvo," 35.
8
Social Structure and

Social Transformation in
Developed Socialism
THE SOCIETY OF DEVELOPED SOCIALISM

According to the ideologists of the Brezhnev leadership, developed socialism
was distinguished from the earlier stage of socialism not only by its level of
economic development but also by a higher degree of maturity of social
relations. Soviet sources under Brezhnev still described the three major social
groupings in their society as the working class, collective farm peasants, and
intelligentsia. It was said that after several decades of the reconstruction of
society on the basis of socialist principles, the unity of Soviet society had
been strengthened substantially. The remnants of nonsocialist classes still
surviving in the late 1930s, such as noncollective farm peasants and individ-
ual craftsmen, had virtually disappeared by the 1970s.1 The working class,
along with members of workers' families, though only a minority in the
1930s, constituted the overwhelming majority in society in the 1970s and
1980s.2 People living in urban areas made up over 60 percent of the popula-
tion of the USSR when the concept of developed socialism was introduced.3
Further, it was claimed that the other major groups had adopted the social
and political values of the working class. The nature of the Soviet peasantry
was thought to have been fundamentally transformed by socialism, as im-
plied by Brezhnev's assertion that "today's peasant, born and raised in the
collective farm, is characterized by a collectivist psychology, a high level of
ideological consciousness, and dedication to the work of socialism and com-
munism."4 The ideology attributed to the working class, and actually dis-
seminated by the Communist party, was said to pervade Soviet society.
The claim of unity and consensus did not, however, rule out the recognition
of considerable social differentiation. The concept of developed socialism
was associated with a more complex and varied depiction of social divisions
than previously admitted by official Soviet ideology. In Soviet theory of the
Stalin period class differences were reduced almost exclusively to distinctions
in forms of ownership of productive property.5 By Brezhnev's time, many
Soviet theorists argued that differences in the relationship to the means of
production were the decisive determinant of class only in societies with pri-
vate ownership of productive property and that those differences had become
less important in socialism as collective ownership spread throughout the
economy and as the difference between state property and collective farm
property decreased. In developed socialism, since distinctions in forms of
property ownership had become less important, differences of other types
had emerged as the main signs of class membership. The primary determi-
nants of class were seen as differences in labor and reward, measured by
such indicators as education, occupational skills, wages, and incomes.6
Moreover, Soviet ideological theorists of the 1970s had become conscious
of a number of other dimensions of social differentiation in addition to class
divisions. Though previously the term "social structure" had been used to
refer to the class structure of Soviet society, by Brezhnev's time, some Soviet
authors substituted the term "social-class structure" in the discussion of class
differences to show their awareness that other divisions also played impor-
tant roles in society. Among the other differences which received attention
in official and scholarly statements of the 1970s were territorial (regional),
residential (urban-rural), demographic (generational), and gender-based
(male-female) differences. The largest amount of theoretical and empirical
analysis focused on professional or occupational differentiation within each
of the three major social groupings in Soviet society. Zev Katz reported in
1973 that as a result of Soviet sociological research in the late 1960s and
early 1970s, "a new picture of Soviet society as possessing a highly stratified
and complex nature is emerging. Instead of the previous official picture,
which was basically unidimensional (forms of ownership), a multidimen-
sional image of stratification is gradually appearing."7 The orthodox descrip-
tion of social structure in Soviet ideology's depiction of the "developed
socialist society" under Brezhnev assimilated some of that multidimensional
analysis but within the limits of restrictions that were designed to preserve
basic doctrinal assumptions. Beginning in the middle of the 1970s, the lead-
ership was increasingly insistent on discouraging or suppressing sociological
research that tested those limits.
TRENDS OF CONVERGENCE
The principal trends in the "improvement and perfection" (sovershen-
stvovanie) of social relations in the stage of developed socialism were said to
be the continued convergence (sblizhenie)of classes and major strata and
Social Structure and Social Transformation in DevelopedSocialsm 133
the gradual effacement (stiranie) of the differences between them. Theorist

of developed socialism emphasized the gradual pace of those trends, how-
ever. They liked to cite Lenin's warning that the overcoming of class distinc-
tions would be a "very long affair"8 and to note that the drawing closer
together of classes still did not mean theirfinalmerging (sliianie). Ideologist
of the 1970s and early 1980s implicitly criticized Khrushchev for having en-
couraged excessive haste in the elimination of class divisions. Nevertheless,
the convergence of classes still was supposed to prepare the way for the real-
ization of the classless society. Brezhnev contributed a noteworthy revision
to Soviet doctrine in his report to the Twenty-sixth Party Congress in 1981
by predicting that the merging of the classes of workers and peasants would
take place while Soviet society was still in the stage of developed socialism.
He announced, "In evaluating the experience of the development of society
over the past decades, I think that we can assume that the formation of a
classless structure of society will take place mainly and basically within the
historical framework of mature socialism."9 Brezhnev implicitly endorsed
the thesis that the merging of state and collective farm property would occur
within the stage of developed socialism. His statement was a break with tra-
dition, since Soviet ideology previously had insisted that the elimination of
the differences in forms of ownership and the effacement of the distinction
between workers and peasants were criteria of the entrance into the phase of
full communism. According to Brezhnev, it was possible to anticipate a
classless socialist society, but he set out no timetable for the merging of
classes. His remarks implied that the elimination of the difference between
classes in their relationship to the means of production was a simpler task —
and therefore would be resolved earlier—than some other tasks whose reso-
lution was considered essential for the transition to communism, such as the
introduction of distribution according to need and the realization of social
self-government.
The removal of some other social distinctions which were thought to be
more resistant to change than class differences was also regarded as a pre-
requisite for the achievement of full communism. In the years before
Brezhnev's speech at the Twenty-sixth Party Congress, Soviet theorists had
come to make a distinction between a "classless" society and a "socially
homogeneous" society. The goal of social development had come to be seen
not merely as the absence of classes but as full social homogeneity (odnorod
nosf), while attaining that objective was viewed as much more complex and
difficult than building a classless society. Ideologists of the Brezhnev period
contended that to achieve a homogeneous society, it would be necessary to
overcome not only interclass differences but also some important intraclass
differences, including the differences between industrial and agricultural
labor, between urban and rural dwellers, and between mental and manual
labor.10 Those theorists said that distinctions connected with the existence
of two forms of productive property were being effaced more rapidly than
distinctions in labor and wages, and they concluded that the difference be-
tween workers and peasants would be eliminated before the differences

among strata within each class, including the differences between manual
laborers and the intelligentsia.11 Richard Kosolapov, one of the main inter-
preters of orthodoxy under Brezhnev, warned that creating a homogeneous
society would require "long and arduous work" after a classless society had
been attained.12
The discussion of the convergence of classes and strata referred generally
to the integration of sectors of society traditionally regarded by Soviet ide-
ology as more "backward" into the growing mainstream of socialist, urban,
industrial society. In each case, the main thrust was the assimilation of less
educated and skilled groups into the way of life and work of more techno-
logically competent, educated, and affluent segments. It was implicitly
assumed that the main cleavage in Soviet society was that between the old,
prerevolutionary, and preindustrial sectors of society and the new, Leninist,
industrialized sectors. In the stage of developed socialism, the mission of
society was gradually but finally to overcome that historical cleavage, com-
pleting the conquest of the old by the new. The thorough dominance of the
new socialist principles and the gradual disappearance of elements inconsis-
tent with those principles would insure the growth of the wholeness, integra-
tion, or integrity (tselostnosf) of the social system. "The primary force
behind social change is the application of modern technology. The conver-
gence in the character of labor of the working class and collective farm
peasantry with the intelligentsia is determined in the final analysis," accord-
ing to Mikhail Rutkevich, "by scientific-technological progress, by the in-
troduction of new technology in all branches of production and all spheres
of life's activity."13 The trends cited by Soviet sources under Brezhnev
as evidence of the growing similarity of all major groups in Soviet society
were for the most part the social corollaries of economic and technological
modernization.
A trend of economic equalization was also thought by theorists of devel-
oped socialism to flow from technological advancement, but those sources
conceived "equalization" in a distinctive manner. They argued that as more
advanced technology enhanced the productivity of labor and the skills of
members of all groups rose, increases in wages and incomes would be shared
by all. As Kosolapov put it, "The overcoming of historically conditioned
inequality in the degree of satisfaction of demands is completed gradually
in the process of the consistent forward movement of socialism. In the
contemporary stage the basic factors of that process are the acceleration of
scientific-technological progress and the raising of the educational and cul-
tural-technical level of the members of society."14 For the ideological theo-
rists of the Brezhnev period, equalization did not mean the redistribution of
benefits from the better-off to the less favored. Gains toward equalization
were to be made possible by the enhancement of the education, productivity,
and incomes of all members of society. The improvement in the material
Social Structure and Social Transformation in Developed S 135
well-being of groups with lower incomes was to be paid for out of the incre-
ments in the total of social benefits created by economic growth so that it
would be possible to enhance the standard of living of the less affluent groups
without reducing the rewards to more privileged strata. As Rutkevich ex-
pressed it, in the stage of mature socialism,
the remaining distinctions among social groups in basic indicators, characterizing t

level of material well-being and culture, are being overcome not by means of their
"averaging," that is, the raising of the standard of living of certain social groups at
the expense of others, but on the basis of a general advance, besides which, t
dicators increase more rapidly for those groups of the population which fo
reasons have lagged behind the average level. In other words . . . there is pro
the position and interests of all the toilers.15
INTEGRATION AND DIFFERENTIATION

Khrushchev's program for a rapid transition to communism had stimu-
lated a discussion of the future of the division of labor, but in the Brezhnev
period, the debate over the prospects for transcending the division of labor
came to an end. Mikhail Rutkevich asserted that the thesis of the imminent
withering away of professions and specialties had been "refuted by life it-
self," and charged that discussion of that thesis had brought harmful effects
on theory and practice.16 Theorists of mature socialism reasoned that the
elaboration of scientific knowledge and the introduction of more complex
technology required greater specialization in professional expertise. "The
interests of the most rapid progress of the productive forces of developed
socialism demand not the liquidation of the professional division of labor, but
on the contrary, its improvement and perfection," according to Rutkevich.17
In the view of ideologists of the Brezhnev leadership, occupational differen-
tiation would not only increase in the stage of developed socialism but would
also continue to have social significance, for a common mode of work would
engender a certain sense of solidarity. Petr Fedoseev's statement that "people
working in one branch of production and occupied with one type of labor
will always have common productive interests and tasks"18 conceded in effect
that occupational groups would always constitute social groups, even in the
future Communist society.
According to the dominant trend of thinking under Brezhnev, the eventual
completion of Communist construction would mean not the disappearance
but the fundamental transformation of the division of labor, for occupa-
tional differences would "lose their class character" or gradually cease to be
connected with class differences. There would be a number of different pro-
fessions within industry as weU as within agriculture, but there would be no
qualitative distinction between industrial and agricultural labor or between
mental and physical work, since those in each occupation would be highly
educated and skilled, would labor productively with modern technology,

and would receive material benefits abundantly in accordance with their
needs. The traditional division of labor, in the sense of inequality between
city and country and between intelligentsia and manual workers, would
have been abolished. All occupational groups would share features charac-
teristic of a high level of social and economic modernization, but the over-
coming of the distinctions between urban and rural society and between the
intelligentsia and the working class would not mean the elimination of all
differences among professions.
Ideological theorists of the Brezhnev period described the dynamics of
social cleavages in mature socialism as a dialectic of integration and differ-
entiation. V. I. Kas'ianenko, a prominent Soviet historian, reported that in
the opinion of social researchers change in social structure was "reflected in
the effacement of the deepest social distinctions between members of society,
the simplification [uproshchenie] of its macrostructure and the growin
complexity [uslozhnenie] of its intraclass structure."19 The fading of differ
ences between the working class and peasants, city and country, and the in-
telligentsia and manual workers simplified the macrostructure of society.
With the deepening of professional specialization, however, differentiation
among occupational groups within each major class and stratum was be-
coming more pronounced, and as interclass differences decreased, the social
importance of intraclass differences was heightened. Richard Kosolapov
specified that in the stage of mature socialism "many non-class, particularly
professional, distinctions in our country make themselves felt to an increas-
ing degree while class distinctions are disappearing."20 Mikhail Rutkevich
contended that intraclass group differences were already a more important
determinant of material well-being in Soviet society than differences between
classes. In his view, differences in the sphere of distribution between the
basic social groups in Soviet society in the early 1980s were less substantial
than material differences between strata within those larger social groups.21
Occupational differences would continue to be associated with stratification
in skills, education, political activism, and material reward throughout the
stage of developed socialism and, perhaps, even for some time in the phase
of communism, according to A. Zdravomyslov. "Differentiation in the
character of labor, in the level of culture and education, and in the degree of
participation in the administration of society will be preserved even in the
class-homogeneous society, while during a more or less long time those
forms of nonclass differentiation will have social significance."22 The theory
of developed socialism continued to demand the absorption of the old, pre-
industrial segments into the new, industrialized sectors of Soviet society but
accepted the social distinctions inherent in socialist modernization.
In the perspective of spokesmen for the Brezhnev leadership, social dif-
ferentiation did not preclude social integration but actually made higher
forms of integration possible, as suggested by Rutkevich's discussion of a
Social Structure and Social Transformation in Developed Soci 137
"dialectical connection between integration and differentiation" in developed

socialist society.23 In such a system, he argued, social integration was realized
through two processes. The first process was the convergence of all social
groups: "In each element . . . the importance of common factors grows."24
Within each major social group—manual workers, collective farmers, and
the intelligentsia—the average level of education, skills, income, and con-
sumption was rising so that, on the whole, the differences between those
major groups with respect to such indicators were decreasing. Each class
and broad stratum was becoming more internally differentiated, but such
differentiation was not thought to hinder integration. On the contrary, it
was believed that the social structure of each major group had come to re-
semble more closely the internal structure of other major groups so that the
consciousness of differences between classes had weakened.
According to interpreters of the concept of developed socialism, the sec-
ond process of integration was the construction of mutual linkages among
the segments of the social system. "The connections between the elements of
the system become orderly and stable, and the level of control in the system
rises."25 It was thought that as each major group became more internally
complex and as the smaller groups within each class became more specialized,
the interdependence among all groups in the social system increased. While
the first process of integration involved the strengthening of the social under-
pinning of community, the second process referred to the growth of com-
plementarity among the elements of the system. Soviet sources representative
of the Brezhnev leadership's outlook resolutely denied, however, that stronger
internal integration would arise solely from the spontaneous development
of society. They insisted that if social development were not subjected to
conscious, planned direction, the growth of complexity and differentiation
would lead to anarchy and disintegration. (Such would be the eventual fate
of capitalist society, according to the traditional Soviet Marxist-Leninist
view, carried over into the ideology of developed socialism.) The coordina-
tion of groups and the reconciliation of conflicts would of necessity still be
carried out by the vanguard party. Although harmony did not result auto-
matically from social interaction, the growing community of social and eco-
nomic traits and the complementarity of group interests in Soviet society
allegedly rendered complexity manageable. In the theory of developed social-
ism, social differentiation was neither a necessary evil nor a technical inci-
dental, but it provided a positive justification for the perpetuation of the
guiding and directing role of the Communist party in Soviet society.
NOTES
1. The principal national statistical handbook published by the Soviet govern-
ment showed those categories as comprising 0.3 percent of the Soviet population in
1959, and 0.0 percent from 1970 on. Central Statistical Administration of the USSR,
Narodnoe khoziaistvo SSSR, 1922-1982 (Moscow: Finansy i Statistika, 1982), 30.

Those figures did not take into account illegal entrepreneurship, which in any case
was not systematically recognized by the official ideology under Brezhnev. Of course,
legal private entrepreneurship expanded rapidly in the USSR after 1986.
2. According to the same official source, manual workers and service personnel,
and their families (the working class as a whole) made up 86.7 percent of the popula-
tion of the USSR in 1982 (the year in which Brezhnev died), while manual workers
and their families constituted 60.9 percent of the population. Ibid.
3. Urban residents constituted 64 percent of the population of the USSR in 1982.
It is interesting to note that the 1970 Soviet census, taken shortly before Brezhnev's
first decisive articulation of the concept of developed socialism, was the first to show
urban dwellers as a majority of the country's population. Ibid.
4. Leonid Brezhnev, "Istoricheskii rubezh na puti k kommunizmu," published in
Problemy mira i sotsializma, 1977, no. 12; reprinted in Leninskim kursom, vol. 6
5. That is, it was emphasized that while the working class labored on state prop-
erty, the collective farm peasants worked with collective farm (group) property.
6. Mikhail N. Rutkevich, Stanovlenie sotsiatnoi odnorodnosti (Moscow: Politiz-
dat, 1982), 40-41.
7. Zev Katz, "Insights from Emigres and Sociological Studies on the Soviet
Economy," in Soviet Economic Prospects for the Seventies, ed. Joint Economic
Committee of Congress (Washington, D.C: U.S. Government Printing Office,
1973), 117.
8. Grigorii Glezerman "Etapy stanovleniia sotsialisticheskogo obshchestva i
kriterii razvitogo sotsializma," in Razvitoe sotsialisticheskoe obshchestvo, 3rd ed.,
ed. Grigorii Glezerman and Oscar Rheingold (Moscow: Mysl', 1979), 39.
9. Brezhnev, "Otchetnyi doklad Tsentral'nogo Komiteta KPSS XXVI s"ezdu
Kommunisticheskoi partii Sovetskogo Soiuza i ocherednye zadachi partii v oblasti
vnutrennei i vneshnei politiki," February, 1981, in Leninskim kursom, vol. 8,
10. Katz, "Insights," 117.
11. Mikhail N. Rutkevich, "Organicheskaia tselostnost' i dinamizm sotsial'no-
klassovykh otnoshenii na etape zrelogo sotsializma"Kommunist,1981, no. 13: 75.
12. Richard Kosolapov, Socialism: Questions of Theory (Moscow: Progress Pub-
lishers, 1979), 345.
13. Rutkevich, Stanovlenie sotsiatnoi odnorodnosti, 123.
14. Richard I. Kosolapov et al., Razvitoi sotsializm: Problemy teorii i praktiki,
3rd ed. (Moscow: Politizdat, 1982), 97.
15. Rutkevich, "Organicheskaia tselostnost'," 72.
16. Ibid., 76.
17. M. N. Rutkevich, "SotsiaTnaia struktura razvitogo sotsialisticheskogo obsh-
chestva," in Razvitoe sotsialisticheskoe obshchestvo, 3rd ed., ed. Grigorii Glezerman
and Oscar Rheingold (Moscow: Mysl', 1979), 235.
18. Petr N. Fedoseev et al., Nauchnyi kommunizm (Moscow: Politizdat, 1981), 288.
19. V. I. Kas'ianenko, "Some Questions of the Historiography of Developed So-
cialism in the USSR" (translated here directly from the original, Voprosy istorii, 1976,
no. 8: 14), Soviet Studies in History 16 (Spring 1978), 63. See also Kosolapov, Social-
ism, 344.
Social Structure and Social Transformation in Developed Socialism 139
20. Richard Kosolapov, "Soviet Society: Analysis of Its Structure," World Marxist
Review 16 (May 1973): 39.
21. Rutkevich, Stanovlenie sotsiatnoi odnorodnosti, 47; see also 159.
22. A. Zdravomyslov, "Metodologicheskie problemy izucheniia sovetskogo rabo-
chego klassa," Kommunist, 1978, no. 9: 125.
23. Mikhail Rutkevich, "The Structure of Soviet Society and Its Development
towards Social Homogeneity," Social Sciences 5, no. 3 (1974): 34.
24. Ibid., 20.
25. Ibid., 20-21.
9
The Socialist Way of Life
The concept of the socialist way of life (sotsialisticheskii obraz zhizni) was
not embraced by Soviet ideology until several years after the popularization
of the idea of developed socialism. Though the first major works by Soviet
writers on the socialist way of life appeared around the end of the 1960s,1
Brezhnev did not speak extensively on that topic until he delivered his report
to the Twenty-fifth Congress of the CPSU in 1976, a time of sharp economic
reverses. The grain harvest of 1975 had been very poor, and the manufac-
turing of many consumer goods had not grown as rapidly as promised. It
was becoming apparent that it would not be easy to take advantage of the
benefits of the scientific-technological revolution, lift Soviet agriculture out
of its sluggishness, and increase the quality of consumption in the USSR. In
his main speech to the Twenty-fifth Congress, Brezhnev maintained that
raising the people's living standard was still a long-term goal of the party
but implied that the objective of improving material conditions should not
obscure the importance of guarding socialist morality and tightening labor
discipline. The sternly paternalistic tone of his speech colored Brezhnev's
remarks about the socialist way of life. At one point, he linked the raising of
living standards and the "forming of the new person" in the USSR to "the
all-round development of the individual and the perfection of the socialist
way of life.%%1Later in the speech, he added that a result of the accomplish-
ments of the Soviet people was the "Soviet way of life," which he character-
ized as "an atmosphere of genuine collectivism and comradeship, solidarity,
the friendship of all the nations and peoples of our country, which grows
stronger from day to day, and moral health which makes us strong and
steadfast."3 Brezhnev's remarks implied a shift in emphasis away from the

immediate improvement of material living conditions and toward the pro-
tection of moral values said to be distinctive to socialist societies.
The Twenty-fifth Party Congress was followed with a flood of publica-
tions in the USSR on the socialist way of life. The fact that Soviet writers
were not able to agree on a single definition of the term indicated, however,
that different sources tried to give their own interpretations of its meaning.4
The invention of the concept of the way of life did not result in the initiation
of any new direction of research by Soviet social scientists but, rather, en-
couraged scholars of various points of view to appropriate the concept to
the types of research and writing in which they were already engaged. It
seems likely that the Soviet leadership endorsed the concept of the socialist
way of life in the middle of the 1970s, not primarily because the term prom-
ised to have great analytical value but out of a desire to use it for exhortatory
and polemical purposes.
When Brezhnev fully endorsed the concept of the socialist way of life in
1976, it was apparent that Soviet society would not reach communism in the
early 1980s or attain the highest level of production in the world in the 1970s
as promised by the party program adopted in 1961. The challenges that
Khrushchev had flung audaciously at the West, that is, his boasts that the
Soviet Union would soon triumph in economic competition, were notably
absent from the rhetoric of Soviet leaders in the 1970s. The introduction of
references to the socialist way of life implied a desire to avoid comparing the
progress of the Soviet Union with the advancement of the most economically
developed capitalist countries mainly in terms of quantitative economic
achievements. As Petr Fedoseev put it, "The competition of socialism with
capitalism is not limited only to technological and economic indicators; it
includes also the sphere of social ideals and morals, the tone of life of the
person."5 Though Brezhnev implicitly recognized that the Soviet Union had
not overtaken the wealthiest capitalist countries in production per capita
and had no prospect of doing so in the near future, he suggested that the
USSR already had developed a way of life qualitatively superior to that of
the West. The superiority of the socialist way of life was said by a number
of Soviet scholars of the Brezhnev period to be found in its application of
moral principles such as collectivism, humanism, democratism, and inter-
nationalism.6 The same sources argued that bourgeois societies were experi-
encing a crisis of moral decay, of which the symptoms were crime, violence,
sexual depravity, and the use of narcotics. The discussion of the socialist
way of life was part of the effort by Soviet ideologists of the Brezhnev years
to free the Soviet Union of criteria of progress derived from the experience
of Western countries and rising Asian economic powers. Fedoseev wrote in
1978 that "on the material and social-political basis of developed social-
ism . . . grows and develops the socialist way of life, the unique criterion,
according to which are determined both the degrees of our ascending move-
The Socialist Way of Life 143
ment to communism and the norms of conduct of each person."7 The Brezhnev
leadership endorsed the conclusion that the criteria of advancement of Soviet
society were unique to Soviet-style socialism and pertained in large measure
to the moral standards set by Soviet Marxism, which were allegedly superior
to the ethical norms of Western capitalist societies.
The Brezhnev leadership's praise for the advantages of the socialist way
of life was also associated with the tempering of promises for immediate im-
provements in the standard of living of the Soviet people. Indeed, by the
time of the Twenty-fifth Party Congress, many Soviet sources even began to
warn against the negative moral and ideological consequences of an excessive
emphasis on the growth of material welfare. At that congress, Brezhnev
cautioned that "it is necessary . . . that the growth of material possibilities
constantly be accompanied by the raising of people's ideological-moral and
cultural level. Otherwise we may allow relapses into philistine, petty-bourgeois
psychology."8 Subsequently some Soviet commentators more openly com-
plained that certain moral dangers were inherent in the growth of consump-
tion. V. Z. Rogovin said flatly that "the raising of the standard of living
gives birth to new moral problems" associated with an excessive dedication
to materialist values,9 while A. S. Tsipko affirmed that "the growth of well-
being and the improvement of living conditions sometimes lead to the re-
production of traditions of private life with its seclusion, egocentrism, and
poorly developed demands for social interaction."10 A number of Soviet
ideologists and political officials expressed the fear that expectations of rising
consumption might encourage Soviet citizens to put the pursuit of personal
welfare ahead of service to collective interests.11
Concern with materialism, privatization, and selfishness did not induce
Soviet sources under Brezhnev openly to repudiate the objective of raising
the material standard of living of the population of their country, which
had been a stated goal of Soviet Marxism-Leninism from Lenin's time on.
What seemed to be implicit in Brezhnev's thinking, however, was the reali-
zation that it was proving more difficult to achieve immediate and steady
improvements in consumption in the USSR than had been anticipated by
the first version of the ideological conception of developed socialism as set
forth at the Twenty-fourth Party Congress in 1971. In the late 1970s, in the
second version of the concept of developed socialism, there were explicit
warnings that the consciousness and behavior desired for members of devel-
oped socialist society would not result automatically from the improvement
of economic rewards but should necessarily be shaped through active inter-
vention by the Communist party, the state, and organs of moral and ideo-
logical upbringing.12 One purpose of introducing the notion of the socialist
way of life was to accord greater symbolic and theoretical recognition to the
importance of ideological instruction and moral training in molding the
values and behavior of Soviet citizens.
Though the Brezhnev leadership touted the advantages of the socialist
way of life, it also stressed that the improvement and perfection (sover-
shenstvovanie) of the actual way of life of people in the USSR was a major
task in the stage of developed socialism. The perfection of the way of life
would come about through the gradual eradication of elements of thought
and behavior alien to socialism so that the socialist way of life would be
more completely realized in the activity of Soviet citizens.13 The main prob-
lem to be faced in the improvement of the way of life was still said to be that
of overcoming "survivals of the past" (perezhitki proshlogo) in people's
behavior. Money grubbing, avarice, drunkenness, loafing, parasitism, and
public rowdiness were among the vestiges of the past in daily conduct most
often mentioned by Soviet political leaders and writers. Under Brezhnev,
Soviet theorists faced the problem of explaining the tenacity and vitality of
supposed survivals of bourgeois consciousness in Soviet society in the 1970s
and early 1980s, since several decades had passed since the October Revolu-
tion and several generations had been reared under Soviet power.
The official ideology of the Brezhnev period still rejected the possibility
that petty-bourgeois consciousness and antisocial conduct might be rooted
in any of the principles inherent in a socialist economic system. By the 1970s,
many Soviet commentators turned to social-psychological factors to account
for behavior allegedly alien to socialism. V. I. Kas'ianenko reported that the
majority of authors writing about the way of life in the USSR had come "to
the conclusion that survivals are preserved predominantly in social psychol-
ogy, which includes in itself the conscious and unconscious, and rational
and emotional factors, and is transmitted mainly through the microsphere."14
The suggestion was that as the economic and social conditions of the society
were becoming more favorable to the practice of socialist norms of conduct,
deviations from those norms were to be regarded increasingly as the respon-
sibility of the small group or even of the individual himself of herself. M. T.
Iovchuk wrote that the improved access to culture and education in devel-
oped socialism led to "shifting the accents of responsibility, not from the
individual to society, but in the opposite direction, from society to 'small'
collectives—laboring, family, and others—and especially to the individual
himself. . . . Correspondingly, the role not only of upbringing but of self-
upbringing [samovospitanie]is heightened."15Some individuals' deviation
from the dominant, socialist way of life was explained primarily by the social
influence of small groups and by unconscious factors in individual person-
ality. D. G. Protskaia hypothesized that the elimination of survivals of the
past proceeded more rapidly in social consciousness than individual con-
sciousness. "In socialism, consistency between social consciousness and
socialist social existence is achieved earlier than consistency between indi-
vidual consciousness and socialist existence."16 In accordance with her per-
spective, a growing body of literature focused on the problems of forming
the socialist personality (sotsialisticheskaia lichnosf), and such writings in-
variably concluded that conscious, active indoctrination was necessary in
order to exploit socialism's potential for creating the new person and to
overcome negative influences on each individual's character.17 The increased
emphasis on the social "microenvironment" and individual consciousness
reinforced the tendency of declining optimism under Brezhnev on the basis
of the assumption that he had articulated in 1972: "Human psychology is
remade far more slowly than the material foundations of human life."18
NATIONALITY RELATIONS AND

THE NEW HISTORICAL COMMUNITY
In Soviet ideological theory of the Brezhnev period concerning nationality
relations in the USSR, the central concept was that of the new historical
community of persons—the Soviet people fnovaia istoricheskaia obshchnosf
liudei—sovetskii narod). The term "Soviet people" (sovetskii narod) had a
long history in the USSR, since it had come into currency at least by the early
1930s. The Soviet narod had played only a small role in Soviet ideology from
the 1930s to the early 1950s, however, perhaps due to Stalin's stress on the
importance of the Russian nation within the USSR.19 The first attempts to
attach heightened significance to the Soviet people as a historical entity seem
to have come during Khrushchev's years in power—when those who wrote
of a single, united Soviet people were strong supporters of centralization
and assimilation.20 Khrushchev himself made a reference to the Soviet narod
as a "new historical community of people" in his report on the party program
at the Twenty-second Party Congress in 1961,21 but the concept of the Soviet
people was not employed in the program itself nor was it systematically ex-
ploited in Khrushchev's later speeches.
There was evidence of a gradual tendency toward official acceptance of
the "new historical community" symbolism after Khrushchev moved into in-
voluntary retirement. A meeting of Soviet scholars in Volgograd in 1968
devoted to the topic of "The Soviet People—An Historically New Commu-
nity of People" seemed to be designed to rally consensus behind the new for-
mulation.22 Finally, there was a pronounced emphasis on the importance of
the concept of the Soviet narod in Brezhnev's report to the Twenty-fourth
Party Congress in March 1971 and his speech on the fiftieth anniversary of
the founding of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics in December 1972.23
The time of official endorsement of the new historical community was also
the time of the elevation of "developed socialism" to the status of the core
concept of interpretation of the character of Soviet society. Soviet sources
under Brezhnev asserted that the completion of the forming of the new his-
torical community coincided with Soviet society's entrance into the stage of
developed socialism.24 Those Soviet sources regarded the Soviet narod, like
the developed socialist society, as a transitional form, representing an inter-
mediate stage in the development of nationality relations between the con-
solidation of nations and the realization of the future worldwide Communist
society.25 Yet just as the essence of developed socialism was seen as the sta-
bility of the stage theoretically classified as transitional, it was implied that
the Soviet narod belonged to a prolonged stage in the development of nation-
ality relations in the USSR. In the new historical community, as in the de-
veloped socialist society in general, it was thought that the main trends were
the stabilization and perfection of existing institutions rather than the trans-
formation of socialist social and national relations into Communist relations.
Brezhnev's conception of the Soviet people as a new historical community
seemed to be designed to achieve a balance between the ideas of the most en-
thusiastic advocates of centralization and assimilation and the thinking of
relatively moderate scholars who cautioned against efforts to efface nation-
ality differences. (A third, very diverse category of scholars, including all
who favored much stronger protection of the identity of ethnic groups even
to the point of national territorial independence, were denied the opportunity
to take part in the debates reported in legally published books and journals
and were punished as criminals if they were outspoken enough. Their day
would come later, a few years after Gorbachev came to power.) While the
concept of the new historical community clearly signified a claim of a higher
degree of homogeneity than that achieved by Soviet nationalities during
previous periods, the balance struck by Brezhnev discouraged the most am-
bitious hopes for the elimination of nationality differences in the USSR.
In the late 1960s and early 1970s, the writers with the most pronounced
assimilationist intentions showed a willingness virtually to equate the Soviet
narod with a single Soviet nation (natsiia), despite the facts that the term
"nation" was associated in the Soviet Union with ethnic identity and that
there were about one hundred different ethnic-national groups in the USSR.26
After 1971, some scholarly sources flatly rejected the identification of the
Soviet people with a natsiia.21Brezhnev tried to settle the question decisively
in October 1977 when he presented thefinaldraft of the new constitution of
the USSR to the Supreme Soviet (the highest legislature in the Soviet Union).
On that occasion, he admitted that some who had participated in the debate
over the text of the new constitutional document had proposed to introduce
into that document the concept of a single Soviet nation. Brezhnev com-
mented curtly, "I think that the error of such proposals is clear. The socio-
political unity of the Soviet people does not at all mean the disappearance of
national distinctions."28 That conclusion had been foreshadowed by his
repudiation in 1973 of the notion that the merging(sliianie)of nations in the
USSR was taking place. At that time, he denied that the idea of fusion was
associated with the concept of the new historical community, warning that
"speaking of the new historical community of people, we do not at all have
in view that among us national distinctions already are disappearing or,
even more, that a fusion of nations has proceeded."29
The new historical community was said to be a qualitatively new stage in
the development of the relations among nationalities in the USSR,30 reflect-
ing the allegedly higher level of integration of the developed socialist society.
In that stage, identification with the new historical community purportedly
did not replace but supplemented identification with each nationality within
the Soviet Union. Ideologists of the Brezhnev leadership predicted that
within the new historical community, the recognition of the predominance
of the interests of the community over those of the distinct nationalities
within it would grow steadily.31 Those theorists asserted that in that stage
both the flourishing and drawing closer together of nations would continue
but that the tendency of drawing closer together had assumed the leading
role and was leading toward the "full unity" of nationalities within the USSR.32
The full merging of nationalities was postponed to the very remote future,
however, in ideological theory of the 1970s, since it was conceded that even
the entrance of Soviet society into the phase of communism would not bring
the immediate elimination of national differences. The fusion of nations
supposedly would be achieved during a later stage within the Communist
phase (i.e., the stage of mature or developed communism) so that for some
time after the construction of communism, it would be justifiable to speak
of Communist nations.33 Such theoretical speculation clearly implied that
the new historical community would outlast developed socialism by persist-
ing though a significant historical stage within the phase of communism. It
is now apparent that the official Soviet ideology of the Brezhnev period,
even though it rejected the arguments of the most extreme proponents of
centralization, was highly overoptimistic in its expectations for the growth
of unifying trends among Soviet nationalities.
In the writings of many scholars of a moderate orientation, which became
more influential during the 1970s, the interpretation of the means of internal
integration of the Soviet people changed subtly. As M. P. Kim noted, in the
view which became dominant after 1972, the new historical community was
seen as a "social-historical" category rather than as a quasi-ethnic entity.34
The integration of the community was described by V. P. Sherstobitov in terms
of the interweaving of ties among Soviet nationalities, or in other words, as
the building of social and economic linkages among different nationalities.35
The basis of social integration was thought to be economic development,
which was said to result in the growth of interdependence between republics
and regions of the USSR in a "single national economic complex" on the
scale of the USSR as a whole and in the creation of a similar social structure
in each region and for each nationality. Scholars of the Institute of Ethnog-
raphy of the USSR, who espoused a moderate position and sought to infuse
more empirical content in official doctrine, distinguished between ethnic
assimilation and interethnic integration.36 While assimilation would denote
the absorption of one ethnic group by another, integration referred to social
interaction and intertwining between ethnic groups. They contended that
the concept of the Soviet narod as a supra-ethnic community made it clear
that the main burden of unification did not rest on assimilation, and that
the main trend in the community of the Soviet people was the improvement
and perfection of relations of international social integration. The new his-
torical community thesis was based on the idea of dual identity—Soviet and
ethnic-national, with Soviet identity supposedly primarily—while assimila-
tion would involve a change of identity from one entity to another. Some
Soviet ethnographers argued that the Soviet community had room for both
the strengthening of common features and the preservation of distinctive
traits of ethnic culture.37 By the end of the 1980s, that expectation was to
appear hopelessly unrealistic, for the moderate integrationist position was
rapidly rendered outdated by the open expression of discontent among Soviet
nationalities. In the political spectrum of officially permitted viewpoints in
the Soviet Union in the 1970s, however, Yurii Arutianian, Yuliian Bromlei,
and other moderates had brought significant increases in realism within the
framework of Marxist-Leninist ideology on nationality relations. However,
by the early 1990s, the failure of their hopes revealed the erroneous character
of the basic assumption underlying the outlook of the political leadership,
namely, the assumption that continued social and economic modernization
would diminish the importance of identification with ethnic groups and
solidify the unity of the nationalities of the USSR.
NOTES
1. V. I. Kas'ianenko, "Istoriografiia sotsialisticheskogo obraza zhizni v SSSR,"
Voprosy istorii, 1980, no. 1: 5.
2. Leonid Brezhnev, "Otchet Tsentral'nogo Komiteta KPSS i ocherednye zadachi
partii v oblasti vnutrennei i vneshnei politiki," speech to the Twenty-fifth Congress
of the CPSU, February, 1976, in Leninskim kursom, vol. 5 (Moscow: Politizdat,
1976), 493. Emphasis in the original.
3. Ibid., 548.
4. A. S. Koval'chuk, "Nekotorye metodologicheskie voprosy issledovaniia sotsi-
alisticheskogo obraza zhizni," in Problemy nauchnogo kommunizma,issue 15, ed.
A. A. Amvrosov et al. (Moscow: Mysl', 1981), 139.
5. P. N. Fedoseev, "Konstitutsiia SSSR i sotsialisticheskii obraz zhizni," Kom-
munist, 1978, no. 2: 61.
6. V. V. Stoliarov "Sotsialisticheskii obraz zhizni—velikoe zavoevanie novogo
obshchestvennogo stroia," in Razvitoe sotsialisticheskoe obshchestvo, 3rd. ed., ed.
Grigorii Glezerman and Oscar Rheingold (Moscow: Mysl', 1979), 324.
7. Fedoseev, "Konstitutsiia SSSR i sotsialisticheskii obraz zhizni," 69.
8. Brezhnev, "Otchet Tsentral'nogo Komiteta," 537.
9. V. Z. Rogovin, quoted in V. I. Kas'ianenko, Sovetskii obraz zhizni: problemy
issledovaniia (Moscow: Mysl', 1982), 110.
10. A. S. Tsipko, "Nekotorye metodologicheskie aspekty issledovaniia sotsialist-
icheskogo obraza zhizni," Voprosy filosofii, 1976, no. 4: 45.
11. M. T. Iovchuk, "Problemy dukhovnoi zhizni i kommunisticheskogo vospitaniia
v razvitom sotsialisticheskom obshchestve v SSSR," in Razvitoe sotsialisticheskoe
obshchestvo, 3rd ed., ed. Grigorii Glezerman and Oscar Rheingold (Moscow: Mysl',
1979), 372.
12. Ibid.
13. Vladimir V. Shcherbitskii, "Obraz zhizni, rozhdennyi Oktiabrem," Kommu-
nist, 1977, no. 8: 57; see also Fedoseev, "Konstitutsiia sotsialisticheskogo obraza
zhizni," 65. At the time of the publication of his article in Kommunist,Shcherbitskii
was the head of the Communist party in the Ukraine and a member of the Politburo
of the CPSU.
14. Kas'ianenko, "Istoriografiia sotsialisticheskogo obraza zhizni," 18.
15. Iovchuk, "Problemy dukhovnoi zhizni," 380.
16. D. G. Protskaia, quoted in Kas'ianenko, Sovetskii obraz zhizni, 73.
17. G. L. Smirnov, Sovetskii chelovek: formirovanie sotsialisticheskogo tipa
lichnosti, 3rd ed. (Moscow: Politizdat, 1980), 345-346.
18. Leonid Brezhnev, "O piatidesiatiletii Soiuza Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh
Respublik," December 1972, in Leninskim kursom, vol. 4 (Moscow: Politizdat,
1974), 95.
19. Frederick C. Barghoorn, Soviet Russian Nationalism (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1956), 21, 40.
20. Grey Hodnett, "What's in a Nation?" Problems of Communism 16 (Septem-
ber-October 1967): 11.
Union," Report to the Twenty-second Congress of the Communist Party of the
Soviet Union, October 1961, in Current Soviet Policies IV, ed. Charlotte Saikowski
22. V. S. Markov, "The Soviet People—An Historically New Community of Peo-
ple," The Current Digest of the Soviet Press 21, no. 21 (June 11, 1969; reprinted
from Voprosy filosofii, 1969, no. 3): 5-7. The Current Digest ofthe Soviet Press will
hereafter be cited as CDSP.
23. Leonid Brezhnev, "Otchetnyi doklad Tsentral'nogo Komiteta KPSS XXIV
s"ezdu Kommunisticheskoi partii Sovetskogo Soiuza," March 1971, in Leninskim
kursom, vol. 3 (Moscow: Politizdat, 1972), 279; idem, "O piatidesiatiletii," 57.
24. M. P. Kim et al., Sovetskii narod— novaia istoricheskaia obshchnosf liudei
(Moscow: Nauka, 1975), 17; M. I. Kulichenko et al., NatsionaFnye otnosheniia v
razvitom sotsialisticheskom obshchestve (Moscow: Mysl', 1977), 13-16; I. P. Tsamerian,
"Mnogonatsional'nyi sovetskii narod—tvorets kommunizma," in Razvitoi sotsializm
i aktuatnye problemy nauchnogo kommunizma, ed. Ts. A. Stepanian et al. (Moscow:
Nauka, 1979), 270-272.
25. Markov, "The Soviet People," 6; M. I. Kulichenko, "Zakonomernosti formi-
rovaniia i razvitiia novoi istoricheskoi obshchnosti — sovetskogo naroda," Voprosy
filosofii, 1980, no. 9: 17.
26. Markov, "The Soviet People," 6. V. I. Kozlov was quoted as describing the
Soviet people as a "super-ethnic community of persons" that already "answers almost
all the signs of a nation." Quoted by Tsamerian, "Mnogonatsional'nyi sovetskii
narod," 273.
27. S. T. Kaltakhchian, "Sovetskii narod—novaia istoricheskaia obshchnosf
liudei," in XXIV fezd KPSS iproblemy nauchnogo kommunizma, ed. E. F. Sulimov
(Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1974): 147; Tsamerian, "Mnogonatsional'nyi sovetskii
narod," 273.
28. Leonid Brezhnev, "O proekte Konstitutsii (Osnovnogo Zakona) Soiuza Sovet-
skikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik i itogakh ego vsenarodnogo obsuzhdeniia,"
speech to the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, October 1977, in Leninskim kursom,vol.
6 (Moscow: Politizdat, 1978), 525.
29. Leonid Brezhnev, "V splochennom stroiu sovetskikh respublik," speech in
Alma-Ata on August 15, 1973, in Leninskim kursom, vol. 4 (Moscow: Politizdat,
1974), 243.
30. Brezhnev, "O piatidesiatiletii," 57; Kim et al., Sovetskii narod, 401-402;
Kulichenko, "Zakonomernosti formirovaniia," 15.
31. Kulichenko, "Zakonomernosti formirovaniia," 13.
32. N. I. Tarasenko, "Razvitoe sotsialisticheskoe obshchestvo i edinyi sovetskii
narod," Voprosy filosofii, 1972, no. 10: 28; E. Bagramov, "The Drawing Together
of Nations Is a Law of Communist Construction," CDSP 24, no. 25 (July 17, 1972;
reprinted from Pravda, June 22, 1972): 10; Kulichenko, "Zakonomernosti formiro-
vaniia," 13.
33. V. I. Kas'ianenko, Razvitoi sotsializm: istoriografiia i metodologiiaproblemy
(Moscow: Mysl', 1976), 143; L. S. Gaponenko et al., Novaia istoricheskaia obshchnosf
liudei: sushchnosf, formirovanie, razvitie(Moscow: Mysl', 1976), 431.
34. Maksim Kim, The Soviet People—A New Historical Community (Moscow:
Progress Publishers, 1974), 10; see also Kas'ianenko, Razvitoi sotsializm, 145-146.
35. V. P. Sherstobitov, Sovetskii narod—monolitnaia obshchnosf stroitelei kom-
munizma (Moscow: Mysl', 1976), 6.
36. Yu. V. Bromlei, "Etnicheskie aspekty sovremennykh natsional'nykh prot-
sessov," Istoriia SSSR, 1977, no. 3: 19-28.
37. Yu. V. Arutiunian, "Etnosotsial'nye aspekty internatsionalizatsii obraza zhizni,"
Sovetskaia etnografiia, 1979, no. 2: 1
10
Gorbachev on Stagnation
and Restructuring
THE DECLINE OF DEVELOPED SOCIALISM

Leonid Brezhnev remained in the post of head of the Communist party of
the Soviet Union in the late 1970s and early 1980s even though his physical
condition was visibly weakening under the impact of several disorders. The
caution of the collective leadership in the Politburo of the CPSU was revealed
by its inability to replace a leader who had become so ill and infirm that he
could attempt to perform the duties of his offices for only a few hours a day
and with little mental acuity even during those short periods. His death in
November 1982 seemed to open the possibility of change, perhaps even the
transfer of power to a new generation. That transition was to be delayed,
however, because Brezhnev was succeeded as General Secretary of the CPSU
by Yurii Andropov, whose health rapidly deteriorated after assuming power
and whose reign lasted only until his death in February 1984. At least
Andropov, for a few months after taking the top leadership post, had ap-
peared to be a vigorous and determined leader. Konstantin Chernenko was
in such shaky health at the time he succeeded Andropov as head of the CPSU
that his lack of potential to bring any degree of reform was embarrassingly
obvious. Only with Chernenko's death in March 1985 and the selection of
Mikhail Gorbachev as the new General Secretary was the position of top
leader passed to a different generation. That transfer of power was to have
more momentous consequences than the most experienced observers of
Soviet politics might have imagined or, indeed, did imagine. The changes
that Gorbachev initiated proved to have many more far-reaching consequences
than even he gave any evidence of expecting. The tendency for change to
slip beyond his control was evident even in the realm of ideology, which tra-
ditionally had been firmly in the grasp of the political leadership. Gorbachev
sought changes in Soviet Marxism-Leninism that were much more radical
than those invited by any previous leader of the post-Stalin decades; but he
evidently did not anticipate that such radical revisions would, in the end,
lead to the collapse of the ideology as the ruling system of belief and, with
that, the disintegration of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
During the brief periods of leadership by Andropov and Chernenko,
there was little indication that radical changes in theory were imminent. The
commitment to present a new program to the next congress of the CPSU as
promised by Brezhnev was reaffirmed by each new head of the party organi-
zation in the early 1980s. Andropov reported in his address to a meeting of
the Central Committee of the CPSU in June 1983 that a new version of the
party program was being prepared "on the basis of a decision of the Twenty-
sixth Congress."1 Chernenko also indicated his interest in the framing of a
new programmatic document. As soon as he entered the post of General
Secretary, he emphasized that "the Central Committee attaches enormous
importance to its drafting."2 The pledge that the Twenty-seventh Party
Congress would accept a new version of the party program recurred fre-
quently in Chernenko's speeches during his brief time in office.3
The statements by Andropov and Chernenko concerning the preparation
of a new party program were linked with criticism of the ideas at the core of
the 1961 program. In June 1983 at the Central Committee meeting mentioned
earlier, which was devoted to the discussion of problems of ideology and
indoctrination, Andropov praised the program of 1961 as faintly as had
Brezhnev at the Twenty-sixth Party Congress, agreeing that "the present
Party Program . . . on the whole correctly characterizes the laws governing
world social development and the goals and fundamental tasks of the struggle
of the Party and Soviet people for communism." However, Andropov criti-
cized the official program of 1961 much more frankly than had any previous
General Secretary by admitting, "Some of its provisions—this must be stated
bluntly—have not fully withstood the test of time, since they contained ele-
ments of isolation from reality, running ahead, and unwarranted detail."4
Andropov's language suggested not only that the 1961 program had become
out of date but also that, in some respects, it had been ill conceived from the
moment of its creation. Chernenko made much the same point in his address
to the June 1983 Central Committee Plenum, complaining that "during a
certain period . . . an oversimplified view was held of the paths and timing
of the transition to the higher phase of communism. Hurrying our dream,
so to speak, certain theorists and propagandists tried to smooth out the
uneven spots in the path we are following and lost touch with the real condi-
tions of life."5 Those words were an implicit rejection of the approach em-
bodied in the program of the CPSU that had been inspired by Khrushchev.
Gorbachev on Stagnation and Restructuring 153
In April 1984 in a speech on preparations for the framing of a new party

program, Chernenko reiterated his criticism of the overoptimistic expecta-
tions of the Khrushchev period and also warned against including too many
details in the new program.6
Under Andropov and Chernenko there was a tendency toward a more
sober and realistic assessment of the problems and prospects of Soviet socie-
ty, which dampened the tone of self-congratulation that had characterized
the depiction of developed socialism under Brezhnev. The stress on realism
was initiated by a speech delivered while Brezhnev was alive. In April 1982,
a few months after the death of Mikhail Suslov, Andropov delivered the
address that was presented every year on the anniversary of Lenin's birth
and, in doing so, apparently signaled his assumption of responsibility for
overseeing the resolution of ideological questions. In that speech, Andropov
cautioned that "it is important to combine boldness and flexibility in solving
objectively urgent problems with a precise, strictly scientific evaluation of
what has been achieved, without underestimating or exaggerating our forces
and possibilities."7 A few months after becoming General Secretary,
Andropov wrote in an article in Kommunist that "we must soberly consider
where we stand . . . to see our society in real dynamic, with all its possibili-
ties and needs, is what is now demanded."8 Chernenko joined in the call for
realism in June 1983, urging Soviet social scientists not to interpret "the
development and maturity of Soviet society as signifying its complete per-
fection and not to idealize what has been achieved" but, instead, "to take ex-
isting reality, with all its pluses and minuses," as the point of departure for
their research.9 The admission of deficiencies in the Soviet system went even
further in an article signed by Chernenko, published in Kommunist in De-
cember 1984, conceding that "not all our tasks and problems have been
resolved on the level of the demands of developed socialism."10
The theme of realism was reinforced by an argument introduced by
Andropov's April 1982 speech, which contended that the Soviet Union was
still only at the beginning of the "long historical stage" of developed social-
ism, which, he added, would "in turn have its own periods and own stages
[stupeni] of growth."11 Essentially the same statement was repeated in
Andropov's article in Kommunist in February 1983.12 The argument that
the USSR was only in the beginning of the stage (etap) of developed social-
ism, a stage that would be divided into a series of substages (stupeni) of
growth, implied a less optimistic view of the accomplishments of Soviet
socialism and a more realistic acknowledgement of the challenge of perfect-
ing the features of the Soviet system. Accordingly, Andropov in April 1982
offered the opinion that "progress from one stage to another is a highly
complicated process that involves the overcoming of contradictions and dif-
ficulties that are linked with any kind of development. . . . This is the real
picture of social progress. It can't be smoothed out into a straight line."13 In
the June 1983 Central Committee session on ideology, Chernenko agreed
with the assertion that Soviet society was only at the beginning of the stage
of developed socialism.u If the USSR had still not advanced past the begin-
ning of the stage of developed socialism, which it was said to have entered in
the early 1960s, then that stage surely would prove to be a very long one.
That conclusion was affirmed by Chernenko in December 1984 when he
declared that "the improvement of developed socialism will consist of an en-
tire historical epoch. It will have its concrete stages, its succession of tasks,
and its timing."15
From 1982 to 1985, there was a noticeable increase in emphasis on proc-
esses of improvement and perfection (sovershenstvovanie)within developed
socialism. The term sovershenstvovanie had always occupied a key role in
the ideology of developed socialism, referring to the type of change sup-
posedly carried out in the stage of mature socialism, as distinguished from
the process of transformation of socialism into communism. In the theory
of developed socialism under Brezhnev, the emphasis on the process of
sovershenstvovanie implied that the accomplishments of the Soviet system
were already so great that the operation of the system could be raised to a
high degree of efficiency with only relatively minor modifications of its con-
stituent elements. While the full attainment of the promise of communism
was distant, the realization of the greatest potential of socialism was immi-
nent. The meaning of sovershenstvovaniewas subjected to a subtle but cru-
cial change after 1982, reflecting the candid appreciation that Soviet society
still contained serious inconsistencies and conflicts and even extending to
the implication that some of those problems were actually worsening. That
was the perspective of Andropov's statement of February 1983 that in devel-
oped socialism "are convincingly shown the dialectical unity both of real
successes in socialist construction . . . and of the strengthening shoots of
the communist future, and of still unresolved problems left for us from the
past."16 Chernenko reached a similar conclusion in December 1984: "The
reality of a society which has entered the stage of developed socialism is a
contradictory combination both of major, genuinely historical successes in
socialist creation . . . and of unresolved tasks of the present, and also of
problems conveyed to us by the heritage of the past, those which in principle
might have been resolved earlier, in the preceding stages of our
development."17 Both Andropov and Chernenko were more ready than
Brezhnev had been to admit that some of the problems of the Soviet system
had been inflicted by its leadership and that the resulting conflicts were so
serious that the achievement of a great deal of harmony in the system would
require long and difficult work.
THE DISCREDITING OF DEVELOPED SOCIALISM

From 1982 to 1983, the implications of the concept of developed socialism
were subtly revised, but there was no hint that the term would fall out of
use. Andropov and Chernenko each referred to developed socialism as an
important theoretical conception when each in turn accepted the post of

General Secretary of the CPSU, 18 and each frequently touched on the con-
cept in his public statements while heading the party. In a speech to a con-
ference on ideological work in December 1984, near the end of Chernenko's
time in office, Mikhail Gorbachev supported the conclusion that Soviet
society was in the stage of developed socialism.19 There was every indication
that developed socialism would be the central focus of the description of
contemporary Soviet society in the new party program. In June 1983,
Andropov, anticipating the adoption of a new program, said that the new
program "should be above all a program of planned and comprehensive im-
provement of developed socialism, and hence, of further progress toward
communism."20 Chernenko also affirmed the importance of the idea of
developed socialism for the new statement of the party's aims, indicating in
April 1984 that the new program should give a balanced analysis of devel-
oped socialism and the means of its improvement.21 In his article in Kom-
munist in December 1984, Chernenko again emphasized that the conclusion
that the USSR had entered the stage of developed socialism should be one
of the basic points of departure in the writing of the new party program and
insisted that "the basis of the strategy and tactics of the CPSU in contempo-
rary conditions is the Marxist-Leninist conception of developed socialism as
a separate, objectively necessary stage of the first phase of the communist
socioeconomic formation."22 Chernenko's message welcoming participants
in the conference on ideology and indoctrination in December 1984 reminded
them that the concept of developed socialism would lie "at the basis" of the
new version of the party program.23 In a lengthy address to that meeting,
Gorbachev agreed that the new programmatic document would be "a pro-
gram of improvement of developed socialism."24
Even though the concept of developed socialism had received prominent
attention in Chernenko's article of December 1984 and had received explicit
approval from Gorbachev in his wide-ranging speech of the same month,
emphasis on the concept decreased sharply after Gorbachev succeeded
Chernenko as head of the CPSU organization. Gorbachev did not refer to
the term in his speech to the plenary meeting of the Central Committee,
which chose him as the new General Secretary of the CPSU in March 1985.25
He barely touched on the concept in his address of April 1985 on prepara-
tions for the next party congress, at which the new program was to be
adopted.26 In late October 1985, introducing to the public a draft of the new
program, Gorbachev's speech on the program did not mention the concept
of developed socialism at all.27 The term "developed socialism" was used
only twice in the draft program and also occurred only twice in the final form
of the document adopted by the Twenty-seventh Congress of the Soviet
Communist party in March 1986. The new party program tersely asserted
that the USSR "had entered the stage of developed socialism" after 1961,
but the program did not employ the concept of mature socialism as a point
of orientation in its depiction of the main trends in Soviet society and pros-
pects for the future.28 Contrary to the promises of Brezhnev, Andropov,

and Chernenko, the new program was by no means structured around the
idea of developed socialism.
Gorbachev's report to the Twenty-seventh Party Congress dealt with the
concept of mature socialism only in reviewing the debate over the text of the
new party program. Gorbachev revealed that during that discussion, some
people had advocated the complete elimination of references to developed
socialism from the program but that others had called for a more extensive
exploration of the concept. He implied that the controversy had been resolved
through a compromise, allowing the final version of the program to reaffirm
that the Soviet Union had reached the stage of developed socialism. He also
pointed out that documents officially adopted by several "fraternal parties
of socialist countries" had established developed socialism as a goal for those
countries. Gorbachev implied that since party programs and constitutions
in a number of Eastern European countries had set forth the aim of achieving
developed socialism, the abandonment of the concept by the Soviet Com-
munist party would create an awkward situation for the leaders of those
countries.
Gorbachev distinguished between two different and contrasting aspects
of the concept of mature socialism. He reported that "the thesis of developed
socialism was disseminated in our country as a reaction to simplified notions
about the ways and timing of resolution of the tasks of communist construc-
tion." He agreed that sober minds had abandoned Khrushchev's plan for a
rapid transition to communism. Gorbachev added, however, that the con-
cept of developed socialism had become a facade of self-congratulation that
concealed real problems in Soviet society.
Later the accents in the interpretation of developed socialism were gradually

shifted. Frequently the matter was limited only to the registering of successes, at the
same time that many burning problems related to switching the economy onto the
tracks of intensification, increasing labor productivity, improving the supply of
goods and services to the population, and overcoming negative phenomena were
neglected or left without proper attention. Voluntarily or not that concept served as
a peculiar justification for sluggishness in solving urgent tasks.29
Those words provided Gorbachev's first suggestion that the interpretation

of developed socialism had been colored by the self-satisfaction, compla-
cency, and conservatism of the Brezhnev leadership. Following the Twenty-
seventh Party Congress, the use of the term "developed socialism" was
gradually abandoned, and Soviet sources began to refer increasingly to
"developing socialism" in the USSR. Within a few more years, as open criti-
cism of the Soviet system from within grew progressively more radical, some
Soviet citizens even became so bold as to question openly whether socialism
had been built in their country at all.
THE ACCELERATION OF DEVELOPMENT

Within a short time after coming to power Gorbachev began to complain
of the caution and inaction of the Soviet leadership of the 1970s and early
1980s, though he did not as yet explicitly mention Brezhnev's name. The im-
patience that Gorbachev would express as General Secretary had been sug-
gested in advance by his speech to the conference on ideological work in
December 1984. In that speech, Gorbachev's desire for change was reflected
in his call for "deep transformations in the economy and the entire system
of social relations," which could achieve "a qualitatively higher standard of
living for the Soviet people" and raise socialism in the USSR to a "new level
[stuperi] of maturity."30 Gorbachev voiced disdain for officials who were
unable or unwilling to change their methods of work to keep up with con-
temporary conditions.31 He spoke enthusiastically of the potential benefits
of exposing the Soviet system to new ways of thinking: "Not fearing fresh
winds, the Party boldly and decisively opens wide the windows and doors of
this building to all that is progressive, advanced, and vital."32 Large sections
of his remarks were excised from the version published in Pravda, evidently
attempting to deny the general public any awareness of the radical tone of
the speech.33
After becoming General Secretary in March 1985, Gorbachev vehemently
attacked the bureaucratic conservatism that had built up in the Brezhnev
period. In April 1985, he suggested that sluggish growth in the Soviet econ-
omy had been due to the frame of mind of earlier leadership, complaining
that "changes in the objective conditions of production and the necessity of
the acceleration of its intensification and of changes in the methods of eco-
nomic management were not assessed in a proper and timely fashion and, of
particular importance, persistence in the working out and carrying out of
large-scale measures in the economic sphere was not shown."34 During the
months that followed, many published writings in the USSR charged that
the effort to solve the problems accumulating in the economy during the
1970s and early 1980s had been delayed for too long. That complaint was
repeated in Gorbachev's report to the Twenty-seventh Party Congress, which
charged that "for a number of years the deeds and actions of Party and gov-
ernment bodies lagged behind the needs of the times and life" and that "the
situation called for change, but a peculiar psychology—How to improve
things without changing anything?—took the upper hand."35
During 1985 and 1986, while emphasis on the concept of developed social-
ism decreased, the Gorbachev leadership placed increasing stress on the
theme of acceleration (uskorenie)of economic and technological advance-
ment. The new emphasis stemmed from Gorbachev's declaration in Decem-
ber 1984 that "problems of a truly enormous scale" posed "the main task of
our days—to achieve a substantial acceleration of social and economic
progress."36 After Gorbachev became General Secretary, his speeches of
April, May, and June of 1985 reflected his preoccupation with the infusion
of greater technological dynamism into the Soviet economy. Soon after
coming to office as head of the Communist party, he sounded the alarm over
the pace of technological innovation in his country, warning that the USSR's
fate as a powerful and respected force in world affairs was at risk. By 1987,
he was bluntly admitting that the Soviet Union was not catching up with the
most developed economic systems but was falling steadily farther behind.
A country that was once quickly closing in on the world's advanced nations began
to lose one position after another. Moreover, the gap in the efficiency of production,
quality of products, scientific and technological development, the production of ad-
vanced technology and the use of advanced techniques began to widen, and not to
our advantage.37
Less than a year after Gorbachev took the helm, the Twenty-seventh Party
Congress had adopted a program that focused on the priority of the accel-
eration of economic and technological development in the USSR.
Gorbachev saw technological innovation as the key means of speeding up
the rate of growth of the Soviet economy. In December 1984, he had asserted
that "in any great affair which the Party has taken up, it has always revealed
the main link, which if one seizes one may pull the whole chain. Today such
a link . . . is the substantial acceleration of scientific and technological
progress."38 He reasserted the same argument in many of his speeches as
General Secretary, including that of June 1985 in which he said that "the
Party looks on the acceleration of scientific and technological progress as
the main direction of its economic strategy, the basic lever of the intensifica-
tion of the economy and raising its efficiency, and that means also of the
resolution of most important social questions."39 In the 1970s, Brezhnev,
like most Soviet economists, had admitted that the further growth of the
Soviet economy would require a transition from a strategy of "extensive"
development (which poured larger inputs of capital, labor, land, and raw
materials into the process of production) to a style of "intensive" develop-
ment (i.e., gaining growth in production by making more efficient use of
available resources). Brezhnev had also realized that technological innova-
tion was crucial to the success of a strategy of intensive development.
Gorbachev complained, however, that in practice there had been no sub-
stantial change in the style of economic growth in the USSR and that as a
result the technological level of the Soviet economy had become increasingly
inferior to that of the most developed capitalist countries.
According to Gorbachev, without a rapid and thorough change in ap-
proach, the gap between the West and the USSR would continue to widen
with alarming consequences. Further improvement in the living standard of
the Soviet people would be impossible, and actual deterioration in living
conditions might result from continued economic stagnation. Gorbachev
signaled his concern with living standards in his statements that only the in-
tensification of the economy could "serve as the reliable material base for
raising the well-being of the working people"40 and that "another approach
is excluded: we cannot embark on the path of curtailing social programs."41
Gorbachev also suggested that a slow pace of technological renovation would
put the USSR's status as a great power at risk. He asserted that "only inten-
sification, a highly developed economy can obtain the strengthening of the
position of the country in the international arena and will permit her worthily
to enter the new milennium as a great and flourishing power,"42 and that
"the historical fate of the country and the positions of socialism in the con-
temporary world in large measure depend on how we further conduct our
work."43 He clearly implied that a country could not retain the status of a
diplomatic, economic, and military superpower if its technology was quali-
tatively inferior to that of its major competitors. One of the supreme ironies
of the twentieth century was that the unforeseen consequences of Gorbachev's
reforms, which had been intended to insure a firmer basis for great power
status for the USSR, included the dissolution of the Union of Soviet Social-
ist Republics, which destroyed any possible pretense by the heirs of the leg-
acy of the Russian Empire to the burdens and glories of the role of a global
superpower.
Changes of the 1970s and 1980s in many Soviet economists' views of the
relationship between technological modernization and economic develop-
ment found expression in Gorbachev's notion of uskorenie. Khrushchev
had accepted Stalin's basic assumption that economic growth could be iden-
tified with the expansion of quantititative indicators, primarily the amount
of industrial capital and the volume of production. However, Gorbachev
saw further economic development as entailing the qualitative transforma-
tion of the Soviet economy through the introduction of new generations of
technology. "We need revolutionary changes—a shift to fundamentally new
technological systems, to the latest-generation equipment, which yields the
highest efficiency. What that means, in essence, is the reequipping of all
branches of the national economy on the basis of the present-day achieve-
ments of science and technology."44 While in the view of the 1961 program
the most fundamental source of change in the USSR during the 1960s and
1970s would be the rapid increase of the scale of production, the 1986 pro-
gram predicted that the most important trend of the near future would be
the realization of the economy's transition to the intensive mode of develop-
ment. It is true that Khrushchev's program had mentioned "the organic
fusion of science and production, and rapid scientific and technical progress"
and had promised that "science will take its full place directly as a productive
force."45 Soviet ideology of Khrushchev's time had seen that science was
one among many factors playing a role in economic growth; however, the
Gorbachev leadership assumed that science was the single most important
factor contributing to further development in a contemporary industrial
economy. The 1986 program employed the concept of the "scientific-tech-

nological revolution," which had been widely publicized by Soviet scholars
and journalists in the preceding years; and it emphasized not only the ac-
celeration of advances in technology during the twentieth century but also
the closer interaction between scientific discoveries, technological innova-
tions, and the modernization of production. The declaration that "science
will become, in full measure, a direct productive force"46 was central to the
thinking behind the 1986 party program, and its implications were far
reaching.
The main thesis in the program which was approved by the Twenty-seventh
Party Congress was that the USSR had embarked on the acceleration of
social and economic development, leading to a "qualitative transformation
of all sides of life of Soviet society," including the renovation of technology,
the economy, social relations, culture, and politics. That document predicted
that after the period of accelerated development, the Soviet Union would
achieve the highest level of labor productivity in the world; the differences
between collective farm and state ownership would decrease, with the future
prospect of merging those forms of property; a basically classless society
would be created; and the essential distinctions between city and countryside
would be erased. The product of those changes would be a "qualitatively
new condition [sostoianie] of Soviet society, in full measure disclosing the
enormous advantages of socialism in all spheres of life."47 The 1986 program
projected not the attainment of a new phase, stage, or even substage of
progress but only the achievement of a higher condition or state of society.
No schedule for the realization of that objective was given by the program.
That document did foresee the doubling of total production in the Soviet
economy by the year 2000 and set a few other specific goals for economic
growth, but the time that would be required for reaching the qualitatively
new condition of society was nowhere specified.48 In his report to the
Twenty-seventh Congress of the CPSU, Gorbachev only went so far as to
say that "the fulfillment of the present Program will go beyond the bounds
of the current century."49
Though Gorbachev might have seemed to exhibit caution in making such
a statement, in fact the 1986 party program revealed the persistence of the
tendency among Soviet leaders to make extravagant promises. The goal of
achieving the world's highest level of labor productivity was wildly unrealis-
tic for the Soviet economy. Further, the reforms that Gorbachev sought and
his emphasis on improving the quality of output were incompatible with the
ambitious targets for quantitative expansion set by the 1986 program. Such
inconsistency seems to have been partly the result of Gorbachev's attempts
to reconcile incompatible objectives. In addition, the assessment of the
party program adopted in March 1986 should take account of the fact that
Gorbachev had been the General Secretary of the CPSU for only about a
year before the acceptance of that document by the Twenty-seventh Party
Congress. Since Gorbachev had not had time to consolidate his power, the
final version of the program adopted by that congress was a mixture of the
old ideas of the Brezhnev years and the new thinking of Gorbachev and his
supporters. In many ways, the 1986 party program was out of date as soon
as it was adopted. Nevertheless, it offered ample evidence of the direction
of change in the outlook of the Soviet political leadership.
THE RATIONALE FOR RADICAL RESTRUCTURING

While Brezhnev's conception of developed socialism had assumed that
the Soviet system already enjoyed a high degree of economic modernization
and social harmony, Gorbachev indicated that he regarded technological
advancement and social equilibrium as goals for Soviet society. In relation
to the outlook of previous Soviet leaders beginning in the 1930s, what was
most distinctive to Gorbachev's thinking was the conclusion that the accel-
eration of economic development in the USSR would be impossible without
radical changes in the country's political and economic structures. Thus,
under Gorbachev, the emphasis on the improvement and perfection (sover-
shenstvovanie) of institutions in the mature socialist society was replaced by
the demand for the restructuring (perestroika)of all organizations in the
Soviet system. In accordance with Gorbachev's words in March 1986 derid-
ing those who he said had sought to improve things without changing any-
thing, the years of Brezhnev's ascendancy soon were routinely labeled the
"period of stagnation," leading to open attacks on Brezhnev himself in a
variety of publications and broadcasts by the late 1980s. By the autumn of
1986, in Gorbachev's speeches, the theme of acceleration of development
was linked with a strong stress on the necessity of restructuring, which the
General Secretary was soon to describe as "radical" and, by 1987, to charac-
terize as "revolutionary." By that time, the whole world identified the term
perestroika with Gorbachev's program of radical reform in Soviet social,
economic, and political institutions.
In the middle and late 1980s Gorbachev viewed the previous several dec-
ades from the vantage point of one familiar with a series of failed attempts
at reform in the Soviet economy. On the basis of his observation of those
experiences, he understood that half measures would not significantly im-
prove that economy's performance, but he also understood something of
more fundamental importance. His speeches and writings revealed his belief
that previous leaders who had tried to make the Stalinist system work bet-
ter—whether they attempted major organizational changes, as Khrushchev
did, or whether they only tinkered with the details of economic relations,
like Brezhnev—had failed to create mechanisms which would insure political
support for economic change. Gorbachev sought not only to build a broad
popular base of support for the economic reforms that he proposed but also
to restructure the Soviet system so as to institutionalize the dynamic of con-
stant adaptation. Since he believed that, in the absence of radical restructur-

ing, conservative political forces would always succeed in blocking attempts at
reform, he argued that effective political reform was an indispensable pre-
requisite for economic reform in a system of the Soviet type. As Gorbachev's
proposals for change became more and more radical, it became increasingly
apparent that he hoped to institutionalize greater dynamism in the Soviet
system by infusing elements of democracy and the market into Soviet politi-
cal and economic institutions.
From 1985 on, the growing criticism of the leadership's attitudes and pol-
icies of the 1970s and early 1980s led to a search for the sources of stagnation
(zastoi) in Soviet society. Gorbachev's supporters did not feel that the society
was merely going through a slump in the Brezhnev period. They saw stagna-
tion as having been the product of long-term trends rooted in the nature of
the Soviet system that threatened the health and even the survival of that
system. It soon became apparent, however, that there was no unanimity
among Soviet scholars on the causes of the problems of the Brezhnev years.
In the 1970s, Soviet publications had already given evidence of disagreement
on most policy issues, though public debates tended to be phrased in cautious
and guarded tones. With the achievement of greater openness of discussion
under Gorbachev, a wide spectrum of opinions was expressed on most ques-
tions of social analysis and policy prescription. Even among those who gen-
erally supported the reforms which Gorbachev had initiated there was often
vocal disagreement, revealing fissures between opinion groupings that
widened as pressure for change grew stronger and more broadly based and
as the tenacity of resistance to reform became more evident. By the early
1990s, Gorbachev was scorned by many of those who, a few years before,
had hailed his leadership as full of promise.
Mikhail Gorbachev's own public exploration of the problems of the Soviet
system soon led him to trace the sources of stagnation back to the 1930s,
that is, the years of the emergence of Stalinist institutions. Most Soviet
reformers of the Gorbachev years affirmed that the essential features of the
Soviet system were forged in that period and had persisted down to the late
1980s. All of those advocates of reform agreed that the Stalinist pattern of
institutions was distinguished by extreme centralization, with heavy reliance
on what Gorbachev called "administrative-command methods" of economic
management and political leadership. Within the highest circles of the
Gorbachev leadership, the diagnosis of the causes of the extreme authori-
tarianism of the 1930s was subtly changing to reflect ever more radical criti-
cisms of the traditions inherited from Stalin's time. In 1987, Gorbachev
published a book entitled Perestroika that implied that the primary explana-
tion for the nature of Stalin's system was to be found in the "objective con-
ditions" of the late 1920s, such as economic underdevelopment and capitalist
encirclement, but that some blame might be ascribed to subjective conditions,
or the errors in judgment that were colored by Stalin's personality.50 In the
same year, Georgii Smirnov, the head of the Communist party's Institute of
Marxism-Leninism, argued that subjective factors were the main source of
the mechanism retarding economic growth in the USSR; and in 1988, Vadim
Medvedev, a member of the party's Politburo who oversaw ideology, insisted
that the problems of Stalinism had resulted not mainly from superficial
"tactical errors" but primarily from "deformations of socialism" consisting
in "the deviation" (otstuplenie) from Lenin's conception of socialism.51 That
argument suggested that some of the predominant features of Soviet society
stemmed from fundamental errors in the interpretation and application of
Marxist-Leninist ideological theory.
The repudiation of Stalin's legacy encouraged the Gorbachev leadership
to reaffirm the heritage of Leninism, which they saw as illuminating the true
meaning of socialism and offering examples of pragmatic flexibility in policy
making. Gorbachev insisted that his reforms were designed not to borrow
alien elements but to realize the principles of socialism more fully in the
USSR. Gorbachev's supporters turned for guidance to Lenin's ideas at the
time of adoption of the New Economic Policy and to Lenin's last writings,
which expressed his disquiet at the damage caused by the bureaucratization
of Soviet political institutions. After the popularization of the slogan of
perestroika, there was a revival of interest in the thought of Nikolai Bukharin,
who was said by some to have offered a Bolshevik alternative to Stalinism
and was credited in Pravda in October 1988 with trying to protect "Lenin's
conception of socialism against Stalin's distortions and deviations from
it."52 The true essence of socialism as depicted by Lenin was said by such
reformers to be based on democratic and humanistic values that had been
distorted by Stalin's rule.
Not all who supported change in Soviet politics agreed with that interpre-
tation, however, as diverse attempts were made to discover the historical
and social roots of Stalin's authoritarian version of socialism. One of the
first legally published writings in the USSR seeking to attach some of the
blame for Stalinism to Lenin's thinking was an article by Vasilii Seliunin in
Novyi mir in 1988, which attributed to Lenin an inordinate fear of market
relations and the restoration of capitalism, though the essay also credited
him with gradually realizing the danger posed by the Soviet bureaucracy
and fostering the development of limits on its power.53 Despite the soften-
ing of Seliunin's criticism, he implied that an authoritarian potential had ac-
companied the Bolsheviks' aim of rapid social transformation directed from
above. That theme was to be expounded enthusiastically by harsher critics
of Lenin's ideas and actions during the years that followed the publication
of Seliunin's article, for some Soviet intellectuals identified authoritarianism
as not a possible but a necessary consequence of the attempt to put into
practice in Russia the Jacobin notion of radical change imposed by an elite
with a Utopian vision.54
While that interpretation constituted an indictment of a certain tradition
in European political thought dating from the time of the French Revolution,
another perspective was found in an article in Kommunist in 1989 by G. Ar-
batov and E. Batalov, who contended that the tendency for the state to
dominate Soviet society "stretched its roots . . . in the prerevolutionary
Russian culture."55 That thesis had been familiar enough in Western writings
on Soviet history and politics for many years, but its appearance in a publi-
cation of the Soviet Communist party was evidence of a sharp change in
thinking. The exploration of authoritarian traditions in the Tsarist Russian
political culture was also to occupy a number of Soviet scholars during the
next few years and still attracts the attention of many in Russia in the post-
Soviet era. Of even greater significance in indicating theoretical change was
the admission in Kommunist in November 1987 by Leonid Abalkin, one of
Gorbachev's main economic advisers, that the tendency toward authoritar-
ianism in the Soviet system might reflect a threat that was inherent in social-
ism's principles of public ownership and government management of the
means of production. "Historical experience testifies that the very system of
socialized property and state leadership of the economy potentially contains
in itself the danger of extreme centralization of management, which will
become a reality in the absence of corresponding counterbalances."56Abalkin's
statement opened the question of possible contradictions stemming from
the basic principles of socialism itself.
Whatever the explanation for the origins of that system, the highly cen-
tralized "administrative-command" pattern of control shaped by Stalin was
the chief target of criticism by Soviet reformers under Gorbachev, who
blamed that system for the main problems of Soviet society in the late 1980s.
As Gorbachev complained in June 1988, "It is in that ossified system of
power, in its command-pressure mechanism, that the fundamental problems
of restructuring are grounded today."57 Gorbachev himself increasingly
hinted that the system had been ill-conceived to a major degree even when it
was introduced, as was implied by authoritative references by 1988 to "de-
formations" of the principles of socialism under Stalin and by the General
Secretary's statement in June 1988 that the methods of leadership that had
been developed in the 1930s "had a pernicious effect on various aspects of
the development of our society."58 At the same time, Gorbachev decried the
"excessive etatization of public life" fostered by the Soviet system, or the
straitjacket the state had imposed on popular initiative, and the disparity
between "democratic principles in words and authoritarianism in deeds."
Soviet reformers of the Gorbachev years commonly charged the system that
had operated under Stalin with a tendency toward the "etatization" (etati-
zatsiia or ogosudarstvlenie) of society, that is, the drive toward the absorp-
tion of all political, economic, and social activity into the administrative
apparatus of the state.59 Like Gorbachev, they openly described the Soviet
state as authoritarian, if not worse. By referring to the attempt to subordinate
society to a "total (all-embracing) 'apparatus' state" and to "the atmosphere
of general fear" surrounding Stalin's "state Leviathan with its hypertrophied

punitive organs,"60 Arbatov and Batalov, in effect, applied the concept of
totalitarianism, previously scorned as a slander concocted by Western bour-
geois ideologists, to the analysis of the heritage of Soviet politics. By the
beginning of the 1990s, references to the Soviet state as totalitarian were
routine in Soviet publications, and many authors were not hesitant to draw
parallels between Soviet communism and the most malignant fascist dicta-
torships, including Hitler's Nazi regime. Such comparisons were one among
many signs that an intellectual revolution was taking place in the Soviet
Union.
Change in the mix of ideas endorsed by the Gorbachev leadership had
come so rapidly that the leaders of the CPSU soon acknowledged the need
for revision of the program that had been adopted at the Twenty-seventh
Party Congress in 1986. In July 1989, Gorbachev proposed that the next
party congress "update" (obnovit) the program accepted in 1986. However,
by February 1990, when a Plenum of the Central Committee of the CPSU
scheduled the next party congress for July of that year, the Communist party's
leadership published a draft not of a full-fledged program but of only a
brief "platform," apparently intended to suffice until the time might be right
for the adoption of a new program for the party.61 After considerable public
debate, the Twenty-eighth Party Congress in the summer of 1990 adopted a
slightly revised version of the draft platform, which, in its final form, was
labeled the "programmatic declaration" of the party. In early 1991, a special
commission was charged with the task of preparing the draft of a new pro-
gram for the CPSU, and within a few months, a number of suggested drafts
were circulated by various sources. In July 1991, a draft reportedly framed
by one of Gorbachev's advisers was presented to the Central Committee of
the CPSU with the intention that that text would be the focus of discussion
leading to the acceptance of a new program at the Twenty-ninth Party Con-
gress, which was expected to meet before the end of the year. After the at-
tempted coup of August 1991, however, the operation of all organs of the
Communist party was officially suspended or prohibited throughout the
territory of the USSR so that the Twenty-ninth Party Congress was not
convened and the effort to settle on a sufficiently realistic and forward-
looking programmatic charter for the CPSU had come to an end.
NOTES
1. Yurii V. Andropov, "Rectf na Plenume TsK KPSS," June 15, 1983, in Izbrannye
rechi i stafi (Moscow: Politizdat, 1983), 286.
2. Konstantin Chernenko, "Rech' tovarishcha K. U. Chernenko," Pravda,Feb-
ruary 14, 1984.
3. Konstantin Chernenko, "Vystuplenie tovarishcha K. U. Chernenko na zase-
danii Komissii TsK KPSS po podgotovke novoi redaktsii Programmy KPSS 25 aprelia
1984 goda," Kommunist, 1984, no. 7: 4-8, presented Chernenko's suggestions for
the content of the new program. Chernenko referred to the prospect of the adoption
of a new program at the Twenty-seventh Party Congress, Kommunist, 1984, no. 9: 6.
4. Andropov, "Rech' na Plenume," June 15, 1983, 286.
5. Konstantin Chernenko, "AktuaTnye voprosy ideologicheskoi, massovo-politi-
cheskoi raboty partii," Kommunist, 1983, no. 9: 21.
6. Konstantin Chernenko, "Vystuplenie tovarishcha K. U. Chernenko," 4.
7. Yurii Andropov, "Leninizm—neischerpaemyi istochnik revoliutsionnoi energii i
tvorchestva mass," in Izbrannye rechi i stafi(Moscow: Politizdat, 1983), 195.
8. Yurii Andropov, "Uchenie Karla Marksa i nekotorye voprosy sotsialisticheskogo
stroitel'stva v SSSR," Kommunist, 1983, no. 3; reprinted in Andropov, Izbrannye
rechi i stafi (Moscow: Politizdat, 1983), 245.
9. Chernenko, "AktuaTnye voprosy," 20.
10. Konstantin Chernenko, "Na uroven' trebovanii razvitogo sotsializma," Kom-
munist, 1984, no. 18: 4. On the same theme, see also Leonid Abalkin, "Razvitoi
sotsializm i formirovanie sovremennogo ekonomicheskogo myshleniia," Kom-
munist, 1984, no. 18: 62-63.
11. Andropov, "Leninizm," 196.
12. Andropov, "Uchenie Karla Marksa," 245.
13. Andropov, "Leninizm," 196.
14. Chernenko, "AktuaTnye voprosy," 19.
15. Chernenko, "Na uroven' trebovanii," 8.
16. Andropov, "Uchenie Karla Marksa," 245.
18. Yurii Andropov, "Rech' na Plenume TsK KPSS," November 1982, in Izbrannye
rechi i stafi (Moscow: Politizdat, 1983), 205; Chernenko, "Rech' tovarishcha K. U.
Chernenko."
19. Mikhail Gorbachev, Zhivoe tvorchestvo naroda(Moscow: Politizdat, 1984), 7.
20. Andropov, "Rech' na Plenume," June 15, 1983, 286.
21. Chernenko, "Vystuplenie tovarishcha K. U. Chernenko," 4.
23. Konstantin Chernenko, "Privetstvie General'nogo sekretaria TsK KPSS tovar-
ishcha K. U. Chernenko," in Mikhail Gorbachev, Zhivoe tvorchestvo naroda
24. Ibid., 7.
25. Mikhail Gorbachev, "Rech' General'nogo sekretaria TsK KPSS tovarishcha
M. S. Gorbacheva na Plenume TsK KPSS 11 marta 1985 goda," Pravda, March 12,
1985.
26. Mikhail Gorbachev, "O sozyve ocherednogo XXVII s"ezda KPSS i zadachakh,
sviazannykh s ego podgotovkoi i provedeniem," Kommunist, 1985, no. 7: 5.
27. Mikhail Gorbachev, "Doklad General'nogo sekretaria TsK KPSS M. S.
Gorbacheva na Plenume TsK KPSS 15 oktiabria 1985 goda," Kommunist, 1985, no.
15:4-11.
28. "Programma Kommunisticheskoi partii Sovetskogo Soiuza (novaia redak-
tsiia)," Kommunist, 1986, no. 4: 100.
29. M. S. Gorbachev, "Politicheskii doklad Tsentral'nogo Komiteta KPSS XXVII
s"ezdu Kommunisticheskoi partii Sovetskogo Soiuza," February 1986, Kommunist,
1986, no. 4: 77.
30. Gorbachev, Zhivoe tvorchestvo naroda, 7.

31. Ibid., 13; see also 20, 22, 41-49.
32. Ibid., 46.
33. I am indebted to Archie Brown for bringing that fact to my attention.
34. Gorbachev, "O sozyve ocherednogo," 6.
35. Gorbachev, "Politicheskii doklad," 6. "To improve" here is a translation of
uluchshif.
37. Mikhail Gorbachev, Perestroika: New Thinking for Our Country and the
World (New York: Harper & Row, 1987), 19.
39. Mikhail Gorbachev, "Korennoi vopros ekonomicheskoi politiki partii," Kom-
munist, 1985, no. 9: 13.
41. Gorbachev, "Korennoi vopros," 14.
43. Gorbachev, "O sozyve ocherednogo," 6.
44. Ibid., 8.
45. "The Program of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union," in Current Soviet
Policies IV, ed. Charlotte Saikowski and Leo Gruliow (New York: Columbia Univer-
sity Press, 1962), 15, 17.
46. "Programma Kommunisticheskoi partii," 116. The implications of Soviet
thought of the 1970s and early 1980s on the scientific-technological revolution were
explored perceptively by Erik P. Hoffmann and Robbin F. Laird in Technocratic
Socialism: The Soviet Union in the Advanced Industrial Era (Durham, N.C.: Duke
University Press, 1985).
47. "Programma Kommunisticheskoi partii," 115.
48. Mikhail Gorbachev, "Osnovnye napravleniia ekonomicheskogo i sotsial'nogo
razvitiia SSSR na 1986-1990 gody i na period do 2000 goda," Pravda, March 9,1986.
Mikhail Rutkevich, however, in "Ravenstvo i spravedlivost'—tseli sotsial'noi politiki
KPSS," Voprosy istorii KPSS, 1986, no. 1: 38, offered the interpretation that the
"qualitatively new condition" would be achieved within fifteen years. A similar state-
ment was made by Vadim Semenov in "Dialektika sovershenstvovaniia sotsializma i
prodvizheniia k kommunizmu," Voprosy filosofii, 1986, no. 1: 30. Thus, there may
have been substantial sentiment in favor of promising the realization of the new con-
dition of society by the beginning of the next century.
49. Gorbachev, "Politicheskii doklad," 78.
50. Gorbachev, Perestroika, 46.
51. G. L. Smirnov, Revoliutsionnaia suf perestroiki (Moscow: Izdatel'stvo politi-
cheskoi literatury, 1987), 17; V. A. Medvedev, "Sovremennaia kontseptsiia sotsializma,"
Pravda, October 5, 1988.
52. V. Zhuravlev and V. Naumov, "Return to the Truth," CDSP 40, no. 41
(November 9, 1988; reprinted from Pravda, October 9, 1988): 17.
53. Vasilii Seliunin, "Sources," CDSP 40, no. 40 (November 2, 1988; reprinted
from Novyi mir, 1988, no. 5): 14-17.
54. Harsher and more fundamental criticism of the Bolshevik tradition was pre-
sented by the well-known philosopher Aleksandr Tsipko in "The Roots of Stalinism,"
abstracted in CDSP 41, no. 10: 1-5; no. 11: 13-15; no. 12: 21-22, 31; and no. 13:
13-16 (April 5, 12, 19, and 26, 1989; reprinted from Nauka izhizri, 1988, nos. 11,
12; and 1989, nos. 1, 2).
55. G. Arbatov and E. Batalov, "Politicheskaia reforma i evoliutsiia sovetskogo
gosudarstva," Kommunist, 1989, no. 4: 37,41. At the time that essay was published,
Georgii Arbatov was the director of the Institute of the United States and Canada of
the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, and Eduard Batalov was affiliated with the
same institute.
56. L. Abalkin, "Opiraias' na uroki proshlogo," Kommunist, 1987, no. 16: 11.
57. M. S. Gorbachev, "On Progress in the Implementation of the Decisions of the
27th CPSU Congress and the Tasks of Deepening Restructuring," CDSP 40, no. 26
(July 27, 1988; reprinted from Pravda, June 29, 1988): 12.
58. Ibid.
59. A. N. Yakovlev, "Dostizhenie Kachestvenno novogo sostoianiia sovetskogo
obshchestva i obshchestvennye nauki," Vestnik AkademiiNauk SSSR, 1987, no. 6:63.
60. Arbatov and Batalov, "Politicheskaia reforma," 37, 41.
61. Gorbachev's suggestions for the agenda of the Twenty-eighth Party Congress
were articulated in M. S. Gorbachev, "Perestroika raboty partii—vazhneishaia
kliuchevaia zadacha dni," Pravda, July 19, 1989. The draft of the new platform for
the CPSU was published under the title of "K gummanomu, demokraticheskomu
sotsializmu," Pravda, February 13, 1990.
11
The Hope of Reform:
Socialist Pluralism
ALIENATION AND DOGMATISM

By encouraging Soviet scholars to search for the sources of the major
deficiencies troubling Soviet society, Gorbachev permitted the open discus-
sion of a phenomenon whose very mention in relation to Soviet society had
previously been taboo. The consequence of the adoption of authoritarian
methods of control in Soviet society, according to Leonid Abalkin, had
been "the alienation of the masses from property and the system of manage-
ment."1 Before 1985, Soviet sources had insisted that alienation was confined
to capitalism and other formations based on private property and exploita-
tion but was absent from socialist societies, which were rendered immune to
the problem by social ownership and control of the means of production.
Under Gorbachev, the term "alienation" became widely used in Soviet
scholars' criticisms of their society, and before Gorbachev left office, an
authoritative Communist party document referred to alienation as one of
the central problems of the society.2 Gorbachev and his supporters asserted
that true socialism as conceived by Marx and Lenin would have entailed
self-government of political and economic institutions by the working people
but that the authoritarianism that became entrenched in the USSR by the
1930s stifled popular independence and initiative, depriving the workers and
peasants of real control over the state and the economy.3 The Gorbachevites
argued that the loss of power over the means of production had spawned at-
titudes of apathy, passivity, and indifference among the working people.
As the working masses lost control of economic organizations in the Soviet

Union, according to reform-minded Soviet scholars, power gravitated to a
strategically placed minority of the population—the bureaucracy. Abalkin
noted that management bodies that were supposed to defend the general in-
terest had actually tended to "acquire interests of their own," which "can
differ significantly from the interests of society."4 Anatolii Butenko wrote
in Voprosy filosofii in 1987 of "supercentralistic tendencies" in the Soviet
system as finding expression in "bureaucratic centralism."5 Such ideas were,
within a short while, to be expressed by a number of Soviet sources with
complete frankness. Many Soviet theorists of the Gorbachev years recog-
nized that the pattern of command from the top down had protected the
concentration of power in the hands of a few, displacing the democratic
elements in democratic centralism. That criticism of Soviet socialism for
permitting the virtual dispossession of the laboring classes from control
over the means of production and substituting the ascendancy of the bureauc-
racy carried strong undertones of previous themes in the writings of Eastern
European revisionist Marxists and Soviet Marxist dissidents. Like those
sources, who, at an earlier time, had been stigmatized as servants of the class
enemies of socialism and had, in many cases, been forcibly silenced by the
Soviet regime, reformers under Gorbachev focused their criticism on the in-
stitutional and ideological heritage of Stalinism.
Gorbachev charged that, beginning in the 1930s, the entrenched institu-
tions of Soviet society had been protected by a rigid ideological facade. He
complained in February 1987 that since the features of the Soviet system
under Stalin were "equated with the essential characteristics of socialism,
regarded as immutable and presented as dogmas leaving no room for objec-
tive scientific analysis," Soviet leaders' theoretical conception of socialism
had been guarded from adaptation, and the actual dynamics of Soviet society
had not been subjected to penetrating scholarly research.6 Gorbachev called
for a reexamination of the theoretical tenets that had been used by Stalin to
exempt Soviet socialism from the dialectical process of change that had been
delineated in Marx's analysis of history. Stalin had claimed that the corres-
pondence of productive relations to productive forces was guaranteed in
socialism so that a radical transformation of the superstructure would never
be necessary. He had used that doctrinal tenet to justify the conclusions that
the development of Soviet socialism was completely distinct and separate
from the development of Western capitalism and that the Soviet model pos-
sessed a vastly superior potential for economic growth because it was free
from disruptive internal conflicts. As Gorbachev noted, those assumptions
continued to exert a substantial influence on Soviet Marxist-Leninist anal-
yses of Soviet society in the 1980s. Those premises were challenged by reform-
ist thinkers in the USSR, however, many of whom had begun to express their
ideas cautiously during the Brezhnev period and all of whom more openly
The Hope of Reform: Socialist Pluralism 171
voiced their arguments in the favorable climate provided by the Gorbachev

leadership.
Gorbachev himself led the way in repudiating the thesis of the correspon-
dence of productive relations to productive forces in socialism. At the
Twenty-seventh Party Congress, he said that "practice has shown the inac-
curacy of notions, according to which in socialist conditions the correspon-
dence of productive relations to the character of productive forces is obtained,
so to speak, automatically."7 He repeatedly complained that the system of
management that had taken shape under Stalin gradually had become more
and more inappropriate as the Soviet economy reached higher levels of de-
velopment so that the administrative mechanisms inherited from the 1930s
became a hindrance to further economic growth. In other words, outdated
modes of planning and control were considered by Gorbachev to be the
cause of economic stagnation in the USSR. That conclusion implied that
nothing in the nature of socialism guaranteed that productive relations
would be adjusted to take account of changes in productive forces and indeed
suggested that without continuing adaptation in administrative structures,
growing contradictions between the base and the superstructure were inevi-
table. In Gorbachev's view, the failure of political leaders to carry out timely
and effective changes in economic management during the 1950s, 1960s,
and 1970s, by widening the lag in development between productive forces
and managerial structures, allowed those contradictions to grow so severe
that by the 1980s they could only be overcome by a historical leap of radical
restructuring. While Leonid Brezhnev had expected that further economic
growth and technological development would provide a more stable base
for established political and administrative institutions, Gorbachev argued
that political and managerial structures were blocking further advances in
technology and productivity. Reformist Soviet scholars added that uneven-
ness of development would be an inherent aspect of each stage of progress
within socialism, since the advancement of the economy naturally tended to
create inconsistencies between productive forces and the mechanisms used
to control them. It followed that periodical renovations in the superstructure
of socialist society were an imperative necessity and that the more such
changes were postponed, the more radical and traumatic they would be.
THE CONTRADICTIONS OF SOCIALISM

More than any previous Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev showed an
awareness of persistent differentiation giving rise to a variety of competing
interests in Soviet society. In 1987, he criticized previous Soviet ideological
and sociological theory for underestimating the society's complexity and
heterogeneity. "The social structure of society was depicted in an oversim-
plified fashion, as devoid of contradictions and the dynamism of the diverse
interests of its various strata and groups."8 Gorbachev encouraged the open
rejection of the thesis that at higher levels of development, socialist society
would become less internally differentiated. Aleksandr Yakovlev, a member
of the Politburo of the CPSU, was one of the first people to complain pub-
licly that the thesis of the increasing simplification of social structure had
proved misleading.
A situation was formed, where preference began to be given to scholastic research,

at the basis of which lay far-fetched constructions, removed from life and its real
processes. For example, there was advanced the idea of the growth of uniformity
with the degree of movement toward communism, of the disappearance and dying
off of diversity. . . . Progress was seen by the proponents of such an approach as the
growing simplification and straightening out of all and everything.9
Leonid Abalkin, who became a high-ranking economic adviser to

Gorbachev, repudiated as "hopelessly outdated" the premise that the fulfill-
ment of the potential of socialism produced a simpler economic structure,
and argued that instead, the increasing complexity of economic life is a law-
like tendency of the development of society in general.10 Yakovlev took
much the same position, affirming that
all experience known to us testifies: history never, not in one direction achieved prog-
ress through simplification. On the contrary, each successive formation, social-eco-
nomic system, or political system turned out to be internally more complex than the
preceding one. And there is no basis to consider socialism and communism an excep-
tion in that sense.11
Such arguments by Abalkin and Yakovlev represented a significant depar-

ture in Marxist-Leninist theory, since previously the ideology had identified
the development of socialism with the growth of social homogeneity.
Gorbachev signaled his support for those who highlighted the growth of
social complexity with his description of socialism as "a society of growing
diversity in people's opinions, relations, and activities."12
By the late 1980s, Soviet social scientists openly emphasized that the com-
plexity of the structure of their society was greater than previously conceded
by Marxism-Leninism. They argued that, in addition to class divisions, there
were many other types of cleavages that were largely independent of class.
Writings appearing after Gorbachev came to power stressed that multiple
sources of social differentiation gave rise to many types of groups, such as
those based on departmental, occupational, regional, ethnic, and genera-
tional differences.13 Some authors contended that class differences were
becoming less important in Soviet society, while the social significance of
nonclass distinctions was being heightened.14 An implicit conclusion of such
analyses was that many social divisions would not be eliminated at higher
levels of development but would prove to be long lasting or even permanent.
That kind of thinking soon made one prediction in the 1986 party program
seem archaic. That program, as a mixture of old and new thinking, had
repeated Leonid Brezhnev's promise of 1981 that class divisions would dis-
appear while the Soviet Union was still in the historical phase of socialism.
Echoing the language of the Brezhnev leadership, the 1986 program had
forecast that the differences between cooperative and state property would
continue to decrease until those two types of property merged into one, pro-
ducing a "basically classless structure of society."15 After 1986, experimen-
tation with small-scale private enterprise and the leasing of land by farm
families quieted any suggestion of the transition to a single form of property
ownership. Further, the kind of sociological analysis that came to the fore
under Gorbachev tended not to regard formal distinctions between types of
socialized property as an important source of social differences.
Soviet ideology under Gorbachev emphasized that multiple sources of
group differentiation gave rise to varied social interests. A few months before
he succeeded Konstantin Chernenko as General Secretary, Gorbachev called
for greater attention to the interests of social groups, noting that while class
distinctions remained, "we cannot fail to consider them." Gorbachev also
suggested that there was a need for a more concrete understanding of the in-
terests of groups other than social classes.16 At the Twenty-seventh Party
Congress, he argued that socialism actually developed a whole variety of
interests and that without such a variety, progress was impossible.17 He also
urged that the policies of the party and state should take account of diverse
interests: "A policy gives the needed results when it is built on the precise
consideration of the interests of classes, social groups, and individuals."18
That advice was elevated to official principle by the 1986 party program,
which, after promising the elimination of class distinctions and the forma-
tion of a socially homogeneous society, added that "as long as such differ-
ences exist, the Party considers it a matter of paramount importance to give
careful consideration in its policy to the special features of the interests of
classes and social groups."19 O. N. Krutova even admitted that the interests
of society as a whole were usually less important in guiding behavior than
self-interest. "Direct concern for the social good does not as a rule appear as
a real motive of conduct; a person is led above all (and sometimes even ex-
clusively) by personal interests."20 Therefore, to induce people to serve the
general welfare, it was normally necessary to appeal to their individual and
group interests.
The causes of conflicts between different interests were undergoing rein-
terpretation in Soviet Marxist-Leninist theory of the Gorbachev period.
Previously, the main reason for conflict in a socialist society was thought to
be the interaction of the attributes inherited from capitalism and the features
that were to reach full maturity in communism. The 1961 party program
described the central task of Communist upbringing as "the struggle against
survivals of the past," suggesting that "private-property psychology, super-
stitions, and prejudices" were vestiges of the influence of capitalism.21 In
contrast, the 1986 program said that "work in the area of communist up-
bringing is inseparable from the struggle against manifestations of alien
ideology and morality, against all negative phenomena connected with ves-
tiges of the past in people's consciousness and behavior, with shortcomings
in practical work in various fields of public life, and with delays in solving
urgent problems."22 During the public discussion of the draft of the new
program, an alert reader, Yu. Magnitskii, asked Pravda about the signifi-
cance of the change in the explanation of "negative phenomena" in the new
party program. In Pravda, S. Volodin replied that, while some deviations
from socialist morality were inherited from the past, others were "acquired"
through violations of the principles of socialism, problems of moral educa-
tion, and errors in economic management.23 Thus, social ills were accounted
for not only by the survivals (perezhitki) of capitalism but also by the acqui-
sitions (nazhitki) of socialism. Moreover, Soviet sources of the late 1980s
explicitly rejected the notion that the key conflict in a socialist society was
that posed by the eradication of the heritage of previous stages of history.24
By ceasing to classify all problems in their society as survivals of the past,
Soviet scholars were becoming more aware of conflicts arising from the
development of socialism. Even before coming to power, Gorbachev advo-
cated the fuller and franker examination of conflicts or "contradictions" in
Soviet socialist society.25 After becoming General Secretary, he charged
that the real contradictions in socialism had been neglected by theoretical
analyses and empirical research.26 The 1986 party program gave formal ap-
proval to the discussion of contradictions with its statement that "the scien-
tific analysis of the objective contradictions of socialist society and the
working out of well-founded recommendations for their resolution . . . is
an urgent task of the social sciences in the present stage of development."27
Such words were a highly revealing indication of the trend of official opin-
ion, since the memory of a heated debate about contradictions in socialism
was fresh in the minds of Soviet scholars.
From 1982 to 1984, Soviet social scientists had openly argued about the
nature of the "nonantagonistic contradictions" of socialist society, and about
the possibility that such conflicts might assume dangerous proportions.28
That debate had been cut off around the middle of 1984, but Gorbachev
made it clear that he wanted the subject of contradictions to be reopened.
He also indicated his conviction that, under some circumstances, nonantag-
onistic contradictions could generate serious problems for socialist systems.
One of the most sensitive questions raised by the 1982-1984 debate had been
whether the nonantagonistic contradictions distinctive to socialism could, if
neglected too long or exacerbated by the errors of political leaders, become
so severe as to foster systemic instability. There was disagreement over

whether the maturity of socialism in the Soviet Union insulated that country
from the kinds of disturbances that had been experienced by Poland in the
early 1980s, and by other Eastern European nations earlier.29 Gorbachev
left no doubt about where he stood on that issue. In December 1984, he cau-
tioned that the failure to resolve contradictions in a timely fashion could
result in "the worsening of the economic and social situation."30 By 1987, as
his criticism of the complacency and inactivism of the Brezhnev leadership
became more candid and his arguments for the restructuring of the Soviet
economy became more impatient, he openly asserted that the accumulation
of contradictions had brought the USSR into a "precrisis situation."31 That
statement not only had the practical utility of justifying thorough and rapid
change but also contained the far-reaching theoretical implications that
even deeply entrenched socialist institutions were not immune to internal
crisis and that the nonantagonistic contradictions of socialism could take on
threatening forms.32 Not only could problems as severe as those which had
plagued Poland occur in the USSR; according to Gorbachev, they already
were building up in the Soviet Union.
The renewed discussion of contradictions encouraged a reexamination of
the sources of conflicts in a socialist society. Anatolii Butenko rejected the
thesis that the conflicts found in socialism reflected the clash between the
survivals of capitalism and the elements of budding communism.33 He con-
tended that "socialism is not at all a temporary combination of the features
of immature communism and 'the birthmarks of capitalism,' but a social
order characterized by features, signs, and principles, unified in their social
essence."34 If socialism developed on the basis of its own distinctive princi-
ples, then the principal conflicts that it experienced were internally generated
and inherent in the operation of those principles. Anatolii Yegorov, who
had been known as a defender of orthodox thinking before 1985, wrote in
1988 of the difference between contradictions in socialist society that arose
as a result of mistakes by leaders that violate the laws of socialism, and those
that were "dialecticalcontradictions of social development, expressing the
'self-movement' of socialist society."35 In discussing the Soviet economy,
Leonid Abalkin said flatly that "today it may be considered proven that a
socialist economy has its internal contradictions. They are not introduced
into it from without, and they are not rudimentary remnants of the past or
the result of mistakes and delusions. Contradictions are immanent to a
socialist economy, as to any living, developing organism." Abalkin contended
that the contradictions that were inherent in a socialist economy were the
motive force of the development of the economy and that their "dialectical
resolution," through the coordination of interests, did not eliminate contra-
dictions, which were "in principle irremovable."36
Under Gorbachev, some Soviet ideologists and scholars identified nonan-
tagonistic contradictions with conflicts between the interests of particular
groups in Soviet society.37 In 1985, Tat'iana Zaslavskaia, a sociologist who

became one of the best known advocates of reform, offered an unusually
frank assessment of conflicts among the interests of different groups of
workers who are affected differently by economic reform.38 Some Soviet
scholars came to argue that in a socialist society there was always a possibility
of conflict between the interests of the state apparatus and those of the peo-
ple. Yegorov admitted that, in practice, the interests of leaders sometimes
overrode the interests of other citizens. "There are also such situations
when . . . the interests of people as the representatives of particular social
groups or collective cost-accounting enterprises, or of the administrative ap-
paratus . . . gain the upper hand over the interests of the entire people."39
Gorbachev's analysis of the problems of the Soviet system implied that if
conflicts among social groups and between citizens and leaders were allowed
to sharpen too long, a system of the Soviet type would drift into a crisis.
What was of most fundamental importance was the acceptance of the con-
clusion that the most serious contradictions of socialism were inherent in
the logic of its own development and represented the clash of interests of
groups whose existence was derived from the basic character of socialist
society.
One effort to identify the main divisions in Soviet society resulting from
the impact of Stalinist institutions, and an interpretation that seemed con-
sistent with Gorbachev's rationale for perestroika, was offered by research-
ers of the Institute of the International Workers' Movement of the Academy
of Sciences of the USSR, in works whose chief authors were Leonid Gordon,
Alia Nazimova, and Eduard Klopov. They virtually discarded the analysis
of Soviet society in terms of class differences as previously defined by the
official ideology; instead, they pinpointed divisions in the labor force asso-
ciated with different levels of development of technology in production.40
The three segments of the Soviet labor force delineated by their classification
were those workers in "scientific-industrial" production, or using contem-
porary technology involving high degrees of mechanization and automation;
those in "developed industrial" operations, entailing basic mechanization
and classically organized around the assembly line; and laborers in "prein-
dustrial" or "early industrial" work, whose tasks were performed without
any direct mechanization at all.
Gordon and his colleagues traced shifts in the balance of those segments
in the Soviet labor force to show trends in the development of the economy.
They revealed that the proportion of Soviet workers in developed industrial
production grew more or less steadily from the early 1930s to the 1960s and
that beginning in the 1950s, the proportion of those in high-technology op-
erations, while quite small, began to expand. But they reported that by the
1970s, growth in the percentage of workers in developed industrial produc-
tion had slowed drastically, while the proportion of those in occupations us-
ing the most advanced technology stopped growing altogether.41 Such an

analysis led Gordon and his fellow researchers to conclusions dramatically
different from those endorsed by Khrushchev and Brezhnev. In the perspec-
tive of those scholars of the Institute of the International Workers' Move-
ment, there were two lines of divisions in Soviet society, one of which was
derived from the coming of industrialization, but the other of which appeared
as a result of economic development within the industrialized sectors of
socialist society. In that view, the stage of growth entered by the Soviet Union
in the 1970s was one, not of the overcoming of historically created uneven-
ness but of increasing unevenness of development, as society moved farther
into the transition to high-technology production, while the transition to
mechanized production remained incomplete. Most crucially, Gordon and
his associates argued that both transitions were blocked by obsolete political
institutions, so that the adaptation of the Soviet economy and social struc-
ture to the demands of advanced technology would be possible only with a
thorough transformation of political and administrative structures.
Not all the divisions in Soviet society had been generated by economic
development, however. Though Gorbachev was slow to recognize the im-
portance of issues between ethnic groups, the general implications of his
invitation to scholars to discuss more frankly the variety of cleavages and
interests in the society made it possible for Soviet ideology more openly to
acknowledge the existence of conflicts among the interests of the nationali-
ties of the USSR. Ironically, Gorbachev seemed to expect that a moderate
degree of accommodation of the interests of non-Russian nationalities would
be adequate to ensure a period of stability in nationality relations. The 1986
program of the CPSU paired the further "flourishing" (rastsvet) of nation-
alities with their "steady" drawing closer together (sblizhenie) to give an
apparent signal that no qualitative transformation of interethnic relations
was expected. The "complete unity" of nations within the USSR, which was
seen by the 1961 program as imminent, was relegated by the 1986 program
to "the remote historical future."42 The 1986 party program also provided
evidence of a sharp decrease in emphasis on the rhetoric of the "new histori-
cal community," which had been introduced by Khrushchev at the Twenty-
second Party Congress. During the 1970s, assertions of the existence of a
"new historical community of people, the Soviet narod,"had become stan-
dard fare in Soviet discussions of nationality relations. However, only one
reference to a "qualitatively new social and internationalist community" oc-
curred in an early section of Gorbachev's report to the Twenty-seventh Party
Congress,43 while the term was not used at all in his discussion of nationality
relations. The phrase, "new social and internationalist community," also
was found twice in the 1986 party program44 but was completely absent from
the treatments of nationality affairs in Gorbachev's speech on the seventieth
anniversary of the October Revolution and in his book, Perestroika, in
1987. Instead, that volume mentioned an association (soobshchestvo)of

Soviet nationalities or republics, thus implying that unity was based on some
sort of contractual relationship.45
The tendency to back away from the claim of the formation of a new his-
torical community of people in the USSR and the hint that the peoples of
the USSR might more accurately be seen as comprising an association im-
plied a lower level of solidarity among the nationalities than previously
alleged. Accordingly, the 1986 party program abandoned the thesis that
federalism was becoming outmoded as a basis for political relations among
nationalities and promised the "further enhancement of the role" of union
republics and other regional units of the Soviet state.46 Soviet sources of the
late 1980s did not pretend that all conflicts among the nationalities of the
USSR had been resolved. Gorbachev charged that in earlier periods, Soviet
theorists had presented an overly optimistic depiction of nationality rela-
tions. "Unfortunately, earlier we were occupied basically with verifying the
genuinely great achievements in the resolution of the national question, and
we evaluated the situation with the help of triumphant words."47
Gorbachev conceded that contradictions in nationality relations were in-
evitable,48 while the 1986 party program noted that "new tasks in improving
nationality relations will naturally [zakonomerno] arise."49 By 1987,
Gorbachev even declared that in the course of the modernization of each
region of the USSR, the national self-consciousness of each nationality was
growing.50 By adopting a thesis originally voiced by Yurii Andropov,
Gorbachev was reversing the traditional Soviet assumption that with in-
creasing modernization, the sense of distinct identity of each nationality was
fading.51 In an article in Kommunist in 1986, Yuliian Bromlei, the head of
the Institute of Ethnography of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, refused
to blame all conflicts among nationalities on survivals of the past and the
influence of bourgeois propaganda, adding that "shortcomings of develop-
ment in contemporary society" were also a contributing factor, especially
when members of different nationalities competed for career advancement.52
Aleksandr Yakovlev implied that not all the causes of the heightening of the
psychological importance of nationality differences were avoidable, by say-
ing that the growth in the impact of such distinctions was only partly due to
mistakes in policy and was partly the result of "a known regularity."53 Per-
haps identifying the law-like tendency to which Yakovlev referred, L. M.
Drobizheva of the Institute of Ethnography saw the increasing social mobi-
lization of each nationality as leading to the expansion of its self-conscious-
ness and concluded that ethnographic research showed "the broadening of
factors, stimulating the growth of national self-awareness."54 In the
Gorbachev period, many Soviet scholars argued that higher levels of eco-
nomic and social modernization, rather than eliminating differences among
nationalities, created a new and more complex basis for such differences.
However, even the significant innovations in Soviet thinking on nationality
The Hope ofReform: Socialist Pluralism 179
relations under Gorbachev seriously underestimated the depth of grievances

on nationality issues and the difficulty of resolving conflicts among ethnic
groups in the USSR. It soon became apparent that such problems had been
openly addressed far too late.
PROPERTY, THE MARKET, AND SOCIALIST JUSTICE

Soviet supporters of reform realized that in the Stalinist tradition, any
forms of property or economic activity that were independent of control by
the state bureaucracy were condemned as alien to socialism. The attitude
toward private economic activity changed dramatically under Gorbachev,
however, as indicated by G. L. Smirnov's rejection of the equation of "indi-
vidual labor activity" with "petty-bourgeois production" and his assertion
that such small-scale private enterprise could be "included in the system of
socialist relations.9*5The 1986 party program forecast that in the future,
private plot farming would continue to supplement the production of state
and collective farms and that the "collective farm market [where produce
from private plots was freely marketed] will retain its significance."56 The
Gorbachev leadership did not see the future of private enterprise as confined
to agriculture, however. In an article in Kommunist in 1987, Otto Latsis
reasoned that the need for "individual labor activity" in small units of eco-
nomic organization, especially those satisfying the growing demand for
services, increased in direct proportion to the development of a socialist
economy.57 His thesis was a direct reversal of the thinking of previous gen-
erations of Soviet leaders.
The Gorbachev leadership accepted the view that the growing complexity
of socialist society should give rise to greater diversity in forms of property
relations. In the late 1980s, Soviet scholars subjected the doctrine of the
superiority of state-owned property to sharp criticism. Anatolii Butenko ac-
cused those who had associated the widening of the sphere of state ownership
with the fuller realization of the principles of socialism of confusing formal,
juridical relations with people's real relationship to the means of production,
thus obscuring the real dynamic of appropriation of those means, which
depended on actually placing them under the control of the working people.58
According to Aleksandr Yakovlev, the real reason for the "practically dog-
matic absolutization of state property" as a higher form was the desire to
wipe out all barriers to domination of the economy by the bureaucracy,
motivated by the drive for the total absorption of society by the state.59 In
the view of reformist scholars under Gorbachev, the emphasis on formal
socialization of the economy concealed the actual alienation of the workers
from direct control over the process of production, which encouraged them
to act as if state property belonged to no one, and, therefore, to treat it with
indifference or to plunder it for private gain.60
The real problem, as posed by the advocates of perestroika, was to restore
to the working people a real sense of proprietorship over the means of pro-
duction. Many Soviet sources of the late 1980s echoed Gorbachev's argument
that "a highly important practical task is to create conditions and introduce
forms of organizing production that will enable every working person to feel
himself a true proprietor [khoziain] of the enterprise."61Actual control over
the means of production and responsibility for their use could, in Gorbachev's
opinion, be compatible with the flourishing of a variety of forms of owner-
ship, including state ownership, cooperative ownership, and individual pro-
prietorship. Legislation passed by the Supreme Soviet (national legislature)
of the USSR in 1986 and 1987 permitted the forming of cooperatives which,
in essence, constituted small private businesses, and sanctioned the transfer
of immediate control of much collective farm land to farm families under
long-term rental contracts. Though such changes injected doses of private
enterprise into the Soviet economy, Gorbachev assured his audiences that
they were fully consistent with socialist values, asserting in July 1988 that if
the means of production were to remain at a peasant's disposal for long-term
use, "this is the truest socialism, since it brings the person to the fore," and
puts an end to each person's alienation from the means of production, and
even saying in October 1988 that "a person's desire to get land and imple-
ments in his possession and to create his own family farm is not at variance
with socialism either, comrades."62 Though experience soon showed that
there were great difficulties in putting changes in ownership into practice,
such pronouncements showed the variety of property relations which the
leadership was willing to tolerate and furnished another indication of the
radicalism of the revisions of Marxist-Leninist ideology in the USSR under
Gorbachev.
Nowhere were attempts to test the limits of the adaptability of the domi-
nant ideology more apparent than in the treatment of the relationship of
market economics to socialism. Stalin had predicted that the movement
toward full communism would be marked by the steady reduction of the
sphere of "commodity-money relations"; and even as late as the Brezhnev
period, the possibility of "market socialism" had been scorned by Soviet
sources. Yet by 1987, Gorbachev was setting the theme for reformist scholars
by promising that the "advantages of planning will be increasingly combined
with stimulating factors of the socialist market."63 Leonid Abalkin soon
pointed out that market relations had not been invented by capitalism, but
had "general-economic import" for various social systems.64 Aleksandr
Yakovlev also faulted Soviet theorists for associating the properties of the
market exclusively with capitalism and derided those who had made market
socialism "a bugaboo," calculated to frighten scholars "with accusations of
ideological unreliability."65 Soviet leaders traditionally had described the
market as a setting of ruthless competition in capitalist societies and praised
the alternative of the more comradely "socialist emulation"(sotsialisticheskoe
sorevnovanie) among workers in their economy. However, P. G. Oldak
contended in 1987 that the repudiation of capitalist competition had been

carried to exaggerated lengths, since, while justifiably rejecting the motives
and methods of that competition, Soviet sources had forgotten that it con-
tained "a sort of rational kernel."66 He admitted that socialist emulation
was often ritualistic and ineffectual, failing to stimulate workers' energy
and creativity. The desire to introduce more vigorous competition in the
Soviet economy led Abalkin to conclude that the market had features perti-
nent to any system "based on a developed division of labor and a commodity
form of economic ties."67 His statement virtually conceded that no highly
developed economy could operate efficiently without large elements of mar-
ket relations. Gorbachev's endorsement of the market grew more enthusiastic
as time went on; that is, until in July 1991, when he even said that the essen-
tial contribution of market relations to the implementation of reward accor-
ding to labor meant that socialism and the market were not only compatible
but inseparable.68 He and his supporters believed that building greater com-
petition into the Soviet economic system was necessary in order to achieve the
dynamism of technological innovation in the developed capitalist countries.
The effort to conceive of socialism with varied forms of ownership and a
wider scope for market relations was encouraged by the emphasis under
Gorbachev on the necessity of stimulating the "human factor" in production.
By 1986 many Soviet scholars complained that since the 1930s Soviet leaders
had channeled ever-greater quantitites of raw materials and machinery into
the economy, while regarding labor resources as analogous to physical inputs
but neglecting the need for the motivation and qualitative improvement of
human labor. Those scholars implied that the crude direction of labor with
command methods and its stimulation with simple economic rewards and
stereotyped propaganda campaigns had become less effective with the
emergence of more educated and technically skilled workers in the years
after World War II, the satisfaction of most basic material necessities for
Soviet citizens, and the premium placed on a higher quality of work by new
industrial technology.69 They also argued that a major problem in the moti-
vation of workers in the Soviet economy of their day was the growth of
serious deviations from socialist principles of "social justice."
The theme of social justice was emphasized in Gorbachev's speeches from
the very start of his time in power (and even before his assumption of the
post of General Secretary)70 and was stressed again in his speech at the
Twenty-seventh Party Congress, when he contended that "the strict imple-
mentation of the principle of social justice is an important condition for the
unity of the people, the political stability of society, and the dynamism of its
development."71 The new program of the CPSU listed the "ever fuller im-
plementation in all spheres of social relations of the principle of social justice"
among the main tasks of social policy.72 The discussion of social justice had
begun during the Brezhnev period, but the meaning of the concept changed
after Gorbachev became head of the CPSU. While most scholars who had
used the term under Brezhnev had interpreted social justice to refer to a
degree of economic security for all members of society, a new perspective
on the concept was suggested by Gorbachev's speeches of 1985 and 1986,
which argued that social justice demanded the reduction or elimination of
unearned income and the fuller implementation of reward according to
labor. However, different views of the meaning of social justice would soon
be voiced in an intense public discussion.
The supporters of perestroika believed that social justice would be realized,
not by coming closer to the distribution of material benefits according to
need but by making material reward more dependent on each laborer's pro-
ductive output. Initially the advocacy of social justice under Gorbachev was
primarily an attack on egalitarianism in wage policy. In 1985 and 1986, crit-
icism of wage leveling was articulated in several of Gorbachev's speeches,
including his report to the Twenty-seventh Party Congress, which charged
that paying good workers and negligent workers the same amount of money
violated the principle of social justice.73 In April 1986, Gorbachev com-
plained that problems building up under previous Soviet leaders had included
"negative processes, taking place in the sphere of distribution," which were
exemplified by "leveling tendencies in the pay of labor, which did not cor-
respond to the demands of the basic principle of socialism."74 The program
adopted by the Twenty-seventh Party Congress had advocated the enforce-
ment of policies that would prevent wage leveling.75
In direct contrast to the 1961 party program, the 1986 program did not
foresee a gradual decrease in the role of wages in determining the incomes
and levels of consumption of people in the USSR. The 1986 program said
that wages would remain the principal source of income while society re-
mained in the phase of socialism and indicated that living standards would
be raised mainly through the growth of wage payments.76 The Gorbachev
leadership favored not only the expansion in the total of wage incomes but
also greater differentiation in wage rates.77 After March 1985, a number of
Soviet economists more freely expressed their dissatisfaction with the pre-
vailing differences in pay between unskilled and skilled workers and between
workers and engineers.78 The removal of limits on the differentiation in
wages in order to create greater flexibility in payments for labor was endorsed
by Stanislav Shatalin in September 1986 and by the party Central Commit-
tee's journal Kommunist in February 1987.79Gorbachev indicated his sym-
pathy for that position in June 1987, in a speech to a Central Committee
meeting dealing with the restructuring of economic management, when he
argued that wages should be determined by the individual worker's contri-
bution to the results of production and should "not be restricted by any sort
of limit."80
Since the Gorbachev leadership wished wage payments to continue to be
the main source of income for Soviet working people, it is not surprising
that in the late 1980s, the leadership planned no widening of spending on
public or collective consumption. Though Gorbachev and the 1986 party

program agreed that social consumption funds filled vital needs, the 1986
program did not repeat the 1961 program's promises that spending on col-
lective consumption would increase faster than wage payments and that col-
lective funds would soon provide one-half of the income of people in the
USSR.81 Most crucially, the new Soviet leadership tacitly rejected the notion
of a qualitative expansion in the role of social funds, which had been the
underlying assumption in writings of the early 1960s on public consumption.
At the Twenty-seventh Party Congress, Gorbachev gave some insight into
his outlook with the terse statement that social funds of consumption were
"by no means philanthropic funds,"82 suggesting that spending in those
channels should be directed where it could be of most assistance in the en-
hancement of productivity.
Some reform-minded economists opposed the use of social funds to reduce
inequality in incomes flowing from wage differentiation, since those scholars
contended that such a policy decreased the effect of material incentives for
producers.83 A willingness to reward more productive workers with more
generous benefits from public funds was implied by Gorbachev's characteri-
zation of such funds as "also a means of encouraging skilled, conscientious
labor."84 By late 1986, Kommunist clearly repudiated the egalitarian approach
to public consumption that had been embraced by the 1961 party program.
"Social funds of consumption initially were seen basically as a means of
smoothing out the economic inequality in the sphere of consumption that is
inevitable even in socialism. However, with the growth of the standard of
living of the population, that is beginning to cease to be their leading func-
tion."85 Gorbachev and the 1986 party program favored the use of social
funds to assist those unable to support themselves (and even saw a need to
expand that support for some members of society) but opposed the use of
public consumption funds to move closer to distribution according to need
for the whole society.
Unlike the 1961 party program, the program of the CPSU adopted by the
Twenty-seventh Party Congress did not pledge that public funds would make
it possible to provide a wider variety of services without direct charges to
those who received them. After 1985, a number of Soviet scholars called for
broadening the range of services paid for by those benefiting from them and
decreasing government subsidies for some services that were distributed at
low prices to customers. In an article in Kommunistthat aroused controversy
over the interpretation of social justice, Tatfana Zaslavskaia charged that
the expansion of free services restricted the value of earned income, detracted
from material incentives for labor, and fostered the wasteful use of many
services so as to heighten their scarcity.86 Many people emphatically disagreed
with Zaslavskaia's arguments. Soon after Kommunist published Zaslavskaia's
essay, it printed an article by A. Bim and A. Shokhin that warned that the
expansion of payment for services would increase their availability only to
those with the ability to pay for them, insuring greater inequality in the sat-
isfaction of essential needs.87 An article in Kommunist that summarized let-
ters the journal had received in response to Zaslavskaia's essay noted that
some letter writers had bitterly criticized her suggestion of instituting pay-
ments for some services which were, at the time, offered free of charge. One
person who had written a letter to the journal believed that public funding
for education and medical care was "one of the most important achievements
and advantages of socialism. And to renounce that is unjustifiable."88 Those
who shared that person's viewpoint thought that the security of subsidized
benefits to consumers formed part of the implicit "social contract" between
the political regime and Soviet citizens and that the violation of that contract
would betray the trust of the Soviet people. There seemed to be especially
widespread opposition to proposals to reduce or eliminate the role of gov-
ernment in paying for housing and food, which kept the prices of those ben-
efits below the levels that would have been dictated by the cost of supplying
them. Gorbachev was reluctant to face the task of freeing the prices of
housing and food from government controls.
As we have seen, Gorbachev was bolder in favoring the rise of small-scale
private enterprises, as indicated by his statement that "the state will facilitate
the development of various forms of satisfying public demand and providing
services." In addition, he cautioned that "proposals for bringing order into
individual labor activity must be considered carefully,"89 apparently imply-
ing that it would be better to legalize private services and allow them to come
into the open rather than attempting to suppress them and driving them
underground. However, the realization that the expansion of small-scale
private enterprise would create growing incomes from private economic ac-
tivity aroused indignation among many Soviet citizens. There was even some
worry about that prospect among some advocates of reform who were willing
to allow greater inequality in wages. Those with that point of view believed
that progressive income taxation could mitigate the influence of arbitrary
factors on remuneration and prevent private entrepreneurs from amassing
excessive wealth.90 It was generally understood, however, that the growth
of private economic activity would stimulate greater differentiation in eco-
nomic well-being, and Gorbachev's warning to the Twenty-seventh Con-
gress, that "in curbing unearned income we must not allow a shadow to fall
on those who receive additional earnings through honest labor,"91 signaled
his disagreement with the advocates of egalitarianism who resented the suc-
cess of private entrepreneurs.
One consequence of the opening of the discussion of social justice was the
opportunity to air public criticism of the privileges of the Soviet political
elite. The extensive network of institutional allocation of benefits provided
access to special shops for food, manufactured goods, and special medical
facilities, and the use of chauffer-driven automobiles, country cabins or
homes, and exclusive resort hotels.92 The printed and broadcast media in
the USSR did not openly admit the existence of such perquisites of authority
before Gorbachev came to office, much less engage in criticism of such priv-
ileges. The subject was aired tentatively before the Twenty-seventh Party
Congress, when Pravda reported receiving a letter from N. Nikolaev of
Kazan, who complained that "one cannot close one's eyes to the fact that
Party, Soviet, trade union, economic, and even Young Communist League
officials sometimes objectively deepen social inequality, taking advantage
of all sorts of special refreshment bars, special stores, special hospitals,
etc." Nikolaev considered such privileges to be contrary to the principle of
social justice. "An official has higher earnings in monetary terms. But in
other respects, there should be no privileges."93 At the Twenty-seventh Party
Congress, Boris Yel'tsin, at the time the head of the Moscow party organiza-
tion, first attracted widespread attention by claiming that many workers in
Moscow had voiced dissatisfaction with elite privileges, and by joining in
the suggestion that "where benefits for leaders at all levels are not justified,
they should be abolished."94 Disagreement on that subject was indicated
when Yegor Ligachev, who ranked only behind Gorbachev in the central
party apparatus, reprimanded Pravda for errors that were not named but
were generally supposed to have been included in its publication of quota-
tions from Nikolaev's letter.95 Despite Ligachev's remarks, the controversy
over elite privileges did not die down entirely after the Twenty-seventh Party
Congress, since some newspapers still reported receiving letters critical of
such privileges, and since Yel'tsin and Ligachev clashed on the issue again
during the Nineteenth Conference of the CPSU in July 1988.96 Within a few
years, open and vehement repudiation of special benefits for the elite would
be common in the USSR.
A somewhat oversimplified analysis would have identified three broad,
different means of gaining access to goods and services in the Soviet Union
at the beginning of the Gorbachev period. One way to acquire desired bene-
fits was to buy them in a market that was recognized and permitted by law,
as represented, for instance, by state-owned shops and farmers' markets. The
scale of benefits obtained through those channels was determined by the
consumer's ability to pay for them, or in other words, by cash income. The
second means of acquiring goods and services was to receive them in kind
from the state, a productive enterprise, or other public organization, in the
purest examples entirely at the expense of such public institutions or, ulti-
mately, the consumers and taxpayers who supported them. The third means
consisted of reliance on a variety of practices that were illegal or on shadowy
ground, such as taking advantage of acquaintances or friendships with those
in retail trade and service institutions, engaging in trade-offs with people
who disposed of scarce goods, making illegal payments in order to gain
benefits, or simply buying goods in the "second economy" or black market.
Soviet economists who supported Gorbachev's drive for economic restruc-
turing favored changes that would enhance the usefulness of the first means
of acquiring material benefits and decrease the opportunity to use other

means. Gorbachev and his supporters wanted the standard of living of each
family to be conditioned more closely by the money earned by its adult
members, which was to be determined primarily by their productivity. Those
reformers interpreted social justice to mean equality of opportunity rather
than equality of material well-being. It may accurately be said that their ideal
was of a meritocratic basis of reward.
Gorbachev was eager to promote greater competition among individuals,
work groups, and enterprises, both in socialized and private production.
Gorbachev seemed to understand that practices that insulated Soviet firms
from domestic and international competition engendered the indifference to
quality and the slow pace of technological innovation that plagued the coun-
try's economy. His desire to tighten the pressure of competition was reflected
in a subtle change in language in discussions of economic activity. Tradi-
tionally, the vicious competition (konkurentsiia) said to be characteristic of
capitalism had been anathema for Soviet ideologists, while only the friendly
competition or emulation (sorevnovanie) among workers simultaneously
challenging and assisting each other had been regarded as appropriate for
socialism. As the lack of effective solutions for the problems of the stagnant
Soviet economy became more apparent under Brezhnev, Soviet publications
fell back on the habit of extolling the virtues of comradely sotsialisticheskoe
sorevnovanie. Under Gorbachev, however, another term was featured.
In his major speech to the Twenty-seventh Party Congress, Gorbachev
mentioned the need for productive and economic competition (sorevnovanie),
and also for competitiveness (sostiazatefnosf) in scientific and artistic cre-
ativity.97 The second type of competition to which the General Secretary
referred was sostiazanie, which is the type of rivalry among athletes or ap-
plicants for academic honors in which the number of winners is smaller than
the number of participants so that one contestant's gain is, in a sense, another's
loss. Gorbachev suggested that sostiazanie was an important supplement to
sorevnovanie in the drive for the acceleration of social and economic prog-
ress. By June 1987, he directly applied the prescription for greater sostiazanie
to the area of economic activity, saying that "we proceed from the need to
increase real rivalry among enterprises and organizations, including state
and cooperative organizations, for the better satisfaction of the requirements
of the population and the national economy."98 P. G. Oldak soon reported
that there was a need for sostiazatefnosf in all spheres of purposeful activity:
"World experience from ancient times (in art, sport, and handicrafts) indi-
cates that the given principle is universal."99 Before Gorbachev left office in
December 1991, many in the Soviet Union were openly endorsing not only
sostiazanie but also capitalistic konkurentsiia. Whatever the label, the ac-
ceptance of the type of competition envisioned by Gorbachev's supporters
would have deemphasized the equalization of economic well-being and
accentuated incentives to the material interest of each individual in accor-

dance with the ideal of equality of opportunity. 100 Under Gorbachev, Soviet
reformers' interpretation of "social justice" implied a distribution of reward
determined by the outcome of competition and, therefore, differentiated in
accordance with individual skill and effort. 101
NOTES
1. Leonid Abalkin, "Opiraias'naiirokiprosMogo,"#0mmwmrt, 1987, no. 16:11.
2. "K gumannomu, demokraticheskomu sotsializmu (Programmnoe zaiavlenie
XXVIII s'ezda KPSS)," Pravda, July 15, 1990.
World (New York: Harper & Row, 1987), 47; G. L. Smirnov, Revoliutsionnaia sut'
perestroiki (Moscow: Politizdat, 1987), 65; Gorbachev, "On Progress in the Imple-
mentation of the Decisions of the 27th CPSU Congress and the Tasks of Deepening
Restructuring," CDSP 40, no. 26 (July 27, 1988; reprinted from Pravda, June 29,
1988): 12.
4. Leonid Abalkin, "Restructuring the Management of the Economy Is a Con-
tinuation of the October Revolution's Work," CDSP 40, no. 8 (March 23, 1988;
reprinted from Voprosy ekonomiki, 1987, no. 12): 16.
5. A. P. Butenko, "Teoreticheskie problemy sovershenstvovaniia novogo stroia:
o sotsial'no-ekonomicheskoi prirode sotsializma," Voprosy filosofii, 1987, no. 2: 26.
6. M. S. Gorbachev, "On Restructuring and the Party's Personnel Policy,"
CDSP 39, no. 4 (February 25, 1987; reprinted from Pravda, January 28, 1987): 3.
7. M. S. Gorbachev, "Politicheskii doklad Tsentral'nogo Komiteta KPSS XXVII
s'ezdu Kommunisticheskoi partii Sovetskogo Soiuza," February 1986, Kommunist,
1986, no. 4: 33. Even before becoming General Secretary, in his speech of December
1984, Gorbachev showed eagerness to overturn that thesis. Idem, Zhivoe tvorchestvo
naroda (Moscow: Politizdat, 1984), 12.
8. M. S. Gorbachev, "O perestroike i kadrovoi politike partii," Kommunist,
1987, no. 3: 7.
9. A. N. Yakovlev, "Dostizhenie kachestvenno novogo sostoianiia sovetskogo
obshchestva i obshchestvennye nauki," Vestnik Akademii Nauk SSSR,1987, no. 6: 56.
10. Abalkin, "Opiraias' na uroki proshlogo," 15. Abalkin, a leading advocate of
economic reform before 1985, became the director of the Institute of Economics of
the Academy of Sciences of the USSR after Gorbachev came to power and later
became a deputy chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR.
11. Yakovlev, "Dostizhenie," 56.
12. M. S. Gorbachev, "Oktiabr' i perestroika: revoliutsiia prodolzhaetsia," Kom-
munist, 1987, no. 17: 23.
13. P. G. Oldak, "Kachestvenno novaia stupen' razvitiia sovetskogo obshchestva,"
Ekonomika i organizatsiia promyshlennogo proizvodstva, 1987, no. 8: 8; A. Yegorov,
"O dialektike razvitiia sotsialisticheskogo obshchestva," Pravda, March 3, 1988. As
director of the Central Committee's Institute of Marxism-Leninism under Brezhnev,
Yegorov had been one of the principal proponents of the conception of developed
socialism. The shifts after 1985 in the published positions of such well-known con-
servative figures as Anatolii Yegorov and Mikhail Rutkevich were a telling indication
of changes in the outlook of the dominant elements within the Soviet political lead-
ership and of those individuals' desire to retain their positions. Nevertheless, most of
the leading conservative theoreticians of the Brezhnev period soon moved into retire-
ment or into less influential posts.
15. "Programma Kommunisticheskoi partii Sovetskogo Soiuza (novaia redaktsiia),"
Kommunist, 1986, no. 4: 115; see also 126.
16. Gorbachev, Zhivoe tvorchestvo naroda, 15; see also 26, 30.
18. Ibid., 72.
19. "Programma Kommunisticheskoi partii,'' 127; see also the discussion of social
organizations on page 129 of this source.
20. O. N. Krutova, "Chelovecheskii faktor: sotsial'no-filosofskii aspekt," Voprosy
filosofii, 1987, no. 8: 26.
21. "The Program of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union," in Current
Soviet Policies IV, ed. Charlotte Saikowski and Leo Gruliow (New York: Columbia
23. S. Volodin, "Perezhitki ili 'nazhitki'," Pravda, November 11, 1985.
24. Yakovlev, "Dostizhenie," 62; Butenko, "Teoreticheskie problemy," 21. At
the time the latter article was published, Butenko was a scholar of the Institute of the
Economy of the World Socialist System of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR.
He had been one of the boldest advocates of reform during the Brezhnev years, and
he became even more outspoken as a supporter of perestroikaunder Gorbachev.
26. Gorbachev, "Politicheskii doklad," 72; idem, "O perestroike," 7.
27. "Programma Kommunisticheskoi partii," 137; see also 119.
28. Ernst Kux, "Contradictions in Soviet Socialism," Problems of Communism
33, no. 6 (November-December 1984): 1-27, gives an excellent analysis of that debate.
29. Alfred B. Evans, Jr., "The Polish Crisis in the 1980s and Adaptation in
Soviet Ideology," Journal of Communist Studies 2, no. 3 (September 1986): 263-285.
31. Gorbachev, "O perestroike," 7; idem, "O zadachakh partii po korennoi
perestroike upravleniia ekonomikoi," Kommunist, 1987, no. 10: 27; idem, "Oktiabr7
i perestroika," 20; idem, Perestroika, 18.
32. Gorbachev, Perestroika, 50-51. "Historical experience has indicated that also
socialist society is not insured against the appearance and accumulation of tenden-
cies of stagnation and even against serious socio-political crises. And for an exit from
a crisis or precrisis situation, measures of a revolutionary nature are exactly necessary."
33. Butenko, "Teoreticheskie problemy," 21.
34. Ibid., 28.
35. Yegorov, "O dialektike." Yegorov also referred to nonantagonistic contra-
dictions "internally inherent in our society."
36. L. I. Abalkin, "Ekonomicheskie protivorechiia sotsializma," Voprosy ekon-
omiki, 1987, no. 5: 4, 7.
37. M. N. Rutkevich, "Izmeneniia v sotsial'no-klassovoi strukture sovetskogo
obshchestva v usloviiakh perestroiki," Sotsiologicheskie issledovaniia, 1987, no. 5:

44; Yegorov, "O dialektike."
38. T. I. Zaslavskaia, "Ekonomika skvoz' prizmu sotsiologii," Ekonomika i
organizatsiia promyshlennogo proizvodstva, 1985, no. 7: 21-22. Her discussion of
the interests and attitudes of groups in Soviet society in relation to perestroika was
expanded in Zaslavakaia, "O strategii sotsial'nogo upravleniia perestroikoi," in Inogo
ne dano, ed. Yu. N. Afanas'ev (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1988), 9-50.
39. Yegorov, "O dialektike."
40. L. A. Gordon and A. K. Nazimova, Rabochii klass SSSR: tendentsii iper-
spektivy sotsialno-ekonomicheskogo razvitiia (Moscow: Nauka, 1985), 94, 120; E. V.
Klopov, Rabochii klass SSSR (tendentsii razvitiia v 60-70-e gody) (Moscow: Mysl',
1985), 39.
41. Gordon and Nazimova, Rabochii klass SSSR, 123, 202.
44. "Programma Kommunisticheskoi partii," 101, 115.
45. Gorbachev, Perestroika, 118. The concept of the new historical community
was completely omitted from Gorbachev's statement of the socialist idea in Novem-
ber 1989 ("Sotsialisticheskaia ideia i revoliutsionnaia perestroika") and from the
February 1990 draft of a new party platform ("K gumannomu, demokraticheskomu
sotsializmu").
46. "Programma Kommunisticheskoi partii," 128. Note the careful compromise
in the program's rhetoric on federalism (from this source): "On the basis of the cre-
ative application of the Leninist principles of socialist federalism and democratic
centralism, forms of relations between nationalities will be enriched in the interests
of the entire Soviet people and of each nation and nationality." Gorbachev's state-
ment, "Sotsialisticheskaia ideia i revoliutsionaia perestroika," 19, promised a new
image or aspect (novyi oblik) for the Soviet federation but left the details of that new
model of federalism quite uncertain.
48. Gorbachev, "Politicheskii doklad," 45; idem, Perestroika, 119.
49. "Programma Kommunisticheskoi partii," 127-128.
50. Gorbachev, Perestroika, 119; idem, "Revoliutsionnoi perestroike—ideologiiu
obnovleniia," Kommunist, 1988, no. 4: 25.
51. Yu. V. Andropov, "Shest'desiat let SSSR," Kommunist, 1983, no. 1: 8. "Life
shows that the economic and cultural progress of all nations and nationalities is ac-
companied by an inevitable growth in their national self-awareness."
52. Yu. V. Bromlei, "Sovershenstvovanie natsional'nykh otnoshenii v SSSR,"
Kommunist, 1986, no. 8: 85.
54. L. M. Drobizheva, "Natsional'noe samosoznanie: baza formirovaniia i
sotsial'no-kul'turnye stimuli razvitiia," Sovetskaia etnografiia, 1985, no. 5: 13.
55. Smirnov, Revoliutsionnaia suf, 1987, 88. Emphasis in the original.
56. "Programma Kommunisticheskoi partii," 118, 124.
57. Otto Latsis, "Individual'nyi trud v sovremennoi sotsialisticheskoi ekonomike,"
Kommunist,1987, no. 1: 78. Latsis was one of the editors ofKommunist.
58. Butenko, "O dialektike," 8.

60. Smirnov, Revoliutsionnaia suf, 65; A. P. Butenko, "O kharaktere sobstven-
nosti v usloviiakh real'nogo sotsializma," Ekonomika i organizatsiia promyshlennogo
proizvodstva,1988, no. 2: 7, 18-19.
61. M. S. Gorbachev, "On Restructuring and the Party's Personnel Policy (part
2)," CDSP 39, no. 5 (March 4, 1987; reprinted from Pravda, January 28, 1987): 8;
see also idem, "On the Party's Tasks," 12.
62. M. S. Gorbachev, "On Practical Work to Implement the Decisions of the
19th All-Union Party Conference," CDSP 40, no. 30 (August 24, 1988; reprinted
from Pravda, July 30, 1988): 6; idem, "Develop Leasing, Restructure Economic
Relations in the Countryside," CDSP40, no. 41 (November 9,1988; reprinted from
Pravda, October 14, 1988): 4.
64. Abalkin, "Opiraias' na uroki," 15; idem, "Restructuring the Management," 16.
66. P. G. Oldak, "Kachestvenno novaia stupen' razvitiia sovetskogo obshchestva,"
Ekonomika i organizatsiia promyshlennogo proizvodstva, 1987, no. 8: 16.
67. Abalkin, "Opiraias' na uroki," 15.
68. M. S. Gorbachev, "O proekte novoi Programmy KPSS," Pravda, July 26,
1991.
69. In 1986 and 1987, a large number of articles on "activating the human factor"
in the economy appeared in Soviet publications, including T. I. Zaslavskaia, "Tvor-
cheskaia aktivnost' mass: sotsial'nye rezervy rosta," Ekonomika i organizatsiia
promyshlennogo proizvodstva, 1986, no. 3: 3-25; idem, "Chelovecheskii faktor
razvitiia ekonomiki i sotsial'naia spravedlivost'," Kommunist, 1986, no. 13: 61-73;
and O. N. Krutova, "Chelovecheskii faktor," 17-30.
70. Gorbachev, Zhivoe tvorchestvo naroda, 31-32; idem, "O sozyve ocherednego
XXVII s"ezda KPSS i zadachakh, sviazannykh s ego podgotovkoi i provedeniem,"
Kommunist, 1985, no. 7: 9.
74. Mikhail S. Gorbachev, Bystreeperestraivat'sia, deistvovaf po-novomu (Mos-
cow: Politizdat, 1985), 5.
76. Ibid., 124.
77. Gorbachev, "Politicheskii doklad," 40. That conclusion was also supported
by the analysis of Janet Chapman, "Gorbachev's Wage Reform," Soviet Economy 4
(October-December 1988): 338-365.
78. E. L. Manevich, "The Economic Mechanism and the Use of Labor Resources,"
Problems of Economics 29, no. 5 (September 1986; reprinted from Ekonomika i
organizatsiia promyshlennogo proizvodstva, 1985, no. 12): 52; L. Rzhanitsyna, "In-
tensifying the Stimulation of the Effectiveness of Labor," Problems of Economics
29, no. 1 (May 1986; reprinted from Voprosy ekonomiki, 1985, no. 6): 59-60.
79. S. Shatalin, "Sotsial'noe razvitie i ekonomicheskii rost," Kommunist, 1986,
no. 14: 62; "O chelovecheskom faktore i sotsial'noi spravedlivosti: nekotorye itogi
diskusii," Kommunist, 1987, no. 3: 104.
80. Gorbachev, "O zadachakh partii," 43. However, many letters received by
Kommunist reportedly contained harsh criticism of the views of those who advocated
more differentiated rewards for labor. "O chelovecheskom faktore," 114.
81. Gorbachev, "Politicheskii doklad," 40; "Programma Kommunisticheskoi
partii," 124.
83. E. M. Agababian, ed., Sotsialno-ekonomicheskaia effektivnost narodnogo
potrebleniia v razvitom sotsialisticheskom obshchestve (Moscow: Nauka, 1985),
92-93; V. Z. Rogovin, "Social Justice and Improving Distribution Relations," Soviet
Law and Government 25, no. 1 (Summer 1986; reprinted from Politicheskoe samoo-
brazovanie, 1985, no. 6): 12.
85. "O chelovecheskom faktore," 107.
86. Zaslavaskaia, "Chelovecheskii faktor," 72-73.
87. A. Bim and A. Shokhin, "Sistema raspredeleniia: na putiakh perestroiki,"
Kommunist, 1986, no. 15: 71.
88. "O chelovecheskom faktore," 106. That writer also mentioned subsidized
housing as an important achievement.
90. S. Shatalin and V. Grebennikov, "Personal Income, Taxes and Social Jus-
tice," CDSP 38, no. 44 (December 3,1986; reprinted from Ekonomicheskaiagazeta,
1986, no. 42): 11; Rogovin, "Social Justice," 16. Zaslavakaia also favored a progres-
sive tax on personal incomes.
92. Hedrick Smith, The Russians (New York: Times Books, 1983), 29-56; Mervyn
Mathews, Privilege in the Soviet Union (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1978),
36-55.
93. T. Samolis, "Cleansing: A Frank Discussion," CDSP 38, no. 6 (March 12,
1986; reprinted from Pravda, February 13, 1986): 2.
94. B. N. Yel'tsin, "Rech' tovarishcha Yel'tsina B. N.," in XXVII sf'ezd KPSS:
Stenograficheskii otchet, vol. 1 (Moscow: Politizdat, 1986), 143.
95. Ye. K. Ligachev, "Rech' tovarishcha Ligacheva Ye. K.," in XXVII sf'ezd
KPSS: Stenograficheskii otchet,vol. 1 (Moscow: Politizdat, 1986), ibid., 236.
96. Amy Corning, "Attitudes toward Privileges in the Soviet Union," Radio
Liberty Research Report, July 14, 1988; "Conference Speakers Debate Reforms,"
CDSP 40, no. 35 (September 28, 1988; reprinted from Pravda, July 2, 1988): 8, 12.
98. Gorbachev, "O zadachakh partii," 30.
99. Oldak, "Kachestvenno novaia stupen'," 15.
100. Ibid. Oldak drew a distinction between "equalization" (uravnitelnosf),
which he saw as undesirable, and "equality" (ravenstvo), which he regarded as desir-
able. "Equalization—to each the same, to each guaranteed wages at identical rates,
independently of the final results of work. Equality—the equal right of each to strug-
gle for his place, and the broad road of competitiveness."
101. Gorbachev, "Oktiabr' i perestroika," 24. "Social justice demands that we ac-
cord more attention to the manifestation of individual capabilities of the individual,
that we recognize morally and materially those who work better and more, showing
an example for others."
12
The Collapse of the Dream
POLITICAL CHANGE
Soviet reformers of the Gorbachev period charged that previous Soviet

leaders, by perpetuating the Stalinist myth of socialist social homogeneity
and rationalizing the domination of society by the state bureaucracy, had
suppressed the expression of social interests and stifled the initiative and en-
thusiasm of the Soviet people. Gorbachev argued that the development of
socialism stimulated the variety of interests in society, that the interaction
of groups' demands was essential for progress, and that the policies of the
Communist party and state should take account of diverse social interests.1
Gorbachev's proposals for change in Soviet political and economic institu-
tions were based on the following beliefs: first, that the vitality and dyna-
mism which Lenin had expected to drive the advance of socialism could only
be impelled by enthusiastic mass participation; second, that the majority of
the people would not display genuine enthusiasm unless their participation
in political affairs and material production was motivated primarily by their
own individual and group interests; and third, that citizens and workers
would not see chances for the satisfaction of their interests unless they were
granted opportunities for significantly more independent political participa-
tion and economic activity.2 The adoption of "socialist pluralism" as a posi-
tive slogan in the rhetoric of the Gorbachev leadership in 1987, presenting a
deliberate and dramatic contrast with the previous repudiation of "pluralism"
as an alien and subversive concept, symbolized the acknowledgment not only
of the existence of a diversity of competing interests in Soviet society but
also of the need to provide channels for the more effective representation of
those interests in the political system.
By 1987, Gorbachev began to advocate the "democratization" (demokra-

tizatsiia) of the Soviet political system, not only in order to build a mass
base of support for the economic reforms which he sought but, more funda-
mentally, to institutionalize channels for popular pressure that would insure
the continuing revitaUzation of the system and guard against periods of
stagnation in the future. An implicit theme of his drive for political and
economic restructuring was the emphasis on responsibility, but that idea
was a two-edged sword. On the one hand, if democratization of the political
process could ensure greater responsibility of the political leaders to the
people, the potential of bureaucratic resistance to adaptation in the system
would be drastically lowered. On the other hand, if the workers in each
economic enterprise would realize their responsibility for the operation of
the enterprise, they would be more likely to appreciate the impact of its per-
formance on their well-being.3 Gorbachev looked on democratization as the
antidote to the bureaucratic appropriation of control over political and
economic institutions that had produced a sense of alienation in the Soviet
people and had fostered the apathy, indifference, and cynicism contributing
to the stagnation of Soviet society.
The main factor restraining the initiative of Soviet citizens, in the opinion of
reformers of the Gorbachev period, was the superstructure of control inher-
ited from the Stalin period, which had been highly centralized and bureauc-
ratized in order to achieve the fulfillment of directives from the top down.
That regime became routinely characterized as the "command-administrative
system," which Gorbachev later described as authoritarian and still later
labeled as totalitarian. The emphasis on the human factor entailed the asser-
tion that the slowing down of the rate of economic growth in the Soviet
Union was due not only to technical but also to social causes, and that apathy
and disillusionment in the society were fundamentally conditioned by the
nature of the established political and economic organizations. The propo-
nents ot perestroika argued that the dominance over society by the authoritar-
ian state had suppressed the independence of citizens' activity and discouraged
the display of popular initiative. They insisted that the masses could be
reenergized only through the opening of channels for the expression and
satisfaction of the interests of individuals and groups in Soviet society. The
introduction of elements of market relations was intended to encourage the
pursuit of self-interest in the economy. By 1987, Gorbachev also endorsed
competition among a "socialist pluralism of opinions" as a means of stimu-
lating the progress of Soviet society.4 Gorbachev seemed to believe that a
lively competition among ideas as well as interests could infuse dynamism
into the Soviet system.
Soviet reformers under Gorbachev envisioned the growth of a socialist
"civil society," or the broad area of social association and activity indepen-
dent from control by the state in which the autonomous pursuit of interests
could take place.5 Those reformers charged that, under Stalin, the expansion
The Collapse of the Dream 195
of the totalitarian state had smothered civil society in order to absorb all
social organizations and direct all citizens' conduct. They advocated the
establishment of a "law-governed state" (pravovoe gosudarstvo), or a system
in which all individuals and institutions would be subordinate to the rule of
law.6 Archie Brown noted that the idea of the law-governed state was "part
of a much more profound analysis of arbitrary rule and the abuse of power
than took place in Khrushchev's time."7 Gorbachev's supporters attributed
the causes of Stalin's terror not only to his pathological personality traits
but also, and primarily, to the structural features of a political system which
had allowed the excessive concentration of power in the hands of one person.
They believed that to prevent the recurrence of the arbitrary exercise of
power, it would be necessary to enforce the observance of law by party and
state executive officials and further concluded that such limitations on au-
thority could be effective only if based on the principles of popular sovereignty
and individual rights.8 Such reformers engaged in the extensive study of old
and new Western theoretical writings on state institutions and political proc-
esses, which formerly had been scorned as part of the ideological rationale
for bourgeois democracy, and borrowed from those sources the idea that
"checks and balances" between different branches of government might
serve as a safeguard for the rights of citizens. Though Gorbachev's striving
for the "democratization" of the Soviet political system had originally been
motivated primarily by his overriding desire to improve the performance of
the Soviet economy,9 the significance of political reform was broader and
more fundamental in the eyes of many intellectuals for whom individual
freedom was the most basic value.
During 1987 and 1988, Gorbachev repeatedly emphasized his view that
successful economic reform was impossible in the USSR without radical
political change. When the most authoritative Communist party sources
identified alienation as a fundamental problem in the USSR, Gorbachev
came to admit openly that the bureaucratization of Soviet socialism had
deprived the working people of control of the state and economic institu-
tions, instilling feelings of powerlessness and apathy in the masses. Democ-
ratization was intended to overcome the citizens' alienation from political
authority by creating opportunities for the expression of popular interests.
The breaking down of the bureaucrats' insulation from mass dissatisfaction
was to mobilize pressure that would make reform irreversible and to restore
the dynamism of the Soviet system by building in a process of pluralistic
competition of interests. Under the law-governed state, the Stalinist princi-
ple of the relationship between citizens and the state that "whatever is not
permitted is forbidden" would be replaced by the axiom that "whatever is
not forbidden is permitted." Democratization would unleash popular energy
and enthusiasm, smashing conservative resistance to economic reform and
revitalizing the Soviet state, by debureaucratizing the political system. The
Communist party would also be subjected to debureaucratization as it with-
drew from detailed management of state organizations and the economy

and as the influence of rank-and-file members of the party was enhanced at
the expense of the security of its professional apparatus. As Joel Moses has
put it, "The Party's reduced function in this scheme [was to be] primarily
general policy guidance and the promotion of democratic ideals and norms
of behavior."10 Such at least was the hope that Gorbachev's speeches aroused
from 1987 to 1990, as his program for political and economic reform assumed
an increasingly radical character.
THE ABANDONMENT OF UTOPIA

There would be limits to the pluralism in the Soviet political system and
the Soviet economy, however, in the new order visualized by Gorbachev.
What Gorbachev sought was not the wholesale adoption of Western democ-
racy and capitalism but, rather, the introduction of a system that would
synthesize features traditional to the Soviet Union with the advantages of
Western pluralism. That was the meaning of Gorbachev's assertion in Pere-
stroika, that restructuring was to unite socialism and democracy, and his in-
sistence that the purpose of reform was not to import a foreign model but to
bring more socialism and more democracy to the USSR.11 He argued that
the task of restructuring was to take advantage of the enormous untapped
potential of socialism, by which he meant a system of the Soviet type. The
competition of interests and opinions was not to be unlimited but was to re-
main within the limits of "socialist pluralism," while in the economy, the ad-
vantages of the market were to be combined with the benefits of central
planning.12 When he saw change going beyond those limits, Gorbachev took
a more conservative stance, insisting repeatedly in the first few months of
1991 that the choice in favor of socialism, allegedly made by "the Soviet peo-
ple" in October 1917, was irrevocable.13 He had argued in Perestroika in 1987
that Lenin was the master source of creative thought about reform and of the
ideal of socialism that Soviet reformers sought to reinstitute. Gorbachev's
thesis was that Lenin had sketched the outlines of a genuine model of social-
ism that later had been subjected to distortions by Stalin. The intellectual
task of restructuring was to strip away the accumulated distortions and re-
discover the Leninist essence of a rational, adaptable single-party system with
strategic guidance by central planners.14 As Gorbachev recognized, direction
by a theoretically informed political elite and initiative from enthusiastic
and energetic masses had both been inherent elements of Lenin's vision of
socialism. Gorbachev charged that, over time, the balance between those
elements had been tilted so that the centralist side had predominated over-
whelmingly over the democratic side of democratic centralism. Gorbachev's
aim was not to abandon democratic centralism but to revive mass initiative
while preserving the proper role for the guiding elite.
Gorbachev believed that allowing the expression of a greater diversity of

ideas would contribute to the revitaUzation of Soviet socialism and not
threaten the stability of the Leninist foundations of that system because he
assumed that diversity would largely observe the boundaries of an underly-
ing loyalist consensus in Soviet society. What George Breslauer observed
about Khrushchev's conceptions concerning changes in the relationship
between elite and masses in the USSR applies to the thinking of Soviet within-
system reformers from the 1950s to the early 1990s. The crucial question
was that of trust: How much could Soviet society be trusted?15 If the society
was filled with latent hostility toward the political regime, then pervasive,
authoritarian control of society was a prerequisite for stability, and detailed
bureaucratic direction should guide the activity of Soviet citizens toward the
achievement of desirable goals. But if, as Gorbachev believed even more
firmly than Khrushchev, several decades of the experience of a single-party
political system and a centrally planned economy had instilled basic Leninist
values in the overwhelming majority of Soviet citizens, then the costs of
excessive regimentation of citizens' activities need not be paid. A major
reason that perestroika was ultimately unsuccessful in realizing Gorbachev's
aim of revitalizing the established, authoritative institutions in the Soviet
Union was that his assumption of the presence of a loyalist consensus proved
incorrect. He seriously underestimated the depth of unsatisfied grievances
among the people of the USSR and failed to sense the extent of their disillu-
sionment with structures of authority. As a result, the democratization
launched by Gorbachev went beyond his control; aroused the expression of
far more diverse interests than he anticipated; and lastly, had not revitalized
the Communist party-state regime but, rather, had left it in ruins.
Uncertainty about the course along which Gorbachev intended to direct
Soviet society and skepticism concerning the possibility of translating glit-
tering ideals into reality increased from the time of the blossoming of hopes
for perestroika in 1986 and 1987. While Gorbachev was quite successful in
discrediting the established ideological orthodoxy, he was less successful in
framing a credible vision of the future as a replacement for the promises
that had badly lost their capacity to inspire Soviet citizens.16 By the time of
the Nineteenth Conference of the CPSU in the summer of 1988, Gorbachev's
rejection of the Stalinist heritage had inspired him to encourage the search
for a "new model of socialism" in the USSR.17 To fill in the content of the
new image of socialism and guide the drafting of a new interim platform for
the party, Gorbachev issued a theoretical statement in November 1989 on
"The Socialist Idea and Revolutionary Restructuring," which, on the one
hand, warned that the people of the USSR could not renounce their history
but, on the other hand, described the objective of restructuring as the building
of "humane socialism."18 The Programmatic Declaration that was adopted
by the Twenty-eighth Party Congress in July 1990 conceded that the Soviet
Union was in a deep crisis, whose causes that document attributed not to
"the idea of socialism itself but to "those deformations, to which it was
subjected in the past."19 An indication of the frankness of official sources
was the programmatic statement's admission that the dictatorship that had
ruled the USSR was not that of the proletariat but that of the party-state
elite, which had given birth to "new forms of alienation of the person from
property and power" and had permitted "arbitrariness and lawlessness" on
the part of the authorities. The declaration provided a general orientation
for the future by asserting that the "essence of perestroika consists of the
transition from the authoritarian-bureaucratic order to a society of humane,
democratic socialism."20 That document gave barely a passing nod to the
prospect of eventually reaching full communism in its labeling of the CPSU
as "a party of the socialist choice and the communist future."21 One could
have searched in vain in the text of the declaration for a suggestion of the
contribution that the realization of "humane, democratic socialism" would
make toward preparation for the transition to a Communist society.
By early 1991, a special commission of the party was charged with the
responsibility of writing a draft of a new program for the CPSU, since the
program adopted in 1986 was said already to be out of date, as a mixture of
old and new thinking. Disagreements were to raise difficulties for those who
attempted to shape a new program, however, as contending drafts were
advanced by various sources. The draft finally presented by the Program
Commission was then reportedly subjected to revision at the hands of Georgii
Shakhnazarov, a prominent Soviet political scientist and an adviser to the
General Secretary, resulting in a proposal that Gorbachev presented to a
plenary meeting of the party's Central Committee in July 1991.22 That pro-
posed program adopted a distinctly more radical stance than the 1990 party
platform (while still failing to satisfy the demands of the most radical pro-
ponents of democratic reform), not only accusing the Soviet regime in past
decades of "mistakes, arbitrariness, and crude distortions of the principles
of socialism and popular sovereignty" but also saying that the Soviet leader-
ship in Stalin's time had made a choice in favor of "the totalitarian system,
'barracks' socialism." That proposed program also reaffirmed the goal of
Soviet society to be "humane, democratic socialism," while only vaguely
referring to the prospect of communism by asserting that the future belongs
to a society "in which the free development of each is the condition of the
free development of all."23 That draft was to be exposed to widespread
public discussion before the adoption of a final version of the new program
at the Twenty-ninth Congress of the CPSU, which might have been held in
late 1991 if not for the intervening events in August of that year.
Though Gorbachev was reluctant to sacrifice his continued commitment
to preserving the "socialist choice" for the USSR, he showed less determina-
tion to demand assent to the prospect of a Communist future. By the time
of discussion of the draft of the Programmatic Declaration adopted by the
Twenty-eighth Party Congress in 1990, key advisers to Gorbachev were

openly advocating the abandonment of the dream of full communism.
Georgii Shakhnazarov, in writings in Kommunist and Literaturnaia gazeta
in March and April of 1990, referred to the idea of communism as a "hypoth-
esis" and a "utopia," while arguing that Utopian consciousness was the "main
source of negative phenomena" in Soviet history.24 Aleksandr Yakovlev, by
that time a member of Gorbachev's Presidential Council, wrote that it was
difficult to convince people in contemporary conditions of the possibility of
a classless society in which there would be no market or money. Yakovlev
even bluntly added that the notion of distribution of material benefits accord-
ing to need was vulgar and Utopian.25 That thinking was reflected in the
neglect of the prospect of a Communist future in the Programmatic Decla-
ration of 1990 and also in the draft of a new party program presented by
Gorbachev in July 1991. In his address to the Central Committee on the pro-
posed new program, Gorbachev maintained that the "communist idea" of a
society in which the free development of each would be the condition for the
free development of all remained "an attractive orientation for humanity."26
Although that aphorism was drawn from Marx, it might be recalled that for
Marx and Engels as for Soviet leaders from Lenin through Chernenko,
communism was not merely an ideal but a goal whose eventual achievement
was thought to be historically inevitable. While earlier Marxist-Leninists
expected Soviet society fully to implement the features of the goal of com-
munism, Gorbachev regarded the Communist idea as a source of values that
could be put into practice only to a degree and that had to be balanced against
other values. As Shakhnazarov made clear in an article in Kommunist in
March 1991, that change in thinking necessitated a reassessment of the linear
theory of progress, or an admission of skepticism about the Marxist depiction
of history as moving deterministically through a series of stages, each one of
which was higher than the preceding one. 27 An inherent consequence of
relinquishing the sense of inevitability of the Communist future that was
furnished by historical materialism was a greater sense of indeterminacy
concerning the future of Soviet society. In 1990, Gorbachev admitted that
uncertainty.
Socialism should be depicted not from ideological constructions, but from life
itself, from the interests of the people. . . . Therefore of course we need, not only a
compass, but also road signs. What sort of signs, where and how they should be
placed—this may be determined only through the mechanism of democracy.28
The abandonment of Marx's conviction that communism would prove to be

the end toward which history was moving led to greater emphasis on the
imminent possibility of implementation of the principles of socialism.
For Gorbachev and his supporters to shift emphasis from communism to
socialism was to dilute the distinctiveness of the values for which Soviet
Communists stood. With the abandonment of the goal of a classless and

stateless society, the proponents of perestroika fell back on the reassertion
of the values of nineteenth-century European socialism.29 In 1989 and 1990,
the rediscovery of the original "socialist idea" of a society of social justice
and shared well-being was linked with open appeals by Soviet Communist
ideologists for rapprochement with the democratic socialists who had been
previously dismissed by the Communists as accomplices of the capitalist
class.30 Gorbachev's speeches and the 1990 Programmatic Declaration fore-
saw the overcoming of the historic split in international socialism that had
dated to the time of World War I, the Bolshevik Revolution, and the found-
ing of the Comintern. Even more broadly, the ideal of socialism was said to
be drawn from common human values, and the effort to realize the demo-
cratic potential of that ideal was described as an inseparable part of the
development of human civilization. The stress on "humane, democratic
socialism" was linked to Gorbachev's hope to break down Soviet society's
ideological insulation from the political culture of the West.
"NEW THINKING" ON INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

In addition to attacking the dogmas inhibiting change in Soviet political
and economic institutions, Gorbachev also inspired a rethinking of assump-
tions previously taken for granted by Soviet foreign policy makers. Soon
after coming to power, he complained that leaders both in the West and the
Soviet Union had long followed outdated conceptions, while changed con-
ditions demanded "new political thinking" (novoe politicheskoe myshlenie).
Gorbachev's rethinking of international realities encouraged a number of
Soviet commentators decisively to repudiate the traditional assumption of
Soviet ideology that socialism and capitalism were locked in an epochal
struggle that would determine the fate of the world. In the late 1980s, the
Soviet leadership openly renounced the Khrushchevian thesis that peaceful
coexistence between states with different economic systems was a form of
class struggle.31 Eduard Shevardnadze, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of
the USSR during most of Gorbachev's time in power, assigned a great degree
of blame to the USSR for heightening tensions with the West, and he, thus,
effectively discredited the exclusive identification of capitalism with negative
influence and socialism with positive influence in the international setting.32
Gorbachev's statement in 1990 that Stalinism had made a sharp departure
not only from the ideals of socialism but also from "the European humanistic
tradition" implied that the Soviet leadership was, to a substantial extent,
responsible for the Soviet Union's estrangement from the West.33
Gorbachev and other proponents of the "new thinking" not only denied
that the competitive aspects of peaceful coexistence had to predominate
over the cooperative aspects but also called for an interaction between capi-
talism and socialism, which would make it possible for each type of society
to learn from the other.34 In October 1988, Vadim Medvedev was quoted by
Pravda as rejecting the "outdated" notion that socialism and capitalism
could develop in parallel fashion and as saying that the paths of development
of those systems "inevitably intersect," since "both systems inevitably interact
within the framework of one and the same human civilization."35 In 1989,
Gorbachev reported that the processes of change taking place in both capi-
talism and socialism were "enormously similar in their content," since they
represented reactions to similar economic and technological developments.36
In 1990, Gorbachev argued that the result of the competition between social-
ism and capitalism to achieve progress in the enhancement of human welfare
should be "joint development" and "joint creativity."37 A reason for fruitful
interaction between different social systems was furnished by S. L. Agaev,
who argued that socialism and capitalism were on a "common path of tran-
sition" in their striving to move "from industrial to scientific-technological
civilization, to democratize their political and economic institutions, and to
overcome the problem of human alienation."38 He foresaw both an increas-
ing variety of forms of development among the nations of the world and an
increasing unity in responding to shared challenges.
The reasoning of Gorbachev and his political supporters implicitly negated
the claim, advanced both by Khrushchev and Brezhnev, that the balance of
forces in the international arena was shifting in favor of the Soviet Union
and its allies. By the early 1990s, some Soviet scholars even advocated the
abandonment of the conception of peaceful coexistence,39 with its connota-
tion of a fundamental division of the world between groups of states with
mutually opposed ideologies; they suggested that it was possible not merely
to manage the rivalry between socialism and capitalism but to transcend
that rivalry. Such scholars openly envisioned partial convergence between
Western capitalism and Soviet socialism as the natural result of efforts to
resolve the common problems of transition to a society of high technology.
They tended to see some capitalist nations as managing that transition more
successfully than the Soviet Union or any other socialist society. Gorbachev
and other proponents of change in Soviet foreign policy had great apprecia-
tion for the underlying stability of capitalism, which was no longer seen as
deriving its viability primarily from such tactics of the age of imperialism as
the militarization of the economy or the exploitation of less developed coun-
tries.40 Agaev even reported that the adaptation of capitalism extended to
its "self-development," which supposedly consisted of the system's resolution
of its principal contradictions, and had already moved the most economically
developed capitalist countries into the transition to a "post-capitalist" society.41
The concept of post-capitalist society encouraged the acceptance of the idea
of convergence, particularly if coupled with Leonid Gordon's vision of the
future of the USSR as one of "post-socialist development," or the "movement
from early, savage socialism to civilized, marketized, and democratic social-
ism, ceasing in principle to be distinguished from the orders already existing
in the most developed countries of the West."42 With such a conclusion, the
notion of peaceful coexistence was indeed superfluous, and virtually the
entire apparatus of the Leninist interpretation of international relations was
shattered.
As Gorbachev accorded decreasing attention to the conflict between
socialism and capitalism in the international arena, he placed increasing
emphasis on a category of problems previously neglected by Marxist-Leninist
ideology. In his report to the Twenty-seventh Congress of the CPSU in
1986, Gorbachev referred to "contradictions on a global scale affecting the
very foundations of the existence of civilization" as posing serious implica-
tions.43 According to Gorbachev, those contradictions are generated by
common problems such as the pollution of the environment and the deple-
tion of natural resources. He considered the gravest of those problems to be
the danger of nuclear war, which imperiled the existence of human civiliza-
tion. Gorbachev and his supporters argued that such dangers were faced
both by socialism and capitalism, since both systems were threatened with
deterioriation and ultimately with annihilation by the same causes. They
implied that the factors producing such harmful tendencies were not unique
to capitalism but were also present in socialist systems. The principal cause
of the "common problems" confronting humanity was seen as the rapid
advancement of technology, which often enters into tension with the needs
of people and nature and which projects the scope of tensions onto the scale
of the entire world. Soviet reformist thinking under Gorbachev regarded
such common problems as the sources of the conflicts and tensions that are
of the greatest importance in the current period of world history.
Both the sharing of major problems and the need for cooperation in
resolving them created growing interdependence among all countries in the
world, according to the new thinking about international relations. Gorbachev
and his supporters stressed the importance of the growth of interdependence
among nations, which supposedly was giving shape to an "integral world"
(tselostnyi mir).44 Their rethinking of the relationship between capitalism
and socialism was based on the argument that "common human values"
should furnish the main orientation for all states in international politics,45
and on the view of both major types of societies as sharing membership in a
common, worldwide civilization. By accusing Stalinism of breaking with
the European humanist tradition, Gorbachev indicated what he considered
to be the dominant tendency in global civilization in modern times and what
he believed to have been the main error of those guiding the development of
the USSR. He described perestroika as designed to overcome the Soviet
Union's separation from the mainstream of worldwide humanism: "We are
striving through restructuring to achieve the movement of our country into
the common channel of contemporary civilization, into the common stream
of civilization."46
Gorbachev's "new thinking" was based on the premise that a thorough

reconceptualization.of the Soviet Union's relation with the West was neces-
sary for the successful restructuring and revitaUzation of the Soviet system.
Gorbachev understood that the traditional Marxist-Leninist depiction of
the West as a source of values alien to Soviet society had been used to ensure
the cultural isolation of the USSR, and he emphasized that continued isola-
tion would consign the Soviet Union to the status of an economic and tech-
nological backwater, to be left farther and farther behind by economies that
were adapting to new generations of technology. Unlike previous Soviet
leaders of the post-Stalin years, Gorbachev proceeded from the assumptions
that the integration of the Soviet economy into the international economy
was impossible without closer cultural and political integration with the West
and that the end of political isolation would come only with the renunciation
of the view of international relations as an arena of competition between
incompatible ideologies. As Sylvia Woodby noted, the rethinking of the
Soviet Union's relationship with the West led to the rejection of the Manichean
view of the world, which could be traced to Lenin's interpretation of inter-
national political conflict as a projection of the struggle between the bour-
geoisie and the proletariat.47 Paul Marantz observed that Gorbachev's "new
thinking" also undermined Soviet messianism, or Soviet leaders' view of
their country as the principal source of inspiration for worldwide revolu-
tionary and progressive forces.48 For Soviet reformers, the faith in the Soviet
Union as a model to be followed by other countries was discredited, as was
indeed the belief that any nation offered a model that all others were destined
to follow. Those reformers hoped that the Soviet Union could join other
countries in sharing similar experiences of dealing with common problems
and taking part in the general development of human civilization.
THE UNRAVELING OF GORBACHEVISM

The degree to which Soviet society should assimilate features characteristic
of Western capitalism and democracy became the subject of sharp contro-
versy during Gorbachev's time in power. Paradoxically, though Gorbachev's
position became increasingly radical from 1985 to 1989, he found himself in
the center of the spectrum of thought among political influential at the end
of that period. In fact, beginning with the end of 1987, it became ever more
apparent that, while Gorbachev was drawing fire from those who wished to
protect essential elements of the traditional Soviet administrative-command
system and feared that his reforms were so radical as to undermine the pillars
of support for the old order, his efforts to conciliate the critics of reform
stimulated the impatience of those who rapidly became more outspoken in
urging more fundamental changes than those which Gorbachev was willing
to endorse. One of the issues that caused alarm for the opponents of reform
and split centrists from radical reformers was the question of the revision of
forms of property ownership in the USSR. By 1986, Gorbachev advocated
the legalization of private ownership of small enterprises, largely to fill gaps
in the availability of retail trade and services. Soon afterward, he supported
the introduction of leasing contracts that would permit the reemergence of
family farming within the framework of cooperative farms. In 1989 and
1990, Gorbachev and the party's platform envisioned the society of humane,
democratic socialism as one with a mixed economy and a variety of forms
of property ownership.49 The goal of change in property relations, according
to Gorbachev, was to overcome the laborer's sense of alienation from the
means of production and to make it possible for each worker to have the
feeling of being a proprietor of the enterprise. From the start, opponents of
reform resisted the legalization of private enterprise in the USSR. As more
radical proposals for changes in ownership were announced, however, divi-
sions appeared even among proponents of reform. Some, like Boris Kurashvili,
had been early advocates of radical decentralization of economic adminis-
tration. But those scholars were shocked by the willingness of others, such
as Vladimir Tikhonov, to contemplate not only the debureaucratization of
the economy but also the privatization of large-scale enterprises.50 That
position was attacked by moderate reformers as implying nothing less than
the wholesale readmission of capitalism into the Soviet economy, with the
attendant consequences of exploitation and extreme inequality. Radical
reformers replied that it would be impossible to realize the advantages of a
competitive market without the drive to maximize profit that is instilled by
private ownership.
Another issue that touched on the limits of socialist pluralism, and ulti-
mately the most crucial issue, was that of the role of the Communist party
in the Soviet political system. When he began to campaign for democratiza-
tion, Gorbachev insisted that the CPSU was uniquely able to guide the
process of restructuring, since it was the only organization placed so as to
direct change in other institutions and manage the diversity of interests which
would be asserted more openly. Gorbachev also argued that the Communist
party could play the role of the chief agent of change only if it was subjected
to restructuring, bringing democratization of the relationship between party
members and the party apparatus.51 As late as the autumn of 1989, he con-
tinued to stress that a pluralism of interests could thrive within the boundaries
of a single-party system.52 Gorbachev finally abandoned that position in
February 1990, sacrificing the doctrine of the "guiding and directing role"
of the CPSU, as the Soviet constitution was amended to legalize competition
between multiple political parties. He was left in the ambiguous position of
maintaining that, although the Communist party could not claim to play the
guiding role in the political system, it still constituted the vanguard force in
the system.53 Evidently, Gorbachev believed that even though the CPSU
had been forced to relinquish its formal monopoly on party activity, it could
still thoroughly dominate politics in most of the republics of the USSR by

making use of its unique advantages, including its influence in workplaces
and on many professionals' careers. As officials in the party apparatus in
most regions of the country successfully fended off attempts to infuse more
democracy into the operation of the organizations they headed, and as a
growing number of supporters of reform criticized the CPSU either from
within or without, Gorbachev found himself in the ambiguous stance of one
who defended the power of a conservative institution while he espoused a
radical program of change.
Gorbachev's ambivalence toward the consequences of changes, which
had gone farther than he had wished, and the buildup of contradictory
pressures on him from entrenched conservatives and radical democratizers
were reflected in the maneuvering and compromises in which he engaged in
1990 and 1991. In the autumn of 1990, he attempted to make peace with the
opponents of reform; but in the spring of 1991, he again reached out to the
radicals in an effort to rediscover a common cause among those seeking fur-
ther change. Throughout both periods, he endeavored to portray himself as
the leader of centrist forces and called for the formation of a coalition of all
groups that were committed to the health and prosperity of the whole society.
In his conservative phase of late 1990 and early 1991, his emphasis shifted
from restructuring to stabilization and from the expansion of glasnost to
the attainment of soglasie (civil harmony or concord).54 Later, in the months
leading up to the attempted coup of August 1991, he returned to the emphasis
on further democratization and decentralization. He consistently reproached
his main opposition at any time, whatever it might have been, with selfishly
putting its narrow interests ahead of the interests of the entire society.
Gorbachev continued until the very eve of the attempted coup to persist in
expressing the hope that the Communist party could undergo renewal and
revitaUzation to enable it to lead a coalition uniting all the patriotic forces
dedicated to saving the USSR from chaos and fragmentation.55 In the end,
however, his hope that a coalition of centrist forces could be rallied around
the Communist party proved to be an illusion.
NOTES
1. Mikhail Gorbachev, "Politicheskii doklad Tsentral'nogo Komiteta KPSS s"ezdu
Kommunisticheskoi partii Sovetskogo Soiuza," February 1986, Kommunist, 1986,
no. 4: 43, 72. On taking interests into account in policy making, see also "Programma
Kommunisticheskoi partii Sovetskogo Soiuza (novaia redaktsiia)," Kommunist,
1986, no. 4: 127.
2. For Gorbachev's arguments (beginning in 1987) in favor of radical political
reform and the unleashing of popular initiative, see Mikhail Gorbachev, "On Restruc-
turing and the Party's Personnel Policy," CDSP 39, no. 5 (March 4, 1987; reprinted
from Pravda, January 28, 1987): 8; idem, "Toward Full Power for the Soviets and
the Creation of a Socialist State Based on the Rule of Law," CDSP 40, no. 48 (Decem-
ber 28, 1988; reprinted from Pravda, November 30, 1988): 3; idem, "Increase the
Intellectual Potential of Restructuring," CDSP 41, no. 1 (February 1, 1989; reprinted
from Pravda, January 8, 1989): 5.
3. Peter Hauslohner, "Gorbachev's Social Contract," Soviet Economy 3 (January-
March 1987): 82-83; Joel Moses, "Worker Self-Management and the Reformist
Alternative in Soviet Labour Policy, 1979-85," Soviet Studies 39 (April 1987): 211.
4. Thomas Remington, "A Socialist Pluralism of Opinions: Glasnostand Policy-
Making under Gorbachev," Russian Review 48 (July 1989): 278; Archie Brown, ed.,
New Thinking in Soviet Politics(London: Macmillan, 1992), 23-24.
5. Gail W. Lapidus, "State and Society: Toward the Emergence of Civil Society
in the Soviet Union," in Politics, Society, and Nationality inside Gorbachev's Russia,
ed. Seweryn Bailer (Boulder, Colo.: Westview, 1989), 121-147. Soviet reformers had
borrowed the conception of **civil society" from reformers in Poland and other Eastern
European countries who had made the term the key point of reference in their strategy
for change in the 1970s and 1980s. The significance of the concept for proponents of
change in Poland is detailed by Z. A. Pelczynski, "Solidarity and The Rebirth of
Civil Society* in Poland, 1976-81," in Civil Society and the State, ed. John Keane
(London: Verso, 1988), 361-380. A crucial difference should be noted, however. The
Polish advocates of the "new evolutionism" had assumed that the political regime
at best would tacitly acquiesce in the growth of civil society in an admission of its
inability to prevent that trend so that independent social associations would grow
solely from the grassroots up; but Soviet usage of the term "civil society" under
Gorbachev implied that popular activism would be only partly autonomous from the
political regime, since the leadership of the Communist party would be the main
source of encouragement and guidance for such activity. Thus, for Gorbachev and
his supporters in the Soviet Union in the late 1980s, civil society was not to be opposed
to the state but was to be a base of support for reformist elements, which, it was
hoped, would be increasingly dominant in the political leadership. In short, Gorbachev
coupled the notion of civil society with the objective of within-system change. Artic-
ulate expressions of that outlook by Soviet supporters of reform at the time of the
highest hopes for the success of Gorbachev's program were provided by Ye. Ambart-
sumov, "O putiakh sovershenstvovaniia politicheskoi sistemy sotsializma," in Inogo
ne dano, ed. Yu. N. Afanas'ev (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1988), 77-96; and A.
Migranian, "Mekhanizm tormozheniia v politicheskoi sisteme i puti ego preodoleniia,"
in Inogo ne dano, 97-121.
6. Harold J. Berman, "The Rule of Law and the Law-Based State (Rechtsstaat),"
Harriman Institute Forum 4 (May 1991): 1-12.
7. Brown, New Thinking, 477.
8. V. Kudriavtsev and E. Lukasheva, Sotsialisticheskoe pravovoe gosudarstvo,"
Kommunist, 1988, no. 11: 44-55; V. S. Nersesiants, "Pravovoe gosudarstvo: istoriia
i sovremennost'," Voprosy filosofii, 1989, no. 2: 3-16. Such writings made it clear
that their authors identified the law-governed state not with the concept of an authori-
tarian rechsstaat but with the basic principles of legislation based on popular repre-
sentation and authority limited by constitutional provisions.
9. Joel C. Moses, "Democratic Reform in the Gorbachev Era: Dimensions of
Reform in the-Soviet Union, 1986-1989," Russian Review 48 (July 1989): 240.
10. Ibid., 254. See also Stephen White, "'Democratisation' in the USSR," Soviet
Studies 42 (January 1990): 8.
World (New York: Harper & Row, 1987), 31-32.
12. Ibid., 89; M. S. Gorbachev, "Sotsialisticheskaia ideia i revoliutsionnaia
perestroika," Kommunist, 1989, no. 18, 15; "K gumannomu, demokraticheskomu
sotsializmu" (Programmnoe zaiavlenie XXVIII s"ezda KPSS), Pravda, July 15, 1990.
13. M. S. Gorbachev, "Ni vozvrata, ni ostanovki ne budet," Pravda, February 28,
1991; idem, "Konfrontatsii, raskolu obshchestva—net, konstruktivnomu sotrud-
mchestvu-da!,"Prffvcfo, March 1, 1991.
14. That perspective is described very well by Neil Robinson, "Gorbachev and the
Place of the Party in Soviet Reform, 1985-91," Soviet Studies 44 (July 1992): 423-443.
15. George Breslauer, "Khrushchev Reconsidered," Problems of Communism 25
(September-October 1976): 21. John Gooding, in "Gorbachev and Democracy,"
Soviet Studies 42 (April 1990): 223, characterized Gorbachev's commitment to demo-
cratic socialism as "very much a wager on the narod [the people], whose fidelity to
the socialist cause he clearly counts upon as the asset which will enable him to beat
off his challengers."
16. Stephen White, Gorbachev in Power (Cambridge, Mass.: Cambridge Univer-
sity Press, 1990), 183, 211, observed that "five years or more into the new adminis-
tration, the nature of Gorbachevian socialism remained frustratingly elusive" and
that a fundamental problem of reform under Gorbachev "was precisely the lack of a
coherent and convincing vision of the manner in which Soviet society was to develop
under the party's leadership."
17. M. S. Gorbachev, "On Progress in the Implementation of the Decisions of the
27th CPSU Congress and the Tasks of Deepening Restructuring," CDSP, 1988, no.
26 (July 27, 1988; reprinted from Pravda, June 29, 1988): 25, discussed the need for
a new model or image (novyi oblik) of socialism. The Nineteenth Party Conference
was soon followed by the appearance of many writings attempting to sketch the
outlines of a new model of socialism, including "K novomu obliku sotsializma,"
Kommunist, 1988, no. 13: 3-24; and N. Moiseev, "Moi predstavleniia o novom
oblike sotsializma," Kommunist, 1988, no. 14: 14-25.
18. M. S. Gorbachev, "Sotsialisticheskaia ideia i revoliutsionnaia perestroika,"
Pravda, November 26, 1989.
19. "K gumannomu."
20. Ibid.
21. Ibid.
22. Robinson, "Gorbachev and the Place of the Party," 438. In June 1991, officials
in the Communist party apparatus in two regions of the USSR told me that various
proposed programs of the CPSU had emerged during the spring of that year, and
one of those officials gave me a copy of a document that he reported to be a draft
sent from the Program Commission down to local party organizations. That draft
had a much more conservative cast than the document that Gorbachev was to present
to the Central Committee in July.
23. "Sotsializm, demokratiia, progress (Proekt Programma Kommunisticheskoi
partii Sovetskogo Soiuza) " Pravda, August 8, 1991.
24. G. Shakhnazarov, "Obnovlenie ideologii i ideologiia obnovleniia," Kommunist,
1990, no. 4: 46-59; idem, "Tak kakaia ideologiia nam nuzhna?" Literaturnaia gazeta,
1990, no. 16: 10. The significance of those writings was noted by Elizabeth Teague,
"Gorbachev Aide Jettisons Communism, Cuts Marx Down to Size," Radio Liberty
Report on the USSR 2, no. 23 (June 8, 1990): 1-4.

25. A. Yakovlev, "Sotsializm: ot mechty k real'nosti," Kommunist, 1990, no. 4:
12, 17.
26. M. S. Gorbachev, "Idti dal'she putem perestroiki," Report to the Twenty-
eighth Congress of the CPSU, Pravda, July 3, 1990.
27. G. Shakhnazarov, "V poiskakh utrachennoi idei: k novomu ponimaniiu
sotsializma," Kommunist, 1991, no. 3: 19.
28. Gorbachev, "Mir budushchego i sotsializm," Rabochii klass i sovremennyi
mir, 1990, no. 2: 7. Also (from this source), "There is still much that we do not know
about that society toward which we are striving."
29. Gorbachev, "Sotsialisticheskaia ideia," Pravda; "K gummanomu."
30. Heinz Timmerman, "The Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Reassessment
of International Social Democracy: Dimensions and Trends," Journal of Communist
Studies 5 (June 1989): 173-184.
31. Statements by Eduard Shevardnadze (Pravda, July 26, 1988) and Aleksandr
Yakovlev (Pravda, August 13, 1988) denying that peaceful coexistence is a form of
class struggle are cited by Mark Zlotnik, "Rethinking Soviet Socialism: The Politics
of Ideological Change," in Restructuring Soviet Ideology: Gorbachev's New Think-
ing, ed. Sylvia Woodby and Alfred B. Evans, Jr. (Boulder, Colo.: Westview, 1990),
29, 30.
32. Zlotnik, "Rethinking Soviet Socialism," 35-38; Paul Marantz, "Changing
Soviet Conceptions of International Security," in Restructuring Soviet Ideology:
Gorbachev's New Thinking, ed. Sylvia Woodby and Alfred B. Evans, Jr. (Boulder,
Colo.: Westview, 1990), 114-115.
33. Gorbachev, "Mir budushchego," 5.
34. V. A. Medvedev, "Sovremennaia kontseptsiia sotsializma," Pravda, October
5, 1989. See also A. N. Yakovlev, "Dostizhenie kachestvenno novogo sostoianiia
sovetskogo obshchestva i obshchestvennye nauki," Vestnik Akademii Nauk SSSR,
1987, no. 6: 75-76; and Aleksandr Bovin, "Perestroika: pravda o sotsializme i sudT)a
sotsializma," in Inogo ne dano, ed. Yu. N. Afanas'ev (Moscow: Progress Publishers,
1988), 546-547.
35. Medvedev, "Sovremennaia kontseptsiia sotsializma."
36. Gorbachev, "Sotsialisticheskaia ideia," Pravda.
38. S. L. Agaev, "Sovremennyi mir: raznymi putiami k odnoi tseli," Rabochii
klass i sovremennyi mir, 1990, no. 2: 38-39. Agaev spoke of a "certain single-vector
quality" (odnovektornosf) of the development of socialism and capitalism.
39. Yu. A. Krasin, "Sotsializm: kontury novogo videniia," Rabochii klass i sovre-
mennyi mir, 1990, no. 4: 12.
40. Allen Lynch, The Soviet Study of International Relations(Cambridge, Mass.:
Harvard University Press, 1987), 66. In November 1989, Gorbachev conceded that
"Marx underestimated the possibilities of self-development of capitalism." Gorbachev,
"Sotsialisticheskaia ideia," Kommunist, 1.
41. Agaev, "Sovremennyi mir," 31, 37.
42. L. A. Gordon, "Protiv gosudarstvennogo sotsializma: vozmozhnosti rabochego
dvizheniia (vzgliad iz leta 1990g.)," Politicheskie issledovaniia, 1991, no. 1: 69; see
also idem, "Rabochee dvizhenie v poslesotsialisticheskoi perspektive," Sotsiologicheskie
issledovaniia, 1991, no. 11: 5.
43. Gorbachev, "Politicheskii doklad," 17. Emphasis in the original.

44. Ibid., 19.
45. Zlotnik, "Rethinking Soviet Socialism," 29-30.
47. Sylvia Woodby, "The Death of a Dream? Gorbachevist Revisions of Marxism-
Leninism for the Third World," in Restructuring Soviet Ideology: Gorbachev's New
Thinking, ed. Sylvia Woodby and Alfred B. Evans, Jr. (Boulder, Colo.: Westview,
1990), 167.
48. Marantz, "Changing Soviet Conceptions," 108.
49. Gorbachev, "Sotsialisticheskaia ideia," Kommunist, 13; "K gumannomu."
50. B. P. Kurashvili, "Modeli sotsializma," Sovetskoe gosudarstvo ipravo, 1989,
no. 8: 105-106; V. A. Tikhonov, "Zhif bez illiuzii," Ogonek, 1989, no. 36: 1.
51. Gorbachev, "On Progress," 22.
52. Gorbachev, "Sotsialisticheskaia ideia," Kommunist, 17.
53. Gorbachev, "Idti dal'she putem perestroiki."
54. M. S. Gorbachev, "Deistvovat' reshitel'no v interesakh stabil'nosti, grazh-
danskogo soglasiia, prodolzheniia reform," Pravda, March 2, 1991; idem, "O proekte
novoi Programmy KPSS," Pravda, July 26, 1991.
55. M. S. Gorbachev, "O proekte novoi Programmy KPSS," Pravda, July 26,1991.
13
Conclusion: The Revenge of Politics
IDEOLOGICAL ADAPTATION AND THE

WITHERING OF UTOPIA
A basic problem for Soviet leaders from Stalin to Gorbachev was the con-
tradiction implicit in the use of a Utopian ideology to support an entrenched
institutional order. That contradiction posed a serious problem because the
official ideology not only performed the function of legitimation but also
served as a framework for the interpretation of changing social reality. To
protect the authority of a political regime that ostensibly based its claim to
rule on doctrinal principles, the Soviet leadership, during most of the time
of its existence, took care to disguise the degree of change taking place in its
ideology and to exaggerate the degree of continuity between the Marxist
classics and its own viewpoint. Nevertheless, the careful examination of the
main precepts of the ideology as presented by each successive leadership re-
veals that Marxist-Leninist ideological theory was constantly being subjected
to revision in the effort to adapt it to changing conditions in Soviet society
and the international setting. "Revisionism" in the narrow sense is properly
attached only to the ideas of a few groups of Marxist theoreticians: Eduard
Bernstein and other founders of reformist Marxist in the early 1900s; East-
ern European critics of Stalinism beginning in the early 1950s; and perhaps
Gorbachev and his supporters and sympathizers in the Soviet Union and
other countries under Commmunist rule in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
However, it has often been said that every Communist is, in the broad
sense, a revisionist and that contention has been supported by an abundance
of evidence reported in this study. Every leader in the Soviet Union from
Lenin to Gorbachev reshaped the tenets of Marxist-Leninist ideology in an
attempt to retain the viability of its framework of interpretation of changing

social and political reality.
Two of the tasks of ideological interpretation that traditionally were con-
sidered crucial for each General Secretary of the CPSU1 were describing the
main features of the stage of development of Soviet society in the time of his
leadership and demonstrating that the trends of change in that stage would
lead to the transition to the higher phase of communism. Reconciling those
two tasks was difficult, since the need to provide a credible set of perceptions
of present trends and prescriptions for workable policies conflicted with the
need to preserve the pretense that the movement of Soviet society to the
predetermined end of communism would validate the ideology's claim to
know the solution to the riddle of history. Since Stalin was the first leader to
announce that Soviet society had entered the historical phase of socialism,
he was the first who found it necessary to indicate how the attainment of a
higher level of development within that phase would bring the society closer
to the transition to communism. After struggling for over a decade and a
half with the difficulty of reconciling the contradictory demands that needed
to be satisfied by his depiction of the future of Soviet society, in 1952 in
Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSR, Stalin finally set forth his vi-
sion of the new level of development of socialism supposedly reached by
that society and offered his view of the relationship between the trends of
the immediate future and the fulfillment of the prerequisites of full commu-
nism. By doing so, Stalin set the stage for discussion under subsequent Soviet
leaders of where Soviet society was and where it was heading. Beginning with
Khrushchev, each top leader in the USSR offered a different answer to those
questions; but each leader was strongly influenced by the assumptions that
had been adopted by Stalin, that is, the necessity of insisting that the Soviet
Union had reached a higher level of development, the importance of arguing
that trends in that stage would show essential continuity with the dominant
tendencies of past socialist development, and the imperative of maintaining
that those trends fit the Marxist schematization of the progression of history.
One of the long-term trends of modification in the interpretation of the
then-current stage of development as seen by each successive leadership in
the USSR was the tendency toward ever greater postponement of the achieve-
ment of the Utopian goal of a Communist society. Even before October
1917, Lenin had begun to warn of the impossibility of setting a timetable for
the achievement of full communism; but he still seemed to assume that
socialism, or the first phase of communism, would be a period of fluid and
probably rapid transition (as indeed Marx had suggested). After coming to
power and noting the failure of proletarian revolution in Europe, Lenin had
become more wary and cautious. He saw Soviet Russia as facing the work
of building socialism, and he described the construction of communism as
requiring decades or a whole historical epoch. After proclaiming that the
foundations of socialism had been built in the USSR by the middle of the
1930s, Stalin initially showed a reluctance to discuss means of moving the
Conclusion: The Revenge ofPolitics 213
society closer to communism. Finally, in 1952, he offered a depiction of a

new stage of development that clearly gave higher priority to the consolida-
tion of established institutions than to the realization of the features of full
communism. By characterizing the stage of development entered by Soviet
socialism as one not of transition to communism but of preparation of pre-
conditions for a future transition, he merely postponed the resolution of the
essential dilemma faced by exponents of the ideology.
Khrushchev's central contribution to the ideology was his deviation from
the general tendency toward postponement of the attainment of the vision
of communism. By introducing the idea of the full-scale construction of
communism, Khrushchev became the first Soviet Communist leader to assert
that his society had entered a stage of direct and rapid transition to the
higher phase of communism described by Marx and Engels. Since the results
of his extravagant predictions could only be considered disastrously unsuc-
cessful, however, subsequent leaders were discouraged from following his
example. With Brezhnev's endorsement of the thesis that the Soviet people
had built a developed socialist society and his acceptance of the precept that
developed socialism was a necessary stage on the way to communism, the
tendency toward assigning the realization of Utopia to an ever more remote
and indefinite future had reasserted itself.
Ideologists of the Brezhnev period argued that socialism was not a brief
stage of development but a long historical phase and even affirmed that
mature socialism would prove to be a long stage of development. Though
the concept of developed socialism was discredited after Gorbachev came to
power, that concept had made possible increasing recognition of the existing
network of institutions, labeled "socialism," as having its own foundations
and its own problems, which could not be viewed primarily in terms of a
transition from one type of society to another nor comprehended mainly in
terms of the progressive realization of the features of full communism. The
trend of the withering of utopianism and the growth of realism reached its
culmination in the later years of Gorbachev's leadership with the open aban-
donment of the claim that communism was the historically inevitable goal
of Soviet society. For Gorbachev, the socialist ideal was the source of values
from a cherished humanistic tradition that could at any time only be ap-
proximated in practice in combination with other values in a society with a
plurality of competing interests. The conception of socialism as a society
developing on its own basis and with its own logic had given rise to the open
admission that the most important conflicts in that society were the result of
contradictions inherent in the principles of socialism.
THE CHANGING THEORY OF SOCIAL CONFLICT

Among the most crucial questions addressed by any political ideology is
that of the origins and character of the principal conflicts in human society,
and one of the distinctive aspects of Soviet Marxist-Leninist ideology w,% its
perspective on social conflicts. By the late 1930s, with the crystallization of

the mature Stalinist ideology and with Stalin's announcement that the Soviet
Union had become a basically socialist society, the orthodox depiction of
conflicts in that society had taken shape.2 Some conflicts in Soviet socialist
society were considered by the regime to be illegitimate, since the historical
basis for existence for such conflicts had supposedly disappeared and since
earlier those conflicts had represented clashes between interests that were
mutually hostile and ultimately irreconcilable. In the view of the proponents
of Stalin's version of Marxism-Leninism, in the past the class struggle be-
tween the exploiters of labor (landed gentry, bourgeoisie, and kulak) and
the exploited laboring people (proletariat and peasantry) could have been
resolved only with the triumph of the toiling masses over the exploiters and
the expropriation of the means of production. According to Stalin, with the
elimination of the objective basis for such classes, they had no reason to exist.
Thus, the attempt to express the interests of those who previously had en-
joyed the benefits of private ownership of income-producing property was
viewed as completely illegitimate by the Soviet leadership after 1936, since
such demands were said to be historically anachronistic, inimical to the in-
terests of the honest toilers, and subversive of the unity and security of the
society. The strategy for dealing with illegitimate clashes of interests that
was prescribed by the ideology of the Stalin period was that of conflict sup-
pression, which consisted of punishing those departing from the purported
consensus of society and suppressing the conflicts by forcible means.3
The notion that some conflicts had no legitimate place in Soviet society
persisted under Khrushchev and Brezhnev despite the abandonment of the
massive and sometimes arbitrary terror that Stalin had visited on the popu-
lation of the USSR. Both Khrushchev and Brezhnev strongly endorsed the
Stalinist tenet of the moral and political unity of society and even asserted
that such unity had grown stronger with the achievement of a higher stage
of socialism. Khrushchev felt far more confident than Stalin of the reality
of a fundamental consensus in Soviet society and, for that reason, believed
that reliance on coercion to control the population of the USSR could be
markedly decreased. Brezhnev also suggested that there were few members
of Soviet society who wished to undermine the foundations of socialism,
but he made it clear both in theory and practice that those few who attempted
to dissent openly from the central principles of the ideology would be dealt
with ruthlessly.
Any authoritarian regime must necessarily view some conflicts as illegiti-
mate because it will suppress challenges to its authority, whether the chal-
lengers arise with rifles or pens in their hands. The most distinctive feature
of traditional Soviet ideology's analysis of social conflicts was its placement
of some conflicts in the category of what this author has chosen to call non-
legitimate conflicts—contradictions between interests resulting from divi-
sions in society that were regarded as neither fully legitimate nor completely
Conclusion: The Revenge of Politics 215
illegitimate. The primary social cleavages that fit this category were those
between the working class and the peasants, between the intelligentsia and
manual workers, and among the various nationalities of the USSR.4 After
the October Revolution, the Bolshevik leaders realized that such divisions
would not disappear with the establishment of a state controlled by the
Communist party or with the socialization of the means of production. They
believed that those cleavages would prove to be historically transitory but
that they would fade away only as the result of a long process of construction
of the economic and technological foundations of a Communist society.
Thus, those divisions would be tolerated in the present as long as the expres-
sion of conflicts over issues related to them was kept within well-defined
limits, while the long-term strategy of the regime was to remove the basis
for the existence of such conflicts by creating homogeneous economic and
social conditions for all segments of society.
That strategy of conflict resolution was embraced by each Soviet leader-
ship from Stalin through Chernenko, though with some distinct variations
in emphasis. Khrushchev's program for a rapid transition to a communist
society entailed a more rapid effacement of nonlegitimate divisions than
had been contemplated by Stalin. Brezhnev's concept of developed socialism
marked a return to a more deliberate pace of elimination of such cleavages,
but his commitment to achieving a classless society within the stage of mature
socialism indicated that social homogeneity was still an important objective.
All Soviet leaders of the post-Stalin decades before Gorbachev's time in
power believed that social and economic modernization within a socialist
society would lead to the assimilation of all remaining groups into the main-
stream of industrial society and the strengthening of social and political
consensus. The ideas of the "state of the entire people" and of "developed
socialist society" reflected the faith of both Khrushchev and Brezhnev that
all major groups in the population of the USSR had become supportive of
the Soviet political regime and that, therefore, the use of coercion to suppress
disloyal behavior could be steadily decreased. The basic, axial cleavage in
Soviet society was that between the old, preindustrial and prerevolutionary
way of life and the new, industrial and socialist order; and with the further
progression of socialist modernization, the dominance of the new would be
consolidated ever more firmly, while the "backward" groups would be assim-
ilated to the modes of life and work of the "more advanced" sectors of society.
A third hypothetical category would have comprised legitimate conflicts
in Soviet society.5 Those conflicts regarded as fully legitimate would have
been those that the ideology assumed to be permanent rather than transitory
and viewed as clashes between groups with a proper claim to voice their in-
terests. In other words, such conflicts would have been interpreted as natural
and inescapable rather than pathological or aberrant. If such a category of
collisions of interests had been embodied in the ideology, the leadership
would have endorsed a strategy of conflict management, involving the crea-
tion of channels for the representation of legitimate interests and mechanisms

for the resolution of disputes in a manner typically including bargaining and
compromises between competing demands. That category of conflicts was
totally hypothetical, however, in relation to Soviet Marxism-Leninism under
Stalin from the 1930s until 1953, since, during those years, ideological theory
made no room for the recognition of legitimate conflicts in Soviet society.
The bureaucratic infighting that persisted behind the facade of totalitarian
unanimity was not recognized by the ideology, with the consequence that
losers in such struggles could be stigmatized as disloyal, preliminary to their
physical extermination. At the core of Stalin's vision of the future develop-
ment of socialism in the Soviet Union, revealed in Economic Problems of
Socialism in the USSR, was the further extension of state administrative
control into society to impose greater uniformity over all institutions and all
groups, eliminating as much as possible any remaining pockets of relative
autonomy from his will.
One of the most significant long-term trends in Soviet Marxism-Leninism
during the decades from Stalin's death through Gorbachev's time in power
was the gradual growth in recognition of legitimate conflicts in Soviet society.
Khrushchev had encouraged the beginning of consideration of such conflicts
by directing attention to the "nonantagonistic contradictions" of socialist
development. He did not allow the discussion of nonantagonist contradic-
tions to go very far, and he himself associated such conflicts with the pains
of transition to a higher phase of society, but the brief and limited discussion
that he permitted stimulated the thought of many participants in budding
social science disciplines in the USSR. It was in the long period of Brezhnev's
occupancy of the post of General Secretary of the CPSU that the gradual in-
crease in the influence of social science scholars on the official ideology,
despite tenacious resistance, produced a substantial growth in acknowledg-
ment of divisions in Soviet society that could be expected to last and that
gave rise to clashes of interests meriting accommodation rather than sup-
pression by the political regime. The theorists of developed socialism con-
cluded that, although the entrance of Soviet society into the stage of mature
industrialism6 did guarantee afirmerbasic consensus across the entire society,
continued socialist modernization would generate a greater variety of con-
tending interests based on the organizational complexity and professional
specialization dictated by technological advancement. By the 1970s, it was
possible to discern in Soviet Marxism-Leninism the distinct outlines of an
emerging recognition of the concept of legitimate conflicts in Soviet society;7
and although, on the whole, open discussion of such conflicts was more re-
stricted in Soviet publications from the middle of the 1970s until Brezhnev's
death in 1982, the basis had been laid for a full-scale acknowledgment of
such conflicts at a later time.
That timefinallycame with Mikhail Gorbachev's assumption of the post of
General Secretary of the CPSU in March 1985. The radical revisions in the
official ideology during the next several years brought to the surface trends
of change in scholarly thinking and ideological theory that had been building
up for a long time. Gorbachev and his supporters openly recognized the ex-
istence of legitimate conflicts in Soviet society, as indicated by Gorbachev's
endorsement of the concept of "socialist pluralism." Competition among a
wide variety of interests was considered by the Gorbachevites to be not only
natural in their society but necessary for its revitaUzation. Gorbachev's pro-
nouncements on perestroika in 1986,1987, and 1988 clearly implied that he
did not fear vigorous debate on issues arising between groups and interests
in the society because he felt confident of the stability of an underlying con-
sensus on the basic principles of "socialism" in the USSR. He was proved
incorrect on that assumption and was visibly appalled by the breadth and
bitterness of the controversies that raged by the early 1990s. Gorbachev's
gamble had allowed the rapid expansion of the boundaries of the legitimate
expression of conflicts in Soviet society so that, within a few years, as the
boundaries of permitted debate widened, issues involving divisions previ-
ously treated as nonlegitimate were raised openly (with the voicing of dis-
content by the technical intelligentsia, by manual workers, by residents in
rural locales, and by representatives of virtually all nationalities in the USSR),
and even questions related to conflicts previously regarded as completely
illegitimate were debated heatedly (whether true socialism had been built in
the USSR, whether socialist ownership was preferable to capitalism, whether
the preservation of the Communist party's monopoly on political party ac-
tivity was desirable) in the press, on television, in legislative chambers, and
on the streets.
One of the most striking problems in Marxist-Leninist ideology in the
USSR under Gorbachev, and one of the fatal flaws of his political position,
was that the rapid growth in recognition of legitimate conflicts during his
time in power was not matched by a corresponding degree of elaboration of
ideas concerning means of managing the conflicts between contending inter-
ests.8 Gorbachev made broad, vague statements conceding the need to take
account of competing interests in a society of socialist pluralism, but he did
not go very far in conceiving institutional channels for the legitimate repre-
sentation of such interests and institutional mechanisms for balancing
demands and reaching broadly acceptable decisions.9 The theoretical con-
tributions that Gorbachev endorsed directed attention to conflicts (and en-
couraged them to proliferate and intensify) but lacked any coherent notion of
new modes of institutionalization of conflicts in such a way as to regulate the
manner of their expression. The reasons for such limitations on Gorbachev's
concept of socialist pluralism evidently related both to Gorbachev's own
acquired habits of thought as well as the problems created by conflicting
pressures on him, but a full discussion of such factors would go beyond the
boundaries of the present essay. It is worth noting that, almost until the end
of his time in power, Gorbachev was unwilling to sacrifice the hope of main-
taming a dominant position in the political process for the Communist party
and that the party apparatus was unwilling (and perhaps unable) to function
as the broker of competing interests in the new political environment created
by perestroika. Because of Gorbachev's inability to conceive of ways of
managing conflicts among the interests that were urgently pressing demands
on the Soviet political leadership, by early 1991, he had even reverted to ap-
pealing to the prospect that divisions could be set aside for the sake of stability
and that consensus could become the basis of the exercise of authority. Such
statements signified a retrogression of his treatment of conflicts. Gorbachev
and his key supporters were ultimately unsuccessful in suggesting mechanisms
and procedures for the resolution of disputes among clashing interests. While
they had accepted for several years the legitimacy of conflicting interests, they
had little notion of how to institutionalize legitimate conflict management.
LEVELS OF IDEOLOGY AND THE NEGATIVE

DIALECTIC OF MARXISM-LENINISM
By August 1991, it was obvious that long years of efforts by Soviet leaders
to update Marxist-Leninist ideology had proved inadequate to prevent the
loss of faith among most of the Soviet population in the validity of that belief
system and its relevance to their needs. It is a telling point that at that time
neither the self-styled State Emergency Committee, which attempted to de-
pose Mikhail Gorbachev, nor Boris Yel'tsin and his supporters, who resisted
the coup plotters' attempt to seize power, made any pretense of appealing to
Marxist-Leninist ideology or the doctrine of the guiding role of the Commu-
nist party to gain popular support. How could the authority of the ideas that
apparently had enjoyed undisputed dominance in Soviet society for several
decades have sunk so low in only a short time that they were ignored by both
sides in a crucial political struggle? That question cannot be answered deci-
sively in this book because the attempt to answer it would require the exami-
nation of evidence far beyond the scope of the research on which the book is
based and also because much of the evidence that would be indispensable
for a thorough examination of the question is unavailable, or available only
in fragmentary form. For instance, this study has not attempted to examine
data from survey research on public opinion in the USSR; and if such infor-
mation had been sought, only very sketchy findings would have been dis-
closed. The story of the decline and fall of the Communist party of the Soviet
Union and the ideology that it defended10 is so important and complex that
it will surely remain the focus of controversy among historians far into the
future, much as the causes, character, and consequences of the French Rev-
olution are still the subjects of unresolved debates among scholars more
than two hundred years after that political cataclysm began. This book has
been no more than a preliminary accounting of factual information, based
almost exclusively on textual evidence, that may furnish straw for the bricks
of various possible historical interpretations.
Nevertheless, a partial, tentative, and largely speculative interpretation of

the trends that resulted in the rapid fall into disrepute by the Soviet Com-
munist party and its ideology during the time of the Gorbachev administra-
tion will be offered. That analysis will involve the delineation of three levels
of political ideology, which, in principle, might be discerned in the rhetoric
and thinking of any political elite that bases its claim to rule on a systematic
set of doctrines. The classification that is introduced here is different from
that mentioned early in this volume in references to writings by several
scholars distinguishing between an ideology's broad, fundamental assump-
tions on the one hand, and its narrower, more specific conclusions on the
other hand. The value of that comparison is not denied, but here we address
different dimensions of variation based on the answers to two questions
about any perceived elements of ideology: First, are those elements explicit
(openly stated) or implicit (unstated but widely understood)? Second, are they
operational (as indicated by actions of the political elite who try to put stated
directives into practice) or nonoperational (of little or no importance as a
guide to action)? Since it would be difficult to imagine a role for any princi-
ples that would neither be stated nor followed, three levels of ideology can
be identified, with examples of each drawn from Soviet Marxism-Leninism.
The first level consists of the explicit but nonoperational content of the
ideology, or doctrines that the political leadership finds necessary to support
in theory but neglect in practice. An example of this level of ideology that
comes readily to mind is the notion of the future transition to communism,
which Soviet leaders for many years insisted would be inevitable for their
society at the proper historical moment. Throughout the history of changes
in Soviet Marxism-Leninism from the October Revolution to Gorbachev's
time in power, it became increasingly clear that the idea of the transition to
the higher phase of communism had little relevance to the policies of the
Soviet regime or trends in Soviet society. Though it was vital to the regime
to maintain the pretense of the correctness of its framework of interpretation
of history, to have attempted to translate the end point of that theory into
reality would have entailed the radical transformation of the society and the
withering of the main agencies of authority. Therefore, the promise of the
future transition to a fully Communist society served almost purely a legiti-
mating function; and, as has been stressed in this book, it was difficult for
the leadership to combine that promise with other elements of the ideology
that it saw as having genuine analytical utility.
The second level of ideology consists of those principles or guidelines that
are both explicit and operational. On that level, there is substantial, though
not necessarily perfect, correspondence between the elite's words and its ac-
tions. The ideological pronouncements actually reflect the elite's perceptions
of domestic society and the external setting and reveal genuine policy com-
mitments. In the official Soviet belief system, elements on this level formed
much of the content of the main distinctive emphasis of the leadership in
each period, as symbolized by slogans such as "developed socialism" and
perestroika. When Stalin called for the further growth of industry in the
USSR, when Khrushchev advocated the enhancement of the leading role of
the Communist party in Soviet society, and when Brezhnev endorsed the
Soviet Union's assumption of the role of a global superpower, each was ex-
plicitly stating objectives that strongly influenced the policies pursued by his
administration. Those examples would all suggest that the content of the
ideology that is both explicit and operational performs the functions both
of legitimation and interpretation. The continued industrialization of the
USSR was intended to strengthen the country's security and raise the stan-
dard of living of its population (with the payoffs for living standards to
come rather sooner in the view of Stalin's successors than in his view), thus
achieving goals important to the elite and attractive to the population.11
The third level of ideology consists of elements that are not often classified
as political ideology and that have not been discussed at any length in this
study because those elements are only implicit yet, nevertheless, operational.
The political regime does not openly articulate these tenets, but they are fol-
lowed carefully in practice, and the elite's actions are conditioned by the
need to protect those principles. An example of such an unwritten but widely
understood "doctrine" of Soviet Marxism-Leninism was the sanctity of the
privileges of the political elite and those who performed services for it. In
the Soviet system, the nomenklatura elite consisted of those whose appoint-
ments to positions as administrators and specialists depended on approval
by secretaries of the Communist party. The party secretaries themselves were
at the center of the nomenklatura circles. Membership in the ranks of those
on nomenklatura lists gave access to privileges distributed through institu-
tional networks, and those perquisites of officially approved positions were
much more important in determining an individual's or a family's standard
of living in the USSR than in Western capitalist societies.12 Andrew Walder
has argued that typically a political regime controlled by a Communist party
manages a vast patronage network which penetrates an entire society.13
Under such regimes, the connection between political power and the deter-
minants of a person's material well-being is inherent and intimate. The com-
mandment to preserve privilege networks was not enunciated explicitly in
the public media in the USSR and thus could not openly perform the func-
tion of legitimation, but it did tacitly secure the loyalty of many who followed
pragmatic considerations. It also guided the political elite's interpretation of
reality, since the elite jealously protected its own privileges and its control
over the distribution of benefits to others.
The underlying instability of political regimes legitimated by Marxist-
Leninist ideology reflects the inevitability of conflict between the different
levels of the ideology, which will tend to generate ever greater tension over
time. The egalitarianism of the first-level, Utopian goals of the official belief
system is ultimately incompatible with the performance-related criteria of
the second-level content of the ideology, which endorses the differentiation
Conclusion: The Revenge ofPolitics 221
of economic reward based on skills and productivity. In addition, the second-

level elements' stress on the evaluation of individuals according to their
achievements in a competitive marketplace challenges the third-level ele-
ments' implicit support for the allocation of benefits according to institutional
affiliation and status. The conflict between the second-level ideological em-
phasis on economic and social modernization and the demands of other levels
of the ideology will grow if, as in the Soviet Union, the drive to reach higher
levels of industrialization results in dramatic increases in the number of citi-
zens with higher levels of education and technical training. A growing
socialist middle class will regard the prospect of achieving Communist
equality of distribution as unrealistic and will look on the entrenched privi-
leges of the nomenklatura elite as unearned. If it is also true, as it was in the
USSR, that structural barriers to the enhancement of the productivity of
labor insure that the money incomes of the population will rise faster than
the available supply of goods and services, the middle class's skepticism
toward egalitarian rhetoric will heighten as corruption and illegal economic
activity grow; and their resentment toward the perquisites of authority will
intensify as institutionally secured privileges become even more valued as
shelters from the scarcity of desired benefits.
Marxist-Leninist ideology not only reveals an inherent tendency toward
conflicts between its second-level elements and the precepts on both other
levels but also discloses contradictions between its first-level (explicit but
nonoperational) components and third-level (implicit and operational) prin-
ciples, as was evident in the Soviet Union. As Lenin found, in order to move
a society toward the goal of communism, it was necessary to create authori-
tative institutions that could supervise the accumulation of the preconditions
for the achievement of that long-term goal. But, in a process ironically familiar
to students of those revolutions which attempt to achieve Utopian objectives,
in the long term, the institutions became the ends in themselves, displacing
the objectives explicitly set forth by the ideology. Not only is it true that the
egalitarian principles that theoretically were to be embodied in a Communist
society were inconsistent with the privileged position of a relatively small
elite, but it is also the case that the inconsistency and tension between the
first-level and third-level elements of the ideology tended to increase over
time, as the failure of society to approximate the criteria of full communism
became more apparent and as the privileges of the nomenklatura elite became
more strongly entrenched.14
For any Communist regime, the two possible solutions to the growing
conflict between the pretense of the pursuit of millenarian goals and the
reality of the protection of elite privileges would seem to be either the open
triumph of conservatism, which would turn the political regime toward the
candid endorsement of a permanent, hierarchical differentiation of material
welfare; or the victory of ideological revitalization, which would sweep away
the existing network of distinctions and privileges and institute a greater
approximation of egalitarianism in the distribution of benefits. The first

solution would bring the third-level elements of the ideology into open as-
cendancy at the price of the abandonment of the first-level, legitimating
ideals. The second solution would attempt to enforce the first-level goals at
severe cost to the third-level guidelines. The first solution has never been
embraced by the leadership of a Communist party-state regime. Although
some members of the elite in a few countries under Communist party rule
may have toyed with the idea of attempting such a solution, the full and
open triumph of conservatism would probably require the rejection of all
the symbolism of Marxism-Lenininism so that the political regime would
cease to be even nominally Communist.15 The second solution was attempted
by Mao Tse-tung at the time of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution in
the late 1960s, which was an ideological revitalization campaign par excel-
lence. Neither solution was attempted by the national political leadership at
any point in the history of the Soviet Union. The result of obvious and in-
creasing inconsistency between the stated goals of Marxism-Leninism and
the practice of expanding privileges for the nomenklatura elite was the growth
of cynicism, apathy, and passivity in the attitudes of the people of the USSR
toward their country's political institutions.16 Over several decades before
the middle of the 1980s, the erosion of the credibility of the ideology's explicit
goals surely decreased its value as a source of legitimation.
Nevertheless, when Mikhail Gorbachev became the General Secretary of
the Communist party of the Soviet Union, he did not write off the potential
of the official ideology. He vehemently attacked dogmatism but with the
hope of sweeping away outdated preconceptions, adapting the ideology to
changed conditions, and making it a more realistic depiction of reality in the
USSR and the rest of the world. In order to bring ideological theory into
correspondence with reality, he finally found it necessary to sacrifice its Uto-
pian elements by admitting the impracticality of continuing to posit a society
of distribution according to need as the necessary future of the Soviet Union.
At the same time, Gorbachev's effort to transform the USSR into a more
competitive, achievement-oriented society encouraged the intelligentsia and
the public to mount challenges to the economic privileges of the nomenklatura
elite. Thus, while Gorbachev discarded the elements of the ideology that
had been explicit but nonoperational, he also discredited its implicit but op-
erational guidelines. In combination, those changes completed the destruc-
tion of both the idealistic and pragmatic bases for the legitimacy of the Soviet
political regime.
Gorbachev evidently had hoped to shift the basis for the legitimacy of the
authority of the Communist party and Soviet state through the implementa-
tion of more efficacious policies guided by the realistic analysis of social
and economic conditions. His emphasis on performance criteria assigned an
overriding priority to the middle-level elements of Soviet Marxism-Leninism.
As a shrewd politician, Gorbachev realized that Utopian goals and institu-
tionalized perquisites had come to be seen as barriers to change by those

who made up the main potential constituency supporting a reformed, revi-
sionist Marxism-Leninism. By the late 1980s, however, it may have been too
late to salvage popular faith in that system of ideas in the Soviet republics.
In any event, the improved economic performance promised by Gorbachev
and crucial to the maintenance of support for his leadership did not mate-
rialize. Most Soviet citizens found their living conditions deteriorating pre-
cipitously during the late 1980s and early 1990s with scarcities of consumer
goods worsening and with prices on the black market and in private markets
rising. 17 By 1991, both Gorbachev and his slogan of perestroikahad been
thoroughly discredited in the eyes of most people in the USSR, despite his
enormous contribution to the expansion of political freedom in that country.
The result was not only the end of the Gorbachev administration but also
the expiration of the regime that had pledged to follow the creed of Marxism-
Leninism. The leader who had sought to revitalize the ideology had helped
to hasten its demise. 18
NOTES
1. Lenin faced the same theoretical tasks, too, even though he never occupied
the position of General Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU.
2. The classification of types of conflict that follows was first introduced by Alfred
B. Evans, Jr., "Social Transformation in Developed Socialism: Recent Trends in
Soviet Ideology," Co-Existence 17, no. 1 (April 1980): 58-81.
3. In practice, under Stalin the victims of terror were not restricted to class ene-
mies or even past opponents of Bolshevism. However, this analysis pertains to ideo-
logical theory, which did not reveal the full extent of the terror and the arbitrariness
that eventually characterized it.
4. The urban-rural distinction was also a nonlegitimate social division in the view
of Soviet Marxism-Leninism, but that distinction is not mentioned separately here
because it was thought in the Stalin period to be closely related to the distinction be-
tween the working class and the collective farm peasants. The official and scholarly
interpretation of the urban-rural cleavage changed gradually in the post-Stalin decades.
5. The concept of "legitimate conflicts" was suggested by the analysis of conflict
management by Ralf Dahrendorf, Class and Class Conflict in Industrial Society
(Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1959), especially 223-230.
6. The claim that Soviet society had entered the stage of mature industrialism
was advanced by the ideologists of the Brezhnev leadership and was central to the
concept of developed socialism. This author reports that the claim was made, but he
does not endorse it, and he never has.
7. Evans, "Social Transformation," 72. "In Soviet ideology of the 1970s one can
discern the outlines of a conception of legitimate social differences."
8. Gail Lapidus, "State and Society: Toward the Emergence of Civil Society in
the Soviet Union," in Politics, Society, and Nationality inside Gorbachev's Russia,
ed. Seweryn Bialer (Boulder, Colo.: Westview, 1989), 144.
9. That argument was developed more extensively by Alfred B. Evans, Jr.,
"Gorbachev's Unfinished Revolution," Problems of Communism 40, nos. 1 and 2

(January-April 1991): 133-143; and idem, "Problems of Conflict Management in
Russian Politics," Journal of Communist Studies 9, no. 2 (June 1993): 1-19. For
detailed studies of problems of the institutionalization of democratic conflict manage-
ment in the Soviet Union at the end of the Gorbachev period, see Robert T. Huber and
Donald R. Kelley, eds., Perestroika-Era Politics (Armonk, N.Y.: M. E. Sharpe, 1991).
10. Some fragments of the CPSU remained in existence in Russia and the other
republics of the former USSR at the time of the completion of the writing of this
book (1993). Those organizations had small pockets of popular support in Russia
and larger bases of support in some of the other republics, but the former pretense of
Marxism-Leninism to articulate the consensus of the population in the territory pre-
viously belonging to the USSR could no longer be taken seriously.
11. As this book has made clear, the attainment of higher levels of industrializa-
tion was also intended to contribute to the achievement of other objectives, including
further change in social structure and in the relations among nationalities in the USSR.
12. As noted earlier in this volume, Mervyn Matthews, Privilege in the Soviet
Union: A Study of Life-Styles under Communism (London: George Allen & Unwin,
1978), presents the results of the most extensive research on institutionalized privilege
in the USSR.
13. That is an oversimplified summary of one of the major themes of the complex
and richly detailed study by Andrew Walder, Communist Neo-Traditionalism: Work
and Authority in Chinese Industry (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California
Press, 1986).
14. It may well be hypothesized that practices which are considered corrupt by the
official norms of the political regime will also increase over time because of the at-
tractiveness of gaining access to the holders of privileges, especiaUy if the distribution
of material benefits through legalized markets does not keep pace with the expansion
of effective demand, as is quite likely if economic growth produces strata with higher
expectations and rising money incomes. The increase of black market activity, bribery,
and other "deviations from socialist morality" can also be expected to contribute to
the rise of skepticism concerning the political regime's genuine commitment to its
stated, first-level goals. An extensive survey of a large number of people who had
emigrated from the USSR during the 1970s indicated that reliance on officially pro-
scribed means of advancement had increased rather steadily in Soviet society since
the 1930s. The results of that survey are presented by James R. Millar, ed., Politics,
Work, and Daily Life in the USSR: A Survey of Former Soviet Citizens (Cambridge,
Mass.: Cambridge University Press, 1987).
15. Stalin certainly infused some conservative themes into Soviet Marxism-Lenin-
ism, mainly on the second level, with the adoption of nationalistic and antiegalitarian
rhetoric in the 1930s. He did not discard the goal of full communism, however, as a
fully conservative political regime could have been expected to do. Also, although in-
equality in financial reward in state-owned enterprises increased in the USSR in the
1930s, that differentiation remained restricted in comparison with the differentiation
of wages in capitalist economies; and although institutionalized privileges expanded
under Stalin, they remained largely covert as far as the official ideology was concerned.
16. It should be noted again that the discussion in this section is speculative in
character. However, various sorts of partial support for the generalization of declining
skepticism, cynicism, and apathy toward Marxist-Leninist ideology in the USSR are
available, such as that in the results of survey data reported in by Millar, Politics,
Work, and Daily Life in the USSR, and the extensive anecdotal information offered
by Hedrick Smith, The Russians (New York: Times Books, 1976). There is persuasive
circumstantial support for the impression of a slow, long-term dry rot in popular faith
in Marxism-Leninism in the USSR in the argument that if acceptance of the tenets of
that belief system had remained widespread and strong in the Soviet Union in 1985,
there would have been more broadly based resistance to Gorbachev's revisions in the
ideology, and it would have been impossible for support for its doctrines to reach the
point of virtual collapse within only a few years after those revisions began.
17. Stephen White, Gorbachev and After, 3rd ed. (Cambridge, Mass.: Cambridge
University Press, 1992), 131-132, 140, 246-247. It also should be noted that in early
1991 the Soviet government allowed sharp increases in the retail prices of many pro-
ducts, including most food products.
18. Some of the themes found in this chapter were also explored by Alfred B.
Evans, Jr. in "Gorbachev and the End of Utopia in the Soviet Union," Soviet and
Post-Soviet Review 19, nos. 1-3 (1992): 217-219.
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Index
Abalkin, Leonid, 164, 169, 170, 172, Brezhnev, Leonid (continued)

175, 181 conflicts in Soviet society, 214, 215,
Acceleration (uskorenie) of develop- 216; on economy of developed social-
ment (concept of Gorbachev period), ism, 115-22, 138 n 3; on nationality
157-61 relations in USSR, 145-48; on rela-
Agaev, S. L., 201 tions of production in Soviet society,
Agriculture: collectivization of in USSR, 122-26; on socialist way of life,
33-34 141-45; on social structure in USSR,
Alienation: concept under Gorbachev, 130 n 65, 131-37; on technological
169-70, 195 innovation (STR), 118-22
Andropov, Yurii, 151, 152-55, 178, Bromlei, Yuliian, 148, 178
189 n 51 Brown, Archie, 195
Apathy, 222, 224 n 16 Bukharin, Nikolai, 33, 34, 39, 163
Arbatov, Georgii, 164-65 Butenko, Anatolii, 109-10, 113, 126,
Arutianian, Yurii, 148 128 n 19, 170, 175, 179, 188 n 24
Baradat, Leon, 6 n 9 Capitalist encirclement, 40

Batalov, Eduard, 164-65 Chernenko, Konstanin U., 151-55
Bell, Daniel, 129 n 48 China, 106
Bernstein, Eduard, 211 Civil society, 194-95, 206 n 5
Bilinsky, Yaroslav, 83 Classes, social, 12-14, 30-31, 34, 36-37,
Bim, A., 183 50, 53-54, 77-81, 130 n 65, 131, 135,
Breslauer, George, 98, 197 138 n 2, 173, 214
Brezhnev, Leonid, 220; criticism of Communism (Communist society):
under Gorbachev, 161-62, 175; health gradual abandonment of goal of full
(deterioration), 151; on concept of communism, 198-200, 211-13, 219-23;
developed socialism, 105-15, 213; on phases of, 3, 13-14, 21-22, 36, 45-48,
234 Index
Communism (continued) Corruption, 221, 224 n 14

50-52, 60-62, 99-101, 108-14 Cynicism, 222, 224-25 n 16
Communist Party of the Soviet Union
(CPSU), 6 n 7; drafts of new pro- Democratic socialists, 200
grams of, 55 n 8, 165, 198-99, 207 Developed socialism (concept), 105-15,
n 22; leading role of (concept), 20, 127 n 15; discrediting of under
24, 97-99, 204-205; Nineteenth Con- Gorbachev, 154-56; economy of,
ference of (1988), 185, 197, 207 n 17; 115-26, 223 n 6; nationality relations
Programmatic Declaration (platform) and, 145; program of CPSU (1986)
of (1990), 165, 189 n 45, 197-199, and, 155-56; revision in interpretation
200, 204; program commissions, 47, of (under Andropov and Chernenko),
51-52; program of (1903), 46; program 153-54; social structure of, 131-37
of (1919), 46; program of (1961), 46, Dialectic: principles of, 10, 11-12, 52-54
51-52, 60-64, 67, 70-71, 80, 84-87, Distribution of economic benefits. See
89-93, 94-97, 99, 105, 108, 152-53, Material benefits
159, 174; program of (1986), 108, Division of labor, 14, 81-82, 135-37
152, 155-56, 159-61, 165, 173, 174, Drobizheva, L. M., 178
177-78, 181-83, 189 n 46, 198; suc-
cessor parties (after 1991), 224 n 10 Eastern Europe, 114, 115, 156
Communist Party of the Soviet Union East Germany, 106
congresses: Sixteenth, 41; Seventeenth, Economic competition between USSR
39, 41, 45; Eighteenth, 39-40, 46-47; and capitalist countries, 35-36, 47,
Nineteenth, 51-52; Twentieth, 58, 58, 62-64, 142-43, 158
60, 82-83; Twenty-first, 58, 60, 80, Economic reward. See Material benefits
84, 94-95; Twenty-second, 60, 64, Engels, Friedrich: on laws of materialist
84, 88, 95, 145, 177; Twenty-fourth, dialectics, 52; on socialist revolution,
107, 115, 116, 117, 122, 145; Twenty- 32; on withering away of state, 39
fifth, 121, 141, 142, 143; Twenty-
sixth, 108, 119, 121, 125, 133, 152; Fedoseev, Petr, 111, 135, 142
Twenty-seventh, 108, 152, 155-56, First Five-Year Plan, 34, 35
157, 158, 160-61, 165, 173, 177, 181,
182, 183, 184, 185, 186, 202; Twenty- Gafurov, B., 83-84
eighth, 165, 197-98, 199; Twenty- German Democratic Republic, 106
ninth (proposed, not held), 165, 198 Glezerman, Grigorii, 79, 111
Competition (within Soviet economy), Gooding, John, 207 n 15
180-81, 186-89 Gorbachev, Mikhail, 1, 2; abandonment
Conflicts, social (as viewed by Soviet of goal of full communism, 3, 198-
Marxism-Leninism), 213-18. See also 200, 213, 222; accession to power,
Contradictions 151-52; ambivalence of, toward
Consensus in Soviet society (leaders' radical reform, 203-205; criticism of
assumption of), 38, 39, 42, 93-94, dogmatism, 170-71, 223; emphasis
197, 214-15, 207 n 15, 217 on harmony (soglasie),205; emphasis
Constitutions of USSR, 46, 107-108, on "human factor," 181; hopes for
110, 112, 146 reforms in Communist Party, 196,
Contradictions: in international rela- 218; lack of concept of institutional-
tions, 31, 202; in Soviet society, 31, ized conflict management, 217-18;
54, 55-56 n 25, 174-77 on acceleration of development in
Index 235
Gorbachev, Mikhail (continued) Iovchuk, M. T., 144

USSR, 157-61; on alienation in Ivan the Terrible, 41
USSR, 169-70; on concept of devel-
oped socialism and CPSU program, Kas'ianenko, V. I., 136, 144
155-56; on contradictions in Soviet Katz, Zev, 132
society, 174-76; on future of Soviet Kautsky, Karl, 18
society, 160-61, 167 n 48, 196-200, Khrushchev, Nikita, 57, 220; assump-
207 n 16; on market relations in tion of consensus in Soviet society,
economy, 180-81; on nationality 59, 91, 93-94; expectations for eco-
relations in USSR, 177-79, 189 nn. 45, nomic growth in USSR, 64-66, 75
46; on "new thinking" about interna- n 20; on conflicts in Soviet society,
tional relations, 200-203; on political 214-16; on full-scale construction of
change (demokratizatsiia) in USSR, communism in USSR, 60-71, 213;
193-97; on productive forces and on level of economic development of
productive relations, 171; on property USSR, 57-59; on molding new per-
ownership, 179-80; on restructuring son, 89-93; on nationality relations
(perestroika) in USSR, 161-65; on in USSR, 83-89, 145; on private
"social justice," 181-87; on "socialist plots in agriculture, 69; on relations
pluralism," 193-97, 216-18; on social between USSR and West, 71-73; on
structure in USSR, 171-77; role in security of USSR, 58-59; on Third
discrediting Marxist-Leninist ideology World, 73-74; on unity of revolu-
in USSR, 222-23 tionary struggle, 73-74; subsequent
Gordon, Leonid, 176-77, 201-202 criticism of his views on transition to
Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution communism, 152, 156
(China), 222 Kim, Maksim, 113-14, 147
Klopov, Eduard, 176
Hearst, William Randolph, Jr., 73 Kolakowski, Leszek, 6 n 1
Hegel, Georg W. F., 9-10 Korionov, V., 73
Hoffmann, Erik, 121-22 Kosolapov, Richard, 113, 125, 128
"Human factor," 181 n 19, 134, 136
Hunt, R. N. Carew, 6 n 1 Kozlov, V. I., 149 n 26
Krutova, O. N., 173
Ideology: defined, 3-4; levels of content Kurashvili, Boris, 204
in, 219-23. See also Marxism-Leninism Kutuzov, Mikhail, 41
Improvement and perfection (sover-
shenstvovanie) of socialism (concept), Latsis, Otto, 179
110, 123, 128 n 21, 154 Law-governed state, 195, 206 n 8
Inozemtsev, Nikolai, 72-73 Lenin, Vladimir, 17, 27 n 11, 86, 221,
Institute of Ethnography (of Academy 223 n 1; death, 29; discussion of his
of Sciences of USSR), 147-48, 178 legacy under Gorbachev, 163, 167-68
Institute of International Workers' n 54; on construction of socialism in
Movement (of Academy of Sciences Russia, 22-26; on phases of com-
of USSR), 176-77 munism, 108, 212; on proletarian
Intelligentsia (USSR), 37 revolution in one country, 30-31; on
International relations, 29-32, 39-40, transition to socialism, 33; position
71-73, 200-203 on nationalism, 40; State and Revo-
International revolution, 21-22, 29-32 lution, 18-22, 26 n 1; warning against
236 Index
Lenin, Vladimir (continued) Openkin, L. A., 55 n 8

great Russian chauvinism, 41 Ownership. See Property forms
Ligachev, Yegor, 185
Living standards. See Material benefits Peaceful coexistence: concept, 71-73,
200-201
Mao Tse-tung, 222 Peasants, 25, 30-31, 33-34, 36-37, 69,
Magnitskii, Yu., 174 78-80, 131
Marantz, Paul, 6 n 2, 203 Pelczynski, Z. A., 206 n 5
Market relations: in economy, 180-81 Permanent revolution, 29-30
Marx, Karl, 3, 4, 9-10; on capitalism, Personal property, 71
12-13; on communism (Communist Peter the Great, 35, 41
society), 14-15, 108; on historical Private plots (in agriculture), 69, 76
materialism, 11-12 n35
Marxism-Leninism (Soviet): adaptation Privileges: of Soviet elite, 184-85,
of, 1-5; decline of faith in, 220-223, 220-23
224-225 n 16; functions of, 2-3; Property forms: in USSR, 36-37, 49-51,
levels of content in, 219-23; tasks of 68-69, 79-80, 113, 124-25, 133, 173,
interpretation of, by Soviet leaders, 179-80, 204
212 Protskaia, D. G., 144
Material benefits, 14, 19-21, 36, 37, Pushkin, Alexander, 41
50-51, 66-67, 68-71, 116-18, 123-24,
125-26, 134-35, 142-44, 159, 181-87 Rakowska-Harmstone, Teresa, 85
Mevedev, Vadim, 163, 201 Restructuring (perestroika), 161-65
Meyer, Alfred, 6 n 1 Revisionism, 211-12
Millar, James, 224 n 14, 225 n 16 Rodina (homeland), 40
Morality in Soviet society (leaders' Rogovin, V. Z., 143
perceptions and goals), 89-93, 141-45 Russian nationalism, 41-42
Moses, Joel, 196 Russian past: rediscovery, under Stalin,
41
Nationality relations (in USSR), 27 Rutkevich, Mikhail, 134, 135, 136, 167
n 29, 41-42, 82-89, 145-48, 149 n 48, 187-88 n 13
n 26, 177-79, 189 nn. 45, 46; goal of
fusion (sliianie), 83-84, 87-88, 146-47 Shakhnazarov, Georgii, 198, 199
Nazimova, Alia, 176 Scientific-technological revolution
Nevskii, Alexander, 41 (STR), 119-22, 126, 160
New Economic Policy (NEP), 25, 33-34 Seliunin, Vasilii, 163
New historical community, concept Semenov, Vadim, 167 n 48
"Soviet people", 88-89, 145-48, 149 Shatalin, Stanislav, 182
n 26, 177-78, 189 n 46 Shcherbitskii, Vladimir, 149 n 13
"New thinking" on international rela- Sherstobitov, V. P., 147
tions (under Gorbachev), 200-203 Shevardnadze, Eduard, 200
Nikiforov, Lev, 125 Shokhin, A., 183
Nikolaev, N., 185 Smirnov, Georgii, 163, 179
Nomenklaturaelite, 220-23 Smith, Hedrick, 225 n 16
Notkin, Aleksandr, 54 Social funds of consumption, 70-72,
123-24, 182-84
Occupational specialization, 14, 81-82, Socialism (nature of, as historical
135-37 phase), 14, 21-22, 61, 78, 109-110
Oldak, P. G., 180-81, 186 Socialist pluralism, 193-196, 216-218
Index 237
Socialist way of life, 141-45 Technological innovation (continued)

Social justice, 181-87, 191 n 100 126, 158-60, 171, 176-77, 181, 203
Social organizations, 94-95 Terry, Sarah Meiklejohn, 5
Social structure, 12, 13-14, 36-38, 50, Thompson, Terry, 5
53-54, 77-82, 131-37, 171-77 Tikhonov, Nikolai, 119
Soviet patriotism, 40-42 Tikhonov, Vladimir, 204
Soviet people (sovetskii narod), 42, Totalitarianism, 164-65, 194
88-89, 145-48, 149 n 26, 177-78, Town and country (distinction between),
189 n 45 49-50, 53-54, 78-80, 133, 136, 223 n 4
Soviets, 19-20, 27 n 11, 95-96 Trotsky, Leon, 29-31
Stalin, Joseph, 5, 220; attacks on Tsipko, Aleksandr, 143, 167-68 n 54
Trotsky, 29-31, 33; criticism of,
under Gorbachev, 163-65, 196, 202; Ulbricht, Walter, 106
Economic Problems of Socialism in Uneven development, 30
the USSR, 48-54, 79, 212-13, 216; Urban population of USSR, 131, 138
emphasis on continuity of develop- n3
ment in USSR, 47-52; on conflicts in Urban-rural distinction, 49-50, 53-54,
Soviet society, 55-56 n 25, 214-16; 78-80, 133, 136, 223 n 4
on class struggle in USSR, 38; on Utopianism, decline of, in Soviet
phases of communism, 5, 45-46, Marxism-Leninism, 211-13
50-52, 212-13; on rapid industrial-
ization, 34-36; on social classes in Valkenier, Elizabeth Kridl, 6 n 2
USSR, 36-38; on socialism in one Victims of terror, 223 n 3
country, 30-32, 40; on Soviet patri- Volodin, S., 174
otism, 40-42; on strengthening of
state in socialism, 38-40; opposition Walder, Andrew, 220
to wage-leveling, 37 Watkins, Frederick M., 6-7 n 9
State: dictatorship of proletariat, 14, Wells, Herbert (H. G.), 63
18-22, 24, 31, 39, 93; "state of entire White, Stephen, 207 n 16
people" (all-people's state), 93-94, Woodby, Sylvia, 6 n 2, 203
215; strengthening of, 23-24, 38-40, Working class (USSR), 36-37, 176-77
94; withering away of, 14-15, 19-22,
94-101 Yakovlev, Aleksandr, 172, 178-80, 199
State Emergency Committee (August Yaroshenko, L. D., 50
1991), 218 Yegorov, Anatolii, 175-76, 187-88 n 13
Survivals of the past (of capitalism), Yel'tsin, Boris, 185, 218
90-91, 143-45, 174
Suslov, Mikhail, 106-108, 112, 153 Zaslavskaia, Tat'iana, 176, 183-84, 189
Suvorov, Alexander, 41 n38
Zdravomyslov, A., 136
Technological innovation, 65, 118-22, Zimmerman, William, 6 n 2
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
ALFRED B. EVANS, JR. is Professor of Political Science at California
State University, Fresno. He is the editor (with S. Woodby) of Restructuring
Soviet Ideology: Gorbachev's New Thinking(1990).

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SOVIET

ALFRED B. EVANS, JR.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data is available

The paper used in this book complies with the

Excerpts from "Changing Views of Social Differentiation in Soviet Ideology"

Excerpts from "Ideology under Khruschev and Gorbachev: Contradictions and

There is an abundance of writings describing the intellectual trends that led

directed at a large popular audience.9 Ideology may favor or oppose change.

MARX'S INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY

a substantial degree of development within the previous stage. "No social

CAPITALISM, REVOLUTION, AND COMMUNISM

Marx considered capitalism to be a historically progressive economic for-

engaged for material compensation. A process of transformation would

THEORETICAL EXPECTATIONS BEFORE OCTOBER 1917

Lenin's thoughts on socialism in 1917 were expressed in several essays, the

Lenin described the proletarian revolution as consisting of two stages. The

Lenin looked on socialism as a "special stage," an "entire historical period"

THE TRANSITION TO SOCIALISM

11. V. I. Lenin, "The Tasks of the Proletariat in Our Revolution," in Selected

SOCIALISM IN ONE COUNTRY

Uneven economic and political development is an absolute law of capitalism. Hence,

THE GREAT CHANGE: COLLECTIVIZATION

agriculture, it seems clear that Stalin expected collectivization to make it

uisite for the development of productivity and the attainment of affluence

SOCIALISM AND SOCIAL CLASSES

forms of ownership of productive property. The means of production of a

THE STATE AND NATIONALISM

The revival of patriotism coincided with the rediscovery of positive features

1. Leon Trotsky, quoted by Iosif V. Stalin in "Oktiabr'skaia revoliutsiia i taktika

Mature Stalinism: Continuity

THE FIRST PHASE OF COMMUNISM

THE TRANSITION TO COMMUNISM

in the Soviet Union. Marxism's promise of Communist abundance might, if

exchange of products under the control of the central government or some

THE DIALECTIC AND SOCIALISM

moral-political unity of Soviet society. Now, in 1952, Stalin declared that

Courseof 1938. The term Nonantagonistic contradictions" apparently began to ap

Khrushchev: The Full-Sca

OUTLOOK AND ASPIRATIONS

the function of taking risks. Khrushchev called on Soviet bureaucrats to get

THE FULL-SCALE CONSTRUCTION OF COMMUNISM

dovatetnyi—consistent, proceeding in successive stages, with achievement

scale construction of communism. The main economic task would be to

THE MATERIAL-TECHNICAL BASE OF COMMUNISM

ing the material-technical base of communism, he personally thought that

provement in consumption was based mainly on the anticipated effects of

(obshchenarodnaia sobstvennosf).34The merging of forms of productive pro

REWARD, MONEY, AND PERSONAL PROPERTY

to" the stage of distibution according to needs. The transition to Communist

COMPETITIVE COEXISTENCE WITH THE WEST

10. Ibid., 64.

TOWARD THE CLASSLESS SOCIAL COLLECTIVE

In the ideology of the Khrushchev period, the elimination of distinctions

deeds, Khrushchev accused Stalin of "gross violation" of Leninist principles

tion to problems of nationality relations. Yet faced with the necessity of

years in power disclosed disagreement on a number of questions concerning

MOLDING THE NEW PERSON

The moral code of the builder of communism identified the principles of

THE STATE AND PARTY OF THE ENTIRE PEOPLE

croachment is our common task.'"50 Khrushchev advanced the claim that

Khrushchev characterized the transition to social self-government almost

popular initiative guided by the party's leaders. As George Breslauer has

of the characteristics of communism seemed to serve as a means of indicating