THE CRISIS OF COMMUNISM
Its Meaning, Origins, and Phases
Rett R. Ludwikowski
Pergamon-Brassey's, 1986
Paperback, 79 pp.
At the beginning of his lucid and insightful study, Rett R. Ludwikowski, a recent émigré from Poland, tells us that he is baffled by the inability of Western intellectuals and the press to understand the degree to which socioeconomic failure presently characterizes life in Marxist countries. "For someone who lived so long under a communist regime, it is quite amazing to discover how little understanding of the crisis of communism there is in the West, and how strong the communist system appears to be to Western observers who still can detect only occasional periods of 'distortions' and 'temporary weakness,'" he observes. "The West is still inclined to view the Soviet system only in terms of its gigantic military potential, and underestimate its internal economic, moral, social and ideological failures and decay."
Numerous examples of this puzzling misperception of alleged Soviet prowess abound in many Western press reports and official pronouncements. Ignoring the vast and compelling evidence to the contrary, many Western observers seem ready to believe reports that Soviet economic and political reform is on the horizon. Too often, though, the basis for such confident prognostications resides in a naïve willingness to accept Soviet disinformation at face value. In 1982, Ludwikowski notes, "the West's optimistic assessment of the 'new era of Soviet reforms' stemmed from tales about Andropov's predilections for jazz, whiskey, and Western novels." Now, Mikhail Gorbachev's plans for the reorganization and reform of the economy are giving rise to the widespread Western expectation that this "man of a new generation" can reverse its continuous decline. Even the judgment of a normally clear-headed observer of Soviet society such as ambassador Paul Nitze seems affected by such shallow misperceptions. Expressing a view held by many senior American policymakers, he remarked recently in an interview "that the Soviet economy is not in deep difficulty. It isn't an efficient economy, but it does continue to grow, because it started from a low, very low level and they've got an enormous country and enormous resources and a very large body of talented people. So there's no reason why it shouldn't continue to grow." Yet, despite such hopeful talk, as Ludwikowski points out, "nothing has changed substantially in the Soviet economy since Khrushchev." Even after decades of economic failure, the West still seems surprised by the inability of the Soviet government to overcome the crippling effects of Stalinism on its economy.
Deriding these Pollyannaish views on the prospects for Soviet socioeconomic reform, Ludwikowski argues that the time has come for the West to recognize that Soviet communism is in a crisis, which is "corroding the framework of the communist totalitarian order." While not going so far as to predict anything so dramatic as its "imminent collapse," he does believe that its ossified authoritarian institutions and Stalinist command economy preclude the possibility that Gorbachev or any foreseeable Soviet leader can implement major structural reforms.
Ludwikowski's Experience
Few scholars are better
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