|
|
Perestroika: Opium for the Intellectuals
| Article
# : |
14520 |
|
|
Section : |
BOOK WORLD
|
| Issue
Date : |
3 / 1988 |
3,803 Words |
| Author
: |
Mikhail Tsypkin
|
PERESTROIKA
New Thinking for Our Country and the World
Mikhail Gorbachev
New York: A Cornelia & Michael Bessie Book
254 pp., $19.95
Leonid Brezhnev, who ruled the Soviet Union from 1964 to 1982, was an avid sports fan: When he wanted to impress American public opinion, he invited Mohammed Ali to the Kremlin. Not so with General Secretary Gorbachev: Following in the steps of Vladimir Lenin, the founder of Soviet communism, he has made a point of impressing Western intellectuals. Enter his now widely celebrated new title Perestroika, (approximately translated "restructuring"), grandly subtitled "New Thinking for Our Country and the World."
If we are to take Gorbachev seriously, his "new thinking" should be consistent and honest. We should also be sure that Gorbachev the politician is willing and capable of translating his "new ideas" into genuinely new policies in his own country.
Understanding the roots of Soviet troubles
The legitimacy of the Soviet regime is based on the claim of Marxism-Leninism to be a science, guiding mankind with great precision to paradise on earth. One definite plus of Gorbachev's book is that despite all of his bows to the shadows of Marx and Lenin, he finds it difficult to carry on with the myth of "scientific" infallibility of the Communist Party. Seventy years after the communist revolution in Russia, Gorbachev describes the condition of his nation in stark terms: If "restructuring" had not begun, the Soviet Union would have entered an era of "serious social, economic and political crises," with its society "becoming increasingly unmanageable." He sees a "gradual erosion of the ideological and moral values" of the people, and "servility" in their attitudes to those in power. He confirms what the Western and domestic critics of the Soviet regime have been saying for years: The Soviet economy is run along the "residual" principle, that is, "only what is left after satisfying the needs of production is earmarked for social purposes."
While this litany of Soviet domestic ills is a testimony to Gorbachev's realism, his attempts to explain the roots of current trouble show that in some very important ways he is deeply trapped in Soviet ideology and power habits. Thirty years ago, Soviet party leader Khrushchev skirted the issue of the relationship between the communist political system and Stalin's mass terror by blaming it on the late dictator's "personality cult." Today, Gorbachev talks eloquently about "decades of stagnation" under Brezhnev, but seems unable or unwilling to be more intellectually bold than Khrushchev, blaming it all on "interrupted natural process of leadership change." Gorbachev avoids the basic question: What is it in the Soviet system that allowed the economy to stagnate for two decades, or for that matter, millions of innocents to be slaughtered for three decades? Why has the Soviet society been consistently unable to rid itself of homicidal, corrupt, and inefficient rulers? Just as Khrushchev was saddled with responsibility for taking part in Stalin's purges, so Gorbachev is made to account for having a brilliant political career during the time of "stagnation" and "servility." He lamely says that some unnamed people "with commitment to the ideals of Bolshevism
...
Read Full Article
|
|
