"What Is Gorbachev Really Up To?" is the topic of this month's Special Report in Current Issues. It is an appropriate subject to discuss, although I think Mr. Gorbachev and his motives are becoming reasonably clear--or as clear as such things can be in a world in which a change in circumstances can also produce a change in objectives. The more interesting question in my mind is how we should react to Gorbachev.
At least since Khrushchev's ouster, Soviet leaders have ceased to believe that Marxism is a science or that Soviet society is a success. Until Gorbachev came into office, however, the system had not yet entered a crisis severe enough to produce a climate for reform. Andropov, who was a sophisticated man and the sponsor of Gorbachev, did attempt minor reforms. But he did not live long enough, nor was the crisis yet sufficiently desperate, for him to have the support necessary for major reform of the system.
By the time of Gorbachev the crisis had become sufficiently severe for the entire Politburo to favor economic reform, at least in principle. Otherwise, the Soviet Union would become a Third World economy. There was not agreement on the extent of reform, however. Because the bureaucracy saw perestroika as an invasion of its prerogatives and privileges, the reform program hardly got off the ground. That is also why Yeltsin raised a storm and why Gorbachev, in self-defense, had to support his demotion.
The failure of perestroika, however, left Gorbachev with no choice except political reform, the very moves that led his former supporters, Ligachev and Chebrikov, into opposition, for political reform also threatened many vested interests, and raised the threat of nationality issues as well. He was going so far and so fast that they thought he might unbalance the system. So far he has outmaneuvered them.
Gorbachev then seized the opportunity to restate doctrine so thoroughly that one might call what happened almost a coup. When Medvedev, the new chief of ideology, and Gorbachev himself, in his United Nations address, stated that Marxism did not have the answers to the world's problems and that answers would have to be found in cooperation with the West, the cat, if not out of the bag, was beginning to emerge. It is one thing to know that Marxism is not a science, but something quite different to permit discussion of this, for it removes the public fig leaf from the legitimacy of the party and its leadership, which now must rely on popular support in addition to that of the KGB, although not yet on elections.
It is not important that Gorbachev calls himself a Leninist. With the exception of Andropov, he has delegitimized all Soviet leaders since Lenin. Without acceptance of Lenin's legacy he would have no warrant for being in office himself. Therefore, even if he wanted to, he could not delegitimate Lenin. It is even likely that he does, in fact, see himself as a Leninist. However he can pick and choose from Lenin precisely those phrases or positions that support the programs that he believes a modern Soviet Union--one quite different from that of Lenin's time--requires.
Gorbachev has stated in the past that Russians are not ready for democracy. And I expect that he does not believe that the reforms he desires can emerge from a democratic consensus. However, both he and Andropov have protected democrats in the
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