Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in
SpringerLink
Log in

Perestroika, Social Justice and Public Opinion

  • Chapter
Ideology and System Change in the USSR and East Europe

  • 35 Accesses

Abstract

In its struggle to reform, the Soviet leadership faces a major dilemma in attempting to reconcile economic efficiency with a commitment to social justice. The economic reforms of perestroika call for a greater role for market mechanisms and even private enterprise. However, these policies often run up against a public opinion that is staunchly egalitarian. Public attitudes that are, on the one hand, critical of elite privileges and distrustful of the state distributive apparatus are also, on the other hand, supportive of centralised distribution of resources and limitations on high income.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 84.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Hardcover Book
USD 109.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Notes

  1. Robert Tucker, Philosophy and Myth in Karl Marx (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1961) pp. 18–19.

    Google Scholar 

  2. G. A. Cohen, Karl Marx’s Theory of History: A Defence Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978) p. 12

    Google Scholar 

  3. cited in Kai Nielsen, Marxism and the Moral Point of View (Boulder: Westview, 1989) p. 243.

    Google Scholar 

  4. Roy Medvedev, ‘Socialism, Justice and Democracy,’ in Ken Coates and Fred Singleton (eds), The Just Society (Nottingham: Spokesman, 1977) p. 16.

    Google Scholar 

  5. V. I. Lenin, Polnoe sobrane sochinenie (Moscow: Politizdat 1967–70) Vol. 36, p. 488.

    Google Scholar 

  6. V. G. Rogovin, ‘Sotsial’naya spravedlivost’ i sotsialisticheskoe raspredlenie zhiznennykh blag,’ Voprosy filosofii, No. 9 (1986) pp. 3–20; trans. in Soviet Sociology, Vol. 26, No. 3 (Winter 1987) p. 48.

    Google Scholar 

  7. M. P. Mchedlov, Socialist Society: Its Social Justice (Moscow: Progress, 1987) p. 13.

    Google Scholar 

  8. Vladimir Shlapentokh, Soviet Public Opinion and Ideology (New York: Praeger, 1986) p. 55.

    Google Scholar 

  9. Cited in Boris Krotikov, The 27th CPSU Congress: Discussions and Decisions (Moscow: Novosti, 1986) p. 25.

    Google Scholar 

  10. M. N. Rutkevich, ‘Sotsialisticheskaya spravedlivost’ ‘Sotsiologicheskie issledovaniya, No. 3 (1986) pp. 13–25; trans. in Soviet Sociology, Vol. 26, No. 3 (Winter 1987) pp. 52–66.

    Google Scholar 

  11. US Congress, Joint Economic Committee, The Soviet Economy in 1988: Gorbachev Changes Course (Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office, 1989) p. 41.

    Google Scholar 

  12. A. G. Zdravomyslov, ‘Novoe sotsial’no-politicheskoe myshlenie’, Rabochii klass i sovremennyi mir, No. 6 (1987) pp. 3–15; translated in Soviet Sociology, Vol. 27, No. 3 (1988) p. 41. ‘Sotsialisticheskaya’ p. 58. 15. Cited in Rutkevich.

    Google Scholar 

  13. In a speech to the CPSU Central Committee, Pravda (13 January 1988) pp. 1–3; translated in CDSP (10 February 1988) pp. 1ff.

    Google Scholar 

  14. Literaturnaya gazeta (19 February 1986); cited in Aaron Trehub, ‘Social Justice and Economic Progress’, Radio Liberty Research (RL 382/86) (7 October 1986) pp. 8–9.

    Google Scholar 

  15. G. S. Batygin, ‘Dobrodetel’ protiv interesa’, Sotsiologicheskie issledovanya, No. 3 (1987) pp. 24–36; trans. in Soviet Review, Vol. 30, No. 1 (January/February 1989) p. 36.

    Google Scholar 

  16. Mikhail Gorbachev, Political Report of the CPSU Central Committee to the 27th Party Congress (Moscow: Novosti, 1986) p. 59.

    Google Scholar 

  17. Janet Chapman, ‘Income Distribution and Social Justice in the Soviet Union’, Comparative Economic Studies, Vol. 31, No. 1 (1989) pp. 36–9.

    Google Scholar 

  18. Fyodor Burlatsky, ‘Learn Democracy’, Pravda (18 July 1987) p. 3, trans. in CDSP, Vol. 39, No. 29 (1987) p. 8.

    Google Scholar 

  19. Esther Fein, ‘In Lenin’s Classless Society’, New York Times (7 May 1989), pp. 1 and 8.

    Google Scholar 

  20. Yuri Levada, ‘Kakie rezursy segodnya ischerpany?’ in F. M. Borodkin et al. (eds), Postizhenie (Moscow: Progress, 1989) p. 81.

    Google Scholar 

  21. See Murray Yanowitch, Social and Economic Inequality in the Soviet Union: Six Studies (White Plains, N.Y.: M. E. Sharpe, 1977) p. 6.

    Google Scholar 

  22. T. I. Zaslavskaya, ‘Sotsial’nyi mekhanism ekonomiki’, Znanie-sila, No. 10 (1985) pp. 3–5; trans. in Soviet Sociology, Vol. 26, No. 2 (Autumn, 1987) pp. 35–6.

    Google Scholar 

  23. Cited in Walter Connor, Socialism’s Dilemmas: State and Society in the Soviet Bloc (New York: Columbia University Press, 1988) p. 127.

    Google Scholar 

  24. Cited in Robert E. Lane, ‘Market Justice, Political Justice’, American Political Science Review, Vol. 80, No. 2 (June 1986) p. 393.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  25. Vladimir Shlapentokh, Soviet Public Opinion and Ideology (New York: Praeger, 1986) p. 115.

    Google Scholar 

  26. Archie Brown, ‘Ideology and Political Culture,’ in S. Bialer (ed.), Politics, Society and Nationality Inside Gorbachev’s Russia (Boulder: Westview, 1989) pp. 31–2.

    Google Scholar 

  27. Leontii Byzov and Nikolai L’vov, ‘Perestroika: politicheskoe soznanie i sotsial’nye otnosheniya’, Vek XX i Mir (March 1989) pp. 15–16.

    Google Scholar 

  28. See Anthony Jones and William Moskoff, ‘New Cooperatives in the USSR’, Problems of Communism (November–December 1989) pp. 32–5.

    Google Scholar 

  29. Quoted in Aaron Trehub, ‘The Congress of People’s Deputies on Poverty’, Radio Liberty Research (16 June 1989) p. 6.

    Google Scholar 

  30. Shlapentokh, Public and Private Life of the Soviet People (New York: Oxford University Press 1989) p. 39.

    Google Scholar 

  31. Brian Silver, ‘Political Beliefs of the Soviet Citizen’, in James Millar (ed.), Politics, Work and Daily Life in the USSR: A Survey of Former Soviet Citizens (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987) p. 105.

    Google Scholar 

  32. Samuel Barnes, ‘Politics and Culture’ (Paper presented at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, March 1989) p. 28.

    Google Scholar 

  33. Peter Hauslohner, ‘Gorbachev’s Social Contract’, Soviet Economy, Vol. 3, No. 1 (1987) p. 83.

    Google Scholar 

  34. Aleksei Ulyukaev, ‘Restructuring: Who’s For it and Who’s Against it?’, Nedelya (2–8 May 1988); trans. in CDSP, Vol. 40, No. 21 (1988) pp. 18–19.

    Google Scholar 

  35. M. Gorbachev, ‘Democratiziation is the essence of restructuring and the essence of socialism’, Pravda (January 13 1988); trans. in CDSP, Vol. 40, No. 2 (1988) p. 4.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Authors
  1. David S. Mason
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Svetlana Sydorenko
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of California, Santa Cruz, USA

    Michael E. Urban (Associate Professor of Politics) (Associate Professor of Politics)

Copyright information

© 1992 International Council for Soviet and East European Studies, and Michael E. Urban

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Mason, D.S., Sydorenko, S. (1992). Perestroika, Social Justice and Public Opinion. In: Urban, M.E. (eds) Ideology and System Change in the USSR and East Europe. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-22328-2_5

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation