Ideological Transformation under Gorbachev: The Radical Intra-systemic Phase, 1987–90

Abstract

The three years between the enactment of the Law on the State Enterprise in June 1987 and the 28th Party Congress in July 1990 were the last great hurrah of Soviet socialism. During this period, the Gorbachev administration looked to revive the economy on the basis of a return to Leninist principles of democratic centralism prior to their ‘distortion’ under Stalin.¹ Realizing the futility of incremental change that left the command-administrative system unscathed, but unwilling as yet to embrace the market wholeheartedly, Gorbachev resorted to a fundamentalist approach in a last effort to solve the problem of labour productivity within the parameters of Soviet socialism. This phase of perestroika may properly be called ‘radical intra-systemic’, in that the regime sought to retain the essence of the Soviet socialist economic system while introducing important changes to existing operational practice. Although the idea of combining strategic direction of the economy by the centre with increased autonomy for enterprises was not new, the Law on the State Enterprise nevertheless initiated a new orthodoxy in Soviet labour ideology. In reemphasizing democratic centralism as the dominant principle of socialist economic management, the Law signalled the primacy of the incentive-humanistic approach to labour productivity.