Why could no-one reform Communism?

The failure of Marxism-Leninism?

Objectives of Lesson

• Module trying to analyse transition to democracy

• Was communism as a political system driven by Marxism or Russian and Central European Traditions and social structures?

• How much did communism change?

• What will democratisation have to adapt to?

Stalinism

• Collectivisation of agriculture

• centrally planned state owned economy

• coercion/terror

• single vanguard party

• policy by ideology

Structures

Pa rty

Secreta ria t

G overnm ent

C ouncil o f Ministers

People

Presid ium , Suprem e Soviet

Politburo

PRESIDIUM post-STALIN

• MALENKOV Ch. C. of M.• Beria Min Internal Affairs• Molotov Min For. Aff• Voroshilov H of S• Khrushchev Party Sec• Bulganin MoD• Kaganovich Dep CofM• 3 other ministers

Cost benefit analysis of Stalin

• Strong sesnse of identity

• Education for all• social mobility• industrialisation• strong military• won WWII

• Deaths• Imprisonments• Intellectual stifling• Agricultural

bottleneck• Overcentralised• Consumers?• Ethnic minorities

1957 PRESIDIUM

• KHRUSHCHEV

• 8 PARTY SEC.

• USSR P.M. and Dep. P.M.

• RUSSIA P.M.

• H o S

• KAZAKHSTAN

• CENTRAL CONTROL COMMISSION

What was Khrushchev trying to do?

• Remove agricultural bottleneck

• machinery to farms; but mechanics left

• Normalise peasants as citizens

• invest; but at who’s expense?

• Foreign policy as bluff

• communism by 1980

• self-administration drive

Interests/Lobbies

• Military

• Heavy industry [“steeleaters”]

• Republics

• Party machine [apparatchiki]

• East Europe

• China

• non-ruling parties

Weak interests/lobbies

• Agriculture

• consumer/service industries

• intelligentsia

• diplomats

• broad party membership

• police?

• Navy pre-62

1966 Politburo

• Brezhnev Gen Sec

• Kosygin PM

• Podgorny HoS

• 3 CC secs [inc Suslov]

• party control

• Ukraine

• Russia

Attempts at reform

• Khrushchev 1957 sovnarkhozy• Kosygin 1966 “profitability”• Hungary 1956 revolt• Hungary post-56 New Econ Mechanism• Poland 1956 Gomulka• Poland 1970 Gierek and “Polski Fiat”• Czechoslovakia 1968• Poland and Solidarity

Why couldn’t USSR let reform happen?

• Security concerns• competition with China• ideological legitimacy• economic interdependence -who gained more?

Manufactured goods for cheap energy.• Brezhnev doctrine• Stupidity

Brezhnev crisis

• Stagnation• Gerontocracy• Corruption• Demography• Waste of foreign currency• Agricultural disaster• Overemployment• Irrational prices

Why did Gorbachov fail?

• Tried to carry out polit reform before econ.

• Nationalities problem

• democratising factories irrelevant

• didn’t appoint cronies

• tried to reform from below, not above

• Too much glasnost, not enough perestroika

• couldn’t abolish party privilege

Was communism reformable?

• China

• Yugoslavia

• Vietnam

• was it communism or Russia that was the problem

• Authoritarianism very successful in S.E.Asia

What would reformed communism have looked like?

• Single party plus market economy

• “guided democracy” [prob. Gorby’s aim]

• Revisionist vision

• Eurocommunist vision

• if it’s multi-party can it be communist?

• Don’t confuse Stalinism with communism