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Perestroika vs. Reform: The Radicalization of Gorbachev
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16321 |
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Section : |
MODERN THOUGHT
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| Issue
Date : |
3 / 1989 |
9,409 Words |
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Rolf H.W. Theen
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With M.S. Gorbachev, a new word has entered the vocabulary of politics and Soviet studies: perestroika. This umbrella concept of the Gorbachev administration has been variously translated as "reorientation," "reorganization," and most commonly, "restructuring." As events have unfolded in the Soviet Union since the spring of 1985, there is increasing reason to believe that our understanding of perestroika may well fall short of the full scope and significance of what has been transpiring in the Soviet Union since Gorbachev came to power. At the very least, it seems to me, we do not appreciate the full sweep of the changes to which Gorbachev now seems committed. For the most part, we tend to conceptualize what has been happening in the Soviet Union under Gorbachev as yet another effort to institute "reforms"; that is, limited changes that would leave the essential parameters of the Soviet system intact. A good deal of evidence, however, suggests that what Gorbachev has in mind goes far beyond what is ordinarily encompassed by the term reform: his aims may be much better described as "a revolution in the making."
This paper seeks to accomplish three purposes: (1) to argue that the concept of reform does not adequately reflect the full scope and significance of the changes that by now have come to inhere in the concept of perestroika, at least as defined by Gorbachev; (2) to explore the radicalization of the views of the architect of perestroika during his tenure in office; and (3) to analyze some of the implications of this radicalization and the still-expanding meaning of perestroika.
Perestroika vs. Reform
When in the mid-nineteenth century Alexander II, the czar-liberator, agreed to a "revolution from above to avoid one from below," he initiated what came to be known in Russian historiography as the "epokha velikikh reform"; that is, the Epoch of the Great Reforms. Even in autocratic Russia and well before the 1917 Revolution, therefore, the Russian language included a perfectly good and accepted equivalent of the English term reform. Why then Gorbachev's clear preference for the longer and slightly more awkward term perestroika? (restructuring) over the smoother and internationally more readily acceptable term "reforma" (reform)? It is possible, of course, that the choice of the Russian term perestroika over the Latin-derived word reforma was wholly fortuitous. But since we are talking about the umbrella concept of Gorbachev's political program and administration, this seems hardly likely. As a matter of fact, there are a number of plausible reasons that may explain the
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