A Window on Russia
The Lessons of Perestroika, 20 Years After
Gavril Popov
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Twenty years after Mikhail Gorbachev launched perestroika, many people have come to lament the slow pace of reform in Russia under President Vladimir Putin. But could it have been otherwise? This should not be a surprise, because the tumultuous Gorbachev and Yeltsin eras left the country exhausted. So who can blame Russians for suffering from the reform fatigue?
But if Russia is to get back on its feet, more reforms are needed. Yet before a new round of reforms is to begin, some basic principles about Russia's political capacities must be understood.
The first question that any would-be Russian reformer should ask nowadays (and which we did not ask during Gorbachev's perestroika) is the following, is society prepared to endure the short-term pains of reforms, and how willing it is to endure the pain?
The experience of perestroika underscores the importance of this question.
Perestroika took place at a unique moment in Russian history. The great reforms of the past, including the liberation of the serfs in 1861, followed many years of discussions among westerners, slavophiles, and others. The revolutions of 1905 and 1917 also came at a time when those discussions were finished, and everyone knew who stood for what.
Indeed, I once read that Stalin's appointment to his first key party post was a mistake. But it is still obvious that the entire party knew who Stalin was. When they entrusted him with responsibility for convening the constituent assembly, the Bolsheviks knew what they wanted to do with the constituent assembly, because they knew Stalin as a person who would not stop at anything.
Perestroika was different, because debate had not ended; indeed, countless debates were raging about what Gorbachev should do. Moreover, all previous eras of Russian reform eras and revolutions were connected with some historical model. Perestroika had no such historic precedent. The transformation from state socialism into a postindustrial society had never occurred anywhere else. Thus, perestroika took place in a void.
Alas, this experience is being repeated. Various political leaders of different political parties flash across Russia’s television screens, but there is no real national discussion about how to lead the country forward. We are not moving toward a choice reached after countless discussions.
The second lesson of perestroika concerns the program of reform. After two decades of earthshaking change, Russia has still not had a real program of constructive reform. To use a modern expression, we don’t have a road map. Practically everyone knows what is unacceptable, and what needs to be eliminated. But we simply don’t know what should replace things that are eliminated.
Of course, the exit from socialism was unprecedented. Much of what socialism built needed to be undone. But it was done using slogans, not a program of change that ordinary Russians could understand and embrace. All we have are endless arguments, not practical alternatives to discuss and decide upon.
One reason that Russia’s reform debates are so barren is the country’s lack of coherent political parties. During perestroika and the Yeltsin presidency, the legacy was a widespread hatred and fear of the Communist Party with all its force and power. This fear extended to all political parties and all in all blocked the desire to create powerful parties. But this suspicion of political parties as such meant that there was no organized body across the country committed to carrying out a consistent, well-thought-out reform program. Instead the reforms were decreed from high above, without having any grassroots support – and thus with no lasting durability.
All we had were direct appeals to the street and the masses rather than encouragement of a genuine social consensus. Such a direct method is the wellspring of authoritarianism. We must recognize that and understand that it emerges not only when the public is apathetic or frightened, but also when there is no apparent stable advanced guard, such as powerful political parties, which choose the leaders and control them.
As a result Russia now confronts a situation in which the election of the president is the only political issue. In reality, what Russia need are powerful independent social and political organizations that would say: in any presidential term the following things should be done to steer policy, thus making the question of who is president secondary. In this respect, Putin’s recent effort to assert tighter state control over private organizations is particularly worrisome.
But the final and most vital lesson of perestroika concerns the pace of reforms and society’s expectations. Simply put, the government must meet the people halfway. Yet it also cannot reduce reform to a nullity in order to ingratiate itself with the masses. This is a tricky road to pursue, but it is the only one worth taking.
Indeed, perestroika and the decade of reform that followed demonstrated that just following the formal structures of the Western democratic model isn’t enough if Russia is to see reform implemented consistently. For this model, as we have seen in Russia, leads to populist democracy and timid reform. The country needs a deeper commitment to reform that will come only when its institutions engage the Russian public in the sort of open debate that we have lacked. We must jettison populist democracy and embrace what democracy has always stood for—the engagement of all citizens in running their government.
Gavril Popov, a former Mayor of Moscow, is President of the International University in Moscow.
Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2005.
www.project-syndicate.org
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