As Soviet Party Congress gathers: Where is Gorbachev going?

Labour Briefing no. 65, 22 June 1988, p. 14

Transcribed or corrected by hand from the printed page.

By-line as printed: Phil Hearse spoke to Oliver MacDonald, one of the editors of Labour Focus on Eastern Europe.

The forthcoming 19th Party Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) will be decisive for the future of Glasnost and Perestroika. To find out where Gorbachev is going, Phil Hearse spoke to Oliver MacDonald, one of the editors of Labour Focus on Eastern Europe.

What is Gorbachev's programme for the 19th Congress?

News is coming out in bits and pieces. It appears to comprise a new system of accountability inside the CP, some element of autonomy for the Soviets, and some element of the "Yugoslav" system of decentralised control of economic decisions, with the local Party apparatus taking a much more "back seat" role in economic administration.

My guess is that such reforms would make little difference to the political life of ordinary people in the Soviet Union, but would appeal greatly to the intelligensia and technocrats.

This "liberalisation" would still not anchor political decisions in any form of popular sovereignty. It will create big problems for the Leadership in the medium term, because it tends to destroy the myth of Party infallibility, without at the same time giving the masses the power to make their own decisions.

Can the Gorbachev liberalisation work in the long run?

It is not merely a question of what goes on in the Soviet Union, but of the whole Gorbachevite international project. Gorbachev needs international political space to enable his economic project to succeed.

He is saying that the world's major problems don't run down the divide between capitalist and non-capitalist states, or between the working class and the ruling classes of the world, and that therefore we can have a new era of co-operation, what you can call an "historic compromise on a world scale".

Will the international bourgeoisie accept this? Hogwash! For the world's capitalist ruling elites this kind of thing is a non-starter, which constrains Gorbachev from the outset.

On the other hand, we have to await the outcome of the struggle inside the Party and in Soviet society. In principle, it is not impossible for Gorbachev to score some economic successes. The really decisive thing for us is whether a left wing will emerge in this process.

Socialists in Britain should do everything possible to encourage this development, bearing in mind that the prospects for democracy and economic advance in the Soviet Union also depend on political events in the capitalist world.

If the Reagan-Thatcher offensive continues in the ascendant, the chance of there being political and economic space for Gorbachev's international project are slim, and this will rebound on his economic plans at home.

If, on the other hand, the capitalist right wing are pushed back internationally, then Gorbachevism could be more fully tested out, which could well lead to a crisis of the system at a later date, but with a more favourable balance of forces between the working class and the bureaucracy.

Some people are saying that Gorbachevism vindicates Isaac Deutscher's view that the Soviet system can be reformed, and that revolutionary change is not needed.

Isaac Deutscher's writings are vital for understanding the Soviet Union, but they don't lead to the conclusion that Gorbachev has the answers. One thing Deutscher stresses is that you have to understand the Soviet Union in terms of fundamental social forces and not take a sort of "Kremlinological" view.

I would counterpose Deutscher's political prognosis to Lukacs' view, just before his death, that only a qualitative break with the past will provide a solution.

For Marxists, "democracy" does not mean liberalism — formal democratic rights — although these are important. It means the rights of the mass or ordinary people to make fundamental decisions about the allocation of social wealth, the institutionalisation of mass popular power.

Economic liberalism always ends up undermining the economic wellbeing of the masses. But, paradoxically, its political expression always generates forces that want to go beyond mere formal political rights, into the economic sphere.

That's what happened in Europe, in the 1848 revolutions, which led Marx to develop his notion of "permanent revolution".

How does the Party bureaucracy respond to Gorbachev's plans?

There is a big divide. Some fear that liberalisation will create a dynamic for radical democratisation — or give rise to forces that favour it.

There are many bureaucrats who fear for their own positions and others who fear for the survival of Party institutions.

In confronting the Gorbachevites, the old Brezhnevites have the advantage of not wanting to attack the social gains of the working class. But we simply don't know the strength of the contending factions.

The Ligachev wing retains a strong base of support in the Party factory organisations. But this is not universal.

For example, when Yeltsin was overthrown there was a flood of protest in Sverdlosk in the Urals, where Yeltsin comes from. They had to close the post office because the flood of letters was so great.

How important is the national question in the Soviet Union?

Very important, because there are a number of unresolved national problems in the Soviet Unions, and because the Soviet occupation of Eastern Europe directly poses the national question.

The one thing the bureaucracy will never accept is any move out of the Soviet orbit by any nationality or Eastern European country. If it looked as if that was going to happen as a result of Glasnost, Gorbachev would be in serious trouble.

In light of recent events in the USSR, Poland, and Hungary, is there now a generalised crisis of the Eastern European system?

Yes, there's an historic crisis of the whole set-up. The social mechanisms of the Kruschev and Brezhnev period have fallen into decay. They gave the working class basic welfare and social security rights but with an absolute prohibition of any independent working class politics.

In the end, these mechanisms failed to deliver the goods economically. To get the economy going again, Gorbachev's wing of the bureaucracy has decided to introduce more freedom in intellectual life, market mechanisms, and more economic "rigour".

This means undermining some of the basic rights of the working class — for example, subsidised food, housing, transport, and above all guaranteed employment.

It also means a turn away from the seige economy first instituted by Stalin, towards more trade and co-operation with the advanced capitalist countries.

What does this mean in the international sphere?

Gorbachev and his team are trying to create a political balance of forces which will force the capitalist world to trade and co-operate on a reasonable basis. The problem for the Soviet leadership is that they have taken a series of actions (Hungary 56 and Czechoslovakia 68) which have done immense damage to the Soviet Union's support in working class movements.

So they must look elsewhere for support, and that means a deepening of a "popular frontist" international policy, a continuation of a policy started in the 1930s of developing relations with ruling class political forces.

Of course that doesn't mean that they will necessarily end all support for third world revolutions, which enable them to put pressure on imperialism. But if they find it convenient, they are quite capable, for example, of abandoning Nicaragua to its fate.

What are the internal tactics of the Gorbachev group?

Gorbachev's tactic is to try to create popular support for a trade off — more freedom (although within definite limits) in exchange for economic austerity.

This is reminiscent of the Dubcekites in Czechoslovakia. Gorbachev is trying to create a bloc of the intelligensia, the technocrats, and some sections of the working class. He also wants to downgrade the power of the Communist Party structures in the factories. While these were never independent organisations of the working class — far from it — they have acted as a channel for the transmission of working class discontent.

What does the Soviet Union gain from the INF deal? And why should the Americans be interested in this kind of deal?

Gorbachev has strengthened his position by showing that he can make deals with the US. As a symbol of the USSR's world role, the deal is politically useful both internally and externally.

The Soviet military regards the removal of Pershing missiles as a big victory. The numbers of missiles removed from each side is not the key; the key is the quality of the missiles.

Pershing missiles could hit Soviet targets in a few minutes and give the Soviet Leadership no time for a calculated response. So removing them is a big plus.

The INF deal has opened up a new political process with the West, notably new relations with West Germany.

Finally, the fact that the American Senate, in defiance of a very powerful domestic right wing, is prepared to ratify the INF deal shows a potential for new economic relations with the United States, and for the USSR that is vital.

The US hasn't abandoned its attempts to militarily and economically pressurise the Soviet Union, but it does so in a situation of declining US economic and political power.

With a new Soviet Leadership taking many initiatives, the US government has to respond. If it doesn't, then others, like the West Germans, will, and this affects the economic competition between Germany and the US.

transcribed from the page image, 4 Nov 2026 (Hearse/Lloyd follow-up); spelling as printed ("intelligensia", "seige economy", "Sverdlosk", "Soviet Unions", "Kruschev", "the rights of the mass or ordinary people"). Interview; the interviewer is named in the bold standfirst, which is kept as the opening paragraph (names given in normal case). Questions are printed in bold and kept so. Whole page is the piece; left out the 'International Briefing' page label and the two photo captions. Fully legible.