Can Soviet Society Live With Democracy?

Since the early 1970s, Soviet historian Roy Medvedev has consistently argued--especially in his book “On Socialist Democracy” (Norton, 1977)--that only a gradual democratization of Soviet society, based on a “return” to Marxism-Leninism, could close the gap between the Soviet Union and the West.

In a notable 1973 essay called “On the Problem of Democratization and the Problem of Detente,” Medvedev asked whether international pressure on the Soviet Union promotes internal liberalization. His answer: not much, because domestic conditions were the greatest roadblock to internal Soviet reform. He pointed then, as now, to bureaucrats and administrators who are comfortable with the status quo, including their privileges. They have little incentive to change.

Since Medvedev compares the effects of Brezhnevism with those of Stalinism in his article on Page 1 of Opinion today, it is pertinent to compare broad policy trends under Nikita S. Khrushchev--Josef Stalin’s successor and the last reform-minded leader--with those under Mikhail S. Gorbachev. During the years 1953-1956, Khrushchev’s principal changes in Soviet political life were to subordinate the KGB to party authority and to encourage literary and artistic freedoms. Gorbachev does not have to worry about subordinating the KGB to the party; as Yuri V. Andropov’s former protege he has inherited the KGB as a basis of political support. On the other hand, Gorbachev is definitely supervising a literary “thaw,” mobilizing Soviet writers and film makers to help make his case for reform, encouraging them to use their images to criticize and redefine social reality. Between 1956 and 1960, Khrushchev’s most salient policies were the moral-political campaign to create a “new Soviet man” (which frequently meant Russifying other nationalities) and a series of judicial reforms under the umbrella of “new socialist legality.” Under Gorbachev, the Soviet Union now officially admits that the country’s nationality differences will outlive even class differences--a remarkable turnabout in Marxist thinking.

Although Gorbachev is not attempting to resurrect “new Soviet man” (whose native language would have been Russian), he is seeking to play down the political significance of nationality differences. Managing the political effects of the population explosion among non-Russians--especially the Muslim groups in central Asia--is potentially the thorniest long-term problem for the Soviet system.

A renovation of Khrushchev’s idea of “new socialist legality” (guaranteeing the observance of legal rights granted on paper) is not yet in evidence. However, it would seem important for realizing Medvedev’s conception of socialist democracy, which includes “the right of independent criticism, the right of free speech and opinions and the right of opposition.”

Under Khrushchev, some Soviet lawyers advocated the independence of the judiciary in order to guarantee the universality of that right. What makes this problem difficult is that the Soviet Union did not inherit from Czarist Russia a system of common law guaranteeing those rights, as did the Anglo-Saxon countries from Great Britain.

The Soviet judicial system, like the French one, insists on long preliminary criminal investigations to be sure that defendants will be brought to trial only if they are almost certainly guilty. Broader supervision of such investigations would seem necessary in order to circumvent the potential for abuse.

From 1960 to 1964, Khrushchev’s principal reforms were to bring technically trained personnel into policy-making and to institute wide-ranging organizational reforms. Clearly, Gorbachev has had some success in reorganizing the country’s central economic administration and in re-establishing competence and efficiency as criteria for job evaluation.

Medvedev, like other Soviet critics of Brezhnev’s political legacy, now points to the difference between people who cannot learn and people who do not wish to. The former can be simply replaced; the latter must be given incentives to alter attitudes and behavior. But as Medvedev himself noted in The Times last May, there are not yet enough well-trained technical personnel to go around who are motivated to do things in the new way. Khrushchev faced the same shortage.

What emerges, then, from Gorbachev’s speeches to the party’s Central Committee last week and from Medvedev’s analysis, is that Gorbachev is simultaneously pursuing selected reforms from all three phases of the Khrushchev era. For Medvedev, the question of political participation is key. This has received attention under Gorbachev, but only within the limited Soviet tradition of calling on the public to participate in carrying out proclaimed reforms. As Medvedev notes, the Soviet public has heard such calls come and go from other leaders and, before making the effort this time, people are waiting to see how transitory Gorbachev’s initiatives may prove to be.

So we may have to wait until the early 1990s before evaluating Gorbachev’s success in transforming the mood and temper of the Soviet populace. Meanwhile, his ability to overcome political obstructionism cannot be a measure of, but only a means to, his success in changing the way people think.

Medvedev’s commentary makes clear that political reconstruction in the Soviet Union does not require the Soviets to become like us. The ancients said that one must choose one’s adversary carefully, because one begins to emulate him. Then if the Soviets are lucky to have us for an adversary, we owe it to ourselves, therefore, not to adopt toward them the intolerance that we sometimes attribute to them.

Political reconstruction in the Soviet Union does not guarantee the disappearance of U.S.-Soviet tensions. But if, without abandoning our principles, we can appreciate changes in Soviet domestic policy under Gorbachev, then we should also be able to appreciate changes in Soviet foreign policy, again without abandoning those principles.