Resistance Alters Gorbachev’s Tune

No one ever promised Mikhail S. Gorbachev that reforming the Soviet Union would be easy. Opposition to his effort to establish joint ventures with foreign ownership indicates just how difficult his task is. The more far-reaching the change, the more determined the resistance becomes. At the same time, the further Gorbachev goes, the more those in favor of reform want him to go even further.

Evidently all this is beginning to wear on Gorbachev. He has begun to deny publicly that he has political opposition; instead, he suggests, some of the doubts about the ultimate success of his reforms are inventions of Western Sovietologists.

Because it seemed like the fastest and cheapest way to transfer and keep abreast of advanced technology, Gorbachev decided to reverse almost 50 years of Soviet dogma and authorize the formation of joint ventures with capitalist corporations. In the past the Soviet Union purchased technology outright. But, more often than not, this costly technology was used poorly. Equally distressing, Soviet engineers found it difficult to upgrade their newly acquired technology so that it kept pace with advances in the outside world. To Gorbachev, it made sense to allow foreigners to acquire up to 49% ownership interest in such projects. This way the foreigners, not the Soviets, would pay for the technology, and as continuing owners they would do all that they could to ensure that it kept pace with technology in the West.

Unfortunately for Gorbachev, it is not enough just to issue a decree authorizing joint ventures, as he did in January. There are major issues to overcome before these joint ventures come into being. For example, before Western investors commit themselves, they must know that they will be able to have control over quality, to import needed machinery and components, to select quality workers and components from within the Soviet Union at a reasonable cost and to repatriate their profits in Western currency.

It turns out that the Soviet side has similar concerns, and they are being pressed by those who oppose joint ventures because it seems to involve the reintroduction of capitalism to the Soviet Union--an ideological heresy--as well as by those who fear that the capitalists will take advantage of the Soviet Union and exploit it. As these officials see it, the capitalists are not interested in increasing Soviet exports; all they want is access to the Soviet domestic market and its cheap labor for their low technology. If this is all that will result from joint ventures, these Soviet bureaucrats worry, some day they will be the ones ultimately held accountable, particularly if Gorbachev should change his mind about the wisdom of joint ventures or even if Gorbachev should pass from the scene.

Just such concerns evidently explain why Yuri Dryomov, the newly appointed head of the Joint Venture Department in the Ministry of Foreign Trade, wrote an article in the English-language Moscow News that did all that it could to sabotage some of the most promising joint-venture initiatives. It was like discovering that the fire chief is an arsonist. Dryomov had virtually nothing positive to say about the joint ventures proposed so far. Instead, he attacked specific Japanese and Western proposals because, as he saw it, they involved low and obsolete, not high and advanced, technology. If they had their way, he wrote, the Japanese would involve the Soviet Union in making vinegar from rice and yogurt from soybeans, which is neither very important for the Soviet Union nor exportable.

Dryomov went on to complain that some Western companies wanted to foist chemical herbicides on the Soviet Union while the Western world was switching to biological means of crop protection. But his most savage attack was on an unnamed manufacturer of copying machines. He accused the manufacturer of trying to dump obsolete technology onto the Soviet Union while compelling the government to build an equally obsolete special paper-producing factory that would cost the country half a billion dollars.

What makes this criticism more interesting than usual is that, as part of the glasnost policy, the copying machine company, which turned out to be Britain’s Rank Xerox, was given a chance to counterattack in a long interview in a subsequent edition of the same newspaper. Both the article and its editorial tone left Dryomov looking like a petty, ill-informed, old-fashioned obstructionist.

If Gorbachev is to succeed, he must win over his bureaucrats and induce them to show initiative. He knew that he would face opposition, and for months he spoke openly of it. But now he seems to sense that the opposition is more entrenched than he anticipated. This may explain why he has contradicted himself lately, acknowledging that there is resistance to his reform effort but denying that he has political opposition.

In seeking a scapegoat for his lack of progress, Gorbachev has begun to blame outsiders. In a remarkable speech earlier last month he complained that some Sovietologists in the West “want to sow doubt regarding the practicability of our plans.” These Sovietologists, Gorbachev charged, seek to sabotage Soviet efforts at reform by asserting that “restructuring in our country is a half-measure, that it is not revolutionary enough, not effective enough.” Gorbachev is correct: Most Sovietologists do feel that his program has so far not been effective enough. The incident with Rank Xerox illustrates the point. If those selected to implement his reforms obstruct them, his efforts are doomed. Glasnost will help to unmask the problem, but in itself will not solve it.