Polifics (1989) (9) 1 3-7 DEMOCRATIZING THE SOVIET STATE Stephen White THERE WERE two key issues involved in perestroika, Gorbachev told his audience on the 70th anniversary of the October Revolution in November 1987: the ‘democratization of all public life and a radical economic reform’. Economic reform, so far, has made little headway beyond plans and proclamations. But reform of the Soviet political system has been advancing at an accelerating pace since the plenary meetingof the CPSU Central Committee in January 1987. Addressing that meeting, Gorbachev made clear that economic reform was conceivable only in association with far reaching changes in the political system. Control ‘from above’ would remain, and even be strengthened; but it was likely to prove effective only when combined with control ‘from below’, based upon the widest possible popular participation. There were still ‘forbidden’ subjects, and officials who did their best to suppress criticism, and stagnation and corruption at leading levels of party and state. All of this, in Gorbachev’s view, argued the need for a ‘profound democratization’ of Soviet society, designed to ensure that ordinary people once again felt themselves to be masters of their own destinies. Gorbachev elaborated upon the reasons for these changes in subsequent speeches. Democratization, he told the Soviet trade union congress in February 1987, was a ‘guarantee against the repetition of past errors, and consequently a guarantee that the restructuring process is irreversible’. There was no choice - it was ‘either democracy or social inertia and conservatism’. The June 1987 Central Committee plenum agreed with his proposal that a party conference - the first for nearly 50 years - should be called in the summer of 1988 to consider further democratizing measures. In his address on the 70th anniversary of the revolution Gorbachev returned to the theme. Democratization, he told his audience, was ‘at the core of restructuring’ and upon it depended the fate ofperestroika and of socialism as a whole. The .changes already agreed represented the ‘biggest step in developing socialist democracy since the October revolution’; further change would concentrate particularly upon the Soviets, which must ‘completely live up to their name as sovereign and decision-making bodies’. The fullest statement to date of the General Secretary’s conception of democratization was his address to the 19th Party Conference in June 1988. Gorbachev called for ‘radical reform’ of the Soviet political system, not just ‘democratization’, and he regarded it as ‘crucial’ to the solution of all the other problems that faced Soviet society. The political system established by the October revolution, he told the Conference, had undergone ‘serious deformations’, leading to the development of ‘command-administrative’ rather than democratic systems of management. The role of the bureaucratic apparatus had ‘increased out of all proportion’ - there were, for instance, more than 100 central ministries and 800 in the republics - and this ‘bloated administrative apparatus’ had begun to dictate its will in political and economic matters. Many millions of working people, elected to state and non-state bodies, had been ‘removed from real participation in handling state and public affairs’. Public life had become unduly governmentalized, and ordinary working people had become ‘alienated’ from public ownership and management. It was this ‘ossified system of government’ that was now the main obstacle to perestroika. The Conference, after an extended debate remarkable for its plain speaking and lack of unanimity (see Tatu, 1988; White, 1988a), duly adopted a series of resolution calling for fuller democratization of Soviet society and reform of the political system. These proposals were carried further at Central Committee meetings in July and September, and led directly to a series of political reforms in November and December 1988. These established an entirely new electoral law and provided for changes in the Constitution designed to strengthen the rule of law and democratic procedures more generally. A new state structure was approved, which would come into being in the spring of 1989. New principles of political life were instituted, including a choice of candidate at elections and a full time working parliament, both for the first time in modern Soviet history. A constitutiqnal review commission was
Transcript
Polifics (1989) (9) 1 3-7
DEMOCRATIZING THE SOVIET STATE
Stephen White THERE WERE two key issues involved in perestroika, Gorbachev told his audience on the 70th anniversary of the October Revolution in November 1987: the ‘democratization of all public life and a radical economic reform’. Economic reform, so far, has made little headway beyond plans and proclamations. But reform of the Soviet political system has been advancing at an accelerating pace since the plenary meetingof the CPSU Central Committee in January 1987. Addressing that meeting, Gorbachev made clear that economic reform was conceivable only in association with far reaching changes in the political system. Control ‘from above’ would remain, and even be strengthened; but it was likely to prove effective only when combined with control ‘from below’, based upon the widest possible popular participation. There were still ‘forbidden’ subjects, and officials who did their best to suppress criticism, and stagnation and corruption at leading levels of party and state. All of this, in Gorbachev’s view, argued the need for a ‘profound democratization’ of Soviet society, designed to ensure that ordinary people once again felt themselves to be masters of their own destinies.
Gorbachev elaborated upon the reasons for these changes in subsequent speeches. Democratization, he told the Soviet trade union congress in February 1987, was a ‘guarantee against the repetition of past errors, and consequently a guarantee that the restructuring process is irreversible’. There was no choice - it was ‘either democracy or social inertia and conservatism’. The June 1987 Central Committee plenum agreed with his proposal that a party conference - the first for nearly 50 years - should be called in the summer of 1988 to consider further democratizing measures. In his address on the 70th anniversary of the revolution Gorbachev returned to the theme. Democratization, he told his audience, was ‘at the core of restructuring’ and upon it depended the fate ofperestroika and of socialism as a whole. The .changes already agreed represented the ‘biggest step in developing socialist democracy since the October revolution’; further change would concentrate particularly upon the Soviets, which must ‘completely live up to their name as sovereign and decision-making bodies’.
The fullest statement to date of the General Secretary’s conception of democratization was his address to the 19th Party Conference in June 1988. Gorbachev called for ‘radical reform’ of the Soviet political system, not just ‘democratization’, and he regarded it as ‘crucial’ to the solution of all the other problems that faced Soviet society. The political system established by the October revolution, he told the Conference, had undergone ‘serious deformations’, leading to the development of ‘command-administrative’ rather than democratic systems of management. The role of the bureaucratic apparatus had ‘increased out of all proportion’ - there were, for instance, more than 100 central ministries and 800 in the republics - and this ‘bloated administrative apparatus’ had begun to dictate its will in political and economic matters. Many millions of working people, elected to state and non-state bodies, had been ‘removed from real participation in handling state and public affairs’. Public life had become unduly governmentalized, and ordinary working people had become ‘alienated’ from public ownership and management. It was this ‘ossified system of government’ that was now the main obstacle to perestroika.
The Conference, after an extended debate remarkable for its plain speaking and lack of unanimity (see Tatu, 1988; White, 1988a), duly adopted a series of resolution calling for fuller democratization of Soviet society and reform of the political system. These proposals were carried further at Central Committee meetings in July and September, and led directly to a series of political reforms in November and December 1988. These established an entirely new electoral law and provided for changes in the Constitution designed to strengthen the rule of law and democratic procedures more generally. A new state structure was approved, which would come into being in the spring of 1989. New principles of political life were instituted, including a choice of candidate at elections and a full time working parliament, both for the first time in modern Soviet history. A constitutiqnal review commission was
4 STEPHES WHITE
established as a step towards what Gorbachev called a ‘socialist system of checks and balances’. And these were just the first in a whole series of legislative measures which were later to extend to the republics, local government, the press and trade unions. What, first of all, is the precise nature of these changes? And what significance do they have?
Reforming the Political System
The political reforms that have now been agreed include, in the first place, an entirely new electoral law, approved on 1 December (text in Pruada, 4 December 1988, pp 1-3). The faults of the existing system were apparent not just to outside observers but also, and increasingly, to Soviet citizens themselves. Most obviously, perhaps, there was no choice of candidate, still less of party or programme. At the last national elections, in March 1984, not even this degree of choice obtained as one of the nominated candidates died just before the poll, leaving the remaining l49!3 candidates to fight it out for the 1500 seats available (White, 1985). Not all the candidates were party members, but they faced the electorate as a single slate of ‘Communists and non-party people’ and there was not the slightest differentiation among them in terms of programme or priorities.
Another very obvious fault was the way in which the deputies were nominated - only a small number of party controlled organizations had this right - and the ‘crude modelling’ of the list of candidates so that it conformed to certain centrally specified guidelines. This ‘modelling’ could be alarmingly precise. One local official, for instance, told Izvesfiyu what his ‘programme’ was in this respect: he was to ensure that 4.6 per cent of the successful candidates were enterprise directors, 1.1 per cent were to be employed in culture and the arts, and 45.9 per cent were to be returned for the first time. In another instance, reported by an emigre source, a notorious prostitute had to be returned as she was the only person in the constituency who satisfied the relevant criteria: female, aged between 35 and 40, unmarried, and a factory worker (White, 1988b). Apart from this, too few deputies lived or worked in the area they were supposed to represent, and the actual vote was a highly formalistic exercise in which electors had to do no more than drop their ballot paper, unmarked and even unread, into the box to record a vote in favour of the single list of candidates.
There had been expressions of dissatisfaction with these arrangements for some time and Gorbachev, in his speech to the 27th Party Congress in February 1986, promised that the ‘necessan correctives’ would be made. A limited experiment took place in the local elections in June 1987, by which more candidates were nominated than seats available in about 1 per cent of all constituencies (see IVhite, 1988b; Hahn, 1988). The new electoral law, published in draft in Praoda on 23 October and adopted in final form on 1 December 1988, makes these practices universal. The right to nominate has been extended to electors’ meetings of 500 or more; and an unlimited number of candidates may be nominated. Deputies must ‘as a rule’ live or work in the area they represent, and they cannot hold governmental posts at the same time (what Soviet l a y e r s have called the ‘principle of incompatability’). They must also present a ‘programme of their future activity’ and have the right to appoint up to ten campaign staff. Elettors, for their part, will have to pass through a voting booth and must cast an ‘active’ rather than a ‘passive’ vote by marking the ballot paper in line with their preferences, even if (exceptionally) there is just a single candidate.
The process of political reform has also extended to the Soviet state. The central objective here is ‘all power to the Soviets’, and more generally a shift of political authority from party to state institutions, The Soviets, it is argued, served as the basis of a system of genuine socialist democracy during the revolutionary years, but very soon afterwards fell prey to bureaucratization and over detailed regulation by party committees. One problem was the often honorific character of membership of the Soviets. In the Supreme Soviet elected in 1984, one writer calculated, up to 39 per cent of the deputies were represented by virtue of the public position they occupied. They were balanced by large numbers of manual workers, leaving very few deputies to represent the white collar professions. Would it be so bad, the writer asked, if there were fewer milkmaids and party secretaries in the new Supreme Soviet,
DEMOCR4TIZISG THE SOVIET ST.\TE 5
but rather more popular and articulate economists, historians, actors and writers? (I.vest[ya, 29 April 1988, p 3).
Another contribution to the discussion came from three prominent jurists, Barabashev, Sheremet and Vasil’ev, writing in the leading journal, Soviel State and Law. Surveys, they noted, had found low levels of satisfaction with the work of the Soviets, and even deputies themselves appeared to be unsure of their own usefulness. There had been encouraging signs recently such as the criticism and amendment of legislation that had taken place in the Supreme Soviet, ‘probably for the first time in its history’, in the summer of 1987. But deputies were allowed access to legislation only in its final stages, and the brevity of Supreme Soviet sessions was such that even the annual plan and budget could hardly be seriously discussed. The situation at lower levels was much the same, with local Soviets limiting themselves very largely to the formal approval of decisions taken beforehand by the executives (Barabashev et al, 1988). According to the jurist Boris Kurashvili, writing in the party theoretical journal Kommunist in May 1988, nothing less was needed than ‘Soviet parliamentarianism’, backed up by a separation of powers, a constitutional court and a system of smaller, full time Soviets staffed by salaried politicians (Kurashvili, 1988).
A number of these proposals found favour in Gorbachev’s speech to the 19th Party Conference a month later, and have again found reflection in the package of constitutional amendments that was approved by the Supreme Soviet on 1 December 1988 after some weeks of public discussion. These have established a Committee of Constitutional Supervision (not quite a court) to monitor the legality ofgovernment actions. Judges are to be elected by higher level Soviets and are to hold office for ten rather than five years at a time in order to strengthen their independence and contribute to the development of a ‘socialist law-based state’, an important new concept first elaborated by Gorbachev in May 1986 (Pravda, 11 May 1988, p 5; for further discussion see Kudryavtsev and Lukasheva, 1988). Soviets at all levels are to be elected for five year terms rather than for two and a half years at a time; and government officials are to hold office for two five year terms at the most, and may be recalled at any time if those who elect them decide accordingly (for the full text of the Constitutional amendments see Pravdu, 3 December 1988, pp 1-3).
The centrepiece of the new changes, however, was undoubtedly the formation of an entirely new representative body, the Congress of People’s Deputies, which was based in turn upon the Congress of Soviets that had exercised governmental authority in the 1920s and 1930s. The Congress of People’s Deputies is to be elected by the population at large in three different ways. Ordinary constituencies will return 750 members as before; national territorial areas such as the union republics will continue to return a total of 750 members; and they will be joined by a wholly new group of deputies, again 750 in number, who will be elected by a wide range of nationally based organizations, including the Communist Party, the trade unions, and women’s councils. The Congress of People’s Deputies, which is to meet annually from 1989 onwards, will in turn elect from its membership a much smaller Supreme Soviet of 542 members, a fifth of whom retire annually, which is to meet for two three or four month sessions every year. The Congress will also elect to an entirely new post, the Chairmanship of the USSR Supreme Soviet, which will normally be combined with the party leadership (similar arrangements will apply at lower levels).
The Communist Party has itself undergone a process of political reform, the substance of which was agreed at the 19th Party Conference in mid-1988. The central thrust of these changes was, as Kommunist put it in an editorial in January 1988, that there should be a kind of ‘division of labour’ in which the party would stand aside from direct management of the economy and exercise a much more general coordinating role. The discussion that preceded the Conference saw very widespread support for changes of this kind. There were calls, for instance, for party officials to spend more time working with ordinary people and less time in their offices, and for more frequent conferences of this kind (see White, 1988b; Hill, 1988). The most widely supported proposals, however, concerned democratic change in the party’s own organization. There should, for instance, be a choice of candidate at all elections to party office, and positions of this kind should be held for a limited period. There might even be age
6 STEPHEN WHITE
limits, such as 65 for Politburo and Secretariat members. More should be known about the party’s finances. And there should be changes in the party’s bureaucracy: it should be smaller, and less obviously duplicate the ministerial structure.
Most of these themes found a place in Gorbachev’s speech at the Party Conference on 28 June 1988 mute ria!^, 1988). Democratic centralism within the party, he complained, had become bureaucratic centralism. The rank and file had lost control over the leaderships that spoke in their name; and an atmosphere of comradeship had been replaced by one of commands and instructions. The Conference agreed that the party’s whole existing membership should be reaccredited, so that the unworthy and inactive should be removed from its ranks. A less ‘bureaucratic’ approach to membership was to be adopted, with more emphasis being placed upon the personal qualities of new recruits rather than upon their social background. Central Committee members, it was agreed, must also be involved in a more regular way in the work of the leadership, and this has now been provided for with the formation of six new CC commissions covering party affairs, ideology, the economy, agriculture, international affairs and law reform (Pruvdu, 1 October 1988, p 1; the members were listed in ibid, 29 November 1988, pp 1-2). Party officials, moreover, like their state counterparts, are to be elected by secret ballot from a choice of candidates, and are to hold ofice for no more than two five year terms in a row.
A New Soviet Politics? It is, of course, much too soon to be sure of the impact of this far reaching package of
political reforms. Quite apart from what the legislation actually provides, the manner in which these new procedures are implemented will make a decisive difference to the outcome; and wider processes of change, including the strengthening influence of informal groups and the scale of nationalist unrest, will make a further contribution. There is, however, already room for both an ‘optimistic’ and a ‘pessimistic’ assessment.
In the first of these interpretations a process of political change has been set in motion which has already provided the USSR, for perhaps the first time in its history, with a set of political institutions capable of expressing a wide range of popular aspirations and focusing them upon the conduct of government. The new full time Supreme Soviet, in particular, will scrutinize legislation much more closely than any of its predecessors. There will probably be several readings of each bill, as in most parliamentary systems, and debates are likely to reflect a variety of points of view including those of religious organizations, who will be represented for the first time. Deputies, emerging as they do from a popular struggle for the people’s vote, are likely to press the interests of their constituents more vigorously than in the past, and there will certainly be divided votes - indeed these have already begun to occur.
The experience of previous Soviet reforms, however, suggests that there may also be room for a more cautious judgement (see also Amot, 1988). The new electoral law, for instance, has opened up the political process to a wide variety of groups, but a constituency meeting will have to take place before candidates are placed on the ballot paper and particularly controversial choices are likely to be removed at this stage. There will be no choice of party; political diversity will have to limit itself t3 what Gorbachev has called a ‘socialist pluralism of opinions’; and all candidates will have to accept the existing Constitution and laws (surely, as some writers commented in the press, they might reasonably wish to challenge at least some of them?) The new post of Chairman of the USSR Supreme Soviet, combined as it is with the party leadership, even raises the possibility of the revival of the dominance of a single leader. And the Soviet public, for so long accustomed to decisions made on their behalf, may in the end fail to take advantage of the opportunities that now lie before them. ‘Optimists’ will hope that these recent reforms mark the inception of a new and genuinely democratic socialism; ‘pessimists’ will want to see such changes taking place before they believe in them.
Notc
ESRC support in the preparation of this paper is gratefully acknowledged.
DEMOCRATIZING THE SOVIET STATE 7
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