THE NEED FOR FUNDAMENTAL REFORM in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe is well recognised; so too are the problems of transition to a market economy.1 Nowhere is this more evident than in the USSR, which is under pressure from Western governments and lenders to harden and accelerate economic reforms. Great problems exist in respect of a need for major capital investment, the development of managerial and entrepreneurial skills, the extent and nature of acceptable foreign ownership and the form that privatisation of state-owned assets is to take. Key roles are assigned to Western assistance, such as business-related training and various forms of direct financial investment.2 The applicability of privatisation experience in the West has also been addressed.3 In 1991 the privatisation of state enterprises in Central and Eastern Europe is underway and is spreading to include the USSR, although progress is being slowed by a variety of implementational and institutional problems. Commentators are also particularly divided on the issue of whether the process of privatisation should be gradual, to avoid social collapse, or rapid, to prevent the opponents of reform from gathering their powers of obstruction.4 An important form of privatisation in the West, especially for small and medium-sized enterprises, has been employee and management buy-outs. The definition of a buy-out (BO) is necessarily vague and subjective. A management buy-out (MBO) occurs when incumbent managers acquire a controlling interest in the firm that employed them, and an employee buy-out (EBO) exists when a controlling interest is acquired by employees outside the management. Unlike the labour co-operative, all BOs retain an element of vertical control by a management team.
(1992). Socialism, democratism and criticism: The Soviet press and the national discussion of the 1936 draft constitution. Soviet Studies: Vol. 44, No. 2, pp. 313-332.
Introduction: the intelligentsia and its ethos DURING POLAND'S PERIOD OF TRANSITION from the initial 1989 electoral contest up to the 1991 parliamentary campaign, the intelligentsia component of the collapsing Solidarity coalition made three bids to achieve political domination. The aim of this paper is to explore the nature of these bids for power and the role that they played in the transition. The importance of the intelligentsia for the development of Polish society notwithstanding, attempts to define the milieu precisely have always been problematic. Although works that focused on defining some specific subcomponent of this extremely diverse milieu did offer a partial portrait, nonetheless, such an approach traditionally posed the danger of 'not seeing the forest for the trees'. Namely, focusing, for example, on either some element of the 'old', 19th century intelligentsia, or later, its artistic, technical, academic, Polish-Jewish, Eastern,
(1992). Ethnic dimensions in contemporary Latvian politics: Focusing forces for change. Soviet Studies: Vol. 44, No. 4, pp. 609-639.
(1992). The Soviet hyperinflation: Its origins and impact throughout the former republics. Soviet Studies: Vol. 44, No. 5, pp. 739-759.
AN AFTER-EFFECT OF WORLD WAR II was the birth of new states in Asia and Africa. States were also established during the war, but puppet formations of the type of Slovakia and Manchukuo were swept into oblivion as soon as the regimes in whose bosom they had been born were defeated. At the same time there were states that disappeared in World War II. This is a phenomenon that has not been sufficiently discussed, for the disappearance was due to actions by one of the winners of the war-Stalin's Russia. Above all it concerns the three Baltic States, members of the League of Nations-Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, whose incorporation into the Soviet Union in 1940 was not recognised by the free world. It was largely thanks to this circumstance that they managed to regain their independence in the course of reforms initiated by Gorbachev in 1990-91. Another factor that contributed was historical memory-the fate of the independent (1918-40) Baltic states has been mentioned in all reliable publications on World War II.
IN A RECENT ISSUE of Soviet Studies, Robert Whitesell reviewed a number of econometric and statistical studies of the allocative efficiency of the Soviet economy and concluded that this body of work supports the conclusion that 'some aspects of the Soviet economy may be allocatively efficient relative to market economies'.' This startling assertion that the economy of the USSR is allocatively efficient, perhaps more so than that of developed market economies such as the United States, has drawn a perceptive and effective rebuttal from Alec Nove, who points out many types of allocative inefficiency not covered by the econometric studies.2 Nevertheless, Nove's reply does not resolve the central methodological and intellectual issue, namely, if indeed the Soviet economy is inefficient, then why does Whitesell's review of the econometric and statistical evidence lead to the opposite conclusion. I argue here that it is not a matter of poor modelling or bad data, or simply that modern economic theory has no use in the study of the Soviet
heavily dependent upon perspectives of a post-Stalinist and largely Western origin. This is due, in part, to the proleptic nature of much of the Western literature on the economic ideas of this period. For Erlich,1 whose pioneering work on the 1920s has greatly influenced subsequent interpreters, the most interesting and significant aspect of the debate was what he regarded as its 'anticipation' of the developments in economic theory which came to form the corpus of Western development economics some 20 years later. His principal task was to discover in these controversies ideas which, when stripped of their 'outlandish garb',2 would be recognised by his contemporaries. This forwardlooking approach to interpretation has been particularly evident in the discussion of the ideas of Bukharin. Cohen and Lewin,3 though less interested in economic ideas than Erlich, were primarily concerned to emphasise the 'anticipations' and 'premonitions' of subsequent versions of market socialism in Bukharin's thought. The economic ideas of the protagonists of the 1920s, however, cannot be reconstructed in modern terms without considerable loss of meaning, and the prevalence of anticipatory readings of Bukharin has, as I argue, led to an exaggeration of the cogency, as well as the contemporary relevance, of his ideas. Much of Bukharin's appeal derives from the belief that he, more than his opponents, stood for the principles of the market and that his defence of the market was bound up with his greater sensibility to the need for an economic strategy which preserved the economic interlinkages or balances in the economy which the NEP had been introduced to establish. Bukharin's concern, which is apparent in his writing throughout the 1920s, with the concepts of equilibrium, balance and proportionality is often taken as evidence for this view and Bukharin's position is contrasted with the supposed voluntarism of his opponents. Moreover, for Bukharin, equilibrium implied more than economic equilibrium but stood also for social equilibrium. He viewed the market as inherently benign in the sense that market relations between town and country, which provided the basis for maintaining the necessary economic balances, also provided the framework for maintaining harmonious social relations between the workers and peasants. Preobrazhensky's call for unequal exchange and the exploitation of the peasants was evidence, for Bukharin, not only of Preobrazhensky's disregard for the worker peasant alliance but also of his disregard for the need to maintain
(1992). Soviet provincial politics in an era of transition and revolution, 1989–91. Soviet Studies: Vol. 44, No. 3, pp. 479-509.
STUDIES OF THE 1923-24 Opposition within the Russian Communist Party have tended to focus on the activities and pronouncements of the opposition leadership.' Little attention has been given to the views of the opposition's rank and file supporters. Yet the party discussion of December 1923-January 1924 provides ample material for an examination of the rank and file in terms of their numerical strength, social composition and political concerns. In this respect it is necessary to establish the level and social make-up of opposition support and to suggest why it should have been that the opposition was more strongly supported in certain areas (among students, members of the Komsomol and within the military) than others (among industrial workers). The very use of materials from the party discussion forces a certain Moscowcentric bias. It is only from the reports of the activities of the Moscow party organisation that it is possible to gauge the concerns of the party rank and file. While Pravda printed complete resolutions from meetings of party cells in Moscow, its reports from other localities tended to be at second hand and, whilst giving an indication of the way various cells were voting, they give little evidence about the real opinions of cell members. Equally, Moscow was the main centre of attention for both protagonists in the discussion. It was to meetings of the Moscow cells that orators from both the Central Committee majority and the opposition addressed themselves. Moscow seems to have been the liveliest base of the discussion. Few reports came from the other urban centres, except from Petrograd, where it seems the Zinoviev party machine had been successful in keeping the debate within strict limits.
IN 1991 THE LENINIST PERIOD of Russian history ended with the suspension and subsequent abolition of the Communist Party and its ejection from power after seven decades in which it had ruled the country without serious challenge.1 It says much, however, for the complexity of Lenin that the overthrow followed changes carried out at his own, as it were, posthumous instigation. The perestroika reformers had rejected beliefs, attitudes and practices hitherto regarded as Leninist, but not of course the dominant position of Lenin's party, and they had aimed to ease the metamorphosis of an absolutist party into a democratically elected one by using the talismanic powers of Lenin. Democratising in the name of Lenin required, however, a fundamental re-evaluation of ideology and of Lenin himself, and the reformers' success in carrying this through was reflected in opinion surveys which suggested that most people saw democratisation as corresponding to Lenin's ideas and that among party workers Lenin now inspired reformist activity rather than acted as a deterrent to it.2 The later problems of perestroika should indeed not obscure the remarkable achievements of the leadership between 1985 and 1990. During this period the CPSU dictatorship was dissolved, an embryonic parliamentary democracy and multi-party system came into being, and Marxism-Leninism was displaced in all but name by a version of social democracy. Lenin's sanction was indispensable to all these achievements. He had always validated the policies of the current leadership, and his validation was all the more needed now for what was not only a change of course but an entire new strategic orientation. Yet if the reformers needed Lenin in order to set the country on a radical trajectory, they needed him just as much to ensure that the trajectory did not become so radical that it got out of control. If Lenin performed a liberating role in relation to the party's conservatives, his function in relation to a broad population now beginning to feel the effects of democratisation had, by contrast, to be a restraining and stabilising one. For the reformers faced a delicate task in wanting to repudiate half a century of misrule by the party without sacrificing its right to be regarded as the main, if not sole legitimate, expression of popular will. If exposure of the 'deformations' of socialism was not to undermine faith in socialism and its instrument, something unqualifiedly good had to replace what was being rejected, and that something could only be Leninist socialism and Lenin himself.3 Before the end of 1990, however, it had become clear that the attempt to transform Lenin's party into a party of the social-democratic type still benefiting from the charisma of Lenin was running into serious difficulty. Left-wing criticism that Lenin's democratic credentials were fictive-a fig-leaf with which the
(1992). Between Perestroika and privatisation: Divided strategies and political crisis in a Soviet enterprise. Soviet Studies: Vol. 44, No. 3, pp. 371-402.
"A note on the winter of the Kronstadt sailors' uprising in 1921." Soviet Studies, 44(1), pp. 153–154
STOPPING INFLATION is one of the most important problems of centrally planned economies in transition. In contrast with some other East European countries, there was no hyperinflation in Hungary, but the collapse of CMEA trade and the liberalisation of economic activity were followed by deepening recession and increasing inflation. Stabilisation generally requires tight money. This is true in Eastern Europe as well.1 Yet the literature has paid little attention to the effect of the available instruments of monetary policy in an underdeveloped financial and monetary system such as exists in Eastern Europe. In this article these problems will be analysed with application to Hungary. First, I outline the state of stabilisation and achievements of monetary policy in Hungary. Then I analyse the tools of monetary policy and its theoretically expected effects. In respect of expected economic events it is very important to make clear whether the monetary policy was in fact restrictive. Finally, I return to analyse savings, fiscal policy and exchange rate policy as factors determining monetary policy's possibilities. The objective of this study is to show that the instruments of monetary policy that have been applied till now are suitable mainly in the short run and are becoming less and less able to influence the money supply processes. Therefore the Hungarian stabilisation is quite fragile. Previous results will not be sustainable without favourable exogenous conditions or widening of monetary policy instruments.
(1992). Foreign debt, debt management policy and implications for Hungary's development. Soviet Studies: Vol. 44, No. 6, pp. 997-1013.
(1992). The Soviet decision for a Pact with Nazi Germany. Soviet Studies: Vol. 44, No. 1, pp. 57-78.
