Democratic Palestine : 26 (ص 33)
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- Democratic Palestine : 26 (ص 33)
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Soviet Union, 1917 - 1987
Leninism, Glasnost and Socialist Renewal
Seventy years ago, the October Revolution made history by founding
the world’s first socialist state. As we celebrate this anniversary, the
Soviet people and party are not simply resting on their laurels. Quite
the contrary, they are engaged in a renewed revolutionary process
under the twin banners of glasnost (openness) and_perestroika
(restructuring).
Most immediately, the new policy
appears as a creative response to the
problems which surfaced in the Soviet
economy in the late seventies and early
eighties. However, the implications of
socialist renewal go much deeper, in-
volving the political, social, cultural
and theoretical spheres as well. This
becomes obvious if we view glasnost
and perestroika in their historical con-
text.
Marx and Engels developed dialec-
tical materialism as the theoretical tool
for analyzing the world in order to
change it. While they demonstrated
scientifically that history is objectively
moving towards socialist revolution
and eventually communism, Lenin and
the Bolshevik party contributed the
theoretical premises and practical ex-
perience for how such revolutions could
become a reality, chiefly through the
role of the party and its leadership of
the masses. The Soviet Union was the
fruit of Marxism-Leninism, con-
solidated in hard struggle against for-
midable odds ranging from _ the
backwardness bequeathed by the Czar
regime to the imperialist-sponsored
counterrevolution, Hitler fascism and
later US imperialism’s cold war subver-
sion.
As the first socialist state to be
established, the Soviet Union is also the
first to reach a level of development
where new, unanswered questions and
challenges arise concerning the con-
tinuation of socialist development
towards communism. In this perspec-
tive, glasnost and perestroika are not
only policies for rectifying past
mistakes, though that in itself is very
important. They are just as much a sign
of Soviet strength, showing ability and
determination to move on to higher
levels of progress. If fundamentally
pursued, socialist renewal in the Soviet
Union will make a new contribution to
the theory of scientific socialism, which
will be of great use to revolutionary
movements the world over. In this
sense, we are witness to a process which
can be just as ground-breaking as was
the October Revolution in its time.
Already the process underway in the
Soviet Union has reminded us that
Marxism-Leninism is not a _ Static
dogma; nor is socialist construction, or
any revolutionary endeavor for that
matter, a question of mechanically
following uniform, prescribed methods
or recipes. Rather, scientific socialism
is a living, dialectical theory, open to
new development. The dynamics of
Leninism are brought to the fore with
their emphasis on the party acting
boldly and creatively, according to a
concrete analysis of the concrete con-
ditions, in tune with the masses and
unleashing their full potentials.
THE ECONOMY AND THE
SUBJECTIVE FACTOR
In line with its sound, materialist
understanding, the CPSU determined
to tackle problems at the roots. Thus,
the economy was the starting point and
the base for the restructuring initiated
by the Central Committee at its April
1985 plenary meeting, and adopted
more comprehensively at the 27th Party
Congress in 1986. The aim is to ac-
celerate socio-economic development
and specifically to attain a new quality
of growth, based on vertical rather than
horizontal development. This means
restructuring industry based on
scientific-technological advances,
rather than simply expanding the ex-
isting production system. At the same
time, new modes of management and
stimulation of labor would be in-
troduced. This would strengthen the
Soviet economy overall, while more ef-
ficiently providing the Soviet citizen
with consumer products. The watch-
words are collective work, incentives
for labor, self-management, self-
financing and cost-accounting for the
various industries and enterprises. A
key factor is better organization of
workers and employees, drawing them
more closely into the decision-making
process and thus giving them greater
responsibility and motivation for
achieving results.
So, already on the economic level,
one clearly sees that while based on ob-
jective factors, restructuring involves
the subjective factor, striving to max-
imalize the potential of the working
people - the human beings that both
build and benefit from socialism. As
stated by General Secretary Mikhail
Gorbachev in the Central Committee’s
Political Report to the CPSU’s 27th
Congress: «The main thing that will
ensure us success is the living creativity
of the masses, the maximum use of the
tremendous potentials and advantages
of the socialist system.»
This emphasis on the subjective fac-
tor as part of the rectification process is
also connected to the Soviet view of the
roots of the problem: Here it is a ques-
tion of attitudes prevailing in the party
and leadership as pinpointed by Georgi
Smirnov of the USSR Academy of
Sciences, writing in New Times, April
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