ABSTRACT
This chapter traces the origin and orientation of the reformist tendency or movement within the Soviet political establishment as well as the intellectual community, its implication for Mikhail Sergeevich Gorbachev's perestroika and the link between the reformist power and intellectuals. The elderly Pyotr Fedoseev, Vice President of the academy, who had a connection with Andrei Voznesensky, the first economic reformist, plays an influential role in "the reform movement", particularly after his 1981 article detailing the contradictions possible under socialism. The ideas for economic reforms relate to two areas: first, the process of the economic reform and its implementation, or, more concretely, the lessons of economic experiments; and second, the lessons from fraternal countries. Democratization is closely related to the campaign for economic reform. The movement for de-Stalinization surely is part of a wider campaign for democratization. The new tendency of ideology directly affects the work of the Commission on Economic Reform by encouraging a radical reform program for decentralization.
