ABSTRACT
In early 1989 Mikhail Gorbachev summed up the action program for perestroika in this way: "radical economic reform, reviving the power of the soviets, rebuilding the party, developing its potential as the political vanguard of Society, creation of a state of law". Resistance by the party establishment prevented Gorbachev from changing the constitution of the party—that is, the party statutes and the 1986 party program—at the Nineteenth Party Conference in June 1988. Powerful resistance is mobilized in particular when reforms are reinforced by extensive reductions of institutions and personnel involving deep cuts into a swollen bureaucracy. Gorbachev must use his powers where he can make them most effective. The personnel carousel in the central and regional party apparatus has whirled ever faster — except for momentary periods of weakness for Gorbachev in the second half of 1987 and immediately after the party conference of 1988.
