ABSTRACT
The former Soviet Union has been in a state of economic crisis since 1917. One reform measure after another (whether inspired by socialism or liberalism) has been introduced only to be reversed within a few years. The original socialist construction project, embarked on following the November revolution in 1917, had to be abandoned in the early spring of 1921. Introduced in 1921, the New Economic Policy, which represented the first Soviet-era perestroika (but not glasnost, as all dissension within the party was outlawed by V.I.Lenin’s simultaneous decree), lasted for seven years until it was drastically reversed by Joseph Stalin’s revolution from above. The Stalin years (1928-53) represented a political and economic buzzsaw. Collectivization of agriculture, industrialization, political purges, mass terror, labor camps, wartime emergencies and so forth characterized Stalin’s twenty-five-year reign of power. The Nikita Khrushchev years, especially the period immediately following his 1956 speech denouncing Stalin’s “cult of personality,” represented the second Soviet-era perestroika and a limited period of glasnost, as Stalin’s crimes against humanity were partially unmasked. The “thaw generation,” however, had to wait another twenty years before glasnost was to have any lasting meaning. Khrushchev’s ill-conceived economic policies generated lackluster results and bolstered the political challenge to his leadership.
