ABSTRACT

This chapter deals more with a general view as to what is possible in the USSR should Mikhail Gorbachev’s policy be totally successful. Gorbachev’s challenge is distinguished from the reform process in China by the fact that the Soviet system has ruled for so long in the USSR that its society cannot remember any alternative. Certain fundamental characteristics of the system that Gorbachev wants to change by means of his radical reform so that it will be in tune, not with the past but with the present and future, are deeply rooted in historical traditions from which the present system emerged. In the sphere of economic management, Gorbachev’s reform policy takes good account of the facts that a specific “braking mechanism” is functioning within the management mechanism, that it is built into the system, and that intensive economic development is possible only if this mechanism is overcome.