POL354Y5 Lecture Notes - Almaty, Totalitarianism, Mikhail Gorbachev
Document Summary
Ways of viewing gorbachev"s leadership: radical reformer, misguided reformer ( collapse of soviet union) Limits on modernization arising from inheritance of brezhnev era: Economic: low growth rates, low productivity, poor management, low morale. Political: leadership (gerontocracy, vested interests, limited thinking), party & other political organizations. Social: resistance to change, informal relations, privatization of values. Solution: perestroika, i. e. , a basic shift in the rules by which compliance was generated in the economic sphere. Major components of gorbachev"s modernization strategy: uskorenie (intensification / acceleration) Campaigns for improved labor productivity: perestroika (restructuring, glasnost" (openness, demokratizatsiia (democratization, socialist pluralism (of opinions). Gorbachev"s policy initiatives: economic policy (perestroika) (primary, overriding set of goals, gor initially tries to achieve without other changes) Labour contract: fire workers / pay differentials. Socialist market: balance between state and private sector (cf nep) Critical juncture: 1990 debate over nature & direction of economic reform (shatalin plan vs ryzhkov / abalkin plan).
