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Has the Soviet Union Really Changed?
| Article
# : |
15004 |
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Section : |
CURRENT ISSUES
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| Issue
Date : |
9 / 1988 |
2,861 Words |
| Author
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Brian Crozier
Brian Crozier founded the Institute for the Study of Conflict
and directed it until 1979. He is now a writer on
international security affairs. |
Let me start with a quotation, withholding the source for a moment:
“There is no country in the world in which there is actually so much widespread public criticism of the government, and such incessant revelation of its shortcomings, as in the USSR. Nearly every issue of the newspaper contains details of breakdowns and failures; of the scandalous behavior of officials whose names are given; of cases of neglect and oppression; and of the need for this or that alteration or improvement of government policy or administration. The ‘wall newspaper,’ in which, in every factory and office, the staff publicly criticize, and even lampoon, their superiors, is a universal institution all over the USSR. No such public criticism by the wage-earner of his employer, or of his foreman, is allowed in capitalist countries. The Soviet government approves of all this publicity as ‘self-criticism,’ even if it is criticism of itself as employer; and it is itself not backward in contributing to it. Hardly a speech is made by . . . a leader which does not include some exposure of departmental failure, and a more or less sharp denunciation of erring officials.”
It is at this point that the inevitable caveat appears:
“It is only the calling in question of the fundamental principles of communism, or some aggressive criticism of theoretic ‘Marxism’--and, of course, any incitement to political ‘faction’--that is barred as ‘counter-revolutionary.’"
The reader would be forgiven for assuming that the first passage quoted above was a fair, though wordy, description of Mikhail
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