Some Reflections and Comments on the Perestroika Process in the USSR

[A] Background

Since 1970 I have been active in 'research brokerage' at the university-industry interface, and I now work at this as an independent consultant.

I have been interested in post-colonial economic development problems, and in the role of the intellectuals in developing countries, particularly in the problem of 'brain-drain', having on 2 occasions returned to Ireland against the tide of emigration.

This led me to the study of Marxism, and particularly to the work of Bernal (J D Bernal FRS), whose seminal work on 'science and society', on the 'science of science' and on the problem of finding alternatives to the arms race (done from the 30s to the 50s) is highly valued in the USSR but has been regrettably forgotten in the West, largely due to 'cold war' pressures. Bernal, I am given to understand by Dorothy Hodgson, was involved in the setting up of the original Pugwash Conference, though he took a back seat in case his Marxism would prejudice its success.

In the introduction to my submission to the Soviet Peace Committee I made much of the Bernal connection, and to his role in the development of the science of 'operations research' which studies the process of the transformation of scientific discovery into technological and economic utility. Bernal, incidentally, was Irish, being born in Nenagh in 1901.

During all this period, while being actively socialist and interested in what was going on in the USSR, I was aware of the 'Stalin problem', and was never an enthusiast for the use of the Soviet model in the process of social transformation.

I had visited the USSR in 1973 (for a World Peace Council event, of which the value was questionable, being dominated by unreconstructed procedures inherited from the Stalin epoch), in 1979 (professionally, on behalf of the UN FAO) and in 1986 (for a World Federation of Scientific Workers assembly).

In 1986 it was possible to see the beginnings of a critical appraisal of the past, but the 'dead hand' was still in evidence. By May 1988 however it was evident that the flood-gates had opened, and we were dealing with a radical-democratic revolution, of the type which had tried to happen in the 1920s and been killed by Stalin, and then had again tried to happen in the 60s and been killed by the weight of Stalin's appointees. The 1980s re-think however is being implemented by people whose political formation is totally post-Stalin and who have no inhibitions.

[B] The Cruise itself

The 'Peace Cruise' was organised by the Soviet Peace Committee, who had invited representatives of peace organisations in the West to engage in an exchange of ideas with Soviet specialists, in a floating conference, punctuated by visits ashore in the main towns (Kiev, Kanev, Cherkassy, Zaporozhye, Kherson and Odessa).

Participants paid their own fares but once there were the guests of the Soviet Peace Committee. The Irish group consisted of representatives of Irish CND, the Irish Peace Council, the Irish Peace Institute and Centre for International Co-operation (Limerick) and Women for Disarmament; the press was represented by Maureen Fox of the Cork Examiner. I participated on the initiative of the Dublin Monthly Meeting Peace Committee, with the support of Dublin Monthly Meeting (Quakers).

The Soviet group numbered some 30 and was composed of academics and researchers of a high level of distinction in areas such as philosophy, history, politics and law. Their support for the politics of 'perestroika' and 'glasnost' was palpable; the Soviet Peace Committee was clearly a leading body in the radical democratic transformation which was in progress.

There was a group of comparable size from the USA, which included 22 peace groupings (represented in ones and twos) and 10 press people. The other participants were primarily from West European countries.

The conference broke up into 4 seminars: disarmament (primarily looking at what was going on in the UN), the peace movement (looking at problems of citizen diplomacy etc), spiritual life (this covered a wide area including the analysis of the 'image of the enemy', peace education, the Christian millennium in Russia etc) and innovations in Soviet society (the economic and legislative reforms underlying 'perestroika').

I participated in the fourth seminar and came away with an impression of the depth of the long-delayed democratic revolution that was then in progress. The key Soviet participant was Valery Savitsky, Deputy Director of the Institute of State and Law, USSR Academy of Sciences, who was an uncompromising critic of past practices, in a manner which left Western critics without arguments. I have kept notes of the proceedings and have produced a 12-page commentary of my own based on the discussion, which I have sent to the Soviet Peace Committee for their consideration. The main thrust of this was on the problem of using expertise trained in the military, space and nuclear programmes for the peaceful transformation of Soviet industry under perestroika, and it is aimed primarily at the economic specialists who were present.

Events of religious interest included a visit to the Kiev monastery, now handed back to the Church, which was the base for St Cyril's mission of a millennium ago, and to a seminary in Odessa.

Also of interest was a discussion which took place in the Odessa Hall of Sciences between some local academic Marxists and the cruise participants; included among the latter was an Orthodox prelate who had joined the cruise and was one of the key participants in the 'spirituality' seminar. There appeared to emerge a feeling that assertive atheism was 'passé' and that the role of Marxist academics should be focused, not simply on 'non-belief', but rather on a philosophical study of the nature of belief and of existence, within which convergence between Marxism and Christianity might perhaps prove feasible, especially given the agreement on the need to change the world rather than simply to contemplate it.

On this theme there was a move made by Mikhail Zykov, a Cruise participant who lectures in philosophy at the Lunacharsky State Institute of Theatrical Arts, to set up a "World Spiritual Network" of correspondents who would exchange papers and ideas. This would appear to be an attempt to initiate a personal correspondence network, initially under the umbrella of the Soviet Peace Committee, which is a further innovative step towards the opening up of personal contact opportunities. I have added my name to this network and hope to initiate a correspondence. There is some unease among intellectuals that the perestroika process may be blocked by conservative forces, but momentum would seem to be building up so as to make it effectively irreversible.

I placed 20 copies of Richard Harrison's "Irish Anti-War Movements", courtesy of the Dublin Monthly Meeting Peace Committee, in school and community libraries along the route, via local-based interpreters, who were mostly English teachers in schools and colleges. These were received with interest and appreciation.

[C] Perestroika politics.

C1. Alcohol

It would appear that there was a problem of vodka being drunk by workers during the working day, and in excess in the evenings leading to subsequent absenteeism, and that this problem is now perhaps less acute. Its solution should however not be approached by closing down hotel bars and making people queue round the block for a Sunday bottle of wine.

I have instead suggested to them that it is better approached by (a) raising the price of vodka relative to beer and wine (b) encouraging a beer and wine culture as an alternative to a vodka culture (c) opening up the democratic process in the workplace, so that the type of frustration leading to alcoholism does not build up (d) development of social pressures towards sobriety in a manner which is visibly successful elsewhere (eg litter, bus-tickets etc).

If the USSR is to develop its vast potential for intellectual interaction via international conferences (incidentally a good earner of foreign exchange as a form of specialist tourism), it will be necessary for them to appreciate the key role of the talk among the specialists in the bar afterwards. This is where all the real information is exchanged; the papers and discussions are simply means of identifying whom one wants to talk to afterwards over a glass of beer.

In this context the existence of a segregated 'hard-currency bar' (as was the case in the Cruise boat) was a total disaster, as it put barriers between Soviet and Western participants. I understand that this procedure is on its way out, and not before time.

C2. Democracy

It would appear that Pamyat itself has positive aspects, involving the conservation of aspects of the environment having historic or Russian cultural heritage value. However it would appear that some people interpreted Russian culture has being exclusive, and needing a perceived enemy to unite it, with the Jews playing that role. This of course is at the root of Fascist ideology, and is intrinsically anti-democratic.

In many, if not most, bourgeois democracies there are by now laws which forbid incitement to race hatred, with severe penalties. (They are not always implemented consistently, but at least they are there.)

In the Soviet Union there is excellent legislation against propaganda or incitement to war. This enlightened legislation should lend itself to easy amendment to include incitement to racial, religious or ethnic hatred, enabling the prosecution of those attempting to develop Pamyat into an organisation expressing racialist ideologies. (I made this point in the Odessa seminar.)

Failure to prosecute this tendency, on the grounds that this would be an infringement of the new perestroika liberties, would appear to be an example of the type of bureaucratic action (or inaction) referred to in the opening paragraph, intended to discredit perestroika.

[D] Intellectual Resources

It also appeared that the term 'intellectual' covered people like writers and artists, and that the intellectual role of the scientists and engineers, who alone are in the position to supply the knowhow capable of transforming the productive process, was little appreciated.

If this perception, which certainly existed among the Soviet specialists involved in the seminar, is general, then we have a dangerous misunderstanding.

In subsequent conversation, also, it emerged that Party membership for intellectuals is restricted on a quota basis, presumably because they are perceived to be less reliable, subject to careerist motivations etc. I criticised this view, beginning with an assertion of the key role of intellectuals such as Marx, Engels and Lenin, and indeed most of the original Bolshevik leadership before they were purged by Stalin. Anti-intellectual 'workerism' I suggested was a relic of the Stalin epoch. I also suggested that it was at the root of many of the problems now being recognised under perestroika.

D1. Scientists and Engineers

I went on to stress that the creative application of scientific principles in the upgrading of the quality of work, by the development of instruments, equipment, processes, tools etc is the key intellectual task, without which perestroika will remain only words and aspirations.

The objective of the transformation of the work process should be the elimination of all repetitive inhuman work, and the upgrading of all work by humans to the level of decision-making and management, leaving the inhuman work to the robots. Thus ultimately the distinction between 'worker' and 'intellectual' must be eliminated. What is needed is a workforce consisting of scientists (pushing forwards the frontiers of understanding of the laws on nature), engineers (building productive systems based on these laws) and technician-operatives (working the productive systems with understanding and insight, and in a position to identify problems and opportunities for improvement).

Perestroika is going to need to pay considerable attention to the problem of quality of goods, the logistics of their supply, the reliability of the process of their production, and the development of techniques of devolved management, with intelligent use of the computer, in all its forms (mainframe, mini, micro, on-line, real-time, networked etc).

Most if not all of the knowhow in these areas must be available in the USSR in the military and space technology areas. The problem would appear to be in making the transition towards general industrial applications.

The catalysing of this transition is going to require a new breed of 'innovation specialist', who can specify and develop the appropriate type of advanced production system appropriate to specific production centres, and set up the contacts, training programmes, sources of supply necessary for its implementation.

This is not a bureaucratic task, nor simply a purchasing task; it is a creative applied-scientific task, which can only thrive in an environment with the minimum of bureaucracy.

D2. Structured Mobility

Such an innovation consultancy group, if it existed, might contribute to the Soviet end of various Joint Venture concepts currently being discussed (including one with Ireland). It would be balanced at the other end by a corresponding group of European innovation specialists, familiar with European and US research resources, and with Western industrial marketing and innovation practice.

D3. Social Organisation

[E] Some Specific Problem/Opportunity Areas

E1. Communications

An advanced digital telephone system, with in-house switchboards in all organisations (rather that direct lines from offices to the general exchanges, as at present), and adequate international and inter-regional capacity, is essential.

Also required is a 'packet-switching network' for computer-based communications; this becomes feasible once the system is all-digital.

Steps are already being taken in this direction, particularly I understand with the aid of the Finnish firm Nokia. There is perhaps room for speeding up the process, making use of other resources in the West.

E2. Transport

It is feasible to prevent this 'vicious spiral' by imposing a rule of absolute priority for the public system, allocating lanes as necessary, and to impose lane discipline on individual motorists (noticeably absent at present, especially in Moscow).

E3. Agriculture

Over a decade ago at a conference in Algeria, on the international 'operations research' network, the writer encountered two young researchers from Havana University, who had built, with their own hands, the first Cuban computer. Although a primitive device by modern standards, they had successfully applied it to the analysis of the logistics of moving the sugar-cane to the mill, in a specific location, taking into account the constraints imposed by light railway operations on the given layout.

This suggests that there could be developed a role for a regional university or college of technology, in the training of students in information-technology using problems arising in enterprises in the immediate environment, and introducing advance information-technology to the regional economic environment.

This has been the standard practice in Ireland for nearly 2 decades, with the result that we produce excellent students, well versed in practical applications of advanced technologies, to the extent that they are in demand all over Europe and in the US.

There may be opportunities opened up for collaboration between Irish universities and the USSR in this particular area of information technology; this needs to be explored further.

E4. Energy

The most easily available alternative is conservation; there is much gain to be made in the use of clever applications of computers in the optimal management of energy-using systems.

Other alternatives are the various forms of renewable energy: wind, wave, tide, direct solar energy conversion, biomass. There is scope for extended participation in the global R&D network which is looking into these areas, and the pooling of experience.

The most promising long-term renewable energy technology is based on amorphous silicon, for which the cost of production is now in reach of the threshold economic figure of $1 per installed watt capacity.

Engineering and scientific personnel at present committed to the nuclear energy programme need not present too great a re-deployment problem. Indeed they can constitute a resource capable of supplying some at least of the 'new breed' of innovation specialist mentioned above.

E5. Finance

If the convertible rouble was initially fixed at a rate such as to make imported consumer-goods look expensive, this would not be a problem. It should be fixed somewhere between the present rate and the 'black' rate, say at about #0.5, instead of #1.

This would largely undermine the black market, and would render Soviet manufactured goods highly competitive on the export-market, enabling foreign currency to be earned to offset the increased rouble-price of advanced productive equipment purchased from abroad. Soviet bulk commodity exports would remain at world prices, earning correspondingly more expressed in roubles.

There are many areas where Soviet goods are under-priced relative to what the consumer market abroad would stand, if an export philosophy were to be developed. Home-market price-increases, if tied to quality upgrades, should not present too much of a problem.

A devalued rouble would enable a tourist trade to thrive, and present many opportunities for the worker co-operative approach to small business development (eg hotel and car-hire business etc). Social control mechanisms would be put under some strain, but would be likely to cope.

The key thing would be to keep social control over the investment of the accumulated surplus of Soviet industry, and not to allow firms to invest abroad motivated by profits alone. This is the worst feature of capitalism.

Investment decisions at firm level are presumably the business of the Board of Directors. Under capitalism these represent the shareholders and no-one else, and this is the root cause of all the problems analysed by Marx.

Under reconstructed socialism, it would make sense to define the Board of Directors on a representative basis, with separate constituencies representing workers, suppliers and consumers, in some appropriate ratio, with the State, regional or local government representative as Chairman or 'moderator' of the possibly conflicting interests.

The relative interests of the consumers or suppliers (vs the workers) would depend on the specific situation. In some cases competition can take care of the consumers' interests; if there is no alternative source of supply however the consumer interest on the Board should be strong. Similarly on the supply side: if the suppliers have no alternative outlet their Board representation should be strong.

It should be possible to quantify the rules for democratic enterprise management in specific cases, and this is a development area for study.

The rules of democratic procedure, applied in an economic context, have evolved usefully in the context of the co-operative movement in the West, from roots in 19th century England which were known to, and admired by, Marx. Because of the emphasis in recent times on the role of the State, they have had little chance to develop under socialism. Perestroika presents an opportunity for their resurrection.

[F] Possible Future Cruise-type Events

The calibre of participation from the West in this sort of situation tends to be uneven. In proportion as participation from the West shifts away from the 'old left' and towards the new 'middle ground' of supporters of peaceful co-existence of different systems, with the run- down of the arms race creating opportunities for beneficial trade and cultural contacts, the calibre of participation should improve.

A major incentive for the improvement of the calibre would be specialisation.

I can imagine a series of intensive brain-storming cruise-conferences, with key experts looking at problem areas of common interest, such as have been outlined above, and others such as biotechnology, media perceptions etc.

In such specialist floating conferences, at the stopping-points the emphasis should be not on public and media-oriented events, but on in-depth meetings with specialists in universities, colleges of technology, research centres and industry.

In some cases, such conferences would be seen by the West as trade development opportunities, and participants would be prepared to pay a conference fee in proportion to the expected value of the ensuing trade.

Given that the Soviet Peace Committee has played a key role in the development of this concept, there would appear to be a case for taking a further initiative along these lines, with the direct involvement of key innovative activists in the Academy of Sciences, in the Research Institutes, in the Ministries and in industry, who could contribute to the planning of a high-powered series of cruise-conferences, supported by high-calibre specialists from abroad.

Some sort of new "Pugwash"-type initiative on the problem of "de-toxifying" the military-industrial complexes, and their freeing from "drug-like" dependence on easy and continuous military R&D funding by "Star-Wars"-type programmes, might lend itself to the "Cruise" format.

If Bernal were alive, this is undoubtedly what he would be working on. All the basic necessary ideas are in his 1958 book "World Without War".

[G] Language, Nationality and Chauvinism

I won't go into detail, but there were occasions when disparaging remarks about Ukrainian history, culture and 'mores' were made. Nothing serious, but just a reminder that there is a problem, which is now under 'glasnost' surfacing in places like the Ukraine, Latvia, Armenia and elsewhere. Being Irish, and aware of the English attitude to the Irish, we are perhaps over-sensitive. One detects the same thing between the French and the Bretons.

On enquiry it emerged that while other nationalities are obliged to learn Russian as the Soviet 'lingua franca', there is no obligation on people whose mother-tongue is Russian to know any other Soviet language. Thus Russians learning other languages would go for English or German, while (say) Armenians first have to learn Russian. This I suggest gives Russians priority access to top jobs where non-Soviet languages are an important qualification.

The net effect of this policy must be linguistic and cultural erosion of the smaller languages, at an increasing rate in proportion as the population, with industrialisation, becomes mobile. I suggest that language policy may perhaps be at the root of the current problems which are emerging in the Armenian enclave in Azerbaijan.

I suggest that it may prove to be necessary to develop a policy for languages in education to counter this trend, along the lines that for everyone (including Russians) there is a 4-language programme: mother-tongue, 2 other Soviet languages and one leading non-Soviet language. The 2 other Soviet languages obligatory for Russians might be regional variables, selected on the basis that one reflected the ethnic roots of family or group, or cultural preference, while the other reflected the current economic ties of the particular region of Great Russia with another Soviet republic. The fourth language would be an appropriate non-Soviet major world language, again perhaps depending on the region of the USSR.

In this situation, Armenians in Azerbaijan would learn (a) their own language (b) the language of their neighbours in Azerbaijan (c) Russian and (d) English or whatever. Similarly the people of Azerbaijan, or at least those exposed to contact with the Armenians, would need to learn Armenian, the better to understand the culture of their neighbours.

The competence of the USSR in the teaching of languages is legendary; the rest of the world, especially the Anglophone world, has much to learn from Soviet theory and practice in this important area. It would be a pity if the opportunity was missed for showing the monoglot Anglophobes that a major world language need not erode minor languages and cultures, provided appropriate policies are adopted.

Some navigational notes:

Copyright Dr Roy Johnston 1999