By : ANI Wrestler Sushil Kumar on Wednesday brought further international glory to India by winning the bronze medal at the Beijing Olympics after 56 years. …
India at Beijing Olympics 2008. Some of the performers Indians could watch out for in the Beijing Olympics are :. Rajyavardhan Rathore - Shooting(Double … www.wittysparks.com/2008/08/09/india-at-beijing-olympics-2008/ - 104k - Cached - Similar pages - Note this
11 Aug 2008 … The official website of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games. … (BEIJING, August 11) — India"s Abhinav Bindra won the gold medal in the Men"s … en.beijing2008.cn/news/sports/headlines/shooting/n214528114.shtml - 14k - Cached - Similar pages - Note this
I am writing today with very complex circumstances at home and abroad. with President Mush departing, Corporate US Imperialism in India and south Asia as well, has to readjust its strategies once again. In Kashmir, the situation continues to worsen as RSS is doing its best to kill whatsoever are the chances of anti Imperialist Movement in India. The Left, disassociated from the UPA is not settled as yet as it is too involved to solve ideological and political situations in Left ruled three sates. India saw a nationwide Industrial strike as well as general strike in Left Ruled states.
The only relief comes from China, the forbidden land for India as yet in these hopeless troubled times of Manusmriti Agenda, Globalisation, Open Market, misinformation and annihilation of Indigenous communities worldwide as Our Mother land patriotic most sports persons belonging to other than the market Spenser oriented cricket have ensured at least three medals in Beijing Olympic!
Perestroika failed miserably in USSR and resulted into untimely demise of Revolution in entire Europe. Iraq, Afghanistan, Yugoslavia, Somalia and Iran are targeted without any resistance. War zone has escalated right into our heart in the divided bleeding geopolitics of south Asia and the Ruling Class has been sold for strategic re alliance of Hindu Zionist White Manusmriti Apartheid forces. Fascism has turned to be the best friend to support War Against Muslims which they call War against terrorism to boost the recession sub prime crisis struck war and weapon economy of united states of America.
India, particularly the caste system fed Hindutva forces cried Foul against Jade Goody when she used apartheid against Shilpa Shetty, an Indian actress just some time ago. Lo! Shilpa Shetty hosts the Reality show big Boss season two and enters Jade Goody, as the most welcome friend of India! her personal tragedy of suffering from Cancer is catered as marketable commodity and Electronic media subverts every issue relevant. Other participants of the Reality show also have enough controversial background to name a few: Rahul Mahajan, the Drug Addict, Monika Bedi,the Mafia Paramour, Sanjay Nirupam, the ex Shivshena Don!
Since morning I have been browsing all Indian Electronic channels full of Laughter shows, musical programmes, Crime reports, Sexual Perversions, Astrology, Sensational superstitions and so on and I could not update my informations on my time, nation and this planet.
This is a Misinformation explosion in full bloom while Big Boss Participants are being made ICONS of Future!
It is quite a relief while I see Beijing Olympic throws up some real Indian Icons in Abhinav Bindra, Saina Nehawal, Akhil, Jitendra, Bijender Kumar and Sushil Kumar!
May we study the success of China with socialist Characteristics and analyse our geopolitics historically scientifically? May we have some time to finalise our strategy to defend our black untouchable indigenous communities, nationalities, identities, mother languages? May we think to create a credible third political alternative to stop NDA as well as UPA to stop further partition of this country?
The demise of communism in the former Soviet Union and the massive political and economic changes in China are the stunning transformations of our century. Two central questions are emerging: Why did different communist systems experience different patterns of transition? Why did partial reforms in the Soviet Union and China turn into revolutions? This unique analytical and empirical study shows that patterns of regime transition in communist states depend on the countries" preexisting social structures and political and economic institutions. Minxin Pei identifies the rapid mobilization of previously excluded social groups during the reform phase as the most powerful explanation for the revolutionary outcome of initially limited political and economic reforms in the Soviet Union and China. Pei uses comparative data to analyze the different routes of transition to democracy and a market economy in the Soviet Union, China, and, to a lesser extent, other former communist states in Eastern Europe and Asia. The,theory is empirically tested in four case studies of changes in China and the Soviet Union - two on the development of the private sector in each country and two on the liberalization of the mass media. The author concludes with provocative statements about regime transition from communism. He rejects the idealistic notion that democratization can, by itself, remove the structural obstacles to economic transformation, and he sees high economic and political costs as unavoidable in transition from communism along either the Soviet or the Chinese path. In comparing Soviet and Chinese transition costs, however, he implicitly endorses the evolutionary changes taking place in China andexpresses strong doubt about the revolutionary changes that have occurred in the former Soviet Union.
Television viewers around the world are tuning into the Beijing Games in record numbers, and it’s likely to fill the coffers of the International Olympic Committee like never before and ease pressure to tinker with the Olympic formula.- Great Britain"s newly-crowned 400 metres Olympic champion Christine Ohuruogu"s beaming smile lit up the Bird"s Nest Stadium on Tuesday and now she plans a repeat triumph on homeground in London in 2012.
The Indo-US nuclear deal observers say that the deal will go through at the Nuclear Suppliers Group meeting in Vienna this Thursday.India"s pointmen on the nuclear deal will be briefing three key members of the Nuclear Suppliers Group in Vienna on Wednesday.The three key members are known as the Troika. They are Germany, currently head of the NSG, South Africa and Hungary.
Despite fierce opposition from Moscow, the United States and Poland signed a long-stalled agreement Wednesday to place an American missile defense base on Polish territory.
The recent augmentation in the number of HIV positive people in India has caused concern and different measures have been initiated to curb the disease.There are measures aimed at spreading awareness about the prevention of this deadly disease among people.Likewise,measures have been introduced to dispel the stigma associated with AIDS because of which most HIV infected people opt to shun treatment.
One such measure is the launching of a cell phone ringtone that utters ‘Condom‘, ‘condom‘ repeatedly.This supposedly is part of a two-year project to make condoms socially acceptable via mass media which will result in the practice of safe sex.The acappella ringtone is a repetition of the word ‘condom‘ by a professional singer.It is expected that this will go a long way in making the use of condoms widespread.It is produced by the BBC World Service Trust and funded by a grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
Reportedly,the ring tone was launched on Aug. 8 and it has been downloaded 60,000 times since then. People are asked to download the original ringtone by SMSing “CONDOM” to 5676787 or from www.condomcondom.org.The initiative emphasises the use of condom as a parameter of sensibility,resposibility and awareness about health and well-being.Any link or association with AIDS is not sought as this disease is looked upon as a stigma in India.The Creative Director of the BBC World Service Trust, Radharani Mitra held that ringtones have become such personal statements that a specially created condom ringtone seemed just the right vehicle to define its user as a sensible person.
Meanwhile, in India, our dearest Homeland, around 50 people were on Wednesday injured in group clashes during an industrial strike called by Left trade unions which brought West Bengal, Kerala and Tripura to a halt and partially hit several eastern states but life in rest of the country remained largely unaffected. With the ruling Left Front governments backing the day- long stir called to protest against surging inflation and the Centre"s “anti-people" economic policies, the shut down in West Bengal and Tripura was complete. While life was paralysed in Kerala, air services remained unaffected in the state.
Claiming that officials from Jammu were facing intimidation in Kashmir, the BJP on wednesday demanded that they be temporarily withdrawn from the valley in the wake of the agitation over Amarnath land issue.
Normal life was hit in parts of Assam, Bihar, Orissa, Meghalaya and Manipur with markets, business establishments and banks remaining closed in many areas there.
In Coochbehar in West Bengal, around 50 people were injured in clashes between CPI (M) and Trinamool Congress activists in four places when Left supporters attempted to enforce the shut down, police sources said. A police force has been rushed to the troubled area, they said.
Despite intense lobbying, it is unlikely that the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) will approve an India-specific draft waiver to conduct nuclear trade with its members during a two-day meet scheduled to begin tomorrow, a prominent arms-control think-tank opposed to the Indo-US nuclear deal has said.
“The US and India are certainly using strong-arms tactics but reports that a decision on the proposal could occur this week don"t appear to match with the reality that many states of the 45-member NSG group still have significant concerns," said Daryl Kimball, Executive Director of the Arms Control Association.
The group could even postpone the case for a second or third meeting in September as certain changes would have to be made to the proposed text to get the NSG nod, Kimball claimed.
“The US, Germany and India are privately acknowledging that a second or third meeting will likely be convened sometime in September on the issue and that changes to the US" August 6 proposed text will be necessary to achieve NSG consensus," he said in an e-mail update on the Vienna meet.
“Perhaps in recognition of many difficulties the proposal faces in the NSG, Germany has reportedly invited India to present its case and answer questions from NSG countries at this week"s meeting.
“The reports cite unnamed India officials as saying they are hesitant to do so. That (is) not surprising since India"s participation in the discussion could force its officials to answer some uncomfortable but essential questions about its bilateral nuclear cooperation agreements with the US, France, and Russia, as well as its interpretation of the India-IAEA safeguards agreement, and other issues," the official said.
Putin laments demise of Soviet Union
Associated Press
Moscow — President Vladimir Putin used a campaign speech Thursday to declare the demise of the Soviet Union a “national tragedy on an enormous scale," in what appeared to be his strongest-ever lament of the collapse of the Soviet empire.
Mr. Putin, a former agent of the Soviet KGB spy agency, has praised aspects of the Soviet Union in the past but never so robustly nor in such an important political setting.
“The breakup of the Soviet Union is a national tragedy on an enormous scale," from which “only the elites and nationalists of the republics gained," Mr. Putin said in a nationally televised speech to about 300 campaign workers gathered at Moscow State University.
The President"s language was sure to send a chill through the 14 other former Soviet republics that have been independent from Moscow rule for more than a decade.
In the past and to audiences from the former republics, Mr. Putin has sought to ease fears about Russia having designs on rebuilding the old empire.
In September remarks after a meeting of the Commonwealth of Independent States — the grouping of former Soviet republics — Mr. Putin said:
“The Soviet Union [was] a very complicated page in the history of our people," adding “that train has left."
But on Thursday, he spoke in a much stronger tone, appearing to play to Russian nationalism.
“I think that ordinary citizens of the former Soviet Union and the post-Soviet space gained nothing from this. On the contrary, people have faced a huge number of problems," he said.
“Today we must look at the reality we live in. We cannot only look back and curse about this issue. We must look forward," he said.
Across town, meanwhile, Putin challengers in the election next month refused to debate among themselves in a television program called for that purpose. The candidates said a debate was meaningless without Mr. Putin, who says he doesn"t need the free television advertising.
At the taping of what was to be the first debate ahead of the March 14 vote, four of Mr. Putin"s six challengers answered questions from the studio audience, but then rejected the host"s appeal that they debate each other.
“Bring Vladimir Putin here and we will have a debate," independent liberal candidate Irina Khakamada said, winning applause from the audience.
Calling it pointless to debate with anyone but Mr. Putin, “my main competitor", Communist candidate Nikolai Kharitonov said that by ignoring the debates, “Putin is depriving the population of the right to choose."
Also at the taping were candidates Sergei Glazyev of the populist-nationalist Homeland Party and Oleg Malyshkin of Vladimir Zhirinovsky"s ultranationalist Liberal Democratic Party.
Regardless of Mr. Putin"s public declarations about campaign advertising, state-controlled television channels already lavish him with extensive coverage — as on Thursday when state-run Rossiya showed his remarks live.
Addressing a packed auditorium at Moscow State University, Mr. Putin said: “The head of state should not engage in self-advertising."
“Nevertheless," he continued, “I am simply obliged before my voters and the entire country to account for what has been done during the past four years, and to tell people what I intend to do during the next four years."
Responding to a question after his state-of-the-nation-style speech, Mr. Putin said that the 1991 Soviet collapse — which most Russians regret — led to few gains and many problems for ordinary citizens.
Turning to global politics, Mr. Putin said that Russia must become a “full-fledged member of the world community" and assailed those in the West who still have a Cold War-era distrust of Russia. They “can"t get out of the freezer," he said.
Mr. Putin reiterated his stated opposition to prolonging his time in office, limited to two terms. But he indicated he would choose a preferred successor, saying that the task of any top leader “is to propose to society a person he considers worthy to work further in this position."
Some Putin opponents had considered boycotting the presidential election, saying a fair vote was impossible in Russia today, and the refusal to debate in Thursday"s program reflected the candidates" anger at the President"s dominance of the campaign.
Some political analysts said, however, the public does not expect Mr. Putin to debate.
“They see the head of state as a monarch who shouldn"t participate in discussions with those below him in the hierarchy," said Andrei Ryabov of the Carnegie Institute in Moscow said.
The Organization for the Security and Co-operation in Europe said the state-controlled media"s parliamentary campaign coverage was slanted toward pro-Putin forces and accused the government of pressuring news media, to limit opposition views.
India has taken part in several UN peacekeeping missions and in 2007, it was the second-largest troop contributor to the United Nations.[33] India has also actively participated in UN reforms[34] and is currently seeking a permanent seat in the UNSC, along with the G4 nations.[35
“Socialism with Chinese characteristics" (traditional Chinese: 具有中國特色的社會主義, simplified Chinese: 具有中国特色的社会主义, Pronunciation (help·info): Jùyǒu Zhōngguó tèsè de shèhuìzhǔyì) is an official term for the economy of the People"s Republic of China which as of 2008 consists of the state having ownership of a large fraction of the Chinese economy, while at the same time having all entities participate within a market economy. This is a form of a socialist market economy and differs from market socialism and mixed economy in that while the state retained ownership of large enterprises, it does not use this ownership to intervene to change prices which are set by the market.
John Gittings in The Changing Face of China quotes Deng Xiaoping as stating:
“Planning and market forces are not the essential difference between socialism and capitalism. A planned economy is not the definition of socialism, because there is planning under capitalism; the market economy happens under socialism, too. Planning and market forces are both ways of controlling economic activity." [1]
The PRC government maintains that it has not abandoned Marxism, but has simply developed many of the terms and concepts of Marxist theory to accommodate its new economic system. The ruling Communist Party of China argues that socialism is not incompatible with these economic policies. In current Chinese Communist thinking, the PRC is in the primary stage of socialism, and this redefinition allows the PRC to undertake whatever economic policies are needed to develop into an industrialized nation.
According to Technological Determinism " Socialism with Chinese Characteristics:
“new economic development strategy based upon decentralization of control over the state owned enterprise sector, expanded market transactions to replace command and control allocation, dismantling of the rural commune system (completed in 1985), increased use of material incentives in workplaces, and ultimately, upon the modernization of the Chinese economic infrastructure (as well as the military infrastructure). This last aspect of their strategy represents more than a mere objective. Modernization represents the mission of the pragmatists. Deng Xiaoping rejected the Maoist tendency to forswear the technological trappings of the so-called West (including soft technology in the form of social relationships) and embraced the idea that modernity required copying many of the traits of the Western capitalist nations." [2]
In Marxist theory, history progresses through a number of stages from slave society to feudal society to capitalist society to socialist society to communist society. According to the interpretation of this by the Communist Party of China, the revolution of 1949 was an irreversible change from capitalism to socialism and that therefore China is still socialist. However, Maoist organizations, such as the Maoist Internationalist Movement and the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement, claim that China reverted back to capitalism with the arrest of the Gang of Four, in 1976.
“Chinese professor Han Deqiang in his paper Chinese Cultural Revolution: Failure and Theoretical Originality examined the demise of communism in China. Han detailed how from its very beginning the communist revolutionary government had been infiltrated by a capitalist faction which had established itself within the bureaucracy. Prominent among the bureaucrats was Deng Xiaoping." [3]
“What is socialism and what is Marxism? We were not quite clear about this in the past. Marxism attaches utmost importance to developing the productive forces. We have said that socialism is the primary stage of communism and that at the advanced stage the principle of from each according to his ability and to each according to his needs will be applied. This calls for highly developed productive forces and an overwhelming abundance of material wealth. Therefore, the fundamental task for the socialist stage is to develop the productive forces. The superiority of the socialist system is demonstrated, in the final analysis, by faster and greater development of those forces than under the capitalist system. As they develop, the people"s material and cultural life will constantly improve. One of our shortcomings after the founding of the People"s Republic was that we didn"t pay enough attention to developing the productive forces. Socialism means eliminating poverty. Pauperism is not socialism, still less communism." [4]
Wang Yu on behalf of the Communist Party of China in January 2004 said:
“production stagnated for a long time. There was little improvement in people’s quality of life, and China’s gap with developed economies widened further. All of this made Chinese Communists ask themselves time and again the following questions: Where on earth was the superiority of socialism? Was socialism rich or poor? What is revolution and what was its purpose? The theory of building socialism with Chinese characteristics, which took the development of the productive forces as its fundamental task, came into being amid and as a result of these reflections and reviews." [5]
Demise of the Soviet Union
Cameron Sawyer sent from Moscow news comments on the death of President Reagan. Randy Black, who lived in Omsk, comments: “Hurray for the positive bits and pieces of Russian opinion about Reagan! I, too, am surprised at the overwhelmingly positive nature of the posts from Russia. I also used to enjoy lunch at the Central House of Writers as the guest of a retired editor at Izvestia. On that note, it is interesting to see the opinion in the article by Bratersky of Izvestia regarding the effect of Star Wars on the Soviet budget/bankruptcy. It seems that many commentators offer an opinion that supports such a position. I support a slightly different position.
The USSR bankrupted itself over many issues, and over many years. Star Wars was only one facet of the equation. The myriad of causes of their demise included a corrupt, inefficient internal mechanism that sold goods to its people at a price that had no relationship to the cost of development, manufacture and distribution. I vividly remember purchasing a finely tooled hammer at a state shop in Omsk in 1993 for the equivalent in rubles price of three US pennies. Its origin was Czech, brought thousands of miles, made from the finest metal and wood and finished beautifully. That’s a lot to say about a simple hammer, I know, but it was typical of the goods I found in Siberia: Imported in many cases from great distances, finely made, yet cheaply packaged, if at all, and sold at ridiculously low prices for the benefit of her peoples who for the most part in those days, earned $15-$20 per month, if that much.
The USSR used hard currency revenues (US dollars) earned from international sales of its natural resources (oil, diamonds, timber and so forth) to subsidize such unprofitable operations and trade over many decades, and thus to keep the proletariat happy. Hard currency dollars from oil sales allowed the government to purchase other goods and materials needed in every facet of their life, goods and foods not available in sufficient numbers from their own factories and fields. When Reagan entered office, oil was trading above $35 per barrel, having been above $40 during the Carter administration. By 1986, it was below $10. Over the next several years, oil hovered in the $10-$20 range, give or take. The USSR was bankrupted soon thereafter as a result. While my Russian friends tell me that there were never enough goods on the shelves of stores in Russia, the problem grew much worse in the 80s. The lack of hard currency from oil exports certainly was a contributory factor. There are those among President Reagan’s entourage who believe that his administration caused the price of oil to dip and stay low over years as another element in the effort to bankrupt the USSR. In fact, Reagan did loosen controls on oil and gas production, thus resulting in a glut and the lower prices. Of course, there are many other reasons for the demise of the USSR, but a system of manufacturing and distribution that has no relationship to the cost of the goods seems like a good place to start".
RH. Randy"s story of a hammer means that the problem with communism was not necessarily the quality of goods. The facile charge that the Communist bloc was incapable of manufacturing quality goods was as unfounded as the old dismissal of Japanese industry as being able only to copy Western goods stupidly. That talk faded away- My briefcase has a story comparable to Randy"s hammer. At a store in Stanford"s Shopping Center I bought an expensive American briefcase which kept falling open. I took it back and complained. The salesman, unperturbed, told me to choose another one. I selected a beautifully tooled leather one, and was surprised to learn that it was cheaper, so I got some money back. It has served me splendidly over the years. It was made in communist Romania.
Christopher Jones writes: “I agree that the Soviet Union collapsed of its own weight. I noticed that when Ronald Reagan died, he suddenly “won the cold war" and “defeated the Soviet Union." This of course is as ridiculous as the Americans winning the Battle of Britain. Communism was overthrown because it lost touch with its power base: the workers. Reagan had nothing at all to do with it. Probably the two men who could be most credited with the downfall of the Communist empire in eastern Europe was Pope John Paul II and Lech Walesa".
Glasnost (help·info) (Russian: Гла́сность, Russian pronunciation: [ˈglasnəsʲtʲ]) is the policy of maximal publicity, openness, and transparency in the activities of all government institutions in the Soviet Union, together with freedom of information, introduced by Mikhail Gorbachev.
The word is a transliteration of the Russian word Гласность and was frequently used by Gorbachev to specify the policies he believed might help reduce the corruption at the top of the Communist Party and the Soviet government, and moderate the abuse of administrative power in the Central Committee.
Glasnost can also refer to the specific period in the history of the USSR during the 1980s when there was less censorship and greater freedom of information.
Glasnost poster from 1987. The slogan is “Be Bold, Comrade! Openness is Our Strength!" (Russian: “Смелее, товарищ! Гласность - наша сила!")
This word appeared in 1985-1990 as a part of the program of reforms called perestroika (перестройка), whose goals included combating corruption and the abuse of privilege by the political classes. In the broadest sense, it aimed to liberalize freedom of the press gradually, and to allow for freedom of dissent.[1] The policy met resistance during the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, when authorities hid the true extent of the nuclear accident for several days.
Through his policy of glasnost, Gorbachev pressured conservatives within the Communist Party who opposed perestroika, his programs of economic restructuring. By cultivating a spirit of intellectual and cultural openness which encouraged public debate and participation, Gorbachev hoped to increase the Soviet people"s support for and participation in perestroika.
While in the West the notion of “glasnost" is associated with freedom of speech, the main goal of this policy was to make the country"s management transparent and open to debate, thus circumventing the narrow circle of apparatchiks who previously exercised complete control of the economy. Through reviewing the past or current mistakes being made, it was hoped that the Soviet people would back reforms such as perestroika.
Perestroika and glasnost postage stamp, 1988
Glasnost gave new freedoms to the people, such as a greater freedom of information by opening the secret parts for unallowed literature in the libraries[2][3] and a greater freedom of speech — a radical change, as control of speech and suppression of government criticism had previously been a central part of the Soviet system. There was also a greater degree of freedom within the media. In the late 1980s, the Soviet government came under increased criticism, as did Leninist ideology (which Gorbachev had attempted to preserve as the foundation for reform), and members of the Soviet population were more outspoken in their view that the Soviet government had become a failure. Glasnost did indeed provide freedom of expression, far beyond what Gorbachev had intended, and changed citizens" views towards the government, which played a key role in the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Relaxation of censorship resulted in the Communist Party losing its grip on the media. Before long, much to the embarrassment of the authorities, the media began to expose severe social and economic problems which the Soviet government had long denied and covered up. Long-denied problems such as poor housing, food shortages, alcoholism, widespread pollution, creeping mortality rates and the second-rate position of women were now receiving increased attention. Moreover, under glasnost, the people were able to learn significantly more about the horrors committed by the government when Joseph Stalin was in power. Although Nikita Khrushchev denounced Stalin"s personality cult, information about the true proportions of his atrocities was still suppressed. In all, the very positive view of Soviet life which had long been presented to the public by the official media was being rapidly dismantled, and the negative aspects of life in the Soviet Union were brought into the spotlight. This began to undermine the faith of the public in the Soviet system.
Political openness continued to produce unintended consequences. In elections to the regional assemblies of the Soviet Union"s constituent republics, nationalists swept the board. As Gorbachev had weakened the system of internal political repression, the ability of the USSR"s central Moscow government to impose its will on the USSR"s constituent republics had been largely undermined. During the 1980s, calls for greater independence from Moscow"s rule grew louder. This was especially marked in the Baltic Republics of Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia, which had been annexed into the Soviet Union by Joseph Stalin in 1940. Nationalist feeling also took hold in other Soviet republics such as Ukraine, Georgia and Azerbaijan.
Starting in the mid-1980s, the Baltic states used the reforms provided by glasnost to assert their rights to protect their environment and their historic monuments and, later, their claims to sovereignty and independence. When the Balts withstood outside threats, they exposed an irresolute Kremlin. Bolstering separatism in other Soviet republics, the Balts triggered multiple challenges to the Soviet Union. Supported by Russian leader Boris Yeltsin, the Baltic republics asserted their sovereignty.
The rise of nationalism under glasnost also reawakened simmering ethnic tensions throughout the union. For example, in February 1988, Nagorno-Karabakh, a predominantly ethnic Armenian region in the Azerbaijan SSR, passed a resolution calling for unification with the Armenian SSR. Violence against local Azeris was then reported on Soviet television, which provoked massacres of Armenians in the Azerbaijani city of Sumgait.
The freedoms generated under Glasnost enabled increased contact between Soviet citizens and the western world, particularly with the United States. Restrictions on travel were loosened, allowing increased business and cultural contact. For example, one key meeting location was in the U.S. at the Dakin Building, then owned by American philanthropist Henry Dakin, who had extensive Russian contacts:
During the late 1980s, as glasnost and perestroika led to the liquidation of the Soviet empire, the Dakin building was the location for a series of groups facilitating United States-Russian contacts. They included the Center for U.S.-U.S.S.R. Initiatives, which helped more than 1000 Americans visit the Soviet Union and more than 100 then-Soviet citizens visit the U.S.[4]
While thousands of political prisoners and many dissidents were released in the spirit of glasnost, Gorbachev"s original goal of using glasnost and perestroika to reform the Soviet Union was not achieved. In 1991, the Soviet Union was dissolved following a failed coup by conservative elements who were opposed to Gorbachev"s reforms.
During the initial period (1985-1987) of Mikhail Gorbachev"s time in power, he talked about modifying central planning, but did not make any truly fundamental changes (uskoreniye, acceleration). Gorbachev and his team of economic advisers then introduced more fundamental reforms, which became known as perestroika (economic restructuring).
In July 1987, the Supreme Soviet passed the Law on State Enterprise. The law stipulated that state enterprises were free to determine output levels based on demand from consumers and other enterprises. Enterprises had to fulfill state orders, but they could dispose of the remaining output as they saw fit. Enterprises bought inputs from suppliers at negotiated contract prices. Under the law, enterprises became self-financing; that is, they had to cover expenses (wages, taxes, supplies, and debt service) through revenues. No longer was the government to rescue unprofitable enterprises that could face bankruptcy. Finally, the law shifted control over the enterprise operations from ministries to elected workers" collectives. Gosplan"s (Russian: Государственный комитет по планированию, State Committee for Planning) responsibilities were to supply general guidelines and national investment priorities, not to formulate detailed production plans.
The Law on Cooperatives, enacted in May 1988, was perhaps the most radical of the economic reforms during the early part of the Gorbachev era. For the first time since Vladimir Lenin"s New Economic Policy, the law permitted private ownership of businesses in the services, manufacturing, and foreign-trade sectors. The law initially imposed high taxes and employment restrictions, but it later revised these to avoid discouraging private-sector activity. Under this provision, cooperative restaurants, shops, and manufacturers became part of the Soviet scene.
Perestroika postage stamp, 1988
Gorbachev brought perestroika to the Soviet Union"s foreign economic sector with measures that Soviet economists considered bold at that time. His program virtually eliminated the monopoly that the Ministry of Foreign Trade had once held on most trade operations. It permitted the ministries of the various industrial and agricultural branches to conduct foreign trade in sectors under their responsibility rather than having to operate indirectly through the bureaucracy of trade ministry organizations. In addition, regional and local organizations and individual state enterprises were permitted to conduct foreign trade. This change was an attempt to redress a major imperfection in the Soviet foreign trade regime: the lack of contact between Soviet end users and suppliers and their foreign partners.
The most significant of Gorbachev"s reforms in the foreign economic sector allowed foreigners to invest in the Soviet Union in the form of joint ventures with Soviet ministries, state enterprises, and cooperatives. The original version of the Soviet Joint Venture Law, which went into effect in June 1987, limited foreign shares of a Soviet venture to 49 percent and required that Soviet citizens occupy the positions of chairman and general manager. After potential Western partners complained, the government revised the regulations to allow majority foreign ownership and control. Under the terms of the Joint Venture Law, the Soviet partner supplied labor, infrastructure, and a potentially large domestic market. The foreign partner supplied capital, technology, entrepreneurial expertise, and, in many cases, products and services of world competitive quality.
Gorbachev"s economic changes did not do much to restart the country"s sluggish economy in the late 1980s. The reforms decentralized things to some extent, although price controls remained, as did the ruble"s inconvertibility and most government controls over the means of production.
By 1990 the government had virtually lost control over economic conditions. Government spending increased sharply as an increasing number of unprofitable enterprises required state support and consumer price subsidies continued. Tax revenues declined because republic and local governments withheld tax revenues from the central government under the growing spirit of regional autonomy. The elimination of central control over production decisions, especially in the consumer goods sector, led to the breakdown in traditional supply-demand relationships without contributing to the formation of new ones. Thus, instead of streamlining the system, Gorbachev"s decentralization caused new production bottlenecks.
The new system bore the characteristics of neither central planning nor a market economy. Instead, the Soviet economy went from stagnation to deterioration. At the end of 1991, when the union officially dissolved, the national economy was in a virtual tailspin. In 1991 Soviet GDP had declined by 17 percent and was declining at an accelerating rate.[citation needed] Overinflation was becoming a major problem. Between 1990 and 1991, retail prices in the Soviet Union increased 140 percent.
Under these conditions, the general quality of life for the Soviet people deteriorated. The public traditionally faced shortages of durable goods, but under Gorbachev, food, clothes, and other basic necessities were in short supply. Fueled by the liberalized atmosphere of Gorbachev"s glasnost and by the general improvement in information access in the late 1980s, public dissatisfaction with economic conditions was becoming much more overt than ever before in the Soviet period. The foreign-trade sector of the Soviet economy also showed signs of deterioration. The total Soviet hard-currency debt increased appreciably, and the Soviet Union, which had established an impeccable record for debt repayment in earlier decades, had accumulated sizable arrears by 1990. It did free up the arts and social sciences in the region and enabled formerly banned literature and films to be reconstructed to a degree, with filmmakers like Sergei Parajanov now out of prison.
In sum, the Soviet Union left a legacy of economic inefficiency and deterioration to the fifteen constituent republics after its breakup in December 1991. Arguably, the shortcomings of the Gorbachev reforms had contributed to the economic decline and eventual destruction of the Soviet Union. At the same time, the Gorbachev programs did start Russia on the precarious road to full-scale economic reform.
The failures of perestroika have led Alexander Zinovyev to coin the word catastroika (Russian катастройка), a blend of катастрофа - “catastrophe" and perestroika. Zinovyev wrote: “the effect of explanatory work has appeared the return desirable. All they wished to avoid, has occurred with double the force… Queues lengthened. Prices in the markets have jumped. At home, in queues, in transport, on work, at assemblies people have openly worn the perestroyka. …. Someone has learned, that the word “perestroyka" is translated on the Greek language by a word “accident". On this basis a new word “katastroyka" has appeared. Pensioners and older Party members saw in perestroika the counterrevolution and betrayal of Lenin"s cause".[2]
Perestroika and Deng Xiaoping"s economic reforms have similar origins but very different effects on their respective countries" economies. Both efforts occurred in large communist countries attempting to modernize their economies, but while China"s GDP has grown consistently since the late 1980s (albeit from a much lower level), national GDP in the USSR and in many of its successor states fell precipitously throughout the 1990s.[3][citation needed] Gorbachev"s reforms were largely a top-down attempt at reform, and maintained many of the macroeconomic aspects of the command economy (including price controls, inconvertibility of the ruble, exclusion of private property ownership, and the government monopoly over most means of production). Reform was largely focused on industry and on cooperatives, and a limited role was given to the development of foreign investment and international trade. Factory managers were expected to meet state demands for goods, but to find their own funding. Perestroika reforms went far enough to create new bottlenecks in the Soviet economy, but arguably did not go far enough to effectively streamline it. Chinese economic reform was, by contrast, a bottom-up attempt at reform, focusing on light industry and agriculture (namely allowing peasants to sell produce grown on private holdings at market prices). Economic reforms were fostered through the development of “Special Economic Zones“, designed for export and to attract foreign investment, municipally-managed Township and Village Enterprises and a “dual pricing" system leading to the steady phasing out of state-dictated prices. Greater latitude was given to managers of state-owned factories, while capital was made available to them through a reformed banking system and through fiscal policies (in contrast to the fiscal anarchy and fall in revenue experienced by the Soviet government during perestroika).
The perestroika reforms began the process leading to the dismantling of the Soviet-era command economy and its replacement with a market economy. However, the process arguably exacerbated already existing social and economic tensions within the Soviet Union, and no doubt helped to further nationalism among the constituent republics, as well as social fragmentation. The economic chaos that began with perestroika helped both to empower organized crime and allowed businessmen with the right connections to amass great personal fortunes as Russia"s oligarchs. The economic freedoms instituted by Gorbachev under perestroika and the problems caused by these reforms arguably helped to begin the unraveling of Soviet society and hastened the end of the Soviet Union.
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