Revolution from Above: The Demise of the Soviet System

by David M. Kotz

This book argues that the ruling state party in the USSR itself moved to dismantle the old system. Research includes interviews with over 50 former Soviet government and Communist party leaders, policy advisors, trade unionists and businessmen.

Genres: History, Russia, Soviet Union, Nonfiction

320 pages, Paperback

First published January 24, 1997

About the author

David M. Kotz is Professor of Economics at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and Distinguished Professor, School of Economics, Shanghai University of Finance and Economics.

Reviews

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

The collapse of socialism in the nineties produced a vast literature which, regardless of its position on the political spectrum, totally failed to explain the mechanisms of this category of events. In the market camp, it is the crushing of individual initiative and freedom of expression engendered by a morally bankrupt and ideologically blinkered state socialist elite that caused the masses to move towards market liberalism. In dark mirror of the socialist camp, you get to pick the date from which the ideological rot in the governing party set in, which corrupted all else: 1917? 1924? 1937? 1953? Once the snake had entered the garden, the future became set in stone and any and all concrete developments henceforth could be explained by pointing towards the evil geniuses from which radiated outwards the cataclysm. What lessons to draw from these episodes? Communists' ideological purity must always be maintained, presumably in relation to the concrete picture Marx and Engels painted of socialism -- amounting to nine paragraphs, give or take, scattered across their collected works numbering a 114 volumes.

Nominally, marxists oppose 'great man history'. But many make an exception when it comes to explaining the failures of socialist projects as rooted in the betrayal by key indvidiuals. But as the late Domenico Losurdo, whose loyalty to the communist project can scarcely be called into doubt, wrote:

In order to get beyond the idealist types of pseudoexplanations, it is necessary to replace the concept of betrayal (that really plays a minor role) with that of learning. The victory of a revolution can only be considered secure when the class that has carried it out succeeds in giving its sovereignty a durable political form. All of this takes place in the middle of a long and complex learning process marked by conflict and contradiction, experiment and error.

Kotz and Weir's Revolution from above is the golden standard that all soviet historiography should strive towards. They identify the various groups controlling various levers of state power, the audiences to which they owe their legitimacy, the material interests concomitant to their position in the system, the contradictions between this and their stated responsibilities, and most of all the development of the national economy on the one hand and the geopolitical situation on the other. The crispy clear result is a tragic tale of well-meaning reformers embarking on necessary structural adjustments, after various smaller waves had failed to revitalize the Soviet project, which crossed the point of no return when the balance of power was upset to such a degree that local elites, most notably the Moscow party-industrial cheeses, could wrench away their part of the state, which rapidly caused the whole endeavour to crumble. Notably, betrayal doesn't carry any explanatory power here, nor is it necessary: Gorbachev and Yeltsin, Gaidar and the army staff -- all followed steps which were understandable when looked at in isolation, their intentions, allies and opponents openly declared -- an advantage to the archives made possible by the glasnost -- but which together added up to a wipeout of one system without another being prepared in place. That's not to say that none desired a capitalist restoration -- on the contrary, the book's thesis is that socialism as conceived by the soviets had lost its appeal to the state elite, not, initially, out of a desire to enrich themselves, but due to real failures and difficulties while outside similar problems were resolved in a more satisfactory manner. State socialism is a big tent, however, and it's to their shame that they fled the leaky tent instead of finding a spot where it was still dry, but you know 20/20 hindsight.

Now that Gorbachev's passed away, it felt appropriate to return to this book that taught me so much. The challenge of socialism is not to keep out everything deemed not socialist enough, but to create a socialism so self-corrective, dynamic and vibrant that it doesn't run into existential problems like the USSR did.

[Ed · Rating 4 out of 5]

A quite interesting book that successfully discredits the idea that the Soviet Union collapsed because the population wanted to go extreme capitalist. In fact, the Communist Party elite simply decided that they were sick of having a lower living standard than they saw the elite in the West having and decided they would be better off under a capitalist system. They were right and rode through the massive economic changes and became very wealthy by ripping off former state assets, speculating in commodities, foreign exchange and property. Almost every current rich Russian is a former Soviet apparatchnik.

And the Gorbachev moves to introduce democracy facilitated the process, as did the extreme free market ideology that Soviet economists had imbued, encouraged by the IMF etc. Throughout the process, the mass of the population wanted to become capitalist along the lines of Sweden, but the Communist party elite didn't fancy that degree of egalitarianism, so they went for the undiluted sort and in doing so more or less destroyed the productive capacity of the country. The former Soviet Union broke up and the industrial production/GNP fell by far more than the US did in the Great Depression. Life expectancy of males fell by ten years to African levels where it remains nearly 20 years on.

The book was written in the mid 1990s and speculates reasonably accurately that Russia would become more authoritarian, more anti-Western and more dependent on mineral exports now that Russian manufacturing has been decimated.

I liked the analytical nature of the book and its investigation of causes and alternative theories of causes of what happened, while providing an excellent narrative of many things I didn't know about.

[guclu gozaydin · Rating 1 out of 5]

Kitap aslında sanırım oldukça sağlam analiz ve tezlere sahip olmakla beraber, inanılmaz kötü bir redaksiyon ve çevirinin kurbanı olmuş. Bir noktaya kadar kafamdan düzelte düzelte ilerledikten sonra pes edip bıraktım. Umarım bir gün yeni bir çeviri ve redaksiyonla yeniden yayınlanır. Kitaba resmen yazık olmuş.

[Ergin Babur · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sovyetler Birliğinin dağılışını, alttan gelen bir devrimle sosyalizme karşı yapılan bir özgürlük hareketi kara propagandasını tüm süreci kapsayan delilleri ortaya koyarak anlatan bir çalışma.
araştırma, ve süreç tanıklığı tüm verileri ile aktarılmış olsa da anlayamadığım anlamakta zorlandığım birşey var; toplumların çöküşünü veya yükselişini konu eden iktisat kitaplarında toplumu felakete götüren süreci doğrudan hukuk sistemine ve kurumlar arasındaki denge denetleme mekanizmasına bağlarlar bu doğru fakat o toplumun değer yargılarına hiç temas etmezler. Boris Yeltsin ve oligarkları tüm sovyet mirasını br kaç sene içinde talan etmiş insanları açlığa mahkum etmiş seçim öncesi yüzde 8 oy oranıyla 5. sırada olmasına rağmen doğru propaganda ve kısmen hileli seçim ile yüzde ellinin üzerinde oy alarak tekrar seçilmiş ama kötü adam burda yeltsin bu doğru ama ona bu vekaleti veren on milyonlar masum? kandırılmış olmak kirli propagandaya maruz kalmak gereçli bir neden değil.
tek bir tane oy bile alması skandal olan kişi seçimi kazanıyor iş, kurumların işleyişine bağlanıyor. soru şu: aynı olaylar ingilterede veya norveçte olsa sonuç ne olurdu? devletin kendisine verdiği kredi kartını yanlışlıkla karıştırarak market alışverişinde kendine çikolata alan norveçli bakanı istifa etmeye götüren toplumsal baskı ortamı neden rusyada yok?

[Ben · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great book. Highly recommended for anyone curious about the end of the Society Union. Yeltsin is truly an arch villain.