The first six months
USSR Its effects on the economy (absenteeism in the factories) are disastrous, as well as its consequences for public health. It is, no doubt, the major cause of the decline in average life expectancy that has been registered of Gorbachov's reign for several years now in the Soviet Union.
Among the industrialized or semiindustrialized countries, a decline in average life expectancy has been seen only in the Soviet Union. Besides
THE TOP SPOT in the Soviet hierarchy has been occupied by
Gorbachov for six months now. He assumed power without any open clashes. He has consolidated it by means of rapid changes in the makeup of the leading bodies of the party, the state, and the armed forces. The youngest leader elevated by the bureaucracy since Stalin's death seems, thus, to have a chance to carry through reforms at least as extensive as those that Nikita Khrushchev sought to implement. Everything indicates that this, in fact, is Mikhail
Gorbachov's intention. What is known about him personally also tends to confirm this. Such a view, notably, is supported by Roy
Medvedev, who was his fellow student. The limited public opinion that has developed in the Soviet Union in recent years — among a part of the intelligentsia, the technocrats, and the party apparatchiks has tended to come to the same conclusion. In these circles, expectations, hopes for a "thaw," are emerging that have not been seen in the Soviet Union since Khrushchev's death.
ERNEST MANDEL
The expectation that Gorbachov will introduce major reforms become so accepted that in an open letter the Czechoslovak dissident group
Charter 77 contrasted his "desire for reform" favorably with the stand-pat leaders. Such subjective impressions are merely the reflection of pressing obiective needs. For years, the bills have been adding up for the growing the Soviet
Union must for the rule of the bureaucratic dictatorship. Over the last two years, economic growth rates have steadily fallen.
The crisis in agriculture is leading to a disastrous dependence on from the
Western cereal imports countries. A serious lag in technological progress has been developing in the field of electronics. An abrupt the mortality rate indicates rise in a crisis of public health. And these of the graver conseare only some quences of bureaucratic rigidity for the Soviet society and masses.
"This has got to change" - everyone capable of thinking for himself or herself in the Soviet Union agrees about that. And there are a lot more of them than the likes of Aleksandr
Zinoviev, with their myth of the
"homo hopelessly conformist meticus," would have us believe.
moment there is no perspecchange initiated from below.
hal Viewpoint 30 September 1985
So, the expectations of the intellectuals and technocrats are focused on the hope for change from above.
What the workers think is something no one knows very much about, least of all the party apparatus, which from time to time organizes pathetic "sociological studies in the factories" to gather a few scraps of information. The few first-hand reports that have indicate skepticism or outright hostility.
The burden of these be summed up in the phrase: chov - Andropov - more discipline, more belt tightening for the workers." In fact, in a recent speech in Lenin-
Gorbachov ledged that there was a general skepticism among the masses scope and effectiveness of the reforms cannot exactly be said that cold water has been poured immediately on these expectations of major reforms. On May 17, 1985, aiter two sessions of the Soviet CP Central Committee devoted entirely to this subject, measures were adopted "against alcoholism and drunkenness." They were to go into effect on June 1.
Alcoholism is a terrible plague in the Soviet Union. According to a report of the Soviet Academy of Sciences, it affects 40 million people.
alcoholism, the other factors are a delay in putting into use the more modern medicines and a more and more pronounced decline in the quality of the health-care system.
So, the bureaucracy has a clear interest in trying to come up with an answer to these problems. The hefty income that the state derives from the sales of vodka certainly does not compensate for the losses caused by the evil of alcoholism.
The measures adopted are administrative and repressive in nature. They include a ban on serving alcohol in cafes, canteens, and restaurants before 2.00 pm or after 8.00 pm; big price increases for alcoholic beverages, along with increased production soft drinks and fruit juice; a sharp reduction in the production of vodka in the future; stepped-up repression of moonshiners; and greater penalties for public drunkeness and absentee. ism in the plants owing to drunken-
The effects of these measures, however, are for the moment modest. The population generally skepticism of Le Monde's Moscow correspondent, wrote in the June 7, 1985, issue of the Paris daily:
"Despite the press campaign that is full swing, the daily lives of the Soviets have not yet really changed. The screw may go on being tightened. On top of the repressive measures will come the automatic effects of the announced cuts in the annual production of alcohol. But for the moment the old habits remain well rooted, as the magazine Ogonyok
One of its readers made the test in a restaurant. He for tea. The waiter smiled complicitly
•Would you like a bottle or a carafe?' "
At the same time, as soon as he assumed power, Gorbachov relaunched the violent repression of corruption initiated under Andropov, and which Chernenko had relaxed Heads have rolled in the all-union ministries and those of the various republics. The targets for the axe have been managers of enterprises, in particular trading enterprises, and the entrepreneurs and intermediaries in the "parallel markets" ( the black and "grey" markets).
of the could close name their the objectively eyes the influence of money and in 1918: "You cannot deny demoralizing influ-
Soviet regime
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an exhaustive list.
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International Viewpoint 30 September 1985