New laws shed light on
1987Alan Benjamin 1987-08Read it in the scan (PDF at ETOL), page 10 →
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communism? This democratization Two recent policy decisions by the ruling Soviet bureaucracy provide new insight into the reactionary character of the "reforms" promoted by Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. The first decision concerns economic restructuring (or perestroika); the second concerns Soviet policy toward Nicaragua.
In late June, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union announced plans to partially dismantle central economic planning and radically modify the nation's subsidized pricing system.
The goal of these economic measures, according to Soviet economists closely allied to Gorbachev, is to increase productivity of the workforce by promoting inter-factory competition, unemployment, and market-pricing mechanisms.
According to the new law, which will go into effect next January, the country's 48,000 state enterprises must henceforth fund their operations from their own profits. If they are "unprofitable," they will no longer receive government subsidies to keep afloat and will go bankrupt.
It is estimated that 13 percent of Soviet factories ran a deficit in 1986. If all these plants are closed, high levels of unemployment will inevitably result. before the world, I state with full responsibility that our international policy is more than ever determined by domestic policy, by our interest in concentrating on constructive endeavors to promote our country. This is why we need lasting peace, predictability, and constructiveness in international relations."
Gorbachev then went on to spell out what this policy of "peaceful coexistence" with imperialism meant in concrete terms:
"Settlement of regional conflicts is a dictate of our times. We say, 'Let us search and act together. This applies to the Iran-Iraq war, the Central American crisis, the Afghan problem, and the situation in the South of Africa and Indochina.'' A revealing example of Gorbachev's commitment to "search and act together" with imperialism was the Soviet Union's decision in late May to sharply reduce its shipments of oil to Nicaragua.
On May 30, Nicaraguan Cooperation Minister Henry Ruiz said the Soviet leadership had told the Sandinista government that it would henceforth provide Nicaragua with only 40 percent of its crude oil needs—a reduction of 40 percent from its previous shipments.
A Mexican newspaper, Excelsior, reported on June 3 that the Soviet ambassador to Mexico, Rostilay Sergueev, had told journalists that the Soviet move to reduce