Home › Books & Reviews › Capsule Reviews › Perestroika: From Marxism And Bolshevism To Gorbachev

Perestroika: From Marxism And Bolshevism To Gorbachev

Svetozar Stojanovic
Reviewed by Patricia Lee Dorff
Spring 1989
Perestroika: From Marxism And Bolshevism To Gorbachev
Svetozar Stojanovic
Prometheus Books
1988
167 pp.
$23.95
Login or Register to leave a comment.

Sign-up for free weekly updates from ForeignAffairs.com.

Very little about Gorbachev and his present problems, but very much on the general crisis of Marxism, its theory and practice, which provides the context for judging both the past and the future of the Soviet Union, Poland, Yugoslavia and other liberalizing but still "statist" societies. It is a stimulating and, in many ways, original critique by a well-known Yugoslav political philosopher of the Praxis school.

Related

Essay, Sep/Oct 1999
Russia's Collapse
Anders Aslund

Most people think that Russia's economic problems are due to the shock of fast and radical reforms. Actually, the Russian economy is not very liberalized at all, and its problems have been caused by reforms that were too slow and partial, not too sweeping. Russia suffers not from too free a market but from corruption, which thrives by preying on an unwieldy bureaucracy. Still, the outlook for the months ahead is promising. If Poland could do it, why can't Russia? The private sector got a salutary wake-up call from the 1998 collapse of the ruble, and the strength of the political center bodes well for economic recovery and social change.

Read
Essay, Nov/Dec 1998
OPEC as Omen
Jahangir Amuzegar

The next great oil boom is on: four former Soviet republics on the Caspian Sea are sitting atop an economic bonanza. But they should remember the fate of OPEC, whose members squandered their 1970s windfall. Where did all the money go? The state took on too dominant an economic role and wasted the wealth at home in a rash of boondoggle projects and military buildups. All OPEC members came down with "quick-money fever." They became addicted to supposedly limitless oil revenues even as boom turned to bust. The Caspian states, too, risk going from riches to rags if they do not resist the temptations of petromania.

Read
Essay, Jan/Feb 1995
Why Russia's Politics Matter
Michael McFaul

The neoliberal economic and political models used by Western analysts to explain Russia's recent transformation ignore the interrelationship between the economy and politics. Russia is in the midst of a social revolution. Economic reform without political reform-as attempted by Yegor Gaidar-will fail. Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin's policies have met with some success because of accompanying political changes. This interrelated pattern of reform must continue.

Read
Cover image

In the Magazine

March/April 2010, 2, 89
Essay
After Iran Gets the Bomb
James M. Lindsay and Ray Takeyh

Despite international pressure, Iran appears to be continuing its march toward getting a nuclear bomb. But Washington can contain and mitigate the consequences of Tehran's nuclear defiance, keeping an abhorrent outcome from becoming a catastrophic one.
Read