La débâcle de l'expérience soviétique. De la tentative de réformer l'irréformable à la « thérapie de choc »

In: Revue d'études comparatives est-ouest: RECEO, Band 23, Heft 1, S. 29-59

Abstract

The collapse of the Soviet system. From the attempt to reform the unreformable to « shock therapy ».
The author shows how the dynamics of perestroïka were fatal for the Soviet system. The compatibility of a « return to Lenin », of a regenerated communism, with democracy and respect for humanist principles, just as the transition from a bureaucratic socialism, operating more or less on party directives, to « market socialism », were never seriously envisaged by Gorbachev's reformers. But could they have been ? However that may have been, the reformers performed a useful task : they helped to speed up the breakdown of the Soviet regime.
Since the beginning of 1992, president Yeltsin's team have manfully set about dismantling the Soviet system. It is a colossal undertaking, and socially painful. The means used, including «shock therapy» are such as the circumstances dictate. The process of « commercialization » could not be set in motion other then by the abrupt cutting of subsidies and opening the way to inflation. It will certainly take a long time to achieve a « normal » economy (as the Russians speak of a market economy) : attitudes and social structures cannot be changed in a few months. The first results obtained by Gaidar's government, relating to money and the budget, are encouraging.