Gorbachev’s ‘Radical Reform’ and the Future of the Soviet Planning System

Ever since Stalin’s death, successive Soviet leaderships have endeavoured to improve the functionability of the USSR’s planned economy system by way of a variety of reforms from ‘within the system’. Khrushchev’s unsuccessful attempt at administrative decentralisation on a regional basis was followed in the 1960s by Brezhnev’s broad-based but half-hearted and inconsistent programme of reforms. More recently, Brezhnev’s attempts to ‘muddle through’ with ‘improvements’ to and ‘perfectings’ of the administration of the economy (Nove, 1982, pp. 17–44) instead of embarking on any real reforms have given way to Gorbachev’s ambitious project of a ‘radical reform’. While the periodic repetition of attempts at reform only presses home the fact that it has still not proved possible to give the Soviet planned economy a modern, efficient structure, Gorbachev’s unprecedented determination underlines the realisation that the need for effective reform has by now become so urgent as to brook no further delay.