TRIBUNE

~ SPECIAL SUPPLEMENT

pisamaenee

FEBRUARY 18, 1987

[Pees

PRODUCED BY USSR EMBASSY PRESS OFFICE

Re-organization has begun

he plenary meeting has on its

agenda a matter of paramount im-

portance to the effective fulfilment
of the political strategy drafted by the
April 1985 plenary meeting of the Cent-
ral Committee and the 27th CPSU Con-
gress — the question of reorganization
and the Party’s personnel policy. It is
considered in a broad social and political
context, with due regard for the lessons
of the past, the nature of the present
time, and the tasks to come.

As is generally known, the April ple-
nary meeting and the 27th Party Con-
gress prepared the ground for an objec-
tive critical analysis of the situation in
society, and took decisions of historic
importance for the country’s future.
Society has begun reorganization and it
will not look back. The first steps on
that road have been taken.

The first political conclusion is that
major changes are taking place in the
life of Soviet society, and that positive
tendencies are gaining momentum.

The policy line of the 27th Congress,
the practical efforts to fulfil it and reor-
ganization itself have been given broad
support by workers, by the entire
Soviet people.

At the same time, change for the bet-
ter is taking place slowly, the cause of
reorganization is more difficult, and the
problems which have accumulated in
Society more deep-rooted than was first
thought.

That is why there is an urgent need to
return to an analysis of those problems
which confronted the Party and Soviet
Society in the few years preceding the
April 1985 plenary meeting of the
CPSU Central Committee, to under-
Stand the reasons for negative proces-
Ses, and to work out measures to speed
Up our progress, to keep us from repeat-
ing mistakes.

I;
_ Almost seven decades ago the Lenin-
St party raised over the country the
Hee orious banner of socialist revolu-
On.

The achievements of the Soviet

. People are immense and indubitable.

ut no accomplishments, even the

most impressive, should obscure either
contradictions in social development or
our mistakes and failings.

At some point the country began to
lose momentum, difficulties and unre-
solved problems started to pile up, and
there appeared elements of stagnation
and other phenomena alien to
socialism.

Of course, the country did not cease
developing. Tens of millions of Soviet
people worked honestly, and many
Party organizations and our cadre
workers energetically acted in the in-
terests of the people. All that held back
the intensification of negative proces-
ses, but could not avert them al-
together.

The report draws the conclusion that
in the recent past, conservative senti-
ments, inertia, and a tendency to brush
aside anything that did not fit into
conventional patterns, prevailed in
policy-making and practical work.

The extent to which vital problems
and contradictions and social tenden-
cies and prospects were understood
depended in many ways on the condi-
tion and progress of theory.

Lenin’s dictum that the value of a
theory consists in its providing an exact
picture ‘‘of all the contradictions that
are present in reality’’ was often merely
ignored. The theoretical concepts of
socialism remained to a large extent at
the level of the 1930s-1940s, when soci-
ety had tackled entirely different tasks.
Developing socialism, the dialectics of
its motive forces and contradictions
and the actual condition of society did
not become the subject of in-depth
scientific research.

Lenin’s ideas of socialism were in-
terpreted simplistically and their
theoretical depth and significance were
often left emaciated. This was true of
such key problems as public property,
relations between classes and nationa-
lities, the measure of work and measure
of consumption, cooperation, methods

PHOTOS — APN

We will not look back

Mikhail Gorbachev talks to the people. One of the main points of the report is that
committed people are key to the success of the reorganization drive now affecting

every facet of Soviet life.

of economic management, -people’s
rule and self-government and others.

Spurious notions of communism and
various prophecies and abstract views
gained currency. Production and incen-
tives were actually oriented to quantita-
tive, extensive growth.

Control over who managed socialist
property and how had slackened. It was
often eroded by departmental and
parochial attitudes and became ‘‘no
one’s’’, free, without any real master,
and in many cases ‘came to be used to
derive unearned income. There was an
incorrect attitude to cooperative prop-
erty, which had grievous consequences
for agrarian and social policies.

reconceptions about the role of

monetary-commodity relations and

the operation of the law of value,
and sometimes their being set in direct
opposition to socialism as something
alien, led to voluntarist approaches in
the economy, to the underestimation of
cost-accounting and to a levelling out in
pay, and bred subjective approaches in
price formation, breaches of money cir-
culation and disregard for the regulation
of supply and demand.

Restrictions on the cost-accounting
rights of enterprises and amalgamations
had especially grave consequences.
They subverted the foundations of

material incentive, blocked the
achievement of high end results, and
led to a lowering of the people’s labour
and social activity and to a slackening
of discipline and order.

. In fact, a whole system of weakening
the economic tools of government
emerged, and there took shape a
mechanism of braking socio-economic
development and hindering progressive

. change which made possible the tap-

ping and use of the advantages of
socialism. That braking process was
rooted in serious shortcomings in the
functioning of the institutions of
socialist democracy, in outdated politi-
cal and theoretical concepts that often
did not correspond to meet reality, and
in conservative managerial machinery.

All that adversely affected the de-
velopment of many spheres in the life of
society. The growth rates of the na-
tional income in material production
over the past three five-year plan
periods dropped by more than half.
Most plan targets had not been met
since the early 1970s.

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TRIBUNE SUPPLEMENT, FEBRUARY 18, 1987 e S1