The issue was not by this time whether to move to a market economy, but rather when, how and to what kind of market economy. The Shatalin-Iavlinskii proposals were less a plan or programme and more a set of aspirations which were subsequently agreed to have been over-optimistic. Egor Gaidar, a member of the team which produced the document, subsequently saw its desiderata as more of a political than an economic statement and regarded them, on the basis of his own post-Soviet experience, as having been naive.[31] The political salience of the issue was, however, very great. Gorbachev's retreat from support of the Shatalin-Iavlinskii proposals undoubtedly lost him credibility among Russian radical reformists as well as within the republics most desirous of greater sovereignty. The mantle of leader of reform appeared now, in the eyes of many intellectuals, to be passing to Yeltsin. Finding himself deserted by a significant part of the constituency for change, Gorbachev became increasingly reliant on the more conservative elements within the leadership during the winter of 1990-1.
There is no doubt that the attempt to reform the Soviet economy ended in failure. Part of the reason for that was the tension between reforming an existing system to make it work better and replacing that system by one which had a quite different logic. In the early years ofperestroika the first aim was being pursued - and with only very limited success. By 1990-1, while there was not a consensus, there was at least a broad body of support among specialists for the idea that the command economy had to give way to a market economy. It was clearer to Gorbachev than to Yeltsin that this would mean tens of millions of citizens becoming worse off for some years to come. Freeing prices would improve the supply of goods and services but would also raise those prices to a level the majority could ill afford. That factor, together with the institutional opposition to change ofthetypeproposedby the Shatalin-Iavlinskii group, and concern about the possibly deleterious impact of economic systemic change on the territorial integrity of the USSR, made Gorbachev hesitate about pushing through the move to a market economy in practice that he had already accepted in principle. Much of the economic legislation of the perestroika years - not least the Law on Co-operatives - had helped to pave the way for marketisation, but the Soviet economy remained in limbo at the end of the Gorbachev era. It was no longer a functioning command economy but not yet a market system.
Ending the Cold War
If the results of economic reform during the perestroika period were, to say the least, disappointing, the outcome of the new direction of Soviet foreign policy was a dramatic improvement in Soviet relations with the outside world. Gorbachev came to power intent on making a qualitative change in this respect. He was determined to end the war in Afghanistan and to improve relations with the United States, Western Europe and China. He wished to move away also from Soviet tutelage of Eastern Europe. At a meeting with the East European Communist leaders as early as Chernenko's funeral Gorbachev told this disbelieving group that the Soviet Union would respect their sovereignty and independence and they, in turn, would have to take full responsibility for developments in their countries. In other words - and Gorbachev was to make this more explicit in November 1986 - the ruling parties of Eastern Europe had better earn the trust of their own people, for there would be no more Soviet military interventions if they ran into trouble.[32] Granting more independence to Communist leaders in Eastern Europe and respecting the full autonomy of those states were not, of course, the same thing. It was in 1988-9 that Gorbachev went beyond the former position to embrace the latter.
The issue of how decisive in ending the Cold War was the role played by political leaders - in particular, Gorbachev - is still a subject for debate, as are explanations in terms ofmaterial resources, ideas and Soviet domesticpolitics.[33]Some see these as alternative explanations. For others they are complementary, each having some bearing on the eventual outcome but to greatly varying extent. One argument which would accord primacy to American pressure - stressing, at the same time, the disparity between the material resources of the Soviet Union and the United States - holds that by stepping up military expenditure in a way the USSR would find difficult to match, the Reagan administration was inviting its Soviet adversary either to 'spend itself to death' or to capitulate. Expressed more moderately, this is stated as: 'The end of the Cold War was caused by the relative decline of Soviet power and the reassurance this gave the West.'[34]
However, the relative strength of the United States in relation to the Soviet Union was greater in the early post-war years when Stalin's takeover of Eastern Europe began the Cold War. Moreover, the Soviet Union, if less militarily strong than the United States in the mid-1980s, had enough nuclear weapons to destroy life on earth. It did not need to match the US, weapon for weapon, in order to maintain the division of Europe. At home, living standards, while low in comparison with Western Europe, were much higher than Soviet citizens had put up with over many decades. Even if there had been more widespread domestic dissatisfaction with Soviet foreign policy and with the domestic political order than, in fact, there was in 1985, the regime had sophisticated means of maintaining control and an apparatus of repression that had very successfully eliminated dissent. It could have continued to do so, using the mass media to present a propagandistic interpretation of Western aggressive intentions and the need for the Soviet Union to strengthen still further its defences, had the leadership opted for continuity rather than change in foreign policy.
Gorbachev was in a minority of one in the Politburo at the time he took over as General Secretary in believing that the Soviet Union as well as the United States had to react to the realities of the nuclear age in a new way. He was concerned that President Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) increased the chance of Cold War turning into hot war by increasing reliance on fallible technology and technocratic rather than political decisions. He wished also to divert excessive military expenditure to civilian purposes, but he was initially alone also within the top leadership in being willing to tackle the power of the Soviet military-industrial complex. And even as leader, aware that he could be replaced as General Secretary at short notice by a CPSU Central Committee plenum, Gorbachev had to proceed cautiously in challenging the most powerful institutional interests within the Soviet system.
A combination of new Soviet leadership and new ideas was more important than the difference in material resources between the USSR and the USA in bringing about change. Domestic Soviet politics were also more important than the international environment between 1985 and 1988. This changed in 1989 when the citizens of East European countries demanded and secured their independence. The speed at which this happened left Gorbachev responding to events, rather than setting the international agenda, as he had done, to a great extent, in his earliest years in office. One of the features that distinguished Gorbachev from his predecessors as Soviet leader was a strong aversion to violence. This is, on the whole, recognised both by those who think well of Gorbachev and by his severe critics in post-Communist Russia. In the words of Vladislav Zubok: 'The principle of non-violence was not only Gorbachev's sincere belief, and the foundation of his domestic and foreign policies, but it also matched his personal "codes" . . . The critics claim that Gorbachev "had no guts for blood", even when it was dictated by raison d'etat.'[35] There was, moreover, as Anatolii Cherniaev has affirmed, 'a total lack in Gorbachev of undue respect for the military or any kind of special fascination with military parades and demonstrations of military power'.[36]
32
Gorbachev,
33
See esp. Richard K. Herrmann and Richard Ned Lebow (eds.),
34
William C. Wohlforth, 'Realism and the End of the Cold War',
35
Vladislav M. Zubok, 'Gorbachev and the End of the Cold War: Perspectives on History and Personality',
36
Anatolii Cherniaev 'Forging a New Relationship', in William C. Wohlforth (ed.),