[Note for bibliographic reference: Melberg, Hans O. (1994), The Soviet system
and model building, http://www.oocities.org/hmelberg/papers/940301.htm]
[Note: This paper was written in 1994. Today I do not agree with all the
arguments, nor the way they are expressed. Nevertheless, I feel that the main views are
still sound. Also, I am still interested in the subject so I would like to receive
comments. On this background I feel confident enough to make it available on the Net.]
The Soviet system and model building
This essay will argue that the essence of the Soviet system was its totalitarian aim i.e.
the attempted subordination of all aspects of society to the political ideology of
Marxism-Leninism. This argument rests on a theory of models which argues that
totalitarianism best captures the driving forces of the Soviet system and hence provides
the best guide to policy formation.
Models are important because they are shorthand for a system of beliefs about how a system
work and these beliefs in turn affect reality by guiding policy formation. An
understanding of how a system works requires knowledge about the causally important
factors in the system. The best model is that model which best captures these causal
features and hence is the most reliable information basis for policy formation. To capture
the causal factors of a system one should distinguish between three features: First, the
aims, of those in power. Second, the subjective causal mechanisms i.e. how the people in
power perceive the causal connections in society (how they can achieve their aims). Third,
the objective causal mechanisms i.e. the "true" causal connections in society.
W. Niskanen's book "Bureaucracies and Representative Government" is a
concrete illustration of how models may affect policy formation. His book led to the
belief that public services were oversupplied because of collusion between bureaucrats and
politicians. The causal theory was that politicians aimed at maximizing votes. To do so
they had to provide public services, but the provision of public services was dependent on
information from and implementation by bureaucracies. The problem, then, was that
bureaucracies gave biased information since their aim was to maximize their own budget.
Hence, public services were overprovided. Based on the belief that this kind of analysis
was right, politicians have sought to improve the functioning of the British system by
implementing reforms of the bureaucracy called "Next Step." This shows how the
study of politics and models may affect the real world and hence be useful (or harmful -
if the models are wrong).
In what ways does the totalitarian model capture the causal features of the soviet system?
First of all the totalitarian model put emphasis on the ideological nature of the Soviet
regime. By doing so it provides both an explanation of the aims of the Soviet political
leaders and their beliefs regarding the subjective causal mechanisms. The aim, according
to totalitarianism, is the establishment of World Communism. The method of establishing
this, according to the ideology is the abolishion of private property (Marx) and by
subordinating most (all) aspects of society to the Leadership of a vanguard Party (Lenin).
Hence, the totalitarian model fulfills two of the essential characteristics of a good
model: It spells out the motivating factor(s) and the causal beliefs of those in power.
The totalitarian model has been accused of being too static i.e. that it could not explain
changes in the Soviet system over its 70 year history. How could totalitarianims explain
NEP, Khrushchevs "democratic" reforms, detente under Brezhnnev and Gorbachev's
apparent democratisation? Were not these phenomena incompatible with the totalitarian
emphasis on the fusion of economics under politics, the inherent aggressiveness implied by
the aim of World Communism and the Party Leadership of society? On the surface it may seem
like totalitarianism fails to explain the dynamics of the Soviet system. However, by
bringing in the third important feature of causality in a political system, the objective
causal mechanisms, the totalitarian model becomes coherent. This is what Martin Malia does
in in his "New T-model." There he describes how the interaction between aims and
realities forces the Soviets to oscillate between hard and soft communism. Because of
objective causal mechanisms, such as the need to use free price mechanisms to achieve
economic efficiency (Hayek), the Soviet leaders were forced to create breathing spaces
before and after a "hard" period of "building communism." In this way
the totalitarian model gains dynamic explanatory power.
The changing external environment also provides a source of dynamic explanatory power in
totalitarianism. When the environment changes the actors may have to change their
strategies to achieve their aim. Hence, Gorbachev's reforms need not be seen as a
departure from the aim of Communism, rather it may simply be an adaptation to the new
external circumstances such as the new technologies and the changing international climate
(i.e. the new technologies required a new form of organising society - bringing out the
human factor by making people feel they were in charge of their own house - in order to be
effective. The international climate was such that aggressive policies were
counterproductive and a more defensive policy would improve the balanse in favour of the
Soviets. Consequently the new thinking was not incompatible with the aim of world
dominance.)
By focusing on the interaction between the objective causal mechanisms of society and the
aims and subjective beliefs of the Soviet leaders the Totalitarian model also provides an
explanation of the collapse of the Soviet system. As Ludwig von Mises argued, the fusion
of economics and politics is bound to reduce economic efficiency over time. This is so
because efficiency requires that resources are used in inverse proportion to their
scarcity. To achieve this one must allow prices to reflect the relative scarcity of the
resources. In this way a scarce resource becomes expensive and its expensiveness prevents
it from being "overused" compared to to the conditions of efficiency. However,
without a free market, the prices do not reflect the relative scarcity of goods. Hence,
either the planners have to have an enourmous amount of information to plan, or the plan
will produce inefficiencies. A centrally planned system can grow as long as there is room
for extensive growth. When this type of growth is exhaused the possibility to use
intensive growth to increase economic welfare is limited by the lack of meaningful price
signals. Given that the legitimacy of the system depended on its promise of a life of
material plenty in the state of Communism, and that there is a limit to the patience of
people in waiting for this heaven, the lack of economic growth was bound to undermine
Communist rule.
In what ways are other models than totalitarianisme less useful in capturing the causal
realities of the Soviet system? Firstly, models such as pluralism and the bureaucratic
model do not put enough emphasis on the ideological nature of the Soviet system. When Jiri
Valenta tries to explain the invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 by using the bureaucratic
model, he does not explain why the invasion was necessary from a Soviet perspective. It is
true that some individuals, like Shelest, had personal strategic motives behind his hard
line, but this focuses on the details, not the essence of the system. The essence is that
given the aim of World Communism the Soviets could not allow the Czechoslovaks to to
conduct "contageous" experiements which threatened the fate of socialism as
interpreted by the Soviet party. Hence, while the bureaucratic model might explain
details, it does not focus on the essence.
The same argument applies to the Corporatist model as presented by V. Bunce. This model
fails because it focuses on the signs of adaptability in the Soviet system i.e. the signs
that the elite is responsive to demands from different groups below it. It is of course
possible to find some empirical evidence for this, such as Brezhnevs emphaisis on
producing more consumer goods. However, to make this adaptability the essence of the model
is to put too little emphasis on the many signs of rigidity and lack of elite
responsiveness. For example, the invasion of Afghanistan had very little support among the
Soviet people.
In conclusion, this essay has argued that the totalitarian model best captureed Soviet
causal factors and hence it was the the model on which the West should base their foreign
policy.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
In addition to the works cited in the bibliography of Sovietology:
Why the totalitarian model is the best, I have used the following works:
Dawisha, Karen (1980), The limits of the bureaucratic politics model: Observations on the
Soviet case, Studies in Comparative Communism 13(4):300-327 (Including comments by
Graham T. Allison, Fred H. Eidlin and Jiri Valenta. )
Malia, Martin (1990), To The Stalin Mausoleum, Daedalus January : 295-344 (The
"Z" article)
Odom, William (1983), Choice and change in Soviet politics, Problems of Communism
May-June 1983: 1-22
Solomon, Peter H. Jr. (1993), Against premature closure, Post-Soviet Affairs 9 (3):278-280
[Note: This paper was written in 1994, while I was an undergraduate. Today I do
not agree with all the arguments, nor the way they are expressed. Nevertheless, I feel
that the main views are still sound. Also, I am still interested in the subject so I would
like to receive comments. On this background I feel confident enough to make it available
on the Net.]
[Note for bibliographic reference: Melberg, Hans O. (1994), The Soviet system and
model building, http://www.oocities.org/hmelberg/papers/940301.htm]