Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- 1 Beyond Marxism
- 2 Reforming the electoral system
- 3 Structures of government
- 4 The Presidency and central government
- 5 From union to independence
- 6 Patterns of republic and local politics
- 7 The withering away of the party
- 8 The emergence of competitive politics
- 9 The politics of economic interests
- 10 Public opinion and the political process
- 11 Letters and political communication
- 12 The Soviet transition and ‘democracy from above’
- Notes
- Index
8 - The emergence of competitive politics
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 27 August 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- 1 Beyond Marxism
- 2 Reforming the electoral system
- 3 Structures of government
- 4 The Presidency and central government
- 5 From union to independence
- 6 Patterns of republic and local politics
- 7 The withering away of the party
- 8 The emergence of competitive politics
- 9 The politics of economic interests
- 10 Public opinion and the political process
- 11 Letters and political communication
- 12 The Soviet transition and ‘democracy from above’
- Notes
- Index
Summary
One of the most important aspects of the changes that occurred in the USSR since 1985 was the breakdown in the monolithic nature of politics. This was reflected in the increasing pluralisation of politics in the party discussed in the previous chapter, but its most striking manifestation was the proliferation of politically-active groups outside the party. An important, although by no means only, element of this was the hesitant approach to a multi-party system.
The essential prerequisite for this development was the breakdown of the rationale for single party rule. Although not all realised it at the time, the intellectual rationale for single party rule was undermined by the shift in views that occurred under Andropov. Fundamental to this was the acknowledgement that interests in Soviet society were not always compatible. Before Andropov, officially it had been assumed that, although the society consisted of a wide diversity of interests, all of those interests were basically compatible. It was this assumption that was at the heart of the Khrushchevian notion of the all-people's state and of the view that the party united within itself the most advanced and conscious part of the working class, collective farm peasantry and the intelligentsia. During the early part of the 1980s, this assumption came under challenge in a form which impressed itself upon the political leadership. The Novosibirsk Report by Tatiana Zaslavskaia, as we have seen (p. 2), argued that Soviet society was characterised by a diversity of groups pursuing different interests.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Politics of TransitionShaping a Post-Soviet Future, pp. 140 - 163Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1993
- 3
- Cited by