270
PARTISAN REVIEW
The Reality of the Proposed Course
Although it is the most realistic peaceful course, the path
to
reform which I propose has, as I see it, very little chance of
realization. The only likelihood of reformers coming
to
power in the
Soviet Union would be in the case of a serious crisis and a domestic
upheaval of the kind we have witnessed in East Europe, although the
conditions for reform were much more favorable there than in the
Soviet Union.
Precisely because of these major differences between the Eastern
European countries and the Soviet Union, it is
to
be feared that
assumption of power by Soviet party leaders in the role of reformers
in time of en'sis
will not change anything. Nobody will believe in
their sincerity and they will have
to
rely on force, primarily on the
special troops of the KGB. And the reformers would have
to
assume
power at the very beginning of the crisis-an unlikely possibility
considering the qualitative composition of the Soviet partocracy
which is hardly able
to
change for the better.
Still , I do not consider that the presentation of my plan is
useless . I hope that my approach will at least help to show more
clearly the true conservatism of Soviet Party leadership . And I am sure
that the propagation of democratic and evolutionary ideas can not
only help the cause of reform in the Soviet Union, but ultimately also
can have the effect of making the semi-revolutionary or revolutionary
course less painful .
And there are many indications that the time for change seems
to
be approaching in the Soviet Union . The voicing of opposition
views, despite severe teprisals , the many flights abroad , and the wave
of uprisings and strikes that swept the country in the early 1960s
(Novo-Cherkassk, Aleksandrov, Murom, Temirtau, etc.)-all indi–
cate that "pressure" is mounting
to
the point of crisis.
The country's economy is also entering a new critical phase.
Labor resources in the countryside, on which one could always draw,
are dwindling. The birth rate of the Russian population has declined
to
a catastrophically low level (the coefficient is now less than 1.0).
Hence the extensive development and expansion, together with the
abundance of natural resources , which previously held the Soviet
economy afloat , are now rapidly declining .
