Passive revolution, perestroika, and the emergence of the new Russia

Bibliographic Data

ID3833372
AuthorsRick Simon (Nottingham Trent University, corresponding author)
Year2010
Volume34
Issue3
Pages429-448
Publication date2010-10-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueCapital & Class (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0309-8168 • E-ISSN: 2041-0980
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/0309816810378154
OpenAlexW2028194869
LanguageEN
Citations received11
References cited38

This article makes a distinction between a 'type I' passive revolution, which transforms the relations of production, and a 'type II' passive revolution, which modifies the existing production relations. It argues that Gorbachev's aim through perestroika was a type II passive revolution designed to rejuvenate the Soviet economy through further integration into the global capitalist economy. The disruption produced by perestroika laid the foundations, however, for a type I passive revolution by opening the door to the influence of global capitalism, fragmenting the heterogeneous Soviet elite, and enabling an opposition linked to global neoliberalism to utilise the nascent Russian state as a mechanism for advancing systemic transformation. The transition to capitalism has not, however, been a smooth process, but has been characterised by 'revolution/restoration': a ruling bloc of pro-capitalist forces and elements of the former Soviet elite; and a combination of capitalist and Soviet-era production relations

Capitalism · Economic system · Economics · Elite · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Law · Political Economy and Marxism · Post-Communist Economic and Political Transition · Russia and Soviet political economy