Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Map of Soviet Russia showing major hydropower sites
- 1 Challenge of the third generation of Soviet power
- 2 Building authority around a new agricultural policy
- Part I Advice and dissent in the shaping of Brezhnev's agricultural and environmental programs
- Part II Implementation of the Brezhnev programs
- 7 Loosening the grip of old priorities: the long struggle against hydropower
- 8 The new environmental program: do the Soviets really mean business?
- 9 Slow gains at a high price: the frustrations of reclamation
- 10 Carrying out a third-generation program with second-generation methods
- 11 Conclusion: lessons of the Brezhnev policies and the future of reform
- Notes
- Index
11 - Conclusion: lessons of the Brezhnev policies and the future of reform
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 August 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Map of Soviet Russia showing major hydropower sites
- 1 Challenge of the third generation of Soviet power
- 2 Building authority around a new agricultural policy
- Part I Advice and dissent in the shaping of Brezhnev's agricultural and environmental programs
- Part II Implementation of the Brezhnev programs
- 7 Loosening the grip of old priorities: the long struggle against hydropower
- 8 The new environmental program: do the Soviets really mean business?
- 9 Slow gains at a high price: the frustrations of reclamation
- 10 Carrying out a third-generation program with second-generation methods
- 11 Conclusion: lessons of the Brezhnev policies and the future of reform
- Notes
- Index
Summary
Prior to the 1970s there was not a decade in the turbulent history of the Soviet Union that did not put the political system to the test. By comparison, the last ten years were a period of calm; consequently, we must bear in mind that the policies we have examined in this book were formed and carried out in an unusually benign atmosphere. But beginning in the 1980s the Soviet political system faces two further tests, one political and one economic. The first is a sweeping change in political leadership. Within the next few years power will pass to a new generation of rulers, not only in the Politburo, but also in the top several hundred positions of the party and government. Incredible as it may seem, this will be the first true succession in the Soviet elite since the Great Purge of 1938–9. One may say without much exaggeration that nearly two-thirds of a century after the 1917 Revolution, the Soviet political system is just beginning its third generation. The second test is economic. The country will face shortages of several key resources, particularly energy, manpower, and capital, each of which has the potential to create a crisis as serious as the one in agriculture in the 1960s. Together these two impending challenges may create a climate with more possibilities for changing the traditional structure and rules of Soviet politics than at any time since the 1920s.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Reform in Soviet PoliticsThe Lessons of Recent Policies on Land and Water, pp. 149 - 162Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1981