title: Unseen Roots of an Unexpected Revolution: Party Elites, Economic Reforms, and Expectations versus Outcomes in Late 1980s Leningrad
metadata.name: dc.contributor.author
metadata.value: Hass, J. K.
metadata.lang: -
metadata.name: dc.contributor.author
metadata.value: Lomagin, N. A.
metadata.lang: -
metadata.name: dc.date.accessioned
metadata.value: 2023-08-18T09:23:42Z
metadata.lang: -
metadata.name: dc.date.available
metadata.value: 2023-08-18T09:23:42Z
metadata.lang: -
metadata.name: dc.date.issued
metadata.value: 2023-06
metadata.lang: -
metadata.name: dc.identifier.citation
metadata.value: Hass J. K., Lomagin N. A. ‘Unseen Roots of an Unexpected Revolution: Party Elites, Economic Reforms, and Expectations versus Outcomes in Late 1980s Leningrad’, Modern History of Russia, vol. 13, no. 2, 2023, pp. 412–429. https://doi.org/10.21638/spbu24.2023.210
metadata.lang: en_GB
metadata.name: dc.identifier.other
metadata.value: https://doi.org/10.21638/spbu24.2023.210
metadata.lang: -
metadata.name: dc.identifier.uri
metadata.value: http://hdl.handle.net/11701/43794
metadata.lang: -
metadata.name: dc.description.abstract
metadata.value: The article examines the perestroika processes from the Leningrad point of view. Surprisingly, but
  events in Moscow and, eventually, in the media were initially more conservative and sluggish than the discussions
  behind closed doors in Leningrad — but before long, roles were reversed, and public discourse became increasingly
  more creative and even radical than those private discussions requested by Smolny. The other point is that
  local enterprise directors (and other organizational actors and elites, e. g. in the Komsomol) started to act on their
  own interests and opportunities. The growing acceptance of some form of Western market economies (even if
  adapted to some “Soviet” form) meant that directors could steal a step on Smolny and even Moscow. Gorbachev
  reforms offered the possibility of taking reforms beyond local Party and state headquarters — Smolny and the
  Councils — to economic actors themselves. This threatened to make the Councils redundant, if such reforms
  were serious. Authors suggest, this is what happened. Authors’ data suggest that the Councils in the initial phase
  of reform (and perhaps Gorbachev) underestimated how important and central the shadow economy had become
  by then. Gorbachev opened the economy, hoping that devolution and some liberalization would harness,
  not fight, the initiative in the shadows. However, shadow practices were so wrapped up in formal institutions,
  and so ingrained among economic (and other) actors, that unleashing the shadow economy risked unraveling
  institutions as actors used the brief open window to gain as much as they could. It ended up a wager both on
  the entrepreneur and the thief — leaving Smolny and the Councils, the first stage of reform, in history. What did
  survive, however, were those networks of younger reform-minded cadres, who in the new world would find their
  place driving the next stage of radical reforms.
metadata.lang: en_GB
metadata.name: dc.language.iso
metadata.value: en
metadata.lang: en_GB
metadata.name: dc.publisher
metadata.value: St Petersburg State University
metadata.lang: en_GB
metadata.name: dc.relation.ispartofseries
metadata.value: Modern History of Russia;Volume 13; Issue 2
metadata.lang: -
metadata.name: dc.subject
metadata.value: perestroika
metadata.lang: en_GB
metadata.name: dc.subject
metadata.value: Gorbachev
metadata.lang: en_GB
metadata.name: dc.subject
metadata.value: reforms
metadata.lang: en_GB
metadata.name: dc.subject
metadata.value: Leningrad
metadata.lang: en_GB
metadata.name: dc.subject
metadata.value: USSR
metadata.lang: en_GB
metadata.name: dc.title
metadata.value: Unseen Roots of an Unexpected Revolution: Party Elites, Economic Reforms, and Expectations versus Outcomes in Late 1980s Leningrad
metadata.lang: en_GB
metadata.name: dc.type
metadata.value: Article
metadata.lang: en_GB
resources.filename: 10hass_lomagin_2.pdf
resources.url: https://dspace.spbu.ru/bitstream/11701/43794/1/10hass_lomagin_2.pdf
resources.format: Adobe PDF
resources.size: 780,21 kB