Misplaced Pages

#791208

86-549: The largest settlements of Udege are in: Since the advent of Perestroika , the Udege, led by Pavel Sulyandziga , have been actively involved in the struggle for control over their traditional territories along the Bikin River . A central objective has been the establishment of a Territory of Traditional Natural Resource Use of federal status, which was proposed in cooperation with the national umbrella organisation RAIPON and

172-521: A "dual pricing" system leading to the steady phasing out of state-dictated prices. Greater latitude was given to managers of state-owned factories, while capital was made available to them through a reformed banking system and through fiscal policies (in contrast to the fiscal anarchy and fall in revenue experienced by the Soviet government during perestroika ). Perestroika was expected to lead to results such as market pricing and privately sold produce, but

258-550: A copy. One effect was the abrupt demand for Russian dictionaries in order to understand the content of Gorbachev's report. In an interview with Mieczyslaw Rakowski he states the success of perestroika was impossible without glasnost . During the 1980s and 1990s the United States President George H. W. Bush pledged solidarity with Gorbachev, but never brought his administration into supporting Gorbachev's reform. In fact, "no bailout for Gorbachev"

344-405: A fellow worker. When Marxists speak of class struggle, they define a class primarily in economic terms, i.e., by its relationship to the means of production . When anarchists like Bakunin speak of class struggle, they have a broader definition of "social class" which encompasses "notions of domination and privilege" in the political and cultural spheres as well as the economic. Bakunin believed

430-413: A necessary result of political liberty, stating that the most important task of government was to manage and adjust for 'the spirit of party'. In his Philosophy of Right , Hegel expressed concern that the standard of living of the poor might drop so far as to make it even easier for the rich to amass even more wealth. Hegel believed that, especially in a liberal country such as contemporary England,

516-531: A part in the difficulty of controlling the pace of restructuring, especially once the new Russian Communist Party was formed and posed a challenge to the primacy of the CPSU . Gorbachev described this process as a " parade of sovereignties " and identified it as the factor that most undermined the gradualism of restructuring and the preservation of the Soviet Union. One of the final important measures taken on

602-445: A potentially large domestic market. The foreign partner supplied capital, technology, entrepreneurial expertise, and in many cases, products and services of world competitive quality. Gorbachev's economic changes did not do much to restart the country's sluggish economy in the late 1980s. The reforms decentralized things to some extent, although price controls remained, as did the ruble's inconvertibility and most government controls over

688-494: A sensible thing to do—easing Russia's difficult transition from totalitarianism to democracy. What I had in mind in the first place, was the participation [of the West] in conversion of defense industries, the modernization of light and food industries, and Russia's inclusion on an equal-member footing in the frameworks of the international economic relations... [U]nlike some democrats, I did not expect "manna from Heaven," but counted on

774-650: A significant shift from the previous principles of the Soviet foreign politics . This marked the end of the Cold War . Gorbachev had concluded that implementing his reforms outlined at the Twenty-Seventh Party Congress in February 1986 required more than discrediting the " Old Guard ", those with a Marxist-Leninist political orientation. He changed his strategy from trying to work through

860-459: Is "restructuring", referring to the restructuring of the political economy of the Soviet Union, in an attempt to end the Era of Stagnation . Perestroika allowed more independent actions from various ministries and introduced many market -like reforms. The purported goal of perestroika , however, was not to end the planned economy but rather to make socialism work more efficiently to better meet

946-425: Is a great property, there is great inequality. For one very rich man, there must be at least five hundred poor, and the affluence of the few supposes the indigence of the many. The affluence of the rich excites the indignation of the poor, who are often both driven by want, and prompted by envy to invade his possessions. It is only under the shelter of the civil magistrate, that the owner of that valuable property, which

SECTION 10

#1732772753792

1032-531: Is a pattern that has repeated since at least European classical antiquity as illustrated in the Conflict of the Orders and the slave revolt led by Spartacus . In his History , Thucydides describes a civil war in the city of Corcyra between the pro- Athens party of the common people and their pro- Corinth oligarchic opposition. Near the climax of the struggle, "the oligarchs in full rout, fearing that

1118-407: Is acquired by the labour of many years, or perhaps of many successive generations, can sleep a single night in security. He is at all times surrounded by unknown enemies, whom, though he never provoked, he can never appease, and from whose injustice he can be protected only by the powerful arm of the civil magistrate, continually held up to chastise it. Writing The Wealth of Nations , Smith's concern

1204-569: Is often argued to be a significant cause of the collapse of the Eastern Bloc and the dissolution of the Soviet Union . With respect to the foreign policy Gorbachev promoted " new political thinking ": de-ideologization of international politics, abandoning the concept of class struggle , priority of universal human interests over the interests of any class, increasing interdependence of the world, and mutual security based on political rather than military instruments. The doctrine constituted

1290-485: Is that Soviet Union faced strong secession threats from its ethnic regions and a primacy challenge by the RSFSR . Gorbachev's extension of regional autonomy removed the suppression from existing ethnic-regional tension, while Deng's reforms did not alter the tight grip of the central government on any of their autonomous regions. The Soviet Union's dual nature, part supranational union of republics and part unitary state, played

1376-600: The Qing dynasty . Perestroika Perestroika ( / ˌ p ɛr ə ˈ s t r ɔɪ k ə / PERR -ə- STROY -kə ; Russian: перестройка , IPA: [pʲɪrʲɪˈstrojkə] ) was a political reform movement within the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) during the late 1980s, widely associated with CPSU general secretary Mikhail Gorbachev and his glasnost (meaning "transparency") policy reform. The literal meaning of perestroika

1462-511: The Senate into giving the plebs the right to choose one of the two consuls. Tacitus believed that the increase in Roman power spurred the patricians to expand their power over more and more cities. This process, he felt, exacerbated pre-existing class tensions with the plebs, and eventually culminated in a civil war between the patrician Sulla and the populist reformer Marius . Marius had taken

1548-519: The United States needed help with Germany's reunification , Gorbachev proved to be instrumental in bringing solutions to the "German problem" and Bush acknowledged that "Gorbachev was moving the USSR in the right direction". Bush, in his own words, even gave praise to Gorbachev "to salute the man" in acknowledgment of the Soviet leader's role as "the architect of perestroika ... [who had] conducted

1634-459: The free-men to be admitted into the tribes , not by the force of his eloquence, but by a word, by a gesture; which had he not effected, the republic, whose drooping head we are at present scarce able to uphold, would not even exist. Tiberius Gracchus weakened the power of the Senate by changing the law so that judges were chosen from the ranks of the knights , instead of their social superiors in

1720-534: The socioeconomic hierarchy. In its simplest manifestation, class conflict refers to the ongoing battle between rich and poor . In the writings of several leftist , socialist , and communist theorists, notably those of Karl Marx , class struggle is a core tenet and a practical means for effecting radical sociopolitical transformations for the majority working class . It is also a central concept within conflict theories of sociology and political philosophy . Class conflict can reveal itself through: In

1806-402: The "chief enemy to the people" and "a very dog to the commonalty" while the leader of the mob speaks out against the patricians thusly: They ne'er cared for us yet: suffer us to famish, and their store-houses crammed with grain; make edicts for usury, to support usurers; repeal daily any wholesome act established against the rich, and provide more piercing statutes daily, to chain up and restrain

SECTION 20

#1732772753792

1892-486: The "ideas" of late Lenin . A group of true, not imaginary reformers developed (of course, orally) the following plan: to strike with the authority of Lenin at Stalin , at Stalinism . And then, if successful, – to strike with Plekhanov and Social Democracy – at Lenin, and then – with liberalism and "moral socialism" – at revolutionarism in general... The Soviet totalitarian regime could be destroyed only through glasnost and totalitarian party discipline, while hiding behind

1978-475: The "violence of the great lords" : In order to understand this, it must be remembered, that, in those days, the sovereign of perhaps no country in Europe was able to protect, through the whole extent of his dominions, the weaker part of his subjects from the oppression of the great lords. Those whom the law could not protect, and who were not strong enough to defend themselves, were obliged either to have recourse to

2064-437: The 'severity of the patricians their creditors, the debts due to whom they had to discharge by slave-work, drove the plebs to revolts.' Gibbon also explains how Augustus facilitated this class conflict by pacifying the plebs with actual bread and circuses . The economist Adam Smith noted that the poor freeman's lack of land provided a major impetus for Roman colonisation , as a way to relieve class tensions at home between

2150-600: The 1990s. Gorbachev's reforms were gradualist and maintained many of the macroeconomic aspects of the planned economy (including price controls, inconvertibility of the ruble, exclusion of private property ownership, and the government monopoly over most means of production). Reform was largely focused on industry and on cooperatives, and a limited role was given to the development of foreign investment and international trade. Factory managers were expected to meet state demands for goods, but to find their own funding. Perestroika reforms went far enough to create new bottlenecks in

2236-407: The 20th century Russian and Western researchers did not separate Udege and Oroch , considering them one people (often called Orochoni ). The first who substantiated their ethnic isolation was S. N. Brajilovsky . He was also the first to introduce the ethnonym Udihe, Udiheitsi (Russian: удээ, удэхэ, удихэ ), which became an official, in particular autoethnonym already in the 1930s. Until that time,

2322-518: The CPSU as it existed and instead embraced a degree of political liberalization. In January 1987, he appealed over the heads of the party to the people and called for democratization. Earlier members of local soviets were appointed by local Communist Party branches, now they were to be elected by the people from among various candidates. The March 1989 election of the Congress of People's Deputies of

2408-563: The European governments. Among the former, public opinion is in the place of law, & restrains morals as powerfully as laws ever did anywhere. Among the latter, under pretence of governing they have divided their nations into two classes, wolves & sheep. I do not exaggerate. This is a true picture of Europe. Cherish therefore the spirit of our people, and keep alive their attention. Do not be too severe upon their errors, but reclaim them by enlightening them. If once they become inattentive to

2494-841: The June 1987 plenary session of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union , Gorbachev presented his "basic theses", which laid the political foundation of economic reform for the remainder of the existence of the Soviet Union. In July 1987, the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union passed the Law on State Enterprise. The law stipulated that state enterprises were free to determine output levels based on demand from consumers and other enterprises. Enterprises had to fulfil state orders, but they could dispose of

2580-638: The Russian Institute of Anthropology and Ethnography but failed to be approved by the authorities. According to the 2001 Ukrainian census , out of 40 Udeges living in Ukraine , only 8 declared Udege as their native language. Most of the Udeges in Ukraine indicated Russian (19) or Ukrainian (6) as their native language. 7 of them named another language. Until the end of the 19th and beginning of

2666-586: The Soviet Joint Venture Law, which went into effect in June 1987, limited foreign shares of a Soviet venture to 49 percent and required that Soviet citizens occupy the positions of chairman and general manager. After potential Western partners complained, the government revised the regulations to allow majority foreign ownership and control. Under the terms of the Joint Venture Law, the Soviet partner supplied labor, infrastructure, and

Udege people - Misplaced Pages Continue

2752-406: The Soviet Union marked the first time that voters of the Soviet Union ever chose the membership of a national legislative body. The results of the election stunned the ruling elite. Throughout the country, voters crossed unopposed Communist candidates off the ballot, many of them prominent party officials, taking advantage of the nominal privilege of withholding approval of the listed candidates. By

2838-410: The Soviet Union on its irreversible, but immensely complicated road to democracy....[T]he sooner, the more quickly, and the more peacefully the Soviet Union begins to move along the road toward genuine political pluralism, respect for the rights of nations to their own integrity and to a working—that is a market—economy, the better it will be, not just for Czechs and Slovaks, but for the whole world. When

2924-480: The Soviet Union's foreign economic sector with measures that Soviet economists considered bold at that time. His program virtually eliminated the monopoly that the Ministry of Foreign Trade had once held on most trade operations. It permitted the ministries of the various industrial and agricultural branches to conduct foreign trade in sectors under their responsibility, rather than having to operate indirectly through

3010-490: The Soviet economy but arguably did not go far enough to effectively streamline it. Chinese economic reform was, by contrast, a bottom-up attempt at reform, focusing on light industry and agriculture (namely allowing peasants to sell produce grown on private holdings at market prices). Economic reforms were fostered through the development of " Special Economic Zones ", designed for export and to attract foreign investment, municipally managed Township and Village Enterprises and

3096-487: The Udege did not have a common self-name. Each territorial group had its own self-name: Hungarian – Hungake, Bikinska – Bikinka, Anyuyska – Uninka, and so on. Also known is the eхonym Udege Kekari (Russian: кекари ) — so called udege neighboring peoples, mainly Orochi and Manchzhur, and this term is sometimes found in Western and Russian literature . They were called Qiakala (恰喀拉, Manchu : ᡴᡳᠶᠠᡴᠠᡵᠠ kiyakara ) by

3182-479: The Union dissolved before advanced stages were reached. Another fundamental difference is that where perestroika was accompanied by greater political freedoms under Gorbachev's glasnost policies, Chinese economic reform has been accompanied by continued authoritarian rule and a suppression of political dissidents , most notably at Tiananmen Square . Gorbachev acknowledged this difference but maintained that it

3268-534: The West's lack of aid, for example; the "in-house Gorbi-skeptics" advocacy, the expert community's consensus about the undesirability of rushing U.S. aid to Gorbachev, strong opposition to any bailout at many levels including foreign-policy conservatives, the U.S. Congress, and the American public at large. The West seemed to miss an opportunity to gain significant influence over the Soviet government. The Soviets aided in

3354-697: The Western statesmen to use their common sense. President George H.W. Bush continued to dodge helping the Russians and the President of Czechoslovakia , Václav Havel , laid bare the linkage for the Americans in his address to a joint session of Congress on 21 February 1990: ... I often hear the question: How can the United States of America help us today? My reply is as paradoxical as the whole of my life has been: You can help us most of all if you help

3440-405: The ability to give a magistrate the power of dictatorship , meaning he could bypass public law in the pursuit of a prescribed mandate. Montesquieu explains that the purpose of this institution was to tilt the balance of power in favour of the patricians. However, in an attempt to resolve a conflict between the patricians and the plebs, the dictator Camillus used his power of dictatorship to coerce

3526-520: The affairs of the Soviet Union with great restraint as Poland and Czechoslovakia and GDR... and other countries [that had] achieved their independence", and who was "under extraordinary pressure at home, particularly on the economy." Class struggle In political science , the term class conflict , or class struggle , refers to the economic antagonism and political tension that exist among social classes because of clashing interests, competition for limited resources, and inequalities of power in

Udege people - Misplaced Pages Continue

3612-469: The aristocrats, the mass of Athenians chose Solon to be the lawgiver to lead them to freedom from their creditors. The philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel said that Solon's constitution of the Athenian popular assembly created a political sphere that balanced the competing socio-economic interests of the social classes of Athens: Participating in a war among the social classes of Ancient Greece

3698-490: The bureaucracy of trade ministry organizations. In addition, regional and local organizations and individual state enterprises were permitted to conduct foreign trade. This change was an attempt to redress a major imperfection in the Soviet foreign trade regime: the lack of contact between Soviet end users and suppliers and their foreign partners. Alexander Yakovlev was considered to be the intellectual force behind Gorbachev's reform program of glasnost and perestroika . In

3784-400: The conflict between rich and poor, commenting that "the most common and durable source of factions has been the various and unequal distribution of property. Those who hold and those who are without property have ever formed distinct interests in society. Those who are creditors, and those who are debtors, fall under a like discrimination." He welcomed class-based factions into political life as

3870-543: The continuation of the movement was a report from the central committee meeting of the CPSU titled "On Reorganization and the Party's Personnel Policy". Gorbachev emphasized the need of a faster political personnel turnover and of a policy of democratization that opened the political elections to multiple candidates and to non-party members. This report was in such high demand in Prague and Berlin that many people could not get

3956-426: The discussion around class conflict between employers and employees. It was with bitter sarcasm that Rousseau outlined the class conflict prevailing in his day between masters and their workmen: You have need of me, because I am rich and you are poor. We will therefore come to an agreement. I will permit you to have the honour of serving me, on condition that you bestow on me the little you have left, in return for

4042-410: The economic sphere, class conflict is sometimes expressed overtly, such as owner lockouts of their employees in an effort to weaken the bargaining power of the employees' union ; or covertly, such as a worker slowdown of production or the widespread, simultaneous use of sick leave (e.g., " blue flu ") to protest unfair labor practices , low wages, poor work conditions , or a perceived injustice to

4128-464: The expansion of Western capitalism to allow for an inflow of Western investments, but the perestroika managers failed. President Bush had the opportunity to aid the Soviet Union in a way to bring closer ties between the governments, like Harry S. Truman did for many nations in Western Europe. Early on, as perestroika was getting under way, I felt like the West might come along and find it

4214-467: The extravagant consumption of the aristocracy, he remarked that: All for ourselves, and nothing for other people, seems, in every age of the world, to have been the vile maxim of the masters of mankind. In the third book of The Wealth of Nations , Smith explains that in the medieval period , after the fall of the Roman Empire, governments were unable to protect commoners, and their property, from

4300-591: The first sentence of Chapter 1 of the Communist Manifesto reads: "The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles." Marxists view the struggle's resolution in favor of the working class to be inevitable under plutocratic capitalism. Where societies are socially divided based on status, wealth, or control of social production and distribution, class structures arise and are thus coeval with civilization itself. The rise of class structures eventually leads to class conflict. It

4386-414: The form of disputes over hours of work, amount paid in wages, division of profits, culture in the workplace, cost of consumer goods, cost of rent, control over parliament or government bureaucracy , and economic inequality . Even a seemingly benign humanitarian program such as government-provided disaster relief can exacerbate class conflict if the relief is seen as being unequally distributed depending on

SECTION 50

#1732772753792

4472-443: The government.". Aristotle also commented that "poverty is the parent of revolution", but did not consider poverty to be the only cause of revolution. In a society where property is distributed equally throughout the community, "the nobles will be dissatisfied, because they think themselves worthy of more than an equal share of honors; and this is often found to be a cause of sedition and revolution." Moreover, Aristotle said that it

4558-455: The hands of too few men. Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) led the U.S. as president from 1801 to 1809 and is considered one of America's Founding Fathers . Regarding the interaction between social classes, he wrote: I am convinced that those societies (as the Indians ) which live without government enjoy in their general mass an infinitely greater degree of happiness than those who live under

4644-460: The husbandman, during the term of his military service, was obliged to abandon the cultivation of his farm. The lands of Italy which had been originally divided among the families of free and indigent proprietors, were insensibly purchased or usurped by the avarice of the nobles; and in the age which preceded the fall of the republic, it was computed that only two thousand citizens were possessed of an independent substance. Hegel similarly states that

4730-444: The interests of improving socialism. [...] Looking back, I can proudly say that a clever, but very simple tactic – the mechanisms of totalitarianism against the system of totalitarianism – has worked. The most significant of Gorbachev's reforms in the foreign economic sector allowed foreigners to invest in the Soviet Union in the form of joint ventures with Soviet ministries, state enterprises, and cooperatives. The original version of

4816-466: The large social class of impoverished commoners; and used the analogy of a maritime pilot , who, like the power-holder in a polis , ought to be chosen for political office for his skill, not for the amount of property he owns. The historian Plutarch recounts how the Greek people participated in the class conflict between the aristocrats and the common folk. Financially oppressed by their indebtedness to

4902-525: The law shifted control over the enterprise operations from ministries to elected workers' collectives. Gosplan 's responsibilities were to supply general guidelines and national investment priorities. The Law on Cooperatives , enacted in May 1988, was perhaps the most radical of the economic reforms during the early part of the Gorbachev era. For the first time since Vladimir Lenin 's New Economic Policy

4988-455: The means of production. Perestroika and Deng Xiaoping 's economic reforms have similar origins but very different effects on their respective countries' economies. Both efforts occurred in large socialist countries attempting to liberalize their economies, but while China's GDP has grown consistently since the late 1980s (albeit from a much lower level), national GDP in the USSR and in many of its successor states fell precipitously throughout

5074-558: The men who bear arms, and expose their lives for the safety of their country, enjoy in the meantime nothing more in it but the air and light; and having no houses or settlements of their own, are constrained to wander from place to place with their wives and children." Following this observation, he remarked that these men "fought indeed and were slain, but it was to maintain the luxury and the wealth of other men." Cicero believed that Tiberius Gracchus's reforming efforts saved Rome from tyranny, arguing: Tiberius Gracchus (says Cicero) caused

5160-491: The needs of Soviet citizens by adopting elements of liberal economics. The process of implementing perestroika added to existing shortages, and created political, social, and economic tensions within the Soviet Union. Furthermore, it is often blamed for the political ascent of nationalism and nationalist political parties in the constituent republics. Gorbachev first used the term in a speech during his visit to Tolyatti in 1986. Perestroika lasted from 1985 until 1991, and

5246-444: The other side of the class war, for the patricians and against the plebs. When grain arrived to relieve a serious shortage in the city of Rome, the plebs made it known that they felt it ought to be divided amongst them as a gift, but Coriolanus stood up in the Senate against this idea on the grounds that it would empower the plebs at the expense of the patricians. This decision would eventually contribute to Coriolanus's undoing when he

SECTION 60

#1732772753792

5332-465: The other. Thucydides believed that "as long as poverty gives men the courage of necessity, [...] so long will the impulse never be wanting to drive men into danger." In the Politics , Aristotle describes the basic dimensions of class conflict: "Again, because the rich are generally few in number, while the poor are many, they appear to be antagonistic, and as the one or the other prevails they form

5418-402: The pains I shall take to command you. Rousseau argued that the most important task of any government is to fight in class warfare on the side of workmen against their masters, who he said engage in exploitation under the pretence of serving society. Specifically, he believed that governments should actively intervene in the economy to abolish poverty and prevent the accrual of too much wealth in

5504-487: The poor. If the wars eat us not up, they will; and there's all the love they bear us. Enlightenment -era historian Edward Gibbon might have agreed with this narrative of Roman class conflict. In the third volume of The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire , he relates the origins of the struggle: [T]he plebeians of Rome [...] had been oppressed from the earliest times by the weight of debt and usury; and

5590-427: The poorest will politicise their situation, channelling their frustrations against the rich: Against nature man can claim no right, but once society is established, poverty immediately takes the form of a wrong done to one class by another. Class conflict is most commonly described as occurring within capitalist societies. The conflict manifests itself as clashes between the capitalist class and working class, and takes

5676-464: The public affairs, you & I, & Congress & Assemblies, judges & governors shall all become wolves. It seems to be the law of our general nature, in spite of individual exceptions; and experience declares that man is the only animal which devours his own kind, for I can apply no milder term to the governments of Europe, and to the general prey of the rich on the poor. In his Federalist No. 10 , James Madison revealed an emphatic concern with

5762-443: The recipient's class. Like Rousseau, the classical liberal Adam Smith believed that the amassing of property in the hands of a minority naturally resulted in a disharmonious state of affairs. He said that "avarice and ambition in the rich, in the poor the hatred of labour and the love of present ease and enjoyment, are the passions which prompt to invade property", requiring a government to protect property rights: Wherever there

5848-434: The remaining output as they saw fit. However, at the same time the state still held control over the means of production for these enterprises, thus limiting their ability to enact full-cost accountability. Enterprises bought input from suppliers at negotiated contract prices. Under the law, enterprises became self-financing; that is, they had to cover expenses (wages, taxes, supplies, and debt service) through revenues. Finally,

5934-611: The rich and the landless poor. Hegel described the same phenomenon happening in the impetus to Greek colonisation . Writing in pre-capitalist Europe, the Swiss philosophe Jean-Jacques Rousseau and the Federalist statesman James Madison across the Atlantic Ocean made significant remarks on the dynamics of class struggle. Later, German idealist Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel would also contribute his perspective to

6020-511: The senatorial class. Contrary to Shakespeare's depiction of Julius Caesar in the tragedy Julius Caesar , historian Michael Parenti has argued that Caesar was a populist, not a tyrant. In 2003 The New Press published Parenti's The Assassination of Julius Caesar: A People's History of Ancient Rome. Publishers Weekly said "Parenti [...] narrates a provocative history of the late republic in Rome (100–33 BC) to demonstrate that Caesar's death

6106-704: The slowing of economic development, and inadequate living standards. The program was furthered at the 27th Congress of the Communist Party in Gorbachev's report to the congress, in which he spoke about " perestroika ", " uskoreniye " (acceleration), "human factor", " glasnost " (transparency), and "expansion of the khozraschyot " (accounting). During the initial period (1985–87) of Mikhail Gorbachev's time in power, he talked about modifying central planning but did not make any truly fundamental changes ( uskoreniye ; "acceleration"). Gorbachev and his team of economic advisors then introduced more fundamental reforms, which became known as perestroika (restructuring). At

6192-595: The step of enlisting capite censi , the very lowest class of citizens, into the army, for the first time allowing non-land owners into the legions . Of all the notable figures discussed by Plutarch and Tacitus, agrarian reformer Tiberius Gracchus may have most challenged the upper classes and most championed the cause of the lower classes. In a speech to the common soldiery, he decried their lowly conditions: "The savage beasts," said he, "in Italy, have their particular dens, they have their places of repose and refuge; but

6278-411: The successful struggle of the dominated classes would achieve a revolution to depose the ruling elites and create a stateless or libertarian socialism , and that a prerequisite for successful revolution is class solidarity . Marx's theory of history asserts that in the history of economic systems such as capitalism and feudalism , class struggle is "the central fact of social evolution." Indeed,

6364-562: The summer of 1985, Yakovlev became head of the propaganda department of the CPSU Central Committee. He argued in favor of the reform programs and played a key role in executing those policies. After the XX Congress , in an ultra-narrow circle of our closest friends and associates, we often discussed the problems of democratization of the country and society. We chose a simple – like a sledgehammer – method of propagating

6450-588: The time of the Twenty-Eighth Party Congress in July 1990, it was clear that Gorbachev's reforms came with sweeping, unintended consequences , as nationalities of the constituent republics of the Soviet Union pulled harder than ever to break away from the Union and ultimately dismantle the Communist Party. In May 1985, Mikhail Gorbachev gave a speech in Leningrad in which he admitted

6536-408: The victorious commons might assault and carry the arsenal and put them to the sword, fired the houses round the market-place and the lodging-houses, in order to bar their advance." The historian Tacitus would later recount a similar class conflict in the city of Seleucia , in which disharmony between the oligarchs and the commoners would typically lead to each side calling on outside help to defeat

6622-451: Was a consistent policy line of the Bush administration, further demonstrating the lack of true support from the West. President Bush had a financial policy to aid perestroika that was shaped by a minimalist approach, foreign-policy convictions that set Bush up against other U.S. internal affairs, and a frugal attitude, all influencing his unwillingness to aid Gorbachev. Other factors influenced

6708-406: Was a dangerous political endeavour. In his book Parallel Lives , Plutarch wrote of two Spartan kings, Agis and Cleomenes , who "being desirous to raise the people, and to restore the noble and just form of government, now long fallen into disuse, [they] incurred the hatred of the rich and powerful, who could not endure to be deprived of the selfish enjoyment to which they were accustomed." It

6794-415: Was abolished in 1928, the law permitted private ownership of businesses in the services, manufacturing, and foreign-trade sectors. The law initially imposed high taxes and employment restrictions, but it later revised these to avoid discouraging private-sector activity. Under this provision, cooperative restaurants, shops, and manufacturers became part of the Soviet scene. Gorbachev brought perestroika to

6880-446: Was impeached following a trial by the tribunes of the plebs . Montesquieu recounts how Coriolanus castigated the tribunes for trying a patrician, when in his mind no one but a consul had that right, although a law had been passed stipulating that all appeals affecting the life of a citizen had to be brought before the plebs. In the first scene of Shakespeare's Coriolanus , a crowd of angry plebs gathers in Rome to denounce Coriolanus as

6966-487: Was similarly difficult for the Romans to maintain peace between the upper class, the patricians , and the lower class, the plebs . French Enlightenment philosopher Montesquieu notes that this conflict intensified after the overthrow of the Roman monarchy . In The Spirit of Laws he lists the four main grievances of the plebs, which were rectified in the years following the deposition of King Tarquin : The Senate had

7052-415: Was the culmination of growing class conflict, economic disparity and political corruption." Kirkus Reviews wrote: "Populist historian Parenti... views ancient Rome's most famous assassination not as a tyrannicide but as a sanguinary scene in the never-ending drama of class warfare." The patrician Coriolanus , whose life William Shakespeare would later depict in the tragic play Coriolanus , fought on

7138-483: Was the first Greek philosopher to describe class conflict. In the Republic , by Plato , Socrates said that "any city, however small, is in fact divided into two, one the city of the poor, the other [the city] of the rich; these [cities] are at war with one another." Socrates disapproved of oligarchies , in which members of a small class of wealthy property owners take positions of political power in order to dominate

7224-426: Was the welfare of the ordinary workers who make up society and provide for it: No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of the members are poor and miserable. It is but equity, besides, that they who feed, clothe, and lodge the whole body of the people, should have such a share of the produce of their own labour as to be themselves tolerably well fed, clothed, and lodged. Regarding

7310-453: Was unavoidable and that perestroika would have been doomed to defeat and revanchism by the nomenklatura without glasnost , because conditions in the Soviet Union were not identical to those in China. Gorbachev cited a line from a 1986 newspaper article that he felt encapsulated this reality: "The apparatus broke Khrushchev's neck and the same thing will happen now." Another difference

7396-472: Was wrong for the poor to seize the wealth of the rich and divide it among themselves, but he said that it is wrong for the rich to impoverish the multitude. Moreover, Aristotle further discussed a middle way, between laxity and cruelty, in the treatment of slaves by their masters, averring that "if not kept in hand, [slaves] are insolent, and think that they are as good as their masters, and, if harshly treated, they hate and conspire against them." Socrates

#791208