The possibility of reforming the Soviet system on the basis of liberal values in the USSR (1985-1991)

By the middle of 1980th acute necessity of reforming the Soviet system had become obvious. There was a serious risk of social, economic and political crisis, which could lead to the aggravation of both internal and international situation. In such circumstances, the choice of way of modernization based on one or another ideology was considered to be rather important and urgent. New ideology could become a base for construction of a new state and society, relations between them, mutual obligations and guarantees. Due to this, the question of possibility of reforming of the Soviet system as a whole seems to be of great importance. There are several points of view about said problem. The first point of view suggests that the Soviet system could not be reformed as it had congenital defects that could not be fixed. The second point of view is based on the belief that Reorganization was necessary at this particular time and absolutely real, and any thesis that the Soviet system was unreformable is far-fetched. The third point of view is based on the thesis that reforming of the Soviet system, change of a social, economic and political system without damage to people and the state were theoretically possible. This point of view seems to be the most attractive as any system consists of the interconnected elements and characteristics and if each element of system is reformed, the system will change. But a new question "What should the new system be like" arose. In political life there were some models that could give an answer to that question. Almost all of them were based on certain cross-cultural values and, therefore, could not be easily integrated into Russian reality. It points out another problem -could liberal reforms be adapted to Russian reality of Pere-stroika period. Probably it was facing the problem of backlog of the Soviet system from the progressive capitalist countries in many ways, choice of the pattern of further social development and possibility of perception of the western experience, that made M. Gorbachev reform the Soviet system. But at that stage liberalism could become only an addition to socialism. Therefore, there are some contradictions when the possibility of reforming of the Soviet system on the basis of liberal values was considered. First of all, compatibility of concepts «social democracy» and «liberalism». Secondly, priority of the interests of the society over the interests of the state. Thirdly, intersystem reforming of economy was not sufficient. Thereby, in time of Perestroika the strong base for realization of liberal alternative of social development was not created, but certain preconditions for this base ware established.

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