The Long Road to Freedom: Russia and Glasnost.

THE WORDS peresiroika and glasnost came together into the English vocabulary and are commonly treated almost interchangeably, but they refer to different things. Perestroika means "restructuring" and refers to the proposed changes in the Soviet Union's political and economic system: changes which would keep in place the one-party regime and state ownership of the economy while allowing the citizenry a greater sense of participation.

Glasnost is more difficult to translate. The word gained currency in the mid nineteenth century, when Russia was ruled by an absolute monarchy, and decisions affecting the lives of her inhabitants were routinely taken in secret. Proponents of glasnost wanted such decisions to be publicly arrived at. In Gorbachev's Russia the term has been given a somewhat different meaning, signifying freedom of expression, i.e., the relaxation of censorship. So far, it has not affected the traditional secretiveness with which the Soviet government operates. Thus, for example, the recent decision to repress by force the Georgian demonstration for independence was not announced in advance; nor did Soviet citizens have any inkling of the severe anti-sedition laws issued in the wake of the Georgian unrest.

Glasnost under Gorbachev has led to the removal of many taboos on discussion of Soviet history and Soviet internal conditions, especially as they relate to the regimes of Stalin and Brezhnev. Lenin is still virtually untouchable, as is Gorbachev.

The extent of freedom of opinion granted by Gorbachev has caught Sovietologists by surprise. It had been generally thought that major economic reforms were unavoidable, and that they would be accompanied by some liberalization of the political system. But the experts were convinced that the "surreality" the regime had imposed on the population since 1917 would be kept in place because the lies of which it was woven were essential to the regime's survival. The founders of the Soviet state knew that once the citizens were permitted to raise questions, they would be unlikely to keep within prescribed limits.

In retrospect, it appears that the experts did not make adequate allowance either for the disastrous state of the Soviet system or for the political exigencies of perestroika. In order to justify the contemplated changes, which faced entrenched opposition, the government had to tell the population the truth about the country's condition. For if the Soviet Union was indeed the most progressive and prosperous country in the world, as Soviet propaganda has been claiming for decades, why change?

Walter Laqueur's The Long Road to Freedom is a comprehensive survey of the effects of glasnost in the fields of history, literature, economics, and social science. It is based on research in a most impressive variety of materials, though it is unfortunately marred by numerous orthographic and grammatical errors in the rendering of Russian sources. However, like everything Mr. Laqueur writes, it is distinguished by sound judgment and healthy skepticism.

This skepticism is applied to the future of glasnost, which Laqueur feels has probably reached its acceptable limits. Furthermore, freedom of expression, welcome as it is, cannot of itself satisfy the people's aspirations. He wonders "whether glasnost can survive unless there will be substantial economic and social changes. What is the use of openness unless the evils that have been correctly diagnosed are removed?"

The historian cannot help recalling that in the decades immediately preceding the collapse of the old regime, France witnessed an unprecedented expansion of free speech, unaccompanied by substantive reforms. The same was true of Russia from the 1860s until 1917. Laqueur argues that glasnost is in danger "because it makes governing the country more difficult than in the past . . . All kinds of tensions, national and social, which were suppressed before are coming to the fore"; such tensions play into the hands of those opposed to reform, who can exploit them to reimpose authoritarianism. As one example, Laqueur cites a resurgent right-wing Russian nationalism. Glasnost has released not only liberal, democratic opinion but also exceedingly ugly racist trends that focus on the "Jewish menace" in terms drawn directly from Nazi propaganda.