Accounting and Control as Mechanisms for Solving Economic Problems as Viewed by Russian Citizens of the Perestroika Era (Based on the Analysis of Letters to the Authorities)

Abstract

This article deals with the public attitude toward the economic reforms of 1989–1990, specifically, the citizens’ suggestions on how to improve the country’s economy. The author analyses previously unpublished letters written by Russian citizens and addressed to the country’s leaders (Boris Yeltsin and Mikhail Gorbachev) or sent to Soviet newspapers. To investigate people’s mental attitudes, the article focuses not only on social polling, but also on emotions, feelings, and thoughts shared by the letterwriters. The author of this article maintains that many citizens feared that the country would be swept away by the avalanche of capitalism and were prejudiced against perestroika-induced innovations. Habitual mental attitudes were undermined by the cooperative movement and private entrepreneurship. Various unrealistic and paradoxical suggestions were not infrequently made by the letter-writers who knew very little, if anything, about market economy. The majority of people suggested that command economy with its bureaucratic flavour should be improved. The analysis shows that Russian citizens’ mental attitudes were predominantly shaped by the notion of a bipolar world, as well as by Vladimir Lenin’s teaching about the socialist state and its role in the accounting and control over the Soviet state. The letters demonstrate that Russian citizens hoped to upgrade the Soviet economy through improvements introduced into the system of accounting and control, through harsher regulatory measures imposed on the economic system, as well as through rationing and strictly supervised distribution of goods. Many people believed that socialism was inviolable and that the Soviet economy could be improved by means of administrative reforms.