Editing Perestroika (section)

==Comparison with China==
''Perestroika'' and [[Deng Xiaoping]]'s [[Chinese economic reform|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 [[Post-Soviet states|successor states]] fell precipitously throughout the 1990s, a period often referred to as [[the wild nineties]].<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/weo/2006/01/data/dbcselm.cfm?G=2001 |title=IMF World Economic Outlook Database April 2006 |publisher=[[International Monetary Fund]] |date=29 April 2003 |access-date=31 March 2010}}</ref> Gorbachev's reforms were [[gradualism|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).<ref>David Stuckler and Sanjay Basu, ''The Body Economic: Why Austerity Kills'' (NY: Basic Books, 2013), 31. {{ISBN|0465063977}}</ref>

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 the Soviet economy but arguably did not go far enough to effectively streamline it.{{Citation needed|date=November 2016}}

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).<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Deakin |first1=Simon |last2=Meng |first2=Gaofeng |date=August 2022 |title=Resolving Douglass C. North's 'puzzle' concerning China's household responsibility system |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-institutional-economics/article/resolving-douglass-c-norths-puzzle-concerning-chinas-household-responsibility-system/7627E68395A4A2FC24566233F08F287C |journal=Journal of Institutional Economics |language=en |volume=18 |issue=4 |pages=521–535 |doi=10.1017/S1744137421000746 |issn=1744-1374|doi-access=free }}</ref> Economic reforms were fostered through the development of "[[Special Economic Zone]]s," designed for export and to attract foreign investment, municipally managed [[Township and Village Enterprises]] and a "dual pricing" system leading to the steady phasing out of state-dictated prices.<ref>Susan L. Shirk in ''[[iarchive:politicallogicof00shir|The Political Logic of Economic Reform in China]]'', University of California, Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1993. {{ISBN|0-520-07706-7}}.</ref> 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 the Union dissolved before advanced stages were reached.{{Citation needed|date=November 2016}}

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 [[authoritarianism|authoritarian rule]] and a [[Protest and dissent in China|suppression of political dissidents]], most notably at [[1989 Tiananmen Square protests|Tiananmen Square]]. Gorbachev acknowledged this difference but maintained that it 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.<ref name="Gorbachev1996pp494-495">{{harvp|Gorbachev|1996|pages=[https://archive.org/details/memoirsgorb00gorb/page/494 494–495]}}</ref> 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."<ref name="Gorbachev1996p188">{{harvp|Gorbachev|1996|page=[https://archive.org/details/memoirsgorb00gorb/page/188 188]}}</ref>

Another difference is that Soviet Union faced strong secession threats from its ethnic regions and a primacy challenge by the [[Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic|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 a part in the difficulty of controlling the pace of restructuring, especially once the new [[Communist Party of the Russian Federation|Russian Communist Party]] was formed and posed a challenge to the primacy of the [[Communist Party of the Soviet Union|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.{{Citation needed|date=December 2020}}