Why communist reformers always lost

Time and again in the communist bloc, economic reformers from Moscow to Pyongyang planned to introduce rationality and markets into planning. They often thought they had won the argument, and not just among dissidents in labor camps but at the highest levels of their Politburos. Yet almost every time, their proposed reforms were either whittled down to nothing before implementation, or passed and then reversed after a few months or years. Why?

These reformers had faith that what their countries had achieved was far from the limit of what was possible. They aimed for abundance. Many actively believed in the system they were part of, and none sought to overthrow it. Instead, they aimed to write reports and build coalitions; to win the argument in seminars and side rooms, and then in the corridors of power. They often had the impression that they had done just that, only to watch as the system reverted to its original form. Perhaps what they mistook for agreement was actually a surface-level nod from those who had no intention, or no capacity, to carry reform through. Maybe the system absorbed their language but not their logic. Maybe the system was irredeemable and needed to be swept away. Or did the system know things the reformers didn’t?

Some of these questions are still open to interpretation. However, two clear conclusions emerge. People in communist countries, perhaps even more so than people in capitalist ones, really did not like inflation. Reforms that raised prices or lengthened queues had to be delivering very tangible benefits, very quickly, or else they risked instability. Second, successful reforms needed a broad coalition of winners, including the top leadership and a very large percentage of the population. Few reformers were able to deliver that.

Freedom isn’t free

‘We shouldn’t put on colored glasses, and provoke people or find fault with them for allegedly supporting capitalist methods’, Kim Jong Un, December 2011, on tolerating advocates for economic reform.

‘Those who dispute the Party line and its policies should not have their leaves trimmed, but be ripped out at their roots’, Kim Jong Un, September 2012, referring to those who wanted to take economic reform further than he did.

Even discussing economic reform can pose dangers for authoritarian leaders. For their underlings, working out where the line between acceptable comradely debate and counter-revolutionary sabotage lies can be a matter of life and death. ...