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The basic goal of Gorbachev's perestroika had been the "restructuring" of centralized socialism; the Shatalin plan aims at the destruction of it, both the centralized aspect and the socialist aspect. Within two years, 70% of the nation's industrial enterprises would be privatized, with stock markets in Moscow and Leningrad trading shares in competitive firms. An even larger proportion -- perhaps 90% -- of businesses in the service and retail trading sectors would be put in private hands. A version of the Shatalin plan circulating in Moscow last week put it bluntly: "Mankind has not succeeded in creating anything more efficient than a market economy."
Gorbachev discussed the Soviet Union's economic reforms later in the week with a gilt-edged delegation of American businessmen from 15 of the country's largest firms, who had gone to Moscow with Secretary of State James Baker and Secretary of Commerce Robert Mosbacher. Gorbachev hinted that the Soviet Union was prepared to open its doors wider to the outside world, noting, "We are ready to draw foreign, including U.S., investments on mutually beneficial terms." The Shatalin plan goes further: instead of the old system of joint ventures, foreign companies would have the right to acquire 100% ownership of Soviet firms. The Soviets are already scrambling for Western trade to alleviate the acute shortages that have brought consumers to the verge of revolt. To ease the tobacco rationing that prompted smokers to riot in almost a dozen cities, Philip Morris and RJR Nabisco announced plans last week to sell 34 billion cigarettes to the Russian Republic.
"It would be shortsighted to ignore the experience of economic development in the U.S.," Gorbachev told the visiting businessmen. The changing mood in Moscow was enough to inspire one American participant, Paine Webber chairman Donald Marron, to declare, "Capitalism is coming to the Soviet Union."
Not quite, at least not yet. Gorbachev, it turned out, is still beset by doubts over how to dismantle the centralized economy, and how quickly. Two weeks ago, he seemed determined to present a single economic program to the nation, combining elements from both the Ryzhkov and Shatalin programs. Gorbachev asked Abel Aganbegyan, one of the early architects of his perestroika policy, to draft the joint package. Last week the economist delivered his report to the Supreme Soviet. According to Aganbegyan, it had proved impossible "to make a single program out of the two." The compromise plan that he presented is drawn primarily from the Shatalin plan -- with some notable amendments by Gorbachev.
The Soviet President was particularly eager to dilute or delete the passages that transfer economic autonomy from the central government to the Soviet Union's 15 republics. Shatalin had proposed that even the tax collection be done by each republic. Gorbachev indicated that he would rather see such problems resolved in a new Union treaty.
Gorbachev also tinkered with the timetable and scope of some of the proposed reforms to make the changes less jolting. The Aganbegyan document, along with copies of the complete Shatalin plan, the Ryzhkov proposals and materials on 120 alternative schemes considered by a separate study group led by Aganbegyan, were dispatched last week to the Soviet parliament and the parliaments of Russia and the other republics.