In the 1980s, Mikhail Gorbachev recognized the exhaustion of the Soviet model and its inability to provide the goods the Russian population needed. He therefore implemented an opening aimed at modernizing a stagnant economy through a degree of decentralization and the limited introduction of market mechanisms.
Thus, after granting greater autonomy to state-owned enterprises, he opened space for small private initiatives. Greater freedom of expression was also introduced, along with access to previously censored information and public debate about the problems afflicting the declining USSR.
It was an unprecedented model that sought to make the economic system more efficient while increasing citizen participation and government transparency. Paradoxically, both reforms contributed to weakening the Soviet system.
This package of economic and political reforms, known as perestroika, failed to resolve the country’s economic problems, while glasnost—a policy aimed at reforming the Soviet system by eliminating strict censorship and allowing freedom of expression, public debate, and access to information—made it possible to voice criticisms that had accumulated over decades of persecution against critics of the regime.
The combination of economic crisis, democratic demands, and nationalist movements accelerated the disintegration of the Soviet Union in 1991, which was followed by a period of profound social and political instability.
However, this turn toward the international market and liberal democracy was viewed by the leaders of China and Vietnam as a mistake because it opened both the economy and the political system simultaneously. Instead, these Asian nations pursued sweeping economic reforms—including limited private investment, competitive markets, exports, and the creation of private wealth—while maintaining a one-party system, control over the media, oversight of social organizations, and restrictions on political opposition. In political science, this model has come to be known as market authoritarianism or authoritarian state capitalism.
This is relevant because, in recent months, under pressure from the Trump administration and amid severe economic difficulties, we have witnessed a series of statements by the political elites of Venezuela and Cuba generally proposing to open space for the private sector through small and medium-sized enterprises in order to stimulate new market dynamics.
It appears that these leaders, with their autocratic inclinations, are attempting—perhaps belatedly—to learn from China and Vietnam, following the logic of karate that the best defense is a good offense. Through economic reform, they seek to preserve their political monopoly while avoiding at all costs a glasnost that could trigger a regime crisis.
It is a wager that economic prosperity will generate the stability and legitimacy that they currently lack under a political-economic model that has produced widespread poverty and whose greatest enemy is time.
However, while this effort to adapt to the new geopolitical landscape deserves recognition, Cuba does not enjoy the advantages that China and Vietnam once had. On the contrary, it has a small domestic market, limited foreign investment, an aging population, massive emigration, and significant external constraints.
In Venezuela’s case, the phenomenon appears improvised, as there was no major program of economic reforms during the height of Chavismo comparable to what took place in China under Deng Xiaoping. Instead, what emerged was a pragmatic adaptation consisting of informal dollarization, greater tolerance of private businesses, fewer economic controls, and reduced direct state intervention in certain markets.
This South American country did not undergo a profound institutional transformation. Instead, it experienced a form of defensive economic liberalization, in which the economy was opened to alleviate the crisis without substantially altering the structure of political power, at least until the arrest and extradition of Nicolás Maduro, who is now facing serious challenges to maintaining political equilibrium.
This scenario raises a fundamental question for left-wing autocratic countries such as Cuba and Venezuela under pressure from the United States: can a relatively open economy exist under a politically closed regime?
Back in the now-distant 1990s, many believed the answer was no—that it was little more than wishful thinking—and argued that countries had to open up in order to play by the rules of the international market. The most optimistic were convinced that economic growth would inevitably produce democracy.
A nearby example is Mexico during the administration of Carlos Salinas de Gortari (1988–1994), which promoted economic liberalization without altering the political regime. In the end, that model collapsed. The country’s democratization accelerated until the presidential alternation of power in 2000, bringing the PRI’s long period of dominance to an end.
However, the experiences of China, Vietnam, and Singapore—which should not be overlooked—demonstrate that a regime can combine economic growth, autocracy, political control, and prolonged stability with the political legitimacy that comes from a state capable of providing for its population. In short, it is possible to enjoy social support and legitimacy without democracy.
The question is whether the leaders of Venezuela and Cuba, under the watchful eye of the United States, will be able to achieve similar results through these nascent reforms, which, as noted earlier, face their greatest enemy in time—a factor that social and political opposition forces will undoubtedly seek to exploit in order to expand the freedoms that have been curtailed for decades.
Autor
Professor at the Universidad Autónoma de Sinaloa. D. in Political Science and Sociology from Universidad Complutense de Madrid. Member of the National System of Researchers of Mexico.
