which Mikhail Gorbachev’s future isncertain to depend.nThorn distinguishes two essentiallyndifferent periods. The first (1985-n1986), essentially a prolongation of thenprevious “Andropovian” period, wasncharacterized primarily by a massivendrive against corruption and alcoholism;nthe second phase, now entering itsnfourth year, has been one of franticnimprovisation, intended to improve andeteriorating economic situation.nThe drive against alcoholism, as wennow know, boomeranged dramatically.nBecause of strict vodka-rationing, millionsnof Soviet citizens took to brewingntheir own distilled liquor (bathtub samogon,netc.).. In 1986 158,000 werenarrested for clandestine home-brewingnactivities. By 1988 the figure hadnclimbed to half a million. The run onnsugar needed for home-brewed vodkanhas been such that it has emptied shopsnin towns and cities all over the country.nFar more damaging in its economicnconsequences was a far-reaching lawnpassed in May 1986, which, on thenone hand, outlawed illegal revenuesnobtained from “parallel” industrial orncommercial activities (i.e., those notnofficially controlled or sanctioned bynthe State), and, on the other hand,nlegalized “individual professional activity.”nAs Thom puts it, “the State triednto control what it does not forbid.” Or,nto put it in blunter terms, the Statenwith this law undertook to take awaynwith one hand what it appeared to givenaway with the other.nThe purpose of this ill-conceivednlaw, which few people in the West havenever heard of, was to flush out “profiteers”nand others who for years hadnbeen operating on their own in whatnhas come to be called the “second” orn”shadow economy.” During the periodnof Brezhnevian “stagnation” —nwhich in the commercial field maynturn out to have been less stagnantnthan many now claim — a whole class •nof clever entrepreneurs and get-richquicknoperators gradually developed tonsupplement the slow-moving, bureaucraticallynparalyzed State-controllednenterprises, which had to work accordingnto production quotas and othernnorms laid down by the State PlanningnCommission in Moscow. This was innfact the beginning of a spontaneousnattempt by thousands of enterprisingnSoviet citizens to inject a badly needednelement of flexibility into an economynthat was paralyzed by its “orders-fromabove”ncharacter and its ideologicalncontempt for ordinary market forces.nThe enormous scope of this phenomenonnmay be judged by the figurendivulged a year and a half ago by theneconomist Tatyana Karyaghina, whonestimated that the U.S.S.R.’s “secondneconomy” was now producing at leastn145 billion dollars’ worth of goods andnservices per annum.nThe drive to “clean up” this “secondneconomy” by officially legalizingnit, and by punishing those who hadnmost profited from it, was undertakennfor at least two reasons, as FrangoisenThom shows. The first was the realizationnby Yuri Andropov and then bynGorbachev and his associates that thenparty was gradually losing control overnthe Soviet economy, or at any rate overnits most dynamic elements. The secondnwas the realization that alongsidenthis “second economy” and batteningnoff it like locusts were hordes of gangsters,nwho were undertaking to “protect”nclandestine entrepreneurs fromnparty interference and at the same timenexacting “hush money” for their services.nIn other words, the primary aimnof perestroika from the very beginningnwas not, as is so generally and naivelynbelieved in the West, to loosen upnthe Soviet economy, but preciselynthe reverse — to reestablish the party’sncontrol over an economy thatnwas beginning to get out of handnLIBERAL ARTSn•kJ ; *nThe New York Council for the Artsnreceives $500,000 in unrestricted fundsnfrom the National Endowment for thenArts every year. As recently reported in annewsletter from California CongressmannDana Rohrabacher, this council chose tonspend $25,000 on a performance seriesnat The Kitchen in New York entitledn”Annie Sprinkle: Post Porn Modei-nist.”nSprinkle is the star of some 150nexplicit, XXX-rated videos, and she performednher New York act twelve times.nHer taxpayer-supported skit includednacts that cannot be described in a familynmagazine, but they were certainly in thenPOST-PORNnMODERNISM AND THE NEAnnnand to develop a dynamic life of itsnown.nThe consequences of the equivocalnlaw of May 1986 have been catastrophic.nThe drive for more “discipline”nand for “honest” entrepreneurialnmanagement has led to the creationnof an army of “people’s inspectors”nnow ten million strongl In their “eager-beaver”nzeal to uncover cases ofnwrongdoing and corruption, they havendiscouraged individual entrepreneursnwho might have been willing to strikenout on their own had they felt completelynfree to operate as they saw fit,ninstead of being made responsible fornefficient production methods (the socallednkhozrazchot system of self-sustaining,nunsubsidizing accounting)nwhile having to fulfill quotas imposednby the State. During the 1985-1986nperiod no less than 800,000 “dishonest”nblack-marketeers were thus arrestednand forced to shift their operationsnto another economic field. All sorts ofnhitherto available commodities thenndisappeared from the shops. Efficientnentrepreneurs, encouraged by the ostensiblennew economic “liberalism” ofnthe regime, have found themselvesnbeing taxed up to 90 percent of theirnprofits. Many simply gave up. In thencountryside the law of May 1986 wasnused by local party officials to declarenwar on the private farm produce ofnindividual peasants (working theirnpersonal lots) in what must havenseemed to many of the latter a savagentriple-X tradition.nJohn Frohnmayer, chairman of thenNEA, defended the grant, saying: “Thenpoint is we are not the moral arbiter ofnthis country.” The executive director ofnThe Kitchen, Bobbi Tsumagari, defendednthe “artistic quality” of Sprinkle’snshow, defining it as “a critical look atnSprinkle’s personal experiences dealingnwith some of the most important issuesnof our time.nSprinkle was more candid. As she saidnon stage, “Usually I get paid a lot ofnmoney for this, but tonight it’s governmentnfunded.”nMAY 1990/51n