Nazarbayev speaks of Perestroika and Chinese reforms

President of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev have spoken about the final years of the Soviet Union and Gorbachev&rsquos Perestroika, Tengrinews reports from Samruk Kazyna Transformation Forum in Astana.

"I had to work in that system &ndash during the Soviet period, and I was one of the critics of Gorbachev's reforms who believed that socialism could be corrected and we could continue on with it. He had an expression - "socialism with a human face&rdquo. No one understands what it is. Probably, he meant the one close to the (market) economy,&rdquo Nazarbayev said.

He then continued: &ldquoBut if state-run companies are governed by corporate market principles, the problem, as you see, is successfully resolved." He added that state companies in China served as the most striking example for Kazakhstan.

The President noted that he was &ldquoclose&rdquo to Gorbachev and was trying to find a solution to the situation when &ldquoGorbachev&rsquos Perestroika began to stall&rdquo.

Nazarbayev said that he pointed out the lack of a program or a strategy in the Soviet policies and suggested looking to the East &ndash to China.

&ldquoHaving exactly the same state structure, the governing power, the Communist Party, which was actually the framework of discipline, it was possible to adopt the resolution like the one of the Central Committee and order the party to carry out market reforms,&rdquo Nazarbayev siad.

He stressed that such reforms would have been implemented because &ldquothat was the order&rdquo and everything would have been sorted out in the end.

Nazarbayev quoted Gorbachev as replying: "What is China for us, we are the Soviet Union, how can we look up to China? This is inappropriate."

&ldquoIn fact, reforms that were carried out there [in China] gave good results. How it is going to develop further &ndash history will show. But the success was obvious,&rdquo the President concluded.

Reporting Renat Tashkinbayev, writing by Dinara Urazova