"The decisive stage in the fight for the
USSR pov, a secretary of the Kirghiz writers' union and editor of the journal Ala 1oo. He wrote:
"In our republic, many innocent people suffered at the time of the cult of the personality. To acquaint readers with their lives, their literary legacy is now being success of perestroika"
prepared for publication. Previously unpublished works of writers are now appearing, along with translations of Russian and foreign studies of the Kirghiz people, toward which until quite recently prejudic-
THE CONFLICT in the Soviet bureaucracy over Gorbachev's policy of perestroika and glasnost has clearly reached a new level and come out considerably more in the open. At the beginning of April, the Soviet public was treated to the startling sight of a direct clash between two major publications
- Pravda, the organ of the Communist Party of the Soviet
Union; and Sovietskaya Rossiya, the organ of the leadership of the Russian Soviet Socialist Republic. Furthermore, this new sensation came just as the mass protest strikes were ending in Nagorno-Karabakh.
GERRY FOLEY
A
FULL-PAGE unsigned article in the April 5 Pravda replied to a
"letter from a reader in the
March 13 issue of Sovietskaya
Rossiya with a broad and withering blast at opponents of Gorbachev's policy within the apparatus. For example, in response to the offending letter's arguments about the need for defending the
"principles"
and
"foundations" of the existing system, Pravda replied:
"It is the ABC of Marxism that ideas and interests are bound up together....Behind any ideas inevitably stand one or another interest. The conservative opposition to perestroika is the weight of practices, of habits of thinking and action carried over from the past. It is the aggressive, egoistic interests of those accustomed to living at the expense of others and not wanting to give up this habit. In fact, perestroika is objectively aimed against these interests."
There was also a sharp rebuke to an alleged attempt by the "letter from a reader"
to defend Stalin's historical role: "Stalin and his immediate entourage bear a great and unforgivable guilt before the party and the people for impermissible mass repression and lawlessness.
A few days after its attack on the "letter from a reader" in Sovietskaya Rossiya, on
April 10, Pravda featured a major speech by Gorbachev in defence of perestroika and glasnost delivered to the Central Committee of the Communist party of Uzbekistan. In the first part of his oration, the
Soviet leader said: "We have every reason to say that the decisive stage of the fight for the success of perestroika has begun."
28
Later on Gorbachev, referring to the
Pravda article of April 5, also leveled a
International Viewpoint #140 • May 2, 1988 strong and sweeping attack against the opponents of his policies:"We are hearing people say, 'Look what your democracy has led to!' We have to to look at what lies behind such statements. Behind them stands a lack of respect for the people." Gorbachev's conservative opponents on defensive
The day after publishing the general secretary's speech in Uzbekistan, Pravda began featuring letters columns hailing its April 5 attack on Sovietskaya Rossiya. Obviously, a big offensive was on. It led in short order to the editors of Sovietskya Rossiya confessing that they had made mistake in publishing their "letter from a reader." Obviously, Gorbachev's conservative opponents were on the defensive again, after they had apparently been on the offensive themselves toward the end of 1987. (See the article by Boris Kagarlitski on page 7.)
The Gorbachev offensive opened up the way for even sharper things to be said about bureaucracy and Stalinism. For example, the April 12 issue of Pravda published an article by veteran party member, M. Goncharov, which said: "I fully ap prove of the publication of the article in Pravda, especially about the role of Stalin. My position is that his activity had nothing in common with socialism. He led our country away from socialism. He destroyed the flower of the nation and crippled the soul of the people."
Among the letters in Pravda of April 16 was one that raised the question of national oppression. It came from K. Dzhusues prevailed....
"The majority of readers have greeted this publication with approval, and are showing interest. This helps the development of perestroika in other areas of life. since the people are confirmed in their belief that the course of moral renewal of the society is irreversible."
An unrelenting chorus of approval
Despite the opening for criticism of the bureaucracy provided by Gorbachev's offensive, the overall form of it resembled the old methods of the Soviet rulers more than the freedom of discussion invoked by the current general secretary. The letters in Pravda were an unrelenting chorus of approval. There was not one defending Sovietskaya Rossiya or conservative Stalinist views.
However, old-fashioned Stalinist views are certainly held by many people in the USSR, and by no means all of them are bureaucrats, or even the worst of the bureaucrats. Stalinist conceptions have penctrated deeply in the minds of a great number of people.
This imprint can even very often be found even in the thinking of opponents of the regime, or even refugees from it. There is no way to destroy it without a genuine open discussion in which this whole body of ideas and misinformation can be dispelled by argument and not just shouted down (in a very selective way, morcover) by a faction of the bureaucracy that happens to have the upper hand for the moment.
Furthermore, this orchestrated chorus in honor of "democracy," "justice, " and "a return to the principles of Lenin" was launched only a day after the publication in Pravda of a quite traditional piece of Stalinist defamation and witch-hunting against the leaders of the Armenian protests and their leading defender in Soviet democratic circles, Sergei Grigoriants. Il was the article, "Instigators: once again on the events in Nagorno-Karabakh and around It." (See IV 139, April 18).
The Armenian protests were the first time masses of people have expressed themselves under perestroika. The attitude of the Soviet media toward such actions and the questions they raised remain a concrete test of how much room is being opened up for real political debate. *