A bold stroke by
USSR fines. The decree was also used to ban and repress the August 21 demonstration in Pushkin Square against the Soviet intervention in Czechoslovakia that was called by the Democratic Union (which recently constituted itself as a party). On this occasion, we saw a new special riot police unit, all in gray, employed with vigor.
Finally, there was the attempt to limit the
THE SPECIAL Central Committee plenum called by
Gorbachev aroused considerable speculation in the international press about a sharpening of the conflict between the reformers and the conservatives. With the departure of
Gromyko and some other dinosaurs, the Brezhnevite old guard suffered a setback. But who will be the real winners from the Gorbachev reforms?
The following article from the October 6 issue of Rouge, newspaper of the French section of the Fourth International, looks at the present stage of the reform in the USSR.
CATHERINE VERLA
G
ORBACHEV certainly has a dramatic flare. Let us admit frankly that one could have feared the worst, a conservative counter- offensive. The only sign that pointed in the other direction was undoubtedly the theatrical bent characteristic of the Soviet leader.
But more and more facts — not just signs
— in the recent period had been pointing to a conservative hardening up.
In August, first of all, there was the decree by the Presidium - still headed by Gromyko — which severely restricted the right to demonstrate. The Karabakh Committee leaders have already suffered the initial effects of a multiplication of heavy circulation of the press, or at least to make a strict selection of the publications that would have the right to get enough paper to meet the demand for subscriptions (in August people were standing in lines for several hours in the hope of re-subscribing to the more liberal press). Growing discontent about shortages
The reaction aroused by this obviously political rationing essentially knocked the props out from under this measure. But overall, on the eve of changes in the apparatus and re-elections that could make more than a few bureaucrats fear for their livelihood, new conservative initiatives could be expected. They would no doubt have exploited the growing discontent of the population about shortages. The ideological cover for the power conflicts has shifted in this direction recently.
After taking up the cudgels in the debate over Stalinism, the conservative press adopted the question of the well-being of the workers - and "disorders" of all sorts that are blamed on glasnost — as their arguing point. Ligachev's speech this summer attacked the social effects of the reforms
Nonetheless, the weakness of such a speech —or of the conservative position -is that they have no credible or attractive program other than maintaining the old order, which is in a profound crisis.
The reserve or distrust of workers toward reforms that threaten the existing level of employment and the standard of living (through price rises) are not sufficient to guarantee the conservatives a situation equivalent to the one in which Khrushchev fell. Besides the international successes he has scored - unlike Mr. K. - Gorbachev is benefitting from the political aspect of the "revolution" he advocates.
In the socio-economic sphere, the reform has been little applied, if at all, and it is still possible to say that the main problems are being created by bureaucratic obstruction. Thus, reforms of the political system and elections seem a prerequisite for any perestroika (regardless of what content it has).
The early retirement of Gromyko and the other rhinoceroses of the Brezhnev period, as well as Ligachev's transfer from his post as chief of ideology to agriculture (a trap, given the difficulties of this task have one purpose. It is to reinforce the confidence of the partisans of reform, to deprive the conservatives in the intermediate and base structures of their spokespersons "at the
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Gorbachev
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International Viewpoint #149 • October 17, 1988
USSR • HUNGARY
Stop." In short, the objective was to inspire a certain boldness in renewing the party's base structures and cutting back the apparatus that up until now has paralleled ecowhich they live together.