Among the groups represented at the congress were the so-called "internationalist fronts" that have been trying to organize Russian workers in the Baltic countries against the national movements. * COMMUNIST PARTIES Building the parties MEMBERSHIP problems were at the centre of the discussions at this year's meeting of Secretaries of ruling Communist Parties in Havana, according to a report by three Soviet academics in Pravda (September 18, 1989). Some ruling parties are growing very slowly, the Hungarian party fell from members in September 1987 to 730,000 at the time of the meeting.
The authors estimate that the Hungarian party is losing about 2,000 workers each month. Ageing is also a problem: only 12% of the members of the Bulgarian CP are under 30, while the figures for Hungary and Poland are 8% and 6% respectively.
The authors believe that the problems stem from the fact that people have yet to feel tangible results from economic and political reforms. But the decline of the youth membership of the Polish and Hungarian parties suggests another reason: as soon as it is no longer absolutely necessary to join the party for career reasons, one of the main reasons for enrolling disappears. *
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9
TANANMEN
Miners' strike opens new act in perestroika
AS THE FIRST large-scale, independent labour action of perestroika, the miners' strike of July 1989 merits careful analysis for what it can reveal about the nature of the Soviet