USSR / AROUND THE WORLD Poles...Among the Poles, there are those who prefer an alliance with Russia....We are being blackmailed with the threat that if we do not meet all the demands of the Poles, they will create a Karabakh here....
"Only a week ago we met with the leaders of the Union of Poles in Lithuania. There was not even any suggestion of the possibility of what is happening now. We left convinced that we were heading toward an agreement. Now, it is evident that the real plans were hidden from us. The program of 'fragmenting' Lithuania into autonomous regions did not arise here. The Georgians, Latvians and Estonians are facing the same threats....This is how Moscow intends to block the process of the republics gaining national independence. Poles, please be reasonable. Lithuania is our common home."
For the bureaucracy, both in Moscow and Warsaw, the perspective of an alliance between Solidarnosc and the Baltic People's Fronts represents a major strategic threat. By fomenting interethnic conflict in Lithuania, the bureaucracy hopes to dispel this danger, to arouse nationalist solidarity in Poland with the Polish minority in Lithuania and a hostility of the Polish people toward the Lithuanian national movement. To this end, although very discreetly, it has not hesitated to exploit the old Polish expansionist claim to the Vilnius region.
Leszek Miller, secretary of the Polish CP and one of the leaders of the "reform" wing of the bureaucracy, accused some Solidarnosc leaders of "uncritically supporting some movements in the Baltic countries or in Ukraine, as if they did not know that the nationalism of these movements is not directed only against the Russians but also against the Poles." Adam Michnik, editor of Gazeta, answered: "The difficult Polish-Lithuanian questions can only be resolved in the context of Polish-Lithuanian dialogue. This is not an anti-Russian option but an antitotalitarian one." (Gazeta, September 18.)
The national leadership of Rural Solidarnosc gave the most thoroughgoing answer.
In an open letter addressed to Poles in Lithuania, it said about the proclamation of an autonomous Polish district in Salcininkai: "This is a shameful thing, and no •Polish festival.' The autonomist or separatist actions of Poles in Lithuania are not a Polish but a Russian political success. In the long run, this is an error and a negative development, both for the Lithuanians and the Poles. The policy of divide and rule can offer you a momentary success, but over time it can only produce sour fruit...If you seek exteral aid — in this case, Russian — to strengthen your position temporarily, you will become an alien element and rightly be treated as one in the future. A betrayal of Lithuania would be a betrayal of Poland." (Gazeta, Sep26 tember 15.) *
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SOVIET UNION Rignt of referendum established in Lithuania THE SUPREME SOVIET of the Lithuanian SSR voted on November 5 to establish the right of referendum. Henceforward popular referendums can be called at the request of half of the members of the Supreme Soviet or 300,000 citizens. In reporting this step, the Western press has concentrated on the fact that it offers the means for asserting the independence of Lithuania. But it also has an important general democratic significance. It will be interesting to see if this measure is copied in the other Baltic republics, Byelorussia, Ukraine and beyond. * Armenian national movement founded THE FOUNDING conference of the Armenian National Movement was held in Yerevan on November 5. The new organization is reportedly a broad federa-
POLAND RUMANIA tion of ten groups, on the model of the People's Fronts in the Baltic, Byelorussia, and Ukraine. In its report of this meeting, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung of November 6 said that the new organization is not proposing the perspective of secession from the Soviet Union, but is demanding that legislation adopted by the Soviet Supreme Soviet not be valid in Armenia before being approved by the republic's Supreme Soviet. The People's Front of Azerbaijan has also raised this demand. The Estonian Supreme Soviet was the first to vote such a law. It was struck down as unconstitutional by the USSR central authorities. But such initiatives are clearly continuing to multiply.* ALBANIA Hard line re-affirmed as isolation decreases RAMIZ ALIA, leader of the Albanian Workers' Party, spoke out against the dangers of outside influences at the Eighth plenum of the Central Committee in late September. According to the party daily Zeri i Popullit (September 29), he admit-
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