independence and the
USSR chev, at least this is what the latter wants us to think. The Kremlin hardliners are becoming more and more useful to the new President-Bonaparte; from being the obstacle to overcome they have become an all-purpose argument against every kind of radical.
Nonetheless Gorbachev has to use the future of the Soviet carrot as well as the stick to preserve his credibility. Preaching moderation and orderly change, he is trying to make the
Union
SINCE the Lithuanian Supreme Soviet declared independence on March 11, the country has suffered what amounts to an invasion and steps taken towards the establishment of an occupation regime. Up to the time of writing events have developed more or less "peacefully" in a region for which the
Western bourgeoisie feels a lot more sympathy than for the
Azeris and the Central Asian "Muslim" peoples. But, despite the lower level of brutality, due to the requirements of foreign policy, the result is the same, and the same repressive forces
— Ministry of the Interior and KGB troops - are at work in
Lithuania as in Azerbaijan.
SALAH JABER
H
AVING taken control of key economic installations and the majority of Lithuania's strategic nerve centres, the Kremlin troops have put the country into quarantine, while creating a climate of intimidation through the multiplication of roadblocks and searches. The hunt for "deserters", who have refused to serve in the
Soviet army and the order to citizens of the republic to surrender their arms, demonstrates Moscow's firm intention to prevent the Lithuanians from having the real attributes of sovereignty.
The only freedom that remains is that of political self-expression - the
Lithuanians are a people under house arrest.
They have thus discovered to their cost the limits of Gorbachev's tolerance. Many of them had illusions that what was happening in whose quixotic behaviour is endangering relations between the great powers.
The three million ethnic Lithuanians living in the republic do not count for much in comparison with what their challenge means for Moscow. They are opening the way for the dismemberment of the Soviet Union and the reversal of the liberalization process initiated by Gorba-
Lithuanians look like hotheads. He is even trying to use democratic sounding arguments against them; this is the meaning of his demand that there should be a referendum in Lithuania, in line with the newly adopted constitutional law regulating the right of secession of Republics from the USSR. severely limited in the new law. A two thirds majority is required for independence, and there is then to be a transitional waiting period of five years before it is implemented. Compared to this awkward interpretation of the right of self-determination of nations, even bourgeois decolonization was often less restrictive. And on top of this there is the spectre of having to pay "indemnities" to Moscow.
According to Izvestia, the bill that the Union will present to Lithuania before it can leave could be some 12.5 billion roubles. And this still leaves out of account acts of revenge such as the demand that Lithuania should pay the full price for receiving the raw materials and goods that it needs from the USSR (Lithuania gets 97% of its energy from the USSR). This is hardly the sort of settlement one would expect in an amicable divorce after 50 years of marriage.....
Political independence not economic autarchy It is necessary here to take up the widespread idea that independence would be economically absurd, an easy alibi for people who do not want to support peoples who make such a choice. From this point of view, which assumes that a state must live only on its own resources, every state that does not cover at least a large part of the earth's surface is a reactionary absurdity.
Azerbaijan had no relevance to them, when in fact it was a message to all the nations on the Soviet periphery. These illusions were nourished by another great self-
"Of course you deception:
that the imperialist can come out,
"Christian" West would for do but first you have
Lithuania at least what it had done to pay the fine for their brother Catholics in for falling in"
Poland. The Lithuanians have had a bitter this
(from the disillusionment in
Estonian respect. In fact Western capitals cultural weekly have hardly been able to conceal
Reede)
their irritation with the Sajudis leader Vytautas Landsbergis, this music teacher meddling in politics,
But it is obvious that political independence does not imply economic isolation. It is merely one of the conditions that would allow a sovereign and a free choice of the economic relations that a country wishes to establish with the rest of the world, including the countries that used to rule them. It still remains necessary that these latter do not attempt to substitute economic suzerainty for their lost political power.
in fahuar or lose ceramic 3
be in favour of close economic April 23, 1990 • #183 International Viewpoint
----- pull-quotes on this page -----
Lithuanian
"Our programme is self-management and
USSR cooperation with a Soviet Union or a Russia well disposed towards them. A different attitude on Moscow's part might leave open the possibility that, after a period of independence, decide to rejoin a union refashioned on a genuinely equal confederal basis. Despite all the announcements of the end of self-government"
Leninism, Lenin's remarks on this subject remain more relevant than ever.
In his testament of December 1922, he
Interview with leader of movement for a underlined that in the existing conditions:
"It is quite natural that the 'freedom to new Socialist Party In Russia secede from the union' by which we justify ourselves will be a mere scrap of paper, unable to defend the non-Russians from the onslaught of that really Russian man,
MIKHAIL MALYUTIN is a teacher at the central school of the the Great-Russian chauvinist, in sub-