Moscow. Today, we were visited by democratic deputies from the Moscow Soviet who came to bring us their support. You know we are not the only ones who are having problems negotiating with the
Kremlin. It is a huge stone block. To budge it requires enormous efforts, and little Lithuania cannot do it alone."
Libération's correspondent asked: "Latvia voted on May 4 for a return to independence. Estonia has just resumed its prewar name. Is the evolution of the Baltic countries confirming your idea that Lithuania was correct to take the lead with its declaration [of independence] on March 11?"
Landsbergis replied: "It is likely that we will soon adopt a common Baltic position.
Lithuania has not had to convince its neighbors. They were pushed to join us by the logic of the situation itself. The Latvians and Estonians have already been threatened with economic sanctions.
"Such moves are in fact quite likely. The question we are asking ourselves now is whether to expect the worst before or after the Bush-Gorbachev summit.
Gorbachev feels that his hands are free in the Baltic crisis, and the summit may
Strengthen his hand still further. Anything is still possible, even military intervention. After all, the Westerners assured us that military economic reprisals against Lithuania would be intolerable, but they have done nothing against the economic blockade imposed on us."
The mysteries of big politics
Landsbergis even blamed the Kremlin's retreat from negotiations on Washington: "I have a definite impression that Washington did not want negotiations to start so quickly. Why? Well, such are the mysteries of 'big politics,' but in any case after this trip [by Soviet foreign minister Shevardnadze], the Kremlin's tone changed."
The nationalist president had accused the West of selling Lithuania to the Kremlin in a Munich-like deal. The KohlMitterrand letter of April 26 calling on the Lithuanians to "suspend" their moves toward independence in order to facilitate "dialogue" with Moscow was clearly a calculated stab in the back. There should be no mistake about that, and Landsbergis's statements to Libération make it clear that this is his general view, despite the fact that the Lithuanian government has chosen to try to use this letter to "internationalize" the conflict, to make it appear as if the French and German chiefs' call for "dialogue" is also a challenge to the This type of diplomacy is apt to prove politically counterproductive, but the
"Lithuania cannot shift the Kremlin alone"
USSR businessmen were quoted to the effect that the Baltic countries, like Finland, could become intermediaries between the Western world and the Soviet Union. Indeed, many Baltic nationalists evidently hold that idea.
In recent weeks, the Estonian literary weekly Reede has carried articles arguing that although Estonia was economically
TWO PROCESSES more and more shape the confrontation between the Lithuanian nation and the Kremlin bureaucracy.
One is exposure of the Western capitalist states as false friends of the Baltic peoples. The other is the increasingly important support of the anti-bureaucratic movements in the
Soviet Union as a whole, including in Russia.
According to the list published in Libération of May 2, six of the 27 slogans shouted by oppositionists in the May Day parade in Moscow, when Gorbachev was forced to leave the platform, were in defense of Lithuanla. They included
"Freedom for Lithuania," "This is a blockade of Freedom,"
"the Blockade of Lithuania is the president's shame" and
"Russian soldiers are not the gendarmes of the empire."
GERRY FOLEY
Lithuanians in the short run are in a very tight spot and are trying every maneuver possible.
In his Libération interview, Landsbergis
"multiplying said his government was contacts with the governments and peoples of the world." The lessons of the conflict so far are that contacts with the latter are far more important in the long run than negotiations with the former. This example is also sinking in in East Europe. I noticed in a discussion with a Solidarnosc factory commission in Lodz in April that, along with the application of the IMF economic plan in Poland, the Western attitude toward Lithuania was a major source of disillusion with the " Western democracies" for Polish workers.
Impact of the Lithuanian tries. It stressed the indifference of the Scandinavian states, including Finland, to the fate of their small neighbors annexed by the Soviet Union. The main article, by Christian Lionet and Bernard Cohen, noted that when the Lithaunian premier Prunskiene pleaded with the Noroil, she was advised to appeal to the tender mercies of companies, with predictable
As for the Finnish bourgeoisie, its prosperity depends on special links with the USSR. On May 9, Finnish representative Mauno Koivisto told the European parliament: "The USSR is our big neighbor, which has become our big friend. My country is very small and poorly placed to give advice to the great." Some Finnish on the same level as Finland before the second world war, it fell decisively behind after incorporation into the Soviet Union. These articles overlook the extent to which Finland's development has been bound up with the country's special relation to the Soviet Union.
Finnish bourgeoisie limits
"anti-Soviet" activity
Moreover, the Finnish bourgeoisie accepts political subordination to the Kremlin bureaucracy and imposes limits on "anti-Soviet" activity. The Baltic national movements, on the other hand, come out of the struggle against Stalinism and bureaucratic rule, and thus cannot be regarded by Moscow as politically acceptable partners. The future of the Baltic countries depends on the overthrow of the bureaucratic regime in the Soviet Union as a whole.
In Estonia also, the lessons of the Lithuanian experience seem to be being taken to heart. Even the Radio Liberty Report on the USSR (May 4, 1990) noted that "Instead of inspiring more caution, Gorbachev's sanctions and the absence of Westem opposition to them may radicalize rather than moderate opinion." It quoted a recent article in the daily Paevaleht by Enn Poldross, chair of the Estonian Supreme Soviet's Commission on Culture and Education, who said, among other things:
"The powers of East and West are not especially concerned with justice. All of this was apparent before, so there is no reason to panic over the ambivalence of the experience FREEDOM!
The Lithuanian experience has had a visible effect on the Latvians, whose declaration of intent to move toward independence on May 4 was accompanied by statements that they placed no hopes in support from the West. In its April 28 issue, Literatura un Maksla, the weekly paper of the Latvian creative workers unions, ran a feature of news from Lithuania including an item headlined "Little hope of foreign help." It began by saying: "In recent years, Lithuania's leaders have talked about proposals for aid from Scandinavian and other Western states. While several Western states have advised Moscow against using force against the republic, not one has given any sign of offering concrete help against a blockade."
Libération's May 11 weckly feature on Europe was devoted to the Baltic coun-
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USSR / SPANISH STATE West or threats of pressure from the East."
Poldross argued against accepting any partial solutions, because of the problem of keeping the issue of Estonian independence clear in the minds of public opinion. The Estonian Supreme Soviet adopted a resolution on March 30 expressing intent to restore full independence.
In April, the Latvian Communist Party split over the question of national independence and independence from the all-Union Communist Party, as the Lithuanian and Estonian parties already had. The Moscow loyalist section, however, was relatively larger, since Latvians made up only about a third of the party.
In the April 26 issue of Tiesa, the organ of the independent Lithuanian CP, Ivars Kezbers, the chief of the independent Latvian CP, said that "The former Latvian Communist Party about 177,000 members. The results of a sociological study show that 67,000 support the independent Communist Party and agree with the project expressed in its programmatic
Today it has about 32,000 members. I harbor no illusions, that number could quickly decline."
National composition of
Communist fragments
As for the national composition of the Moscow loyalist and independent CPs, he said, "according to incomplete data, the CPSU territorial [Moscow loyalist] organization is 12% Latvian. Our party is 89% Latvian. The others are Jews, Poles and Lithuanians." When Russians there were, he said: "Since the congress, I have not met any Communists of Russian nationality living in Latvia. Among the Russians, there are supporters of our program, who have decided to support us concretely, but they don't want to show this publicly."
In the April 21 issue of Literatura un Maksla, Guntis Valujevs, wrote that the formation of the Latvian CP (for the program of the CPSU) had both tragic and comical elements. With regards to its claims to be a Latvian organization, he was inspired to cite a Russian proverb about a pig that had been dubbed a carp during a church fast, but could not grow fins. The party's self-designation included a two-fold lie, he said, first that it had anything to do with the Latvian people, and secondly that it had anything to do with the "program of the CPSU" after 1985.
"In reality, it is clear that the result of the Twenty-Fifth Congress of the Latvian CP was that the party transformed itself into the Interfront [the neo-Stalinist unionist organization based on elements of the Russian population]. Henceforth, its separate existence has become senseless." He wrote that the three Moscow loyalist parties in the Baltic had become "part of a 10 the CPSU: crown of thorns," rather than of laurel for International Viewpoint #185 • May 21, 1990
In his interview in Tiesa, Kezbers pointout that the center of the unionist movement in the Baltic was in Latvia: "It is most difficult to work in Riga, which has become the center of the Baltic internationalist fronts. Their activity is coordinated with the strong 'United Council of Workers' Collectives.' A Baltic Military District staff has been established. Tens of thousands of retired military officers live in the Latvian capital, belong to the CPSU territorial organization and unconditionally support its program." Nonetheless, Klebers said, "the Internationalist Front and CPSU bloc cannot dictate its conditions in the republic's newly elected Supreme Soviet, because it has only about 50 to 55 seats out of 201."
Conservative majority in
Latvian CP
At the Latvian CP congress at the end of the first week in April, reportedly about 55% of the delegates were conservatives, 12% moderates, and 33% reformers. On April 7, some 263 of the 791 participating unsuccessfully to persuade them to return. The majority consummated the split by continuing the congress behind closed doors. It elected Alfreds Rubiks, rated the most unpopular politician in the republic by polls carried out by the youth magazine Liesma, as its new first secretary.
The independent CP was formed later, according to Kezbers, by about 600 delegates, of whom about 200 had been delegates to the united CP congress. independent CP supports the perspective of an independent Latvia. The moderates were for autonomy for Latvia within the framework of the USSR and for the Latvian CP within the CPSU.
Among the moderates are the former CP leadership, including the former first secretary, Janis Vagris. The latter was the least pro-nationalist of the Baltic first secretaries. He was appointed in 1985 before any major political changes occurred. The other two first secretaries. Brazauskas in Latvia and Valjas in Estonia, replaced unpopular leaders who tried to suppress the rise of the national movements. In Literatura un Maksla, Valujevs paid tribute to Vagris as a man of moderation who had avoided violence but been totally outdistanced by events.
The breakup of the Latvian CP and the Latvian declaration of intent to restore independence represent a continuing rise of the demand for national freedom in the Baltic republics, and a growing challenge to the Kremlin's attempt to maintain the continuity of the Stalinist state. With the of other national movements, such as the one in Ukraine in particular, and of the anti-bureaucratic opposition in Russia, this defiance cannot easily be broken by Gorbachev, even with the imperialist powers lining up to support him. *
W HY the name, Izquierda