For several weeks, the Soviet authorities have been stepping up their anathemizations of the national movements again. An occasion for this was Gorbachev's speech on November 15 to military members of the Congress of People's Deputies. The chief of the Soviet bureaucracy concentrated on defending the army, mainly against the attacks of the national democratic movements, which are opposing the present military system in varying degrees, from demanding the removal of all Soviet troops from their territories and the ending of conscription of their youth by the Soviet authorities (notably in the case of Lithuania), to insisting that local conscripts serve in their home republics and not be used elsewhere without the permission of the republic government.
Violent attacks on national movements
In the discussion with Gorbachev published in the November 16 Pravda, a number of the military deputies made extremely violent attacks on the national movements, quite worthy of Unionist
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whip
Defense of Lenin, defense of Trotsky?