With the national elections on March 26, 1989, Mikhail S. Gorbachev has achieved another important milestone in his quest for change in the Soviet Union.
In a very real sense, those elections create a foundation for any future political reforms. In addition to having created a new supreme body of state power (the 2,250-member Congress of People's Deputies) and established the Soviet Union's first standing parliament (the 542-member USSR Supreme Soviet), these reforms envisage the emergence of a new and powerful presidency.
The ultimate result of true political reform would be the creation of a new power center, as a counterweight to the Communist Party (CPSU). To Gorbachev's great disappointment and consternation, the CPSU has not only failed to find solutions to the country's problems, but has in fact become very much a part of the problem. In short, the CPSU needs restructuring; and that, as the general secretary well realizes, is a long-term proposition even under the best of circumstances.
In spite of the massive personnel changes and institutional reorganization that Gorbachev has engineered within the party during the past four years, the CPSU has proved to be anything but a pliable instrument in the pursuit of perestroika. On the contrary, Gorbachev has frequently complained about apathy, inertia, and resistance within the party. His mobilization of societal forces outside the CPSU and his decision to create a powerful executive presidency bespeak his conclusion that perestroika cannot wait until the CPSU reforms itself. At a different level, the elections reflect the conclusion that economic reform is not possible without fundamental changes in the Soviet political system.
To gauge the true weight of what occurred in the Soviet Union, it is important to recognize that multicandidate elections represent a fundamental break with the traditional (Stalinist) modus operandi of the Soviet elite. In the broad sense, glasnost and perestroika are daggers aimed at the collective heart of the nomenklatura, that is, the Soviet ruling class that developed under Stalin. Thus, the elections themselves, regardless of their outcome, fuel the debate within the party apparatus.
Election '89
Elections have been part of the Soviet political scene form the very beginning. In the past, however, an election was nothing more than the ritual ratification of unopposed candidates, handpicked by the CPSU. Though attended by much fanfare, Soviet elections were invariably predictable. As a disenchanted Soviet citizen told the author on a train trip through Siberia in 1975: "You must understand that in our country everything is planned, even--no, especially--the outcome of elections." No wonder that in the past, elections in the Soviet Union (and other socialist countries) have been virtually ignored in the noncommunist world.
The March 26 election was clearly different. For the first time in history, an election in a socialist country commanded the world's attention. In a dramatic break with the past, contested elections were held in the largest country on earth for the first time under its Marxist regime. While acknowledging flaws in the election laws and the upheavals that had attended the preelection campaign, Gorbachev, after casting his
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