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The Soviet Impasse: 'No Exit'?
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16540 |
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CURRENT ISSUES
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11 / 1989 |
1,328 Words |
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Charles F. Elliott
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The embattled Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev has recently returned from his traditional late-summer vacation (in the Crimea) to a tangle of vexing problems. His televised speech on September 9 adhered to his usual stance of eschewing the "Right" or the "Left" course; instead, he insisted upon his unswerving adherence to the "Leninist-centrist" course of perestroika. For Gorbachev, as for the rest of the Soviet leadership, no easy solution is in sight.
The expanding nationality unrest demonstrates a new assertiveness within the labor force.
The inert nomenklatura (the Soviet stratum which has access to the most important jobs, special stores, and privileges in the USSR) shows no sign of willingness to permit systemic change and thereby abandon its traditional power and perquisites. The essence of the Soviet system has, over the past seven decades, been one of sustaining--at whatever cost--the Communist Party's "leading role" in the Soviet Union. The Soviet impasse is today starkly clear. Even before Gorbachev became the general secretary--but increasingly since March 1985 and insistently in 1989--it had become evident that the Communist Party itself acted as a fetter upon the effective modernization of the Soviet economy. (Marx believed that private property was a "fetter" upon the development of the productive forces.) Accordingly, Gorbachev announced at the Congress of People's Deputies (held this year) that the USSR would have a new constitution.
A new Soviet fundamental law, however, will not of itself mean a true change in the system. Andrei Sakharov, the great Soviet human rights advocate, has correctly asserted that Article 6 of the 1977 Constitution (this crucial article was unaffected by the December 1988 constitutional modifications) must be abrogated, for it is this article that enshrines the Communist Party as the guardian and organizational engine of the Soviet system, thus constitutionally inhibiting the development of pluralism.
It will be important to watch the fate of Article 6 as the new Soviet Constitution emerges--attempts to change this article may well be highly divisive. The Soviet conservatives will certainly not wish to see Article 6 watered down or eliminated altogether. For it is the onrush of pluralism--economic, political, and above all, ideological--that threatens to change the very essence of the Soviet system. The traditional Soviet system has been a rigidly centralized one, based upon the three pillars of Soviet power, the party apparatchiks, the KGB, and the military. These three pillars are all being directly challenged in 1989.
The most immediate challenge to Moscow is posed by the numerous strikes and ethnic problems threatening the very essence of the Soviet system. Massive demonstrations continually shake the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast. Such an extraordinary challenge to Moscow's control is an indication of how far-reaching the current turbulence is. No pleas for "Soviet patriotism" or "socialist internationalism" can overcome the deep and historic animosity between the Armenians and Turks.
Navigating Through A Sea Of Crises
Many non-Russian nationality groups have grown increasingly assertive. The 1989 coal-mining strikes (in Vorkuta in the Soviet far north,
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