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Helping Gorbachev: The Right Thing to Do?
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17402 |
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CURRENT ISSUES
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1 / 1990 |
3,337 Words |
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Marshall I. Goldman
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Who would have thought five years ago that an American president and secretary of state would soon devote time and thought as well as effort to helping a Soviet leader stay in office? That, of course, was before the coming of Mikhail Gorbachev. Now in an effort to demonstrate U.S. support for Mikhail Gorbachev and his reforms, George Bush holds a nonsummit summit with Gorbachev, and the secretary of state insists that the No. 2 man in the National Security Council must alter his speech for fear that a negative assessment of Gorbachev's chances will hamper the reform process and be taken as an attempt to sabotage Gorbachev and his reforms.
George Bush and his administration have only adopted such a strategy after a good deal of analysis and debate. While there has been a long-standing predisposition to support perestroika, there was less enthusiasm about admitting publicly that this was American policy. Now even most hard-liners in Washington have come to accept the notion that Gorbachev's efforts are real and sincere. What they do disagree about is whether or not and how long Gorbachev will be in office. In part, just because Gorbachev in sincerely intent on reform, his efforts at home have engendered enormous resistance and on occasion sabotage. It is natural therefore to ask: Is there anything we should or can do?
The backfire of reform
Admittedly, the road to reform in the Soviet Union is beset with potholes and detours, but the vast majority of people both in and outside the Soviet Union now seem to agree that Gorbachev is for real. He is not doing all of this for show. He has moved boldly and he keeps trying regardless of what he calls temporary setbacks. Without such a deep commitment to the process of change, Gorbachev would have given up long ago as many of his predecessors did and as some of his supporters have done even today.
We should remember, of course, that the paths of Gorbachev's reforms, both inside and outside the Soviet Union, have always been upward and onward. While they have withdrawn their troops from Afghanistan, the Soviets have continued to supply the Afghan government with arms. Some critics insist the Soviets have also sent military advisers there. There are similar reports of continued, although reduced, support for Nicaragua. Similarly, at home, despite professions of glasnost, Gorbachev has ordered the firing of two newspaper editors, in one case because the paper published a survey which indicated that many members of the Supreme Soviet were more popular than Gorbachev himself. In the economic sphere, the Supreme Soviet has imposed curbs on the formation of certain kinds of cooperatives and moved toward stricter control of prices- a clear sign that the economic reform process has been meeting widespread criticism. This opposition is coming from workers' groups in particular, who resent what they see as the receipt of unearned income. At the same time Gorbachev has also pushed through a new law that serves to restrict the right to strike in many industries.
Even more disturbing, the economic reforms do not seem to be working. Unlike the political reforms that moved very fast, the economic reforms have met with enormous opposition. As a result, economic growth has suffered and the real standard of living has actually fallen. Under the circumstances, it is only natural that there should be those like Yegor Ligachev who now call for reconsideration of the whole effort. In the extreme
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