Word: baltics
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Sadly, a totalitarian trait has survived in Gorbachev: the delusion of his own indispensability. He could have been the hero of Baltic independence and of reform in its triumph over reaction. But that might have meant yielding to other, democratically elected leaders. So now he is the villain. That is the tragedy of Gorbachev...
That may prove wishful thinking. Although the Soviet military's bloodletting in the Baltics touched off a 100,000-strong protest march in Moscow and a stream of warnings from abroad, the Kremlin has not backed down. Its armed forces continue to rumble through the tiny republics' streets, seizing buildings and striking threatening attitudes. The Interior and Defense ministries have announced that the national police and the army will begin joint patrols next month in all major cities, apparently including the Baltic capitals. They claimed the move was intended to fight the increase in violent crime, but the heavily armed...
...spite of it all, the democratically elected Baltic governments refuse to compromise on their demands for independence. A lopsided stalemate is setting...
While he is reluctant to force out the Baltic governments because of the price he would pay abroad, Gorbachev has accepted the use of the military fist in an attempt to intimidate them. He is probably under pressure to go much further by the hardliners who now surround him: his original perestroika team has been replaced by a Vice President from the Communist Party hierarchy, a KGB man and a combat general at the Interior Ministry, and an unreconstructed cold warrior at the head...
Perhaps, but actions still speak louder than Bessmertnykh's words. The Soviet Union vetoed discussion of the Baltic crisis at a meeting of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe last week. The recently signed treaty provides for discussion of "questions of urgent concern," but Moscow blocked that, claiming it would be interference in Soviet domestic affairs. That episode only demonstrated how a hard line at home is imitated in dealings with the rest of the world. "If the Soviet Union becomes a nasty, brutish place," says a U.S. official, "its foreign policy will reflect that...