Word: baltics
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Sitting in his spacious, wood-paneled office in the Estonian capital of Tallinn, Communist Party leader Vaino Valjas, 58, wryly sums up the situation in his tiny Baltic republic with a peasant proverb: Better to see once than to hear a hundred times. The former Soviet Ambassador to Nicaragua was called home only a year ago to take up his new post, but what Valjas has already witnessed in those tumultuous twelve months is nothing less than a revolution, from the birth of unofficial political movements like the Estonian Popular Front to the bruising constitutional crisis with Moscow over...
Valjas represents the new breed of Communist reformers who are taking power in the Baltic republics of Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia. He and his colleagues know that the party's prospects in the three Baltic states hinge on how quickly it can come to terms with growing popular demands for more radical political and economic change -- even if the party runs the risk of angering Moscow. So far, the Baltic challenge has not erupted in ethnic violence and social anarchy; instead, it has been subtly expressed in arcane legal debate and parliamentary procedure. For President Mikhail Gorbachev, it represents both...
...measure of how quickly political change has been sweeping through the Baltic republics that the debate about national self-determination has moved from the streets into Communist Party headquarters. Asked about the future, Valjas replies, "Our ideal is an independent, sovereign Estonia within the Soviet Union or within a federation of sovereign republics." Latvian Ideology Secretary Ivars Kezbers muses about being a "free republic in a free Soviet Union." Lithuanian Second Secretary Vladimir Berezov says that "our common goal is independence, even if the ways of getting there are different...
...yesterday, however, Baltic activists were no longer excited by the possibility...
This unprecedented loosening of central authority is a bold but risky attempt by Gorbachev to deal with the surging tide of nationalism; he has had trouble riding that particular wave in recent months. While Baltic representatives acknowledged that their economies could not yet survive under full independence, some of the more extreme Baltic nationalists hope last week's action will ultimately lead to actual secession from the Soviet Union. The Supreme Soviet seems powerfully aware of the danger. Although the enabling laws granting autonomy to the republics will not be submitted to the Parliament until October, other aggrieved national groups...