Word: gorbachev
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...paper, Mikhail Gorbachev has accumulated more power than most heads of state ever dream of possessing. Last week the Soviet parliament granted him even greater authority by approving a presidential plan to place the government directly under his control. Only this time, Gorbachev's victory seemed more like a retreat from his pursuit of democratic reforms. Under growing pressure to halt the country's descent into political and economic chaos, the Soviet leader appears to be recasting himself in a conservative mold...
...Gorbachev has become more and more adamant in his insistence that the Soviet Union "cannot be divided." In fact, he has turned to the army, the KGB and the police to be the enforcers of his plan to stabilize the country. First he directed the KGB to form a special unit to supervise food deliveries from abroad; then he issued a decree establishing "worker control" groups to clamp down on black-market pilfering of food supplies. Last week he began his promised shake-up of the government leadership by going after the police. Two days later Gorbachev told the Supreme...
...string of announcements came amid signs that conservatives in the party and armed services, long on the defensive, have finally found an audience among a public that increasingly associates perestroika with long lines and empty shops. Faced with mounting criticism and declining popularity, Gorbachev may have decided that he has no choice but to loosen the reins on the KGB and military. Says Amy Knight, a Soviet-affairs analyst at the U.S. Library of Congress: "He is resorting to authoritarian, coercive measures because he is losing his ability to use more legitimate powers...
...move applauded on the right, Gorbachev replaced Interior Minister Vadim Bakatin with Boris Pugo, a senior Communist Party functionary and former chief of the Latvian KGB. Conservatives in the 2,250-member Congress of People's Deputies, banded together in a 500-strong group called Soyuz (Union), have blamed Bakatin for tolerating ethnic violence and demanded his resignation. The right, however, may not be rid of Bakatin for long. Some Kremlin watchers expect him to be named head of the President's new national security council...
Ivanov, deputy director of the Center on Asia and the Pacific at Moscow's Institute of World Economics and International Relations, said that "very important confidence-building measures between Moscow and Washington" led to last year's meeting between Gorbachev and South Korean President Roh Tae Woo in San Francisco...