Word: gorbachevized
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...watched for signs of instability. That would be particularly true if the U.S.S.R. unraveled to a point at which a Russian chauvinist republic might control it. Such concerns are real, if premature. As William Webster, the director of the CIA, testified in Washington last week, it is possible that Gorbachev's enemies could one day try to oust him. But for now, "those demanding an acceleration of reform still have the upper hand...
...which enjoyed 20 years of independence before being re-annexed by the Soviet Union in 1940 under a cynical deal between Stalin and Hitler. As a result, says Sajudis president Vytautas Landsbergis, Lithuania "is not seeking to establish independence, but working to restore it." Visiting the republic in January, Gorbachev tried to apply the brakes with an offer to create a new Soviet federation with increased autonomy for all republics. While every republic had a constitutional right to leave the Union, he said, a law on secession procedures first had to be passed in Moscow. Give autonomy a chance...
Lithuanian leaders denounced Gorbachev's arguments as "trickery" and pressed ahead. The republic's Communist Party organization had already declared itself independent and moved closer to Sajudis in an attempt to build some credibility among the voters who now would decide its future. Last month the local parliament declared its 1940 accession to the U.S.S.R. "unlawful and invalid...
Unity was enforced and nationalist ambitions suppressed over the decades with ruthless coercion by the KGB, supplemented by privileges for the local party leaders who carried out Moscow's directives. Under Gorbachev, the use of force inside the Soviet Union was discouraged, and the party's hidebound patronage system came under direct attack. By denouncing the government's "command-administrati ve" methods, Gorbachev hoped to invigorate the system and increase its efficiency...
...Gorbachev's missile, however, also hit the colonial administration that maintained the Soviet empire. Glasnost naturally entails talking about past injustices and that has led to a new emphasis on ethnic grievances. Local party leaders, feeling the heat from Moscow, discovered that they could keep a grip on their jobs only by throwing in their lot with the nationalist forces in their regions -- actually representing their constituents' interests in dealing with Moscow. In most republics, it has now become good politics for Communist officials to shake a fist at the Kremlin...