Word: gorbachevized
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...nation's leadership often hears what it wants to hear, but few have seemed quite so deaf to the public's demands as East Germany's rulers. Thousands flee the country, protesters stage hunger strikes in churches, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev offers a gentle lecture in person -- none of it seemed to make a difference. But last week as the cries for democratic reform reached a crescendo in cities across East Germany, the leaders in East Berlin demonstrated that their hearing faculties were intact -- and that they were distressed by the rising noise level...
When asked about development in East Germany, Vyacheslav Dashichev, a foreign affairs adviser to Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev, told ZDF that "all Socialist states need to renew their old political and economic systems...
...Soviet lawmakers, it was a unique lesson in the art of compromise. President Mikhail Gorbachev, who supported the emergency-powers proposal, had * opened the session with an emotional address, telling the legislature that work stoppages are "holding our reforms by the throat." What followed was an often fiery, unprecedented debate as politicians clashed over the need for such draconian measures. At one point, Gorbachev yelled at the unruly Deputies, "We're not in a stadium! We're in the Supreme Soviet...
...Gorbachev's concern over labor unrest is well grounded. Since last July, when Soviet coal miners went on a three-week strike to protest their squalid living conditions and the government caved in to their demands, long-suffering Soviet workers have found work stoppages a potent weapon. So have restive national groups. For more than a month, railways have been blocked between the tiny Caucasus republics of Azerbaijan and Armenia, which are battling for control of the disputed enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh. The blockade has severely curtailed supplies of food, medicine and gasoline in Armenia. Last week coal miners...
...Despite Gorbachev's original inclination to take quick and drastic action, he hesitated to go as far as some had demanded, and initiated the bargaining session that sharply reduced the scope of the emergency plan. After the vote, Gorbachev seemed to recognize that he had presided over a new chapter in Soviet history. "I think we've done the right thing," he said. Even the more moderate measures may help cool the rash of strikes. More important, one of Gorbachev's crucial reforms seemed to be working: an elected legislature had debated and bargained its way to a sensible compromise...