Word: melnikov
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...apparently so angered by the harsh criticisms he heard at the Central Committee plenum two weeks ago that he threatened to resign. Gorbachev has played this trump card on at least two other occasions to rally support. But this time the conservative onslaught was especially fierce, particularly from Alexander Melnikov, party boss from the Siberian city of Kemerovo, one of the sites of coal-mining strikes that swept the nation last July. In an article in the liberal weekly Moscow News, journalist Danil Granin, who was a guest at the plenum, expressed alarm that "here for the first time...
...harshest blasts came from Vladimir Melnikov, the party boss from the Komi region, in the northeastern part of the Russian Republic. He charged that today's problems could not simply be attributed to past leaders. "We are duty bound to admit that many mistakes and miscalculations have been made in the years of perestroika too." In fact, he wondered if the real truth were being kept from Gorbachev by aides who were "clearly guarding the General Secretary from the severity of the situation...
...words were inflammatory, but the audience took them in stride. Referring to the discredited era of Leonid Brezhnev, who died in 1982, Vladimir I. Melnikov, an obscure official from the Russian republic, declared from the podium at the 19th All-Union Communist Party Conference, "People who in previous times actively conducted the policy of stagnation cannot now be on, or work in, central party or Soviet organs in the period of restructuring...
...most people in the auditorium, Melnikov's meaning was clear. But Mikhail Gorbachev wanted him to be even more explicit. Breaking into the speech, Gorbachev asked, "Maybe you have some concrete suggestions?" Then, explaining to other delegates, Gorbachev added with a smile, "We're sitting here and don't know: Is he talking about me or somebody else?" Melnikov proceeded to do what would have been unthinkable even a few months ago, naming names -- and prominent ones at that, including Andrei Gromyko, the country's 78-year-old President. The smile faded from Gorbachev's face, but when the highlights...
...would refer first of all to Comrade Solomentsev, and to Comrades Gromyko, Afanasyev, Arbatov and others," Melnikov replied. Delegates applauded loudly...