Word: perestroika
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Yugoslavia's collective leadership is faced with a faltering economy and growing ethnic tensions, problems that also confront Gorbachev at home. Nonetheless, while he constantly referred to his principles of perestroika (restructuring) and glasnost (openness), Gorbachev refrained from suggesting that Yugoslavs adopt Soviet policies. A communique issued at the visit's end affirmed the right of the two nations to pursue "different paths of socialist development...
Gorbachev's reforms are a more immediate factor threatening Moscow's control. Western experts on the Soviet Union generally agree that his policies of economic restructuring (perestroika) and political openness (glasnost) are feeding the centrifugal forces of nationalism. "If Gorbachev wants to do something, he has to carry out perestroika," says French Sovietologist Helene Carrere d'Encausse. "But he can't do it without letting people express themselves. This leaves the door open to air all their frustrations, and the easiest ones to express are national frustrations...
...economy. "Gorbachev doesn't care about nationalities," observed a Western diplomat in Moscow. "He only cares about who works most efficiently." Yet events seem to have thrust the issue upon his attention -- with a vengeance. He devoted a lengthy passage to the subject in his 1987 book Perestroika, vowing "not to shun this or other problems which may crop up." By last month he was calling nationalism the "most fundamental, vital issue of our society." And in the wake of last week's violence, he had to realize that it was becoming one of the greatest challenges...
...page text bore a cumbersome title: Ideology of Renewal for Revolutionary Perestroika. But Soviet Leader Mikhail Gorbachev's speech at last week's Central Committee plenum was a spirited defense of the ambitious economic and social reform policies that he has championed under the banner of perestroika, or restructuring. On topics ranging from party doctrine and Soviet history to cultural freedom and foreign policy, the General Secretary called for continued change while identifying his own innovations with the Communist ideals of Lenin. "We are striving," he declared, "to revive the Leninist look of the new system...
...speech seemed partly aimed at answering conservative grumblings that Gorbachev's reforms were taking the country down a non-Communist road. Though the party leader admitted that perestroika had caused confusion, he proclaimed, "We are not retreating one step from socialism ((and)) everything which has been won and created by the people" since the triumph of Lenin and the Bolsheviks in 1917. Yet realizing Lenin's original vision, said Gorbachev, meant adapting to modern times and changed "international conditions...