Word: plenum
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...increased autonomy to all 15 republics and rewrite the 1922 treaty creating the Soviet Union and defining the rights and obligations of its republics. "Recent events," said the proposal, show "a need for radical transformations in the Soviet federation." Specifics are to be discussed at a special Central Committee plenum next month. It will be another risky venture for President Mikhail Gorbachev, aimed at resolving the nationalities problem without curtailing his reform program -- or his hold on power...
More than once, Mikhail Gorbachev has shown himself to be the most dazzling of political magicians. So when word spread that the Communist Party Central Committee had been summoned last week for a special plenum to discuss "organizational questions," many Soviets wondered just what the General Secretary had up his sleeve this time. Gorbachev did not disappoint them. ) Without resorting to repression, arrest or personal vilification, he gracefully purged 74 full members of the 301-member Central Committee. Never before in Soviet history had such a large housecleaning been executed so painlessly...
...Included were a former President, a former Prime Minister, five marshals, six generals and a portfolio of onetime Politburo members. What's more, they had "requested" to resign in an extraordinary statement that expressed "unanimous support for the political course of our dear party." As Gorbachev explained to the plenum, "One generation of party members has naturally to replace another...
...plenum was the first major meeting since the March elections for the new Congress of People's Deputies, which holds its inaugural session on May 25. The strong showing by reformist candidates gave Gorbachev the proof he needed to persuade skeptical party functionaries that the solution to the country's economic woes lies in accelerating reforms, not braking them. "The elections unequivocally said yes to perestroika," Gorbachev told the plenum. Added he: "We should have enough courage and ability to pursue consistently the line we have marked out under difficult conditions...
...Nobody and nothing can justify the deaths of innocent people," said Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze, the former party chief in the southern republic who was dispatched to his homeland after Sunday's bloodshed, in a speech to the local party plenum that made the leadership changes...