Word: plenum
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...television lights in the auditorium of the Foreign Ministry suddenly flashed on. For three hours the Moscow press corps had been waiting impatiently for a delegation of party officials, led by Politburo member Alexander Yakovlev and Vice President Anatoli Lukyanov, to bring news of the final hours of the plenum of the Central Committee of the Soviet Communist Party. The event had been billed as a make-or-break meeting for the Soviet leader and his unprecedented program of political and economic reforms. The question now was whether Gorbachev had been able to continue his remarkable winning streak and once...
There was no need to ask. As the Kremlin emissaries filed onto the stage, the answer was written all over their faces. The normally dour Lukyanov let a grin slip. The balding and bespectacled Yakovlev looked like a schoolboy who had just received straight A's. After praising the plenum as a "major step . . . away from an authoritarian-bureaucr atic model of socialism toward a democratic society that has opted for socialism," Yakovlev was asked how the meeting had affected Gorbachev's position. A smile, then the reply: "Very, very positively...
...radical left been satisfied with Gorbachev's preference for staying close to the center. Party committees toppled as rank-and-file Communists vented their anger at local apparatchiks who were flaunting their privileges at a time when everyone else had to wait in line. Just before the plenum, Gorbachev got an earful from a delegation of miners, many of them activists in last summer's wildcat coal strikes. One worker advised him, "You need to determine more precisely just whose side you are on in this battle." Gorbachev seemed surprised at the criticism, asking, "You mean...
...translation with a puzzled look, then smiled. "Many rumors and suppositions are circulating worldwide," he said, gesticulating with his hands for emphasis. "All this is groundless. It has come into vogue in the international press to set rumor mills working as soon as we approach a regular plenum of the party Central Committee...
...crack in party solidarity so alarmed the Kremlin that it called an emergency session of the Central Committee to address the threat. Party conservatives demanded a tough response to discourage other communist parties from seceding. After two days of bitter but inconclusive debate, the plenum was temporarily suspended until Gorbachev returned from a visit to Lithuania to make a personal appeal to party leaders...