Word: politburo
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Mikhail Gorbachev's revolution is about to sweep away what is left of monolithic communism. When 4,750 delegates convene next week for the Communist Party's 28th Congress, they are expected to approve a measure that will bloat the once omnipotent twelve-member Politburo into an unwieldy national committee by adding to the top party officials representatives of all 15 republics, workers and intellectuals. The delegates are also likely to approve a proposal to reduce the head of the party to a mere chairman of the committee. Gorbachev may not even want to keep the job. He told...
...power terms, Gorbachev has already moved on. With the formal abolition of the party's leading role last March, the Communists lost their monopoly on political action. The Politburo, which once decided all vital issues, now % meets only about once a month instead of weekly and deals exclusively with party business, not matters of state. Gorbachev is the Executive President of the U.S.S.R., and decisions lie with him, his government and the parliament. To replace the counsel formerly provided by the Politburo, he has created a Presidential Council with 16 members...
...more than organizational tinkering. It is opening up a range of ideas and influences no one could have imagined under the old ways. Even a year ago, an analysis of the policy debate in Moscow would have focused almost exclusively on party leaders, the well-known Gorbachev allies like Politburo member Eduard Shevardnadze and equally prominent opponents like Politburo member Yegor Ligachev and former Moscow party chief Boris Yeltsin. Today new approaches and fledgling political parties are emerging across the spectrum, from Gorbachev's left to his far right, reshaping Soviet politics. Some of the most influential advocates...
...member of both the Politburo and the new Presidential Council, Yakovlev, 66, provides a bridge as power is shifted from one to the other. In 1983 he was named head of the influential Institute of World Economics and International Relations (IMEMO). From 1970-73 he was acting chief of the party propaganda department, where he won favor with liberal intellectuals. In 1985 Gorbachev put him back in charge of that department. He has been the President's closest adviser for years, responsible for much of the philosophic theory underpinning glasnost and perestroika. Gorbachev, claims Yakovlev, is not power hungry...
...Boston University has produced a clear improvement in the institution, both academically and financially. But his combativeness has left the university in a state of "enervative calm" because, says one professor, "people are too tired to fight anymore." Silber handles the university's board "like Stalin worked the Politburo," in the words of one faculty member. He has reduced faculty and students to tears with his explosive temper and bruising classroom behavior. During the 1970s he dismissed undergraduates who published a student newspaper called bu exposure as "short-pants communists...