Word: seem
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...been instruments of political oppression, the Kremlin has released scores of dissidents from mental wards and reformed laws that govern the rights of psychiatric patients. The Soviets have also permitted Western psychiatrists to come to the U.S.S.R. and see for themselves whether mental patients are being mistreated. Those efforts seem to be bearing fruit: last week, the executive committee of the World Psychiatric Association voted to readmit the Soviets, who had withdrawn $ from the organization in 1983 under threat of expulsion. If that decision is approved at a meeting of the W.P.A.'s full membership in Athens next October, Soviet...
Part of the problem is that Bush's Administration came into office on probation in the eyes of the Republican hard right and wary of appearing susceptible to Gorbomania. Some members of the new team seem to relish the chance to sound tougher than their predecessors. A number of Bush aides have privately derided Ronald Reagan for his arm-in-arm stroll through Red Square with Gorbachev at their summit meeting last June and for proclaiming the Evil Empire a thing of the past...
Some of these advisers also seem convinced that what forced the Soviet Union to begin mending its aggressive, repressive ways was U.S. pressure of the past 40 years, so no change in U.S. policy is in order now. This line of argument underestimates the internal origins of Soviet reform. Gorbachev is not so much saying "uncle" to Uncle Sam as he is addressing the failures of the Leninist-Stalinist system. Moreover, he is doing so in a way that is earning him worldwide credit for being flexible and forward-looking, while the U.S. is in danger of appearing sluggish...
...petite woman with gray hair, Lauristin may seem an unlikely revolutionary, but she is as much a rebel in her own way as was her father Johannes, a prominent Estonian Bolshevik. Her Popular Front has taken the organizational model of the party and turned it upside down. The movement promotes no rigid political platform, except a general commitment to democracy and pluralism, and welcomes everyone into its ranks. Its central steering committee is an umbrella organization for dozens of local chapters that open their doors to any citizens' groups with a worthy cause. In Tartu the Popular Front joined with...
More than political expediency seems to be involved, however, in the present re-examination of Stalin. Journalists and scholars seem genuinely eager to drop their traditional roles as perpetuators of useful historical myths and instead tell the painful truth. Gorbachev gave the signal in a February 1987 speech inviting them to fill in the "blank spots" in Soviet history, and writers have responded with everything from weighty historical tomes to popular entertainments...