Word: sovietism
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...through a combination of cautious diplomacy on Gorbachev's part and careful crowd control by his hosts, the two-day visit went off without any major embarrassments. Arriving at Schonefeld Airport on Friday, the Soviet leader was greeted with enthusiastic cries of "Gorbi! Gorbi!" but the reception remained calm. About 3,000 people gathered the next day in Alexanderplatz to demand government reform, the biggest such demonstration in East Berlin since 1953, but again the police managed to control the crowd. Officials were less successful in keeping the lid on demonstrations outside the capital: in Dresden and Leipzig violent clashes...
...public statements Gorbachev walked a fine line between encouraging reform and offering support for Erich Honecker, East Germany's aged and embattled leader. Wading into a crowd with characteristic aplomb, the Soviet visitor urged patience. "Don't panic. Don't get depressed. We'll go on fighting together for socialism." He made a strong show of solidarity with Honecker, standing shoulder to shoulder with him as they reviewed a torchlight parade. When he alluded to the current crisis in a televised address, Gorbachev took pains to be circumspect. "We know our German friends well," he said. "We know their ability...
This winter may be bleaker than usual in the U.S.S.R. With cold weather fast approaching and an increasingly militant labor force threatening to paralyze the transportation system, supplies of food and fuel could be in jeopardy. Soviet leaders reacted with old-style authority by proposing sweeping emergency measures: a ban on all strikes for 15 months and deployment of troops to break an Azerbaijani blockade of Armenia. But after a dramatic all- night debate, legislators in the Supreme Soviet did what not so long ago was unthinkable. They rebuffed the strike proposal as "unconstitutional" and voted instead to put strict...
...Soviet lawmakers, it was a unique lesson in the art of compromise. President Mikhail Gorbachev, who supported the emergency-powers proposal, had * opened the session with an emotional address, telling the legislature that work stoppages are "holding our reforms by the throat." What followed was an often fiery, unprecedented debate as politicians clashed over the need for such draconian measures. At one point, Gorbachev yelled at the unruly Deputies, "We're not in a stadium! We're in the Supreme Soviet...
Gorbachev's concern over labor unrest is well grounded. Since last July, when Soviet coal miners went on a three-week strike to protest their squalid living conditions and the government caved in to their demands, long-suffering Soviet workers have found work stoppages a potent weapon. So have restive national groups. For more than a month, railways have been blocked between the tiny Caucasus republics of Azerbaijan and Armenia, which are battling for control of the disputed enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh. The blockade has severely curtailed supplies of food, medicine and gasoline in Armenia. Last week coal miners...