Word: stalinism
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Armenian Communist Party has tried to equivocate. In June its newly elected first secretary, Soren Arutyunyan, along with the Armenian Supreme Soviet, defied Moscow's wishes by petitioning the Supreme Soviet of the U.S.S.R. to reopen the Nagorno-Karabakh question. (The enclave was assigned to Azerbaijan by Joseph Stalin in 1923.) But Arutyunyan also declared that the Yerevan demonstrators were "not supported by the broad masses." In reply, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev chided an Armenian delegation that had come to the Kremlin to plead the cause. Gorbachev described Armenian demonstrators as "opponents of perestroika" who "wanted to poison the people...
...their long-standing ties with Moscow, the Armenians have a detailed list of complaints against the Soviet state. Aside from the Nagorno-Karabakh issue, a special sore point has been bureaucratic insensitivity to the environment, as in the Baltic states. Ever since the Soviet Union under Stalin began to industrialize in the 1920s, Moscow has built the republic into a leading chemical-production center. One result is chronic air pollution. "The air is so bad, you can no longer see Mount Ararat," complains a Yerevan resident, referring to the snow-peaked 16,945-ft. mountain some 30 miles away across...
...Armenian organizations gain sophistication, popular resentment is growing at Moscow's apparent disdain for nationalist grievances. While accounts of Stalin's crimes have been splashed across the pages of leading Soviet newspapers, the Armenian crisis has virtually been ignored. Pravda has given only vague accounts of the Yerevan demonstrations; when articles have appeared, correspondents have condemned the protests as the work of "corrupt elements" and "extremists." Says Ter-Petrossian: "What we are doing is what Gorbachev says he wants: people participating in government decisions." Adds another Armenian who regularly attends the Theater Square meetings: "He should be proud...
...asked how he could justify that vote to poor families, he responded: "They didn't ask me those questions." His civil rights rating is among the lowest in the Senate. In the area of foreign policy, he has said that Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev is merely a modern-day Stalin. He is unqualified for the vice presidency...
What will historians say about Winston Churchill a hundred years from now? The question is pertinent -- inescapable, in fact, because nearly a quarter- century after his death, we may remain too close to make an accurate judgment. Of all the larger-than-life figures of World War II -- Roosevelt, Stalin, Hitler and Mussolini -- Churchill remains the hardest to assess. Rarely has a great leader been so often right. Or so often wrong...