Word: succession
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...poignant irony of Chileans who care more about the franchise than Americans jaded by protected freedoms; of a Japanese economy that innovates better than the great original innovating, entrepreneurial power, of Paraguayans who recognize the centrality of human rights more than Americans did under Reagan. He used the success of America's principles in the world to show our own lapses. It was powerful rhetoric, if necessarily incomplete...
...answer again involves contradictions. Life is clearly far better these days: the fear that was the most oppressive aspect of daily existence has been replaced by a torrent of free expression, while experiments with market principles show faint signs of sparking economic success. Life is just as clearly no better at all: the shelves in the shops are more barren than when Gorbachev took office, the limited economic reforms serve mainly to reveal how hopelessly ossified the economy is, and the flirtation with freedom has frayed the seams binding the empire's diverse nationalities...
...alternative is not that perestroika might suddenly be pronounced a success -- even the irrepressible Boris Yeltsin should avoid holding his breath -- but that the reforms will continue. For both the Soviets and those destined to coexist with them, that is the important thing. Each new manifestation of democracy, each new opportunity for individual enterprise, each new opening for free thought and expression helps ease the repressive relationship between the Soviet state and its population. That, in turn, should make the new U.S.S.R. a far less threatening world citizen. Last week's election was another act in a lengthy drama that...
...fact, to pronounce perestroika either a success or a failure at this stage is to misperceive its nature. At best, it is the beginning of a protracted and massive undertaking that could take a generation or more. "During the past 70 years, a new man has been created who is obedient and easily frightened," says the poet Bulat Okudzhava, a veteran Soviet-reform advocate. "What has been created over decades cannot be undone in a day." Energizing an empire of 285 million people and turning it into a modern economy ranks among the most daunting tasks of modern times...
...subway, makes more than 3,000 rubles ($4,800) a month from concerts, nearly 15 times the Soviet average wage and more than twice the take-home pay of Mikhail Gorbachev. (Says Sukachev: "If I had his house and his car, he could have my 3,000.") Still, success has its problems. "It's really dangerous when people start to praise you for doing the things they used to slam you for," he notes. The band now risks losing the special edge to its sound that developed from the tension of fighting for the right to play its music...