TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/021290/0212009.000

Text File | 1992-08-28 | 7.1 KB | 143 lines

                                                                                WORLD, Page 33

SOVIET UNION

Two Hats Are Better than One


Though Gorbachev seeks to keep both of his titles, he wants to
strengthen the presidency and weaken the party's influence

By JOHN KOHAN/MOSCOW


    As Mikhail Gorbachev posed for photographs with Brazilian
President-elect Fernando Collor de Mello in the Kremlin last
week, a Brazilian journalist called out the question on
everyone's mind. Would Gorbachev confirm the report broadcast
around the globe by CNN that he was planning to quit as
Communist Party chief? Gorbachev listened to the translation
with a puzzled look, then smiled. "Many rumors and suppositions
are circulating worldwide," he said, gesticulating with his
hands for emphasis. "All this is groundless. It has come into
vogue in the international press to set rumor mills working as
soon as we approach a regular plenum of the party Central
Committee."

    True enough. But as Gorbachev prepared for this week's
meeting of the 249-member Central Committee, there were signs
that he had finally decided to adjust -- though not jettison
-- the two hats he wears: one as General Secretary of the
Communist Party, the other as President of the Supreme Soviet,
the country's parliament. Closeted with his aides for several
days at his dacha on the outskirts of Moscow two weeks ago,
Gorbachev drafted a proposal that would reduce the party's role
in government decision making and significantly enhance his
powers as head of the Supreme Soviet. As a Moscow analyst
explained, "The party, not Gorbachev, needs to resign from
managing the economy and society."

    Gorbachev has come under increasingly shrill attack from
radicals and conservatives alike for letting the country drift
into chaos and disorder. Store shelves are empty, crime is
rising, virtual civil war has flared in the Caucasus,
secessionist fever has infected the Baltics -- and as far as
many Soviets are concerned, all that party members and
parliamentarians have done is gather for mass talkathons. There
have even been calls from both Gorbachev's foes and his
supporters for an "iron hand" to take control. The conservative
daily Sovetskaya Rossiya complained last week that the
Kremlin's brand of reform has been "costly, contradictory, and
inadequately thought out" and called for a strengthening of
party rule.

    That may be a lost cause. There were growing signs that a
concerted attack on the conservatives was taking shape. The
French daily Le Monde reported that Gorbachev aides were
warning their boss that conservative forces were not just
putting the brakes on reform but were trying to build their
popular support from the public's discontent and anxiety. The
Soviet leader, they urged, must learn the lessons of the East
European revolution and come down firmly on the side of radical
reform, instead of straddling the fence between liberals and
conservatives. In fact, a second rumor was circulating in Moscow
last week of an imminent purge of the party's ruling
Politburo. The most frequently cited name was that of
conservative Yegor Ligachev, who came under harsh attack in the
pages of the weekly Moscow News. Deputy editor in chief Vitali
Tretyakov lambasted Ligachev for supporting "the most unhealthy
elements in socialism" and proposing solutions that come "not
from the achievements but the mistakes of the past."

    Ethics rather than ideology brought down former Leningrad
party boss Yuri Solovyov, whose departure last July was
personally stage-managed by Gorbachev. After losing the key
Leningrad post, Solovyov was dropped from the Politburo in
September, and last week found himself under threat of
expulsion from the party itself for using his influence to buy
a Mercedes-Benz automobile at "a practically symbolic price,"
according to the government newspaper Izvestia. Solovyov's
expulsion from the Central Committee must be confirmed at this
week's plenum as it debates the many troubling issues
confronting the party.

    As events in Azerbaijan have proved, the party organization
in some parts of the country is near collapse. In Russia angry
rank-and-file Communists have thrown out the party leadership
in Volgograd and the Tyumen region of Siberia. The problem is
that the Kremlin's campaign to devolve power to a new
legislative system has also been running into trouble. The
result: a growing power vacuum that the Kremlin fears will be
filled by "extremist" elements. Gorbachev admitted three weeks
ago that "we need a democratic higher authority, capable of
decisively moving perestroika."

    As if on cue, the outlines of a new political strategy
emerged last week in the press. The Communist Party daily
Pravda published a letter from a reader in Dnepropetrovsk
questioning why "the central authorities sometimes display
disheartening indecisiveness during such a critical situation."
His conclusion: "Perhaps the Chairman of the Supreme Soviet is
short of powers?" The weekly New Times contended that "events
in the Caucasus have proved that the country needs a strong
presidency," while the liberal Ogonyok offered the more radical
view that "perhaps it was worth listening to all the proposals
sounding more insistently today to institute the post of a
President elected by all the population of the country."

    Commentators agreed on one point: it was time for Gorbachev
to stop baby-sitting with the new parliament and start
governing the country as a real President. Among ideas floated
as trial balloons: the President should be able to veto bills,
dissolve a deadlocked parliament, dismiss the government,
declare a state of emergency or even war when parliament is out
of session. Not that everyone wanted an outright return to
authoritarian rule. There were calls as well for parliament to
be given the power to impeach a President for
anticonstitutional behavior. As Boris Topornin, director of a
Moscow think tank called the Institute of Government and Law,
warned in a New Times article, "In the history of our country
there have been more than a few examples of what the unlimited
power of one man can lead to."

    If Gorbachev can strengthen the presidency and
simultaneously weaken the party's influence, he will have
pulled off his most significant political coup to date. Far
from giving up his post as party leader, Gorbachev will need
that authority for the near future, until presidential powers
have been legally guaranteed. And after that? There is a growing
realization, even in party circles, that the "leading role"
of the Communist Party, enshrined in Article 6 of the
constitution, will have to go -- as long as there is a referee
to ensure that the emergence of a multiparty system does not
result in social anarchy. The Communist Youth League daily
Komsomolskaya Pravda has a candidate in mind: "Today he is the
only one who is able to become the rallying point and broker
among the multitude of political and social forces in this
country. After all, he is our President." Gorbachev could not
have said it better.