TIME: Almanac 1990/1990 Time Magazine Compact Almanac, The (1991)(Time).iso/time/060589/06058900.046

Text File | 1990-09-17 | 8KB | 141 lines

WORLD, Page 30

USSR

Presiding over a new Soviet Congress, Gorbachev gets a clamorous

lesson in democracy

By William R. Doerner


    "All of us today are just learning democracy. We are only now
forming a political culture."

    -- Mikhail Gorbachev at the Congress of People's Deputies


    From the opening moment, when the spotlights flicked on to
illuminate a towering statue of Lenin, it was clear that the days
of fully scripted, party-orchestrated politics had -- at least for
a moment -- come to an end. Assembled in the Kremlin's Palace of
Congresses were the delegates to the Soviet Union's brand-new
Congress of People's Deputies, a forum where doctrine could be
questioned, where the unexpected could happen, and where the
unmentionable could be spoken for all the nation to hear.

    All of which came to pass, over three days of debate. The
2,250-seat Congress, two-thirds of whose delegates were freely
elected, constitutes what is arguably the most democratic
governmental institution in more than seven decades of Soviet rule.
But the assembly also revealed a profound regard for the status quo
in carrying out one of its principal jobs: the election of 542
members of the Supreme Soviet, which will serve as the country's
working legislature. In voting results announced Saturday, most
anti-establishment candidates, some of whom had defeated
high-ranking Communist Party members to reach the Congress, lost
their bids to be seated in the Supreme Soviet. The rebuffed
reformers included Boris Yeltsin, the former Moscow party chief who
resigned his post in the Construction Ministry earlier in the week,
partly in anticipation of being elected to the Supreme Soviet. Only
in delegations from Moscow and the Baltic region, a seedbed of
reform, did a handful of reformers gain election to the permanent
legislature. The results were a severe blow to advocates of change,
who seldom attracted more than a third of the body's delegates in
major votes.

    Any suspicion that the Congress would turn into a totally
rubber-stamp legislature, however, was dispelled minutes into the
opening session, when a Latvian delegate strode uninvited to the
podium. "I ask you to honor the memory of those who died in
Tbilisi," urged the gray-bearded man, referring to the 20
demonstrators killed in the Georgian capital in April, some
reportedly with poison gas, during clashes with army troops. That
request, which prompted the delegates to rise for a moment of
silence, was not merely unrehearsed, it was an explicit act of
defiance that went against Gorbachev's wish that no ethnic group
be singled out for sympathy.

    That was just the first in a series of moments of surprise and
spontaneity that rocked the historic convention, which continues
this week. No sooner did Gorbachev rise to chair the session than
a delegate stepped forward to challenge the agenda, which had been
set in a rump party session the day before by 446 delegates.
"Please, People's Deputy Andrei Dimitreyevich Sakharov," invited
Gorbachev as the stoop-shouldered Nobel Peace laureate -- his
country's best-known dissident -- took the microphone. Sakharov,
who only 2 1/2 years ago was enduring exile in the city of Gorky,
expressed concern that the Congress was ceding too much legislative
power to the smaller, indirectly elected Supreme Soviet. With the
Congress preparing to elect a President to a newly restructured and
more powerful office, Sakharov urged that the leading candidate,
Gorbachev, be required to defend his record. "I do not see any
other person capable of leading our country, but my support is
conditional," said Sakharov. "I believe that discussion is
necessary and that the candidates should give a report."

    Gorbachev heard far blunter words than Sakharov's as the day
wore on. Leonid Sukhov, a driver from Kharkov, stunned the
assemblage by comparing Gorbachev "to the great Napoleon, who
fearing neither bullets nor death, led the nation to victory, but
owing to sycophants and his wife, transformed the republic into an
empire." Marju Lauristin, a prominent Estonian nationalist, asked
who in the ruling Politburo "knew in advance that troops would be
used in Tbilisi." Others complained about Gorbachev's failure to
improve his people's standard of living and mentioned rumors that
he is building a fancy dacha for himself on the Black Sea in
Crimea. Even the man who stood up to nominate Gorbachev for
President, author Chingiz Aitmatov, did so with a few cavils.
Gorbachev, he said, had made "serious mistakes," notably a failure
so far to turn around the country's faltering economy and to keep
a lid on ugly ethnic rivalries.

    In the end, Gorbachev did indeed give a "report," an emotional
and apparently extemporaneous 21-minute speech. Confronting and
denying some of the allegations against him, he insisted, "During
my entire life, neither I nor my family has had or has a dacha of
our own." But he also owned up to "major mistakes and serious
miscalculations" in managing the economy. Above all, Gorbachev
stressed his commitment to the democratic process. "We must respond
to all the questions, even the painful ones."

    Despite such grandiose tributes to democracy, Gorbachev's
candidacy was uncontested -- the first hint that the Congress was
not out to rock the boat. An attempt was made to draft the popular
Yeltsin, but he withdrew his name, citing party discipline.
Leningrad engineer Alexander Obolensky, 46, a political unknown,
nominated himself -- not because he had any illusion of winning,
he explained, but "to set a precedent" of contested elections. By
1,415 to 689, the assembly voted to keep Obolensky's name off the
secret ballot. Gorbachev was elected President with 95.6% of the
vote; 87 delegates voted against him.

    The Soviet Union's lack of experience with the rough-and-tumble
of democratic debate was obvious from the session's glitches.
Deputies voted by waving white "mandate" cards in the air -- a
feasible method for the near unanimous yea-or-nay votes of the past
but hopelessly cumbersome in more evenly divided counts. Also
noticeable were the usual inconveniences of the democratic process.
Speakers were long-winded. When the Russian Orthodox Metropolitan
Pitirim, one of seven clergy elected to the Congress, suggested
that voluble Deputies be silenced by having their microphones
switched off, delegates applauded enthusiastically.

    The ridiculous, the embarrassing, the surprising -- TV cameras
were recording it all for the whole nation to see. Gorbachev served
by turns as circus ringmaster, traffic cop and soothing
conciliator. Lithuanian newspaper editor Algimantas Cekuolis
expressed sympathy for the President's predicament: "He is trying
to be very democratic, but it's not so easy without a tradition of
democracy. To try not to boss us around is a hard job for him."

    Among the more provocative moments for Gorbachev were repeated
references to the deaths in Tbilisi, which he insisted he had
learned about only after the fact. And Gorbachev sought to defuse
delegate anger over an incident at Pushkin Square the evening after
the Congress opened, when police encircled crowds of Soviets
seeking to meet with Deputies.

    During this week's sessions, elections are scheduled for the
offices of Prime Minister -- expected to go to the current holder
of that office, Nikolai Ryzhkov -- and First Vice President, a post
that the ever ambitious Yeltsin has hinted he may covet. Just how
the new Supreme Soviet will go about its work as a standing
parliament must also be decided. More important, the composition
of the Supreme Soviet suggests that Gorbachev will be working with
a legislature that is not wildly enthusiastic about radical reform.


-- Paul Hofheinz and John Kohan/Moscow