home
***
CD-ROM
|
disk
|
FTP
|
other
***
search
/
TIME: Almanac 1990
/
1990 Time Magazine Compact Almanac, The (1991)(Time).iso
/
time
/
091189
/
09118900.034
< prev
next >
Wrap
Text File
|
1990-09-17
|
1KB
|
25 lines
WORLD, Page 40When the Cat's Away . . .
Though Mikhail Gorbachev apparently approved the Central
Committee's blast against the Baltics, fans of perestroika could
not be faulted for initially wondering whether the Soviet leader's
conservative foes had issued the statement behind his back. After
all, Gorbachev was vacationing on the Black Sea last week, and
strange things often happen when he is out of town. As Soviet
historian Roy Medvedev has observed, when Gorbachev "goes on
vacation or goes abroad, the whole of state policy changes
direction by 60 and sometimes 180 degrees."
On the eve of Gorbachev's visit to Yugoslavia last year, a
vehement attack on his reform program was published in the Moscow
daily Sovetskaya Rossiya. Leningrad teacher Nina Andreeva received
credit for the article, but many assumed that it was at least
inspired by conservative Politburo member Yegor Ligachev. The
brutal suppression of nationalist demonstrations in Georgia last
April, in which 20 people were killed, occurred just as Gorbachev
was returning from a trip to Britain. More than one can play the
game, of course. When Ligachev was on his summer vacation last
year, Gorbachev secretly organized a series of meetings that led
to the streamlining of the party apparatus -- and the demotion of
Ligachev.