Thermidor in the Ussr?
Rule, James B.
The news from the USSR is ominous. The Soviet Interior ministry has attacked institutions of representative government in Lithuania and Latvia; Estonia waits nervously. Unarmed supporters of...
...The undoing of Stalinism in all its forms is the highest priority...
...Now, it appears, the middle has finally collapsed beneath him...
...we also hope for regional modi vivendi that make room for a full range of social and political diversity...
...The answer is not as easy as it may at first seem...
...The dangers of such intolerance manifested themselves, and continue to do so, in Armenia and Azerbaijan...
...The nationalism that has, among many other sentiments, helped fuel the revolt against Stalin's legacy can give rise to utterly illiberal treatment of minority views and minority nationalities...
...For authentic democrats, even a clear victory over resurgent authoritarian centralism does not suffice...
...The trouble is, the luxury of worrying about these issues may not be granted in the immediate future...
...We deplore the repression of the Baltic republics—not only because of their unique history but because repression of peaceful and democratic political aspirations is always wrong...
...But we cannot afford to count on these things...
...We fear that the revolution has been checked, and Thermidor is setting in...
...We appeal to the Western democracies to give no comfort to reaction, and we seek ways to aid supporters of democracy and civil liberty within the USSR...
...we want to see all those forces not just dead but buried...
...For now, we recoil at the attempts of Stalin's 160 • DISSENT Comments and Opinions would-be heirs to reimpose themselves...
...For the last five years we have watched Gorbachev balance forces of democratization, marketization, and openness against the centralist old guard...
...Of course, we support, as always, reform and democratization in the USSR...
...Perhaps no more splittable differences remain...
...What is the best hope of the democratic left in this dangerous moment...
...For the moment, Moscow has turned down some of the pressure—no one knows for how long...
...Unarmed supporters of the elected governments of these republics have been shot or crushed under tanks...
...By this I mean diversity of political conviction and social values, as well as diversity of language, culture, and way of life...
...In this way, perhaps, devolution of central power can be tempered by cognizance of complementary economic and administrative needs...
...But not even a miraculous reversal of the ominous recent trends would ipso facto assure triumph for democratic and egalitarian politics...
...He continues to assert, less and less convincingly, that his goals remain unchanged...
...They are equally, if latently, present in other Soviet republics, including the Baltics themselves...
...Perhaps the best hope is that the pushing and shoving of regional opposition to central rule in the USSR will give rise to some sentiment for federalism across regions...
...q Bogdan Bonitch SPRING • 1991 • 161...
...the Soviet Union is shuddering on the brink of reaction...
...We hope that support for these values has grown too strong to be crushed and that the old coalition of what Michael Walzer has called "failed totalitarianism" cannot be reassembled...
...Large-scale, centralized repression can all too easily give way to small-scale intolerance that is no more agreeable...
...Here, too, all sorts of nettlesome problems present themselves: How are the interests of poorer republics and regions, often pushed into subservient economic roles by generations of central planners, to be protected...
...Meanwhile, Gorbachev has driven the reformers and liberals from his government, beefed up the military and the KGB, and sought to reimpose censorship...
...Both these nations and other elements of the Soviet Empire must be permitted to evolve their own relations with their neighbors...
...In a country composed of such various elements as the USSR, any alternative to such tolerant civil arrangements represents both moral and political disaster—as every group and region seeks both to separate itself from larger units and to resist splits from disaffected groupings within itself...
...He has always sought the middle ground, casting himself as the voice of reason and moderation between dangerous extremes...
...How can exploitation of the resource-poor by the resourcerich be avoided...
Vol. 38 • April 1991 • No. 2
