In Eastern Europe, economic transition has been preceded by a transition from Communist-led to opposition governments. That is not an immediate possibility in the Soviet Union. With no organized opposition to speak of, the only force that can pull the country out of its current deadlock is Gorbachev. This wholly depends on his willingness to distance himself from the party, where he still holds the top post, and to allow opposition to become strong enough to participate in the government. In other words, it depends on his willingness to follow the example of another Communist president–Gen. Wojciech Jaruzelski of Poland.
In the West Jaruzelski is not regarded as a particularly attractive political figure. He is remembered for the declaration of martial law in 1981, and for the persecution of Solidarity activists. But Western observers tend to forget that by declaring martial law himself, Jaruzelski saved his country from imminent Soviet invasion. With his benign presence at last year’s transition, he gave legitimacy to the ascent of Solidarity.
The Soviet Union is, of course, not Poland. The government in Warsaw has been able to enact radical reform precisely because it is vastly more popular than the government in Moscow. But there is a striking similarity between the Soviet situation now and Poland’s between 1981 and 1989. There is an opportunity for the man on top to legitimize change.
In a developed parliamentary democracy, a government too weak to perform its duties usually resigns. The problem of t he Soviet Union is that it has neither the mechanism nor the candidates. So instead of giving up power the government gives up on reforms, watering them down and stretching them out. That produces the worst possible result: “capitalist” inflation with “socialist” shortages.
The radical opposition sees the government’s weakness. Vasily Selyunin, a well-known columnist and an outspoken market advocate, suggested in a recent issue of the influential Soviet weekly Literaturnaya Gazeta that the opposition should start forming a shadow cabinet to t eke over from an impotent government. But at the moment the opposition is even weaker: several groups of deputies at various levels and an array of small political parties. Some of these parties boast popular leaders like Supreme Soviet Deputy Nikolai Travkin and world chess champion Garry Kasparov, but all lack the organization and logistics to challenge the communist monopoly.
The election of Boris Yeltsin to the, No. 1 position in the Russian Republic of course gives the opposition a shot in the arm. Popular and charismatic, Yeltsin may be able to mobilize a workable coalition of reformists both inside. and outside the party. That could serve as a vehicle to speed up the reforms, and to challenge party conservatives.
In the meantime the party itself is rapidly losing influence. One of the recent polls taken in Moscow says that if multiparty elections were held now, the Communist Party would receive just 30 percent of the vote. The political situation is an impasse: the ruling party and the government have power but cannot use it to positive ends, while the opposition is gaining popularity but is not yet ready to take control. The dangers are clear and it is here that a strong president should intervene.
Radical critics of Gorbachev call him a “spent force.” I hope this view is not correct. Even after all the failures of the last five years, Gorbachev remains the country’s most potent political figure. But he finds himself in a very delicate position. On the one hand he is the president of a country that has officially embarked on the road of multiparty democracy. On the other, he still derives much of his powers from his position as general secretary of the Communist Party. The dependency on the party structure prevents Gorbachev from moving ahead more boldly against the will of his more conservative colleagues.
To exercise his presidential powers to their fullest, Gorbachev needs to overcome this duality. Just quitting the party post is not enough. It is equally important to make sure there is a counterforce to the nomenklatura’s influence on the president. Gorbachev cannot create an opposition, but through legislation he can remove system’s one-party biases.
Freed from the single-party dependency, Gorbachev would emerge stronger. He would preside over a coalition broad enough to introduce necessarily painful reforms. As a nonparty president, he would be better placed to resolve the nationality crises and to forge a genuinely free association of Soviet nations. No doubt his international standing would benefit, too.
Five years ago, working carefully from inside the ranks of the Brezhnevite bureaucracy, Gorbachev started a bold transformation of Soviet society. Now it is again he who can give perestroika a badly needed second push and put it on the track Eastern Europe is already following. Let the Force be with him.
