Soviet elections give a jolt to Gorbachev

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Moscow citizens rally to condemn Stalin's crimes on March 5-the anniversary of Stalin's death in 1953.

"If the political system remains immobile and unchanged," Premier Gorbachev warned the 19th Communist Party (CPSU) Conference in 1988, "we will not cope with the tasks of perestroika." Gorbachev was looking for a political boost for his lagging economic program. National elections were the vehicle.

Ten months later the results are in and it appears Gorbachev got more of a jolt than a boost. Twenty percent of the CPSU candidates were defeated. This is quite remarkable considering that 85 percent of the candidates were CPSU members and that 25 percent of them had no opposition.

In these latter cases, millions of Soviet voters had no way to express themselves other than by crossing out names—in many cases denying unopposed candidates the necessary 50 percent margin. The humiliating rejection of several top CPSU leaders who ran unopposed was an extremely damning indictment of the Stalinist single-party system.

Other losers included party leaders in six major cities and in the national republics of Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, and the Ukraine— where nationalist sentiment against forced Russification is on the rise. A large number of pro-nationalist candidates won in these regions.

Another big winner was Boris Yeltsin, former Moscow regional CPSU leader who has recently cultivated a populist image. He Carl Finamore/Socialist Action received 89 percent of the vote in Moscow running against a candidate backed by the government apparatus. [See accompanying story by Ralph Schoenman.] Marxist dissident historian Roy Medvedev and Sergei Stankievich, a CPSU member who is also a leader of the Moscow People's Front, also received a large number of votes. Both placed first in their races and were winners in the runoffs.

"Too much democracy"

More than once Gorbachev complained that the people were taking the elections too seriously. "As you know, we have tely more than once encountered attempts to use democratic rights for undemocratic purposes. There are some who think that in this way any problems can be solved—from redrawing [national] boundaries to setting up opposition parties."

On election day, Gorbachev again warned against taking "great leaps." What is he afraid of? The report on the March 4 Boris Yeltsin election meeting in this issue answers that question. Mass participation in politics threatens to go beyond the narrow boundaries imposed by the bureaucracy.

Most political activists understood that the elections were orchestrated from above. One person at the Yeltsin meeting aptly described it: "When the government says 'we have given you democracy, why don't you act?'—it is like saying 'we have the orchestra, why don't you march?'"

Yet these same activists correctly used the elections as a forum for their own proposals. Debate and discussion of social, political, and cultural issues is no longer the exclusive province of the bureaucracy or its "official" organizations.

In this sense, the elections were a thundering success for the Soviet people. Local municipal elections in the fall will be another opportunity. The opposition movement will undoubtedly sharpen its political skills in these contests.

But, ultimately, success will depend on the opposition's abillity to clearly present an anti-bureaucratic program representing the interests of the majority: • for the right to form opposition political parties;

for an economic plan decided through democratic participation of the majority, and not by managers or bureaucrats;

for mass, local control of food and materials distribution;

for full defense of the national rights of oppressed nationalities struggling for self-determination;

and for an end to all forms of bureaucratic privilege.

Many of these ideas were openly discussed in hundreds of meetings and rallies during the March elections. This is clear evidence of growing confidence, militancy, and consciousness among broad sections of the Soviet population.

Much of this sentiment is unorganized. There is no dominant ideological trend. Yet even at this early stage, it is clear that the political evolution of this new opposition movement can have a decisive impact on the future course of the Soviet Union and of world politics.