Gorbachev tightens control as consumers tighten their belts

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President Mikhail Gorbachev won virtual unanimous approval from the Supreme Soviet in late November for a "law-and-order" government. The new decree significantly increased the emergency powers already granted him only a few months ago.

With his credibility virtually exhausted, Gorbachev hopes that approval of more centralized authority by the Soviet parliament, itself suffering a badly tarnished democratic image, will boost his stalled efforts to foist unpopular pro-capitalist market policies on to an increasingly rebellious population.

Mass protests and strikes have consistently forced the government to withdraw perestroika "reforms" of higher food and consumer goods prices.

Gorbachev urged stiffer enforcement of government policies to deal with this public opposition, which he described as a "crisis of power." He also warned against accusing the military brass of planning a coup. "We must not discredit the military now, because we need them to maintain stability in the country," he told the Supreme Soviet.

Pro-capitalists defend Gorbachev While most Soviet citizens have everything to fear from an even more centralized executive authority, most capitalist market reform advocates think Gorbachev acted too slow and promised too little.

"One after another, the legislators called for more drastic measures—an anti-crisis committee, a state of emergency, a nationwide food-rationing program, or even a dictatorial 'committee of national salvation' that would rely on the army and police," The New York Times reported (Nov. 19, 1990).

One of the most prominent of these so-called radical, neo-liberals is the pro-capitalist mayor of Leningrad, Anatoly Sobchak. He previously lambasted the government during the 1989 national miners' strike for lacking the nerve to "shut down the mines and fire the personnel." Today, Sobchak is being strongly considered by Gorbachev for the future post of vice-president.

Russian Republic president, Boris Yeltsin, has criticized the Supreme Soviet resolution expanding executive authority, but only bethroughout the world Federation raised the purchase price of meat and "having calculated its future profit, farmers in the countryside simply stopped autumn meat sales." (Moscow News, No. 40, 1990.)

None of this should surprise Gorbachev. Several years ago at the beginning of the market reforms, he noticed this hoarding tendency and the even worse variant of shifting production away from mass consumer items.

Gorbachev told a Siberian audience in 1988 that "it's no good at all that many enterprises, profiting by their cost-accounting rights, have been trying to improve their finances solely by increasing the output of expensive goods. But little is being done to expand the production and assortment of inexpensive commodities. There are some who have simply cut down the output of cheap goods in popular demand." (Moscow News, No. 38, 1988.)

According to historian Richard Smith, this exact pattern recently emerged in China where peasants began to grow more profitable cash crops such as tobacco and fruit and slowed their traditional production of cotton and grain. As a result of capitalist market reforms, Smith says, China has ceased to be an exporter of grain and instead has become one of the world's biggest grain importers.

Stephanie Baker, reporting from Czechoslovakia, writes along similar lines. "The current shortage of potatoes demonstrates the changing way of thinking. There isn't an actual lack of potatoes in the country, but farmers are hoarding them until November when the prices, and hence the profit, will increase." (Guardian, Oct. 10, 1990.)

But does this same pattern apply to the current crisis in the Soviet Union? Yes it does. Gorbachev correctly stresses that there is enough food and fuel to get through the winter. He points out that the problem is not shortages but chaos in the distribution system. Of course, Gorbachev fails to define "chaos" and fails to point the finger at the capitalist-oriented profiteers he sponsors.

But the truth is apparently so observable that it is being readily reported in the Western press and, therefore, hardly capable of escaping the notice of the Soviet people.

Gorbachev's claim that there really are no shortages "is basically true," comments New York Times reporter Bill Keller (Nov. 17, 1990). "Although state food stores, which once supplied essential food at controlled prices are emptier than ever, there is ample food in the more expensive [private] farmers' market."

The solution of this crisis will not"come