Is The Soviet Union Next to Explode?

By J.F.O. McAllister

End the official monopoly of power of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, proud inheritor of Lenin's mantle, vanguard of world revolution?

Of the many unthinkable ideas floated in perestroika's wake, this reform ranked among the most wildly farfetched. But last week the prospect of abolishing the party's "leading role" in the U.S.S.R. gained momentum when the Lithuanian legislature voted 243 to 1 in favor of a constitutional amendment legalizing rivals to the Communist Party. While Lithuania thus became the first Soviet republic to do so, in neighboring Estonia the Communist Party Central Committee approved a similar proposal that should easily pass the legislature next month. In Armenia angry crowds surrounded parliament after legislators rejected a multiparty system. This week Andrei Sakharov and other members of the Congress of People's Deputies are calling for a two-hour strike to force the Congress to debate the repeal or modification of Article 6 of the constitution, which enshrines the Communist Party's dominance in the national government.

These developments -- and the gleeful speed with which Poland, Hungary, East Germany and Czechoslovakia have guillotined the Communist monopoly -- must make Mikhail Gorbachev feel like the sorcerer's apprentice. Unable to control the rising flood of reforms he has conjured up, he is finding it harder to keep afloat.

Gorbachev, who has called a multiparty system "rubbish," has good reason to worry. Many non-Russians in the Soviet empire -- Ukrainians and Azerbaijanis as well as Armenians and Balts -- would flock to new parties seeking autonomy from Moscow. The Baltic republics already sport popular fronts and other freshly minted political groups whose members ran as independent candidates in national elections earlier this year and trounced establishment party hacks. In the Russian Republic itself, there is mounting anger and frustration with empty shops and suffocating bureaucracy that could easily swell the rolls of a gaggle of independent parties. Politburo member Yegor Ligachev, speaking for the Kremlin conservatives whose favor Gorbachev must still curry, has said flatly that multiple parties would "lead to the disintegration of the U.S.S.R."

Gorbachev also contends that the future of well-managed reform depends on the party continuing to run the show, an argument that would surely bring a smile to the face of just deposed East German party leader Egon Krenz. "Preserving the vanguard role for the party, from our point of view, is extremely necessary, especially in the time of perestroika," insists candidate Politburo member Yevgeni Primakov. "The party is the only consolidating force in our society, and in our federation."

Yet even the Kremlin realizes that Article 6 as now written is out of date. This provision entered the Soviet constitution only in 1977, at the height of what is now denounced as the "era of stagnation." Sakharov and other liberals have made the repeal of Article 6 a litmus test of the leadership's commitment to genuine progress. They have substantial support. The Supreme Soviet voted 198 to 173 last month to debate Article 6; only 28 abstentions kept the measure off the agenda of this week's session of the Congress of People's Deputies. Gorbachev recognizes that "the rates of perestroika in the party have thus far been slower than those in society, which makes it difficult for the party to carry out its leading role." If Gorbachev wants to keep the liberals' engine hitched to his reform train, a revamped Article 6 must be part of the coupling.

Meanwhile, the national Communist Party is under attack from within. Last month the leaders of Leningrad's Communist Party arranged an unprecedented demonstration to criticize Moscow for not defending the party against glasnost-inspired attacks. If this outburst reflects apparatchik sentiment, legalizing competitive groups would arouse not only outrage but perhaps a concerted effort to oust Gorbachev. The Leningrad protest provoked a countermarch by some 40,000 incensed citizens who proclaimed their support for Gorbachev's efforts to rejuvenate the party through open criticism.

At the same time, Lithuania's Communist Party is on the brink of cutting its ties to the national organization. Fearing defeat in elections scheduled for February, the Lithuanian leadership is desperate to redeem the local party in the voters' eyes, despite warnings from Moscow that perestroika will disintegrate under the pressure of their extreme separatism. If the Lithuanians succeed in severing their links, they will set a provocative precedent that is sure to be repeated in other republics.

Gorbachev has tried to dampen the ardor for repealing Article 6, claiming that giving up one-party rule would be a capitulation. But there were signs last week that the Kremlin was willing to fiddle with the text. Noting that Article 6 was "not a taboo subject," Politburo ideologist Vadim Medvedev said the present wording should not be kept "at all cost" and ought to be "brought into line with the party's new role in society."

Once again the task before Gorbachev is to enhance his power by co-opting the demands for radical change while at the same time persuading conservative foot draggers to join his cause. But to contain the rising tide of dissent in the Soviet Union, now bubbling up through many unofficial groups and opposing factions within the party itself, before it reaches the flood levels prevailing in East Germany and Czechoslovakia, the Communist Party will have to demonstrate that it deserves the support of the people without relying on the crutch of Article 6.

With reporting by Paul Hofheinz and John Kohan/Moscow