Gorbachev’s authoritarian stance has dismayed those who once supported him, and his decision to put military patrols on city streets was especially alarming. Many saw it as a possible prelude to martial law, perhaps like Poland in the early 1980s. In an interview with NEWSWEEK, Yuri Golik–a rising, tough-minded legislator whom Gorbachev named last week to head a new law-and-order commission in the Kremlin–dismissed such fears as “just panicky talk.” Whatever the case, Gorbachev seemed to be dismantling reforms on all fronts. The decree giving the KGB a hunting license against private business, said Artyom Tarasov, a progressive deputy in the Soviet Parliament, “virtually liquidated the free market in the Soviet Union.” PERESTROIKA IS FINISHED, lamented a headline in the weekly Moscow News.
The grim turn of events in the Soviet Union particularly alarmed George Bush. Much as he deplored Gorbachev’s crackdown, he was reluctant to sound too critical for fear of losing Moscow’s support in the gulf war. Last week Bush and Gorbachev found a way to limit the damage: they agreed to postpone their summit meeting originally scheduled for Moscow next week, without citing the Baltics as an issue. Instead, they blamed Bush’s need to remain in Washington during the gulf war, and last-minute delays in readying the START treaty on reducing strategic arms.
Meanwhile, fears of a military takeover in the Baltics eased somewhat. Gorbachev agreed to withdraw Soviet troops deployed there in January, and named commissions to begin a “discussion of issues” with Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. Baltic leaders greeted the discussion plan with skepticism. Lithuania’s President Vytautas Landsbergis said the Kremlin’s continued disregard of his republic’s proclamation of independence “is not a sign of good will.” Gorbachev’s conciliatory move may help placate Western opinion, however, and could lower the temperature in the Baltics by providing a forum for talks'
None of that stilled the anger against Gorbachev in the Soviet Union. Boris Yeltsin, the populist hero and president of the Russian Federation, pressed the attack. At a rally in a Moscow suburb last week, Yeltsin denounced Gorbachev’s recent actions as “serious moves toward dictatorship. " He drew thunderous cheers by calling for a national referendum that would subject the Soviet president to “a vote of confidence”–a challenge Gorbachev seemed unlikely to accept.
Gorbachev denied that military patrols on the streets signaled a hard new line in the Kremlin. “Neither domestic nor foreign policy has undergone changes,” he declared. “It all remains intact.” Some in Moscow believed Gorbachev deployed the patrols as insurance against unrest. By one unconfirmed account, attributed to retired conservative Communist leader Yegor Ligachev, the crumbling economy could force key Soviet factories to exhaust supplies and shut down, touching off mass strikes by disgruntled workers. Others suggested the troops’ purpose was to contain consumer protests. Said the weekly Soviet business newspaper Kommersant: “A large-scale price rise may be implemented in early February, and mass unrest could ensue.”
Can Gorbachev’s reforms survive? Many analysts believe that Gorbachev unleashed too many new forces to rein in again: rambunctious political parties, would-be capitalists, a freewheeling press, rebellious ethnic groups. Stalin, the Brezhnev era of “stagnation” and even the Communist Party itself were discredited. Eastern Europe was set free. The genie of democracy was let out of the bottle. Though conservatives want to stuff the genie back in, Gorbachev insists that “there is no alternative to perestroika.” But to Gorbachev, perestroika now means maintaining the status quo rather than pursuing reforms. Whether the rollback is permanent or only a temporary tactical maneuver remains to be seen. But the sight of soldiers on the streets gave Soviets little cause for optimism.
