Skepticism and Surprises

Considering the cruelties that are heaped on Soviet citizens who want to leave their homeland, skepticism about a supposedly more liberal Soviet emigration law was inevitable. Publication of the new guidelines, however, does come against an interesting background of movement in the Kremlin’s declared approach to civil-liberties questions --if not in the policies themselves.

Word of the new regulations on emigration first emerged at Vienna, where the 35 nations that signed the 1975 Helsinki agreement on security and cooperation in Europe were meeting to review compliance. American and West European delegates accused the Soviet Union of trampling the fundamental human rights of its people in violation of the Helsinki agreement. Up to a point, the Soviets’ response was the same that they have made for years: They defined human rights as primarily economic rights, and accused Western societies of “systematic and massive violations.”

The Soviets did have a couple of surprises, however. Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze invited the 35-nation group to convene an international conference on human rights in Moscow, which he described as “a kind and hospitable city.” And Soviet officials used the occasion to announce that legislative and administrative changes were being made to resolve “problems relating to family reunification and mixed marriages in a humanitarian spirit.”

Two days later the new emigration regulations, which will take effect Jan. 1, were published in Moscow. The decree spells out several grounds for emigration--a first in Soviet law--including reuniting families, marriage, visits to seriously ill relatives and resolution of inheritance issues. The new rules provide that decisions on emigration petitions will normally be made within a month.

Would-be emigrants in Moscow are not impressed. For them the decree does little more than codify existing practice. The authorities will still have virtually unlimited powers to deny permission to leave the country--including invoking a catch-all provision allowing denial when necessary to “protect the social order . . . .” Petitioners will still have no right to leave just because they want to live someplace else.

Despite such gestures, the human-rights record of Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev is hardly one to inspire confidence. Emigration has slowed to a trickle. More than 40 Soviet citizens remain incarcerated for no crime other than participation in the Soviet Helsinki Watch group that tried to monitor Soviet compliance with the Helsinki accord. The U.S. Helsinki Watch Committee says that the Soviet government remains one of the world’s worst violators of human rights.

The chances are that the Gorbachev government is merely trying to put a slick new face on old repressive policies. It may nonetheless be a sign of progress that Moscow now promises to accept human rights as an appropriate subject for diplomatic discussion, and that Soviet writers, artists and journalists--while still operating within limits set by the regime--are being given unusually broad latitude in exposing shortcomings in Soviet society. There is always a chance that cosmetic change will evolve into the real thing.