Gorbachev’s Turmoil

An opinion poll published in the weekly Moscow News finds overwhelming support among younger Soviet citizens for General Secretary Mikhail S. Gorbachev’s reform policies, but markedly less enthusiasm among older Russians for the means and goals of glasnost and perestroika . There is, in short, a clear generational split on the basic issue of radical change.

Some of it is no doubt due to the resistance to change evinced by older people the world over. Much of it surely stems from the weariness and cynicism of a people who all their lives have been bamboozled by unfulfilled promises of better days soon to come. At the same time the generational divide helps define the political problem that Gorbachev faces. Those he must have on his side to make perestroika work--the economic managers, the party officials, the top bureaucrats--are older rather than younger, the beneficiaries of the status quo rather than its victims. Gorbachev faces a huge challenge with these groups, and he knows it.

Part of his response to that challenge takes the form of a rather remarkable appeal to public opinion, with his speech to newspaper editors the other day being the latest example. Speaking of those who have been thrown into “turmoil” and “confusion” by his proposals for change, Gorbachev was understanding if not exactly sympathetic, remarking that “I would not immediately categorize the panickers as irresponsible people.” Note the word immediately. Up to a point, Gorbachev seemed to be saying, he can tolerate debate and even opposition, but only up to a point. That point--a watershed, perhaps, in Soviet history--may soon be reached.

On June 28 an extraordinary Communist Party conference is scheduled to open--the first of its kind in 47 years. If Gorbachev and his loyalists have their way, the conference will approve plans to reshape the party’s structure, to curb bureaucratic power and to redefine the party’s tasks, which could mean nothing less than redefining its governing vision of socialism.

All this, though, is far from being a given. Gorbachev was explicit: He wants the party organizations to pick delegates not on the old basis of quotas--”so many workers and peasants, so many women, and so on”--but solely on the basis of their support for perestroika. He wants, in short, to fill the conference with his kind of people while sending his opponents packing. This is a big order. The intriguing thing is that it could have been communicated to those who count in the party without publicity, as it was in the past. Instead, Gorbachev chose to go public, and to invite the support of popular opinion. All of which seems to suggest that he is now either a very confident leader or a very beset and embattled one.