Volatile Soviet Situation Needs No ‘Help’ from Outsiders

Early in the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln wrote Horace Greeley that “my paramount object . . . is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery.”

Mikhail S. Gorbachev’s position on the crisis in the Soviet Union’s minority republics is similar to Lincoln’s in 1862. “ Perestroika ,” he said, “is not breaking up the national structure of the country. We are against that.”

Lincoln failed to hold the Union together. Gorbachev’s present policy will fail to keep the Soviet Union together, too, unless he backs it up with brute force. Here’s why.

Millions of people in five non-Russian republics of the Soviet Union have been in ferment for months. Georgians, and before them Latvians, Estonians, Lithuanians and Armenians have all taken their complaints against Moscow out on the streets. Troops have been called in twice, and there has been bloodshed, most recently in Tbilisi. It has been easy for the Kremlin to paint all this as the work of ethnic hotheads out to settle a score with Moscow or with other national groups. A Kremlin spokesman, Gennady I. Gerasimov, said as much, adding disdainfully “they have no program.”

But what are they really after? The question is the more complex since these are the Soviet Union’s five richest republics. By comparison, Russians live like paupers. And herein lies the problem. Knowing they can live better in the non-Russian republics, Russians by the millions have flocked to them. Naturally, the non-Russians object, especially when their native language disappears from street signs and in schools through a process of Russification. The “ethnic” component of their program is thus to preserve their language and culture by reversing the influx of Russians.

Their other concerns are equally pointed. Members of several of the Soviet nationalities believe that the Russians are draining them economically. All want the benefit of trade with the Russian market but they also demand greater control of their local economies so they will not be forced to sell goods to Moscow at artificially low prices. To gain this control, they demand greater home-rule. Independent political movements have sprung up in all five republics to press for rule by elected representatives of the people.

Some of these political groups are socialist, others anti-socialist. Still others are composed of factions from both sides. All, however, stand for expanded civil rights, including freedom of speech, assembly, religion and the press. All seek an independent judiciary. All are convinced, too, that only a multiparty system can protect these rights in their land.

The tactics used by these embryonic parties go far beyond yelling in the streets. Nearly all the candidates they backed in the recent national elections won. Now they are organizing for regional and local elections, scheduled for autumn. The parties issue position papers and newsletters. Most are organizing down to what we call the precinct level. At the same time, they maintain close ties not only with movements in other non-Russian republics but with sympathizers among the independent Popular Front and Democratic Front organizations in Russia proper. The Baltic states are even building ties abroad--Latvia with Sweden, Lithuania with Poland and Estonia with Finland and Ireland.

What do these movements really want from Moscow? Some in each group want to exercise the right to secede from the Soviet Union, as guaranteed in the Soviet constitution. Most, however, would settle for less. After all, geography will link their fate to their Russian neighbor whatever political arrangements may exist between them. Given this, most stop short of advocating disunion, calling instead for a loose federation in which all rights not explicitly assigned to Moscow remain with the local republics.

Given the programs and tactics of the national movements, Gorbachev’s brusque effort to stonewall them is puzzling. Moscow has taken no steps to mollify or co-opt the home-rule movements, let alone to introduce a true system of federalism that would meet their demands. There are many successful models of such a system, including more than a few schemes devised by Russians during the century before Lenin took power. Gorbachev has ignored them. In the absence of such measures, radicalization is proceeding apace, both in the Caucasus and the Baltic regions. Increasingly, the minority republics are a tinderbox that could be ignited by the smallest spark.

What position should the United States take on all this? Americans naturally respond with sympathy to the image of democratic Davids taking potshots at the Russian Goliath who thwarts their self-determination. But the dangers of outsiders--even well intentioned ones--toying with so volatile a situation are huge. No one can foresee whether events will lead to a crackdown from Moscow or to the institution of new constitutional structures that protect pluralism. One thing is for sure. An explosion would prove as disastrous for further reform in the Soviet Union as a whole as the bloody rebellion of Russia’s Polish subjects in 1863 did for the “Great Reforms” being instituted at that time by Czar Alexander II.

The United States has no interest in fanning chaos in the Soviet Union. Instability there would slow or stop reforms that are changing totalitarian rule. It would make the Soviet Union a less reliable partner in efforts to resolve conflicts in the Third World. It would reduce Soviet interest in arms control, and hence hurt our efforts to reduce the U.S. federal deficit.

Far better would be to maintain our present policy favoring measured, controlled change in the Soviet Union. This means keeping up steady contact with authorities in Moscow and, informally, with public movements in the republics. It means exercising patience and a willingness to look beyond short-term excesses that might be committed either by Gorbachev or by the various national movements. Above all, it means suppressing our national passion for “getting involved.” In the end, we cannot resolve this grave dispute among neighbors.