The World - News from Sept. 14, 1989

Ethnic Russian workers have formed a group to oppose radical economic reform and to defend fellow Russians from nationalist movements in outlying Soviet republics. The United Front of Workers of Russia held its founding congress in the Siberian city of Sverdlovsk last week. The newspaper Soviet Russia said that 110 delegates from 29 industrial centers took part. Many of those present were alarmed at President Mikhail S. Gorbachev’s plans to introduce a measure of private enterprise into the economy. Their other main concern was a wave of nationalism spreading from the Baltic republics to Soviet Central Asia, which has brought calls for greater cultural and linguistic rights and more autonomy.