One Who Made a Revolution

That leaky and decrepit vessel known as the Communist Party of the Soviet Union is nearing the end of its final voyage. Soon its rotten timbers will give way; soon it is destined to founder beneath rising waves of popular scorn. Before that happens, its admiral, Mikhail S. Gorbachev, can be expected to transfer his flag to another and sturdier ship and so survive to steam ahead on what he hopes will be calmer seas. Some of his crew will accompany him. Others, the die-hards, apparently intend to go down with the ship.

By a vote of its Central Committee, the Communist Party is about to give up the absolute grip on power it has held for more than 70 years, provided the Supreme Soviet--the Parliament--agrees, as it surely will. Something unknown to Soviet citizens for two generations will occur soon after. The party, stripped of its guarantee of monopoly status, will be forced to contend in the arena of ideas and performance against yet-to-emerge competitors. Only once before, after the overthrow of the Romanov Dynasty in 1917, did the party expose itself to such a risk. It won less than 25% of the vote in that election, and almost immediately responded with the coup d’etat that ended revolutionary Russia’s brief venture into democracy.

Gorbachev emerges from this week’s meeting substantially stronger and seemingly more in command than ever. His enemies, especially those on the right who have fought to slow reforms and preserve the party’s once-dominant role, have been routed, if not yet crushed. In five years Gorbachev has moved to honestly define the desperate conditions facing his country; to begin the slow and painful effort to unshackle the regime from the corpse of failed policies and irrelevant ideologies, not least those of the Cold War; to reshape the very nature of political life in the Soviet Union by transferring authority from the party to a more powerful Parliament and soon to a more powerful presidency.

It has been an altogether extraordinary performance, perhaps--conclusions still must be tentative--one of those special moments when the right leader appears at the right time to change the course of history. So far, Gorbachev has laid the groundwork for basic change. Now come the monumental challenges of trying to construct a modern economy and develop a humane and rational political culture, all against a background of restiveness not seen in the Soviet Union since its civil war 70 years ago. It is a staggering agenda. The man who has drawn it up will need all the patience and help that he can get.