Not Going to Take It Anymore

Results are still dribbling in from the regional and local elections held across the Soviet Union’s vast Slavic heartland last Sunday, but the returns so far can only cheer supporters of reform.

Whether they ran as members of the Communist Party or outsiders, candidates in the Russian Federation, the Ukraine and Byelorussia who want to speed the pace of economic and political change fared well, particularly in big cities. Moreover, the elections provided further evidence of a decisive trend toward political pluralism and, perhaps soon, even a genuine multiparty system. Last month the Communist Party agreed to end its monopoly on political power. Free elections are now working to turn that pledge into a reality.

President Mikhail S. Gorbachev has reason to feel both vindicated and uplifted. Openly frustrated by Old Guard obstructionists within the party and government bureaucracy, he can now point to the poor showing of many apparatchiks as proof that he grasps the public’s mood far better than do local party functionaries. If runoffs later this month lead to the ouster of still more party conservatives, as expected, Gorbachev’s efforts to widen and hasten reform would be bolstered.

A steadily worsening economy daily adds greater urgency to those efforts. Gorbachev’s advisers aren’t lacking in insights about what must be done to rescue the country from further stagnation and even--the word is now openly spoken--collapse. But clearing the arena of political deadwood won’t by itself usher in an era of essential structural reforms. As Poland’s forced-draft shift from a centralized to a market economy so vividly is showing, the process of change can exact a painful toll.

Nobody, including the Kremlin, knows whether Soviet citizens are ready to tolerate that pain. At least, though, they are being consulted through the mechanism of elections. Those elections aren’t yet wide-open. But they do offer Soviet citizens a free choice, something that few have ever known.