Soviet Chief Gets ‘Hot Air’ Award at Home

While Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev savored his newly awarded Nobel Peace Prize, his compatriots, dismayed over the collapse of their economy, were at odds about whether their leader deserves the honor.

“I don’t know why they are giving it to him,” Oleg, a repairman standing in line outside a furniture store, said. “The West sees Gorbachev as a friend and a fighter for peace, but to us he’s only hot air.”

Many Soviet citizens have yet to benefit from Gorbachev’s policies. His foreign policy may have helped create a new world order, they say, but it has done nothing to put food on the table.

Surly consumers standing in a long line outside the Estee Lauder cosmetics shop on Moscow’s Tverskaya Street strongly disputed the judgment of the Nobel Committee.

“No one asked us whether he deserved such a prize,” said Marina, a 21-year-old medical student who, like many of Gorbachev’s critics, refused to give her last name. “It’s very surprising that he would get it. He hasn’t earned it. We stand in line two hours for makeup--and not just for makeup but for everything.”

The Nobel Prize, many shoppers said, will do little to improve Gorbachev’s popularity with his people.

“He certainly has not earned this honor,” Volodya Poganov, 24, said outside a bakery. “I’m a figure skater, and I’ve traveled to Finland, Japan and the United States--I’ve seen how real people live. Gorbachev has done very little to improve our country.”

The Nobel announcement, although it was the main item on most radio and television newscasts, was meaningless to many Soviet citizens, whose mood is becoming increasingly dismal as winter approaches and the stores get emptier.

Two old women standing at a bus stop said almost in unison, “We don’t care!”

“What difference does it make to us?” one added.

Many Soviet citizens are tired of waiting for Gorbachev to take decisive action on the economy. On Monday, he was to have presented a program to the Supreme Soviet, the national legislature, for the development of a market economy, but it was not ready.

“I think he has done a lot in the struggle for peace, but he has not done much to improve our country,” Tatyana Plukhina, 56, a Moscow pensioner, said. “He’s not as decisive on domestic issues as he is in international affairs.”

The Kremlin leader did have some fans among people walking across Red Square.

“He deserves the prize,” said Vladimir Grando, 40, a worker at a tractor repair shop in the Ukrainian town of Ternopol who was in Moscow as a tourist. “He has initiated many negotiations, made many compromises and signed many contracts--all to further peace. I feel much safer now, thanks to Gorbachev.”

Aldona Krishunene, 46, an architect from Kaunas in Lithuania, said that when she heard the news about Gorbachev’s honor she exclaimed, “Good for him!”

“It’s much easier to breathe now because of what Gorbachev has done,” she said. “He wasn’t afraid to take very difficult steps.”

At the Kremlin, lawmakers were told about Gorbachev’s prize at the end of a session of the Supreme Soviet. They greeted the news with lukewarm applause.

Leonid Sukhov, a deputy from Kharkov, told the news agency Tass that he did not applaud with the rest because the Soviet standard of living shows no sign of improvement.

Nier Neiland of Riga, Latvia, deputy chairman of the Supreme Soviet’s international relations committee, said: “I would like to say the prize will have a very big effect, but that is not so. The attention of the people is primarily on the economy--the lack of consumer goods and food.”

Galina V. Starovoitova, a deputy from Armenia, wondered aloud whether Gorbachev is suitable for such an award. She noted that the people of Azerbaijan and Armenia are still fighting over Nagorno-Karabakh, an Armenian enclave within neighboring Azerbaijan.

“When the people of Armenia hear this news, they will not understand it at all,” she said. “They will be very disappointed. When there is a war going on in a country, and the leader receives the Nobel Peace Prize, there are some obvious contradictions.”

Starovoitova accused the West of overlooking what she said are Gorbachev’s morally corrupt decisions at home.

“Gorbachev is much more popular abroad then he is here,” she said. “This prize will be received as a selfish action of the West, which gives Gorbachev carte blanche to use any methods he wants to decide internal problems because it is so grateful that he did not block the destruction of the Berlin Wall.”

But most of the lawmakers, even Gorbachev’s usual critics, conceded that he deserves his day of glory.

“I’m very glad that Gorbachev got the prize because without a doubt he has enabled the world to change for the better,” said Alexei V. Yablokov, deputy chairman of the Supreme Soviet’s ecology committee. “I’m usually very critical of Gorbachev and disapprove of his actions within our country, but I can’t dispute his success in the world arena.”

Even Yegor K. Ligachev, long referred to as Gorbachev’s main conservative critic within the Soviet leadership until he was retired from the Politburo in July, had nothing negative to say.

“He deserved it,” Ligachev told reporters while watching the Supreme Soviet session. “He is the initiator of the new direction for foreign policy.”