Book Mark : Gorbachev’s New, Truer Colors After Lithuania

In January, Soviet troops and tanks killed at least 14 Lithuanians attempting to take over a TV station in Vilnius. The Soviet reaction was quick and heated. An excerpt. Mikhail S. Gorbachev himself was silent until Monday, when he finally spoke publicly about the incident. First in remarks to reporters, then in a speech to the Supreme Soviet, he said he had known nothing about the violence until after it was over, “when they woke me up.” The local commander had ordered the action, he explained, with full authority from the commander of the Baltic Military District. The commander acted after the national salvation committee had appealed for “protection,” Gorbachev said.

But he made no attempt to show disapproval of the operation or sympathy for the victims or their families. The closest he came to an apology was to remark, “We didn’t want this to happen.” In his speech, he spoke of the “rights” and “grievances” of the national salvation committee, though he made no effort to explain its legal status, or its membership. He blamed the turmoil in Lithuania on the local government.

On the day after the violence, hundreds of thousands of citizens poured into the streets of major cities all over the country to protest. Five thousand Muscovites marched through the city calling for Gorbachev’s resignation, some carrying astounding signs of protest: “Gorbachev Is the Saddam Hussein of the Baltics!” and “Down with the Executioner!”

The only apologists for the killings were conservatives. In the days that followed, Gorbachev discovered the strength of the democratic forces he had created. They fought back, led by Boris Yeltsin, who immediately flew to Riga, the capital of Latvia, where a national salvation committee had also been announced. Yeltsin denounced Gorbachev and the decision to use force. He rallied the leaders of other republics to band together and protect their rights.

The independent media also rallied to the democratic banner. Leningrad television broadcast a vivid documentary on the violence in Vilnius, including gory scenes of the beating and killing, which contradicted official accounts; Leningrad’s TV signal can be seen from the Baltics across northwest Russia to Moscow.

The strongest statements of disgust came from Gorbachev’s earliest allies. The first appeared in Moscow News on the front page. The newspaper’s board of directors, including some of the earliest crusaders for glasnost and perestroika, published a statement surrounded by a heavy black border, saying in part: “A regime in its death throes has taken a last-ditch stand; economic reform has been blocked, censorship of the media reinstated, brazen demagogy revived and an open war on the republics declared. . . . The events in Lithuania can be unambiguously classified as CRIMINAL. It is a crime against one’s own people to push them toward civil war.

“We appeal to reporters and journalists: If you lack courage or opportunity to tell the truth, at least abstain from telling lies! Lies will fool no one any more.”

Gorbachev’s own children were ready to devour him--and he appeared ready to devour them. In the days after Bloody Sunday, he lost his temper several times, most dramatically and pathetically in a speech to the Supreme Soviet less than a week after the killings. His angry remarks suggested that the Moscow News statement had provoked him. He sharply criticized that newspaper, then suggested that “in connection with the period we’re in, a period of important decisions, we need constructive dialogue and cooperation . . . . We could take a decision to suspend the press law for these months and the Supreme Soviet could assure full objectivity” by assuming direct responsibility for all the news media.

This suggestion to suspend the relatively new law guaranteeing freedom of the press evoked a furious response from liberal members, and Gorbachev retreated. Instead, he offered a vague resolution suggesting that the leadership of the Parliament examine “measures on ensuring objectivity” in the press, which carried easily.

Whether that was a sign of significant independence in the relatively conservative Supreme Soviet or just a bump on the road to a new dictatorship remained to be seen. A struggle had begun between the traditional powers in Soviet society--now, ironically, represented by Gorbachev--and the new, democratic forces he had earlier unleashed. Both were testing their strength in the revolutionary new circumstances that nearly six years of perestroika had created.

Obviously, Gorbachev was a changed man. Some thought he had been intimidated by the right-wingers in the army, KGB and police.

I was more convinced that Gorbachev had confronted the possibility of losing his own power to the reformers he had created, and decided he didn’t want to let this happen. “There was always a question of which he wanted more--to put a program into effect, or to hold power,” one of my wisest Moscow informants observed in January, 1991. “Now it appears he is most interested in personal power,” he said. Of course, Gorbachev’s conviction that he had to hold the entire union together limited his freedom of action.

Judging by his drawn appearance, his public tantrums and his inability to take responsibility or apologize for the violence in Vilnius and then, on Jan. 20, in Riga, where four more citizens were killed by troops, Gorbachev was under great strain. There were persistent rumors that he had serious health problems.

He was truly alone now. On Jan. 21, the anniversary of Lenin’s death, Gorbachev laid a wreath at Lenin’s mausoleum on Red Square. On that rather sad mission, Gorbachev began a new phase of his leadership that held none of the promise of the first years of his revolution.

In those early years, both Soviet citizens and foreigners had allowed themselves to dream of a relatively smooth transition in the Soviet Union from dictatorship to democracy and prosperity, but this was always a fantasy. An important part of the dream was the idea that Gorbachev himself was guiding the revolution. In 1990, it became clear that this was not the case.

1991, by Robert G. Kaiser. Reprinted with

permission of Simon & Schuster.

BOOK REVIEW: “Why Gorbachev Happened: His Triumphs and His Failure,” by Robert G. Kaiser, is reviewed on Page 4 of today’s Book Review section.