Angry Judge Vows He Will Drag Gorbachev Into Court

The irate chairman of the Constitutional Court vowed Thursday to drag former Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev to the witness stand in a controversial case that has put the Communist Party on trial.

Denouncing the proceedings as a “political game,” Gorbachev refused Tuesday to testify in the long-running case, creating a confrontation that is now being seen as a test of the year-old court’s ability to conduct a fair trial.

Earlier, clerks had said the court had no power to compel witnesses to testify. But the court chairman, Valery Zorkin, insisted Thursday that he will haul Gorbachev into the dock, even if he has to ask the Russian government to throw its weight behind his subpoena.

“As a citizen of the Russian Federation, (Gorbachev) cannot duck out of obeying the law,” the Constitutional Court wrote in a statement distributed by the Interfax news agency. The judges did not elaborate on how they might get Gorbachev to testify.

The 13-member tribunal hopes to question Gorbachev about his term as Communist Party general secretary from 1985 to 1991.

Forcing Gorbachev to testify would be an embarrassing comedown for the Nobel Peace Prize winner, who, when in power, tirelessly spoke of his dream of a “law-based Soviet state.” His enemies, who blame him for destroying both communism and the former Soviet Union, find the prospect delicious.

“It is the fear of personal responsibility that makes Gorbachev maintain stony silence,” the conservative newspaper Sovietskaya Rossiya said Thursday.

The landmark trial focuses on whether Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin acted legally in banning the Communist Party in August, 1991, after top party leaders attempted to oust then-president Gorbachev from office. Gorbachev quit as head of the party after the coup and resigned as president last December as the Soviet Union dissolved.