Soviet Union: Good News, Bad Times

By John Kohan/Moscow

With good news scarcer than sausage in the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev made the most of what was available last week. Emerging jubilant from a Kremlin meeting with the Federation Council, a policymaking body that includes leaders of the 15 republics, the President announced that a temporary economic truce had been reached with the republics, finally making it possible to draft a national budget for the coming year. The central government and the republics, Gorbachev said, would also cooperate to overcome a deepening food crisis and set up a transitional administration until a new treaty reorganizing the federal structure of the Soviet Union was approved. "Months were lost in the tug-of-war between the center and the republics," Gorbachev complained. "We are specialists at going to extremes, but I am for common sense."

The embattled President could also claim some success in easing tensions in the southwestern republic of Moldavia. Russian and Turkic minorities have tried to set up independent states there in opposition to a republican government that is dominated by the Romanian-speaking majority. In Kishinev, Moldavia's capital, the parliament bowed to an ultimatum from Gorbachev and agreed to reconsider laws promoting rights for ethnic Moldavians; in return, the parliament was assured that local secessionists would halt their efforts to splinter the republic.

Gorbachev was clearly pleased to show that his newly enhanced presidential powers can produce results, but tougher tests lie ahead. Crucial economic disagreements must still be resolved with the powerful and populous Russian republic, whose parliament voted at year's end to withhold the lion's share of its contributions to the central government.

Elsewhere, the outlook was far from hopeful. General Mikhail Moiseyev, Chief of the Soviet General Staff, pledged last week that "not a single additional soldier" would be sent to the breakaway Baltic states, but that did not stop tensions from mounting in the region. Interior Ministry special forces seized Latvia's largest printing plant and brought publication of major newspapers in the republic to a virtual halt. Moscow officials said the raid in Riga was to recover Communist Party property, which was allegedly seized illegally by the republican government. In neighboring Lithuania, Interior Ministry troops took control of party headquarters, expelling local police units. Such bully tactics have raised questions about how repressive Gorbachev is prepared to be to hold his crumbling empire together.