For Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, it was a bitter comeuppance. Determined to retain control of an increasingly fractured Communist Party, he sought to stifle dissent at the 28th Party Congress. After sailing through the first publicly contested election for the position of general secretary, he watched his major conservative opponent, Yegor Ligachev, a candidate for the new post of deputy leader, go down to a humiliating defeat against Gorbachev faithful Vladimir Ivashko. Then the last-minute defection of Yeltsin, the recently elected head of the Russian Republic, ruined everything. As he left, Gorbachev said: “That ends the process logically.” But it ended more than that. Yeltsin was expressing what others were already thinking. “So they re-elected Gorbachev–so what?” said Moscow truck driver Svyatoslav Kolesnik. “It’s a congress of the dead. "
No cure: That perception is Gorbachev’s biggest problem. To most Soviets, the party is not a cure for the country’s problems; it’s the cause. Even as the 4,700 party leaders met inside the auditorium of the Palace of Congresses, thousands of coal miners staged a 24-hour work stoppage. Elsewhere, reports of Gorbachev’s insider victories met largely with indifference.
Gorbachev’s advisers say he has a plan. His idea is to orchestrate a gradual shift of power from the Communist Party to government institutions, relying increasingly on his presidential powers instead of his party post. A newly expanded, 24-member Politburo includes the party chiefs of all the republics, a formula designed to weaken its authority and cohesiveness. But for the interim, Gorbachev intends to retain the party leadership. At the Party Congress, he yielded little ground on key issues such as party-owned property, the rights of minority factions to press their own views and matters concerning the independence of the various republics’ party organizations.
Still, the question facing Gorbachev is how to create a system of legitimate opposition. It is not enough to relax central control. “The party will preserve its grip on [local governments], and that will slow democracy,” said Martha Olcott, a Soviet specialist at Colgate University. “How will other parties get started in its shadow?” Moscow lacks electoral procedures: for example, there is no law on registering “public organizations” (technically, at least, no opposition groups exist). Even so, countless political parties have formed in fact if not on paper. The promised “democratic coalition” could pose a serious challenge to the Kremlin. So, too, could the Democratic Party of Russia, formed several months ago by former communist Nikolai Travkin, who claims to have tens of thousands of members and plans a Russia-wide founding congress in October. Others, like the Georgian monarchist party agitating for the return of the Georgian king or the Russian monarchist party urging for a return to the rule of the czars, are examples of perestroika-induced political exuberance.
The status quo is under fire from all sides. Rafael Shaikbiev, a member of the Democratic Platform and the party secretary of Kazan University in central Russia, says he believes 70 percent of those in his party cell may be “in the mood” for a break with the communists. Many, he said, are absentees who never show up at meetings anyway. Just how such disgruntled party members take their leave is important. Those who formally split with the party are entitled to take some of its assets with them. Yet they may not be allowed to. One key asset is newspapers, which in the provinces are frequently owned by the local party committee. Other assets, the Democratic Party’s Travkin explains, include district and city committee buildings “with all those telephones.” Not surprisingly, party delegates who stay in the system don’t want to cooperate. “The party,” said delegate Mikhail Zanchite of Krasnoyarsk, “will keep 99 percent” of everything.
Genetic loyalty: Not everyone is preparing for a mass exodus. Unlike Yeltsin and other party radicals, the conservatives at least stayed in the fold. But they were hardly easy to win over. “He played on the genetic loyalty of these bureaucrats,” said writer Yuri Chernichenko, a delegate to the congress. “These people are more loyal than a corpse. " Gorbachev nevertheless had to reassure the party faithful while at the same time being careful not to tarnish his international image as a committed reformist. “We are not changing our line or our choice and are committed to socialist values,” he told the hard-liners. “But,” he warned, “believe me, the party’s success depends on whether it realizes that it is already a different society.” In part, the conservatives saw the need to be practical. Had they bucked Gorbachev’s wishes and backed Ligachev, they would have sent the wrong signal to the already agitated populace. “Events of the day–the miners’strike, the failing economy–have forced these guys to open their eyes,” said Leningrad Mayor Sobchak.
Heading off a serious split was a real victory. But Yeltsin’s departure was only the first, if ominous, sign of more serious troubles to come. The party meeting failed to come up with any fresh ideas for dealing with the economic crisis, Gorbachev’s most pressing problem. And it failed to heal its internal problems well enough to ensure full control of the nation. “It’s becoming more and more a country without a government,” says Prof. Charles Fairbanks Jr. of the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies in Washington. “The party is the old government, and the new one is not really assembled.” The danger for Gorbachev is that should he not extricate himself from the party, he may go down with it.
