Soviet Crackdown Watch (Part I)

Evidence continues to mount suggesting that the regime of Mikhail Gorbachev is preparing for a comprehensive and possibly brutal crackdown within the USSR. The Center intends to publish compelling examples of this evidence on an ongoing basis in the interest of documenting the unfolding crisis.

These papers, entitled Soviet Crackdown Watch, are also designed to call urgent attention to the need for Western nations to provide strong disincentives to such repression. Doing so would involve policies toward the Soviet Union starkly different from those now being pursued by virtually every industrialized democracy — namely the practice of offering essentially unconditional economic, financial, food, medical and technology assistance as well as diplomatic and political support to the central authorities in Moscow.

Within the last several days, the following sinister developments have been reported from the Soviet Union:

• On 27 November, President Gorbachev authorized the Soviet military: to use their weapons if harassed by civilians; to seize control of power, water and food if these items are restricted by local authorities; and to prevent, forcibly if necessary, the desecration of any military monuments. This order clearly provides the authority — if not the pretexts — for a crackdown by Soviet forces.

• On 30 November, it was reported that the KGB had created a special organization to oversee the distribution of food in the USSR. This step could amount to providing a new, powerful coercive instrument in the hands of the state security services at a time of serious misallocation of foodstuffs. It also denies the republics and localities the dominant role they should be playing in the distribution of foreign-donated food supplies.

• Also on 30 November, "Special Workers’ Committees" — run by Communist Party apparatchiks in factories and workplaces — were empowered to monitor the distribution of food and consumer goods in close coordination with the KGB and the Interior Ministry. These committees are also reportedly empowered to serve as kangaroo courts, closing down any enterprises suspected of hoarding, spoilage, theft, or speculation and initiating criminal proceedings against those involved.

• TASS reported on 30 November that KGB Chairman Vladimir Kryuchkov had revealed in a meeting with USSR People’s Deputies that the KGB has drafted a new law on "economic sabotage." Its terms are not yet known, but can be surmised to provide still greater authority for harsh actions against those judged guilty of such sabotage.

• Soviet Defense Minister Yazov reiterated in an interview on 1 December that Soviet troops will seize supply facilities if local authorities — notably those in the Baltics — cut off services to military garrisons. Yazov warned, "We will take the electricity power stations, the thermal electric power stations and the water supply under our protection if the need arises." It was his third statement threatening the use of force in one week.

• On 1 December, President Gorbachev also issued another presidential decree declaring null and void any laws passed by the republics which threaten Soviet defense capabilities and forbidding the formation by individual republics of armed forces. According to Soviet military leaders, some 30 acts of legislation passed by republican and local legislatures would be prohibited on these grounds.

• On 2 December, in an unambiguous indication of solidarity with hardline military, KGB and Party elements, President Gorbachev fired Interior Minister Vadim Bakatin — a man deemed reasonable by reformers. Bakatin was replaced by Boris Pugo, a former KGB general and top military commander.

• Prior to this appointment, Pugo was chairman of the CPSU Central Control Commission. He also spent 7 years heading the KGB in Latvia and another four years as First Secretary of the Latvian Communist Party. Perhaps even more alarming, General Boris Gromov — an outspoken critic of democratic reform and advocate of increased "discipline," read crackdown — was named Deputy Minister of Interior. From this position, he will probably run the coming repression, or perhaps shortly move to do so from the Defense Ministry by relieving Yazov.

"It is utterly reprehensible that the Bush Administration has not seen fit to criticize Gorbachev’s evident preparations for repression in the Soviet Union," said Frank J. Gaffney, Jr., the Center’s director. "More incredible still is the President’s acknowledgement that — in the midst of such activities — he is considering waiving the Jackson-Vanik amendment. This is particularly astonishing since doing so requires him to abandon his own, sensible precondition of just a few months ago: No emigration bill — no waiver of Jackson-Vanik."

Roger W. Robinson, Jr., former chief economist on the National Security Council and member of the Center’s Board of Advisors, added, "Premature granting of U.S. loan guarantees and credits to Moscow made possible by waiver of Jackson-Vanik would be deplorable on two grounds: First, coming as it does when the Soviet Union is making no meaningful progress toward systemic economic reform would almost surely result in substantial taxpayer losses. Second, and worse yet, in the midst of Moscow’s latest round of recentralization, the United States would be abandoning the principle that free emigration must be a fundamental and legally protected right of Soviet citizens — not a privilege."