Center Announces ‘Soviet Transformation Watch’ : Accept No Substitutes For Structural Change

The Center for Security Policy today announced the initiation of a new series of analyses aimed at monitoring the extent and true character of change in the erstwhile Soviet Union. Entitled "Soviet Transformation Watch," this effort will help Western policy-makers, publics and media recognize the differences between developments in the former USSR that represent genuine structural reform and those of a more cosmetic nature that seem, instead, designed to help preserve institutions and instrumentalities of repressive central control.

The requirement to pay close attention to these differences was brilliantly spelled out by William Safire in yesterday’s New York Times. In a column headlined "Pour It On" (a copy of which is attached), Safire noted a number of indications that institutions like the KGB are, to use Gorbachev’s phrase, "regrouping" — as opposed to undergoing the sort of dismantling that is so clearly required.

This concern was, if anything, further exacerbated by the comments the new KGB chief, Vadim Bakatim, made in an interview with CNN today. He actually suggested that the budget of the KGB should be increased over pre-coup levels. He also defended the practice of using informers to help perform the functions assigned to his agency and announced that there had been no change in the number of such informers on the KGB’s payroll.

"Transformation Watch" will seek to lay out the facts — even where doing so gainsays "conventional wisdom." Like the Center’s earlier "Crackdown Watch" — which documented the repression engaged in during late 1990-early 1991 by Gorbachev and leading members of his regime (many of whom were involved in last month’s abortive coup) — this series will be more than simply a ready and reliable source of data on Soviet developments. It will also help ensure that the debate about U.S. and Western security policy is informed by the true state of play in the former USSR, and not simply seductive rhetoric from a reconfigured Moscow center or wishful thinking in Washington and allied capitals.

The following are some of the indications of genuine structural change — or the lack thereof — that the Center’s "Transformation Watch" will be monitoring:

Dismantling of Instruments of Central Control

• Seizure and liquidation of Communist Party assets at home and abroad, elimination of entrenched bureaucracy

 

• Elimination of informer apparatus and secret police/paramilitary organizations (not simply their transfer elsewhere)

 

• Draconian cuts in size of the military, intelligence apparatus, and related military-industrial infrastructure

Institution Building

• Separation of powers

 

executive, legislative, judiciary

 

• Checks and balances

 

consent of the governed — free and fair elections involving multiple parties

 

civilian control of military, KGB and interior ministry

 

free press

 

• Individual rights

 

a bill of rights (notably, assuring freedom of speech, assembly, and religion)

 

right of free movement within country, immediate free emigration

Independence for Republics

• Prompt permission for independence of republics without impediments

Thorough Examination of the Past

• Safeguarding and permitting independent review of KGB/GRU documents

 

• Open/thorough investigation of coup and past contingency planning for "emergency measures"

 

• Investigation of "suicides"

 

• Appropriate punishment for those culpable

Revised Budget Priorities

• Transparency in and substantial reduction of military budget (military glasnost)

Economic Reforms

• Privatization of state enterprises, including strategic energy sector

 

• Private property rights/antitrust laws

 

• Fair taxation policy (i.e., so that individuals, corporations can make a profit)

 

• Transparency re: economic/financial data (e.g.,: gold reserves and hard currency reserves and Soviet deposits in Western banks)

 

• Complete overhaul of monetary and banking systems

Foreign Trade

• Free trade practices, reduction of import and export barriers

 

• Repayment of Soviet arrearages owed Western firms

 

• Disciplined, non-preferential rescheduling of roughly $75 billion of Soviet foreign debt

 

• Differentiation of pre-coup Western credits and trade transactions and post-coup business activities

Foreign Policy

• Investigation/transparency re: activities of Soviet domestic and overseas banks

 

• Disengaging entirely from regional conflicts

 

• Halting aid to client regimes, especially to Cuba

 

• Acceleration of withdrawal of Soviet troops from Poland, Germany, and the Baltics

 

• Expanded cooperation on control of weapons of mass destruction

 

• Termination of Western technology theft

 

• Unconditional return of Northern Territories to Japan

 

• Return of Erich Honnecker to stand trial in Germany

 

• Dismantle KGB active measures and hostile espionage