Secretary Baker: We'll Know Soviet Repression When We See It

Secretary Baker’s Signals on the Coming Soviet Crackdown

(Washington, D.C.): In a White House press conference yesterday, Secretary of State James Baker affirmed what has long been suspected: The Bush Administration is prepared to take a tolerant view of the coming Soviet crackdown on the Gorbachev regime’s increasingly restive domestic constituency.

After serving notice that a forcible Soviet intervention in Eastern Europe aimed at reversing democratic reforms underway there would have dire consequences for East-West relations, Secretary Baker refused to say that the same result would attend repression within the Soviet Union. Instead, he responded by saying that "it depends what [one] means by ‘crackdown.’" The Secretary suggested that at least some types of repression could be imposed by Soviet authorities without cost in terms of U.S.-USSR ties — provided they were undertaken to "maintain order" so as to prevent "violence and bloodshed." Baker noted, for example, that the use of force to prevent ethnic violence between Azerbaijanis and Armenians would not offend the sensibilities of the Bush Administration.

A Crackdown is a Crackdown is a Crackdown

Secretary Baker, when pressed to elaborate this notion, threw the question back to reporters by challenging them to be more specific about what they mean by ‘crackdown.’ In the interest of helping to clarify this pivotal question, the Center for Security Policy believes it would be useful to know what the Administration’s response will be if the Soviet crackdown takes one of the following forms:

"Restoring order" a la Tienanmen Square: Will the Bush Administration view a Soviet effort to disperse pro-democracy demonstrators through the use of force as an "acceptable" crackdown? The Administration’s very mild reaction to date to the Chinese repression suggests that there would be no appreciable costs to the Soviets from such an action.⁽¹⁾

Crowd control Tbilisi-style: Perhaps, if Secretary Baker would find the massacre of hundreds or thousands — as occurred in Tienanmen Square — to be an unacceptable form of Soviet crackdown, repressive measures that result in a smaller loss of life would pass his muster. The silence of the Bush Administration in the aftermath of the murder last April of a score of Soviet Georgians by troops wielding sharpened shovels and poison gas suggests that the USSR can feel free to employ this more selective form of violence against its people, provided it is in the name of "preserving order."

Use of force against striking workers: The "democratized" Supreme Soviet acting at the behest of reform-minded Mikhail Gorbachev voted in October 1989 to prohibit a wide array of strikes in the Soviet Union. Specifically, surface public transportation, civil aviation, steelmaking, communications, power and defense industries are now off-limits to work stoppages and strikes.

There have, nonetheless, recently been wildcat walkouts at coal mines reminiscent of the strikes of last summer. With the onset of the cruel Russian winter, however, Moscow can ill afford any diminution of its energy supplies. Will the Bush Administration view with disfavor the use of Soviet military force against striking workers? It would seem that as long as Gorbachev can say he is simply enforcing the law and that he is looking after the larger interests of a chilly Soviet society that Secretary Baker would not object.

Crackdown on the nationalist movements: The Soviet Communist Party’s Central Committee last August gave stern warning to the Baltic republics against persisting in their demands for independence from the USSR, declaring that: "The fate of the Baltic peoples is in serious danger. People should know into what an abyss they are being pushed by the nationalist leaders (emphasis added)."

The popular movements are seeking to liberate the captive nations of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia from rule by Moscow (authorized by the notorious Nazi-Stalin pact that even a commission of the Supreme Soviet has declared to be "illegal" and "immoral") and can reasonably be described as wishing to challenge the interests of the Soviet state. The possibility of conflict between ethnic Russians and the native peoples of the Baltic Republics could provide ample pretexts for the Baker dispensation to apply to a Soviet crackdown there.

Martial law: Four of the Soviet republics are now under martial law and on no fewer than five different occasions, Gorbachev has asked the Supreme Soviet to authorize the imposition of martial law more broadly. What if Gorbachev decides to proceed with such a declaration — with or without the concurrence of the Supreme Soviet? If this results in a real, but arguably relatively modest infringement upon individual rights and limited loss of life, would the Bush Administration see it as an annoying but understandable backward step in the path toward the realization of Gorbachev’s reform program?

As this illustrative — but hardly exhaustive — list suggests, there are indeed many different forms a Soviet crackdown can take. Unfortunately, under Secretary Baker’s construct, most of them could be excused as the result of Moscow’s obligation to maintain order — irrespective of the deleterious effect they would have on democracy, human rights and individual liberties.

How Will the Bush Administration Respond?

Having invited further clarification about what is meant by the term "crackdown," Secretary Baker now owes an explanation about what the Bush Administration’s policy toward the Soviet Union will be if and when the regime engages in such repression. Moreover, Mr. Baker now especially needs to address the question he ducked at yesterday’s press conference: Will President Bush make clear to Mr. Gorbachev at the Malta summit that the American government — like all of the American people — believes there must be severe repercussions if the Soviets crack down on emerging democratic forces, whether in Eastern Europe or in the Soviet Union?

Will the President Tie His Hands at Malta?

A second, and related issue should also be addressed by the Bush Administration prior to this weekend’s important session with the Soviet leader: Knowing that there is a high probability of some form of crackdown occurring in the near future in the USSR, is President Bush intent on minimizing his flexibility to respond to that repression?

One of the principal lessons of past U.S. efforts to respond to Soviet misdeeds and violations — and evidenced by the Bush Administration’s weak response to the Chinese crackdown last summer — is that issues like contract sanctity and the existence of formal trade and other bilateral agreements tend severely to constrain the American government’s latitude in reacting to such repression. If, as is reliably predicted, the Malta summit leads to a plethora of new economic and financial ties between the two countries — not to mention a major acceleration of arms control agreements — it will inevitably become all the more difficult for the United States to take steps that would impose appropriate costs on the Soviet Union.

Accordingly, the Center for Security Policy urges President Bush not only to heed the call by seventeen senators yesterday for an explicit linkage between U.S. economic assistance to and trade with the Soviet Union and unimpeded progress toward democracy in the Baltic States, but to extend this principle more broadly in support of democracy throughout the USSR. As the senators, led by Robert W. Kasten, Jr. (R-WI), put it "Any military crackdown or repression of the Baltic democratic movements will seriously hamper U.S.-Soviet relations, as would any effort to use non-Baltic troops to influence planned national elections." The same should be clearly said of Soviet crackdowns elsewhere — and said by President Bush to Mikhail Gorbachev at Malta.

– 30 –

1. See the Center’s press release of 29 November 1989 concerning the President’s incipient veto of legislation protecting dissident Chinese students studying in the United States, No. 89-P 72.