The Moment Of Truth: Which Side Will Washington Take In The Soviet Union ?

This morning’s command performance by Mikhail Gorbachev in the Soviet Chamber of People’s Deputies should put to rest once and for all an issue that has been a matter of debate in Western policy circles for some time: Is Gorbachev an engine of democratic and free market change in the Soviet Union or is he aligned with those bent on resisting such changes to preserve the Soviet Union and its authoritarian political and command economic systems?

In the aftermath of the Gorbachev speech, the choice could not be more stark. He expressed no willingness to adopt the sort of radical program built on individual freedom and economic opportunity that holds out the only hope of turning around the increasingly desperate Soviet situation. Instead, he appears determined to stand pat, resisting calls from Boris Yeltsin and others for systemic reform, devolution of authority to the republics and localities and genuine representative government.

It strains credulity that Gorbachev’s evident hope of "toughing out" the present crisis is unrelated to the substantial emergency assistance to the central authorities in Moscow now being contemplated by the Bush Administration and its counterparts in allied capitals. In fact, Gorbachev is, in all likelihood, literally banking on the infusion of food, capital and technology from the West now in the offing to stave off demands for still greater reform.

In a recent speech to the Center for Security Policy, former Secretary of Defense Caspar W. Weinberger argued that such Western assistance to Moscow center put the United States and its allies squarely on the wrong side in the Soviet Union. He noted that:

Each passing day makes it more clear that [Gorbachev’s] authority to rule by presidential decree — ostensibly for the purpose of advancing systemic change — is actually being used to preserve the centralized system and its absolute control over the all-union military-industrial complex.

 

As the attached op.ed. by Center director Frank J. Gaffney, Jr. which appeared in today’s Washington Times observes, Secretary Weinberger believes that the West must make a very different choice:

The United States must once again take the lead; we must once again stand with those seeking personal liberties, democracy and free enterprise in the fragmenting USSR — as well as in Central Europe…even if doing so entails somewhat less cordial ties with Moscow center. (Emphasis added.)

 

Unfortunately, the Bush Administration appears committed to precisely the opposite course. In the hope of helping Gorbachev retain power, President Bush will evidently use the occasion of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) to promote Western "emergency" financial, food and technology assistance to the Soviet regime.

The gravity of the strategic error entailed in such an approach is made all the more obvious by the fact that it takes place against the backdrop of renewed threats of economic warfare by Moscow center against the Baltic states. According to TASS and Western reports, Soviet Prime Minister Nikolai Ryzhkov has given Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania until Saturday, 17 November to: recognize and comply with Soviet laws, pay Soviet taxes, contribute to the Soviet budget and supply hard currency to the Kremlin to assist with its current arrearages crisis with foreign suppliers. According to Ryzhkov, if Moscow’s demands are not met, the Soviet Union will reimpose a harsh economic blockade on all three independent republics.

Gaffney noted, "Gorbachev can only interpret the failure of the Bush Administration to condemn Moscow’s new economic blackmail against the Baltics — to say nothing of the United States’ willingness to provide additional assistance in the face of such threats — as a tacit, if not explicit, endorsement of Soviet repression."

The Center for Security Policy finds such a prospect to be morally repugnant and entirely inconsistent with long-term U.S. security interests. It calls upon the Bush Administration to ensure that any assistance provided to the Soviet Union is structured in such a way as to strengthen those in the Baltic states, the Russian republic, and indeed at republic and local levels throughout the USSR who are pressing for genuine democratic pluralism and free enterprise. Under no circumstances should U.S. aid flow to those in the central government ever more transparently determined to stave off fundamental reforms.