Just as events of the past few months in Eastern Europe have strained the imagination, events of the past week in the Soviet Union have provided an amazing capstone.
First, some 200,000 impassioned citizens paraded through the streets of Moscow, demanding reforms, in the largest protest since the Bolshevik revolution. Second, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev told the Communist Party leadership the next day that it must give in to rising public demands and relinquish its monopoly on political power.In a landmark speech to the party's Central Committee, he asserted that a multiparty political system already exists and urged the party to end its monopoly on political power. The Communists have come under increasing attack by citizens who are distressed with shortages of consumer goods and official corruption.
Gorbachev is also expected to give tacit approval to the concept of private property.
He is undoubtedly reacting to the handwriting on the wall. The Central Committee, once the powerhouse of the Soviet Communist Party, has become a bloated organization, filled with elderly bureaucrats who make few real decisions. It went from 40 members in 1923 to 319 members by 1981. Last year, Gorbachev cut it back to 249 members and reportedly would like to see it at 200.
Although the Central Committee, at least in theory, runs the party in the five-year intervals between Congresses, they exercise little practical power because of the requirement that they only meet twice a year. In fact, day-to-day decisions are made by the Politburo, currently consisting of 12 members, and its Secretariat, which has 13.
At the same time, the Soviet Union is the last Warsaw Pact country where the Communists still have a guaranteed lock on power. With the party losing its standing in Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, East Germany and Romania, for example, it had to be only a matter of time until Gorbachev faced up to the same reality in his own country.
While opening the door to political competition, Gorbachev nevertheless scoffed at suggestions that there might be attempts to topple the current leadership. He seems to think that even with many parties, the Communists will still be the dominant force in Soviet society. Yet he admitted to the need for "fresh faces," inclined toward reform. In fact, he asserted that if the party rejects change, it will recede into the background.
Gorbachev is presiding over an amazing transformation that is certain to change the entire world. It is already evident that the Soviet people are just as anxious for democratic reforms as Eastern Europeans. What is uncertain is whether these quickly unfolding reforms will eventually strike at Gorbachev's own political power.
Some of those Moscow protesters carried signs that said, "Remember Romania," where Communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu was toppled in a bloody December revolution. Others called for the ruling party Politburo to resign.
The people clearly are taking responding to their new sense of freedom.
It is anybody's guess as to whether they will exercise patience and allow the wheels of change to turn. As the realistic engine of these startling events, Gorbachev deserves a chance to finish the job.
In any case, a newly structured, more realistic Soviet Union is on the horizon, something no bona fide Soviet expert would have dared to predict even a year ago.