There is no one more to be pitied as icy winter comes than the once-celebrated, now-repudiated president of the once-fearsome, now-frightened Soviet Union.
As a tender spouse might watch an incurable disease bring painful death to a loved one, Mikhail S. Gorbachev has watched his Soviet Union die. He has pleaded, cajoled, warned - but his prophecies of doom have fallen on disinterested ears. He did so much for his people, bringing them freedoms they had never known. Ironically, the reforms he initiated contributed to the disintegration of the union, as ancient ethnic and religious hatreds, long suppressed by the controlled media of the central government, were given free expression under the new openness.It is economic chaos rather than ethnic or religious turmoil that has been the greater cause of the breakup. The old Soviet system of a planned economy had failed and was abandoned before there was anything resembling a market economy to take its place. Workers were used to being told what to make; not to thinking creatively about what to build or grow, how to get the raw materials they would need or how to transport their product to market. The old factory owners were faceless bureaucracies, the planners far off in Moscow.
The result of the transition between a dying system of government planning and an undeveloped market system is that food and consumer goods have disappeared. The lines at the stores have grown longer; patience has grown short.
Spurning the "Whereases" our politicians love, the leaders of the three republics of Russia, Ukraine and Byelorussia produced two amazing documents on Sunday. "Noting" that Gorbachev's efforts to promote a new union treaty "have reached a dead end"; "Stating" that his shortsighted policy has led to "disintegration of the economy and catastrophic decline of the living conditions of practically all the sectors of the population"; "Taking into Account" the growing social tensions that have "led to ethnic conflicts and resulted in numerous victims"; they eventually told their people that they "Hereby declare the formation of a Commonwealth of Independent States." Any of the other republics of "the former USSR" may join.
The other document was pure economics, addressing money supply, budget deficits, free trade, customs and the costs of national defense and cleaning up after the Chernobyl nuclear disaster.
Second only to Gorbachev, we must take pity on the signatories of these two documents, Boris Yeltsin of Russia, Stanislav Shuskevich of Byelorussia and Leonid Kravchuk of Ukraine. They merit our sympathy because none of the economic, ethnic or religious problems that brought Gorbachev down shows any sign of easing. They have assumed the problems with no better grasp on how to handle them. Western aid has been grudging and slow, and winter has come. Western aid will not be in time or in sufficient amounts to prevent pain and possible panic. The most probable alternative to their Commonwealth of Independent Republics is another military coup, so we must wish them well.
Their two documents do not inspire. There is no ringing call to bring out the best in their citizenry, no singing words of liberty or democracy or brotherhood, no prayer or passion. They are merely the dull economic words of survival.
While the United States is feeling sorry for itself because we may not have the greatest Christmas shopping season ever, our food stores are full of an endless variety of delicacies; our clothing stores are full of the complete assortment of styles and fads and sizes of both necessities and luxuries; we can choose from a marvelous array of automobiles and boats and bicycles and from among creative ways of financing them; our jewelry stores are full of items from the junkiest geegaws to the most fabulous treasures. We are free to take time out from feeling sorry for ourselves to get titillated by a rape trial.
As winter comes to Moscow and a dispiriting weariness settles over its people, it is hard to believe how frightened of them we were only a decade ago.