Today two questions are in the focus of Soviet people's attention: the fate of the CPSU (Communist Party Soviet Union) and the fate of the USSR as a united state.
In the different republics there are several approaches to solving these problems, but as a whole, a new common tendency is appearing.Now we can declare that the communist ideology sustained utter defeat. The decisive factors of this process were the decision of the Russian Federation's leaders to nationalize the CPSU's property, Gorbachev's retiring from the CPSU position of "general secretary" and his appeal for CPSU officials to also step down.
The results of a sociological poll showed that 20 percent of the USSR's population supported the coup committee because of many different reasons. These people thought that the use of extreme measures was absolutely necessary to get the country out of economic and political crisis.
Today, in those same regions where support for the coup was strongest, the anti-communist measures are much more careful than in Russia, because of the specific conditions there and the public's attitude.
In Kazakhstan, the republic's President Nursultan Nazarbayev announced that he should leave the Political Bureau of the central committee of the CPSU, and the central committee itself, because of the actions of the central committee during the military coup.
On Aug. 19, the central committee of the CPSU ordered Communists in Kazakhstan to support the Special Committee for the Emergency Situation - the coup's leaders.
On Aug. 22, Nazarbayev issued a decree to end political activity within the procurator's offices, state security, Ministry of Internal affairs, justice and other organizations.
The decree doesn't limit political rights. If somebody wants to be a member of a political party and work in one of the party's organs, mentioned in the decree, he has to be registered in his party organization where he lives. (That is, he must not be registered within the official organization.)
If political parties say they are grass-roots, then they must prove that they are. The decree has no concrete date for the fulfillment of these measures.
During the last few days, the future of the USSR as a united state has been a major question.
At the special session of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR on Aug. 26, leaders of the republics declared for a united state as a federation of the sovereign states, with strong limits on the power of the central government.
It is clear that economically powerful republics, like Russia and Kazakhstan, will try in the near future to eliminate the unfairness of socialism.
Under that earlier arrangement, the ministries of the USSR would take these republics' natural resources and send them to other republics to make the final products, the prices for which are higher. As a result, Russia and Kazakhstan had to buy these finished products and lost money.
If Russia, Kazakhstan, the Ukraine and Byelorussia raise prices for natural resources, the economic future of Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Georgia, Moldavia and Armenia will be too weak.
It is very possible that some of these republics after time will knock at the door of the USSR. But it'll be possible only if the USSR will quit with its socialist past and decisively go toward the free market system.