Can Gorbachev Survive?

The Soviet Union goes to the polls March 26 to elect a new Congress for People’s Deputies, a 2,250-member legislative body that will convene next month. It will function as an electoral college, electing a president and a 422-member executive parliament. Not until the dust settles can Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev know whether he enjoys a secure lock on the new Supreme Soviet. Even if he does, he knows that four great crises confront him: the nationalities unrest in Moscow’s subject republics, the economic crisis, the enormous ecology crisis, and—underlying all—the ideology crisis that is convulsing the Communist Party itself

Boris Shragin, for many years a research fellow at the Institute of the History of Arts and a teacher at the Surikov Art Institute in Moscow, was an active participant in the human-rights movement in the Soviet Union during the 1960s. In 1968 he lost his academic position and his Party membership; he emigrated to the United States in 1974. He is here interviewed by David Evanier on the prospects for Gorbachev and perestroika. Martin Sieff outlines the four great crises facing the Soviet president.

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The Soviet Union goes to the polls March 26 to elect a new Congress for People’s Deputies, a 2,250-member legislative body that will convene next month. It will function as an electoral college, electing a president and a 422-member executive parliament. Not until the dust settles can Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev know whether he enjoys a secure lock on the new Supreme Soviet. Even if he does, he knows that four great crises confront him: the nationalities unrest in Moscow’s subject republics, the economic crisis, the enormous ecology crisis, and—underlying all—the ideology crisis that is convulsing the Communist Party itself

Boris Shragin, for many years a research fellow at the Institute of the History of Arts and a teacher at the Surikov Art Institute in Moscow, was an active participant in the human-rights movement in the Soviet Union during the 1960s. In 1968 he lost his academic position and his Party membership; he emigrated to the United States in 1974. He is here interviewed by David Evanier on the prospects for Gorbachev and perestroika. Martin Sieff outlines the four great crises facing the Soviet president.