Gorbachev’s Dilemma

GORBACHEV’S DILEMMA

One swallow does not make a spring. And one prompt TASS report of rioting in Central Asia does not make a free Soviet press. But among Kremlin watchers it is certainly a noteworthy occurrence—as if, say, a California condor showed up at Capistrano. Not since the 1920s, when the Russian Civil War sputtered and flickered out, has Soviet officialdom confirmed instances of open rebellion. In 1962 when food riots broke out in Novocherkassk and Novorossiysk, and the KGB gunned down people waiting in food lines, the West did not learn of it for years, and then only via dissident samizdat reports.

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Eugene H. Methvin

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GORBACHEV’S DILEMMA

One swallow does not make a spring. And one prompt TASS report of rioting in Central Asia does not make a free Soviet press. But among Kremlin watchers it is certainly a noteworthy occurrence—as if, say, a California condor showed up at Capistrano. Not since the 1920s, when the Russian Civil War sputtered and flickered out, has Soviet officialdom confirmed instances of open rebellion. In 1962 when food riots broke out in Novocherkassk and Novorossiysk, and the KGB gunned down people waiting in food lines, the West did not learn of it for years, and then only via dissident samizdat reports.