European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - April 13, 1989, Darmstadt, Hesse Page 10 the stars and stripes Davi Remnick Kremlin authority faces increasing challenges Moscow every week from Tai Georgia to Tallin in Estonia from Budapest to Samarkand events seem to lug at the fiber of the soviet Empire. Not Only do some East european countries continue to Drift politically and ideologically farther West but in nearly every Republic within the soviet Union grass roots movements for greater Independence Are challenging Kremlin authority. The violence sunday Between nation Alist demonstrators and soviet troops in the georgian capital of Tbilisi is Only the latest manifestation of the Kremlin s tremendous. Nationalities problem a problem thai weighs Leader Mikhail Gorbachev like no other. Soldiers in Tbilisi fired in the air monday to break up. New do Kortstra. To tons and authorities announced that two More people injured in. Sunday s clashes had died raising the death loll thereto in. Strikers supporting nationalist de mands have Shin Down schools and fac tories in the Republic tanks loom in Tbilisi s Central Square and an 11 p,m,-to-6 . Curfew is in effect in the City. The Republic has been closed id Western Media. Cit Koci la is just one More piece of a Pule that the soviet leadership has never had to face before. After 70 years people All Over Are asking aloud the essential questions kind one georgian nationalist Maya Lacha Variani. Should Moscow control georgians estonians ukrainians Don t even mention the. Hungarians and the so far. Gorbachev has answered Only vaguely. He is More generous with Eastern Europe saying in. Yugoslavia last year thai every socialist country is tree to Lake the Road i chooses. So far he has not had to address the More difficult and perhaps inevitable issues what happens ruling communist governments lose their grip in Budapest or Warsaw what Hap pens if the movement within those coun tries id leave the Warsaw pact grows stronger How tolerant will Moscow be then within the soviet Union the Essen tial tics turns Are More bitter and freighted with history a in Gorbachev who is ordinarily the master of his on emotions and Public performances has sume Liiv. Become hot headed and Leon Daniel muddled when faced with ethnic or nationalist violence in the Transcaucasia republics or the extraordinary political challenges from the Baltic states. When he is proposing Radical economic reforms before the party s governing Central committee or describing a new world order at the United nations Gorbachev is the Cool modernist. And yet. When he has had to face nationalities problems in All their variety he can be a bully rudely talking Down an armenian professor at a Public forum or blaming a handful of ocal political activists for ineffective Rescue efforts after the earthquake in Armenia last december. It was glasnost Gorbachev s Polej of open debate hat allowed nationalist is sues and emotions to percolate in the first place. Hut just As sentiment for local sovereignty in such republics Asi Georgia Armenia Estonia Latvia Lithuania and the Ukraine has developed into full fledged political movements the Krem Lin May be losing its taste for such liberalisation. Hie soviet legislature has just passed. Laws threatening fines and jail terms of up to 10 years for anyone who would Challenge Central authority move dial appears to contradict an Arti Cle in the soviet Constitution allowing any Republic to secede from the soviet anytime How can you go to jail for picketing in favor of a right Guai alced by the Constitution confronted by its complications gov eminent spokesmen have Retro Lea to the old Way of dealing with such turmoil calling demonstrators anti soviet and the rest of the Brezhnev Cra lexicon. Tie Issue is an acutely intricate one principally for two reasons ideology an demographics Gorbachev has stretched the limits of marxist Leninist ideology using a socialist vocabulary to justify gradual privatization of Industry and agriculture and the Rise of a democratized political system of elections that Lenin once dismissed us Mere formalist democracy but Corbach a is not Rushing to stretch that ideology further for the Pur pose of shrinking the soviet Empire. As the French and British Well know crts pics Cut themselves Back Only when forced to do so. The demographic or ethnic situation is also Complex. Americans know from experience How agonizing racist questions can be. Imagine a country of More than 100 nationalities tend widely disparate Cul Tures collected in-15 republics Many of which were occupied just after the 1917 bolshevik revolution or just preceding world War ii. The political arrangement of the Sovi cd Union Russia ways been 3 source of deep resentment among Many fits Peoples. Moscow has always tried to Perpet uate a myth of soviet culture but there is no such thing said Bogdan Horyn. A ukrainian nationalist in the City of Lvov there is russian culture ukrainian. Culture moslem culture lithuanian Cul Ture but soviet Means Horhing More than an arrangement of the Kremlin a. New slogan a Strong Center and Strong republics is a prescription far a Middle course and Moscow has made attempts to distribute More Power and responsibility to party leaders in the republics. So far it has been Able to contain the growing number of people in various re Gions who argue that they should be tied up Moscow Only in the most tenuous ways or perhaps not at Uli but it appears that the nation wide trend is toward increasing demands for local sovereignly. When those de mands become too much for the Kremlin to tolerate what the president should t be too chummy with press some of us had noticed it but it was Al t to the new York times to come right out and report boldly that president hush s speeches have become lob Olomi Angly Boring. The Riison suggested Curnie we Raub of the i mics. Is that the president s speechwriters Are sulking because they . In reported that among the Perks recently stripped from tic stable of five guns writers were while House Messing privileges. Denying any downgrading a spokesman blamed budget but for the wordsmiths it s much farther than the actual couple of blocks psychologically speaking from the while House Meir to the Mcdonald s on 17th Street. It s Lough to Mac great decisions and set National priorities in a noisy fast food joint where the lunch hour hoi Pollok is chomping on big macs. The president s speech writers need to Hobnob with the intellectual heavyweights in the White House mess if they re going to come up with winning phrases like 1,000 pints of Lite just because the budget is unbalanced is no reason to treat the wordsmiths unfairly. After All the presi Dent can t just Wing it. That s too risky. Just the other Day hush and ribbed that he does t need a dog because he Lias Barbara. Tor Hal most husband would have got their end of the table sawed off but a be the first lady figured that was just George being goofy on purpose. Weinkaug disclosed that one of the speech writers before coming to the White House worked for Samut silent Sam Pic Rte a Man not known for Silver tongued oratory or much of anything else. If Vou so far have failed to recall that Pierce was for the past eight years the head of. The department of housing and Urban development it could be the fault Ofhie speechwriter. You have to wonder Why silent Sam s scribe was promoted by the Bush team to the White House speech writing Crew. Anyway i Don t believe it matters much if the or Csc Dent s speeches arc Boring or if his administration does t Nave much of a Media strategy. It s a personal prejudice but i m less offended by Boring presidential speeches than stage managed presi dents. Bush rarely looks More presidential than when he refuses to be manipulated. When he tells his handlers to gel lost you can figure he s More interested in governing than following some Dopey script. 1 just feel More comfortable with a president who would t know a television sound bite if he got one in a Lender part of his Anatomy 1 like the Way push eschews stage managed prime Lime news conferences. Instead he frequently stands up there in front of the press mob and Fields their toughest questions. He gives As Good As he gets and " evidently bears no grudges. But the president should be warned against being too Nice to reporters. He should he dissuaded from trying to tre Allyc Media As part of his team he chats with reporters on air Force one serves them pork rinds and invites them Over to the while Houise to Pilch horseshoes. It won t work reporters Are just too ornery to be on a team even a president s
