Reform and Human Rights the Gorbachev Record
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100TH-CONGRESS HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES [ 1023 REFORM AND HUMAN RIGHTS THE GORBACHEV RECORD REPORT SUBMITTED TO THE CONGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES BY THE COMMISSION ON SECURITY AND COOPERATION IN EUROPE MAY 1988 Printed for the use of the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE WASHINGTON: 1988 84-979 = For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, Congressional Sales Office U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC 20402 COMMISSION ON SECURITY AND COOPERATION IN EUROPE STENY H. HOYER, Maryland, Chairman DENNIS DeCONCINI, Arizona, Cochairman DANTE B. FASCELL, Florida FRANK LAUTENBERG, New Jersey EDWARD J. MARKEY, Massachusetts TIMOTHY WIRTH, Colorado BILL RICHARDSON, New Mexico WYCHE FOWLER, Georgia EDWARD FEIGHAN, Ohio HARRY REED, Nevada DON RITTER, Pennslyvania ALFONSE M. D'AMATO, New York CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey JOHN HEINZ, Pennsylvania JACK F. KEMP, New York JAMES McCLURE, Idaho JOHN EDWARD PORTER, Illinois MALCOLM WALLOP, Wyoming EXECUTIvR BRANCH HON. RICHARD SCHIFIER, Department of State Vacancy, Department of Defense Vacancy, Department of Commerce Samuel G. Wise, Staff Director Mary Sue Hafner, Deputy Staff Director and General Counsel Jane S. Fisher, Senior Staff Consultant Michael Amitay, Staff Assistant Catherine Cosman, Staff Assistant Orest Deychakiwsky, Staff Assistant Josh Dorosin, Staff Assistant John Finerty, Staff Assistant Robert Hand, Staff Assistant Gina M. Harner, Administrative Assistant Judy Ingram, Staff Assistant Jesse L. Jacobs, Staff Assistant Judi Kerns, Ofrice Manager Ronald McNamara, Staff Assistant Michael Ochs, Staff Assistant Spencer Oliver, Consultant Erika B. Schlager, Staff Assistant Thomas Warner, Pinting Clerk (11) CONTENTS Page Summary Letter of Transmittal .................... V........................................V Reform and Human Rights: The Gorbachev Record ................................................. IX REFORMING FROM ABOVE ............................................................ 1 Democratization Soviet Style ............................................................ 3 Rebuilding the Soviet Economy ............................................................ 11 RESPECT FOR HUMAN RIGHTS ............................................................ 23 Liberties and the Law ............................................................ 25 Expressing National Identities .................................. .......................... 37 Professing Religious Beliefs ............................................................ 49 Freedom of Movement ............................................................ 57 THE FLOW OF INFORMATION AND IDEAS ............................................... 61 Media Policies ............................................................ 63 Cultural Policies ............................................................ 73 AFTERWORD........................................................................................................ 85 The Meaning of Gorbachev's Reforms: Yuri F. Orlov. * ~~~~~~~~~~~~~(111) LETTER OF TRANSMITTAL The Commission report, in the pages that follow, is based on the Commission's continuing, professional contacts with a wide range of experts on Soviet affairs in this country and abroad. It is a sober, factual survey of Mikhail Gorbachev's efforts during his first three years as General Secretary of the Soviet Communist Party to promote significant reforms in the politics, economy and society of his country. As an afterword to the Commission report, we publish a com- mentary by Dr. Yuri Orlov, who founded the first Soviet Helsinki Watch group in Moscow in May 1976, and who was imprisoned from March 1977 to October 1986 as punishment for his courageous efforts to monitor and encourage Soviet compliance with the Final Act of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe. His commentary - "The Meaning of Gorbachev's Reforms" - provides a critical analysis of the motives of perestroika and glasnost. While we do not necessarily concur with all of Dr. Orlov's obser- vations, he makes one point with which we completely agree: (T)he most constructive thing to do during this period of change in the Soviet Union is not, as some in the West think, simply to sit back and encouragingly ap- plaud Gorbachev's words and reforms. The applause needs to be combined with pressure on the Soviet leader to back their liberal words with more action and to expand their reforms in accordance with international human rights agreements they themselves have signed. This Commission report is designed to contribute to that consist- ent pressure, for in describing how much has changed or seems to be in the process of changing, it also documents how many funda- mental rights of Soviet citizens to freedom of expression, of belief, of movement and of national character remain restricted and un- protected. There has been much to applaud in the three years of Gorba- chev's rule, especially compared to the repressive actions of his predecessors. The release of many political prisoners from camps and psychiatric prison-hospitals, the rise in the numbers of Soviet citizens permitted to emigrate and to travel, the increasing candor of the official Soviet press and the increasing tolerance shown to unofficial groups and unorthodox points of view are all welcome first steps in the right direction. They are, however, no more than first steps. And as our report documents, they were taken slowly and could be retracted almost overnight. Until the rule of law establishes a decent balance be- tween the power of the Soviet state and the human dignity of indi- vidual Soviet citizens, the latter will always be at risk. (v) vi Risk-taking has seemed to be very much the Gorbachev style in internal and external affairs. It is also the departure from the past he has most fervently pressed his subjects - as workers, managers, bureaucrats and engaged citizens - to embrace. But millions of them have shown, largely by acts of omission, by their passivity and indifference, that they fear to follow where he seeks to lead. Gorbachev has taken risks in his foreign policy: in reversing long-standing positions on arms control and on the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan - issues the report does not address. At home he has taken the risk - and sometimes gotten ahead of his support at various levels of the party - of promoting a measure of competi- tion in elections to party and local government posts, in allocation of economic resources and in the conduct of civic discourse in the media and the world of culture. He sets an example that only the brave or the frustrated seem eager to emulate. Indeed, the mediocre performers, those threat- ened by competition in all walks of life, could constitute the largest group in society made uncomfortable by reform and likely to resist it. Workers, with reason, fear that their secure jobs will be casual- ties of his economic reforms. Managers fear failure in trying to im- plement new techniques. Bureaucrats and party officials fear loss of authority and perquisites. Editors, writers, artists and ordinary citizens fear that today's tolerance of freer expression will turn to- morrow, if Gorbachev fails, to penalties for those whose views and experiments win acclaim today. Soviets, as they long have, fear going too far, too fast. Veteran Izvestiya commentator Alexander Bovin said as much last Novem- ber and traced the roots of the psychosis to the total disregard for law of the still-vivid Stalinist past. "The most terrible thing Stalin succeeded in achieving was to frighten people. .. People were ter- rorized, and this feeling is still alive today," he wrote. "Only legal guarantees," he continued can establish "what we want - a consti- tutional state." His is an old refrain in his nation's history. It was heard in 1825 on the squares of St. Petersburg where the Decembrists confronted the supporters of a new autocrat. It was heard in the debates after that Czar's death in 1855 brought a reform monarch to the throne. And it was voiced by Russia's last articulate civil society in pre-rev- olution appeal after fruitless appeal to Nicholas II. If Mikhail Gorbachev cannot answer that cry to secure the liber- ty he says his people need to rebuild their society, their economy, their initiative and their self-confidence, he will be just another Russian reformer, remembered more for his proclaimed intentions than his achievements. Because we are certain that his innovations cannot take root without a foundation of assured justice, we have titled this report on the Gorbachev record, "Reform and Human Rights." The two must go together. After three years of Gorbachev's rule, however, that essential connection has yet to be made and main- tained. Western pressure can help to a degree in cementing respect for human rights to the progress of perestroika. Our Commission exists to promote that pressure and to assist in its wise and effective ap- vii plication, not just in dealings with the Soviet Union, but with all the Participating States of the 1975 Helsinki Accords. The following joint, bipartisan congressional report is the Com- mission's latest addition to the documentation it has long provided in support of international pressure for full implementation of the Accord's principles and its signatories' undertakings. We hope that you will agree that the result is an objective record of Mikhail Gor- bachev's first three years in power, the record, as Yuri Orlov says, of the "several positive changes" Gorbachev