Where Are the Reformers?

They may be in the streets, but they're having trouble organizing an effective political opposition to Gorbachev's harder line

When former Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze warned the world against dictatorship in the Soviet Union, he had some harsh words as well for democrats in his country. "You have dispersed," he complained. "Reformers have slunk into the bushes." So it seemed until last week, when people by the tens of thousands reappeared on the streets of Moscow, Leningrad and other cities to protest military intervention in the Baltics. No event since the advent of perestroika has so polarized Soviet society as the bloodshed in Vilnius. It has widened the chasm between reformers and reactionaries, leaving almost no support for the centrist...

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