How's he doin'?
Not bad -- but . . . According to a TIME poll of more than 1,000 Moscow residents, Mikhail Gorbachev's approval rating stands at 79%. Buoyed by the success of his U.S. visit, Gorbachev enjoyed a popularity rating of 92% in December. By March, those who expressed doubts climbed from 5% to about 12%, reflecting the reality of shortages and dissatisfaction with the progress of perestroika.
Seventy-one percent agree that Gorbachev's reform program is encountering difficulties, and 20% think it has been braked, but only 1 out of 10 believes that perestroika is a deviation from Marxism-Leninism. Though...