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Gorbachev singled out an unscientific poll rating the popularity of leading Supreme Soviet Deputies that had appeared two weeks ago in Argumenty i Fakty. The four top scorers, based on 15,000 pieces of reader mail, were physicist Andrei Sakharov, economist Gavril Popov, Yeltsin and historian Yuri Afanasyev (no kin to Victor) -- every one a member of the Interregional Group A&F, which was founded by Starkov in 1978. It has grown to the astonishing circulation of 26 million, specializes in service features and has published other reader polls. It has thrived on controversy in the past, publishing glasnost-enlightened statistics on the number of Stalin's victims and the country's budget deficit, as well as admiring profiles of Western millionaires. But a poll that gave top ratings to Gorbachev's leading critics clearly had tested, and broken, glasnost's boundaries. It was hardly the type / of news Gorbachev and other leaders wanted to read at a time when support for the party was visibly eroding and Establishment candidates faced even more serious challenges in local elections, scheduled to be held in some republics beginning in December.
Gorbachev may also have been displeased by a pair of letters, pro and con, about his own performance as Chairman of the Supreme Soviet. "Many thanks to M.S. Gorbachev for his self-control, his modesty, his culture, his ability to listen, to restrain and persuade several undisciplined Deputies," went one missive. But another writer castigated Gorbachev for "the way he forces his opinion on Deputies, his commentaries on many speeches, the elections without alternative candidates, the pressure shown during voting . . ."
Last week Starkov was summoned to the Central Committee office of Vadim Medvedev, the party's chief ideologist, and urged to resign. Normally such an invitation, which unquestionably reflects the wishes of Gorbachev, would be an irrefusable offer. But Starkov so far remains in his job. "Everything here is normal," he said late last week. "I put my signature on this week's edition, and I plan to sign the next one too. Mistakes sometimes happen." Starkov retains the support of his staff, some of whom have threatened to go out on strike, while worried readers have been pestering phone-in television shows, inquiring about the fate of the editor.
Gorbachev may have targeted Starkov as a sop to conservatives, then moved against his real target: Afanasyev. Said Vitali Korotich, editor in chief of the liberal weekly Ogonyok: "Gorbachev is an experienced politician who does things in combinations." Another element in this combination may be a new press law under consideration by the Supreme Soviet. The measure, which has been welcomed by liberals, purports to abolish censorship and provides for creation of independent publications with none of the organizational sponsorship now required.
But other Soviet journalists did not exclude the possibility that the campaign had been mounted against two men who had something else in common: they dared to print something that displeased Gorbachev.