(2 of 4)
Finally, there was the argument that it was part of Gorbachev's game plan to maintain two competing power structures, the party and the state; to remain in charge of both; and to manipulate the creative tension between them. As General Secretary of the party, Gorbachev was at the apex of the most entrenched and powerful apparatus in Soviet life. He could goad the traditionalists beneath him, promote the "new thinkers," purge the retrogrades, and keep an eye out for obstructionism, sabotage, insurgency. Meanwhile, as Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, he was able to spearhead the loyal opposition, identify himself publicly with the forces of change, wield the gavel so as to keep all that rambunctious energy more or less under control, and stake out a position between the extremists on all sides, thus reinforcing at home and abroad his image as the centrist alternative to the crazies -- in short, the indispensable man.
So it seemed to be by the acrobat's own choice that the high wire on which he did his death-defying act was stretched between two pillars, the party and the state.
Until recently, all that made perfect sense. No doubt it made sense to Gorbachev as well. But he moves through history the way his security detail would have him move through terrain where assassins are known to lurk. Surprise is one of his bodyguards. He avoids being ambushed by constantly changing his route. He makes a virtue out of inconsistency, raising it to a political art form. Part of his genius is to make what was unthinkable yesterday seem sensible today and inevitable tomorrow. He seems to relish crossing the red lines that his own associates and foreign experts have drawn to define what he dares not do.
In that sense, last week's masterstroke -- ramming through the Central Committee an agreement to surrender its own supremacy -- was vintage Gorbachev. It may turn out to be the single most important turning point both in the transformation of the Soviet Union and in the evolution of Gorbachev himself. And while all this was happening, where was George? This time President Bush seemed to be not even a spectator on the sidelines of the real world. Instead he was playing war games and preaching prudence in California. Gorbachev's acceptance Friday of deep cuts in his armed forces made Bush's initial combination of bellicosity and caution seem all the more weird.
From the earliest days of Bolshevism under Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, the / Communist Party of the Soviet Union has insisted on a guiding role in -- and over -- society, state, culture and, most important, the life of the individual. The party has called itself the "dictatorship of the proletariat" and the "vanguard of the toilers." It has operated on the principle of "democratic centralism," a brazen contradiction in terms. Everyone knew which words in the Newspeak were camouflage and which meant what they said. The party was boss, and there was no other boss.
Now along comes the party's own boss to imply that Communists must eventually contend for the allegiance of citizens and influence on society with all manner of long-extinct or transplanted species of opponents: social and constitutional and perhaps even Christian democrats, Solidarity-like trade unionists, a peasant party of some kind and -- who knows? -- maybe monarchists and religious fundamentalists.