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What about those other reasons, so persuasive sounding a short time ago, why Gorbachev would not do what he has now done? What about the party as the glue that keeps the empire together? An adviser to Gorbachev says the back-to-back crises in the Baltics and the Caucasus were a disabusing revelation for him. He saw Lithuanian Communists declare their independence from the central party. The Lithuanian party was playing a leading role all right; it was leading the way to secession. And then, at the height of the civil war in Azerbaijan, angry citizens of Baku tore up and burned their party cards in protest against Moscow's use of armed force to reassert control.
Some glue! In both cases party membership in the provinces was more like plastic explosive.
What about Gorbachev's own party card and what it means to him? For some time there has been reason to wonder whether, in the 3 o'clock in the morning of his soul, Mikhail Sergeyevich really is a Communist, or at least, in the Soviet sense, a "good" Communist. Certainly many in his audience at the Kremlin were worrying about that last week. Glasnost is an unabashedly antimonopolistic, antitotalitarian, therefore anti-Communist notion. Calling for a "revolution of the mind" before his meeting with the Pope in December, Gorbachev said, "We no longer think that we are the best and are always right, that those who disagree with us are our enemies." A multiparty democracy would be the logical extension of these sentiments.
Finally, Gorbachev has a tactical motive for forcing the party into the marketplace of political ideas. Where his own personal power is concerned, he is interested not in sharing but in consolidation. Now that he has decided the party is part of the problem and cannot be part of the solution to the country's economic ills, it makes sense for him to shift his authority toward the new presidency. If Gorbachev is going to preside over the diminishment and perhaps the eventual dismantlement of the party, it stands to reason he would want to give up the general secretaryship and move all his books, files and telephones into his other office at Supreme Soviet headquarters. It will be interesting to see if he brings along his portrait of Lenin.