For American legislators, going home during a recess to get an earful from their constituents is routine. For delegates to the Supreme Soviet, it is brand new, and shocking enough to help produce a near rebellion against President Mikhail Gorbachev. "I've been in my constituency, and there will be famine there soon, comrades, famine, a real famine!" exclaimed Valentina Gudilina, a delegate from the Moscow region, to her colleagues when they reconvened Wednesday after a 10-day break. Delegates also complained that they had heard nothing from Gorbachev about a five-hour meeting he had held a few days earlier with Russian republic leader Boris Yeltsin, although Yeltsin had told his own parliament that they had agreed in principle to form a new "coalition" government. The upshot: the parliamentarians refused even to debate any bills until Gorbachev gave a State of the Soviet Union report on the economic crisis and just what he and Yeltsin were up to.
Gorbachev complied -- sort of. On Friday he delivered a finger-wagging, lectern-thumping address that was long on promises, short on specifics. Yes, Gorbachev said, he planned "to get rid of outdated, clearly useless structures" in the government and to bring into it "politicians and experts who are more popular and enjoy the widest support." That sounded like a reference to Yeltsin, but Gorbachev coyly avoided giving any names and offered few details of what changes he really had in mind.
But after hearing successive speakers, including Yeltsin, agitate for resolute action, Gorbachev returned to the podium Saturday morning. In a brusque 15-minute speech, he proposed "an urgent, fundamental reorganization of executive power in the center by subordinating it to the President." Gorbachev called for vesting the Federation Council, an advisory body made up of republican heads of state, with broad powers to coordinate relations between the Kremlin and the republics. Citing a nationwide disintegration of law-and-order, he suggested creating both a Presidential Security Council to oversee law enforcement and an executive task force to combat organized crime.
But Gorbachev skirted many other issues. He called for "urgent measures" to end the worsening food shortages, but offered no new ideas. In his State of the Union address, Gorbachev merely defended the watered-down reform package that was passed in October and has since been not only derided but largely ignored. He implored the republics to stop reversing his economic decrees; in fact, he added, the Supreme Soviet should enact a moratorium on all independence-oriented legislation. But the idea that any such ban would be obeyed is so farfetched as to call into question whether Gorbachev understands how far the republics have broken away from the Kremlin.
Gorbachev left legislators to speculate whether Yeltsin's influence in the new executive branch would be limited to his seat on the enhanced Federation Council or would include some greater form of power sharing. On Friday Yeltsin displayed little tolerance for waiting games. He followed Gorbachev to the podium and warned that the President "must stop making mistakes and clinging to the old system . . . the economic and political crisis in the country has come to a head, the people's patience is coming to an end, and an explosion could occur at any time."