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Even so, there were indications that Gorbachev and Yeltsin were groping toward some kind of accommodation. Gorbachev's hold on public confidence seems to erode almost daily. According to a recent poll, his popularity rating has slid in the past 10 months from 52% to 21% -- 3 points below Richard Nixon's rating in the U.S. just before he resigned the presidency. Last week he was openly hooted during a speech to army officers, and a group of 22 intellectuals called on him to either act decisively or resign. But if Gorbachev can no longer govern effectively without a boost from the popular leader of the Russian republic, Yeltsin is equally incapable of putting his radical economic-reform program into effect without the cooperation of the central government.
None of which guarantees that they can in fact come to an agreement. At the moment, the main stumbling block is Prime Minister Nikolai Ryzhkov. Yeltsin regards him as a hopeless foot dragger on reform and demands that he resign. But Gorbachev has stubbornly defended Ryzhkov, whose influence over the vast state bureaucracy makes sacking him a risk. On Saturday Ryzhkov attacked Yeltsin for pursuing a "destructive policy" but hinted that calls for his own resignation have become so frequent that the issue "requires a decision."
Some Washington analysts question whether the tide of economic and political disintegration has gone too far for even Gorbachev and Yeltsin working together to reverse. "The current is moving faster than the boat," says a Sovietologist, "which means they can't steer anymore." As if to illustrate the point, when Ryzhkov's government issued a decree decontrolling prices of so-called luxury goods (not only jewelry and furs but also furniture and car parts), Yeltsin's Russian government, furious at not having been consulted, immediately suspended it.
Gorbachev's great hope for overcoming the breakaway tendency of the republics is the proposed new treaty of union. The current draft, as described by officials who are familiar with it, has some highly attractive features. It declares the new Soviet Union to be a "voluntary" association of sovereign republics to create "a state governed by law, which would serve as a guarantee against any tendency to authoritarianism and tyranny." The republics can choose any form of government they like as long as they respect some basic human rights, including "use of native languages, unhindered access to information, freedom of religion." It even grants the republics "the free choice of forms of property and economic management."
Gorbachev told parliament Saturday that his proposed shake-up was necessary to restore political and economic stability until a complete restructuring of government is institutionalized by the new union treaty. In fact, some of the changes that Gorbachev called for on Saturday -- the creation of a vice presidency and the enhanced Federation Council -- mirror those outlined in the draft treaty. The document would also create a Cabinet of Ministers led by a Chairman and including the heads of government (rather than the heads of state) of the republics. Besides the expected control over the military, foreign policy and the like, the treaty gives the union the right to guide financial, credit and money policies and to work out an economic and social- development strategy and a budget.