Soviet support for the US-led attack on Iraq has been literally paid for. The Gulf states led by Saudi Arabia have given the Soviet Union $4 billion in 'loans'. It has also been paid for by the obvious' understanding' that the West will not protest too much against the military crackdown in the Baltic republics which was deliberately timed to coincide with the assault on Iraq.
Just like the invasions of Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968 when Suez and Vietnam respectively provided the cover', western aggression in the third world has again given the Soviet Union's rulers a golden opwithin portunity for repression in their own sphere of influence.
costs.
The build-up towards the use of military force against the national-democratic movements has been apparent for months. It can have taken nobody by surprise. By early January it was simply a question of when and how, and not whether, the troops would go in.
For several months Gorbachev had been making an increasingly desperate defence of the unitary state against nationalist forces his number one priority: and building an alliance within the ruling circles based on this.
The more reformminded elements were pushed to the side as he turned decisively towards I comes out.
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Wing months. tilities the military establishment, foreign policy the KGB and the Communist party - the forces the ruling bureaucracy committed to defending the union at all The change of leadership in the interior ministry (with the liberal Vadim Bakatin sacked as minister and replaced with conservative Boris Pugo), the placing of the official mass media back in conservative hands and the enormous extension of Gorbachev's presidential powers completed the preparations.
While it is no doubt the case that the local party to the war with Iraq. bosses, particularly in Latvia, have acted somewhat autonomously in using the to opportunity of the crackdown to mount a bid for power against the elected governments of the republics, the initial decision to use force was made in Moscow - by the i fortnightly paper. Any subscriptions will be transferred to the new paper when it I side Europe (airmail) Multi reader institutions €20 inalnd, £35 overseas. , Please return to Socialist Outlook, PO Box 1109, London N4 2UU general command and by new-found central role the president - and fol- domestically. lowed logically from the The political turn to the preparations of the preced- right by the Soviet leadership holds out no hope The opening of hos- either for the Arab people Iraq or the western anti-war provided a welcome oppor- movements. tunity: while the world's at- The peoples of the Soviet tention was diverted, the crackdown could proceed.
It is very unlikely that the return to the old Stalinist methods in the Baltic will lead to a reversal of the orientation developed under Gorbachev. There have been some criticisms of the Soviet Union's stance on the Gulf from figures within the military establishment - but there are no signs of a change of line.
The appointment of liberal career diplomat Alexander Bessmertnykh as foreign minister in place of Eduard Shevardnadze Union have come out onto the streets in their hundreds of thousands in recent days to call a halt to Stalinist barbarism. Our best allies in the struggle to stop war in the Gulf are not the conservatives in the Soviet estabSUP STUP COMMITTEE TO STOP WAR IN THE GULF lishment but the mass movements for democracy, in the oppressed republics and in the USSR as a whole. Their fight deserves the whole-hearted solidarity of the anti-war movement in the west.
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