Transcription: Soviet reforms appear in parade
By David Remnick / The Washington Post
MOSCOW — This year’s Revolution Day parade will be remembered for what was missing. There were fewer weapons, fewer slogans and not a single portrait of Mikhail Gorbachev or anyone else in the Soviet leadership.
The massive military parade on Red Square still had its customary military display, with dozens of missiles, tanks and rocket launchers rumbling across the cobblestones, thousands of workers and farmers waving paper flowers and banners promising economic achievements.
But compared to the Brezhnev era, which featured endless displays of weaponry and the looming, painted faces of the ruling gerontocracy, this year’s parade showed signs of reform.
For the first time since the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in 1979, the ranking American diplomat attended Monday’s celebration of the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution. With Ambassador Jack Matlock in Washington, Charge d’Affaires John Joyce joined the crowds in the sub-freezing gloom. Matlock attended the last May Day parade on Red Square.
“We went because the Soviets have so far adhered to their Geneva peace accord obligation on Afghanistan,” one American diplomat said. “Even though they’ve suspended the withdrawal they have given no indication that they won’t make it out by the Feb. 15 deadline.”
Soviet television showed Revolution Day parades in cities around the country, but it did not show the friction at the rallies in Tallin, the capital of the Estonian Republic.
Estonians, who have been battling with Moscow for more economic and political independence raised banners reading, “Communism is the last stage of delirium.” In the past week, Estonians have been angrily protesting proposed constitutional changes that would make it impossible for members of the republic’s liberal Popular Front to run for the new national legislature, the Congress of People’s Deputies.
Russians in the republic, however, fear that Moscow will give in to many of the Estonian demands and will make life much more difficult for them in the future. At the rallies Monday, Russian nationalist groups hoisted placards protesting against the rule of the republic’s new leaders, party chief Vaino Valjas and ideology chief Indrek Toome. “We don’t trust the communist Party of Estonia,” one banner said.
In the annual game of Kremlinology, in which analysts try to plumb the secrets of the Soviet leadership by noting the order in which they ascend the Lenin Mausoleum to watch the parade, there were no surprises. As head of the Communist Party and, since October, president, Gorbachev came first.
