General Secretary Gorbachev’s call for a special session of the Central Committee of the USSR Communist Party on the nationalities policy
”Gorbachev Urges Party to Update Communist Theory”
Mikhail S. Gorbachev, continuing his campaign for major changes in Soviet society, told Communism Party leaders today that key elements of Communist doctrine were outdated and calcified.
In a speech on ideology at the conclusion of a two-day Central Committee meeting, Mr. Gorbachev repeatedly defended the proposals for change in the Soviet Union that he has lumped under the general rubric of ”perestroika.”
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Among the specific proposals made by Mr. Gorbachev today was on hold a special Central Committee meeting to discuss Soviet policy toward the various nationalities within the Soviet Union, one of the touchiest problems in Soviet society today.
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Mr. Gorbachev, for instance, in his discussion of nationalities, called for the free development of the different national cultures within the Soviet Union while reminding the Central Committee that nationalism was unacceptable.
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”Soviet patriotism is the greatest of our values,” he said. ”Any manifestations of nationalism and chauvinism are incompatible with it.”
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Calling nationalities policy ”the most fundamental, vital issue of our society,” he proposed that the Central Committee devote a future full meeting to an examination of the problem.
Mr. Gorbachev also seemed ambivalent about how far to push for openness in the press and in historical writings.
[The New York Times, February 19, 1988]
The Karabagh File, Documents and Facts, 1918-1988, First Edition, Cambridge Toronto 1988, by the ZORYAN INSTITUTE, edited by: Gerard J. LIBARIDIAN, pp. 65-66.
