Sed) World CPSU moving to new phase of changé MOSCOW — The past few weeks have been an almost bewildering blur of political activity in this country, and the dust has far from settled. Yet it is already clear that some fundamental changes, previously mostly words, are actually taking shape. I want to mention two that carry immense, far-reaching consequences. Each is emblematic of a different pole of the Soviet course of democratization, coming simultaneously from the top and from the bottom. From the first angle, we have seen sudden and major changes in the structure and composition of the leadership of the Com- munist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU). Also, significant moves were made in the USSR’s parliament, the Supreme Soviet, of which the most momentous was the eleva- tion of Mikhail Gorbachev to the country’s leading state position. Now, it is not particularly novel for a Soviet party leader to become head of state. There is a sense in which Gorbachev’s elec- tion as chairman of the presidium of the Supreme Soviet — a post once also held by Brezhnev — may be viewed as the last act of a passing era. What is qualitatively new is Gorbachev’s clearly expressed aim. It is not, as in the past, to anoint the party’s actual power with a gloss of state positions, but rather to transfer that very power into what was hitherto a largely ceremonial arena, the popular, representative Soviet bodies. A series of constitutional amendments will lead, next spring, to the election of a 2,250-member annual assembly called the Congress of People’s Deputies. It will have three parts, reflecting the national composi- tion of the USSR, the distribution of popu- lation, and the grassroots, mass and public organizations. The Congress will elect from among its deputies some 450 who will con- stitute the Soviet Union’s first permanently sitting parliament. A good deal of confusion has been expressed over this, and many Soviets have wondered out loud how the CPSU leader taking over the top state job squares with his stated goal of separating party and state. Gorbachev has responded several times, . and his key points boil down to this: the CPSU is not planning to abolish itself as the leading force of Soviet society, but to trans- form the nature of that role. Party leaders will henceforth be able to exercise power only if they pass the “democratic test” of popular election, and will be required to carry out their activities under the open scrutiny and control of the representative bodies. Gorbachev has made it clear that all party leaders, at every level, must make the move from the board room to the open political arena. The very focus of power is set to shift from the bureaucracy to the Soviets, and party leaders have the choice of either being the active agents of this shift or ‘falling by the wayside. From the opposite direction, the signifi- cant news is of the formation in two, and soon all three, Soviet Baltic republics of a mass popular movement to support peres- troika, the People’s Front. In Estonia and Latvia the People’s Front has been born out of pent-up dissatisfac- tions with previous economic, political and national policies and profound historical grievances, as well as a genuine enthusiasm for the potential offered by perestroika. The Front encompasses a truly broad spectrum of the population in both republics, includ- ing party and non-party members. It pres- i GORBACHEV | i i”, digiata/ Ae -& ADDRESSING SUPREME SOVIET ... his election as chair, coupled with constitu- tional changes, points to new powers for state body. ents an example of grassroots mobilization that is sure to be followed in many other parts of the USSR over the months to come. The Front in both Baltic republics has attacked a variety of issues, prominently environmental problems and questions about economic disparity. National and his- torical injustices are probably the major underlying issues for them at this point. Both have put forward demands for national economic and political sovereignty which, not too long ago, might have been regarded as seditious in Moscow. ah Yet the founding congresses of the Fro! in both Estonia and Latvia earlier ¥ month have been received well by the Sov” media, and both were addressed by repub! can party leaders who welcomed them w the difficult struggle to reconstruct soclé and urged them to play a part in finditt new, democratic solutions for old problem In his inaugural speech as president of USSR, Gorbachev too greeted the upsute in grassroots politics, noting that “the 1 of the Soviets consists in tapping the m mum possibilities of popular initiative.” ——| pf iw One of the Caribbean’s most accomp- lished novelists, Guyana’s Jan Carew, has rapped the celebrations already begun in the U.S., Canada and elsewhere to mark the 500th anniversary of Christopher Columbus’ arrival in the Americas. Carew, in Barbados to attend the 10th annual Conference of the U.S. academic outfit Caribbean Studies, said a “horrible chapter” began in the history of the Amer- icas after the landings in the region of the Spanish explorers. “T would actually say that when indi- genous Indians discovered Columbus and his men on their beaches back in August, 1492, there began a new era to the detri- ment of the peoples of the Americas,” the noted Guyanese writer said in an interview with the Tribune. Carew, who emigrated to England from what was then British Guiana in 1942, to be followed by most of those who would later become the Anglophone Caribbean’s writing community in exile, argued that in the 40 years after Columbus and his men stepped ashore in the islands, some 12 million people disappeared. “As one Cuban scholar observed, it was one of the most horrendous acts of ethni- cide in recorded history. Columbus was directly responsible for setting this in motion,” he charged. Carew, who had been invited by col- league Ivan Van Sertima to address a U.S. Congressional Committee on the celebra- tions, added that the killing of the Indians No joy in Caribbean for Columbus anniversary Norman Faria was “‘a terrible loss” to the human race. “Tt was a destruction of their culture and techniques of living. Indeed, one may argue that after Columbus we (here in the Caribbean) are no better agriculturists than our Indian forefathers,” he said. The award-winning author, who lives in Mexico after retiring from teaching at U.S. universities for the last 20 years, also pointed out that there was significant evi- dence of incursions from other parts of Europe and Africa long before Columbus set off with his three wooden craft back in 1492. He was asked about the view which holds that because the Central American . Indian civilizations were exceptional — that Indian technology was in general “primitive” — it was beneficial in the long run for Columbus to introduce a more advanced technology to the “new” world. “That’s nonsense,” he replied. “All that the Europeans had were better weapons. Mexico City was in fact the finest city in the world at the time. It made the cities of FROM THE CARIBBEAN Spain look primitive. The Spaniards had been fighting the Moors for over 500 years so they had excellent soldiers. They were good, efficient killers. “Tt is true we can’t all go back to being Indians, but I don’t think we have any- thing to celebrate really about Columbus coming to the Americas some 500 years ago,” said Carew, who has just released a scholarly work on Columbus, entitled Fulcrums of Change: Columbus and the Origins of Racism in the Americas. The 67-year-old author has also written novels including Black Midas and the Wild Coast, in addition to a history of Grenada, The Hour Will Strike Again. Is he still writing? “Yes, I have several works in progress. I find I have more time to write now that I am not teaching,” he said. Carew lives in the Mexican artistic community of Tlaquepaque with his Chicago-born wife Joy, a doctor of lingu- istics, and their six-year-old daughter, Shantola. His daughter by another mar- riage, Lisa de Teran, is one of the most widely read novelists in England where she of the People’s Revolutionary Govern was born and raised. Carew is also of the view that, although there is still a significant amount of litera- ture being turned out by Caribbean wri ters, there needs to be a centre for them. “What it lacks now is a sort of cohesivé centre. In my early days in London wé gathered around the BBC which had broadcast some of our stories. It was 4 focal point. We had a cross-fertilization of ideas from the different islands. What we lack now is that focal centre. The Univet- sity of the West Indies is a regional.centré, but what you have there is more critics than writers,” he observed. What about one of his early works, Moscow Is Not My Mecca, which appeats to be critical of the socialist countries? Carew, who considers himself part of the Caribbean left, says that wasn’t a critique but was an assimilation of his own expe riences and those of his cousin. Both stu- died in Prague and Moscow as youths. “Now that they have glasnost in thé Soviet Union, what they are now writing about their own society makes my writing$ of the time pale in comparison. It is true that there were some elements in the Soviet Union which were not too happy with the book. Now I have very friendly relations with the Writer’s Union theré once more. I go there quite often,” he said. Carew, a supporter from the beginning ment of the late Maurice Bishop, says that his book on Grenada has sold well. 8 - Pacific Tribune, October 24, 1988