World

Instant printing.in Moscow

They're part of the neighbourhood in most Canadian cities but the this instant
printing shop on Moscow’s Gorky street is the first-ever for the country. A
Soviet-Canadian joint venture, the shop opened March 3 and is already doing a
brisk trade in photocopying, laser printing and binding on individual orders.

Yuri Boldyrev's upset
election in Leningrad

By ALLA BELYKOVA

LENINGRAD (APN) — Only nine of
the 44 candidates who ran in last month’s
election for Congress of People’s Deputies
of the USSR in Leningrad and Leningrad
region managed to win the more than 51 per
cent required. One of them was Yuri Bol-
dyrev, a 28 year-old engineer, youngest of
the contenders, who competed against a
very strong rival indeed — Anatoli Gera-
simov, first secretary of the Leningrad
Committee of the Communist Party.

The results of their race was a great sur-
prise for many: Boldyrev received 74.3 per
cent to Gerasimov’s 19.7 per cent. Who is
Yuri Boldyrev and why did the voters sup-
port his program so actively?

He’s an ordinary young man whose
father is an army officer and mother an
engineer. His background and the fact that
he’s not married, prompted his rival to des-
cribe him as “immature, without an under-
standing of life.”

It’s true there have been no sharp ups and
downs in Boldyrev’s life so far. A graduate
of an institute of electrical engineering, he
began work at the Central Research Insti-
tute of Electrical Engineering and Technol-
ogy where he has had a relatively uneventful
career.

But perestroika changed him into a polit-
ical campaigner and, in 1986, he was elected
secretary of his institute’s Komsomol
(Young Communist League) committee.
Promoting the ideals of perestroika and
glasnost became the pivot of all the activities
of the Komsomol group Boldyrev headed.
For example, the drafting of a worker-
management collective agreement and rela-
tions between party members and non-party
workers were no longer formal arrange-
ments, but a means of activating people and
making them feel they have a say in all
matters of production and social life.

Efforts were made to teach Boldyrev “his
place.” The institute’s Communist Party
bureau rejected his application for member-
ship on the grounds of “political immatur-
ity.’ He then made an unprecedented
move. He appealed directly to the work
collective, asking them to decide if he were
qualified to be a CPSU member and, under

public pressure, he was admitted.

In such battles Boldyrev was tempering
his character as a fighter. His work collec-
tive then elected him a member of their
council and of the Communist Party bureau
and. And despite his youth, it seemed natu-
ral that when the election was called, he
should be nominated as a candidate for the
Congress of People’s Deputies.

It should be said that both the electoral
platform and personal qualities of Boldyr-
ev’s rival were attractive. What is more,
Gerasimov had the advantage of greater
possibilities to implement his election prom-
ises. Traditionally, an engineer would have
little chance against the top officer of the
city’s Communist Party committee. For
many years, the position of candidates vir-
tually decided an election’s outcome in
advance; today the race is decided by the
views of the candidates regardless of age,
education or status.

“Political issues — decentralization, div-
ision of legislative and executive bodies (the
executive, he believes, should not be
allowed to make policy), sending of troops
to foreign countries only by legislative deci-
sion, revision of laws infringing on freedom
of assembly — are the cornerstones of my
election program,” Boldyrev says.

In the economic sphere he supports the
coexistence of various and equal forms of
activity. At the current stage, he explains,
we need self-financing in the republics and
regions, conversion of military to civilian
production, shared capital, and restraints
on exports of natural resources.

In the social sphere, Boldyrev urges end-
ing all privileges and perks connected with
positions; establishing new laws on pen-
sions and other state financed plans to allow
for inflation; and classifying child-rearing as
socially useful work. He also advocates
development of a comprehensive ecological
program following a country-wide debate.

During election meetings, he told his
constituents that no single: individual has
detailed command of every issue, but prom-
ised to seek qualified opinions on each as
they come up for decision before he votes
yes or no.

Leningraders obviously believed him.

Cuba, USSR pact
affirms countries’
‘socialist future’

By MAXINE ORRIS
Special to the Tribune

HAVANA — For the first time in 28
years of close political and economic co-
operation, Cuba and the Soviet Union
signed a treaty spelling out their social,
political and economic relations.

“Soviet-Cuban relations have been
permanent for 30 years, but these rela-
tions are not automatic and need discus-
sion. The tree has to grow. We begin
these negotiations on equal footing,
based on confidence, no matter how
great the territorial difference their is
between us,” Soviet officials told the
media here.

On Mikhail Gorbachev’s first visit to
Cuba and Latin America, the US.
government and media have asserted
that relations between the two leaders are
deteriorating due to their distinct inter-
pretation of Marxism-Leninism. This
claim was effectively proven false by a
$15-billion commercial trade and aid
deal for 1989.

Exhaustive discussions began imme-
diately on the arrival of the Soviet leader,
April 2. His 70-hour stay was spent
mainly meeting with Cuban leaders on
such issues as Third World debt, military
relations, perestroika and the Soviet elec-
tion results, regional conflicts and
Cuba’s new relations in Latin America,
including Fidel Castro’s recent visits to
Venezuela, Mexico and Ecuador.

The two socialist states then signed a
14-article, 25-year Treaty of Friendship
and Co-operation. Its preamble made
clear their ties are based on their “‘frater-
nal and indestructible friendship and
solidarity based on acommon ideology, _ country tackles its own in the way it sees
the doctrine of Marxism-Leninism, on best ....”
their internationalism and_ identical The 1l-person Soviet delegation
objectives, the construction of socialism visited several Cuban sites around
and communism.” Havana and were greeted by 500,000

The states, the treaty says are “‘deter- people who lined the streets as the caval-
mined to contribute to the solution ofthe | cade arrived from Jose Marti airport.
urgent problems confronting humanity, Over 700 media representatives from 36
particularly the need to eliminate countries — 300 from the U.S. and
inequality, economic and social back- Canada alone — covered the historic

ment, and the perils that threaten the
ecology.”

The agreement also reaffirms the=
rights of all peoples to self-determination,
independence and sovereignty, and
emphasizes the need to combine peace,
disarmament and development as Gor-

. bachev did in his address to the UN Gen-
eral Assembly.

In a 30-minute press conference fol-
lowing Gorbachev’s speech to the Cuban
National Assembly on April 5, both
leaders confirmed, that each country was
seeking its own solltions to its own
problems — both within socialism. Rep-
lying to journalists’ questions about per-
estroika in Cuba, Gorbachev said:
“Perestroika is everywhere. The whole
world is in constant change ....”

In his speech earlier, the Soviet leader
-paid tribute to the Cuban people’s long
struggle, telling their parliament: “The
freedom island has held out because it is
inhabited by a proud and courageous
people fully committed to struggle for
independence, for the right to live as they
choose.” He also reported on develop-
ments in the Soviet Union, frankly laying
out the need for radical change in the
USSR.

Gorbachev spoke of the urgent need
for the USSR to harness “the principle
force of our system, its human, humanis-
tic potential” to bring about the eco-
nomic and social reforms the party and
people have chosen. And, the Soviet
leader made clear: “We do not view our
approaches and solutions as universal
remedy. On the contrary,” he said,
“problems may be similar, but each

wardness resulting from underdevelop- _ visit.

GORBACHEV, CASTRO IN MOTORCADE ... reaffirming 30 years of close
relations.

Pacific Tribune, April 24, 1989 e 9