This special supplement is inserted by the USSR Embassy Press Office, Ottawa, Ontario.

ur country is
going through
profound
revolutionary
reforms of
historic
significance,
initiated and
organized by the
Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
The April 1985 Plenary Meeting of the
Central Committee and the 27th
Congress set the Party’s course towards
acceleration of social and economic
development, towards all-round
renovation of Soviet society, towards
Taising socialism to a qualitatively new
level.

This innovative strategy was
deepened and concretized at the
January and June 1987 Plenary
Meetings of the Central Committee,
during celebrations of the 70th
Anniversary of the October Revolution,
and at the February Plenary Meeting
this year. This laid down foundations
for the theory and scientific policy of
the restructuring of every aspect of
society’s life.

The purpose of restructuring or
Perestroika is fully to reveal the
humanitarian nature and constructive
Vigour of socialism. Attainment of this
objective is inseparable from
Promotion of democracy and openness,
from self-management of the people,
Tadical economic reform, moral
cleansing of society, and from
discovery of the creative potential
inherent in the free and all-round
development of the person.

What are the first results of
Perestroika? What needs to be done to
remove the obstacles, to give a new and
Powerful impulse to the revolutionary
Process of renewal, to make it
ireversible? The answers to these
questions which keenly concerns
Communists and all Soviet people
must be given by the 19th All-Union
Party Conference, which opens in
Moscow on June 28, 1988.

The agenda of the Conference is:

1) Progress in implementing the
decisions of the 27th CPSU Congress,
the main results of the first half of the
Twelfth Economic Plan period and the
tasks of the Party organizations in
deepening the process of perestroika;

2) Measures to further democratize

What are
the first
results?
What needs
doing now?

(Clockwise from top) Chef at a co-op restaurant in Georgia; Viadimir Kobzev, a machine-operator at the Krasny Proletary
works in Moscow which has introduced team production; A supermarket in a residential area of Tallinn.

The issues being submitted for the
consideration of the Conference are of
vital significance for the Party and the
country. We must give a realistic
assessment of what has been done,
approach achievement from positions
of serious critical and self-critical
analysis, see how the decisions we
adopted are being carried out, focus on
priority issues, sum up positive
experience and define the prospects for
our advance.

These theses of the CPSU Central
Committee are being offered as a
platform for discussion.

erestroika has
produced a
fundamentally
new ideological
and political
situation in
society. It has
become a reality
and is gaining in
strength, spreading in width and depth
and extending to every stratum and
sphere of life of society. The February

Committee described the ideological
essence of the ongoing processes as a
revolution in mentality, as ideological
renovation. A salient feature of our
time is the appearance of a real
pluralism of opinions, open
comparison of ideas and interests.
Thanks to this, the Soviet people are
now in a position more fully to exploit
their intellectual and moral capacities
and to join more vigorously in public
life.

The platform of perestroika is
politically consolidating the working
class, the farmers, the intellectuals, all
social forces. The Soviet people, by
their work and social activity, are
giving increasingly effective support to
the revolutionary changes in the
country. This is today’s main trend in
social development, the most important
result of perestroika’s first stage.

At the same time, perestroika is a
conflicting process, proceeding as it
does through difficulties and the
struggle between the old and the new.
Survivals of the conservative and
bureaucratic mentality have proved
especially tenacious. Adherents of
dogmatic concepts of socialism are
slow to yield. Attempts are being made
to preserve the old, high-handed

other spheres of life.

Without dealing with these negative
phenomena, it is impossible to advance
further and accomplish the major tasks
of perestroika. We must raise the
theoretical level of ideological and
political work and deepen the creative
discussions on the burning issues of
socialism. While backing diversity of
views, the CPSU Central Committee
stresses that discussions can be fertile
only if they are carried out on the basis
and in the name of socialism. They
must not lead to political
confrontation, to disunity of social
forces, because that would complicate
the solution of problems vital for our
entire society.

This also applies to many sensitive
issues of history, interest in which has
unusually grown of late. The Party will
consistently conduct its policy of
openness and glasnost, of free
discussion of problems of our past and
present, for only such a policy
promotes moral improvement of Soviet
society and its cleansing of everything
that is alien to its humane nature.

We are by no means indifferent not
only to goals and values of socialism,
but also to means of attaining them, to
the human price that has to be paid for
them. It is our Party and civic duty to

the life of Party and society. 1988 Plenary Meeting of the Central methods of running the economy and

Pacific Tribune, June 22, 1988 « 7