Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, February 27, 1991 TAG: 9102270505
SECTION: NATL/INTL PAGE: A-2 EDITION: EVENING
SOURCE:
DATELINE: MOSCOW LENGTH: Short
In distancing himself from the forces of radical reform in favor of Communist Party traditionalists, Gorbachev set the tone before a March 17 national referendum on holding the Soviet Union together. The radical reformers have said they will try to use the vote as a referendum on Gorbachev's six years in power.
In his speech Tuesday night, Gorbachev singled out his main political rival, Russian Federation President Boris Yeltsin.
The Russian leader last week accused the Soviet president of abandoning perestroika, his program of social and political reform, for personal power. Yeltsin demanded Gorbachev's resignation.
"The democrats are striving for power," Gorbachev said in his speech, referring to Yeltsin and other reformers. The Soviet leader was speaking to intellectuals in the Byelorussian republic capital of Minsk on his first domestic trip outside Moscow in six months.
"Since their initial plan for a lightning capture of power by legal means through the Congress and Supreme Soviet [legislative bodies] did not work, they decided to use what some analysts define today as neo-Bolshevist tactics," Gorbachev said.
"You know what I mean. It's the transition of the struggle to the streets: organizing demonstrations, rallies, strikes and hunger strikes."
- Associated Press
by CNB