An unusual government-sponsored press conference Thursday demonstrated the importance of the independent political groups now rising to challenge Communist Party control, and it also presented a new challenge to the movement`s young leadership.
What was said turned out to be less important that where it was said, and how.
No new information emerged from the 90-minute briefing by a half-dozen officers of informal political action associations that have begun meeting in Moscow during the past year. However, the session was sponsored by the state- controlled Novosti press agency, which opened a hall in its headquarters for the invitation-only gathering with foreign correspondents.
Members of the unofficial groups said they were pleased with the tacit endorsement, which to them implied that their platform and activities are in keeping with the call for greater democracy by Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev.
Gorbachev, as part of his plan for perestroika, or restructuring, has advocated wider debate of public policy through a still-undefined program of
”socialist pluralism.”
But during the formal press conference, the young political activists were far more restrained in expressing their views than during past meetings with correspondents in the relative privacy of a street corner, subway platform or city park.
To Western Kremlin-watchers, Thursday`s development pointed to the ease with which the informal groups may be co-opted and controlled when brought into the fold of official sponsorship.
The advent of alternative political action clubs operating openly in the USSR comes more than 50 years after officially sanctioned competition with Communist Party control was banned.
Diplomatic specialists point to the new clubs operating in Moscow, Leningrad and a dozen other cities as one of the most exciting domestic political developments of Gorbachev`s rule-and a major test of his policies of perestroika and glasnost (openness).
The activists who spoke Thursday were sponsors of a congress of independent, left-wing reformers held in Moscow Aug. 20-23. Their precedent-setting meeting brought together 300 representatives of 53 political action clubs in 12 Soviet cities. Platforms of the various groups ranged over such issues as ecology, culture, historical preservation and city services.
The groups arrived with factional differences, and they adjourned with factional differences. Several motions were adopted, though, including a call for a monument to be built to victims of repression under dictator Josef Stalin.
More importantly, the congress passed a resolution demanding free access for its membership to run against Communist Party and other officially slated candidates for election to city councils.
Although the free-wheeling debate of the four-day congress was a landmark for the new openness pervading Soviet society, all who participated were required to present identification documents at the door and sign an attendance sheet that was handed over to authorities, witnesses said.
Grigory Pelman, president of the Club for Socialist Initiative, said Thursday that the informal groups share the goal of ”codification of the principle of socialist pluralism.”
Taking Gorbachev at his word in calling for greater democratic participation, the clubs are working ”to involve the broadest part of the society in the nation`s drive for renovation,” he said.
Pelman conceded that as the groups expand membership and field slates of candidates, ”there is a tendency for such public organizations to call themselves (political) parties.”
Although open factionalism existed within the Communist Party into Stalin`s time, the party and the Soviet government have exerted a near-monopoly of control over all aspects of life since the 1917 Russian Revolution.
Andrei Loskutov of Novosti`s Department for Youth Affairs said the press agency is a leader in ”explaining the view of both official and unofficial groups operating in the USSR.”
