A popular displeasure with the methods used to disgrace and displace former Moscow party boss Boris Yeltsin has prompted the city`s informal citizens` action groups to organize demonstrations and circulate petitions in his defense.
However, authorities already have acted to squelch any signs of grass-roots support for Yeltsin, denying a formal application to hold a rally in central Moscow Monday that would have urged full disclosure of facts in the case. In addition, a weekend meeting of several informal political discussion clubs to organize public praise for Yeltsin was broken up by the militia, according to witnesses.
The youthful political activists obeyed the official word in both instances. The rally was not held Monday, and those attending the
organizational meeting Sunday left the factory auditorium immediately upon request by the militia.
The new-style activists, who disdain the label ”dissident,” said their actions were proof they are working within party dictates and Soviet law to implement democratic reforms in the Soviet Union.
Informal political action groups are a new phenomenon, spawned by a call from Mikhail Gorbachev, the Kremlin chief, for ”democratization” and
”socialist pluralism” as part of a program to restructure Soviet social and economic life.
But the Soviet leadership could not have anticipated that club members would actively choose sides in the factional struggle underway in the Kremlin over the pace of reform.
Yeltsin, known as the most outspoken advocate of the program of ”radical reform” first espoused by Gorbachev, was dumped from his Moscow post last Wednesday for ”gross political errors.”
Although he cannot be removed from his position as a candidate
(nonvoting) member of the ruling Politburo until the next session of the Communist Party Central Committee, press reports Monday indicated that Yeltsin is as good as gone from that job as well.
His name was missing from an obituary for Lithuanian party leader Pyatras Grishkyavicius appearing in the Communist Party daily Pravda. The obituary was signed by all other full and candidate members of the Politburo.
That omission also fueled rumors circulating since last week that Yeltsin was suffering from heart problems.
Those rumors have not deterred his supporters in Moscow`s political activist circles, who viewed the decision to remove Yeltsin as a defeat for advocates of reform and modernization.
Lev Sigal, a member of the club Perestroika, which takes its name from Gorbachev`s program of social and economic restructuring, said 40 members of informal political action committees met in Moscow Sunday to discuss ways of supporting Yeltsin.
Sigal said the meeting had lasted about 90 minutes when militia officers entered the hall and ordered participants to leave because they had no permit to meet.
The session disbanded without incident.
Before the meeting was broken up, though, the activists were told their application to hold a rally Monday urging full glasnost, or openness, regarding Yeltsin`s sacking had been denied.
Under municipal regulations passed last summer, no demonstrations may be held in the city without official approval. Sigal said the activists would reapply for permission.
During the meeting, club members also spoke of incidents last week when activists tried to gather signatures in defense of Yeltsin and of other reforms advocated by the groups.
Those in attendance voted to collect money to pay the 50-ruble fines
(about $80) leveled against each of the six activists taken in by militia for disturbing the peace.
”We were not breaking the law, and we are not going to break the law,”
Sigal said. ”Our position only backs the perestroika of Gorbachev. We are not fighting the authorities, but the authorities are treating us like dangerous enemies of the state.”
The work of the informal political action clubs previously received the authorities` tacit endorsement.
Several youth groups have been complimented by the Soviet press for their environmental, social and political concerns. The official Novosti press agency even organized a seminar on the movement for foreign correspondents in Moscow.
