The Union: A Long, Mighty Struggle

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When a group of intellectuals and artists were sitting around Moscow debating this question, one of them asked what it would take for the hard- liners to reverse glasnost. "All they'd have to do is fire about six editors," someone replied. "I think one would do it," said another. But even though such a clampdown could occur, it could not erase the ideas or the taste for open discussion that has been liberated. Says Sergei Zalygin, editor of the crusading literary monthly Novy Mir: "How it will end we do not know, but there is no turning back now."

Demokratizatsiya might be easier to dampen. Conservatives simply could ensure that the popularly elected Supreme Soviet becomes mainly a ceremonial body, with real authority remaining with the Politburo. Even so, the elections of March 1989 are a watershed. Never again will the power of the party seem quite so absolute and unassailable. Never again will it be quite so easy to herd Soviet citizens to the polls to cast ballots with only one name.

As for perestroika, Gorbachev has made into a mantra the phrase "There is no alternative." Even Ligachev and the conservatives, wary as they are about the mayhem being done to Marxism, agree that something must be done. As Gorbachev well knows, one of the safeguards of perestroika is its links to glasnost: now that the economy's inherent flaws have been aired, it is impossible to retreat and pretend once again not to see them. "The notion that Ligachev or anyone else can bring perestroika to a halt now simply does not square with reality," says Soviet economist Gavril Popov. "Empty store shelves and housing problems have made the process difficult, but something absolutely vital has taken place in Russian terms: a change in our way of thinking."

This does not mean that Gorbachev will prevail or even endure. Perestroika has committed one of the most dangerous sins in politics: it has raised expectations more than living standards. Although the reforms Gorbachev has wrought can never be completely reversed, they could be suppressed by a retrograde regime. The result would be a surly Soviet Union that could threaten the world with its bulk and brawn while it seethed about the sclerotic state of its Third World economy and its inability to escape the tentacles of an ideology that does not satisfy the basic needs of 285 million people.

The alternative is not that perestroika might suddenly be pronounced a success -- even the irrepressible Boris Yeltsin should avoid holding his breath -- but that the reforms will continue. For both the Soviets and those destined to coexist with them, that is the important thing. Each new manifestation of democracy, each new opportunity for individual enterprise, each new opening for free thought and expression helps ease the repressive relationship between the Soviet state and its population. That, in turn, should make the new U.S.S.R. a far less threatening world citizen. Last week's election was another act in a lengthy drama that has already, in only four fitful years, indelibly transformed the face of the Soviet Union -- and its soul.