Soviet Union Cry Independence

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Sitting in his spacious, wood-paneled office in the Estonian capital of Tallinn, Communist Party leader Vaino Valjas, 58, wryly sums up the situation in his tiny Baltic republic with a peasant proverb: Better to see once than to hear a hundred times. The former Soviet Ambassador to Nicaragua was called home only a year ago to take up his new post, but what Valjas has already witnessed in those tumultuous twelve months is nothing less than a revolution, from the birth of unofficial political movements like the Estonian Popular Front to the bruising constitutional crisis with Moscow over the republic's sovereignty. "For years we have gotten used to speaking of the party's monopoly on power," he says. "We have forgotten the principle that the party has power only as long as the people trust it."

Valjas represents the new breed of Communist reformers who are taking power in the Baltic republics of Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia. He and his colleagues know that the party's prospects in the three Baltic states hinge on how quickly it can come to terms with growing popular demands for more radical political and economic change -- even if the party runs the risk of angering Moscow. So far, the Baltic challenge has not erupted in ethnic violence and social anarchy; instead, it has been subtly expressed in arcane legal debate and parliamentary procedure. For President Mikhail Gorbachev, it represents both a bold affirmation of his goal of creating a society governed by law and an assault against the national union he has vowed to protect. How he responds could determine the future of perestroika.

The nationalist drift in the Baltics has aroused fear among the region's sizable Russian minority. When the Estonian supreme soviet voted last week to impose a two-year residency requirement for voters in local elections, supporters of the pro-Russian Intermovement and Joint Council of Work Collectives denounced the measures, charging that they consigned recent Russian immigrants to a political "pale of settlement." At least 10,000 workers joined strikes at some 30 enterprises. Since most of the affected plants are under the control of Moscow ministries, many Estonians viewed the labor unrest as another in a series of provocations from conservative forces opposed to the Estonian campaign for local sovereignty.

It is a measure of how quickly political change has been sweeping through the Baltic republics that the debate about national self-determination has moved from the streets into Communist Party headquarters. Asked about the future, Valjas replies, "Our ideal is an independent, sovereign Estonia within the Soviet Union or within a federation of sovereign republics." Latvian Ideology Secretary Ivars Kezbers muses about being a "free republic in a free Soviet Union." Lithuanian Second Secretary Vladimir Berezov says that "our common goal is independence, even if the ways of getting there are different."