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Article: Party pieces. (Soviet Union Communist Party meeting)
- Article from:
- The Economist (US)
- Article date:
- June 30, 1990
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1990 Economist Newspaper Ltd. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Next week the Soviet Communist party is supposed to meet for its 28th congress. At stake is the party's credibility. Yet this week party leaders were still debating whether the congress should even take place. The dithering shows the depth of the divisions among the worried comrades
COMMUNIST congresses are the great set-pieces of Soviet politics. Roughly every five years, 5,000 or so members gather in the Kremlin, traditionally to talk about gripping issues like five-year plans. This time, though, there are matters of political life and death to discuss.
Since the last congress, in 1986, the party has given up its constitutional guarantee of monopoly ...