U.S. Sees No Major Changes In Soviet Drive for Reforms
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WASHINGTON — Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev’s reform moves are largely a response to pressures on his nation’s political system and do not represent any major departure from that system, a senior State Department official said Wednesday.
“He would like to see the system, as he knows it, be made to work,” Assistant Secretary of State Rozanne L. Ridgway told the House Foreign Affairs subcommittee on Europe and the Middle East. She said Gorbachev’s moves to date represent more a tinkering with the system than any fundamental restructuring.
“What we are seeing is a vigorous, imaginative approach to Soviet problems, which does not make the general secretary (Gorbachev) either a liberal or a proponent of open, democratic society,” she said.
Gorbachev’s latest move has been to shake up the ruling Politburo and urge greater participation by ordinary people in decision-making.
The focus on internal changes also means the Soviet Union is less interested in expanding its influence, Ridgway said. “I see no desire at present . . . to expand the reach of the Soviet Union.”
She said Gorbachev’s success at home would help ensure that Soviet efforts are not redirected at foreign expansionism.
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