Word: politburo
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...minted political groups whose members ran as independent candidates in national elections earlier this year and trounced establishment party hacks. In the Russian Republic itself, there is mounting anger and frustration with empty shops and suffocating bureaucracy that could easily swell the rolls of a gaggle of independent parties. Politburo member Yegor Ligachev, speaking for the Kremlin conservatives whose favor Gorbachev must still curry, has said flatly that multiple parties would "lead to the disintegration of the U.S.S.R...
...party continuing to run the show, an argument that would surely bring a smile to the face of just deposed East German party leader Egon Krenz. "Preserving the vanguard role for the party, from our point of view, is extremely necessary, especially in the time of perestroika," insists candidate Politburo member Yevgeni Primakov. "The party is the only consolidating force in our society, and in our federation...
Gorbachev has tried to dampen the ardor for repealing Article 6, claiming that giving up one-party rule would be a capitulation. But there were signs last week that the Kremlin was willing to fiddle with the text. Noting that Article 6 was "not a taboo subject," Politburo ideologist Vadim Medvedev said the present wording should not be kept "at all cost" and ought to be "brought into line with the party's new role in society...
...limits for Erich Honecker, less than two months ago the most powerful man in East Germany: last week the former party chief and eight of his erstwhile top lieutenants were formally charged by the state prosecutor's office with "enriching themselves through abuse of office." Seven of the ex-Politburo members were packed off to jail pending trial. Illness spared the other two, including Honecker, from suffering the same fate -- at least for the time being...
...revealed that he also had a $1.2 million vacation villa on the tiny island of Vilm in the Baltic Sea, previously thought to be an uninhabited bird preserve. Some of the perks claimed by East Germany's elite had a style reminiscent of ward pols in the U.S. Several Politburo members, for example, held the presumably undemanding post of "honorary member" of the Construction Ministry's "academy," for an annual pop of about $10,000. Another favorite ploy was to requisition scarce building materials for use in the construction of homes for children and other relatives...