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Revolution without shots. [MUSIC PLAYING] (dramatic music) (dramatic music)

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(dramatic music) In the Soviet Union, the past lives. World War II solemnly remembered as if victory were only yesterday.

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(dramatic music) Each year on Victory Day, thousands of people gather in what was formerly Stalingrad to commemorate the defeat of the Nazis.

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For the Soviet people, victory was the greatest moment on the road of socialist progress. But it is the past which is now under scrutiny, as part of Mr Gorbachev's revolution to reform the Soviet Union. A people accustomed to the symbols of achievement

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is now being asked to debate what's gone wrong with their society. Mr. Gorbachev has called it a revolution without shots. It's three years since Mr. Gorbachev took charge in the Kremlin and inherited a crisis. The Soviet economy was failing, undermining the nation's status as a superpower.

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So Mr. Gorbachev launched Perestroika, the restructuring of Soviet society. But his reforms are bitterly opposed, and his supporters talk of battle. This revolution, of course, has its wounded, killed, deserters, and of course it's war, it's fight now.

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I think that Mr. Gorbachev and the program of Perestroika cannot be separated at all. Essentially, these have become identical, Gorbachev and Perestroika, and Perestroika and Gorbachev. Therefore his fate is perestroika and to a great extent the fate of perestroika depends on Gorbachev.

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Here in the Soviet Union there is an unprecedented struggle going on between reformers and conservatives. The argument is largely being conducted in code through expressing different attitudes towards a figure of history, Stalin. The reason is this, many of the institutions,

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the structures of power, and the economy were built during Stalin's years. And if Mr. Gorbachev is to succeed with his revolution, then it's Stalin's Soviet Union he has to dismantle.

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When Stalin died in 1953, he had left an indelible mark on Soviet society. (dramatic music) Stalin was an absolute leader

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who demanded obedience and worship, but he laid the foundation for an industrial superpower. Now it's been decided that the Soviet people should learn the truth about Stalin's rule.

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One paper has said that 50 million people may have died through hunger, in purges, and the terror. But for many Russians, like these veterans visiting the site of the Battle of Stalingrad,

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Joseph Stalin was their leader in the Great Patriotic War. (guns firing) Stalingrad was the beginning of the end for Hitler's ambitions.

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These men of the 6th Tank Corps helped encircle the German army. (guns firing) (helicopter blades whirring)

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To these ex-soldiers, sailing again on the Volga River, Stalin's program of rapid industrialization had saved the motherland. And it was Stalin who, from the ashes of war,

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helped create a modern, powerful Soviet Union. Now Stalin is vilified as a man who corrupted socialism by building an authoritarian, bureaucratic state. Even his conduct of the war is under attack.

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Many veterans feel the past is being deliberately blackened in order to justify the present reforms. - For our native land, for Russia, for Stalin, it was with such inspiration that each soldier,

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from the rank and file to the higher ranks, went to his death in the name of his native land, his mother country. About Stalin, in this case, I have the best opinion of him.

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When I fought, I fought for my native land and for Stalin. - Now we criticize and only mention bad things about that period, but how should history look at it? There were repressions under Stalin,

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that was his fault and it was terrible, but much was achieved. After all, we didn't have a car or a tractor industry, nothing, everything was restored

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in the 21 years after the revolution, and Stalin's hand was at work here. Such views about Stalin have been echoed in letters to the papers where the bitter debate over Mr. Gorbachev's reforms finds expression.

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One recent letter praised Stalin's discipline and sense of purpose, accusing his critics of forsaking the principles of socialism. At the heart of the historical arguments are the current reforms, for it's Stalin's system which is under assault,

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and many bureaucrats and party officials are fearful of losing their privileges. Vitaly Korotich is editor of the weekly magazine Ogonyok, and is considered close to Mr Gorbachev. He believes socialism can only be made to work in the Soviet Union

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if it rids itself of Stalin's legacy, a cloud which still hangs over the country. All my life I had Stalin inside me, but it was small school Stalin. Those who were politicians, they have big Stalins.

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Is he still popular today, Stalin? He's still popular as sign of order, because not everybody can live in conditions of freedom. And Stalin, Stalin it was sign of order. It were no prostitutes.

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It were no terribly rich people. It was not people who are looking for order. It was all done. And if it was a problem with something, Stalin simply killed people whom he didn't like.

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It was so simple, simple solutions of all complicated questions. The debate over Stalin even reaches into the classroom. A year ago, Stalin's crimes were not even mentioned. Here at a school in Volgograd, they're learning history from the newspapers.

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their textbooks silent on the subject of Stalin's terror. For some, learning of the dark pages of Soviet history has been a disillusioning experience. And like the rest of society,

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the question of Stalin divides them. - Well, Stalin was a criminal, first of all. A criminal with an unlimited power. Just he tried to create there, here,

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some kind of socialist autocracy. and he managed, I must say. - I don't like Stalin, I hate him, and it's a great pity in my heart about those years.

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- I think that Stalin made a lot of good things for our country, for our people, but every people has its drawbacks and shortcomings. I think this is my opinion.

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There were some good sides of Stalin. There were some good traits in his character. First of all, it was his strong will, which helped him to rule the country.

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Well, I think that Stalin's power was so strong and still strong and so many, there are so many people who, who are support them now, even now and... Do you think many people still support Stalin, his ideas?

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Yes, I think so. Only Lenin, the leader of the Russian Revolution, remains standing as other idols of the past are torn down. Mr Gorbachev has justified his reforms as being a return to the socialist ideals of Lenin,

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which it is now argued Stalin perverted. When he died in 1924, it was Lenin's wish that Stalin should not succeed him. In rehearsal at a Moscow theatre is a play where for the first time even Lenin is portrayed as a human being with failings.

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Conservatives are still trying to prevent the play appearing because Lenin as a spiritual figurehead of Soviet society and beyond criticism. Lenin appears on stage and is played by a well-known Soviet actor. The play, called "Further, Further, Further" is written by Mikhail Shatrov,

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whose father was shot during Stalin's rule. What in particular angers the conservatives is that Lenin apologises to the audience for allowing Stalin to succeed him. But Shatrov believes the Soviet people have to understand their past if they are to escape it.

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The principal thing for us about the figure of Lenin today is that he is not a god. He is not a religion, but a human being who didn't manage to achieve everything we should have today. What is most important for us is his method, the approach he used to solving problems. And the last thing I want to say is that for Lenin, man was always the goal.

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Whereas for Stalin, man was the means. The official history of Stalin's rise to power is now being rewritten. Dmitry Volkogonov, a three-star general, is completing the first serious biography of Stalin to be published in the Soviet Union.

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It's not easy to look into the eyes of history, and sometimes it's frightening. Sometimes it's very difficult, but you nevertheless have to. When we do look into the eyes of the past, what we see are quite a number of negative aspects,

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which unfortunately survived into our life now. Bureaucratism, dogmatism, totalitarian methods, the perversion of socialist principles which took place in our history. All of them have their roots in Stalin's time.

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As the archives are being opened, more and more horrors are tumbling from the cupboard of Soviet history. We were told that Mr. Gorbachev has been shown a document detailing how Stalin personally ordered the torture of his prisoners.

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Mr. Gorbachev feels he has to address the question of history, both in order to destroy Stalin's legacy, but also to discredit his opponents who are resisting his reforms by revealing the truth about the system they defend. Some reformers go even further and are calling for Soviet society to be completely rebuilt.

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The point is that we have been constructing a new society, a new edifice for the last 70 years. And at the end of those 70 years we have become aware that the house we built is badly adapted for living in. Not only is it not comfortable or cosy, it is often bad or intolerable to live in.

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So we have decided that the house has to be completely reconstructed. On the outskirts of Moscow is Stalin's park to economic achievement. But it's the Soviet economy which is now most in need of reform. Stalin built an industrial base that could serve a war economy,

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or later send men into space. While the Soviet Union excelled with such prestigious projects, it failed to develop an efficient economy. Giant bureaucracies administered a national plan, but they couldn't ensure growth or end

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chronic shortages. Stalin idealised peasant workers bringing in the sheaves, but agriculture has never recovered from the trauma of his collectivisation. What Mr. Gorbachev is trying to do is to revitalize the economy.

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He's not wanting to restore capitalism, but to make the Soviet system work. Farmers like these in the Ukraine, the area once devastated under Stalin, are being encouraged to join cooperatives. The idea is to give them incentives by allowing them to keep some of the profits.

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These piglets on a Ukrainian farm have been bred by one of the new cooperatives. In the past the farmers could only breed 3,000 piglets in accordance with the quota set by the collective. Now if they produce more they can sell them privately in the market and keep the profit.

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Julia Kozluk-Sivskaya says that last year they sold 1,100 pigs privately, thereby increasing her income by nearly 400 pounds. It's a limited form of private enterprise which had been outlawed during Stalin's time, but is proving popular today.

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(pig squealing) (speaking in foreign language) - We like the system because we get greater profits now. On this farm, we receive more money,

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and each family is provided with piglets. What will you do with the extra money that you earn? I've bought a car, I built a house, I gave my daughter in marriage. We now have a granddaughter and my son is preparing to go to an institute.

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The reforms are so far on a small scale, but they've already encountered resistance. Mr Gorbachev had to threaten to remove officials who were standing in the way of family cooperatives. The farmers' newfound independence is in any case of a limited kind. They are still dependent on the collectives for their supplies,

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and they still have to meet targets set by a ministry in Moscow. In the private markets which sell produce from the new cooperatives, there's plenty of food, but at a price most people can't afford. Meat is £8 a kilo, and apples £7.

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These cooperatives are a return to what Lenin tried in the 1920s. Mr Gorbachev has said that he's counting on them to help solve the food situation in the country. The problem at the moment is that there are so few private cooperatives that there's no pressure to lower the prices.

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So, although production is up, it's not earning Mr Gorbachev any political credit. In the state stores where most people shop, there's been little improvement. the counters give the appearance of a wartime economy. Although the prices here are subsidized and half those in the private markets,

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choice is limited and availability uncertain. - How long does it take to line up? - It depends on the queue. - It usually takes an hour or more. - Sometimes it takes more. It depends on what you're waiting for.

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Sometimes it takes five hours if you need something really good. This Moscow fashion store is the most modern in the Soviet Union, and yet the people are queuing for shoes. A million pairs a year are made, but of a quality no one wants.

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These anomalies are common. They can only be cured by improving quality and lifting price controls. The government knows that raising prices is essential for its reforms to work, but admits there are risks, while perestroika is showing so few results.

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Of course, there are certain risks. There is a strata of the population which is not happy, and which expresses openly in the press its various opinions on this subject. That is why a discussion regarding this issue will take place before a resolution is adopted.

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And if the majority of the population does not agree with the necessity to raise prices, bearing in mind total compensation, of course, then, from my point of view, we will be forced not to raise those prices. To harness support, people are being offered greater incentives.

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Workers at the Nikolai Lvov cement factory are attending a shareholders' meeting, the first of its kind in the Soviet Union. From the start of the year, factories were told to be self-financing, to stand on their own feet.

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Here, 81 workers bought 100 shares each in the factory. They're guaranteed a 5% return on their investment. The higher the profit, the greater the return. Since the scheme started, productivity has gone up by 6%.

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Everything that's good and acceptable to us as a socialist society, we take from capitalism. Even the system of shares and so on. And what is bad and unsuitable we will not accept because our system is different. The men may have their share certificates, but little else has changed.

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The state remains the only customer and the ministry still sets the target. It highlights one of the many ambiguities of the current reforms. initiative is being encouraged, but central control is not being given up. In reality, I can say that of course perestroika is experiencing more difficulties than we

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expected. It's taking place more slowly than we expected and with more opposition than we expected. And I think that many difficulties of restructuring still lie ahead. They're not behind us. And each defender of Perestroika is preparing himself for new battles.

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There is already dissatisfaction over one part of Mr Gorbachev's reforms, the crackdown on alcohol. In the ancient Russian city of Yaroslav, the new laws are enforced by the militia.

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As vodka sales have been halved in pursuit of efficiency, the population has turned to home brewing. It's the job of the militia to find the illegal stills. (siren wailing)

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The control room receives a tip from a local fire officer that he suspects a garage is being used to manufacture alcohol. The militia admit that the problem is rife.

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Last year, they dealt with nearly 2,000 cases in the Yaroslav region. There are now sugar shortages because so much is being used for distilling. The police explain their actions by pointing out that one in four crimes are committed under the influence of drink.

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Since the crackdown started, crime is said to be down by 26%. Local militia officers are told that they have a moral responsibility to save a man from alcohol abuse. [Speaking in Russian]

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[Speaking in Russian] [Speaking in Russian] [Speaking in Russian] The garage is among a collection of buildings on derelict land.

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Inside, behind a rusting car, is the apparatus for a still. [Speaking in Russian] (speaking in foreign language) The owner of the garage is still at work,

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but his wife is summoned. She denies any knowledge of the equipment, but is soon in distress. (crying)

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A 20 liter can is discovered with enough spirit to fill five or six bottles of vodka. There is a fine of 300 pounds for illegal brewing and a prison sentence if the vodka was intended for sale.

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The owner of this garage will be sent before his local collective, which will decide his punishment. - Well, you know, this garage has been turned

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into the illegal Moonshine Whiskey Brewery. Here the owner is supposed only to keep his car, but he put all his moonshine making equipment and had it working. That's why I think the militia comes and finds out such cases

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and such cases are investigated lately and I think that the owner of this garage will be fined around 200 or 300 roubles. As a result of the anti-alcohol drive, absenteeism is said to be down and production up. but some have called for a slowing down in the campaign

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because it risks turning the population against perestroika at a critical moment. While Mr Gorbachev has demanded a more disciplined society, he's offered the Soviet people much greater personal freedom. Perestroika can only succeed in a climate where new ideas are allowed to flourish.

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So Mr Gorbachev has championed glasnost, an opening up of society. But freedom, which makes many in the party uneasy, still has its limits. Under Stalin, the churches were torn down

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and believers persecuted. Recently, these scenes of desecration were shown on Soviet television. In the intervening years, religion survived,

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but often underground. Now, all over Russia, churches are enjoying a revival. [Russian choir singing] The Russian Orthodox Church is preparing to celebrate its millennium

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with the full blessing of a supposedly atheistic government. Monasteries like the Danilovsky in Moscow, until recently an orphanage, have been lavishly restored. [music]

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Recently, Mr. Gorbachev met with church leaders and admitted that the Soviet state had made tragic mistakes in its treatment of Christians. He promised a new law on freedom of conscience, a shrewd political gesture which should enlist millions of believers to his cause.

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[music] But the Russian Orthodox Church has long made its accommodations with the Soviet state and its current freedom does not extend to all denominations. The city of Lvov with the rest of Western Ukraine

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was brought into the Soviet Union by Stalin in 1939. The Ukrainians had their own Catholic Church. Stalin saw it as a symbol of Ukrainian nationalism and outlawed it. The church has remained underground ever since,

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with many of its believers imprisoned. Here are the limits of Glasnost. - For me, as a Ukrainian Catholic, perestroika has not as yet gone into action.

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It is only talk, journalistic hot air, while the church is still underground and its existence is still without any legal guarantees. The only thing that I can perceive,

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and this is the positive side of Gorbachev's activity, is that arrests and repression in prisons have stopped. - In an apartment in Lvov, believers from the Ukrainian Catholic Church attend mass.

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They are forbidden to worship openly, and this service is breaking the law. (singing in foreign language) Many of those present were once in prison.

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Ivan Gel spent 18 years in a strict regime camp. (singing in foreign language) There are about three million Ukrainian Catholics, a minority among Ukrainians,

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but the church for some remains a focus of Ukrainian national identity, which under Glasnost they expect to be recognised. The Soviet government and Gorbachev in particular

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are not prepared to implement basic and radical changes concerning maybe the most important question which stands before Gorbachev. And I'm not talking about the economic sphere,

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I mean the sphere of national relations. This is the litmus paper which will indicate the genuine changes and genuine intentions of Gorbachev and his government. The nationalities question is the most serious test for Mr. Gorbachev. In Armenia, crowds have demonstrated for the enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh to be returned to the Armenian Republic.

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So far, Moscow hasn't agreed and the demonstrations continue. It's a consequence of Glasnost that grievances long buried come to the surface. The nationalities question is perhaps one of the most acute in our country, because after all we have more than a hundred nationalities in the USSR.

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And because throughout the entire Stalin period, and the period which came after to some extent, they simply pretended that there were no such nationality problems. Now, under Glasnost and greater democratisation, every nationality is invited to express itself,

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to declare its problems, even the most acute ones. Of course, there's no doubt that events such as happened in Nagorno-Karabakh were so much grist to the conservative mill. The conservatives simply turned around and said,

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"Just look at what the policies have led to, to severe conflicts between different nationalities." And of course, the conservatives exploit this fact. and exploits these facts.

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[MUSIC PLAYING] Perestroika is a revolution from the center. Its success depends upon it reaching across the Soviet Union.

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In Central Asia, the changing face of Soviet society is apparent. Muslims now have the highest birth rate in the country. By the turn of the century,

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every third conscript in the Soviet army will come from an Islamic background. As Mr. Gorbachev plans for future generations, these are some of the people he'll have to include

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in his social revolution. Yet it is in these areas that resistance to his reforms is the most intense. It's this which has persuaded Mr Gorbachev that perestroika can only succeed

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if he tackles the biggest problem of them all, reform of the party itself. May Day in Tashkent. As elsewhere in the Soviet Union, groups of workers parade past their party leaders. Other lesser officials view the parade from their own enclosure.

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for party leaders are a class apart. They have many privileges denied to ordinary citizens, like cars, country cottages, and access to special shops. Here in Uzbekistan, corruption has been endemic.

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Officials are said to have stolen eight billion pounds. Although there is a new, cleaner leadership, no one pretends the problem has been solved. Here then is the dilemma for Mr. Gorbachev.

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He must depend on local party leaders to implement his reforms, the very group who have leased to gain from change. Mr. Gorbachev recently travelled to Uzbekistan. He acknowledged that there was both confusion and opposition to his reforms within the party.

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Here he was having to argue his case to officials who were sceptical and even hostile. Mr. Gorbachev's tone was both measured and somber. and our personnel... were in the grip of old ideas

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which, of course, rejected the broad application of the principles of democracy. It turned out that today One of the main points around which passions and discussions in the country have developed.

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The command and administrative system of those who worship it does not give up positions without a fight. There are two types of people who are unhappy with glasnost and perestroika, those who consider our previous development as ideal, and who perceive perestroika to be a threat, which deprives them of actual power.

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Not a single one of them would say that they are struggling for their position when they speak out against perestroika They will say that they are in favor of perestroika But they're only in favor of the kind of perestroika which allows them to keep their jobs Mr. Gorbachev's battle to reform the party will come to a head at an extraordinary party conference to be held next month

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At issue the future of perestroika Mr Gorbachev has concluded that the role of the party has to be reduced if his reforms are to work. This can only be done by breaking the stranglehold of officials holding jobs for life. The immediate battle for Mr Gorbachev is in the choice of delegates and there's growing

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evidence that some regional parties are blocking candidates who favour reform. for before the conference will be placed, the most radical agenda the party has ever discussed. We expect that the significance of what will take place at this party conference

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is comparable to the most major events in the history of the Soviet Union after 1917. Perestroika includes and assumes the democratization of the party itself, particularly the replacement of the whole party leadership at certain periods. It includes the election, moreover, by secret ballot,

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of all the party secretaries, including the general secretary of the party. It includes accountability, and most importantly, the party must not govern the state.

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Outside the party, there are those who would take democracy even further. This is a meeting of a political club. Such groups outside party control have mushroomed. What they're discussing is fielding independent candidates at elections under the banner of the socialist front.

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Although this group is pro-Mr. Gorbachev, some argue that by contesting elections, they're playing into the hands of the conservatives. Won't some members of the existing Communist Party, particularly the more conservative members, see that as a challenge to their authority and their positions? Naturally, yes. They already see it like that. What kinds of things do they say about your activities?

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Well, they say that we have already won a very good political party, so we don't need anything else. and our party is so good that it doesn't need any competition. In a housing estate in Moscow, street players take glasnost beyond the point

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many reformers would approve of. All the Soviet leaders from Lenin onwards are portrayed as identical commissars. The message is that it's not just Stalin who was an aberration,

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but that all the leaders were the product of the same system. Although the Communist Party is encouraging people to ask what's wrong with society, it may not like all the answers being given on the street. Even Mr. Gorbachev is lumped in with the past. These players are reveling in a rare freedom,

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but it's a climate which seasoned dissidents sense is far from stable. Lev Timofeev was released from a labor camp last year in an amnesty. He'd been sentenced to six years for monitoring human rights. Much as he supports perestroika, he believes it can be reversed because structures haven't changed.

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More than 300 political prisoners are still in camps, in jails and psychiatric hospitals. And I should say that the real steps of perestroika should be counted only after all political prisoners are released. To make this process stable, you should first of all change the state structures.

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But we live still in the same structures, among the same structures. KGB, party, apparatus, all the ministers, they are still the same structures. Sunday morning in the city of Yaroslav. Young people do their socialist duty at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

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In this period of change, there remains a large constituency that believes in the austere virtues of Soviet society. The conservatives don't like the new freedoms, the rewriting of history, and the challenges to the position of the party.

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They believe the traditions of communism are being discarded. their allies in the bureaucracies, they remain a formidable opposition that could yet defeat Mr Gorbachev's revolution. Do you think that democracy and openness can prevail here?

00:37:19.660 - 00:37:40.580

I would certainly hope so, but I'm afraid that I cannot state it with absolute certainty. Can perestroika be reversed? I don't think anybody can answer that question because we just don't know at the moment. But all I can say is that there is no alternative to perestroika.

00:37:40.580 - 00:37:57.300

If perestroika is reversed, it will be a catastrophe. And I don't think it will only be a catastrophe for the Soviet Union. It will be a catastrophe for everyone else as well. You see, if they'll defeat reforms, it'll be not my own tragedy and even not Gorbachev's

00:37:57.300 - 00:38:12.820

tragedy. It will be tragedy of the system. I think that those reforms, it's only way to help the system to survive and to be stronger. And if they'll win, it'll be not victory.

00:38:12.820 - 00:38:26.740

It'll be beginning of terrible defeat. It'll be beginning of dangerous future. Because if they'll win, those who are against reform, it'll be the same. We'll be surrounded by enemies.

00:38:26.740 - 00:38:39.340

We'll have enemies in our country. We'll have internal and external enemies. We'll have the same atmosphere of hatred we try to defeat now. (singing in foreign language)

00:38:39.340 - 00:39:03.780

- On the outcome of his revolution, Mr. Gorbachev believes rests the fate of socialism. he has spelled out the consequences of failure, economic stagnation, a loss of international prestige,

00:39:03.780 - 00:39:17.380

and a retreat into the past. Failure would also risk the alienation of the generation which has come to political awareness during the Gorbachev years.

00:39:17.380 - 00:39:49.060

What happens if it were not a success, if Perestroika were to fail? I think that our society will come to a crisis. I agree with Jane. She said that our society will have a crisis and people could lose their

00:39:49.060 - 00:40:03.860

belief in our government. For what started out as a program to reform the economy has ended up as a debate about the future of socialism. For the first time in 70 years, the Soviet Union is asking itself

00:40:03.860 - 00:40:27.860

what has gone wrong and who is to blame. Mr Gorbachev has launched a revolution, But it remains true that the most dangerous time for an authoritarian regime is when it begins to reform itself.

00:40:27.860 - 00:41:05.220

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