Soviet Security Council Nominees Spark Battle : Kremlin: Lawmakers initially vote against two of Gorbachev’s choices for the powerful body. In a personal rebuff, his chief of staff is rejected.
MOSCOW — President Mikhail S. Gorbachev, increasingly beleaguered as the Soviet Union’s political and economic crises deepen, faced an unexpected fight on Thursday when the Supreme Soviet, the country’s legislature, initially rejected two of his nominees for a new, nine-member national security council.
After several sharp exchanges with the lawmakers and the exertion of considerable political muscle, Gorbachev managed to get eight nominees confirmed, but, in what Soviet political observers took as a personal rebuff to the president, the deputies again rejected the nomination of his chief of staff in a second vote.
Gorbachev pleaded the case of Valery I. Boldin, 55, a veteran Communist Party apparatchik who has been his chief aide for a decade, saying he had “absolute trust†in him.
But Boldin had been tagged by liberal deputies as one of the conservative advisers they believe responsible for Gorbachev’s more cautious approach to reform, according to Soviet political observers.
Boldin had also bruised many of the deputies in carrying out the president’s orders over the years.
Leningrad Mayor Anatoly A. Sobchak, a leading radical reformer, objected to Boldin on grounds that “we already have too many Communist Party functionaries in the higher organs of state power.â€
The national security council, established as part of the governmental reorganization that created an executive presidency, will formulate many of the country’s domestic and foreign policies, including those on national security, economic development, law and order and the environment. It will also govern in emergency situations.
Gorbachev, who will chair the council, said the new body will “operate day to day†overseeing security concerns “in the widest possible sense,†most likely making it the country’s key executive body.
The council members, who had to be confirmed by a majority of the Supreme Soviet, include Marshal Dmitry T. Yazov, the defense minister; Foreign Minister Alexander A. Bessmertnykh; Vladimir A. Kryuchkov, the head of the KGB; Vice President Gennady A. Yanayev; Gen. Boris K. Pugo, the interior minister; Prime Minister Valentin S. Pavlov; Yevgeny M. Primakov, the president’s foreign policy adviser, and Vadim V. Bakatin, the former interior minister.
Primakov, who acted as Gorbachev’s personal envoy in recent Soviet efforts to arrange a cease-fire in the Persian Gulf War, was initially rejected, but he was confirmed on a second vote. Bakatin, dismissed as interior minister in December for being too reformist, won confirmation with only nine votes to spare after conservative objections.
Before the vote, Gorbachev told the deputies that the Federation Council, another new policy-making body that brings together leaders of the country’s constituent republics, had approved a final draft of a “union treaty†intended to lay the constitutional basis for a new federal system for the country.
Gorbachev said he hopes the treaty will be published before a countrywide referendum on March 17 that will ask voters for a mandate to preserve the Soviet Union as a united but decentralized state. One key issue, representation of the republics in the future parliament, remains unsettled.
Gorbachev harshly criticized six republics--Armenia, Georgia, Moldova, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania--that have decided to boycott the election, warning that this will exacerbate the country’s problems. Azerbaijan, however, decided on Thursday to participate in the referendum, meaning that nine of the 15 republics will vote.
“The economic situation is now very difficult, and it is deteriorating rather than improving,†Gorbachev continued. The growing political separatism has accelerated economic collapse as deliveries of oil, gas, coal, meat, milk and other products have declined sharply. “And under these conditions,†he charged, “there are people actually saying: ‘The worse, the better.’ â€
Gorbachev accused liberal members of the Russian legislature, which is led by Boris N. Yeltsin, his chief rival, of encouraging a week-old strike by coal miners, which has now spread to the northern regions of Vorkuta and Inta and expanded in the Ukraine, western Siberia and Kazakhstan.
“There are parliamentary deputies, especially from the Russian Federation, going around mining regions calling on people to go on strike,†Gorbachev told the Supreme Soviet. “This behavior is suicidal and the height of irresponsibility.â€
Some of the striking miners, proclaiming their support for Yeltsin, declared this week that they will not return to work until Gorbachev resigns. Most of the strikers, however, have put demands for higher pay, improved benefits, better living and working conditions and earlier retirement, ahead of such political demands.
Sign up for Essential California
The most important California stories and recommendations in your inbox every morning.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.
