The World Reacts to Soviet Change

From around the world, hopes and concerns over change in the Soviet Union:

Germany

Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher said Germany hopes a more liberal Soviet government will be willing to speed the withdrawal of the 250,000 Soviet troops still in Germany and to extradite former East German leader Erich Honecker to face trial for murder. Former Chancellor Willy Brandt expressed concern about the “danger of renewed neglect for Third World countries” in the rush to help the Soviet Union.

Cuba

State-run radio said that, with 75% of Cuba’s trade being conducted with the Soviet Union, “the processes under way in the Soviet Union and their consequences will have a clear impact in our country.” It called for Cubans to respond with common sense and original thinking.

Iraq

President Saddam Hussein’s son Uday, the owner of the Baghdad newspaper Babil, wrote a rare signed editorial on the front page declaring that changes in the Soviet Union are a destructive dismantling of the old regime “under the pretext of democracy.” The Soviet Union is finished as a great power, he wrote.

North Korea

In one of the few Stalinist countries left, the Korean Central News Agency and the Communist Party daily Rodong Shinmun tersely reported the Soviet changes but, in implied criticism, pointed out that Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin’s suspension of the Soviet party daily Pravda was the first such action since the days of the czar.

Japan

Prime Minister Toshiki Kaifu told a parliamentary committee that he welcomes the latest Soviet political developments, including possible dissolution of the once-all-powerful Communist Party. Kaifu said Japan will cooperate with other nations in working out multilateral aid to Moscow, based on the outcome of a meeting in London this week of senior officials of the Group of Seven advanced democracies.

India

Communist leaders said their confidence that Stalinism will eventually triumph is not shaken. “We are communism’s great survivors. Whatever happens in the outside world, we are now more determined to implement Marxist-Stalinism in West Bengal,” said Jyoti Basu, chief minister of that state and leader of the Communist Party of India-Marxist. The Politburo said Yeltsin is imposing “his own personal dictatorship” and “working in concert with imperialist forces” to break up the Soviet Union.

Israel

Natan Sharansky, who fought for 13 years to leave the Soviet Union, said he longs to visit his homeland for the first time since being freed in 1986. The 43-year-old former Jewish dissident, known as Anatoly Shcharansky before he emigrated to Israel, said, “It was perhaps the first time since my release that I felt I would like to be there . . . I never went back for a visit and never wanted to, but now I felt it would be good to be there for a few hours.”