Profs talk on Soviet changes

Analyzing the history and future of the Soviet Union, three University professors led a symposium on the fluid state of affairs in the Soviet Union Monday night. More than 50 students attended the 90-minute long symposium, entitled "Collapse and Chaos . . . Toward Federated Freedom or Domestic Dictatorships?" Economics Professor Herbert Levine, Soviet Studies Center Director Elliot Mossman and History Professor Alfred Rieber spoke for approximately 20 minutes each before opening the floor to questions from the audience. Levine, who recently returned from the Soviet Union, chose economic reform as the central topic of his lecture. He dated the country's transition from a centralized economic system to a market economy to June 1987, though he called the transition "incomplete." Levine said that any transition involving the full scale alteration of the economy of a nation of 280 million people must necessarily be a gradual process. In his speech, Mossman focused on the nationalities problem at the forefront of change in the Soviet Union. He quoted a Soviet census which gave the number of nationalities in the Soviet Union as 131. Mossman said that there is often a disparity between a Soviet nationality's own agenda and its political identity. Professor Rieber then grabbed the attention of the audience by displaying metreshka dolls of past and present Soviet leaders inside one another. He used this as an introduction to the theme of his lecture on the recurrence of reform throughout the history of the Soviet Union, Russia, and the Russian Republic. Rieber predicted the restructuring of the now-arcane Soviet political system would occur mainly through the efforts of "grass roots" movements. Rieber concluded by reassembling the doll and symbolically setting it aside, "closing the book" on defunct Soviet political structures. "It was a well-rounded presentation," College freshman Pricilla Elliott said. "[The format] was very constructive, because each expert complemented the other," College senior and PPU Chairperson Denise Wolf said.

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