fraction of a generation. The Marquis de Sade we mightnalso paraphrase: until Gorbachev succeeds in attaching annAdam Smith corollary to his naively Stoical preachings ofnvirtue, he will find that private vices do not make publicnbenefits.nThe force of these observations is revealed in thenparticulars of Gorbachev’s policies. His first entry onto thenstage of reform was the now notorious campaign againstnalcohol, on the face of it a great idea to which no one ofnsound mind or morals could object. But there were precedentsnthat should have informed Gorbachev of the pitfalls ofntrying to separate Russians from alcohol. The earliestnsurviving Russian historical document, the 12th-centurynPrimary Chronicle, explains that the Russians chose tonconvert to Christianity rather than Islam because Islamnproscribed the use of alcohol, and “drink is the joy of thenRusses.”nA more recent parallel sets an even more dubiousnprecedent. A month after the outbreak of World War I, thatnunholy holy man, Gregory Rasputin, intervened in antemperance campaign. Well-known for his pro-Germannsentiments, Rasputin persuaded Nicholas II that the state’snmonopoly on the production of spirits was unworthy of thenmoral strivings of the nation at war. Nicholas decreednprohibition and thereby wiped out the single largest sourcenof revenue of a government fighting for its life against ansuperior opponent.nGorbachev’s campaign has had similar consequences. Innthe first year of its implementation, it cost the Soviet budgetn45 billion rubles of revenue — and that at a time whennfalling world oil prices were depleting the largest Sovietnsource of earnings in hard currency. To make matters worse,nthirsty Russians transferred their business from state facilitiesnto private concerns, and the production of samogon (whitenlightning) soon ballooned to such proportions that sugarnsimply disappeared from the consumer economy. At thatnpoint, the government was compelled to use its diminishingnfunds of hard currency to enter the world sugar market,nwhere it spent over a billion dollars to buy 2.2 million tons ofnsugar which Gomrade Gastro could not supply.nA story universally told in the Soviet Union in thensummer of 1986 maintained that it was precisely thenanti-alcohol campaign that precipitated the Ghernobyl disaster.nThe technicians at the nuclear facility were perfectlyncompetent, so the story goes, to operate it in a drunkennstupor, as years of experience had convincingly shown. Itnwas only the unfamiliar condition of sobriety that confusednthem.nAccording to appearances, Gorbachev has had muchnbetter success with his glasnost campaign, but there isnan enormous amount of Russian tradition antagonistic to hisnefforts. Most fundamentally, in a country that never had,anLatin Gatholic culture there is no foundation for thenhumanism that in modern Europe became liberalism. Innthis sense, the Iron Gurtain is now a thousand years old.nThe most socially comprehensive form of Russian culture isnOrthodoxy, pravoslavie. Consider its semantics; literally,nright praising. The semantics of the contrary idea, that ofndissent, inakomysliashchie, are, literally, otherwise-thinking.nThe point is exemplified by what may be the only ideologi­n20/CHRONICLESnnncal revolt in Russian history, that of the Old Believers againstnthe reforms of Patriarch Nikon in the 17th century. An oldnRussian proverb maintains that “all evil comes from opinion.”nI wonder how long our contemporary Russians willntolerate their current conflict of opinion.nGorbachev’s glasnost is a total overturn of the old Sovietnpractice of secrecy. As the current saying in Moscow has it,nit has become more interesting to read than to live (i.e., it isnstill more than difficult to eat). Every day brings new andnsurprising revelations. In the field of the arts, Pasternak,nZamyatin, Nabokov, and even Solzhenitsyn’s Gulag havenbeen published. In politics, Stalin is held responsible fornbringing Hitler to power, for the brutal repression of 40 ton50 million victims of collectivization and the purges, and fornthe defeats of World War II that cost a newly estimated totalnof 40 million more lives. In economics, we have discoverednGorbachev’s salary (1,200 rubles a month), and we havenlearned that the Soviet budget deficit is three times largernthan ours relative to the GNP. Moreover, the Moscow Newsntells us that the Soviet Union ranks between 50th and 60thnin the world in per capita standards of consumption.nNews of this sort from Soviet sources is little short ofnsensational, and the conditions that make it possible — notnthe conditions described — are understandably the occasionnof much rejoicing. If the new policy in the media is to benappreciated justly and realistically, however, it must bentreated with certain reservations. The Soviet press is not yetnfree, as the journalists who work in it readily admit. It isnsimply subject to new kinds of controls that serve new kindsnof purposes. It is possible that glasnost is a transient andnreversible phenomenon. Further, it is not nearly so fundamentalnan achievement as that at which Gorbachev aims innhis more ambitious program of perestroika.nMore seriously still, glasnost produces obvious liabilitiesnas well as benefits. Ear example, it inflames unrest amongnthe nationalities, most obviously in the Caucasus, where thenconflict of the Armenians and the Azeris has now beennfollowed by that of the Georgians and the Abkhazians; innthe Baltic; where the Latvians, Lithuanians, and Estoniansnare demonstrating against the Russians (and vice versa); and,nmost recently, in Moldavia, where the native Rumaniannmajority wants to do business in its own language.nPerhaps the most serious threat posed by the policy ofnglasnost is just beginning, and it is here that the historicalnshortsightedness of Gorbachev’s public information policynmay be most evident. Some of his editors seem bent onnoutdoing the shamelessness of Rousseau’s Confessions. Ifnthey continue to pursue so stubbornly as they have recenflynthe intention to uncover all of the “blank spots” {belyenpiatna) of Soviet history, it is almost inevitable that they willnconvict Soviet government of so much scandal, dirt, andnblood, so much crime against the people, as to raise thenquestion of its own legitimacy. How can such a governmentnplausibly lay claim to the loyalty of the population? Thatnpopulation is already muttering rather loudly that the messnof their lives was the work of the Jews who made thenRevolution.nIn addition to the increasingly lurid revelations of Stalin’sncrime, recent articles have called into question the wholendoctrine of Marxism and argued that Lenin himself wasnresponsible for establishing the tradition of flouting legal andn