THE BALTIC TRIANGLE 457enquiry set about its business, fear spread in the leadership about the
combustible political situation in the republics. The Politburo returned
to Baltic matters on 11 May. Gorbachëv noted that the economic prob-
lems were acquiring a national dimension. He accused the Baltic
communist leaders of being cut off from working people: ‘You’re using
your opportunities poorly.’^21 He promised to keep Moscow’s interfer-
ence to a minimum: ‘The interests of the Union – the Centre – aren’t
very large: the army, the state apparatus, science. All the rest is the
business of the republics.’ He wanted to see cooperation with the pop-
ular fronts. Wherever they united a nation, the task should be to
establish communists as the front’s left wing. Extremists should feel
the full force of the law.^22 Ryzhkov demanded that the Baltic commu-
nist press should resume the publication of articles by Politburo
members and cease depicting them as scoundrels.^23 Gorbachëv appre-
ciated that he had underestimated the concerns of leading colleagues
and asked Medvedev – not Yakovlev – to visit the Baltic Soviet re -
publics. He too would make a trip: ‘Action is needed.’ He expressed
sympathy for the Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian communist lead-
ers: ‘Errors were committed at the stage when it was their predecessors
who were ruling there. Let’s start from the premise that all is not lost.’
He concluded on an optimistic note: ‘Lithuania won’t leave us, I assure
you.’^24
Gorbachëv ignored the evidence: he really appeared to believe
what he was saying. On 14 July he came to the Politburo with draft
new policies on the ‘national question’. This time Shevardnadze sur-
prised everyone with the ferocity of his criticism as he warned the
Politburo that perestroika would suffer unless the leadership revised its
approach to the national question.^25
Turning to Gorbachëv’s specific proposals for a reform of the
USSR’s entire federal structure, Shevardnadze dismissed them for
being too vague. He demanded a clear statement in favour of conserv-
ing the Soviet Union. He asked why nothing was being said about
the right of secession as Lenin had conceived it. He remarked on the
absence of a definition of nationalism. He described the draft as banal
and inadequate at a time when events were running out of control.^26
Shevardnadze had never spoke so fiercely even about Afghanistan.
Gorbachëv took this badly from his friend and ally. He asked whether
it was worth the bother to hold a Central Committee plenum on
the question. Ukraine’s Shcherbitski sided with Shevardnadze – and