Critical finger points at salesman of perestroika

investigative journalist, translator, and passionate devotee of

Longfellow is in this country to promote his book Special

Correspon-dent, and to warn the West of the danger of hailing Gorbachev

as a prophet and deliverer in these times of momentous change.

''Gorbachev came, not to dismantle the system, but to save it.''

Born in the Ukraine in 1954, Vitaliev trained as an interpreter before

winning heroic status through his fearless investigations of crime and

corruption. He was Soviet Journalist of the Year in 1988. His lecture

tour of Britain took in St Andrews University, where his subject, in

fluent English, was Perestroika under Threat.

His warning was for us. ''You should stop this Gorbachev cult in the

West. I'm very much against any kind of deification because we've had so

many set cults in our history which cost us so many lives. Euphoria is

not productive; criticism is productive. People everywhere should be

critical of their leaders. In Gorbachev you must not create another

Winston Churchill.''

Vitaliev removes the soft hat of the salesman of perestroika to show a

man who is no intellectual and who does not have a high command of his

mother tongue. When I refer to the speed of change under Gorbachev,

Vitaliev asks me sceptically: ''Why do you say it's happening rapidly?

In Eastern Europe it went rapidly, but in Russia it came to a standstill

three or four years ago. But if you mean the changes for the worst, like

national conflict, these do happen every day. I'm afraid of opening the

newspapers every morning or switching on the TV to learn about another

conflict, another pogrom.''

I suggest that people in the West are primarily concerned with the

nuclear conflict threat being lifted, and are unlikely to lose sleep

over the internal turmoil of the crumbling Russian empire.

''That's probably the real answer, because in the past the Western

mass media used to over-exaggerate the threat. The people in the West

were so frightened of the impending nuclear catastrophe, and now that

the danger seems to be receding, that's why they're so excited and

fascinated by the Soviet Union, and the press is just playing into their

hands.''

I point out our sense of mystification at what Gorbachev is achieving

through persuasion, not coercion. ''I sometimes feel that the West would

feel more secure if Gorbachev did use troops. Remember the situation in

Romania, when France and some other countries said we wouldn't mind if

you send troops to Romania. Yet the West was always condemning the

Soviet Union for using force in Europe.''

Special Correspondent is part autobiography, part drama. When Vitaliev

became a journalist in 1981, before glasnost, he evaded offical

retribution by writing his exposures in the subtle form of the

feuilleton, defined in Russia as a satirical article, mostly based on

concrete facts, denouncing a negative phenomenon.

For example, in his article Notes on an Inebriated Journalist, about

heavy drinking in the city of Kirov, he sang the praises of the

authorities for their valiant struggle against sobriety. His writings

attract several million readers, and thousands of letters annually.

Special Correspondent will frighten as well as fascinate many readers

in the West with its detailed exposure of corruption and crime in the

Soviet Union. It sounds more like a capitalist country with its black

markets, its prostitution, its Mafia-style organisa-tions such as the

''Sailor's'' mob in Dnepropetrovsk. ''It goes without saying that

mafiosi are opposed to perestroika. The administrative command system

initiated by Stalin and strengthened by Brezhnev suits them perfectly,

because it breeds ecomomic chaos with resulting corruption.''

Vitaliev's surprising assertion that ''communism has never existed in

Russia'' is based on his investigations into the remote apparatchiks

with their privileges like limousines, segregated restaurants, stores,

and even cemeteries. Though Gorbachev's reforms have rooted some of them

out, and converted others, many who remain cling to the hard-line

ideology that supports their luxurious lifestyle.

''If the situation goes out of Gorbachev's control, which can happen

at any moment, conservative big brass may come to power who're very

upset by the fact that they've lost Eastern Europe and so on, and they

would try somehow to recreate the status quo which existed several years

ago.''

But Vitaliev describes an even more terrifying possibility, with the

winds of change turning to the vortex of destruction. ''Nuclear power

stations would be among the first things terrorists would aim at in

order to create civil unrest. In such chaos, a bullet could strike a

nuclear reactor or a red button. There are at least a dozen nuclear

power stations which are in as equally bad a state as Chernobyl. I know

this for certain, because they have trouble practically every month

which they publish in the Soviet press. No-one, including official

sources, excludes another Cherno-byl.''

In his book Vitaliev also exposes growing neo-Nazism in the Soviet

Union to which, he says, the authorities turn a blind eye. ''A lot of

intellectuals tend to draw parallels with Weimar Germany in that there

is a feeling of social apathy; an economic crisis; some kind of trampled

national feeling.'' An estimated 20,000,000 Soviet lives were lost in

the last war. ''For our country, fascism is the last stage of moral and

human degradation.''

He recalls with a shudder the recent visit to the Moscow Writers' Club

by anti-semitic thugs shouting about ''dirty Jewish mongrels. Then they

smashed spectacles and faces with knuckle-dusters.'' The militia

politely escorted the attackers outside and set them free.

It's a measure of the speed of change that Vitaliev's newly published

book was written from a pro-Gorbachev position. ''I'm not ashamed of

that. I used to be pro-Gorbachev as most of the intellectuals were at

the beginning and for several years. To some extent I'm still his

supporter.''

Despite perestroika Vitaliev gets death threats. ''People of the older

generation like my mother are still inclined to think that what I do is

very dangerous because she remembers her father, an old communist and

bolshevik. He was in the party from 1919 but in 1937, during the purges,

he used to faint from a knock on the door or a phone call in the

evening. You can't get rid of the fear overnight.''

Couldn't the point come when a destabilised Russia would be much more

dangerous than a Russia in the grip of communism? ''You're quite right.

Russia in a state of civil war is going to be the biggest danger.'' If

the apparatchiks are like the self-indulgent court of the Czars, could

we see another Russian revolution? ''That's what people are talking

about now. By being separated from the people and keeping their

privileges, the bureaucrats are pushing the people to armed resistance.

But we've had enough of bloodshed; everything should be done

democratically and politically.''

He urges that in the West, instead of rejoicing at the disintegration

of the Soviet Union, we should give moral and economic support and be

vocal in our defence of human rights, since Gorbachev and his associates

care about international opinion and censure.

Paradoxically, the perestroika that allowed Vitaliev to make his

reputation has also affected him as a writer. He says sadly that

satirical journalism is now in big crisis in the Soviet Union because

no-one wants to read it. ''Now practically anything can be said in the

open.''

Vitaliev returns to Russia in two months with, he hopes, a lucrative

capitalist deal. ''I've practically agreed to a joint British-Russian

political thriller with a British author. It was he who found me after I

wrote an article in the Guardian about stupid Russian spy books

published in the West. I've also written a short funny book about

Britain called Little Ben. If Special Correspondent is a success, I plan

Special Correspondent Two which will be about my recent investigations

into punitive psychiatry and political prisoners. There will also be a

chapter about fear.''

* Special Correspondent by Vitali Vitaliev. #14.95: Hutchinson. (An

interview with the author will be broadcast on Radio Clyde on Monday at

10.5pm.)