Gorbachev Addresses Uralmash Workers

Read from the scan by GLM-OCR; expect the odd misread word.

## UNCLASSIFIED

formation and everything else.

71 LD3004140490TAKE9

72 [Excerpts] [Gorbachev continues] We shall discuss these questions.

[Excerpts] [Gorbachev continues] We shall discuss these questions. There was a question here from -- I'm sorry, I don't rermember the surname -- but a foreman-mentor [man shouts name from crowd]. Yes, comrade (?Boyavkin); he said: Mikhail Sergeyevich, you said -- I understand that people follow what the leadership of the country say -- that we shall not change prices, but that prices change. Comrades, if you remember, and you [Gorbachev changes thought] We shall not touch them for two years and so on; we always say that we shall not have a price reform, and we have not had one. We have done it via the law, through contract prices, at the enterprises, through stimulating new goods, we embarked on [word indistinct], on all those supplementary payments, just as you do, for quality and for new output, and this process is still going on. It is still going on. But we have not implemented such a large-scale and complex reform. We are now approaching this; wholesale, procurement, and retail ones. All of this will be fully considered, and we shall start to take counsel with you: How to act in these conditions and what mechanisms we need so that social protection may be assured. So we shall...[Gorbachev changes thought] In my opinion, on the level of principle, we are keeping our word and we remember what we said.

I have tried to answer in brief.

Third. Possible alternatives in the development of events in Lithuania. We still hope that by using measures, even severe ones, we shall arrive at a political solution to this problem. We are committed to this. But we have come up against -- I have to say this both before you and before the country -- we have come up against a leadership that is inclined to adventurism and separatism. That has to be said bluntly. It is speculating on democracy and our adherence to political solutions for all questions that have come to a head. Listen: How do we resolve the simplest of questions in this or that oblast, in one or another republic? A proposal is prepared. Then there is preliminary discussion of it in this or that soviet, at this or that session. Then it is put out for discussion by people in one or another republic, or one or another region. People express their opinions and then we return once more and adopt this or that decision.

Here a fundamental question is being resolved about the fate of a republic and the people living there. This solution affects the fate of our entire multi-national state. They assembled at night, raised their hands, and decided. This does not fit into any kind of democratic framework, and we can't... [Gorbachev changes thought] I think that the Third Congress of People's Deputies acted correctly, and we -- that means the president, the government, and all at the center -- have only the mandate of the third congress. The constitutional system must be restored. We have to return to the position of 10 March, and then we will be ready to consider the question.

Then we'll show the cards. Here's a variant for when you leave the Soviet Union. Here's what it will mean. What will people do, who may perhaps want to return to their indigenous republics -- and there are about 800,000 such people there, non-Lithuanians? What will the fate of Belorussian lands be? In 1940 they handed over five rayons. The Belorussians have put this question. Klaipeda was in the hands of the Germans for 500 years. As a result of the war it became ours, so to