Let the joy be unconfined. (Soviet elections) (column)

MANY YEARS AGO, the writer-philosopherrevolutionist Max Eastman stressed to me that voting is primarily a negative act. The vote in the Soviet Union last Sunday eloquently confirms that observation. The dissidents could not reasonably hope that the reforms of Arkady Murashev (he wants multi-party voting) would be adopted. Nor could Mr. Yeltsin (he wants Gorbachevism times ten) expect that, because he won 89 per cent of the vote notwithstanding that he had been officially reprimanded by Gorbachev as too advanced in the reforms he called for, he would become the political…