1991 Reports

Human Rights After Perestroika: Progress and Perils

Juviler, Peter

Perestroika brought the greatest Soviet freedom since 1917 by the time of the millennium of conversion to Christianity in 1988. As Robert Cullen noted in these pages, the new rights and freedoms lacked institutionalization, that is guarantees in politics and law.! These guarantees Gorbachev then pledged to his people and the world. He promised in effect another conversion: from class-based, politically conditioned rights and law, to universal human rights in a law-governed state. Only by putting human rights at “the center of everything” at home and abroad could security and peace be assured, said Gorbachev at the UN.”