Mikhail Gorbachev has regained power in the Soviet Union after Russian leader Boris Yeltsin mobilized pro-democracy and pro-freedom forces in the country against a coup attempt that lasted just three days. Now, many are asking whether President Bush and other Western leaders should resume economic assistance to the Soviet Union, or whether they should be urging President Gorbachev to accept the reforms called for by Boris Yeltsin before continuing to furnish the Soviet Union with economic and technological assistance.

       An editorial in the August 23 USA Today says the U.S. should provide the Soviet Union with some economic and technological assistance, but only if President Gorbachev agrees to democratic elections, private ownership of property and businesses, and the reduction of massive military spending, including aid to Cuba.

       On the other hand, George Thompson, a former U.S. foreign service officer, says we have no choice but to provide the Soviet Union with increased financial help and technology. He observes: "Leaders in the West did most to set the stage for the coup. When you sent Gorbachev home empty-handed after his hat-in-hand appeal for aid in London last month, you upset the delicate balance between the old and the new. Now democracy is on the march in the Soviet Union. It's what you wanted then. It's what the world wants now. That's why it is imperative to put your money where your mouth has been for decades. If you value democracy as much as your words would have the world believe, damn the deficit."

       However, an article in the August 15, 1991, Christian Anti-Communism Crusade Newsletter points out that while "great changes have taken place in the Soviet Union and in Eastern Europe during the regime of Mikhail Gorbachev," the Communist Party of the Soviet Union "retains great power, and the military might of the Soviet Union continues to grow."

       The July 11, 1991, Economist (Great Britain) provides ample evidence of the Soviet Union's military might; it pointed out that "The Russians completed 12 submarines in 1990, compared with nine a year in 1988 and 1989. They produced 1,900 antiship cruise missiles in 1990, compared with 1,400 in 1988 and 1600 in 1989. The building of frigates and corvettes held steady at seven in 1989 and 1990. The building and fitting of three aircraft carriers continued."

       Moreover, at the same time that the Soviet Union is begging the West for financial assistance, it is continuing to furnish massive economic aid to Cuba. An article in the July-August 1991 Monthly Review, a pro-Cuba, Marxist-Leninist magazine, pointed out that the Soviet Union maintains a "special relationship" with Castro's Cuba.

       Shortly before relinquishing his position as director of the Central Intelligence Agency, Judge William H. Webster Jr. warned that the Soviet Union remained an "evil empire," that it still spends an inordinate amount of its financial resources on its military and that President Gorbachev's power base was tenuous, at best. Moreover, both the CIA and FBI pointed out that, even as President Gorbachev was liberating Eastern Europe, the KGB was increasing its spying activities not only in this country but throughout the world.

       The problem is that there continues to be powerful and influential people in the Soviet Union and elsewhere who zealously and blindly follow the false god of Marxism, despite its glaring failures and inadequacies; these ideologues and visionaries view Marxism as a secular religion, a secular substitute for faith in God and Christ; they believe in the secular religion of Marxism just as fervently as Christians believe in Christianity and Jews believe in Judaism; these worshipers of the false god of Marxism are willing to lie, steal, cheat, torture and kill to serve the aims of their secular religion.

       Mr. Gow is Contributing Editor for the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, a Wilbur Foundation Literary Fellow, and columnist for The Christian News and Chinatown News.

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