Thursday, January 8, 2026

Why I Cannot Forsake My Principles

The title of the 5000 word Andreyeva Manifesto, Why I Cannot Forsake My Principles, was repeating a phrase Gorbachev had used.  "I cannot forsake my principles."  This Leningrad chemistry teacher said she had to speak out against perestroika because it was destroying the country.  Many people agreed with her.

Venus is in top right quadrant near Jupiter.




Notice Venus at 7 ° Taurus near Jupiter.  Venus is ruling in the sign of the worker.  Saturn is ruling in the sign of government and tradition.  So many people felt lost when Stalin and Lenin were being denounced as murderers.  Workers who had suffered under the soviet dictatorship had been groomed to love their leaders.  

Mars, the planet of the soldier, is exalted in Capricorn.  Andreyeva's declaration, that it was wrong to tear down and trample upon the memories of the men who had lead the USSR through world War 2, was uplifting to many veterans who had given so much for their country and felt that their sacrifices were being spat upon by the degenerate younger generation.


In last week's post I included links to 2 articles about the firestorm her manifesto generated, and a photo of the paragraph in the Gorbachev bio about the hardliners voicing their agreement with her at the Nineteenth Party Conference.  

When Nina Andreyeva's opinion piece was first published in March 1988 Mars was in the historic lineup with the outer planets and they were all going forward.  They were all in Capricorn, the sign of government.  You can see 5 planets; Uranus, Saturn, Neptune, Mars and the Moon all in Capricorn in the bottom right quadrant of the chart.

The Moon, associated with soul, such a slippery concept, difficult to hold, like breath, is in its fall in austere Capricorn.

By the time of the big Party Conference in June Mars had advanced 70 degrees along the ecliptic to the sign Pisces.  The outer planets had turned retrograde and the Saturn Uranus pair were backed into the last two degrees of Sagittarius.  That's the chart shown in last week's post.

Gorbachev worked hard in the months after the hardliners' journalistic IED to prepare a response to combat their attack.  He thought his philosophical approach would win the day.  But as the paragraph (photographed from his bio) in last week's post demonstrates, he was wrong.

Saturn was catching up with Uranus.  The curmudgeonly planet of limits was overtaking the planet of social revolution.

I said I was coming to the sad part of Gorbachev's bio.  Regardless of how he saw his life and work, I find this moment in history to be extremely touching.  The people of the Soviet Union were learning awful things about their past which until then had been hidden.  They were making peace with their particular national tragedy.


Thursday, January 1, 2026

Hardliners Boo Gorbachev's Perestroika

I'm reading Gorbachev His Life and Times.  I think things are about to get very sad.  On page 359 we get the account of the Nineteenth Party Conference.  
Click to enlarge.


Mostly party hardliners devoted to the old ways had come into office through the new, more democratic elections.

Saturn is lining up with Uranus at the end of Sagittarius, which is the Scorpio section of the philosophical sign.  Gorbachev was such an idealist.  Oh how he loved his country but loved the western democracies too.  

Saturn and Uranus are circled.  They look like they're in Capricorn, but they're at the end of Sagittarius.



The two slow planets are going retrograde.  In the pages leading up to this account of the big conference we get a good blow by blow of the Andreyevo Manifesto.  Remnick Interviews Andreyeva.  Here's another  account Quillett account of Andreyeva Manifesto.

I can't wait to look at the ephemeris for 1988 and a chart for March 13 when the lengthy denunciation of Gorbachev's initiatives was first published.