Meanwhile, in France, women are toughing it out with free all-day childcare, per-child tax benefits and allowances, four-month paid maternity leaves and a state-paid personal trainer to get back in shape after childbirth.
It strains credulity that Gorbachev's evident hope of "toughing out" the present crisis is unrelated to the substantial emergency assistance to the central authorities in Moscow now being contemplated by the Bush Administration and its counterparts in allied capitals.