(FORTUNE Magazine) – ''It is 70 years since the unforgettable days of October 1917, those legendary days that started the count of the new epoch of social progress, of the real history of humankind.'' Thus, breathlessly, in his best oh-the- wonder-of-it-all tone of voice, General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev launched into his anniversary speech to the ''joint festive meeting'' (Tass's words) of the Central Committee and the Supreme Soviets of the U.S.S.R. and the Russian Federation. Advance billing of the oration centered mostly on the possibility that the gensec would further his campaign for glasnost and demokratiya by renouncing Stalinism. As it turned out, the critique of Stalin was muffled and halfhearted, and Gorbachev disappointed a lot of people who thought he would inaugurate a new era of truth telling in Soviet historiography. The only one of Stalin's victims about whom he said anything slightly affirmative was Nikolai Bukharin, and he tempered the kind words by observing, crushingly, that the poor fellow never really understood dialectics. What a put-down. Our own advance interest in Gorbachev's speech was centered on a much more mundane matter: What would the leader say about the special stores? These institutions play a critical role in the Communist system. In fact, a case can be made that they are the whole point of the system. After all, why should anybody join the Soviet ruling class if he still had to stand in line three times just to buy a chicken? As is well known (a phrase much favored by Stalin, especially as a preface to controversial statements), the rulers and rulees in the Soviet Union may be instantly distinguished by their respective shopping arrangements. The rulers -- the three-million-odd members of the nomenklatura -- receive part of their pay in coupons exchangeable in special hard-currency stores featuring heavily discounted prices and superior merchandise. Elite Soviet families can send out their chauffeurs to shop at these stores; ordinary Russians are not allowed to enter them or, indeed, to loiter outside. When the proles shop in their own state stores, they are subjected to a routine unimaginable under democratic capitalism or, for that matter, czarism. First, they stand in line to order the merchandise. Then they stand in a separate line to pay for it. Then, sometimes, they stand in a third line to pick up what they paid for. American journalists have had fun over the years estimating the unbelievable times Soviet citizens invest in purchasing various goods. In his Russia, Robert G. Kaiser estimated six hours or so to buy a fur hat (an item not ordinarily in short supply) in GUM (Moscow's best department store). But wait. The Soviet Union is now run by a fellow who says he wants to abolish special privileges. Might demokratiya turn out to mean no more special stores for the nomenklatura? That question was in fact raised seriously in the early months of the Gorbachev era, and evidently triggered hysterics in the elite. At the 1986 Party Congress, Geidar Aliyev, a member of the Politburo, held a news conference at which he acknowledged that the subject of special stores was ''under discussion'' but then proceeded to defend present arrangements as no big deal. On the other hand, a close ally of Gorbachev, Moscow party boss Boris Yeltsin, was then attacking the special stores and actually closed down one of them in the capital. The latest news is, as ever, ambiguous. Aliyev has recently resigned from the Politburo, but it may be only for health reasons. Yeltsin has also departed. At the recent Central Committee meeting a few weeks ago, he attacked various party leaders who were not doing enough to push Gorbachev's reforms. It was unclear from the news accounts whether he had extended his crusade against the special stores -- but very clear that whatever he said caused pandemonium, and led to his apologizing and his removal as Moscow chief. The Keeping Up Sovietology desk opines sagely that before the whole proceeding started, most Central Committee members promised their wives that whatever else happened, they would get Yeltsin. In his marathon three-hour speech at the ''joint festive meeting,'' Gorbachev himself never mentioned the subject of differential shopping arrangements in the Soviet Union. To be sure, he did talk about the growing importance of ''humanitarian values in the economy.'' Maybe that phrase refers to the interminable lines the lower classes get to stand in. One never knows.