Upheaval in Russia

...It would be surprising, given the origins of this new democracy, if the parliamentary bodies it produces prove to be more than "decorative," as some provincial leaders have warned...

...Furthermore, the WINTER • 1994 • 33 Politics Abroad electoral process was closed to the banned political organizations and publications of the far left and the far right that had most bitterly opposed him up to October...

...We may expect these hegemonic tendencies to become more obvious, as geopolitical logic, Russian tradition, and Yeltsin's own deepest instincts impel him to reassert Russian influence in the "near-abroad" of ex-Soviet republics, and perhaps in the old East European bloc and in the Middle East...

...Yet even in reform economics Russian habits are showing up...

...The chaotic consequences of the Yeltsinites' economic libertarianism underscore the need in the Russian cultural context for some degree of governmental management to keep the economy functioning...

...The trend toward personalism in Russia has been reinforced by the presidential structure of government that Gorbachev bequeathed to Yeltsin, with its separation of powers between the executive and the legislature...

...A clue to Yeltsin's aspirations is his new identification of himself with the eleventh-century Kievan prince Yaroslav the Great and the "gathering in of the Russian lands" —a point of Slavic unity that could not have been lost on the Ukrainians and Belorussians...

...Touting Peter the Great as the model Russian ruler—as did Stalin--he seemed to regard himself as a sort of elected czar...

...Regional governments, which behaved very independently after the collapse of communism, are now being brought to heel by Yeltsin-appointed governors and "personal representatives," and by Yeltsin-decreed constitutional provisions...

...Instead, we observe the Russian tendency to plunge into anarchy when the heavy hand of central control is lifted, as it was in 1917...

...His disappearance from the scene could invite real life to spring up in his manipulated constitutional structures, just as the postBrezhnev succession allowed the old dummy communist institutions to take on a semblance of reality...

...First of all, Yeltsin's incapacitation or death would be a hazardous point for the new system, as it always is with personalistic regimes where no strong successor has been allowed to develop a real power base or public appeal...

...The rest of the political spectrum was hopelessly fractionated among parties that existed, as the Russians say, mostly in the imaginations of their leaders...

...He is bold and impulsive, a fearless gambler, domineering and vindictive...

...Impatient with his supporters' efforts at constitution drafting, no doubt annoyed by indications that his popularity had begun to flag, and stubbornly rejecting the zero-sum compromise of early elections for president as well as Parliament, he decided on a coup de main to institute presidential rule...

...After all, he pushed the free-market reforms primarily as a foil to destroy first Gorbachev and then the Russian Parliament, and he may be quite capable of changing his beliefs now that those objectives have been accomplished...

...Moreover, Russian independence in foreign policy has already begun to show, as Yeltsin caters to latent nationalist opinion and as the military who saved him in October present their bill...

...Hence his reversal on NATO membership for the East European countries, the threat to veto UN sanctions against Libya, and the assertion of a Russian "Monroe Doctrine" to keep the peace in the former Soviet realm...

...If Yeltsin lasts long enough, and if his GreatRussian irredentist proclivities become visible enough, the nationalist elements will no doubt come around to him...

...Then, growing disillusioned with Gorbachev, many of them rallied to Yeltsin and became apologists for his new pseudo-democracy or for what they perceive to be the lesser evil...

...Russia is proving to be no exception...

...But the intelligentsia is purist and unstable...

...The near-unanimity of Western leaders and media in swallowing Yeltsin's spurious democratic claims in the face of his crude violations of constitutional processes recalls the procommunist fellow-traveling of the 1930s...

...There is, to be sure, an alternative strand in the Russian tradition, represented since the eighteenth century by the Russian intelligentsia, the class defined by its attachment to culture and ideas (especially Western) and its rejection of the prevailing social order...

...With his enemies disposed of, one can well imagine Yeltsin using his personal power to reverse the economic reform line as it becomes politically inexpedient and when he no longer needs to please the West...

...Since Yeltsin's September coup and the futile resistance of the most extreme oppositionists in October, the traditional Russian style in government has become more and more apparent—the leader decrees and the people conform...

...Now we know, unfortunately, that these insights were never really invalidated...

...Noting the recent steps toward presidential dictatorship by Boris Yeltsin, we can see that the old Russian habits of authoritarianism, centralism, imperialism, and conformism were never pushed very far below the surface during the last few years of reform...

...Having seized unlimited power, including a free hand to dictate future constitutional arrangements, Yeltsin seemingly permitted an open democratic process leading to the ratification of the new constitution and the election of new parliamentary bodies...

...To be sure, the ideological positions are reversed, but in both cases wish-fulfillment led foreign sympathizers to be taken in by Moscow's propaganda...

...New parties sprang up instantly, though two of them—"Russia's Choice" and the "Party of Russian Unity and Concord" — were officially inspired and led by members of the Yeltsin cabinet, an arrangement that could guarantee Yeltsin's control of the new Parliament while maintaining the illusion of a free choice...

...Not necessarily...

...Does Yeltsin's consonance with Russian political culture mean that the authoritarian type of rule reestablished in the course of the year 1993 will go on indefinitely...

...Sovietologists who always thought that deep Russian cultural traits were a major factor shaping Soviet communism found Gorbachev's perestroika and the rapid progress toward constitutional government under his leadership a perplexing innovation, though a welcome one...

...34 • DISSENT...

...Overwhelmingly elected president in December 1848 on a law-and-order platform, following the brief but bloody revolution of 1848, the nephew of the first Napoleon brought in the army three years later to dissolve the National Assembly, conducted a constitutional plebiscite to give himself dictatorial powers, and a year later made himself emperor in the image of his uncle...

...Russian authoritarianism and imperialism are challenges that we are not done with...

...Nevertheless, the united front of Western acclaim started to crack after Yeltsin assumed openly dictatorial power and imposed censorship in the course of the September—October crisis...

...The latter, aimed particularly at "dark" people from the Caucasus who are blamed for the current crime wave, is a form of ethnic cleansing that is unfortunately very popular with the Russian majority...

...Local executive power is to be part of a centrally controlled "single administrative hierarchy," and provincial legislative bodies will be reduced to no more than fifty members, small enough to be easily manipulated, and curbed by the veto power of the appointed governors besides...

...The police quickly reverted to their old habits, presumably with assent from above—arrests without cause or warrant, bugging dissidents or beating them up, and running dragnet operations...

...As for the Clinton administration, for domestic political purposes it has desperately needed to be able to claim one foreign-policy success among its many reverses and tergiversations, and so it persisted in writing blank checks to Yeltsin all through the constitutional crisis of 1993...

...Yeltsin's economic reform program of privatization and free markets would appear to be the antithesis of the Russian statist tradition, czarist as well as Soviet...

...Furthermore, Yeltsin's method of introducing reform is characteristically Russian—by decree of the autocrat—without thought for the practical financial and legal basis that the West takes for granted...

...Yeltsin still tried to remain above the contest as waged by political parties, and avoided explicit identification as leader of his own political forces, preferring to enjoy power as a direct gift from "the people...

...However, Yeltsin is an inspired broken-field runner who takes full advantage of every chance opening...

...Ironically, it is these people who have most favored Yeltsin, out of fear of backsliding to communism, while Yeltsin's most natural allies on the nationalist wing, not recognizing their affinity with him beneath their opposing ideological slogans, have been most vocally resisting him...

...The closest historical parallel with Yeltsin's coup from above is perhaps with President Louis Napoleon Bonaparte in the France of the early 1850s...

...Beyond all this, the Russian antimercantile tradition can already be felt in a growing popular backlash—reflected in the stance of the ill-fated Parliament—against the new speculator economy...

...After escaping impeachment and claiming victory in March, he took his modest win in the April referendum as a mandate for personal rule, and set about destroying his enemies in the Parliament—by 32 • DISSENT Politics Abroad constitutional changes if possible, by extraconstitutional actions if necessary...

...Yeltsin's personality seems tailor-made to fit the expectations for individual authority emanating from Russian political culture...

...Given these proclivities and the weakness of so much of the Russian population for a "presidentczar" (in the words of the Independent Gazette of Moscow, October 13) the crisis of September– October, when Yeltsin dissolved the Russian Parliament, suppressed its supporters, and imposed personal rule, was virtually inevitable...

...Second, Yeltsin's style of rule will not ultimately be compatible with the nontraditional elements in Russian political culture, that is, the intelligentsia and the millions of educated urban dwellers, whose growing pressure against the Brezhnev system set the stage for reform under Gorbachev...

...Gorbachev's perestroika, for the first time in Russia's history, drew in the intellectuals as a support for the government...

...This time, however, there is one very practical motive for the West: Yeltsin has been willing to be subsidized by Western governments and investors in return for conducting a docile foreign policy...

...The economists who authored Yeltsin's program illustrate the penchant among the Russian intelligentsia for embracing utopian Western ideas—now classical economic theory and the Chicago School—and carrying them to extremes in the name of a "radiant future...

...This American model, depending so heavily on habits of compromise, and in their absence inviting political polarization and deadlock, has resulted in dictatorship almost everywhere it has been copied...

...Like the beneficent monarch, he claims to represent the united people against the craven bureaucrats...

...Yeltsin came to power as the favorite of the Parliament—its first chairman and its choice for president—but its resistance to his economic shock therapy and the resulting conflict of wills led quickly to the impasse of 1993...

...To the degree that they may become truly independent, however, Russia will be back in the same situation of legislative-executive gridlock that led to the fall crisis and personal rule...