Doing it His Way

Imagine yourself the lame duck leader of a large, developed but struggling power. You have a 2% approval rating. You have this really popular prime minister and a legislature that is out for your blood.

Now, this legislature is starting proceedings to impeach you. Not remove you, just take first steps toward that end, an end which is pretty unlikely before your term is up. If you keep your cool, that is. See, this legislature just wants to beat up on you a bit so they can all win their seats back in the next parliamentary election, just six months off.

So, what do you do in this situation? Obvious, right? You fire your popular prime minister and pick a fight with the legislature. You propose as the new prime minister an official who played a significant role in a war that is a large reason for the impeachment battle. You initiate a constitutional crisis that will drag out beyond the end of the current parliament’s session. In short, you show you are still the guy in charge, even though most everyone in the country just wishes you would go away.

Welcome to Russia on the eve of the new millennium.

Things were just starting to look up: Russia’s stock market was on a slow climb out of the abyss, the ruble was gaining against the dollar, Russia inked a long overdue deal with the IMF and was starting to score diplomatic points in seeking a settlement of the war in Yugoslavia.

But Boris Yeltsin couldn’t live with all that. He had to show he is still the Top Muzhik. He had to defend his hold on power at all costs, even if it means dragging Russia down with him.

Some months ago, Russian Life said it was time for Yeltsin to step down. Had he left early, he might have salvaged a respected place in history. Now he will be more remembered for petty political games than for a defiant stand on a tank.

It is time for Western leaders to recognize that Boris Yeltsin is an albatross hanging about their necks, that they would do well to invest their support in more predictable, stable leaders with more popular backing. The communist paper Sovietskaya Rossiya is no paragon of objective reportage, but it did hit the nail on the head on May 13, when impeachment proceedings began against Yeltsin: “The people are virtually 100% against Yeltsin’s regime, except for prostitutes, hired killers, “New Russians” and the oligarchs.”

Boris Nikolaevich did not leave when he could. Worse still, now he is goading others to show him the door. Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov won’t need to be asked twice. He has already included popular ex-Premier Yevgeny Primakov at the top of Otechestvo’s (Fatherland) pre-electoral candidate list. Indeed, on the night Primakov was fired, he was seen alongside Luzhkov at the UEFA Soccer Cup finals.

But don’t expect Luzhkov to overextend himself. As he said, unlike October 1993 (when tanks fired on the parliament), Moscow authorities will not “give a pretext for the power structures to take the situation to the extreme.”

Luzhkov and Primakov are too smart to play their hands just yet. In the coming weeks, while the Duma hops back and forth between impeachment hearings and consideration of Yeltsin’s prime ministerial candidates, the mayor and former premier will likely stay above the fray, waiting to feast on carrion after the battle is done. The year 2000 (and presidential elections) is not that far off, after all, for he who is patient enough to wait. The main thing is not to get tainted by pointless squabbles before then.

By the time you read this column, in mid-June, the game should be over. Yeltsin could be impeached, the Duma could be dissolved for not having accepted Yeltsin’s nominated premier, or both or neither of the above could be true. Which way it will turn is anyone’s guess. Unlike the old woman in Pushkin’s Queen of Spades, no one has a secret formula for predicting this game’s outcome.

Even the dealer, Boris Nikolaevich, is playing this game by ear (thriving as he does in a crisis) and cannot predict himself what he will do next. As one authoritative observer of the Russian scene, Otto Latsis, put it: “one should assume that no one knows every thing that Yeltsin may think or dream up — not even he himself.”

But one thing we can be sure of. While Boris battles the Duma, the people will suffer. As Pushkin’s relative said in his play Boris Godunov, “Citizens of Moscow! The world has seen your suffering under the cruel intruder’s rule: the persecution, executions, the dishonor, taxes, hard work, hunger – you have experienced all of these.”

Pushkin’s narod (people) were silent and would not hail the False Dmitry who usurped Boris Godunov. The departure of Russia’s modern Boris (however it comes in the end) will certainly not be met with such silence, but with a resounding cheer.

— Paul Richardson & Mikhail Ivanov