By Renfrey Clarke
MOSCOW — In the presidential poll on June 16, Boris Yeltsin gained about 35% of the vote compared with 32 % for his main rival, Communist Party of the Russian Federation (KPRF) leader Gennady Zyuganov. Then, within two days, Yeltsin's chances of winning the second round run-off increased sharply when Alexander Lebed, the authoritarian-nationalist retired general who had placed third with 14.5 % of the vote, took up an offer to join Yeltsin's administration.
Receiving the influential posts of national security adviser and secretary of the president's Security Council, Lebed was promised a sweeping mandate to fight crime, purge corruption and reform the structures of the armed forces. As part of his price for contributing his prestige and voter following to Yeltsin's cause, he quickly obtained the sacking of the widely unpopular defence minister, Pavel Grachev. A relatively easy Yeltsin victory seemed assured when the second round of voting was set for Wednesday, July 3, declared a holiday for the purpose.
But in a turbulent 24 hours beginning on the afternoon of June 19, much of the confidence of Yeltsin supporters disappeared. A string of obscure but savage bureaucratic skirmishes raged in the Kremlin. When the blood eventually congealed, three of the president's closest collaborators had been sacked. Lebed was still within the Yeltsin camp, but embittered and vocally critical.
The first sign of turmoil emerged about 5pm on June 19, when two subordinates of Yeltsin's election campaign chief Anatoly Chubais were arrested. The two were said to be carrying an undocumented sum of US$500,000 in a cardboard box, a charge they denied. By about 3am Chubais had managed to obtain their release.
Early the following morning Moscow television was airing reports that an attempt had been made to force the cancellation of the elections. Savouring his new powers as security chief, Lebed held a dawn press conference at which he pledged: "Any revolt will be suppressed, and in an extremely tough way".
Heads soon began to roll. During the afternoon the sackings were announced of first vice-premier Oleg Soskovets, who had overseen government policy in the defence and metals industries; of Federal Security Service (FSB — the former KGB) chief General Mikhail Barsukov; and most significantly, of Yeltsin's head bodyguard and closest confidant, General Alexander Korzhakov.
Liberal elation
The first response by Russian liberals was one of elation. Leading Moscow papers hailed a resounding victory for Chubais over the so-called "party of war", said to have dominated the administration over many months. Along with Grachev, it was said, the sacked officials had pushed for a hard line in the war in Chechnya. With their links to cash-starved defence industries, they had opposed cutbacks in state subsidies and the imposing of strict financial discipline.
The "stable-cleaning" in the Kremlin was counted as a big plus for Yeltsin's election effort, giving disaffected liberals a reason to turn out to the polls. Lebed supporters as well were thought likely to be pleased: the dismissed officials had loomed as rivals in areas seen as Lebed's purview of operations. By removing Korzhakov, in particular, Yeltsin was said to have given notice that he meant to work closely with Lebed, grooming him as an eventual successor to the presidency.
The key problem with this interpretation was Lebed himself, who had evidently not been consulted about the June 20 sackings. He also found the new line-up of forces not to his liking. One point that escaped most of the commentators was that in background and temperament, Lebed is closer to Korzhakov and Barsukov than to Chubais, who emerged as the main winner on June 20.
In an impassioned article published on June 22, Lebed took his distance from Yeltsin, going so far as to deny giving his support to the president's re-election effort: "I'm permanently allergic to former members of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, and this applies to Zyuganov and Yeltsin ... I have serious reasons to believe that neither of these two is an ideal leader for our country."
In the opinion of one of Lebed's close aides quoted on June 22 in the English-language Moscow Tribune, the June 20 sackings represented an attempt to isolate Lebed. "From my point of view, the blow fell on the faction that assisted Lebed to come to power", the retired general's adviser, Dmitry Rogozin, argued. "The fear was that with Lebed's help, that faction would become too powerful and impossible to shift."
This view is quite plausible. Compelled to grant Lebed a position with massive influence, Yeltsin may well have regarded a likely bloc of Lebed with the "party of war" as an unacceptable threat.
There is no doubt that Korzhakov and his allies had already built up positions of remarkable strength within the presidential apparatus. Originally plucked from the KGB in 1985 to become Yeltsin's bodyguard, Korzhakov eventually achieved ministerial rank and came to command as many as 40,000 troops. Within government circles, he pushed for the vigorous prosecution of the war in Chechnya. Earlier this year he was publicly rebuked by Yeltsin after urging that the elections be cancelled.
In 1995 Korzhakov won the appointment of his protégé Mikhail Barsukov as head of the FSB.
Yeltsin seems to have calculated that the "party of war" had made itself so unpopular that he could only gain from removing its leaders.
Competing barbarians
Chubais may well be destined once again to play a key role as an economic decision-maker. Though detested by oppositionists for his actions as privatisation chief, Chubais has appeal for western governments and for economic liberals within Russia. Within the presidential apparatus, Chubais would be offset by Lebed, whose base now is in the so-called "power ministries" of defence, security and the interior.
Chubais and Lebed are both barbarians in their own fashion. Chubais as privatisation chief presided over the parcelling out of the "property of all the people" to the same enterprise directors who had mismanaged it before, and to newcomers who often were clearly gangsters.
Lebed has based his political appeal on the image of a bluff, righteous soldier out to see that the gangsters are crushed. But he evidently has in mind only those gangsters who have not yet consolidated their share of the loot. His simple economic thinking revolves around the sanctity of existing private property, an unregulated market economy, efficient tax collection and "a strict and effective law that will protect entrepreneurs and owners from criminal encroachments".
When problems arise, Lebed's preferred resort is overwhelming force. In the past, he has made clear his admiration for Chile's General Pinochet: "He killed 3000 people [by other accounts, closer to 15,000], but restored order to the country. It was worth it." On other occasions, Lebed has declared: "In Russia we shall have to build democracy by authoritarian means". In April he told the party congress nominating him that the legislature should be appointed by the president, not elected.
However, there are few signs that Lebed's political alliance with Yeltsin will be stable or long-lasting. Yeltsin needs the votes of Lebed's supporters, but he does not need a younger, less inebriated version of himself upstaging him throughout his second term.
Lebed needs a real record of achievement if he is to win the presidency in four years' time; only the powers he wields as a central member of Yeltsin's apparatus are likely to give him this. But dependent on Yeltsin for his authority, Lebed will be at risk of being identified with an unpopular regime. Therefore, he has a need to limit and qualify his support for Yeltsin, and to make his own initiatives, many of which are seen to cut across the president's policies.
The former general has already played several wild cards. In an interview published in the June 24 issue of Der Spiegel, Lebed defied government policy and called for the granting of independence to Chechnya, should the Chechens express the wish for this through a referendum. He has also called for Communists to be brought into the government and given responsibility for labour and social affairs. This is in radical opposition to the line followed by Chubais, who has sought to anathematise the Communists and legitimise the regime through a "red scare" campaign.
As secretary of the Security Council, Lebed reportedly plans a team of corruption-fighting "field emissaries" to implement his decisions and report to him. It is hard to see much impact on crooked officials, but the resulting intra-bureaucratic strains will be intense. Lebed's habits of authoritarianism give cause for concern that the already bad human rights situation will deteriorate still further.
In sum, Lebed's presence in the administration during a prospective second Yeltsin term is likely to result in confusion in a range of areas of state policy, heightened conflicts within the bureaucracy, arbitrariness in the administration of justice and worsened relations with human rights activists. The impact on crime is unlikely to be great. The chances of Lebed remaining for long in his new post therefore seem slight.