By Renfrey Clarke
MOSCOW — As the April 25 referendum approaches, Russian President Boris Yeltsin's authority is crumbling in the country's provinces, regions and constituent republics. Already a persistent feature of Yeltsin's presidency, this process has accelerated since the Eighth Congress of People's Deputies in March stripped Yeltsin of a series of extraordinary powers, and since his attempt to retrieve his position through a "presidential coup" met with defeat.
The following recent developments highlight the weakening of the president's grip:
- in local elections in a series of districts on April 11, opponents of Yeltsin's policies heavily outpolled his supporters;
- the Soviet of People's Deputies in the Republic of Mordovia voted on April 6 to abolish the post of president — currently held by a Yeltsin sympathiser;
- in the Republic of Bashkortostan, a question added to the ballot for the April 25 referendum will prepare for the republic to claim markedly greater autonomy;
- in Vologda Province, the referendum is to contain an additional question asking voters whether they favour giving provinces of the Russian Federation the same rights as constituent republics;
- in the major industrial centres of Chelyabinsk and Novosibirsk, share auctions under the central government's privatisation scheme have been suspended.
The multi-ethnic Russian state includes 21 national republics and 70 provinces and regions. During Soviet times local self-rule was essentially a fiction, but, especially since late 1991, the regional power centres have become much better placed to resist pressures from Moscow.
After the central industrial ministries ceased to regulate the activity of enterprises in the provinces, many of the economic control functions were taken over by the local administrations. For the enterprise managers, collaboration with local political chiefs had important advantages: the resulting politico-economic mafias were powerful fighting units in internal trade, which often resembles a form of ethnic and regional warfare.
When the central government launched its "reforms" by
abandoning almost all price controls at the beginning of 1992, the regional elites were further strengthened. The production of raw materials, intermediate goods and components in Russia is highly concentrated, often in single factories; free price formation allowed the republics and provinces to begin an orgy of monopoly price-gouging that has continued to this day.
Local authorities have shown increasing boldness in charting their own course despite the edicts coming from Moscow. The republic of Chechnya, in the Caucasus, has in effect seceded.
Tatarstan, one of the largest of the six republics of the Volga region east of Moscow, has declared itself an independent state within the Russian Federation, and adopted its own constitution.
The republics of Karelia, Sakha and Bashkortostan have pursued local programs in open defiance of the central government.
At times, local authorities have refused to forward revenues to Moscow.
The republics and provinces of Siberia, which together provide about half of Russia's export income, are particularly well placed to dictate terms to Moscow. In 1992 the Siberian Agreement, an organisation of industrialists and local heads of government, forced the central government to grant Siberia 10% of all revenues from the sale of its oil and other resources.
In the course of 1992 Yeltsin issued nearly a thousand presidential decrees. Few were implemented, largely because local authorities ignored them. Even where agreeing in principle with all-Russian programs, local authorities often dictated the pace at which they were put into effect. While some 50% of small municipal enterprises and service outlets in Moscow had been privatised by February, the figure in Tatarstan was only 2%.
Local elites
As part of his preparations for economic "reform", Yeltsin demanded and won from the Russian parliament the right to appoint the heads of provincial and regional administrations. However, these "governors" have made only a limited impact, frequently running into effective opposition from legislatures dominated by the local elites.
The regional elites have not ignored the all-Russian political scene. Despite their rivalries, they have been conscious enough of their common interests to build political lobbies and coalitions which have proven considerably more effective than those of the president's supporters.
The best known of these formations are the Union of
Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, and the Civic Union, the political bloc whose sympathisers make up about half of the Russian parliament.
The long-running clash between president and parliament, it follows, is not primarily a contest between "capitalist reformers" and former "communist conservatives". Virtually all of the major players on both sides are former members of the Communist Party, and the regional elites have no quarrel with capitalism, provided it is introduced on their terms and in their interests.
In reality, the dispute is about who will own the privatised riches — the established elites are fearful of nouveau riche entrepreneurs attempting to buy up factories with the profits from speculation — and about economic policy. With reason, the provincial elites regard Yeltsin's "shock therapy" as semi-literate utopianism destined to destroy many of the industries that are the basis of Russia's wealth.
Wages now buy only about 30% of what they did before the "reforms" were launched, so it is not surprising that surveys show only a small minority of citizens continuing to support Yeltsin's policies. Though often anxious to have Yeltsin remain as president in order to counterbalance his opponents, Russians clearly want to shift control over economic strategy to the hands of less adventurist politicians from organisations such as the Civic Union.
Yeltsinites defeated
These are the basic reasons why representatives of the established elites scored a virtual clean sweep in the local elections on April 11. The only notable exception — to which the liberal Moscow press nevertheless gave front-page treatment — was the election of a millionaire entrepreneur as president of the small stock-raising republic of Kalmykia. Almost everywhere, avowed Yeltsin supporters polled badly.
Most of the elections were precipitated by the decision of the Congress of People's Deputies in March to end the agreement under which Yeltsin was allowed to appoint the heads of local administrations. Following a second round of voting on April 25, Orel, Bryansk, Penza and Chelyabinsk provinces, and the Krasnodar region, will almost certainly have new governors at odds with the Russian president.
Throughout mid-April attention was focused on the small Volga region republic of Mordovia. Here, the reverses suffered by Yeltsin since early March emboldened his opponents in the legislature to vote by more than two-thirds to amend the constitution and abolish the post of president. This post had been won in elections in January 1992 by Vasily Guslyannikov, a local leader of the pro-Yeltsin Democratic Russia bloc.
Guslyannikov appealed to the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation to overturn his sacking, and on April 8 Yeltsin decreed that the Mordovian president should remain in power until the court ruled. The Mordovian legislature, rejecting Yeltsin's decree as interference in the affairs of a sovereign state, set about naming a new government.
The Mordovian parliament appears to have breached both the republican and federal constitutions, and the Constitutional Court can be expected to rule in favour of Guslyannikov.
But an attempt by Moscow to enforce the ruling would sharply exacerbate its relations with a series of constituent republics, most notably Tatarstan. A failure to enforce the decision, on the other hand, would quite probably induce a number of other republican legislatures to oust pro-Yeltsin presidents.
'Economic independence'
The questions added to the ballot in Bashkortostan and Vologda Province represent straightforward attempts to demonstrate popular support for greater local control. Both questions will probably receive the backing of majorities of voters.
The question in Bashkortostan urges "economic independence" for the republic — meaning a separate tax system and unqualified freedom for the republic to export its produce — and foresees that relations with Moscow will be conducted on the basis of agreements to be negotiated with the central government. Moscow is unlikely to resist these changes, which have already been prefigured by neighbouring Tatarstan.
In Vologda, the reasons the local legislature wants regions and provinces to have the same rights as constituent republics are suggested by the following quotation, from an article in Izvestiya:
"In the words of chairperson of the regional soviet Gennady Khripel, the republics now pay 10 to 19% of their revenues to the federal budget, while the centre for some reason takes as much as 91% from the regions and provinces."
Here, the central government can make concessions only at the risk of drastically increasing its budget deficit.
Privatisation
The regional elites in Russia have sharp differences with Yeltsin and his ministers on the pace and character of privatisation.
Under the current legislation, there is no guarantee that
workers and managers between them can muster enough of the government's privatisation vouchers to purchase a controlling interest in their plants. If enterprises look profitable, it is quite likely that "foreigners" from other regions of Russia who have bought up large quantities of devalued vouchers will win controlling packets of shares.
The decision by local authorities in Chelyabinsk and Novosibirsk to suspend the auctions means that two of the Russian government's five initial centres of large-scale privatisation have opted out. Others may well follow. The privatisation scheme has been dealt a severe blow.
The drift of power away from Moscow and into provincial centres has begun drawing expressions of alarm from the government and from leading figures in the Yeltsin camp. In mid-February Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin called for greater central control, warning local leaders that demanding more authority would tear Russia apart. Increasingly, commentators from among the "democrats" are citing the danger of national disintegration as a reason for instituting a "regime of personal authority".
However, stripping the parliament of its powers and concentrating authority in the president is not the way to bring regional centres under control — even to the extent that this goal ought to be pursued.
The flourishing of local "apparatus mafias" has been a direct, predictable result of Yeltsin's neo-liberal policies — in particular, of the precipitate, poorly thought-out destruction of central economic regulation, and of the vast increase in the power of monopoly producers that resulted from the abolition of price controls. If given unlimited authority, Yeltsin would entrench these policies still further, with all their disastrous consequences.
The way to discipline local elites is not through dictatorship — far too blunt an instrument for defeating people skilled in bureaucratic manipulation and intrigue — but through democracy. That means a genuine effort by the executive branch of government to collaborate with legislatures at all levels, developing their authority and repute as representative institutions.
The disintegration of Russia into a patchwork of warring principalities is not in the interests of the working population. Given the necessary political leadership, Russian workers can forge state institutions that achieve a rational division of power between the capital and provincial areas. Weakening or abolishing the present legislatures would not aid this process, but short-circuit it.