By Renfrey Clarke
MOSCOW — "The Russian government's economic program cannot be implemented by democratic means", a speaker argued bluntly at an international conference held by the Russian trade unions on September 16.
The same day, Russian President Boris Yeltsin reappointed former acting prime minister Yegor Gaidar to his ministry, to take responsibility for economic policy. The message was clear: by restoring Gaidar, the chief architect of last year's disastrous "shock therapy", Yeltsin was signifying that there would be no turning aside from ruthless monetarist "reform".
Five days later, the trade union speaker's prediction was borne out. In a television address on the evening of September 21, Yeltsin declared the country's parliament "suspended", and the duties of the deputies "terminated". The president declared that he would rule by decree until elections to a new parliament were held in December.
Within hours, an emergency sitting of Russia's Constitutional Court ruled the president's abolition of the current parliament illegal. But Yeltsin was not fazed; anticipating such a ruling, he had already declared in his address that he was amending the constitution by decree — a right he does not possess.
The constitution and the representative power, in short, have been overthrown in favour of rule by one person, making up the laws as he goes along. Yeltsin in his speech insisted that his actions were essential in order to defend "rule by the people and constitutionality". But staging a coup d'etat in order to defend democratic rule is like fornicating to promote chastity.
Failed policies
Behind the rationalisations, Yeltsin's coup is a recognition that opposition to his policies — and above all to his economic strategies — has reached the point where continuing to implement them through the structures set out in the constitution has become impossible.
The president found himself forced to choose between respecting democracy — which in the circumstances would mean collaborating seriously with the parliament in order to develop workable policies acceptable to the deputies — and continuing his hardline neo-liberal program for rebuilding capitalism in Russia.
Yeltsin's policies have met opposition in the legislature not because the parliament is dominated by bloody-minded conservatives — an absurd claim — but because these policies are both contrary to the interests of most Russians and deeply flawed. Few economic programs in history have been so ill suited to the context in which they were meant to be implemented, and few have failed so comprehensively.
According to seasonally adjusted figures published in the newspaper Finansovye Izvestia, the output of Russian industry this month is likely to be no more than 60% of the level in January 1990. Most of this collapse has occurred since Yeltsin's "reforms" were launched in January 1992.
Price rises, which amounted to 2600% in 1992, continue to skate along the bottom edge of hyperinflation. In August they edged upward to a monthly rate of 29%. For most workers, compensation has been inadequate and erratic. Real per capita incomes have plunged to Third World levels, recent World Bank figures ranking Russian living standards with those of Mexico.
As the crash has proceeded, the once predictable lives of workers have become frighteningly insecure, as further clamp-downs on state credits threaten to produce massive unemployment, the state health care system disintegrates, and public order dissolves into criminality.
The expiry of public faith in Yeltsin has been mirrored in recent opinion polls showing that popular support for the president no longer significantly exceeds that for his leading opponent, estranged Vice-President Alexander Rutskoi. Mass dissatisfaction has fed a dramatic increase in the strike rate during recent months.
Elections
If Yeltsin carried out his coup in order to persist with policies that have lost public backing, why is he promising quick elections, at which the population will presumably be able to strike a blow against him by rejecting his supporters?
There is, in fact, a pressing need for elections to the parliament to be brought forward from the due date of March 1995. Contrary to journalistic myth, the parliament was not elected undemocratically, and neither is it run by hardline communists. The parliament is the same body that elected Yeltsin as its chairperson in 1990, and that later agreed to create the post of executive president that Yeltsin aspired to fill.
The parliament's "obstruction" is a phenomenon of the past 18 months, and reflects the assembly's wish to continue making the country's laws — its legitimate function — and through this means, to temper the follies of ignorant, dogmatic ministers.
Nevertheless, the parliament badly needs the renewal of its authority that elections would bring, just as the population and political activists need the educative experience of a hard-fought election campaign. Opinion surveys suggest that if new elections were held under fair conditions, pro-Yeltsin candidates would poll badly. The big winners would be candidates of the "centre" bloc led by Rutskoi.
However, Yeltsin's scheme for parliamentary elections is designed to give him democratic cover while producing an unrepresentative, "toy telephone" legislature.
Most of the recent proposals for early parliamentary elections have urged that the polls be held next spring. This would provide enough time — just — to create the necessary legal and organisational mechanisms, and for political parties to plan their campaigns.
Fixing the results
Yeltsin, however, has announced election dates of December 11 and 12. That would leave barely two and a half months for Russia's mainly immature and badly organised parties to choose candidates and put together effective campaigns — an impossible task.
Also, Yeltsin has called his elections to fill positions in a new parliament, with new electoral laws and constituency boundaries. The only way the technical mechanisms for these elections can be created in time is through gross acts of bureaucratic arbitrariness. Massive irregularities in polling and voting procedures appear certain.
If these elections go ahead, some of the worst features of past electioneering in Russia will undoubtedly be repeated. Yeltsin obtained an unexpectedly high vote of confidence in his April 25 referendum largely through using state-controlled radio and television in a ruthlessly one-sided media campaign.
To prevent further such abuses, the parliament was expected to introduce British-style equal time legislation. But so far as Yeltsin and his supporters in the zealously right-wing media are concerned, the only "parliament" that can now adopt these proposals is the president himself.
The only elections which pro-Yeltsin candidates could hope to win would be elections in which the major opposition parties were not participating. The December elections, if they take place, may well meet this criterion. The parties of the left and centre have little reason to take part. In the first place, the elections have been called to legitimise actions which these parties have condemned as illegal. And with the president denying sufficient time for proper campaigning, and likely to repeat his misuse of the media, the conditions in which the elections take place will not be free and fair.
Finally, the elections are intended to crown the introduction — it appears by the president himself — of a new constitution. Though modified by Yeltsin's hand-picked Constitutional Assembly, and incorporating some elements suggested by the parliament's Constitutional Commission, this document still bears the heavy imprint of a draft prepared earlier this year by Yeltsin and his advisers. If it is implemented, he will gain extensive powers to legislate by decree, making the parliament largely irrelevant. The independence of the judicial branch will be compromised.
Far from defending democracy, Yeltsin's coup was launched because democratic institutions were beginning to work. The system of checks and balances was functioning as intended, with the legislature and the judiciary curbing the ability of the president to continue implementing policies which had failed and lost popular support. But instead of accepting that the other branches of government had the right to insist on a change of course, Yeltsin responded as a committed totalitarian.
Western leaders have given the coup blanket support — something which should dispel the illusions of people in these countries that their own rulers are more scrupulous. But far more is involved in both Russia and the West than the egos of a few politicians. The real stake is the wealth of the small minority who live in luxury while jobs disappear and mass living standards deteriorate.
In Russia this class is weak and under threat, so its key defender has opted for naked force instead of democratic subterfuges.