Forever eyeing the main chance

By Achin Vanaik

WHATEVER THEIR other faults, the two leaders who presided over the birth and collapse of the Soviet Union, Lenin and Gorbachev, each combined courage with a serious political vision howsoever flawed that vision may have been. The first leader of post- Communist Russia, Mr. Boris Yeltsin, certainly had courage - the turning point in his political fortunes came when he opposed the 1991 August coup and at some personal risk rallied public support against the coup-makers. But beyond this attribute and a great skill in the shabby art of bureaucratic manoeuvring and populist posturing he has been a leader devoid of either financial scruples or political principles. It is perhaps apposite that such a man should have headed a form of transition to capitalism - shock therapy - that was deeply inefficient economically, insensitive and unjust socially, and strongly conducive to the promotion of authoritarianism politically.

The Russia Mr. Yeltsin leaves behind is a wasteland. If Russia secures an average growth rate of 3.3 per cent annually (which is the average for the U.S. over the last century) it will take another 17 years before its GDP reaches the level of 1989. The only equivalent to the devastation caused by the particular manner of transition pursued by Mr. Yeltsin under Western rightwing aegis has been the kind caused by the ravages of war. Except that after a war there is always a period of significant reconstruction. Eleven years after 1989 and nine years after the break up of the Soviet Union (in which Mr. Yeltsin played a crucial role) there are no signs whatsoever of any reconstruction boom.

But shock therapy did not fail, it actually succeeded in what it set out to do. Its primary aim was never to bring about mass prosperity or a more humane and efficient economy. That was just the rhetoric or self-delusion of neo-liberalism. It was to establish as quickly as possible the one social category that would have the strongest interest in making sure the transition to capitalism would be as quick as possible and effectively irreversible - a capitalist class!

While a small section of the intelligentsia was able to become capitalist owners of assets, and a much larger section to prosper by being the servitors and apprentices to the new economic and political ruling classes, the biggest beneficiaries were the members of the old bureaucratic-economic mafia and the former party Nomenklatura who were best positioned to carry out a massive buy-out or expropriation of formerly state-controlled assets and resources. In short, the same people who most benefited from the inequities of the old system are, by and large, the principal beneficiaries of the particular form of transition to capitalism that the Yeltsin regime oversaw in Russia. The obvious injustice in the manner of the formation of the new Russian capitalist class is quite inconsequential compared to the necessity of getting such a class institutionalised no matter where its members come from. More than anything else, Mr. Yeltsin symbolised the rise, attitudes and aspirations of this newly-emerging class.

It is public knowledge that his family has millions of dollars stashed in bank accounts abroad. One of the conditions on which Mr. Vladimir Putin followed him as acting President was that Mr. Yeltsin after his resignation be given immunity from any legal prosecution. The old ruling Soviet bureaucracy did sometimes throw up figures with some idealism and therefore a genuine reforming zeal like a Gorbachev. But far more commonly the leadership type that emerged had no commitment beyond the desire to achieve power by whatever means and to enjoy the material fruits of such power. Even The Economist, a long time admirer of Mr. Yeltsin, could only say of his autobiography ``Against The Grain'' that it was remarkably devoid of political thought.

This was a Yeltsin whose post-Glasnost rise to power was first enabled because of his proximity to Mr. Gorbachev and his old Sverdlovsk power base. When Mr. Yeltsin in 1987-88 temporarily fell from grace - being first appointed but then not getting alternate membership of the politburo - he sought to redeem himself in the eyes of his superiors by insisting that he was a good and loyal communist much needed in these times of reform. Only two years later, Mr. Yeltsin who owed his whole career to the CPSU would demand of the Russian Constitutional Court that it condemn the CPSU as a criminal organisation. A Yeltsin who first made his mark in Moscow as a rival to Mr. Gorbachev by positioning himself as a stronger opponent of elite privilege and a more determined and radical democrat ended up as the very embodiment of the privileged post-communist political- administrative elite and a strongly authoritarian personality determined to centralise even more power in the Presidency at the expense of the Duma.

So single-minded was his drive for supreme power that he willfully promoted the complete break-up of the Soviet Union when there were still good chances of preserving most of the old Union barring the Baltic states of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia. He did this through an informal alliance with the most militant nationalist leaders of certain republics because he calculated that he had better chances of emerging as a top leader of Russia than of any Union, albeit smaller than before, of various republics and autonomous regions. In this endeavour he could also count on the favour of the West for whom such a comprehensive break-up of the USSR was clearly the best option. For all the occasional anti-Western noises that Mr. Yeltsin has made, most notably over NATO enlargement and the Russian conflicts with Chechnya and Dagestan, he has been `their man'.

As long as there was no other acceptable alternative who also had the key reins of power in his hands, Mr. Yeltsin was seen as the main political bulwark against the return of the new communist party and the most strongly rightwing nationalist forces represented by the likes of Mr. Vladimir Zhirinovsky. What the West has feared is not the return of communism - the communist party is essentially a social democratic force and not the harbinger of the old kind of one-party state and command economy system - but a more determined Russian nationalism that would be far less accommodative of Western economic and strategic interests than the Yeltsin regime.

It is not so much his ill-health that pushed Mr. Yeltsin to announce his resignation at this time. The crucial factor was the results of the recent elections of the legislature in which the Putin-headed `centre' force made a surprisingly strong showing. Mr. Putin enjoys what Mr. Yeltsin has long forfeited - public popularity. This has been obtained partly because the economy has in recent times not suffered as badly as feared and partly because Russia has been winning the war in Chechnya, albeit through deployment of the most brutal means.

Mr. Putin may not be as pliable as Mr. Yeltsin and he may even have some political and economic ideas of his own. But he is seen by many in Russia and outside as their best bet now that the other favoured son of the West, the one-time economic tzar of Russia, Mr. Anatoly Chubias, an anti-communist and neo-liberal free marketer, is out of the running. Mr. Putin's closeness to Mr. Chubias therefore is reassuring.

The change from Mr. Yeltsin to Mr. Putin completes the first phase of Russia's post-communist political transition. The departure of Mr. Yeltsin symbolically severs the link between the oldest, and therefore dominant, generation within the former Nomenklatura and rule over the Russia of today. What the future holds remains to be seen but the sufferings of Russia are yet to run their complete course and major political upheavals are certain.

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