Yeltsin and the West

On Saturday and Sunday, October 2-3, Russian President Boris Yeltsin watched as large demonstrations erupted throughout Moscow, with thousands of citizens facing off against well equipped riot police and Interior Ministry troops. The largest of these events took place outside Smolenskaya metro station, where the pro-Yeltsin press later grudgingly reported upwards of 10,000 demonstrators. Against Kalashnikovs and steel shields stood a motley assortment of protesters: pensioners irate at the ballooning cost of bread, nationalists furious with Russia's squandered global ascendency, diehard communists yearning for a system not yet put to rest, racists and anarchists, drunks and the mentally disturbed. Without a doubt, as reported in the press, the fringe elements were out in force, but so was another group less commonly mentioned: ordinary citizens upset by the flagrant breach of their nation's Constitution.



This final group of "fringe", "extremist" elements also deserves attention, for their anxieties are justified and should not go unnoticed by the West. Yes, Boris Yeltsin's decree abolishing Parliament is unquestionably unconstitutional. And yes, the Russian President is still technically bound to uphold his nation's Constitution. How, then, does the West justify its unrelenting support for Yeltsin? The search for this answer leads only to a final series of questions: if the President is free to disband Parliament, flout the Constitution and ignore the Constitutional Court, what is left of the fledgling democratic state the West so eagerly embraced two years ago? What exactly is it the West supports? The pluralist system, or the personal fortunes of a single man, sweetened with the promise of future reform? Democracy or stability? So far, the West's choice has been clear, as one by one the leaders have queued-up to televise their support for Boris Yeltsin and his decrees.



The protesters at Smolenskaya had by 1:00 PM, thrown up several barricades and commandeered a stage set-up that morning for festivities surrounding the 500th anniversary of the Arbat. Instead of a pop singer, however, the stage was filled with several dozen demonstrators, shouting into microphones and waving a collection of banners: black, gold and white Tsarist insignia, blue and white imperial naval flags and the standard bearing hammer and sickle. As the afternoon progressed, it became clearer that the tenuous standoff between police and protesters would not last; the crowd was growing anxious, the troops were growing nervous, and talk of battle was in the air. Something had to happen. And, as truckload upon truckload of troops reinforced the militia's positions, it became evident what that "something" would be.



At approximately 5:15 PM, the police and the militia commenced their attack on the demonstrators. According to the press, the authorities attempted to "disperse the crowd peacefully." This was accomplished by first ramming two armored vehicles into the demonstrators' makeshift barricades. Then, with the protesters' lines breached, heavily armored militia moved in behind a seamless phalanx of riot shields, swinging their clubs indiscriminately. While some among the demonstrators (most notably young anarchists and neo-Nazis) turned to face the police with pipes, most simply ran. Many were not quick enough, and fell beneath a club or rifle butt, as the authorities continued to peacefully disperse the crowd. One old man, seen earlier holding a "Yeltsin has Killed Democracy" banner, lay bleeding on the sidewalk. Unmoving, he was kicked in the head by an officer's steel-toed boot as the militia swept by. His banner was nowhere to be found.



The Russian media later reported somewhat hopefully that no one had been killed in the confrontations at Smolenskaya. But by then, the real fighting was less than 24 hours away.



Sunday evening, as street demonstrations across Moscow flared into open rebellion and pitched battles, Western leaders flooded Moscow with pledges of support for Russian President/not-President Yeltsin. How much help these messages actually offered remains unclear. For many Russians it merely reinforced a gnawing image of their President as a Western stooge. And, in any case, it may not have helped Yeltsin himself; by most accounts, the fence sitting Russian Army spent the early hours of the crisis watching the battle at Ostankino, and not CNN. Was the West justified in the strength and speed of its support for Yeltsin? Yes. Public suspicion and unquestionable effectiveness aside, the support from Western leaders made it clear at least to the beleaguered President and his Parliamentary rivals that any government formed without Yeltsin would find itself a pariah in the world community. And, even among the hardest of hard-liners, there are few who wish to be bound in a political cage once again with the likes of North Korea, Libya and Iraq. In the heat of battle, with all of Russia hanging in the balance, it would have been unconscionable for the West not to try to assist the Russian President. The alternative - a shady group of hard-line Communists and ultra-nationalists backed by still murky financial sources was unacceptable to the West, to the former Soviet republics, and to a majority of the Russians themselves.



Western support for Yeltsin during this crisis was thus justified. But by the very virtue of its apparent unconditionality, what was intended as a tactical political boost has taken on the appearances of a carte blanche, giving rise to a spate of anti-democratic, anti pluralistic cronyism, the likes of which the West has seldom supported so openly (especially outside the political confines of the Cold War).



In the weeks leading up to the storming of the White House and immediately thereafter, Yeltsin systematically undermined many of the key components of what normally comprises a democratic, pluralistic society. The totality of Yeltsin's military victory over his opponents in the now charred White House has only quickened the pace of these measures.



Take the abolition of Parliament. Yeltsin's action in this respect can be viewed from several perspectives. For example, it might be seen as a justifiable tactical maneuver, necessary to break the Parliament-instigated ideological filibuster which had for months stalled Yeltsin's reforms. A different perspective, however, might point out the fact that the move was at best possibly legal and at worst criminal - ousting a legislature which had been, after all, more-or-less democratically elected in 1990. Neither viewpoint, it should be noted, attempts to claim the decree was by any means constitutional. Boris Yeltsin tore down the wall erected by the legislature, only to run into one erected by the judiciary. He traded a legislative logjam for a judicial one. The solution? Likely resignation, for the president of a Western liberal democracy. But in Russia, without the messy triumvirate of effective and legitimized checks and balances, other options assert themselves. Yeltsin chose the most obvious and simply ignored the Constitutional Court's ruling of unconstitutionality. Later, he went further still, shutting down the Court "until the adoption of a new constitution." Two branches down, can anyone name who's left standing?



Setting aside the question of whether Yeltsin's behavior was somehow responsible for the spasm of violence on October 3-6, we are nonetheless left with the impression that Russia has grown not slightly less, but slightly more like a police state since Yeltsin's running battle with Parliament began. As fighting in Moscow subsided, journalists photographing pro-Yeltsin troops looting the smoldering White House were still having the film ripped out of their cameras. A few yards away, victorious soldiers whipped-up vigilante fervor amongst the crowds of onlookers, encouraging the mobs to beat the routed parliamentary defenders as they were led, hands held high, to a waiting prison bus. Perhaps, Yeltsin's apologists claim, these excesses are inherent in the tension-filled atmosphere surrounding battle. Perhaps. Now the fighting has ended, and life has returned to what passes as normal these days in Russia. Yet all is far from normal. The state of emergency - understandable during the crisis - has been extended for another week. Four thousand people are detained each night for violation of a curfew, the reasons for which remain unclear. Not that the curfew has lacked for substantive results. A week after the last shots at the White House were fired. OMON riot police and soldiers still roamed the city, keeping order and, according to recent reports, looting stores and robbing citizens at gunpoint. And ostensibly due to more stringent passport controls, the streets of Moscow have witnessed the wholesale deportation of ethnic Caucasians out of the city.



These incidents are regrettable. Sadder still is the fact that the strong-arming taking place at street level is being mirrored in the nation's political hierarchy. Unchecked in his dissolution, then destruction, of Parliament, Yeltsin continues to systematically obliterate other islands of resistance within the government. The committee charged with drawing up the new Russian constitution was staffed with members in good standing with the Yeltsin collective. Local councils which disagree with Yeltsin's policies (not necessarily those dealing with reforms) are either domesticated with an influx of fresh, pro-Yeltsin faces, or simply done-away with, possibly to be replaced in the future. Such was the case with the MosSoviet - Moscow's city council. Next on Yeltsin's hit list: Russia's regional councils, many of which have condemned his action from the beginning. To date 33 have been dissolved.



Another manifestation of Yeltsin's political arm-twisting has been the blitzkrieg censorship of the printed and electronic media. In the wake of his victory, Yeltsin censored no fewer than five newspapers for printing reports of his government's actions during the crisis. None of the articles were flattering, but then again none were factually inaccurate either. Censorship was not enough for several papers, including Den', Pravda and Sovetskaya Rossiya, as they were shut down by the government, apparently for good. The St. Petersburg based television show 600 Seconds - frequently critical of Yeltsin's policies - was pulled off the air indefinitely. Granted, some of the censorship was soon lifted (due, according to Yeltsin's press secretary, to"the concern of citizens about the freedoms won by ... democracy"). But some were not. A few days of blank newspapers and the permanent absence of a large chunk of the opposition media set off alarm bells among Russian observers, and should serve as a warning to the West.



Should the West be worried? Definitely. With the smoke of last week's battles still hanging in the air, Yeltsin has wasted no time in consolidating his grip on the country, be it within the government, in the newspapers, on the airwaves or in the streets. Out of the chaos and danger of the week before, it seems Boris Yeltsin has gotten what he wants. Can we say the same about the West? All we are left with, at this juncture, is the hope that Yeltsin makes good on his assurance that speedy reforms are indeed forthcoming. If, in the end, he delivers all that he promises, then the events of the past weeks will be neatly explained away as a tactical retreat on the long road to democracy and a market economy. And if he doesn't? Such is the risk the West accepts when it fails to adequately qualify its support for Boris Yeltsin.



Western support for Yeltsin cannot be unconditional. Granted, there is always a cost-benefit relation between Yeltsin's excesses and the unpalatability of the alternatives, but the United States and its Western partners must make reevaluating this equation a frequent, if not constant, affair. Not only to keep Yeltsin from coloring too far outside the lines, but to make it clear to other potential leaders in Russia that it is democracy and pluralism which the West supports and not necessarily the perpetuation of Boris Yeltsin's presidency. Potential candidates should not be deterred by the fear of having to swim against the tide of pro-Yeltsin Western political support.



Outside the Smolenskaya metro station, the barricades have been bulldozed into oblivion, but the spray painted message remains: Yeltsin-Hero in America. Dictator in Russia.



Ian Bremmer is a Doctoral Candidate in the Department of Political Science at Stanford University. He is a specialist on Nationalities questions in the post Soviet context. His publications include Soviet Nationalities Problems (1990), edited with Norman Naimark, and Nations and Politics in the Soviet Successor States (1993), edited with Raymond Taras.



He is the recipient of the AGBU Hirair Hovnanian and George Holopigian scholarships as well as the Institute for the Study of World Politics Doctoral Fellowship and the MacArthur Fellowship.



Bremmer is a graduate of Tulane University with a BA degree in International Relations. He received his MA in Political Science from Stanford University and is currently in Moscow completing work on his doctorate.