Yeltsin Finally Moves Against The Communist Parliament; Clinton Titters When Serious US Response Is Needed

At long last, President Boris Yeltsin has taken a step months — if not years — overdue: He has formally dissolved the communist-dominated parliament, a critical step toward eliminating the most important remaining impediment to genuine structural reform in Russia along democratic and free market lines.

Not surprisingly, the hard-line deputies and their allies in the military-industrial complex are responding defiantly. The parliament voted to reject the Yeltsin decree and to install one of their own, Vice President Alexander Rutskoi, in his stead as president.

The stage is thus set for a possibly decisive struggle over the future direction of Russian reform — with enormous implications for U.S. interests in general and for a slew of dubious Clinton Administration initiatives toward the former Soviet Union, in particular. These developments were evidently unsettling for a young, inexperienced American president dedicated to subordinating U.S. foreign policy concerns to his "focus" on domestic issues, so much so that he flippantly giggled in first announcing Yeltsin and Rutskoi’s actions to a group of surprised journalists at the White House.

What To Expect Next

When the Russian parliament convenes on an emergency basis this evening, it will inevitably brand Yeltsin’s nullification of the legitimacy of the communist-era constitution and the powers wielded by the Russian parliament pursuant to its terms as "criminal" and grounds for Yeltsin’s immediate impeachment. It is likely to be upheld in these decisions by the Russian Constitutional Court, operating under the chairmanship of another Old Guard apparatchik, Valery Zorkin. Military action — perhaps involving conflict between troops loyal to the opposing parties — cannot be ruled out.

What the U.S. Should Do Next

The Center for Security Policy believes that it is not enough for the Clinton Administration to announce its support for Boris Yeltsin in his struggle against communist reactionaries provided he remains "committed to democracy." Instead, the Administration should enunciate clearly what that commitment to democracy must mean — including the many ways in which its demonstration will require Yeltsin to abandon the myriad concessions he has made to the parliament and other hardline power centers in the months since the Soviet Union disintegrated. Those concessions have themselves been impediments to real structural change and have merely served to embolden the adversaries he has now, apparently, decided to confront.

Specifically, the United States should now:

• Reject once and for all the legitimacy of Russia’s Soviet-era constitution. This means that the United States must "take sides" — leaving no room for striking future deals with those like Rutskoi and the speaker of the parliament, Ruslan Khasbulatov, or more "pragmatic" hardliners (usually described by their apologists as "centrists") like Industrial Party chairman Arkady Volsky.

 

• Serve notice on all parties that there will be harsh penalties associated with interference with the elections President Yeltsin has called for 11-12 December.

 

• Suspend further action on large-scale U.S. and multinational aid flows to Russia, particularly those directed toward the strategic energy sector — which is still effectively controlled by, and which primarily benefits, the old military-industrial sector. The Center finds totally incomprehensible in this regard Secretary of State Warren Christopher’s contention this evening that the latest multi-billion dollar aid package now awaiting Senate approval should go forward irrespective of the outcome of the power struggle now underway.

 

• Arrest the free-fall in U.S. investment in military preparedness and power projection capabilities.

 

• Put on ice further planning for or implementation of the recently signed bilateral space cooperation agreements and liberalization of remaining export controls.

 

• Express support for the democratically elected governments of the nations recently liberated from the Soviet empire. And,

 

• Insist that the autocratic character of the Yeltsin alternative constitution approved last April be modified to provide for a system of genuine check-and-balances between elected executive and legislative branches.