TRANSFORMATION WATCH: A COMMONWEALTH IS BORN AND AN EMPIRE DIES — TIME FOR BUSH TO “CUT AND CUT CLEAN” ON GORBACHEV

(Washington, D.C.): Against the
backdrop of increasingly sinister and
insistent indications of a hardline
reaction to democratic change in the
former USSR, the leaders of Russia,
Ukraine and Byelorussia announced the
formation of a new “Commonwealth of
Independent States” and the end of
the Soviet empire. Following a summit
meeting near the Polish-Byelorussian
border, Boris Yeltsin, Leonid Kravchuk
and Stanislau Shushkevich have declared:
“As founding states of the USSR…we
declare that the USSR is ceasing its
existence as a subject of international
law and a geopolitical reality.”

With Mikhail Gorbachev’s reported
subsequent rejection of their invitation
to assume a role in the leadership of the
new commonwealth, the fat is
squarely in the fire for the Bush
Administration: Will it persist
in blindly sticking with Gorbachev and
his discredited, abandoned
Moscow center? Or will it, instead, at
long last “cut and cut
clean” as Paul Laxalt once
advised with regard to Ferdinand Marcos
— by recognizing the Commonwealth of
Independent States; by posting a
competent ambassador to its new
headquarters in Minsk; and by making the
break-away states that comprise it the
beneficiaries of U.S. assistance and the
focus of Western policies to the
extent that they embrace sweeping
democratic and free market structural
reforms?

Hanging in the balance may be
nothing less than a decisive U.S. role in
minimizing the dangers of a bloody civil
war in the former USSR. Decisive
action by the Western world is clearly in
order, action aimed at helping those who
are trying to transform — rather than
resuscitate — the old Soviet Union to
consolidate their position.

It was, therefore, a distressing irony
to hear Secretary of State James Baker —
a man whose visit to Belgrade earlier
this year helped set the stage for
Serbian aggression against Croatia and
Western inaction — warn
yesterday of the dangerous parallels
between the former USSR and the crisis in
Yugoslavia. He said on CBS’s “Face
the Nation”:

“We really do run the risk,
in my view, at least, of seeing a
situation created [in the former
USSR] not unlike what we have
seen in Yugoslavia — with
nuclear weapons thrown in — and
that could be an extraordinarily
dangerous situation for Europe
and for the rest of the world,
indeed for the United
States.”

Under normal times, the United States and
other Western nations could be forgiven
for hesitating to embrace the new
Commonwealth. There are obvious
uncertainties about how it will work, how
many former republics will participate,
etc. Unfortunately, these are anything
but normal times and waiting on
recognition and other ties pending
clarification is tantamount to a vote
of no confidence. It represents, in
short, a luxury neither we nor the
democratic forces seeking to dismantle
the old Soviet order can afford. An
observation made by the Center for
Security Policy on 2 December in the wake
of the Ukrainian election is, if
anything, more true at this
moment: “The destiny of the
former Soviet Union may turn on
developments in the next hours and days
— not weeks and months.”

The
following indicators being monitored by
the Center’s Coup II Watch powerfully
reinforce its concern over the
consequences should the United States and
its allies fail to act swiftly and
decisively on behalf of the new voluntary
association of independent states:

• In a front-page article entitled
  “Yeltsin is Now Facing a
  Backlash from Military-Industrial
  Complex,” the New York
  Times reported on 7 December
  1991 that:

“Faced with the
threat of spreading
bankruptcy, the
Soviet
military-industrial
complex — once the
backbone of a nuclear
superpower — has become
the breeding ground for a
conservative backlash
against the reforms of
President Boris N.
Yeltsin of the
Russian republic.

* * *

“Recent press
reports suggest that the
military-industrial
complex has been
successful in finding
defenders at the White
House, as the seat of the
Russian government is
called [including
Yeltsin’s Vice President,
Aleksandr V. Rutskoi].

“Izvestia
described a
well-orchestrated
campaign of
self-protection by
defense industry managers
and directors. It said
the campaign proved that
the ‘noise made by the
Vice President’s
statements were not an
accidental episode, but
the reflection of an
anti-market mood among
certain circles’ in
Russian government.”

• Rutskoi was quoted by Izvestia
  on 5 December as saying, “You
  cannot endlessly play with people
  who bear arms” because it
  “may end in disaster.”
• Chief of the Soviet General
  Staff, Army General Vladimir
  Lobov, was sacked by Gorbachev
  over the week-end ostensibly
  “for reasons of health”
  — the same reason Gorbachev
  himself was supposed to be able
  to function last August! He was
  replaced by Commander of the
  Leningrad Military District,
  Colonel General Viktor Samsonov. Samsonov
  was characterized by Radio Rossii
  commentary as a firm proponent of
  a unified military and who runs
  his own district with an iron
  hand. One U.S. official
  characterized the move as a
  possible “indication of
  something larger” afoot in
  the military.
• On 30 November and 1 December, the
  Congress of Estonia’s leadership
  was informed by reportedly
  reliable sources that Soviet
  hardliners, led by Col. Alksnis
  and Leningrad TV commentator
  Nevzorov, have formulated plans
  to repossess the Baltic states as
  well as break-away Soviet
  republics. The plotters
  reportedly intend to create panic
  by disrupting local bus
  transportation and food
  deliveries and by halting wage
  payments to Soviet troops still
  stationed in Estonia. Under these
  conditions, well-armed shock
  troops will cross into Estonia.
  Estonian leaders were informed
  that the hardliners are financed
  by Soviet factory managers and
  Afghan War veterans groups and
  may have between 3,000 and 6,000
  troops at the ready.
• Gorbachev’s defiant rejection of
  the Commonwealth — “The
  fate of our multinational society
  cannot be decided by the will of
  only a few republics” —
  suggests that he may have
  something bloody up his sleeve.
  Still, one can only marvel at how
  out of touch with the real world
  he is (and, for that matter, so
  are his supporters in the West)
  when he maintained today:

“The Union
still exists.
Your brothers might say
it doesn’t, or they might
talk about the former
Union. No. It’s not a
structure, not writing or
speech. It’s
reality. It’s
people. It’s life. It’s
society. This is what the
Union is.”

The United States should take heart that
what seems to be a democratic coup
has, for the moment at least, preempted
an incipient hard-line backlash, Coup II.
Still, the last act has not yet played in
this drama; it may even be that its
script remains to be written. In any
event, the West should do everything in
its power to help Gorbachev and his
clique exit gracefully and set the stage
for the next players who we all must hope
will give their democratic and free
market show a long run.