Who's in Charge?

By Bruce W. Nelan

To the unreformed communists and neofascists in Russia, President Boris + Yeltsin is a "drunken swine" who should be tested for dipsomania. That sneering dismissal is too crude for the more mainstream politicians. They argue instead that he is isolated in the Kremlin, is badly misinformed and is falling under the sway of a "war party" of military and security officials. Other critics go further, speculating that Yeltsin is scheming to declare a state of emergency, cancel the 1996 presidential elections and rule by decree.

All this talk -- and it was very loud in the Russian capital last week -- arises not out of the usual Moscow rumor mill but from the country's desperate need for explanations. Worried Russians are struggling to understand why there is such an obvious, crashing contrast between what Yeltsin says about the nasty little war in Chechnya and what everyone knows is really happening in the secessionist North Caucasus republic.

What no one knows is what is really happening in the Kremlin, and Russians and foreigners alike find themselves rehoning the deductive tools of what used to be called Kremlinology. The way the Chechnya crisis is being mishandled suggests Yeltsin's presidency and Russia's fragile political liberalization may be in danger. Is Yeltsin going to go down in history as the first President of a democratic Russia or as one more overseer of an authoritarian state?

He has swerved sharply from his original reformist course and is cutting himself off from his former allies among the democratic political parties. He is talking tough these days, and when he drops out of sight, he leaves things in the hands of a small group of loyal aides and a Security Council, dominated by the "power ministers," such men as Defense Minister Pavel Grachev and Interior Minister Victor Yerin. Some veteran Moscow watchers are reminded of the last year of the Mikhail Gorbachev era, when the father of glasnost and perestroika tried to crack down on independence-minded Lithuania. Others watch Yeltsin take the lead, then fade, and recall Leonid Brezhnev's lingering, fatal lassitude.

For years Yeltsin has alternated between almost frenetic bursts of activity and long periods of vacation or unexplained absence. His foes attribute this pattern to bouts of presidential tippling, while his aides put the blame on his chronic back problems and his tendency to work himself into exhaustion. Whatever the causes, he has been an erratic Chief Executive.

True to form, Yeltsin stepped offstage three weeks ago -- into the Kremlin hospital for repair of a deviated septum -- at the same time that he ordered the Russian armed forces to seize control in Chechnya and disarm the supporters of its defiant president, Jokhar Dudayev. The disappearance of Yeltsin and his failure to explain the decision to use force began a new round of speculation about his health and his competence to handle his job. Though U.S. Vice President Al Gore visited him and reported that he was fine, the rumors continued.

Finally, last week Yeltsin reappeared to serve as chairman of a meeting of the Russian Security Council, the top-level Kremlin committee of defense and intelligence officials, and to deliver a nationally televised speech on Chechnya. He looked fit -- so sleek, in fact, that some viewers suspected he had had his whole face retouched, not just his nose.

The speech, however, did not do much for him. He boldly took responsibility for using force in Chechnya to prevent the disintegration of the Russian Federation. But his comments on the success of the military move toward the Chechen capital, Grozny, sounded like either wishful thinking or deliberate deception.

"The first stage in settling the crisis has been completed," he declared. "The ring around Grozny is tight." Then, responding to the worldwide outcry against indiscriminate bombing of the city, he promised to "rule out bombing that can result in casualties among Grozny's peaceful inhabitants."

Both of Yeltsin's assertions turned out to be untrue. Russian troops around Grozny closed the ring very slowly. Oleg Lobov, secretary of the Russian Security Council, explained that only the "main routes" into the city had been blocked and that it would be not stormed but "liberated." Defense Minister Grachev disclaimed any plan to "storm the city," pledging simply to occupy Grozny and disarm the "criminal groups" that resist. Lobov said the military would use "gradual methods" to take over the rebel capital but added that "there will also be resolute actions." Meanwhile, the day after Yeltsin's bombing promise, Russian air force planes dropped more bombs on Grozny. One of them hit an orphanage -- though luckily the 47 children living there were safely tucked into the cellar.

Lobov denied at a press conference in Moscow that any bombing was taking place. But bombs kept falling all week and more protests followed. In Washington the State Department expressed its "great concern" and pointed out that the Russian government has a responsibility "to protect innocent noncombatants." Nonetheless, on Saturday, the fighting in Grozny intensified as Russian ground troops entered the city.

The contradictions, heavy-handed propaganda and multiple voices coming out of the Kremlin have everyone wondering what is going on inside. "We have only the foggiest idea," the independent daily Segodnya complained last week, "who is actually at the helm in this country, who is making the critical decisions."

Resurgent Kremlinologists tend to say that a clique of apparatchiks with little sympathy for democratic reform has usurped power and that Yeltsin is all too ready to use force. His popularity has been plunging for a year, and a national poll last week showed a disapproval rating of 67%. Many who are not usually conspiracy theorists think Yeltsin may have decided to take on the Chechen rebellion now, after ignoring it for three years, to remake his image as a decisive, effective leader. If so, the move has not worked. The poll showed 63% of the respondents opposing the military action.

The liberal Izvestiya asked in a headline on Dec. 22: WHO RUNS THE COUNTRY, YELTSIN, CHERNOMYRDIN OR GENERAL KORZHAKOV? Prime Minister Victor Chernomyrdin, who is considered a potential election rival to Yeltsin, seems to have been bypassed on the Chechnya issue. But Alexander Korzhakov is attracting more comment than would normally focus on someone who is essentially a bodyguard.

The tall, balding Korzhakov, a former KGB officer, now heads Yeltsin's security detail and is also the President's frequent tennis partner and drinking buddy. In his memoir, Yeltsin writes that he feels extremely close to Korzhakov personally as well as professionally. Korzhakov stood beside Yeltsin atop a tank when they defied the attempted coup in August 1991, and Yeltsin says they are "inseparable."

The security chief stumbled into the spotlight last month when a letter he had written to the Prime Minister leaked. It was a remarkable communication from a bodyguard. Taking a strong antireform tack, he urged Chernomyrdin to go back on promises he had made to the International Monetary Fund to lift controls on oil prices and exports. While he claimed he was speaking only as an ordinary citizen, Korzhakov is now apparently in the policy business.

Former Russian Prosecutor General Alexei Kazannik told a muckraking Moscow newspaper last month that he believed Korzhakov "runs the Kremlin show." Kazannik said he had seen government ministers and Kremlin staff members "trying to ingratiate themselves" with the security chief in hopes of opening direct access to Yeltsin.

Like many Russian leaders before him, Yeltsin seems to care more about the personal loyalty to him of his aides than about the wisdom of their political views. That is even more clearly the case now that his popularity is waning and he needs supporters he can count on no matter what. A need for secure backing may explain why Yeltsin has drawn closer to his cronies from the old Soviet days, when he was the Communist Party boss in Sverdlovsk.

Korzhakov joined him only when he reached the Politburo in Moscow, but Lobov is one of the "Sverdlovsk mafia." So is Victor Ilyushin, the keeper of the presidential appointment book and the supervisor of information channels. Ilyushin has no visible ideology beyond pragmatism, but he is no friend of democrats or radical reformers.

Another key figure in Yeltsin's new power circle is Deputy Prime Minister Nikolai Yegorov. A former collective-farm chief from southern Russia, Yegorov has pushed for a tough crackdown on Chechnya's independence, and he is now Yeltsin's envoy to Grozny.

At the same time that his Old Guard is taking on more authority, Yeltsin has broken his already strained ties to the democrats. One leading reformist and Yeltsin ally, former Acting Prime Minister Yegor Gaidar, last week voiced his opposition to the war and publicly asked whether the President was being told the facts. "I get the impression," Gaidar said, "that Yeltsin is living in an information space different from the one all of Russia lives in."

The Chechen crisis marks Yeltsin's parting of the ways with not just reform politicians but also much of the liberal intelligentsia that once provided his most reliable support. One well-known former dissident, Sergei Kovalev, has been serving as the President's chief human-rights commissioner. At a Security Council meeting in Moscow last week, Yeltsin denounced him for sending a telegram from Grozny pleading for an end to the "human tragedy."

The democrats, particularly former dissidents from the Soviet era, are outspoken about their worries concerning the influence wielded by the military, security and intelligence officials inside the Kremlin's red brick walls. They are even bracing for some form of "emergency situation" in Moscow, including a possible declaration of martial law. Some intellectuals point to the split in the army -- several senior generals have publicly opposed the Chechen conflict -- and suggest that a military coup could be in the offing. That might touch off a civil war in which it would be hard to know which side to cheer for because the motley group of disgruntled generals includes as many right-wingers as it does reformers.

Gaidar, an experienced economist, may have made a more plausible prophecy when he predicted damage to the national economy, which could become a major casualty of the war. The military operations in Chechnya are costing the government money it does not have. The conflict will make it more difficult to balance the government's budget and to wangle support from the IMF and international investors. If the war persists longer than a few more weeks, it could break the government's budget completely and touch off uncontrollable inflation, which is already at 18% a month. The social devastation that runaway inflation inflicts would be a bigger threat to Russian democracy than any regional rebellion.

With reporting by James Carney/Washington and John Kohan and Yuri Zarakhovich/Moscow