File spoon-archives/marxism-international.archive/marxism-international_1997/marxism-international.9707, message 63


From: Michael Hoover <hoov-AT-freenet.tlh.fl.us>
Subject: M-I: Fwd: From Boris Kagalistsky
Date: Thu, 3 Jul 97 19:31:27 18000


Forwarded message:
> Date:         Tue, 1 Jul 1997 18:51:52 -0400
> From: Kit A Wainer <wainer-AT-JUNO.COM>
> Subject: Fwd: From Boris Kagarlitsky
> To: SLDRTY-L-AT-LISTSERV.SYR.EDU
> 
> For your information
> Boris Kagarlitsky
> 
> Russia in June 1997
> 
>      President Boris Yeltsin has a well-known knack for making use of
> crises,
> including those he has provoked himself, in order to strengthen his
> power.
> Sensing that during the time of his illness the government, the
> parliament
> and local authorities acquired significant
> independence, Yeltsin has begun a systematic offensive against them.
> Decisive
> roles in this offensive are being played by vice-premiers Anatoly Chubais
> and
> Boris Nemtsov, who are totally dependent on the president.
>      Chubais, who enjoys the support of the largest Moscow banks, has
> managed
> while in various posts to implant a significant number of his friends and
> supporters in the state apparatus; this is something that
> cannot fail to worry Prime Minister Chernomyrdin. But Chubais, since he
> is
> equally unpopular in the government, the parliament and in popular
> opinion,
> cannot pursue his own course without the help of the president. Meanwhile
> Nemtsov as a novice in the politics of the capital has neither a base in
> the
> apparatus, nor a political following, nor even independent channels for
> access to information, and is therefore completely subject to Yeltsin and
> Chubais. Evidence of the weakness of Nemtsov's position is provided by
> the
> fact that after several months he still has not been able to obtain
> resident's registration in an apartment which the government has bought
> for
> him in Moscow. In his native Nizhny Novgorod, the gubernatorial election
> campaign has turned into an obvious dividing-up of his legacy. The
> favourite
> of the local entrepreneurs, Nizhny Novgorod mayor Sklyarov, appealed for
> support not to his former patron but to Moscow mayor Luzhkov, who is in
> sharp
> conflict with Nemtsov. Another strong candidate is State Duma deputy
> Khodyrev, who is backed by the Communists and who is counting on support
> in
> the second round from a
> number of associations of local "democrats".
>      Another round of reshufflings has begun in the armed forces; the
> purpose
> is clearly to strengthen the president's personal control over those
> military
> units that retain their fighting capacity. The summer has also become the
> time when the president, with help from the "young vice-premiers", has
> put
> pressure simultaneously on the State Duma and the provincial governors.
> The
> crisis in the Maritime District, where the energy complex has totally
> collapsed, has been used to strip the elected governor Nazdratenko of
> real
> power. The crisis in the Maritime District was provoked by a whole range
> of
> factors, both local (the unremitting power struggle in the region between
> Nazdratenko and his rivals), and also national (the collapse of transport
> and
> the weakening of ties with European Russia; the halt to the central
> financing
> of projects for the development of the defence complex and of remote
> territories; the general crisis of the energy sector, and non-payments
> between enterprises). While doing nothing to solve the overall national
> problems linked to the crisis in the Maritime District (there is simply
> not
> the money to do this), the central authorities in turn have devoted most
> of
> their attention to crisis factors of a local character. Nazdratenko was
> for
> practical purposes forced to hand over all his powers to the president's
> representative, State Security Service general Kondratov, and to give an
> account of his actions to Nemtsov, who had arrived from the capital.
>      At the same time the mass media, which have traditionally been
> linked to
> the Chubais group, have begun a campaign for the early dissolution of the
> State Duma. The press has also been giving extensive space to the
> question of
> changing the electoral law and abolishing proportional representation, a
> suggestion being received extremely unfavourably by the leaders of the
> duma
> fractions.
>      In fact, there is no question of the parliament really being
> dissolved
> (Moscow News and several other newspapers close to the authorities have
> already pointed this out), since the government is just as uninterested
> in
> seeing new elections as are the deputies. What is happening is that the
> Duma
> is being reminded of the necessity to heed the views of the president, on
> pain of coming to an unpleasant end. The present Duma deputies feel
> extremely
> insecure, precisely for the reason that under pressure from the executive
> power, they have accepted responsibility over the past year for a whole
> series of unpopular decisions. Now the deputies are being called on to
> support the tax code and the sequestering of the budget. If the
> government's
> projects are approved, the popularity of the deputies in the current
> parliament will fall still further, and this will finally turn them into
> hostages of the current authorities. A further humiliation for the
> Communist
> majority in the Duma is
> Yeltsin's public pledge to demolish the tomb of Lenin on Red Square.
>      A third target of the president's offensive has been the local
> authorities in the capital. From 1993 to 1997 Mayor Luzhkov, despite
> being a
> loyal supporter of Yeltsin, pursued quite independent policies in Moscow,
> policies that often contradicted those being implemented at the federal
> level. A presidential monitoring group found numerous breaches of Russian
> laws in the capital. Luzhkov's presidential ambitions are also well
> known.
>      This time the conflict has been sparked by the mayor's unwillingness
> to
> implement housing and communal reform, which in the view of the municipal
> leadership is fraught with a dramatic increase in social tensions. The
> Moscow
> city government cites the experience of St Petersburg. The housing reform
> in
> St Petersburg was supposed to free the city budget from the burden of
> subsidising housing stock, but after it began the total sum paid out in
> various forms of compensation rose sharply, while the overall flow of
> revenues into the budget underwent just as sharp a decline (if prior to
> the
> reform about 15 per cent of the population was incapable of paying rent,
> after the reform this number rose to about half). Luzhkov criticised the
> government on a whole range of issues, including foreign policy. However,
> the
> response to Luzhkov came not from Chubais and Chernomyrdin, but from the
> president, who demanded publicly and very sharply that the mayor "not
> enter
> into conflict with the government". At the same time various checks were
> made
> on the activity of the Moscow administration (to drive home the message,
> former governor Sevryugin in Tula was arrested for taking bribes).
>      That Luzhkov understood the hint is clear from a speech he gave at a
> ceremony awarding him a state prize for his services in the field of
> culture.
> In traditional Soviet style he declared that for all the achievements
> registered in the capital in the field of culture and art, Moscow
> residents
> were obliged to the unfailing efforts of President Yeltsin, a true friend
> of
> the artistic community.
-- 





     --- from list marxism-international-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---

   

Driftline Main Page

 

Display software: ArchTracker © Malgosia Askanas, 2000-2005