It’s the Pretender Who Is Irrelevant : Soviets: American policy must not fall victim to Yeltsin’s radical spin doctors. Gorbachev is the one in charge, and will be at least until ’94.

Poor Mikhail Gorbachev. He has defeated his conservative rival Yegor Ligachev, the Communist Party apparatus, the military and the right-wing nationalists. He has complete control of the Supreme Soviet and can issue decrees in his own name. He has liberated himself from any control by the party Politburo or Central Committee.

But, alas, so the current line goes, he has become irrelevant. Boris Yeltsin and the Russian republic will determine the nature of the economic reform and the Soviet confederation--if Yeltsin permits one to exist.

The only reason not to use the word ludicrous for this current analysis is that insane and dangerous are more appropriate. The thinking is the product of the radical intellectual supporters of Yeltsin in Moscow, the main contacts of Americans in the Soviet Union. Not only is it wishful thinking, but it comes with a policy line: The United States should support Yeltsin and democratization instead of dealing with Gorbachev.

The reality is that Yeltsin, despite some high-profile encounters with Gorbachev,is playing from a position of weakness. Regina Smyth of Duke University, writing in the Journal of Soviet Nationalities, has examined the roll-call votes of the Russian republic’s legislature. In a showdown with other deputies, Yeltsin and his radical followers have only one-third of those votes. To win some of his dramatic-sounding victories, Yeltsin has had to resort to compromise. But most of these measures had only symbolic meaning, Smyth notes.

In a showdown with Gorbachev, Yeltsin would do even worse. That’s because there are some very fundamental weaknesses in his position.

The Russian republic has no money and little political leverage. When we talk about a Gorbachev consolidation of power, these are not mere words. He has enormous powers.

Decentralization of power to republics like Lithuania and Armenia, which have a few million inhabitants, makes sense. The Russian republic, however, has 150 million people. If power sticks at the republic level instead of moving further down to the Russian provinces and factories, there will be no real decentralization.

Russians themselves know that powers given to their republic will also have to be given to the other Soviet republics, where 20% of the country’s ethnic Russians live. If Yeltsin and the Russian legislature could do whatever they wanted, then the legislatures in the Muslim Central Asian republics could introduce Islamic prayers in the public schools and force local Russian women to wear the veil. Russians will not tolerate such autonomy, let alone force it through.

What is happening is not the disintegration of the Soviet Union, nor movement to anything like America under the Articles of Confederation, but the establishment of a real federal system. Soviet republics and cities have not had the power of an American state or municipality to levy their own taxes, to have their own budgets and to pass independent legislation. They will now by given this, but Russia’s independence, like California’s, will be kept within strict limits.

Gorbachev is absolutely delighted that Russia is joining the Baltic republics in an attack on the power of Moscow ministries. He is delighted that he is being pushed to more radical economic reform. Both improve his political position. As Yeltsin once said, “If Yeltsin did not exist, Gorbachev would have had to invent him.” Indeed, Gorbachev did invent him. Yeltsin was elected chairman of the Russian republic by four votes and would have been easily defeated if Gorbachev had run a strong candidate against him.

The test will come as the next election approaches in 1994. Gorbachev and Yeltsin both want to take the credit for the benefits of reform. Each will try to blame the other for the pain and failures. Gorbachev is better positioned for this battle. He is far from being irrelevant.

These are not academic questions for Americans. President Bush was much criticized for putting national interest ahead of human rights, both in his China policy after Tian An Men Square and in his policy toward Lithuania. He was rewarded with strong Soviet and Chinese support in the United Nations over the Iraq crisis.

America’s national interest is more deeply involved in areas of the Soviet Union such as Central Asia than in Lithuania. An independent, revolutionary Muslim state of 35 million to 40 million people (and growing rapidly) trying to play off the nuclear powers of China, India, Pakistan and Russia would be a nightmare for Washington.

Instead of playing around with Moscow radicals who talk about Russian independence, we should be trying to help Gorbachev ensure that Islamic radicalism does not spread northward from Iran and Iraq. We should push our oil companies to invest in Kazakhstan and other parts of Central Asia. We should offer to teach the Central Asians how to grow fruits and vegetables for urban Russian markets on the model of California’s San Joaquin and Coachella valleys.

The invasion of Kuwait and the performance of the market tells us that summer vacation is over, that history has not ended. It is time to go back to work and think out our national interests.