A Coup Waiting to Happen? : Russian reform movement is in trouble

As Americans prepare to go to the polls to exercise the most precious of their democratic freedoms, the future of Russia’s fragile experiment with democracy is again overshadowed by uncertainties.

President Boris N. Yeltsin has moved to outlaw the newly created National Salvation Front, a hybrid organization composed of Communist die-hards, former military officers and nationalists, including some from the most extreme margins of Russian political life. The front was formed specifically to oppose Yeltsin’s reformist policies and force his removal from office. Its opposition to democracy is unambiguous. Yet even some of Yeltsin’s most loyal backers are asking whether the decree he has signed ordering authorities to prevent any activities by the front is not in itself a dangerous step backward, an anti-democratic blow aimed at stifling political dissent.

At almost the same time Yeltsin has made another key move in his power struggle with parliamentary opponents. He ordered disbanded a 5,000-member-strong paramilitary force, formed and indirectly commanded by Parliament Chairman Ruslan Khasbulatov, the most powerful of Yeltsin’s conservative opponents.

The guard force, termed by Yeltsin “an illegal armed unit,” was enlisted after last year’s failed coup, ostensibly to provide trustworthy security for the Russian legislature’s building. It has effectively become a small private army, feared by Yeltsin and others--by no means irrationally--as the potential strike force for a future attempt to overthrow him.

Khasbulatov, meanwhile, is working overtime to weaken Yeltsin and sabotage his reforms by legislative means. He has led a move to summon the Congress of People’s Deputies, which is dominated by former Communists, and which has among its other powers the right to change the constitution. It’s expected that the meeting on Dec. 1 will seek to force Yeltsin to fire many of his key aides, slowing or even reversing many of his economic reforms.

Yeltsin has already signaled a readiness to move to the right in an effort to maintain power. As a matter of political survival, he may be forced to do even more.

However, a suspension of economic reforms and--as many conservatives now insist--a tougher line toward other former Soviet republics would cost Moscow dearly in terms of outside support, and inevitably raise new tensions with the West. The next U.S. Administration won’t have to concern itself with the global Cold War. But it may find that it still has plenty to worry about when it comes to Russia.