For Russians, Decades of Fear End With Pact

Three generations of Russians who survived the Cold War paused on this frigid Sunday to recall their fears of instant annihilation and express relief at the biggest arms reduction treaty ever between the world’s supreme nuclear powers.

“It is great that they have agreed to exterminate those terrible nukes,” Helena V. Babundina, an 18-year-old seamstress, exclaimed after Presidents Bush and Boris N. Yeltsin signed the second Strategic Arms Reduction Talks pact in the Kremlin.

The treaty obliges the United States and Russia to cut their arsenals so deeply that neither could stage a surprise nuclear attack. It would eliminate all land-based missiles equipped with multiple nuclear warheads--weapons the rival superpowers were pointing at each other before Babundina was born.

“They kept telling us about imminent nuclear war,” she said, standing in a snow flurry outside Moscow’s Central Market and remembering. “At school, at home, everywhere. I was scared of watching television at the time. . . . I am grateful to Bush and Yeltsin for crushing our childhood nightmares.”

Yulia M. Borisova, walking along the same street, thought back to the year 1954, when she was 18.

“The Cold War had just started and my sister was pregnant, and we were consumed with grave fears that the baby would be born into a world torn apart by a nuclear war,” said Borisova, an economist. “This recollection still gives me the creeps. . . . Now, at last, we shall live in a peaceful world.”

Despite an overtone of indifference toward the hastily called summit, which fell during the New Year holiday weekend, Muscovites interviewed at random expressed similar opinions that its result would make their lives safer, if not more prosperous.

The Rev. Gleb Yakunin, a Yeltsin ally in the Supreme Soviet, Russia’s legislature, joined the president in predicting that such overwhelming public support will ensure the treaty’s ratification, despite noisy opposition by right-wing nationalists and unrepentant Communists who accuse Yeltsin of a sellout.

But Iona I. Andronov, the independent vice chairman of the legislature’s Foreign Affairs Committee, said ratification is by no means certain. He said the treaty appears to weaken Russia’s defense capability, leaving it “vulnerable to all kinds of political pressure,” and must be carefully studied with help from military experts before a vote.

More than 100 treaty opponents rallied Sunday outside the Kremlin in Red Square, where an elderly woman held up a sign demanding, “Get that Satan Bush out of Russia.”

The rest of Moscow, though attentive to news of the summit, had other things to do. Parents took their children to the circus or the puppet theater. Holiday gatherings continued indoors. Street vendors hawked chocolate Santa Clauses.

“At this stage my head is filled with totally different things--how to survive in the present period,” said off-duty policeman Vladimir A. Smetanin, 32, shrugging off questions about the treaty. “Life is so tough we cannot afford to pay attention to politics.”

“Of course, it’s good to get rid of nuclear weapons, but this is not the time to talk about that,” said Mikhail Fyodorov, an automobile worker. “Bush and Yeltsin need to discuss how to fix our economy.”

Such sentiment means that Yeltsin, Russia’s first democratically elected post-Communist president, can reap scant benefit at home from the historic arms agreement. The country’s economy shrank 20% during this past year of free-market economic reforms. Inflation is galloping at 25% monthly.

In a year-end message to the nation, the president admitted: “I know you wouldn’t believe me if I painted a rosy picture for 1993. We all know very well: It will be a difficult year.”

Russia is seeking more help from the United States, which led other Western nations in pledging $24 billion last spring to aid Russia’s reforms. Although Bush could not promise more aid at the summit, he told reporters that President-elect Bill Clinton is “interested in keeping this U.S.-Russia relationship on the high plain.”

A few Russians interviewed Sunday said they worried that having practically eliminated Moscow as a nuclear threat, the United States will now ignore it.

“Americans must understand that if this hungry crowd here is not fed, Russia will go to the dogs and no one will profit from it,” said Anatoly A. Lutchenko, 42, a veterinarian. “Bush more or less continued the line of (President Ronald) Reagan, but Clinton is from a different company. The old ties will break, and I am not sure the new ones will be firmer.”

Others expressed hope that the arms reduction treaty itself would help their economy.

“The important thing is that this is a crushing blow to our military-industrial complex, which is now faced with a choice--either to die or restructure itself into producing things people want,” said Konstantin A. Lyakh, 27, who just finished postgraduate engineering studies.

Hennady I. Andreyev, an engineer who just retired, went even further.

“I don’t think the Americans should continue to help Russia,” he said. “Russia is a rich enough country. Having gotten rid of all those arms stockpiles, Russia will be in a position to go ahead faster with economic reforms. In other words, the signing of this treaty will do more for our economy than any humanitarian or other kind of aid could do.”

Before heading into the Tsvetnoi Boulevard subway station, Andreyev, a 64-year-old man with a deeply wrinkled face and watery eyes, thought for a moment about the significance of this day.

“I have lived most of my life in Cold War conditions,” he said. “I always knew it would end some day. It is great that I have lived to see it.”