In Russia, Speed Is of the Essence : Western aid must come quickly to avert chaos

The package of American aid that President Clinton will offer to Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin in Vancouver this weekend is, when all is said and done, essentially a recycling of earlier ideas and unspent dollars rather than an imaginative new effort to rig a safety net under Russia’s falling economy. It is a low-cost, pragmatic approach that seeks to boost Yeltsin’s domestic credibility without at the same time risking Clinton’s by exposing him to charges that he is more interested in pumping resources into Russia than he is in dealing with urgent problems at home.

The really important aid program for Russia will be decided on later this spring when the heads of state of the major industrialized countries, the G-7, meet in Tokyo. Following that, Clinton is expected to go to Congress for new money--probably $1 billion, possibly even more--for the U.S. contribution, because the backlog of funds appropriated last year but not spent will by then have been exhausted. There seems to be a clear sense in Congress that more should be done to help Russia. But there is as yet no clear echo of that support among ordinary Americans.

COURTING THE PUBLIC: Clinton tried to stiffen public backing for Russian aid in his speech this week to the American Society of Newspaper Editors. His central and valid point is that U.S. interests are very much involved with the success of the political and economic reforms in Russia with which Yeltsin is most prominently identified. If Yeltsin falls, the big winners will be the old-line Communist Party hacks and ultranationalists who form the core of the legislature’s opposition to his reforms. Perhaps with a few exceptions, these are reactionaries who have no enthusiasm for free elections, free markets or closer relations with the West.

RETROGRADE RUSSIA: If executive power passes into their hands it seems certain they will try to take Russia backward, if not wholly to the era of centralized economic and political controls then at least back to a time when dissent invited repression and the world outside was regarded with deep suspicion and hostility. They will try, but almost certainly there will be many--not least the non-Russian minorities in the vast federation--who will resist. At a minimum, Russia could be on the edge of a perhaps prolonged period of political instability, if not outright civil strife. Instability in a land still bristling with nuclear weapons is not a pleasant prospect.

No, Western aid can’t lift the burdens of Russia’s long authoritarian past, or provide the momentum needed to carry vital reforms forward. But foreign technical and economic help, especially to the degree that it has high visibility and offers early tangible results--modernizing energy production or boosting agricultural output, for example--could improve the climate for stability by demonstrating that moderate reformers, like Yeltsin, are able to deliver. The United States and its allies have the chance to help promote free institutions and free markets in Russia. How long that chance lasts could depend a lot on how quickly the West responds.