NEWS ANALYSIS : Yeltsin Lays Claim to Moral High Ground

At a special prayer service Sunday to promote a peaceful resolution of Russia’s intensifying political crisis, Orthodox Patriarch Alexi II delivered a stern warning: Whoever spilled the first blood would be excommunicated.

Following his dramatic and successful assault on Parliament headquarters at the Russian White House, President Boris N. Yeltsin has political, rather than ecclesiastical, reasons to convince the public that the other side fired first.

This idea is the key to his retaining the moral high ground in an episode that many Russians, whatever their political coloration, are likely to regard as shameful. With that in mind, Yeltsin and his supporters wasted no time Monday in blaming pro-Communists and anti-reformers in general, and Vice President Alexander V. Rutskoi and Parliament Chairman Ruslan I. Khasbulatov in particular, for provoking three days of carnage.

Anti-Yeltsin demonstrations on Saturday and Sunday culminated in attacks on government militia guarding the White House and the state television center, and led Yeltsin to call out the military to clear opposition politicians and militiamen from Parliament headquarters. The artillery bombardment of the White House and pitched battles there and at the television center had taken 32 lives as of Monday night, with 369 people injured.

“Those who acted against the peaceful city and unleashed bloody massacre are criminals,” Yeltsin said grimly in a 9 a.m. television address. “Everything that has happened and is happening in Moscow is a pre-planned armed mutiny . . . organized by Communist revenge-seekers (and) fascist chieftains.”

An essential element of this position is the belief that the hard-liners of Parliament and their supporters saw violence as their only chance to retain power after Yeltsin ordered Parliament dissolved on Sept. 21.

Prominent political analyst Otto Latsis wrote in today’s daily Izvestia:

“The whole world saw on television screens who began it and how. And there’s no reason to guess why: Those who had no chance of keeping power through honest elections resorted to bloodshed in order to ensure there wouldn’t be any elections.”

But Yeltsin must still win over many who believe that he could have ended the standoff with Parliament through negotiations, and that in his own way he provoked Parliament’s supporters into staging, in turn, the weekend’s provocations.

“You can’t say it started only with the opposition,” said Vyacheslav Igrunov, a former dissident and a political analyst in Moscow.

“(Yeltsin) himself provided the demonstrators with the pretext to act. In their turn, they provided him with the pretext to introduce artillery into Moscow. Still, most people will consider Rutskoi and Khasbulatov the guilty ones.”

For all that, Yeltsin’s move Monday enabled him to put to rest, at least for now, several questions that have nagged at Russian politicians since the political crisis here became acute on Sept. 21, if not before. Chief among them was whether the armed forces would obey a Yeltsin order to move on the White House.

“There’s no questioning the army’s loyalty today,” said Alexander A. Konavalov of the Moscow Center for Military Policy. But he argues that Yeltsin needed a trigger to inspire the military’s obedience, and that was provided by the weekend disorders. “Three days ago he wouldn’t have been successful (in ordering the military in).”

The violence changed the equation. Before the weekend, analysts believe, a decision by the military to support Yeltsin would have been a political decision. After the demonstrations, the support could be rationalized as a preservation of civic order.

Konavalov also believes that Rutskoi, Khasbulatov and other agitators seriously misread Yeltsin’s resolve, believing that he did not act against them after Saturday’s initial round of demonstrations because he was unwilling.

“They got the wrong signal, that Yeltsin was weak and afraid to bring the armed forces out of the barracks,” he said. “They decided he was weak in general, and they saw this as their last chance.”

Yeltsin must still capitalize on what may be another crest in his popularity, something he has been unable to do in the past. If he goes ahead with plans to hold elections for a new legislature in mid-December, many expect that this weekend’s events will help elect a liberal-democratic majority.

But given Yeltsin’s obstinate character, that does not guarantee that he will be able to work amicably with the legislature.

“After a few months, Parliament will again become the center of opposition,” predicted Igrunov, “even if it is full of democrats.”

Meanwhile the humiliating experience of having an artillery battle in the heart of their capital may only exacerbate the Russians’ despair at the low caliber of their political leadership.

“Unfortunately, we don’t have the opportunity to choose between good and excellent leaders,” said Konavalov.

“Our choice is between very bad and terrible.”