In Mixed Messages on Chechnya, Reform, Yeltsin Signals Desperation

Only a day into his uphill reelection campaign, President Boris N. Yeltsin has made his strategy clear: Steal the opposition’s thunder and tell the people what they want to hear.

The hoarse and haggard 65-year-old president took to the hustings of central Russia on Friday with a message so mixed as to signal desperation. He had reassuring words for both hawks and doves about his intentions in rebellious Chechnya and predictions about the economy aimed variously at free-market advocates and those who want renewed restraints.

Yeltsin told a workers rally at a Chelyabinsk factory that his December 1994 invasion of Chechnya may have been a mistake and suggested that federal troops could be withdrawn to neighboring republics in the near future.

In almost the same breath, he warned that attacks will be renewed if Chechen rebels persist in their attempts to secede from Russia, and he said the insurgents have to be annihilated so others can live in peace.

Yeltsin has promised to advance a plan for a peaceful end to the war in Chechnya during his state of the federation speech Friday, cooling some of the campaign rhetoric of his opponents that he has dragged Russia into an inescapable quagmire with the protracted assault on the rebels.

On the economy--the president’s other major cross to bear--Yeltsin has been even more contradictory. A consummate populist, he seeks simultaneously to rein in the increasingly influential private sector while vowing not to print new money and restart the cycle of hyperinflation.

Yeltsin’s interior minister, Anatoly S. Kulikov, suggested earlier this week that the government renationalize successful private companies and channel their income to the federal budget. He mentioned the most prosperous oil and gas conglomerates, as well as auto manufacturing plants and five major banks.

While Kulikov has no responsibility for economic policy, his proposals sent the message to potential Yeltsin supporters that the president--like the Communists--is not satisfied with the way wealth has been redistributed in post-Soviet Russia.

The new privatization chief, Alexander I. Kazakov, commented Friday that nationalizing banks and other private property would not necessarily increase federal revenue, as the current owners would have to be compensated and state management would be unlikely to improve the companies’ performance.

But Kulikov’s proposals won instant approval from prominent Communists, which may create the impression among voters resistant to privatization that Yeltsin’s team differs little on the subject from the political alternative.

Reformist eyebrows were also raised by Yeltsin’s announcement in his campaign kickoff speech of a crackdown against official corruption. Some fear that it could turn into a witch hunt for those who have made successes of themselves in the conversion of state property.

The president’s dizzying swings of the policy pendulum have critics and commentators wondering which Yeltsin voters will heed.

Under the headline “Is Yeltsin Turning Red?” the weekly Moscow News accuses the unpopular incumbent of “arming himself with the ideas of his foremost political opponent, [Communist Party candidate] Gennady Zyuganov.”

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Analyst Igor Klyamkin of the Public Opinion Foundation, writing for the same publication, observed that “President Yeltsin continues to protest his fervent dislike for communism and Communists, while paradoxically hurrying to fulfill all their requests.”

Yeltsin’s former press secretary accused him in a memoir published last week of being willing to go to any length to stay in power.

“Power is his ideology, his friend, his concubine,” Vyacheslav Kostikov wrote, prompting Yeltsin to dismiss him from his latest post as ambassador to the Vatican.

Some of the leading reformers jettisoned by Yeltsin, though, cautioned that it remains too early to tell whether he is retreating under pressure from Communist and nationalist opponents or is simply treading an erratic path to please enough voters to win reelection.

“Yeltsin still has a window of opportunity to really advance his former policies and thus win the election,” former Foreign Minister Andrei V. Kozyrev said in an interview. But he warned that “any giving up or further yielding to populistic or anti-reformist forces would be a prescription for defeat.”

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An independent opinion survey organization, Vtsiom, polled 1,600 Russians last week on their preferences in several possible pairings for the expected presidential runoff on June 30. The first ballot is set for June 16, but no candidate is likely to get 50% in the initial round.

According to the poll, Zyuganov would take almost twice as many votes as Yeltsin in a runoff between them, and Zyuganov would best ultranationalist Vladimir V. Zhirinovsky if they emerged as the two front-runners.

With such a bleak outlook for the president, observers say, his only chance of winning is by luring back the disenchanted with the policies of his more popular adversaries--the soft-pedaling of privatization espoused by Zyuganov, the tough nationalist stance against Chechnya taken by Zhirinovsky and the house-cleaning campaign against corruption urged by retired army general Alexander I. Lebed.