Yeltsin’s Revolving Door

Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin changes governments like a man changing shirts. Monday he tossed Prime Minister Sergei V. Stepashin and his Cabinet out of office and named as acting premier a former intelligence agent, Vladimir V. Putin, head of the agency that succeeded the KGB. This was the fourth time in 17 months that Yeltsin had sacked a government, which illustrates both his temperamental nature and the inherent weaknesses of the Russian constitutional system.

What the change will mean in coming months is not clear, but an overhaul of personnel promises anxiety and probable delays in programs as the Putin regime takes over. The Duma must approve the appointment, and that will be the immediate political test. Yeltsin is also backing Putin as his successor in next year’s presidential election.

Putin, 46, is not the first former KGB man that Yeltsin has brought into a key position to try to steady the regime. Former Prime Minister Yevgeny M. Primakov, whom he sacked in May, was an intelligence man.

Domestic pressures surely were a major cause of the shake-up. Of Putin, Yeltsin said “he will be able to unite those who will renew the great Russia in the 21st century.” The challenge is daunting and most of the problems lie directly at the feet of Yeltsin himself.

Most worrisome is the economy, but the International Monetary Fund, Washington and other foreign lenders promptly said that they will continue their support for Yeltsin, since the alternative could be a dangerous collapse. Stepashin’s ouster sent the Russian ruble into a tailspin. The Russian stock exchange index plummeted 11%, though it rallied later in the day.

Putin steps into power in the midst of yet another Russian territorial crisis, a largely Muslim revolt in the southern province of Dagestan, adjacent to long-troubled Chechnya.

Most of Russia’s crises can be traced to the erratic rule of the president himself. He has been ill on and off throughout his presidency. The 68-year-old leader has kidney problems and other ailments and spends little time in his Kremlin office, so little that Muscovites cruelly joke about his disabilities.

Nevertheless, he remains determined to block the return of the Communist Party to power, and his choice of Putin as prime minister must be evaluated in that light. But even a healthy Putin does not have the political moxie of his sponsor, and this change at the top will not settle matters.