With Foes Like Communists, How Can Yeltsin Ever Lose?

Boris N. Yeltsin has done it again. Just when everyone in Russia and the West thought he was history as an effective politician, the ailing and unpopular Russian president orchestrated another tactical victory against his enemies.

Two weeks ago, Yeltsin looked certain to be impeached by the Duma, the lower house of the Russian parliament. His main political rival, then-Prime Minister Yevgeny M. Primakov, was the most popular political figure in Russia and was widely regarded as perhaps the leading presidential candidate. With Primakov solidly allied with the Russian Communist Party, it looked like Yeltsin’s worst nightmare--the return of the Communists to the Kremlin--was about to come true. But judging from his bold decision to remove Primakov, Yeltsin is not quite ready to fade from Russia’s political scene. Furthermore, if forced to depart, the president vowed to go down fighting.

Yeltsin’s firing of Primakov had inched Russia closer to a constitutional crisis. If the Duma had impeached Yeltsin and also rejected his nominee for prime minister, Sergei V. Stepashin, the Russian Constitution is silent on what should have happened next. Many had worried that Yeltsin might try to resolve the impasse through extraconstitutional means: surrounding the parliament building with troops in a replay of the violent confrontation he and the legislative branch had in October 1993. Thankfully, push did not come to shove, and the parliament backed down.

Days before the impeachment vote, nearly every analyst of Russian affairs expected the article accusing Yeltsin of waging an illegal war in Chechnya to pass.

Yet, the Communist-dominated Duma couldn’t muster the necessary two-thirds vote to pass any of the five impeachment articles. Then, less than a week later, legislators overwhelmingly approved Yeltsin’s nominee for prime minister. The Duma’s capitulation was all the more striking because Stepashin was one of the principal executors of the Chechen war.

In virtually assuring that he will serve out his term, Yeltsin severely weakened Primakov’s chances of becoming his successor and thrust Stepashin into the presidential race. Only a brilliant political strategist could imagine transforming Stepashin the police chief into Stepashin the presidential candidate in just 12 months. Yet, in light of what the Yeltsin team--and especially Anatoly B. Chubais--accomplished in the last two weeks, do not be surprised if Stepashin makes it to the second round of next year’s presidential vote.

Given Yeltsin’s minimalist record of achievement in recent years, his poor health and abysmal job-approval ratings (estimated at 2%, with a margin of error of plus or minus 4%), he could only have achieved his latest political victory if he faced an even weaker foe. He did. When the history of reform in Russia in the 1990s is written, the real story will not be about Yeltsin’s genius, but about the ineptness of his enemies, above all, the Communist Party of the Russian Federation.

For years, Russia’s Communists have been handed issues that would have assured political success for anyone else. Yeltsin attacked the White House, as Russia’s parliament in known, in 1993, oversaw the deaths of 100,000 of his own citizens in a fruitless and tragic war in Chechnya and presided over one of the greatest economic depressions in modern history, including, most recently, the financial meltdown in August 1998. Yet, despite his record, the Communists have been unable to remove Yeltsin from power either through the ballot box or impeachment.

The Communists also have proved inept or unwilling to represent the interests of their natural constituencies: workers and pensioners. Russia’s Constitution substantially limits the powers of parliament, the one political institution the Communists dominate. Yet, the Communists have not even taken advantage of their limited constitutional powers to deliver for their supporters. Every year, they allow Yeltsin’s budgets to slide through largely intact. With one exception, the opposition-dominated parliament has signed off on all of Yeltsin’s candidates for prime minister. On foreign-policy issues, the Russian opposition has virulently criticized Yeltsin’s acceptance of the eastward expansion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and its bombing campaign against Yugoslavia. But it has never managed to translate passionate rhetoric into real influence.

From August 1998 until last week, Russia’s Communists had their best opportunity to influence Russian politics after their candidate, Primakov, became prime minister against Yeltsin’s wishes. Upon becoming prime minister, Primakov invited a Communist Party member, Yuri D. Maslyukov, to become his economic czar. Rhetorically, Primakov and Maslyukov promised to reverse radical economic reforms, raise pensions and wages, curtail the activities of Western agents of influence--the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, most notably--toss 1,000 bankers in jail and hinted at restoring state control over prices and property.

In practice, Primakov and his Communist-dominated government pursued none of these policies. Through inaction rather than intention, Primakov’s government proved to be as fiscally conservative and monetarily stringent as previous reform governments. Instead of chasing the IMF out of Russia, Primakov continued to negotiate with this “tool of imperialism” and even agreed to introduce a package of legislation recommended by the IMF. In its negotiations with the World Bank, the Primakov government actually rejected the bank’s recommendation for pension payments as too high. When offered the opportunity to roll back capitalism, Russia’s Communists rolled over.

The Primakov era may have been the last hurrah for the Russian Communist Party. The failed impeachment vote demoralized and humiliated it. Party members’ approval of Stepashin demonstrated they cared more about holding on to their offices, dachas and free travel than to their principles. (Had parliament voted down Stepashin three times, Yeltsin would have been obliged constitutionally to dissolve the Duma and call new elections in three months.) In doing so, Communist leaders calculated that they needed the resources of parliament to help them win the upcoming elections this December.

In choosing resources over principles, however, the Communists may lose their stranglehold on the opposition vote in Russia. Tired of Yeltsin and his policies, but disappointed in the inability of the Communists to come up with a viable alternative, anti-Yeltsin voters in the next election may turn to new electoral options such as Yuri M. Luzhkov’s Fatherland, Grigory Yavlinsky’s A. Yabloko or more strident populists like Gen. Alexander I. Lebed. Paradoxically, Yeltsin, Chubais and other Kremlin strategists may have orchestrated a remarkable tactical victory by marginalizing the Communist’s strongest presidential contender, Primakov, but, at the same time, strengthened new opposition contenders for president.*