By Paul Goble
Washington, Feb 5
(RFE/RL)
In a move which could shake the Commonwealth of Independent States to its foundations, Russian Prime Minister Yegeniy Primakov has said that CIS states must follow Moscow�s line or promptly pay debts to Russian firms.
Speaking at a Russian Cabinet session on Thursday in advance of a meeting of CIS foreign ministers, Primakov said that Russia was no longer prepared to tolerate such debts especially when those incurring them are flouting Moscow�s policies.
�We cannot pile up these debts indefinitely strictly for political reasons,� the premier said, �as not all of our debtors are in a political accord with us.� And in words some may see as menacing, he noted �only Byelorussia is settling its paying matters with Russia well.�
According to ITAR-Tass, Primakov then instructed Russia�s CIS Minister Boris Pastukhov to develop a proposal for talks with debtor states and also to consider suspending energy deliveries to those with the worse payment histories.
Using economic power as a lever for political goals is nothing new either internationally or for Russia, but Primakov�s latest comments are nonetheless striking:
First, they represent Moscow�s most explicit linkage ever between political subservience and economic cooperation since the creation of the Commonwealth of Independent States seven years ago.
In remarkably blunt terms, Primakov is stating that the CIS is an organization in which Moscow leads and the others follow rather than the cooperative body Moscow and its supporters in the past have claimed it to be.
And he is also making clear to all of its members that his government is now prepared to accept the possible political costs of adopting a tough line against those countries which do not follow Moscow�s line.
Second, Primakov�s words reflect a major shift in the balance of power within the Russian government, a shift driven by Moscow�s increasingly desperate search for funds.
While post-Soviet Russian governments often have used private and semi-private Russian firms to project power across the CIS, Moscow�s policy toward CIS countries in the past generally reflected geopolitical calculations rather than economic ones.
But Primakov�s comment Thursday suggests that economic calculations may now be more important both because his government needs the funds and because the Russian firms which had suffered in the past can demand the government help them out.
To the extent that is true, the power of the industrial oligarchs, dismissed by some analysts in recent months, may actually have grown during that period at least relative to the increasingly weak Russian central government.
And third, Primakov�s words are remarkable because they appear almost certain to backfire, thus undermining rather than enhancing Russian influence across the post-Soviet region.
On the one hand, Primakov�s statement comes at a time whenever more member countries of the CIS are unhappy with that organization. Uzbekistan, for example, indicated this week that it will not agree to participate in any future CIS security accords.
And on the other, the Russian premier�s comment occurs when some CIS member states might find it relatively easy to turn to alternative sources given historically low gas prices and thus break out of Moscow�s embrace.
By stepping up the pressure in this way, Primakov clearly hopes that some of these states will break and decide that their best option is to defer to Moscow�s interests by bringing their policies into line with his.
But by doing so now, the Russian prime minister may be taking an enormous risk. Some of the CIS states appear likely to call his bluff on this point, and others may be at the point of deciding that now is the time to leave that organization behind.
To the extent that some appear likely to make that decision, Primakov may discover that what is most likely to break as a result of his words is the CIS itself - and with it, the ability of the Russian Federation to use that institution as an instrument for the advancement of its own particular goals.
(Continued from # 10(328))
1/29/99 No.2 Part 3
However, the fragmentation of electoral blocks and alliances, above all, seems to be the way a society in transition establishes a system of self-regulation and self-preservation. Society loses its bearings, is deprived of its basic support structures, and impulsively and emotionally puts forward various options for solving the problems which have arisen in the reform process. These options are represented on a political level by parties and movements. Eventually, unfeasible ideas and their political mouthpieces are gradually marginalized and disappear from the political scene. Only those ideas which correspond to a particular level of economic, political and cultural development for transitional society survive.
A second feature of the Russian political scene is that the leaders of many parties and movements persist in trying to monopolize the democratic political niche, denying the right of their political rivals to call themselves democrats. It would seem that the word �democrat� may be attributed to those political forces which are in favor of preserving a secular, peace-loving, legal, federate state; which support human rights and democratic procedures in political life, enshrined in the constitution and legislation; which support a mixed economy and the coexistence of different forms of ownership, including private ownership of the means of production; and which favor integration into international political organizations and economic structures.
In this case, the Russian Communist Party and the Agrarian Party may be considered democratic, as may the enfant terrible of Russian politics-the Liberal Democratic Party-as well as Russia is Our Home (ROH) and Yuri Luzhkov�s Fatherland. However, given the fact that Russia�s Democratic Choice, Yabloko and other parties traditionally considered democratic reject the possibility of a coalition with Gennady Zyuganov or Mikhail Lapshin, who refuse to disown the 70 years of the Soviet Union, or with the liberal conservatives or Vladimir Zhirinovsky�s traditionalists, the only possible alliance would be between Russia�s Democratic Choice and its allies, Yabloko, ROH and Fatherland.
RUSSIA�S DEMOCRATS Russia�s democratic parties and the democratic electorate can be divided into three groups: �state� democrats-supporters of the �party of power�, who unite around the federal movements of Viktor Chernomyrdin (ROH) and Yuri Luzhkov (Fatherland); social democrats, who oppose the current regime and are centered around Grigory Yavlinsky�s Yabloko; and the more fragmented radical liberal democrats whose best-known leaders are Yegor Gaidar, Anatoly Chubais, Boris Nemtsov and Sergei Kirienko. Creating a single coalition out of such a varied group of ideological and political forces is extremely difficult for various reasons.
First, the �personalization� of the political preferences of Russian voters practically precludes the possibility of �delegating� their vote to some other political alliance which includes other high-profile politicians alongside their idol. Russian voters will not let themselves be manipulated by party leaders who have reached agreements on forming electoral coalitions, and cannot automatically be numbered among the electorate of a freshly created union of political parties.
Second, those involved in politics actively try to discredit their opponents. According to Yabloko, Russia is Our Home is a �bureaucratic organization,� Russia�s Democratic Choice and other small democratic organizations nothing more than �pitiful remnants� whose leaders botched the reforms. Radical liberal democrats never tire of pointing out the �pink� hue which colors the views and politics of Yavlinsky�s social democrats. Yuri Luzhkov, the leader of Fatherland, lays the blame for the excesses in the social, economic and political reforms carried out in Russia since 1991 squarely at the door of the �young reformers.�
Third, there is an ideological and psychological incompatibility between the state democrats and the liberals. Anatoly Chubais and Yegor Gaidar, despite long periods in power, were never able to win support from the administrative elites in either the center or the regions. Fourth, the electorate of the social and liberal democrats concentrated mainly in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Samara, Nizhny Novgorod and Novosibirsk-with a tradition of mustering few votes in the provinces. However, the leaders of these towns and regions have recently been focusing on the Fatherland leader Yuri Luzhkov, while the degree of influence of regional elites on the electorate has increased. If Luzhkov�s movement takes part in the parliamentary elections the competition for the democratic vote will be even keener. In other words, unification can only take place within each of the three groups-the state democrats, the social democrats and the liberal democrats. The fate of Russia Is Our Home-whether Viktor Chernomyrdin�s movement will collapse or Vladimir Ryzhkov, the favorite of the movement�s parliamentary faction, will breathe new life into it-should soon be clear. Yuri Luzhkov is publicly talking about Fatherland�s independent participation in all possible electoral campaigns. The social democrats are united around Grigory Yavlinsky. In this political niche there is no other figure with the authority or stature of this Yabloko leader.
The liberal democrats have the greatest need to unite. Movement toward this began to appear about four years ago. Most of the liberal organizations united three-and-a-half years ago into Russia�s Democratic Choice/United Democrats. The remainder entered the Center-Right Block. However, these coalitions were unable to consolidate the liberal vote. It seems that the liberal democrats� main problem was the absence of an authoritative and influential leader. This was not a one-off problem; when forming the new movement �Pravoe Delo�-Right Cause-they again encountered difficulties in choosing a leader of nationwide stature.
A social and political consensus seems to have been reached in Russia on, first, the necessity of setting clear, lasting political rules; second, the need to confirm the legitimacy of the political system on the basis of defined democratic procedures enshrined in the constitution and the law; and, third, the unacceptability of the use of force in achieving political gain. This is one of the most important prerequisites for stability and predictability in the political system taking shape in Russia. The main political players do not see any real threat to democracy, and in such circumstances there is little chance of uniting the democrats under one banner.
But this does not mean that politicians will stop discussing the possibility of democratic coalitions. The realities of life in Russia make it possible-by focusing people�s attention on the problem of unity among the democrats-to discipline and mobilize the parties� electorates and to keep a constant check on the degree of loyalty to the party leaders. This is, in fact, an important element in building a party system and ensuring that a party infrastructure appropriate for the current state of Russian society is created.