Stay up to date with notifications from The Independent

Notifications can be managed in browser preferences.

Yeltsin fights shy of tank option: Despite talk of armour on the streets, the President, assailed by conservatives in Congress, is deemed unlikely to 'play the army card'

Andrew Higgins
Saturday 13 March 1993 00:02 GMT
Comments

Your support helps us to tell the story

From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.

At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.

The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.

Your support makes all the difference.

He came to power by climbing on top of a tank. A year and a half later, President Boris Yeltsin confronts another choice: should he try to salvage this power from inside a tank?

Few think he will try. Fewer still think it would work even if he did. But, for a moment yesterday in the Great Kremlin Palace, many worried that Mr Yeltsin had done just that: it was announced from the floor of the Congress of People's Deputies that trucks full of armed men had arrived in the Kremlin.

The report was untrue; the panic passed. But it highlights just how volatile Russian politics have become. Nothing can be ruled out any more.

In August 1991, Mr Yeltsin rallied opposition to a hardline coup with defiant words in front of the White House: 'You can erect a throne using bayonets but you cannot sit on bayonets for long.' Today, the words have come back to haunt him as he considers a way out of what his supporters have condemned as a constitutional coup by Russia's Congress of People's Deputies.

After months of veiled threats, repeated yesterday from the podium of the Great Kremlin Palace, Mr Yeltsin must now decide whether emergency rule - and the prospect of troops in the streets - offers the only escape from what supporters call a constitutional coup. 'If these proposals are not passed, I must think about additional measures to preserve the balance of power in this country,' he fumed before stalking from the third day of the Congress of People's Deputies.

The remark follows a steady drum-roll of ominous warnings by President Yeltsin in recent days. Before the start of the Congress session, he spoke of an unspecified 'final option' if deputies rejected a power-sharing compromise. The following day, Izvestia, a liberal newspaper usually loyal to Mr Yeltsin, increased tension with a report that the military itself had called for 'resolute action' to end the political crisis.

Mr Yeltsin now faces two questions: does he want to? and, more importantly, can he drag the military into politics?

Both liberal supporters and hardline foes say the answer to both is probably no. 'The president is very upset by the conduct of Congress. But in the end there is nothing he can do,' said Anatoli Shabad, a staunch Yeltsin loyalist. 'He has made some threats, but I'm afraid there is nothing underlying these threats. He will not declare emergency rule. He won't and he can't. He will abide by the constitution. Neither political camp will support any unconstitutional measures.'

Hardliners, exultant over their victory during the Congress, gloat at President Yeltsin's weakness: 'The army will not support Yeltsin, I know that,' said Mikhail Astafyev, a leader of the nationalist Russian Unity faction. 'The army will stay neutral. They will not fight with their people. The whole policy of President Yeltsin is anti-Russian, anti-people. The army officers know that.'

Whether Mr Yeltsin even has the right to call on the military is in doubt. 'He is the chief of the army in times of war. But in peace time it is the Supreme Soviet that is boss,' said General Anatoly Koltunov, a deputy who supports the parliamentary chairman, Ruslan Khasbulatov. 'The army will be neutral and do its own business. It will be on the side of the people who feed it and not with the ones who try to to give it orders to oppose the people.'

Indeed, there are strong signs that any attempt to introduce the army into Russia's political drama would work against, rather than for, Mr Yeltsin. He recognised this himself two weeks ago in an interview on Armed Forces Day, warning his opponents not to play the 'army card'. His remarks followed a campaign of open dissent by disgruntled middle-ranking officers grouped together in an organisation called Officers' Union. The group is small, but, according to Alexander Zhilin, editor-in- chief of Russia's first independent military newspaper, Armiya Rossii, it reflects a mood of bitter resentment within much of the military. Any attempt by Mr Yeltsin to impose emergency presidential rule, he says, 'would mean civil war in 10 minutes'.

The military is in catastrophic disarray and many officers blame Mr Yeltsin and his government: only 20 per cent of conscripts reported for duty last year. Living conditions are appalling, so bad that three naval conscripts in the Pacific Fleet recently died from malnutrition. An article by Yuri Deryugin, President of the Association of Military Sociologists, says 42 per cent of all officers believe the Defence Minister, Pavel Grachev, is incapable of solving their problems.

With Mr Grachev in such a weak position, it is unlikely that he could mobilise the military to Mr Yeltsin's cause. Mr Grachev has insisted repeatedly that the military should stay out of politics, a stand reinforced by years of indoctrination based on the most basic principle of Communist Party rule: the party, not the generals, control the guns.

Join our commenting forum

Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies

Comments

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in