Leading Article: A symbol of a new relationship

BY ANY standards, the dollars 43.4bn of aid put together for Russia in Tokyo by finance ministers of the world's seven most prosperous democracies is much more than expected. With all the help committed to Eastern Europe, it stands comparison with the Marshall aid programme extended to Western Europe after the Second World War by the United States. In the perspective of history, that far-sighted generosity stands out as a turning point in American relations with Europe. Given a favourable trend in Boris Yeltsin's political fortunes - or the emergence of an acceptable successor - the Group of 7 package may come to be hailed as a comparable landmark.

It was never very easy to pinpoint the role played in Europe's post-war economic recovery by Marshall aid, which was in toto worth some dollars 70bn at today's prices. But few people doubt that, although it averaged only some 2.5 per cent of the gross national product of the countries that benefited, it did much to restore financial and political stability and to speed the liberalisation of production and prices. The G7 countries will be fervently hoping that their package will come to be seen to have had precisely the same kind of effect in Russia.

The analogy between the two eras is inevitably imperfect. In 1947 the shattered democracies of Western Europe knew what they wanted to achieve: a modernised version of the best of pre- war practice, as quickly as possible. In Russia, by contrast, the pace of progress towards a free market economy is a matter of bitter political dispute. An old guard of Communist apparatchiks still dominates much of industry. Many of them are happy to go through the motions of privatisation, as long as it helps them to retain their power and line their own pockets. They are not always easy to distinguish from genuine liberalisers deserving support.

The whole question of aid for Russia and the beleaguered Mr Yeltsin abounds in ifs and buts. To cite just one: much of it will be frittered away if Mr Yeltsin does not make good his promise to control Russia's central bank, whose lavish way with rouble credits for terminally uncompetitive industries has fuelled the country's near-hyperinflation.

Carpers will argue that the mere promise of aid will not help Mr Yeltsin to win the referendum on 25 April; and that his Russian nationalist adversaries will point to the various conditions attached to it and claim he has sold his country to Western interests. No one can tell how effective that argument is. If some forms of visible aid, for example American pharmaceuticals, can be made available well before any advanced elections to a new parliament this year, the Russian in the street, and thus Mr Yeltsin, may tangibly benefit.

The stakes are high for the West, too. If Russia continues down the path prescribed by Mr Yeltsin and his reformist advisers, all major trading countries will eventually benefit: not just through exports, but through lower defence spending. The many-layered package put together in Tokyo is not just big money, but a symbol of the remarkable change in the West's relationship with its former adversary.