Leading Article: Old battles, new lines

'IN EVERY significant moment in our historical life the issue has invariably been determined by . . . the Tsars . . . in sublime communion with the people,' wrote Fyodor Dostoevsky in his diary.

It is to that view of the Russian tradition that Boris Yeltsin seems to be appealing in his struggles with the Congress of People's Deputies. When peasants in pre-revolutionary Russia revolted they mostly claimed to be supporting the Tsar, or a rival, against officials and landowners who were said to be thwarting his will. The mystical bond between the Tsar and his people was seldom challenged. Even when the Tsar was eventually overthrown in 1917, a Communist version of the supposedly benign absolute ruler was quickly installed in his place. For most Russians, centralised power remained the only imaginable defence against internal chaos and foreign invasion.

Reformers have always had a hard time. In Tolstoy's Anna Karenina, the enlightened landowner Levin tries to introduce market incentives by offering the peasants shares in his farm. They react with deep suspicion. His reactionary friend Sviazhsky is not surprised. 'The fact of the matter is,' he asserts, 'that progress of every sort can be achieved only by the use of authority.'

Although Russia today is a more sophisticated place with a much higher level of education, the old battle lines are still visible. But they criss-cross the rival camps. Mr Yeltsin is a confusing mixture of autocratic reformer and democrat. His supporters include both intellectual democrats and ordinary people who yearn for a strong tsar to restore order. Most of those who side with the Congress, including its own members, are interested primarily in keeping the old apparatus in their jobs. But there are also honourable men who have persuaded themselves that the Congress represents constitutionality.

Thus the choice between autocracy and democracy is not clear-cut. Mr Yeltsin has been seeking autocratic powers in the name of democracy while much of Congress invokes democracy in the pursuit of autocracy. It is hardly surprising that the result is a monumental muddle. At the root of it is the lack of any convincing democratic model, either internal or external. The best chance Russia ever had to develop parliamentary institutions was during the rapid industrialisation and reforms of the first decade of this century. But the nascent democracy of that period, reflecting the social revolution that was taking place, was stifled by autocratic resistance and subsequently destroyed by war and revolution. The rule of law never had time to take root.

Now there is not even much external inspiration from the troubled democracies of Western Europe, while at home Mr Yeltsin lacks the clear, driving vision that may be needed to haul the country through its latest period of turbulence. His moods have been unstable (not helped by the death of his much- loved mother), his aims often unclear and his tactics suspect. Most other leaders in his position would have snatched and held the advantage he gained when the Congress backed away from impeachment last week. Characteristically, he went back for another attempt at compromise, only to be rebuffed.

Mr Yeltsin is neither the strong leader for whom many people still yearn, nor quite the perfect democrat who would rally other constituencies. He is, however, still the best hope that Russia has as it struggles on the edge of anarchy.