			Foreign Correspondent

		      Inside Track On World News
	    By International Syndicated Columnist & Broadcaster
		 Eric Margolis <emargolis@lglobal.com>

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A HEARTBEAT AWAY FROM DISASTER
by
Eric Margolis  30 Sept 1996


Five years of costly efforts by the west to turn Russia, the
Sick Man of Europe, into a modern industrial democracy are
now only a heartbeat away from disaster.  In spite of rosy
prognoses by medical specialists, it's increasingly clear
that President Boris Yeltsin, upon whose broad shoulders
rests the fate of Russia, is very ill.

After months of lies that the nearly invisible Yeltsin was
only suffering from colds, few Russian will believe current
Kremlin claims that a risk-free bypass operation can be held
in eight weeks, or that Yeltsin will be able to resume his
gruelling presidential duties by February.

Yeltsin has suffered three heart attacks, internal bleeding,
and possible kidney and liver problems. He may have also 
suffered a stroke.  Yeltsin's condition could worsen, rather
than improve, as his politically-motivated doctors claim. 
Having concentrated near-dictatorial -powers in the
presidency, Yeltsin is now too ill to micro-manage Russia's
turbulent daily affairs. 

This leaves four main contenders for power: 

* Victor Chernomyrdin, Russia's stolid, colorless but
competent prime minister, is currently running the
government. He holds the reins of the Interior, Defense and
Security `power ministries,' and commands important support
from the oil and gas monopolies, as well as the
military/industrial complex.

* Aleksander Lebed, the presidential security advisor, is
extremely popular, but lacks a power base.  The regular
military establishment hates Lebed for exposing corruption
in the military and seeking to halt Russia's criminal war in
Chechnya.  To younger officers, however, Lebed is a hero and
guardian of the Russian Army's honor. 

* Anatoly Chubais, the president's chief of staff, is the
most liberal, pro-western of Kremlin insiders. Bankers, big
businessmen, and the west are his main backers. Outside
Moscow's money elite, Chubais has zero support.  

While the Kremlin Three vie for power, the fourth, and most
threatening  contender, Genaddi Zhuganov, boss of the
revitalized communist party. waits in the wings.

Under Russian law, new elections must he held when a
president becomes incapacitated. The seriously  ill Yeltsin
should have resigned after suffering his third heart attack
just before this summer's elections.  But thanks to a
conspiracy of silence by the Kremlin and the pro-Yeltsin
media. the president's illness was kept secret from Russian
voters.  Washington, which claims to support democracy to
Russia, abetted this fraud by insisting Yeltsin was in
robust health. when it knew he was incapacitated.   

This deception allowed Yeltsin to defeat the communists in a 
narrow election.  Angry communists are absolutely right when
they charge fraud. But as direct heirs to a party that
killed more people this century  than two world wars and
Adolf Hitler combined, and that rigged elections for 74
years, communists  are in no position to cry foul.


There's still a remote chance Yeltsin might rise from his
deathbed, like Tsar Ivan the Terrible, and smite would-be
usurpers. But if an ailing Yeltsin cannot effectively resume
office, Russians will demand a new election, as the law
stipulates.  The likely winner:  Genaddi Zhuganov and his
triumphant communists. This prospect is giving the west -
which has sunk some $70 billion in `democratic' Russia - the
willies. East Europeans are in a panic. 

The west will intensify efforts to keep Chernomyrdin in
power by postponing elections as long as possible.  If
Yeltsin survives the next few months, he may become another
invisible emperor, like China's Deng Xioping.  Presidents
Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt held office from their
deathbeds.  Maybe Yeltsin can too.  

Historically, a weak Kremlin engenders economic and
political chaos across Russia. If this happens again, Russia
may face a military coup.  Just this week, former general
Lebed warned of mutinies by unpaid soldiers.  Regular
revolts by soldiers,  or `Streltsi,' was a common occurrence
in Moscow right down to the reign of Peter the Great.  

Russia's restless `Streltsi' now have a leader in either the
charismatic General Lebed, or his comrade-in-arms, General
Boris Gromov.  Russia may yet end up with its General
Pinochet, or another Francisco Franco.  

For the west, this would be the worst possible occurrence. 
Franco and Pinochet transformed Spain and Chile into modern,
vibrant nations.  An economically powerful, politically
stable Russia will be muscular, assertive, even aggressive,
as befits the world's greatest land power.  Expansion is
Russia's historical and geopolitical destiny.  The benign
era of Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin was an anomoly
that may soon  be over.  

Better a caretaker regime,  run by Chernomyrdin and the
bankers, that somehow manages to hang on while Russia
stumbles along with a tattered economy and rusted military. 

Or, perhaps even better, Zhuganov and his dinosaur
communists.  The last time they were in power, the mighty
Soviet Union resembled an India, with snowdrifts. Nothing
worked, everything fell apart, everyone was corrupted, drunk
or  demoralized.  The communist did more damage to Russia,
and killed more of its peoples, than all Russia's external
enemies combined.

But another  Stalin could also crawl out of the swamp of
primeval communism,  a prospect that should make all of us,
east and west, shudder.  

Thinking about Russia's future, one is unhappily reminded of
Churchill's cruel description of Germany: `either at your
feet, or at your throat.'

copyright eric margolis 1996

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