One Bear Of a Soviet Politician

By Boris Yeltsin David Aikman

Ever since he was brought by Mikhail Gorbachev into the Soviet Politburo in December 1985, no Soviet political figure has been as irreverently outspoken about Soviet life or as ambitious to change it as Boris Yeltsin, 58, a heavyset, 6-ft. 2-in. man from Sverdlovsk in the Ural Mountains. Appointed to clean up the corrupt Moscow party committee, he quickly fired hundreds of bureaucrats and barnstormed the city, criticizing food shortages and general incompetence. But his reforming zeal and a bitter public debate with Politburo conservative Yegor Ligachev led to his public censure and ouster from the Moscow party position in November 1987.

But Yeltsin has refused to disappear. Banished to a deputy-ministry position in the construction industry, he is now attempting the unheard-of in Soviet life: a political comeback. Widely popular on the streets of Moscow, Yeltsin has got himself chosen as one of two candidates in the March 26 nationwide runoff for the brand-new Congress of People's Deputies. Today he campaigns daily around the city, exciting cheering crowds and recruiting campaign workers at every stop. He interrupted the frenzy of his quest and granted an interview in his Moscow office with TIME Washington correspondent David Aikman.

Q. You are running for election in the Moscow district as if your life depended on it. Why does winning it mean so much to you?

A. My candidacy was proposed by several hundred organizations in 50 different constituencies around the Soviet Union. But the Moscow constituency is the Moscow constituency. An elected representative will find it easier to deal with issues if he has been elected by this particular constituency, constituency No. 1 in Moscow.

And during the dramatic events of the fall of 1987, I was accused of not being acceptable to Muscovites. I think it is now objectively possible to find out whether this is the case.

Q. Why is this so important to you?

A. Why? If you were mugged on the street and robbed of your jacket, it would also be important to you that your robber was identified and captured.

Q. If you get elected as a representative for Moscow, how will you view your role?

A. It will be one thing if I am just a representative at the Congress and quite another if I am in the permanent Supreme Soviet as a sort of professional politician -- to use your vocabulary, though we don't have such terminology -- in which case my functions will be different and ought to be looked at differently. As to actually becoming a member of the Supreme Soviet, I don't rate my chances very high.

Q. Why not?

A. As I see it, the people who make the proposals are not very enthusiastic about it.

Q. Who, for example?

A. The political leadership.

Q. Why is the political leadership opposed to you?

A. You can't explicitly call it opposition. I give full support to the general direction of perestroika, to the country's foreign policy and so on. But I have my own views on matters of political tactics that differ slightly from , the position of the official leadership. In this respect, there is a certain tension in our relationship, but I insist on certain limits to it.

Q. Should the President of the Soviet Union be chosen by a direct, popular vote?

A. I think he should be. This is my opinion. I think elections should be universal, equal, by direct and secret vote between alternative candidates, from the bottom to the top, including the election of the Chairman of the Presidium of the U.S.S.R. Supreme Soviet.

Q. Would you be willing to run for this office?

A. I am not an alternative candidate to Gorbachev. I accept Gorbachev as a leader.

Q. What if there were no Gorbachev?

A. Why discuss it? Gorbachev is there.

Q. You have said there was a "Mafia" that tried to block your reforms when you were first secretary of the Moscow party committee. How did it operate?

A. I think you in America have quite enough experience in this area, so you must know its methods better than I do. The Mafia in the Soviet Union is a long way from being as strong and influential as it is in America. Our Mafia does not have as much experience as yours.

Q. What policy differences do you have with Gorbachev?

A. None in foreign policy, but some things in domestic policy. The official view is that perestroika must be pushed forward in every direction, that it must embrace everything. But I believe we don't have enough options and resources for this. We are not mature enough. We have not yet gone through psychological restructuring in regard to the democratization of society. So we have to move forward by stages. I favor this approach. One stage yields one result, then the next stage yields another, thus forming a chain of restructuring. Of course, one of the first links in the whole chain is that of the political system. Starting here, we must then improve living standards and concentrate our resources on this, even if it means reducing investments, financial allocations or expenditures in other areas, so that people can come to believe in the process. Psychologically, we have certainly started to live slightly better, and that's perestroika. But by heading off in every direction at once, as we have been doing for 3 1/2 years, we have hardly made any progress at all as far as the standard of living is concerned.

Q. Perhaps things have got even worse?

A. Perhaps they have in some regions, though it depends where.

Q. Why is the Soviet economy in such a mess?

A. That's too broad a question. It is probably because we didn't fulfill the slogans we proclaimed in 1917: "Power to the Soviets," "Land to the peasants," "Factories to the workers," "Bread to the hungry." Authoritarian leadership and therefore a lack of democracy have led to a certain apathy among the people, to a sort of civil nihilism, a skepticism. And to all this we must add the mistakes of the cult of personality. That's just one part of the problem.

Then we have been constantly criticizing the competitiveness and the market process of your own system to the point of excluding the very word market from any discussion of our country. A market can be a capitalist or a socialist one, but it is still a market. So here we have wasted a lot of time, not to mention all that has been sacrificed and the people and the resources we have lost. Also, the system of leveled-down wages has led to a loss of interest in their work on the part of both workers and managers. Let's say that somebody has set a record, has fulfilled not one daily quota but five. His wages ought to be raised by a factor of five, but instead, there is an immediate tendency to pay him not five times as much money but three times -- "There, so much for your wanting to get rich."

Q. Is there something in the Russian character that hinders progress in this country?

A. I think the problem derives from conditions that do not allow the Russian character to express itself. The Russian character is no weaker than the American character. We also have people with a flair for business, but, of course, in the matter of entrepreneurship, some of your executives have made quicker progress, thanks to entrepreneurship itself. We only started talking about socialist entrepreneurship in the past few years, thinking it a possible way out for ourselves. "Come on," we said, "move and think faster, and you'll get more profit for your enterprise."

Q. One of your main adversaries in the Politburo is Yegor Ligachev, chairman of the agricultural commission. What does he represent to you?

A. I must correct you. He is not my adversary; he is my opponent.

Q. What is the difference?

A. With an adversary one fights a duel or settles scores in some form or other, by military force, for example. But Ligachev is my opponent. We simply have different opinions, different points of view on certain questions of tactics. Well, of course, I think he is more conservative, if not to say outright conservative, to put it simply. That is why I think this complicates the process of perestroika. There are, however, some forces behind him. They cannot be defined; they are not organized; you can't identify them as Ivanov or Petrov, but they exist. Not to the extent of representing an opposition to Gorbachev, but a slowing-down factor.

Q. How did Ligachev slow down perestroika?

A. In hidden ways. I would put forward one proposal, and he would advance the opposite point of view. In regard to social justice, he considers there are no problems in this area, but I think there are problems that keep the moral fabric of society in a state of tension. Remove this tension, and the sprouts of perestroika will start growing.

Q. What do you think about a multiparty system?

A. It's a difficult question. We have not yet removed the locks from all the doors, locks that are sealed with sealing wax. It's my view that this issue ought to be open for discussion. That would be the first step. We are not ready today; I mean we are not ready today to take a decision on this tomorrow.

Q. You have spoken out against privileges for party functionaries. But didn't you take advantage of them yourself?

A. I was appointed as a deputy minister, thrown down from the ninth floor to the fourth floor of this building. About a day later, somebody turns up offering me privileged access and other products. I didn't let him take more than two steps inside my office. I said to him, "You're not to blame. I understand why you were sent to me, but I have principles. I am against such things. Don't ever come here again."

Of course, I have not refused all the privileges, to be quite honest. It is one thing to refuse foodstuffs, access to special stores and various services, but I have not refused an official car, a dacha, a small wooden house in the area where ministers reside and special health services. Among other ministers, nobody else has followed this example.

Q. What inner motivation drives you when you deal with all these issues?

A. It may seem trivial to you, but I really want us to have a state that is socially just. Really. And I want to fight for this.

Q. That is not trivial. Have you had this conviction since childhood?

A. Well, of course, but not as intensively as today. The feeling sharpened , over the course of time, as I started to learn more, as I came across wide polarities in living standards. So I am a fervent advocate of social justice. It is essential for the very moral and psychological climate of society. No special means are required, but sacrifices on the part of certain kinds of people are essential. We have to sacrifice ourselves. I don't consider this a slogan. Public interests are higher than personal interests. In a month I may be elected to the Congress of People's Deputies and would therefore no longer be a minister. Today I don't know where I will find work. This doesn't bother me. Things are easier in your country. A political figure may have his own farm, some capital, a factory -- and he is not afraid to abandon all this for a while -- and not even lose it, if he is elected to the Senate or the House of Representatives. He can work there for a while and then go back to his property. He feels quite safe. But I don't even have a ruble saved up.

Q. Was there something very striking that happened in your life that got you going on your present path?

A. There were a number of dramatic moments in my life. For example, I decided to travel all around the Soviet Union without a kopek in my pocket, just to see it. It was in 1952. I traveled and observed during the three summer months. To have a checkbook while traveling is one thing. It is quite another to own only a student card identifying me as a student of the Urals Polytechnical Institute. This taught me a lot, for instance, when I traveled on the roof of a railroad car without a ticket, when I spent the night in sheds with poor and homeless people. That is how I traveled, although it seems impossible to imagine.

How did I earn the food to eat? I did some odd jobs here and there, like unloading coal. I prepared an army colonel for his entrance exam in math to an institute of higher learning, and he gave me some money. Later I lived in a barracks for ten years. A shed with one corridor and rooms on either side, 20 rooms and five of us in one room, not to mention the goat that slept next to us. When someone turned on the record player in the end room ((Yeltsin interrupts himself to break into verses from an old civil-war song)), the whole barracks started singing. So there has been a whole variety of different experiences in my life, unusual ones. That's without mentioning that I played in the top volleyball league for Sverdlovsk for five years. I am still keen on sports, but now I play tennis.

Q. Do you play well?

A. I can't say I do. I am no longer 20, but I could play with you.