A Friend in Need

By Bruce W. Nelan

some editions of this issue)

The cold war offered few grander pageants than summit meetings between the leader of the free world and the ruler of the Soviet empire. Whether the venue was Vienna, Washington, Moscow or a brooding house by the sea in Reykjavik, the sessions carried an air of high history, a sense that the fate of the earth depended on how these two men got along. As the leaders greeted each other, TV cameras carried the handshake around the world and commentators tried to read far-ranging implications in this smile or that frown.

All that was supposed to change when the Soviet Union imploded. Meetings between the presidents of the U.S. and Russia would become routine affairs, the participants no longer meeting as adversaries and their decisions no longer worth banner headlines. When Bill Clinton and Boris Yeltsin meet in Vancouver this weekend, the tensions between the two countries indeed will be gone. Instead of bickering over missile throw weights and Third World hot spots, Bill Clinton and Boris Yeltsin will spend most of their seven hours together poring over loan schedules, monetary policy and investment strategies as they map out a program of aid from the West for the East.

The Vancouver summit, however, will be as momentous as any get-together conducted during the chilliest days of the cold war. If the U.S. does not succeed in helping Moscow stay on the path of economic and democratic reforms and Yeltsin is ousted, the West will almost certainly face a leader in the Kremlin far less friendly to its interests. Yeltsin's ongoing tussle with a naysaying parliament keeps reminding nervous Western leaders just how big a stake they have in the success of his leadership and reforms. Moscow without Yeltsin could decide to withdraw its support of sanctions in Yugoslavia and instead back the Serbs in their bloody campaign for territory. A new regime could decide to reannex the Baltic states, repair relations with Iraq or refuse to honor approval of the START 2 disarmament treaty. The specter of renewed confrontation with a conservative, nationalist Russia that might attempt to revive the ways of the Soviet empire -- forcing the U.S. to give up the defense savings it had meant to use to finance domestic economic recovery -- helped make the case with the American people for why an old enemy needs help now.

Moscow's feuding politicians could hardly have set the summit stage more dramatically if they had planned it that way. On Saturday an attempt to put the question of impeaching Yeltsin on the agenda failed by a vote of 475 to 337. However, when Yeltsin returned to the Kremlin and took the podium, his performance was so poor that it emboldened conservatives to try for impeachment again on Sunday. After nightlong negotiations between Yeltsin and his archrival, parliamentary chairman Ruslan Khasbulatov, the two sides agreed on a compromise in which Yeltsin offered to yield on his quest for an April 25 referendum in favor of Nov. 21 elections for President and parliament. Presented with a backroom deal that also included scrapping the existing Congress for a smaller, bicameral parliament, the Deputies erupted in fury. The plan was rejected, and resolutions to consider the impeachment of Yeltsin and the removal of Khasbulatov as chairman of the parliament both passed. In a Red Square speech to 70,000 supporters, Yeltsin vowed not to step down, whatever the outcome. Then, in a historic secret ballot, the Deputies swung back in support of both men; the resolutions for their removal were defeated.

Bill Clinton came to Washington on a promise to do more to promote democracy in Russia; a summit with Yeltsin was one way to do it. The U.S. President hardly expected to find the issue dominating his agenda so abruptly, but faced with a possible collapse in Moscow, he plunged in. He gave his first formal press conference last week, knowing Russia would be the main topic. Spokesmen for the Administration hewed to a consistent theme, articulated first two weeks ago and repeated by Clinton in an opening statement, that placed Washington firmly behind the Yeltsin program. "The U.S.," he said, "supports the historic movement toward democratic political reform in Russia. President Yeltsin is the leader of that process."

Administration officials explained that they were trying to register support for reform and the popularly elected President without giving their imprimatur to the positions he took in his constitutional dispute with parliament. Many Russians, including Khasbulatov, expressed resentment. "Why should they pin the label of antireformers on us?" he demanded. Pravda commentator Viktor Linnik wrote that because the U.S. wanted to keep Russia weak, "no substantial aid to Russia has been delivered over the past 18 months."

Providing more aid is the second, harder part of Washington's plan to bolster Yeltsin. How much and what kind of assistance will be the centerpiece of the summit talks. Topic A will be direct financial aid from the U.S. and the ways Washington can increase the flow of private trade and investment. The Administration has concluded, says a White House official, that "the best way * for us to keep reform going is to make sure we're engaged economically." Since two-way trade last year totaled a modest $3.8 billion and Americans invested only $400 million in Russia, there is room for growth. In Vancouver, Clinton will announce an expansion of government services to make such transactions easier for American traders and investors.

Clinton is convinced that to help Yeltsin strengthen his hold on power, the U.S. must deliver visible, practical assistance to Russia quickly. He will offer an aid package weighted toward outright grants rather than more loans, which Russia is already finding hard to repay. The plan will put together $417 million now available and another $286 million Clinton is requesting from Congress for humanitarian and technical aid.

The $703 million total is a relatively small amount, planners admit, but much of it can be spent right away and will go to projects the Russians have urgently asked for. "We've done a lot of work with the Russians," says the White House official, "talked to them about what's most important." That could include money to build housing for former army officers, modernize Russia's oil industry, expand private efforts like the Salvation Army's Moscow soup kitchens and expedite the delivery of critical medical supplies. Administration aides know that even this size program will not be popular with American voters, but say the President will go to bat for it publicly and may even ask for more. "Clinton's not afraid of this one," says a senior official.

The big-ticket items on Yeltsin's list will require larger, multilateral, long-term assistance. Decisions on those programs will be worked out after Vancouver, at a preparatory meeting of the Group of Seven industrial democracies in mid-April and at their summit in July.

Washington believes that the $24 billion multilateral aid package announced by the West a year ago was not carried through because Western governments did not respond with enough energy and imagination when Russia's faltering economy made it impossible to meet various conditions for receiving the money. Still, the Russians cannot honestly claim they have received nothing. Between 1990 and 1992, the world pledged $81 billion to the former U.S.S.R., and $57 billion has been paid or is on its way, though most of that money was in loans.

Clinton is pushing the G-7 hard to do more, starting with rescheduling Russia's foreign debt of around $80 billion -- even though Moscow may never repay some of the loans. The U.S. is urging the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund to find ways to help stabilize the Russian economy and the ruble and to ease some of their restrictions. The Administration says the World Bank is taking too much time to design its assistance programs. "The priority," says a White House official, "should be getting resources on the ground and doing something in 1993."

Economics is also at the root of the Russian parliament's challenge to Yeltsin. For months, lawmakers have been trying to rein in his liberalized prices and his plans to privatize land and modernize industry. They say reforms that have produced painful side effects like 2,500% annual inflation, a 19% drop in gross domestic product last year and the threat of vastly increased unemployment are more than the Russian people can bear. Since December, the parliament, led by Khasbulatov, has been hacking away at Yeltsin's powers, determined to stall or divert the President's efforts to turn Russia's subsidized, militarized economy into a free market. One form of unemployment the Deputies particularly oppose is their own; they have no enthusiasm for new elections in which they might lose their seats.

The hot word in the political debate remains impichment, impeachment, an imported term that Russians were using to mean "vote Yeltsin out." That is a mistranslation of the long legal process by which the U.S. can dismiss a President, but Russian parliamentarians are also vague about the concepts of demokratiya, konstitutsiya and zakonnost (legality). Despite much ostentatious talk of legality, post-Soviet Russia is still a place where the law and its institutions are in flux.

Nevertheless, Khasbulatov insisted as last week began that Yeltsin had violated the constitution when he claimed "special rule" over the country pending a national referendum on April 25. Khasbulatov, a former professor of economics, demanded a judgment by the Constitutional Court. Even though the decree Yeltsin said he had signed had not been published, the court obliged, ruling that the President could not legally declare one-man rule or call a referendum, though he could ask the nation for a vote of confidence.

The court's Chief Justice Valeri Zorkin did not use the word impichment in his advisory opinion, but that did not slow down Khasbulatov. "It's absolutely clear," he insisted, "that there are grounds for initiating the impeachment process." Members of the parliament weren't all as sure. Khasbulatov settled the debate by ramming through a summons to the parliament's parent body, the 1,033-member Congress of People's Deputies, to meet on Friday to consider removing Yeltsin from office.

Anxious Deputies milled in the corridors. "My conscience tells me to vote for impeachment," said a well-dressed Moscow representative, "but I have my managerial position to consider." Another claimed, "The majority is on our side." But, the Deputy wondered, "how can our thousand-member Congress rule Russia?" Surveying the scene, a Russian journalist observed, "It's scary. If they vote in favor of impeachment, how are they going to enforce it? Secondly, they are not sure of the people's support." In Paris, Pierre Hassner, research director of the University of Paris Political Science Foundation, put it more sharply: "Everyone was scared of doing something irreversible and ending up with another Yugoslavia or Lebanon."

The mood of crisis began to cool temporarily when the missing Yeltsin decree was finally distributed, four days late. Surprisingly, the text, dated March 20, did not contain the words declaring "special rule" that the court found impermissible, nor did it declare that parliamentary action against Yeltsin's decrees would be automatically invalid, as he had threatened.

On the eve of Friday's full Congress session, Yeltsin urged the Deputies not to press ahead with the vote to remove him, warning that it could "plunge the people into the abyss of confrontation." Whether Khasbulatov was responding to that or had just counted heads and found he could not muster the two-thirds vote necessary, he too stepped back. Conceding that he may have overreacted to Yeltsin's "special rule" speech, he withdrew his demand for impeachment. "Frankly," he said, "I am not a supporter of impeachment."

By the time the third session of the Congress in three months gathered in the Grand Kremlin Palace on Friday, the impeachment drive seemed to be losing its momentum. Although the Kremlin rang with bitter invective, the hard-liners did not have the votes to depose Yeltsin. Zorkin, the Chief Justice who had set the impeachment bandwagon in motion, instead offered a 10-point plan for national reconciliation similar to Yeltsin's own program, including a referendum on a new constitution and a law abolishing the Congress in favor of a bicameral parliament.

At the Saturday session, Khasbulatov, true to his earlier recantation, tried to head off the vote on the motion to consider sacking Yeltsin. "Impeachment, impeachment! What is this word impeachment?" he said, mocking the use of the foreign term. He was clearly relieved when the motion did not attract enough support to be placed on the agenda.

In a weary, rambling speech Saturday afternoon, Yeltsin suggested that in a week of compromise talks with Khasbulatov, Zorkin and Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin, he could produce an agreement that might end the power struggle. The President's face looked puffy, and he paused often, setting off mutters among his foes that he was drunk. Maria Sorokina, a Deputy from Lipetsk, her voice almost breaking, went to the podium to say she had been a Yeltsin loyalist and had worked for his election in 1991. No longer, she said. With heavy sighs, referring to the President's speech, she asked, "How long will we put up with this disgrace?" Yeltsin's aides later explained that he had not slept for three nights and was exhausted. "These are difficult days," Yeltsin told reporters, citing the death of his mother two weeks ago. "I spent 10 difficult years living with her in a small hut, and it is hard for me to bear this loss."

The compromise proposed on Sunday met strong and immediate rejection. The nine-point plan had offered a sop to the Congress, later described as an attempted "bribe," by letting them keep their privileges and salaries until their term ends in 1995. The Deputies condemned the plan as a cynical attempt to circumvent the Congress. "Only cynical people could have come up with this," raged conservative Deputy Gennadi Benov. "We could accept this only if we are a Congress of political suicides." Opposition Deputy Vladimir Isakov immediately proposed an impeachment motion and said to Khasbulatov, "We are sick and tired of your unscrupulousness, of your ploys. The President and the speaker are the two people here who have led us and the country into this dead end." Isakov then moved that Khasbulatov be sacked by secret ballot.

Awaiting the ballot, Yeltsin told a mass rally in Red Square how good it was to see 70,000 supporters. "We are half a million!" someone corrected him from the crowd.

"No, Boris Nikolayevich, you have 150 million supporters -- all of Russia!" shouted a second demonstrator. "You have come just in time," Yeltsin told the crowd. "Today will decide the fate of the President, your fate, the fate of Russia." Impeaching Yeltsin would have required a two- thirds majority, or 689 votes -- the actual vote was 617. Khasbulatov, who could have been removed by a simple majority, was saved by a 558-339 vote in his favor.

Asked who ultimately would win the struggle, Yeltsin replied, "There will be no winners." It seemed likely that his parliamentary foes would continue to sit belligerently in the Russian White House thinking up new ways to thwart the President, while Yeltsin remained in the Kremlin, issuing orders that officials who really make or break reform often ignore. As long as these rivals remain at odds, the government and its reforms will be stalemated.

With reporting by James Carney and Yuri Zarakhovich/Moscow and J.F.O. McAllister/Washington