BORIS YELTSIN has blundered into new danger by his inept resolution of the Kremlin power struggle. Security chief General Alexander Lebed may be shrouded in darkness, but so are those who are attacking him. Lebed has at least brought a sort of peace to Chechnya. His principal opponent, Interior Minister General Anatoly Kulikov, had brought appalling death and savage destruction. By choosing one side, Yeltsin has narrowed his options and set a precedent which will discourage future compromise. It is impossible to interpret this clumsy move as anything other than the lurching of a very sick man.
Shaky in outward appearance as well as in political reality, Yeltsin failed to offer credible grounds for his action. His incoherent invoking of the need for a “unified team” was a statement of the obvious, but there has not been such a team since his re-election, nor for a long time before. The effect of the sacking is to appear to offer presidential endorsement for the wild charges against Lebed by Kulikov, although they were not actually mentioned. These alleged that the security chief had secret plans to create a “Russian legion” of 50 000 elite forces to prepare to seize power, and that he was backed by the separatists in Chechnya.
There are no angels in the Kremlin power struggle. Yeltsin’s specific complaint is that Lebed has formed an alliance with Alexander Korzhakov, the head of the presidential bodyguard who ironically lost his job in the wake of the alliance formed between Yeltsin and Lebed in the second round of the presidential campaign. At the time Lebed himself raised many justified eyebrows with his admiration for General Pinochet and his hints that Russia was not ripe for democracy.
Kulikov and Lebed both represent a younger generation of patriotic and pugnacious generals who reject the old communist outlook and the increasingly weak search for a democratic way forward. They behave with a bearish disregard for political accommodation, and the prospect of a future Lebed presidency is unsettling. But his sacking is no solution.
There are now fresh doubts about Yeltsin’s ability to survive his forthcoming heart surgery in any state to continue presidential rule. But his action solves nothing. No amount of diplomatic talk about not commenting on Russia’s internal affairs can mask the extremely grim reality.