BY MAURICE WILLIAMS

As instability in Russia deepens, President Boris Yeltsin and Communist Party chairman Gennady Zyuganov are bracing themselves for a head-to-head battle for the presidency in a second round of voting scheduled for July 10. Yeltsin, who received substantial backing from Washington and other imperialist powers, had boasted one week before the election, "Either I will win in the first round or I don't know my own people."

Yeltsin captured 35 percent of the vote, while Zyuganov finished second with 32 percent of the ballots cast in the June 16 election. Former general Aleksandr Lebed, a critic of the Chechnya war, placed third with 15 percent. U.S.-trained economist Grigory Yavlinsky received 7 percent, and ultrarightist Vladimir Zhirinovsky won 6 percent.

U.S. president William Clinton said the elections in Russia were "a real credit" to Yeltsin. "Probably more than any other single person, he wanted Russia to be a free country, to pick its leaders by election."

The Economist, which declared 18 months ago that Yeltsin was "the wrong man for the job" now calls him the "only man for Russia."

As Clinton and others in ruling-class circles slapped Yeltsin on the back with congratulations,, London's Financial Times warned "he will have to work hard" for victory. "Investors are unlikely to stampede into the market on a slim two-point advantage," said Christopher Granville, an official at the Moscow-based United City Bank.

Both front-runners began almost immediately wooing Lebed for political support. Yeltsin dismissed his longtime defense minister Pavel Grachev June 18, after meeting with the former general the day before. The New York Times said Lebed "was offered a senior post in the government in charge of security." Lebed, whose military record included the violent repression of popular uprisings in Georgia and elsewhere, rebuffed Zyuganov. "He can offer me whatever he wants," Lebed said of Zyuganov. "We're through with Communism."

Yeltsin moved "to exploit shamelessly the power of the incumbency," wrote the Economist. Two days before the elections, the Russian president gave a rare fourth star to the air defense and strategic missiles commanders as well as the military chiefs in the army, navy, and air force. In May he issued decrees to reduce the military obligation of soldiers fighting in the Chechnya war zone, phase out military conscription, and set up a professional army in four years.

Wave of discontent
On June 6, Yeltsin ordered Russia's Central Bank to transfer $1 billion to the federal budget to fulfill campaign pledges to pay teachers, doctors, and the military. Russia's estimated 1.5 to 1.7 million troops endure a shortage of funds, arms and even clothes. According to the Financial Times, some soldiers in the Far East starved this winter. Yeltsin received a barrage of news coverage when he presented his official campaign program in the city of Perm May 31. He promised to increase pensions and provide free public transportation to the elderly during a campaign stop there.

Zyuganov has coasted on a wave of discontent. "We see that farmers are being finished off," he said charging that Yeltsin's policies are aimed at killing off peasants.

"We can barely make ends meet, even though we have a small plot of land and work hard," said Irina Gorda, who works with her husband on a collective farm in Borgustanky. Collective farms make up some 95 percent of the region's crop land, on par with national statistics.

"I'll be frank. It's the economic situation that has created Zyuganov," Vladeslav Yurchik, a member of the Communist Party in parliament, told the Washington Post. Yurchik organized Zyuganov's campaign in Krasnoyarsk. "This [support for Zyuganov] is not an expression of love. It's an act of economic desperation."

Millions of working people are not receiving their wages. Unpaid coal miners in Vladivostok - in Russia's Far East near the border with North Korea and China - are holding weekly protests in front of a monument to Soviet fighters killed during the 1918-20 civil war, when Washington dispatched 7,000 troops to Siberia to try to crush the revolutionary government. "The coal miners in Partizansk have no electricity, no salaries, and their families are starving," said Marina Loboda, a columnist for the pro-Yeltsin Russian daily Vladivostok.

Living conditions continue to plummet for Russian workers and peasants. Some 36 million of pensioners, jobless workers, and peasants live on less than the official subsistence income of $68 a month. This figure represents 24 percent of the country's 153 million people. Life expectancy for males - 57 years - is lower than any other industrial country. This year the death rate is almost twice as high as the birth rate, a condition comparable only to nations that have experienced famines or major wars.

Meanwhile, disparity in incomes has grown. The richest 10 percent of Russians are earning 13.5 times as much as the poorest 10 percent. Prior to 1990, this figure stood at 4 to 1. The gross domestic product per person in 1995 was $2,450, a tenth of Belgium and half of Hungary's.

Capital continues to trickle into Russia, but many investors are holding off on decisions until after the elections. If "Zyuganov wins," noted the Wall Street Journal, "there could be tumult in the bond and currency markets."

On June 15 Russian troops launched mortar shells on Grozny, the capital city of Chechnya, as war there continued. Russian officials signed an agreement with the Chechen fighters June 10 that called for a cease-fire and the withdrawal of the thousands of Russian soldiers from Chechnya by the end of August. The pact also stipulated that the June 16 elections for a regional legislature be postponed until after the military pullout. The elections were held and many Chechens boycotted them.

"How can we have elections when people are getting hurt every day and the war hasn't ended?" asked Tamara Magomedove, who lives in Grozny. "It's the biggest stupidity."  
 
 
Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home