Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, June 5, 1990 TAG: 9006050445
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
The most interesting figure to emerge is Boris Yeltsin, elected president last month of the Russian republic, the most populous of the U.S.S.R.'s 15 republics.
Yeltsin, 59, is a Communist, but a non-conformist. He favors change; so does Gorbachev. But Yeltsin wants reform to go farther and faster than anyone else in the Soviet Union's ruling circles. He has been harshly critical of the rest of the leadership. And he has a power base: the people.
That alone sets him apart in a country with no democratic traditions. Yeltsin also has a claim to legitimacy that Gorbachev himself cannot make. Yeltsin was elected, after three rounds of close results, by a parliament picked in a popular vote last March. Gorbachev rammed his own election as Soviet president through the legislature, and has shunned suggestions he submit his office to a vote of the people. Kicked off the Politburo by Gorbachev in 1988, Yeltsin is much better positioned now to challenge the president and his policies.
Like populists everywhere, Yeltsin is both colorful and dangerous to the establishment. He argues for greater decentralization, but of a kind favoring the Russian republic: All of its land, enterprises and their products, he says, should be made the republic's property. That would remove three-fourths of the U.S.S.R.'s industrial production from Soviet control. He also favors Russia's having its own central bank, monetary policy and control of hard-currency earnings.
At a news conference last week, he called for achieving this sort of "sovereignty" within 100 days, and urged the Kremlin to allow other republics the same degree of autonomy inside the U.S.S.R. In effect, that would make the country a looser kind of federation, and Yeltsin is much better positioned now to challenge [Gorbachev] and his policies. Like populists everywhere, Yeltsin is both colorful and dangerous to the establishment. take from Gorbachev the near-dictatorial authority he assumed as president a few weeks ago.
That's for openers. Like Jesse Jackson in the United States, Yeltsin seeks to make his own foreign policy: The day after his election, he met with a delegation from Lithuania and sent his own emissaries to that breakaway republic. He has pondered aloud Russia's signing a peace treaty with Japan. No wonder Gorbachev campaigned personally against him, telling the Russian Congress that the Yeltsin policies would lead to a "breakup of the Soviet Union."
Of late, the maverick has tried to smooth matters over. When Gorbachev returns this week from the Washington summit, Yeltsin said, the two would meet: "I think we'll have an appropriate conversation, and we'll resolve most issues without damaging the sovereignty and aims of Russia" - meaning, of course, the republic.
What Yeltsin considers appropriate has never meant quite the same to Gorbachev. It seems certain that the two will continue to clash in their aims as well as personally.
All this may be vastly entertaining to outsiders, but the outcome could affect not only the Soviet Union but also much of the world. It's no exaggeration to say that the alternative to Gorbachev right now might be chaos. Those prone to criticize George Bush for softness toward the Soviet leader should keep that in mind.
by CNB