Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, March 23, 1993 TAG: 9303230379
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
CASTING A BALLOT FOR A RUSSIAN VOTE
IT IS NOT the business of the United States and other Western democracies to tell Russia how to run its internal affairs. But America and the rest of the world do have a legitimate interest in the fate of Russian democracy. And the favorable disposition should go, on balance, toward Boris Yeltsin's emergency rule.Granted, the dictatorial style of his challenge to the Russian parliament is discomfiting. In ordering, against the wishes of the legislature, an April 25 referendum on his rule, he is most likely violating the Russian constitution - ignoring the democratic process, in his view anyway, to save democracy itself. The Congress of People's Deputies, the highest legal authority under Russia's constitution, was duly elected in 1990, after multiparty elections were legalized. That gives the body legitimacy.
But the Communist Party was still the dominant political organization at the time. Not surprisingly, Communists dominate the legislature.
Granted, most people involved in policy-making then were Communists - including Yeltsin. One-time party membership does not preclude a commitment to economic reform.
But the legislature has demonstrated its desire to cling to ways rejected by Russians who overthrew Communist rule. The Congress has shown no interest in making Yeltsin's free-market reforms work. It not only has stymied those efforts at every opportunity, but it has stripped the president - also duly elected - of much of his authority.
Yeltsin's invocation of "special rule" to try to wrest control of the government from the legislative branch is cause for discomfort among his Western allies. But as the struggle between Yeltsin and the Russian Congress continues to heat up, the president so far has acted in a way that, while perhaps contrary to the Russian constitution, indicates a continued desire for democracy.
In declaring emergency rule, he did override the Congress. He did not, however, dissolve or suspend it. He's hoping the voters will do that.
And in ordering a plebiscite, he is hoping not only for a vote of confidence in his own policies but also for approval of a new constitution and new parliamentary elections. This seems a move aimed at maintaining representative government while allowing a free-market economy to take root.
If so, the United States has a critical interest in the move's success.
Most apparent and pressing is U.S. concern about its arms-control treaties with Russia. The Russian parliament has not yet ratified SALT I or SALT II. Russia and other republics of the former Soviet Union still have thousands of nuclear warheads. If a hard-line faction suspicious of the West prevails, the world could find itself engaged in Cold War II.
That concern will make it more difficult for President Clinton to get the $123 billion in defense cuts he is seeking, money he wants to spend on stimulating the economy and cutting the deficit. The Clinton administration, and consequently the whole country, might be feeling Russia's pain in a very real way.
It also is important to have Russia's cooperation in dealing with crises around the world - from the Middle East to Yugoslavia - that once would have become surrogate battlegrounds for the superpowers in the Cold War.
So for their own prosperity, the governments of the United States and Europe have voiced, with reservations, their moral support of Yeltsin's move.
His move is risky. The Russian army could be drawn in by one side or the other, though neither has tried to impose a military solution so far.
Moreover, Yeltsin is taking a big gamble in asking Russian voters to give him a mandate for his agenda. With inflation at 2,600 percent last year, many Russians are frustrated with free-market principles. Many may be too disillusioned to vote. Those who do may have lost faith in Yeltsin's proposed solutions.
Absent a referendum, Russia is caught in something worse and more dangerous than gridlock between its president and its parliament. It is caught in a stalemate - each body making its own decrees, each claiming sovereignty, each ignoring the other, neither doing anything about the hardships the Russian people are having to endure.
The alternative that comes most quickly to mind is a breaking of the stalemate by intervention of the Russian military in the affairs of civilian government. That considered, Yeltsin's gamble doesn't look quite so big, nor so disruptive of democracy.