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MAD VLAD WAITS FOR YELTSIN TO FAIL

           The following is from a recent edition of Christian
            Crusade Newspaper, P.O. Box 977, Tulsa, OK
            74102. The newspaper is in its 42nd year of
            publication and can be E-mailed on
            America On Line as BJHargis, on Compuserve at
            72204,541, on GEnie through K.Wilkerson3 and
            via the  Internet as [e-mail] .

            Permission is granted for this article to be used in
            newsletters, on computer BBSs or  other otherwise
            published, provided that attribution to
            Christian Crusade Newspaper is included.

            copyright 1993 Christian Crusade Newspaper.
            All rights reserved.

from CHRISTIAN CRUSADE NEWSPAPER
by Dr. Billy James Hargis, publisher
Keith Wilkerson, editor

      Time magazine calls him ╥Europe╒s worst nightmare.╙
      The New Republic magazine calls him ╥Russia╒s David
Duke,╙ after the Louisiana Ku Klux Klansman and
political hopeful.
      ╥If you ever wonder how bad things could get if the
Soviet economy fails to revive,╙ says Fortune magazine,
╥peer into the face of Vladimir Wolfovich Zhirinovsky, 45.
His modest proposal for fixing the economy? Reconquer
Eastern Europe. ╘I shall threaten with arms, even nuclear
arms,╒ he vows. If that fails, ╘I shall send one and a half
million troops into the former East Germany. Then there
will be an abundance of goods.╒╙
      ╥Zhirinovsky is a fascist,╙ bluntly declares London╒s
Economist magazine. The Washington Times calls the 45-
year-old Moscow lawyer a ╥neo-fascist.╙
      His nickname among American news correspondents
in Moscow? ╥Mad Vlad.╙
      Moscow lawyer Vladimir Wolfovich Zhirinovsky is the
self-declared ╥anti-Communist╙ who came in third in the
1991 Russian presidential election, which Boris Yeltsin
won.
      In total seriousness, Zhirinovsky tells crowds of
restless Russians that he wants to resume the Cold War.
      Bitter about how the news media persistently
compares him with Adolph Hitler, he recently lashed out
at his critics: ╥Adolf was an illiterate corporal, whereas I
have graduated from two higher educational
establishments and have the command of four languages.╙
      How comforting.
      He campaigned against Yeltsin promising cheaper
vodka and threatening to poison the newly independent
Baltic republics with nuclear waste. He says that if the
Japanese give Russia any more trouble about the Kiril
Islands east of Siberia, then Moscow should drop a couple
of nuclear bombs on key Japanese cities, to help Tokyo
remember the lessons of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
      Zhirinovsky has told Western journalists that he is
completely serious in his declarations that the way to fix
the Soviet economy is to invade Germany and hold it
hostage until the West pays Russia billions of dollars to
withdraw its troops.
      ╥His fanaticism has made him mainly a vulgar
curiosity,╙ says journalist James Carney. However, given
the unrest in Russia, ╥a person with a program like
Zhirinovsky╒s could be dangerous,╙ warns Russian
economist Lev Timofeyev.
      Indeed, the deeper that Russia sinks into economic
collapse and regional conflict, Zhirinovsky says, the better
are his chances of political success.
      He heads Russia╒s Liberal Democratic Party, a small
and poorly funded organization that is neither liberal nor
democratic. He wants to be a dictator, he says, to re-
establish a powerful political police, to rebuild Russia╒s
military might and to re-establish Russia as a super-
power.
      When he ran for the Russian presidency, he won about
7 million votes, which was only 16 percent of the vote.
However, statistically, he did better than H. Ross Perot did
against Bill Clinton.
      How he even got on the ballot demonstrates either
that he is a political genius or is getting behind-the-scenes
help from hardliners determined to see Yeltsin fail.
      Russian legislators had sought to screen out frivolous
contenders in the first popular election of a national
leader in the 1,000-year history of the Russian state. They
did so by requiring potential entrants to submit
signatures from at least 100,000 supporters ╤ impossible
for all but five candidates.
      Zhirinovsky became the sixth official contender,
however, when he side-stepped the 100,000-signature
hurdle and joined the race through a little-known
provision in a recently enacted election law that granted
entry to anyone who could secure backing from at least 20
per cent of the Russian parliament╒s legislators.
      Yeltsin partisans angrily charged his candidacy was
simply a KGB-engineered plot to divert votes from  Yeltsin
╤ particularly after the legislature╒s Communist bloc
quickly endorsed Zhirinovsky, although he was a political
unknown.
      In the streets of Moscow, pro-democracy activist
Nikolai Travkin listened to Zhirinovsky proclaim a rabble-
pleasing pledge to halve the price of vodka, then
exclaimed to a western journalist, ╥This nomination is
sheer clownery.╙
      However, as Shakespeare noted: ╥Though this be
madness, yet there is method in it.╙
      Russian and foreign journalists alike discounted
Zhirinovsky╒s chances of success. But he proved himself a
compelling and effective campaigner. He struck a chord
with ordinary people. Soft-pedaling his university degrees
and fluency in English, Spanish, German and French,
Zhirinovsky presented himself as an average man. ╥I am
one of you,╙ he repeatedly told the voters. ╥I am an
ordinary Russian who lives in a two-room apartment and
earns 200 rubles a month.╙
      When the ballots were counted, Yeltsin drew about 47
million votes to win handily over his nearest rival, former
Soviet prime minister Nikolai Ryzhkov. But Zhirinovsky╒s
surprising third-place caught everyone off guard.
      During recent months, as Russia╒s economy has
shrunk by at least 12 per cent, Zhirinovsky has
maintained his self-proclaimed status as Russia╒s ╥czar-in-
waiting.╙ He is without question its most outrageous
politician.
      The Moscow daily newspaper Izvestia says of him:
╥Zhirinovsky offers an attractive, comprehensible and
concrete objective for everyone. For the poor: to loosen
the purses of the rich. For business people: the
opportunity to deal. For the military: to return honor and
dignity. For pensioners: a peaceful life in old age.╙
      Zhirinovsky promises the discontent Russian military
full-alert status of the Cold War era, an end to nuclear
disarmament, no more personnel cuts and, indeed,
reinforcements of the 300,000-member Soviet force that
is still stationed in barracks located in eastern Germany.
Such an undertaking would clearly damage relations
between Russia and the West. But Zhirinovsky says that
such a setback in diplomacy is certainly preferable to
Russia╒s current status as an international charity case.
      Georgy Satarov, the director of Moscow city council╒s
political research center, dismisses Zhirinovsky as a
marginal figure who did well in the presidential election
only because Yeltsin was competing against an otherwise
weak field of opponents.
      But Boris Kurashvili, a senior researcher at the
Moscow Institute of State and Law, worries about how
Zhirinovsky has been shrewd enough to cast himself as a
populist battling such members of the old Soviet elite as
Yeltsin and Gorbachev.
      Zhirinovsky admits he is waiting for Yeltsin to fail and
says he is counting on hunger, violence, and instability to
bring him to power.
      ╥Hungry people will vote for me,╙ he told Time
magazine. He says he has strong support from the
thousands of Russian refugees forced out of the Baltics by
new citizenship laws. ╥In a rich country my program
would not go down well,╙ he admits. ╥But in a poor,
embittered country like Russia, this is my golden hour.╙
      Like the neo-Nazi skinheads who have been attacking
Turkish immigrants in Germany, Zhirinovsky╒s supporters
are mostly young, male, blue-collar and willing to engage
in confrontation against their opponents. Like their
German counterparts, they worry aloud about the future
of ╥European civilization.╙ They also express concern
about the ╥Jewish question.╙ Zhirinovsky╒s press secretary,
Andrey Arkhipov, says that the main aim of Zhirinovsky╒s
party is ╥to preserve white civilization.╙
      ╥Between meetings Zhirinovsky is quiet, almost
sullen,╙ reported Paul Quin-Judge, The Boston Globe╒s
Moscow correspondent. ╥He stares into space, shrugging
off questions about his policies. But as the time for a
meeting approaches, he slowly cranks up. As you listen to
him it becomes clear that he is counting on Russia
repeating the collapse of the Weimar Republic. [Germany
before the rise of Hitler] Though he expresses mild hurt
when people compare him to Hitler, his political rhetoric
sounds very much like the Nazis in the early ╒30s.
      ╥He has, for example, dusted off an updated stab-in-
the-back theory. Russia was reduced to its present state of
degradation by the treachery of the present leadership, he
says. They are carrying out the instructions of ╘the
international center╒ ╤ by which he apparently means the
leaders of the United States and the West.╙
      In one of his favorite stump speeches, Zhirinovsky
likes to thunder that the West fears a powerful Russia, and
every thirty to forty years has to take steps to weaken it. In
1917, he tells the crowds, the West inflicted Bolshevism
on Russia ╤ which resulted in decades of confusion,
decline and murderous purges. Then came World War II
╤ also a plot of the West manufactured purely to keep
Russia down.
      Finally, he says, the West finished of Russia╒s empire
with Gorbachev╒s perestroika.
      Today, shouts Zhirinovsky, a weakened Russia is under
threat from every side. From Asia comes zheltaya
opasmost, which roughly translates to ╘the yellow peril.╒
From the South, he says, hundreds of millions of Muslims
are massing on Russia╒s borders. And from the West, he
rages, there is America ╤ still armed to the teeth with
nuclear weapons that threaten the safety of every Russian
citizen.
      Zhirinovsky says that Russia does not need democracy.
Instead, the nation needs a period of stability, led by a
strong dictator who will straighten out the economy,
reassert Russia╒s international standing as a super-power,
and who will not hesitate to restore the Soviet borders.
Zhirinovsky repeatedly recommends moving militarily
against Finland, Poland and Germany.
      ╥Warnings of a coming dictatorship have been as
common in Moscow this winter as street-corner
complaints about high prices,╙ reported Time magazine
last December. ╥Down through Russia╒s history,
authoritarianism has been the rule, reform and
democracy the rare ╤ and brief ╤ exception. For that
reason alone, the odds seem to dictate that President
Boris Yeltsin╒s efforts to install a new system will founder
and the strong hand will follow. Even Yeltsin has raised
the specter. ╘I have faith in our reforms,╒ he said on a visit
to France last month. ╘But if they fail, I can already feel
the breath of the Brownshirts on our necks.╒╙
      Brownshirts were the street thugs who catapulted
Hitler into power in the chaos of 1930s Germany.
      ╥We may try to dismiss Zhirinovsky ╤ who has
threatened to take Finland and Poland back into the
Russian empire ╤ as a bit of a clown,╙ said Russian
authority Walter Laqueur in a recent interview with U.S.
News and World Report editor Jeff Trimble, ╥but he is a
successful clown. As he likes to point out, he got as many
votes in the 1991 Russian presidential election as the
population of Switzerland. In a way the current situation
resembles Germany in 1920, where there was a great deal
of resentment on the extreme right, but only small
organized groups ╤ until a single man appeared on the
scene who pulled it all together.╙
      One of Zhirinovsky╒s slogans is: ╥A common front
against America, from Dublin [Ireland] to Vladivostok
[Siberia].╙ Is he saying that Russia should conquer
Europe?
      His people also like to say: ╥We have a great deal in
common with the Germans. Don╒t take all this nonsense
about the democratization of Germany seriously. If the
two of us get together, we╒ll rule the world.╙
      Russian political observer Peter Kenez in an American
Labor Conference on International Affairs publication a
few weeks ago called Zhirinovsky ╥the Russian Mussolini╙
and said his ╥sanity is very much in doubt.╙
      ╥The risk remains that Yeltsin will lose control of the
situation,╙ says Fortune magazine. ╥The West will wake up
one morning to find an anti-Western tyrant at the helm of
a country that covers one-sixth of the globe╒s land area.
Just how bad can it get? Zhirinovsky is campaigning for
Yeltsin╒s job. Vowing to forcibly reunite the 15 former
Soviet republics into a Great Russian empire, he would
also throw out most foreign businessmen in his first 100
days as President. ╘We don╒t need your Marlboros,╒ he says.
╘We will raise ourselves up by ourselves.╒
      ╥Will the zealots win?╙ asked Fortune. ╥By re-creating
a mythical Great Russia, will they plunge the world back
into a Cold War, or worse? Much depends on how well
Boris Yeltsin is able to maneuver.╙
      Meanwhile, Zhirinovsky is maneuvering.
      Since the election, he has kept himself in the public
eye through such acts as unsuccessfully challenging
Leningrad Mayor Anatoly Sobchak to a duel over an insult
that Sobchak denies.
      He also led a small group of protesters to the walls of a
Moscow prison holding the leaders of the coup against
Gorbachev: ╥They were trying to restore order,╙ declared
Zhirinovsky. ╥So am I.╙
      Although he declares himself to be ╥anti-communist╙
and claims that he never belonged to the Communist
Party, last March, he met with 150 former deputies of the
now-defunct Supreme Soviet legislature ╤ most of them
hard-line Communists.
      The former Soviet lawmakers had been unable to
muster a quorum of anything close to half their old 2,250-
member parliament. Because Russian authorities had
banned them from meeting in the Kremlin, they gathered
in the auditorium of a state dairy farm, about 30 miles
south of Moscow.
      Zhirinovsky attended and told Canada╒s Maclean╒s
magazine: ╥The congress organizers invited me to be a
guest because we share the same goal: to restore Russia╒s
greatness.╙
      The meeting was less than dramatic. At one point, five
busloads of delegates got lost en route to the farm. TV
cameras caught Zhirinovsky on a highway shoulder
arguing with traffic policemen as he tried desperately to
find out which way the deputies╒ convoy had gone. But the
flamboyant lawyer did manage to get himself on the
evening news. Reports in the Russian media featured his
furious charges that authorities had done everything they
could to disrupt the session ╤ including shutting off the
heat and lights in the auditorium, forcing deputies to
meet in the dark.
      ╥Getting noticed is a big part of the continuing battle
that Zhirinovsky is waging to wrest the Russian
presidency from Boris Yeltsin and return the country to
its imperial greatness,╙ says Maclean╒s writer Malcolm
Gray.
      During the next presidential election, Zhirinovsky
declares, 60 million Russians will vote for him. After that
victory, he added, he will replace the chaos and disorder of
the pro-democracy forces with an authoritarian regime.
╥If I win,╙ he declared, ╥I will do everything possible to
ensure that the borders of Russia correspond to those of
the Soviet Union. The Baltic states, for instance, are
Russian territory.╙
      His message is crude and violent.
      It targets the fears and nightmares of some of the
most vulnerable segments of the Russian population.
Many blue-collar workers voted for Yeltsin not because he
was the standard-bearer of democracy but because  he
would restore order. Instead, order has collapsed.
      Zhirinovsky appeals to the millions of workers in the
defense industries, and the hundreds of thousands of
military officers whose futures are in doubt.
      ╥It╒s either me or civil war,╙ he kept repeating to
listeners in Volgograd.
      ╥Since the 1991 election, won by Boris Yeltsin, Mr.
Zhirinovsky appears to have consolidated his support
among Russians disaffected by the Soviet Union╒s collapse
and embittered by economic hardship,╙ reports the
Washington Times.
      Is a nationalist backlash inevitable?
      The collapse of the Soviet Union is without parallel.
Empires usually collapse in war or because they are
overextended. The Russian empire collapsed by itself.
Russians suffered a terrible trauma, losing half their
country and, in effect, 300 years of their history. The loss
of Ukraine is especially painful because Kiev is the cradle
of Russian culture.
      The stakes for the West could not be higher. Since
1987, Western investment has totaled almost $1.5 billion
in Russia, nearly $500 million in 1992 alone.
      Conditions in Russia have become nearly unbearable.
The current annual inflation rate of some 2,000 percent
has wiped out savings.  Railroad stations are also crowded
with homeless and impoverished people. Crime increased
40 percent in 1992, according to the Interior Ministry.
      Ultimately, the question is whether Russia is ready to
accept the kind of changes that Yeltsin offers. Even before
communists seized power in 1917, Russia╒s political and
economic traditions, however, were inherited not from
John Locke and the Magna Carta, but from Ivan the Great,
Russia╒s first czar, who molded fractious bands of Russian
tribes into an iron dictatorship strong enough to expel
Mongol invaders. This tradition is poor soil for democracy.
      Will Russia find the strength to cast aside its primitive
political culture and join the community of civilized
nations? Or will the zealots win and by re-creating a
mythical Great Russia plunge the world back into a Cold
War ╤ or worse?
      We can only wait and see.



WHAT IS CHRISTIAN CRUSADE NEWSPAPER?
      Christian Crusade Newspaper is in its
42nd year as a monthly voice of Christian conservativism.
It has a worldwide circulation and is published by
Christian Crusade, P.O. Box 977, Tulsa, OK 74102.
     The newspaper is distributed free, without charge, to
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