TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/090291/0902993.000

Text File | 1992-08-28 | 5.4 KB | 103 lines

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Ie                                                          THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION, Page 31

THE RETREAT

The Silent Guns of August


Though the army held its fire, it faces a leadership shake-up and
a further erosion of power and influence

By RICHARD LACAYO -- Reported by James Carney/Moscow and Bruce
van Voorst/Washington


    Throughout Soviet history, Kremlin leaders have taken special
care to prevent the army from interfering in the nation's
internal politics. Yet the new order being established by Mikhail
Gorbachev was not the kind that soldiers were accustomed to
living with. Pulled out of Afghanistan, shown the door in Eastern
Europe, beset by shrinking defense outlays, low pay and ethnic
tensions, the army smarted under the changes sweeping the
U.S.S.R. For the plotters of the coup, such discontent seemed to
make the military a logical -- if reluctant -- ally. Its armed
might made it an essential one.

    But when the moment came to strike, Defense Minister Dmitri
Yazov was unable to bring his firepower to bear. Gorbachev's
drive for reform across all strata of society had left fault
lines among the military as well, and the coup rapidly widened
them. The air force stood aside altogether, refusing orders to
participate. As for the army, the 10 tank crews that defected to
Boris Yeltsin symbolized the greater number of soldiers who
refused to countenance the violent overthrow of the government.
Even troopers nominally supporting the junta were reluctant to
fight.

    The army's trauma is not over. Yazov was arrested and faces
trial. His protege, former Chief of the General Staff Mikhail
Moiseyev, 52, played a role ambiguous enough to let Gorbachev
name him acting Defense Minister shortly after the coup's
collapse. That decision alarmed those who expected the reinstated
President to clean house. Under pressure from Yeltsin, Gorbachev
replaced Moiseyev one day later with an unambiguous reformer:
Colonel General Yevgeni Shaposhnikov, 49, the commander of the
air force who had refused to support the coup.

    A deeper purge of conservatives in the military is almost
sure to follow. General Valentin Varennikov, the commander of
ground forces who reportedly shared in Yazov's plans was
arrested; General Boris Gromov, a hero of the Afghan war thought
to have been in charge of Interior Ministry forces in the coup,
is another likely target. Officers and civilians in the military-
industrial complex, which has fought Gorbachev's efforts to
convert more defense plants to civilian purposes, can be expected
to fall as well. Marshal Sergei Akhromeyev, 68, former chief of
staff of the Soviet armed forces and top military advisor to
Gorbachev, committed suicide on Saturday night, though his link
to the plot was not clear.

    The new leadership that supplants the Old Guard will have to
brace itself for a further restructuring of the army, which has
already suffered strains as a result of the changes brought about
under Gorbachev. The military's claim on the national budget,
still about one-third of all government spending despite the
diminution of East-West tensions, faces additional reduction.
Gorbachev has cut military forces by 500,000, to 4 million, but
even sharper reductions are likely. The withdrawal from Eastern
Europe has sent soldiers home to a severe housing shortage: some
200,000 are still quartered in tents, barracks and makeshift
shelters throughout the country.

    Yet perestroika does have its appeal for some restive
segments of the armed forces who could capitalize on the failed
coup. The reform-minded Shchit (Shield) organization of former
officers, which wants to abolish compulsory service in favor of a
volunteer, professional army, may get more attention. Middle-
ranking officers, especially veterans of the Afghan war, are
impatient for a switch from massive conventional forces to the
high-tech systems that the U.S. fielded so ably in the Persian
Gulf. In their view, a market economy and the dismantling of the
defense bureaucracy offer the only hope for modernizing the
military.

    Hard-liners have tended to be clustered among older officers
of colonel's rank and above, but the real dividing line is
allegiance to the Communist Party. All top officers belonged to
the party, while a network of loyalty officers ensures political
orthodoxy throughout the ranks. The coup "wasn't the army as such
in revolt," says Stephen Meyer, a Soviet expert at M.I.T. "It was
the tired old nomenklatura, the party figures in the army." In
his first act as defense minister, Shaposhnikov resigned from the
party and, on the basis of a decree issued by Yeltsin, ordered
its cells banished from the barracks. The generals must also
accept firmer control from the Supreme Soviet, whose members have
shown growing interest in the defense budget and procurement.

    Even the concept of a single army is being questioned. To
thwart future coup attempts, Yeltsin and other republic leaders
plan to press ahead with plans to form separate armed forces --
in effect republican guard units -- that will not be answerable
to Moscow's command. That kind of challenge to its dominance of
armed power will probably prevent the military from becoming a
firm ally of change. The army will not wither away, but it will
have to swallow reforms that so troubled some of its generals
that they went to the barricades to forestall them.