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                                                                                RUSSIA, Page 66

The Party on Trial


Yeltsin's democrats are asking a constitutional court to outlaw
the Communist Party once and for all

BY JOHN KOHAN/MOSCOW


    The new tricolor flag of democratic Russia looked as if it
had been hastily tacked to the courtroom wall underneath a
metal emblem with the Soviet hammer and sickle. The 13 judges,
seated at a nearby tribunal, did not appear to be completely
comfortable in their new black robes with white linings. Minutes
after the hearings opened, the court became embroiled in a
free-for-all about how to deal with the fact that former
President Mikhail Gorbachev had refused to show up. Show trials
have always been a staple of Soviet political discourse, but the
proceeding that began in Moscow last week is different. This
time the Communist Party is in the dock, as Russians struggle
to come to terms with seven decades of history. At issue is
whether President Boris Yeltsin acted legally when he banned the
party and seized its assets after last year's failed coup
attempt. But the political stakes are higher. The trial will
consider the high crimes and misdemeanors attributed to the
party and perhaps outlaw, once and for all, the kind of
totalitarian system it created.

    Amid moments of drama and confusion, Russia's
Constitutional Court, established only last year, heard the
first evidence in a case that was certain to test the mettle of
the country's fledgling democracy and establish important legal
precedents. The hearings raise issues about Yeltsin's power to
rule by decree. They will expose the party's check ered past and
pose painful questions about retribution and punishment in
future trials. And they could provoke a surge of resentment
among the party faithful that could spill into the streets --
and heighten anxieties about another putsch attempt.

    Yeltsin won a major victory over hardliners in August
1991, but many democratic supporters fear that the second
Russian revolution did not go far enough in suppressing the
communist past and hope that the court will close out the
chapter. In fact, what happened to the party remains something
of a mystery. It controlled almost every aspect of life and
counted more than 20 million members in its prime, yet seemed
to vanish overnight after the failed coup. A year later, the
legacy of communist rule has proved difficult to erase.
Democrats may be in control of the tip of the pyramid of power,
but the middle levels are still dominated by bureaucrats from
the old nomenklatura, who may have taken down their portraits
of Lenin but pay only lip service to the new regime. In a show
of strength last month, a coalition of hard-line communists and
extreme nationalists tried to occupy Moscow's main television
studio. Now party members have gone to court to try to repeal
Yeltsin's ban.

    The plaintiffs argue that Yeltsin overstepped his
authority when he dissolved the party by decree and opened the
way for a dictatorship in democratic disguise, where no
political group will be safe from a presidential ban. They
disclaim any responsibility for crimes committed by party
leaders in the past and want to limit the scope of the hearings
to the period after they renounced their monopoly on power in
1990. They also hope to shift the focus by dwelling on the
party's achievements in defeating Nazi Germany and building the
Soviet Union into a superpower.

    The democrats' defense hinges on the claim that the
Communist Party was never just a political party but a
totalitarian state structure ruled by an elite who pulled the
strings of a puppet parliament, government and judicial system.
The case will be based on a trail of paper evidence linking the
party leadership to almost every decision of importance -- or
unimportance -- made in the Soviet Union. Says presidential
lawyer Sergei Shakhrai: "We will show how the Politburo passed
laws, not the parliament; how it rendered judicial verdicts, not
the Supreme Court; how it managed the economy and launched space
flights, not government agencies. It was the Communist Party
that created the Soviet Union and also brought about its
downfall."

    As evidence, the lawyers have submitted 36 volumes of
documents from the millions recorded by assiduous empire
builders. Only a trickle have so far been leaked to the public,
though the Russian government is now setting up guidelines for
publication of more. But even these few offer revelations of
party crimes and misdeeds on a massive scale: Communist
campaigns to destroy the church, starve peasants in forced
famines, purge political opponents and resettle entire ethnic
groups. The financing of terrorists, who received arms shipments
from Soviet warships on the high seas. The personal enrichment
of party leaders. The sale of diamonds and gold abroad to buy
food and consumer goods for wartorn Afghanistan at a time when
there were chronic shortages at home. The squandering of hard
currency on more than 70 communist movements around the globe.
In one bizarre incident, the party funded training for Italian
communists in radio codes and cosmetic surgery -- in case they
had to go into hiding.

    The evidence is potentially so explosive that the
hearings, which could last several weeks, have been compared in
impact to the postwar Nuremberg trials of Germany's Nazi
leaders. But Yeltsin's men say they have no desire to start a
witch-hunt against specific party officials, including
Gorbachev. "There are no victors and no vanquished," says
Shakhrai. "People should be tried only for criminal actions, not
because they were members of the party nomenklatura." Another
team lawyer, Andrei Makarov, puts it more succinctly: "We do not
want to turn these hearings into a political show."

    Nevertheless, the verdict will have enormous importance
for the political future of a country that knows little about
and has less faith in constitutional rights and legal
procedings. The Yeltsin team wants to establish the crucial
point that the President was actually defending the constitution
when he dissolved the party. Says Makarov: "The court should
create a precedent and state clearly that any organizations --
fascist, communist or even superdemocratic -- should be subject
to a ban when they try to realize their ideological goals
through violence and violation of the law."

    Gorbachev has categorically refused to take part in the
hearings, claiming that they will only produce "division and
discord." Says he: "How can you put 70 years of history on
trial?" Even those who blame Gorbachev for the party's ruin
share his sentiments. Gennadi Zyuganov, a Russian communist
leader who will be testifying against Yeltsin, does not believe
that the party can get a fair hearing in a court made up of
former communists. He warns that attempts to brand the party a
"criminal organization" will be "the penultimate step to
complete schism in society" and could push the country toward
civil war.

    There is some irony in a court made up of former
communists ruling on the legalities of a communist-written
constitution in a case against the Communist Party. During its
brief history, the court has already handed down rulings against
Yeltsin. It is entirely possible that this time the judges may
render a Solomonic verdict rebuking the Russian President for
misusing his powers while upholding the notion that the party
is unconstitutional.

    Still, members of the Yel tsin legal team remain confident
of victory. They argue that if the court rules against the
communists, it might prod fence straddlers in the bureaucracy,
the police and the army to join in democratic change. Says
Shakhrai: "If the court finally decides that the history of this
organization is over, the President, the parliament and the
people of Russia may be able to receive the kind of state power
they need."

    The trouble is that Russians nowadays are more interested
in the price of bread than in settling old scores. As Makarov
concedes, "If you can't feed the country, all these discussions
amount to nothing. Democracy cannot last long on an empty
stomach." In the coming months, Russia's problem-plagued leaders
might become so distracted in fending off the challenge from
communist rabble-rousers out in the streets protesting the
verdict that they might miss a danger nearer at hand: a creeping
coup from within the state, as the gray mass of post-communist
apparatchiks slowly regain control of the government and
military bureaucracy. If supporters of the old regime lose this
case, they could still win a victory out of court.