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                                                                                COVER STORIES, Page 40

THE NEW RUSSIA: OPPOSITION GROUPS

The Dark Forces


Hard-liners who want to turn back the clock are steadily gathering
strength

By JAMES CARNEY/MOSCOW


    Somewhere in Moscow, a group of men sit around a table,
their faces grim and resolute as they conspire to launch a coup.
That, at least, is what many Russians fear. Warnings of an
imminent overthrow of the Yeltsin government come almost daily
in the capital, from all sides of the political spectrum.
Whether the messenger is a top government official, a
parliamentary leader, a member of an opposition party or an
ordinary Russian with a gut instinct, the message is always the
same: dark forces are at work devising a scheme to take power
and install a dictatorship.

    Even Boris Yeltsin joined the chorus of doom when he told
the British Parliament in early November that right-wing
opponents were hatching plans to sweep away his government and
forcibly return Russia to its unhappy past. Yeltsin's opponents
claim it is the President himself who aspires to the dictator's
throne with a plan to dissolve Russia's legislative bodies and
rule by decree. In a country with a 500-year history of
autocracy, such warnings resonate deep within the psyche of a
public that is experimenting with democratic government for the
first time.

    There are certainly those on the political fringe who
openly advocate taking power by force. But Russians'
predilection for the rhetoric of impending apocalypse and
unfamiliarity with the concept of loyal opposition or healthy
difference of opinion tend to exaggerate the risk of a putsch.
They also obscure both the complexity of the country's evolving
political culture and the frequent back-room negotiating that
leads to shifts in allegiance among political forces and
personalities. Short of being ousted himself, and perhaps as a
means to avoid it, Yeltsin may decide to share power with some
of his less radical opponents.

    Yet the fact is that a collection of unrepentant
communists, disgruntled military men, ultranationalists and Old
Guard apparatchiks is gathering strength. Some of them are
thoroughgoing extremists who want to turn back the clock; some
are more moderate opponents who want to slow down economic
change. Some are acting under the wings of the parliament. Some
are regrouping in the provinces, in old trade unions and local
government councils. Some are in the government itself, like
conservative Vice President Alexander Rutskoi, or the outspoken
parliamentarian Ruslan Khasbulatov, who was elected speaker as
Yeltsin's ally but now spearheads the charge to reduce the power
of the presidency. So far, none has emerged as an alternative
center of power, but together they act as a substantial drag on
the parlous progress of reform.

    No figure is mentioned more often as the man with whom
Yeltsin must compromise than Arkadi Volsky. He is not the most
extreme opponent, but he is the most powerful. A former
Communist Party apparatchik and adviser to each of the past
three Soviet leaders, Volsky, 60, has the assured air of a man
who has walked the corridors of the Kremlin many times. Holding
only a nominal party office at the time of the August 1991 coup,
he escaped the guilt by association that taints other former
high party officials. Many observers now consider him a future
Prime Minister -- a post he has repeatedly denied seeking. "I
have said 29 times I don't want the job, but every day the press
says otherwise," he complains, waving his hand as though to
sweep away the rumors.

    The press has cause to be skeptical. In the past year
Volsky has built up a lobby of the country's economic elite, the
directors of Russia's gargantuan state-run industries, many of
them part of the once powerful military-industrial complex. The
industrial generals, as these men are called, stand to lose
much, including their livelihoods, if the reform government of
acting Prime Minister Yegor Gaidar succeeds in privatizing the
more efficient state factories and forcing the rest into
bankruptcy.

    To add political clout to his standing with the
industrialists, Volsky created Civic Union, a coalition that
includes the party led by Rutskoi, a frequent critic of
Yeltsin's government. In a recent harangue, Rutskoi labeled
Russia "a political and economic dump," and called for sweeping
changes in top government personnel. Volsky says he has "no
problem with the government as a whole," only with some of its
members. He hasn't revealed publicly, however, which ministers
he opposes.

    Though Volsky has cultivated an image of a pragmatist who
favors reform at a less traumatic pace, his critics claim his
true goal is to restore state control over the economy. And
Civic Union's economic program does read like a primer in
Soviet-style management. Among other measures, it calls for
state production quotas, price controls on some goods and
government management of the energy sector. That sets the stage
for a showdown with Volsky, who has said he will only support
the government if it meets Civic Union "halfway."

    While that kind of compromise might slow reforms, the
alternative to cooperation with Volsky could be something worse.
Civic Union occupies the center ground in Russian politics; most
other opposition groups demand Yeltsin's resignation and a
virtual halt to reform. And some don't even bother to pay lip
service to notions of democracy.

    In late October, many of the most radical opposition
organizations united to form the National Salvation Front, a
coalition of militarists, far-right nationalists and diehard
communists. At their first public meeting, paramilitary guards
dressed in black shirts and jack boots flanked the crowd as
front leaders vowed to remove Yeltsin from office. One speaker,
Colonel Stanislav Terekhov, who claims to lead a 10,000-strong
Officers' Union opposed to Yeltsin, hinted that extralegal
"preparations are being made" to bring the front to power. Three
days later, Yeltsin banned the front for advocating the
overthrow of the lawful government. And Terekhov has been
discharged from the army.

    But front leaders have defied the ban, and many led
demonstrations through Moscow to celebrate the 75th anniversary
of the Bolshevik Revolution on Nov. 7. "Let Americans entertain
themselves with democracy," Terekhov declared. "We don't need
it. We need a dictatorship of law." Though the country's top
general has assured Yeltsin of the army's support, the military
remains a wild card.

    The front has no coherent program -- except to undo what
Yeltsin has done -- only skill at demagoguery. Nationalists like
Nikolai Lysenko shift the blame to old enemies: "The U.S.
planned and engineered the collapse of the Soviet Union." Front
leaders call on the citizenry to "rise in defense of the Russian
state" and force the President out. "Their strategy," says a
U.S. official, "is to invoke slogans in an attempt to excite the
baser political instincts." But in championing causes like the
troubles of Russian nationals in the other republics, front
leaders have potent emotional issues with which to stir up anger
against Yeltsin.

    Furthest on the fringe is Pamyat, a rabidly nationalist,
anti-Semitic group espousing a return to the czarist monarchy
and unabashedly proud of its fascist symbolism. Its members
blame most of the country's ills on "people of alien ethnic
origin," and refuse to ally themselves with any communists.
Declares Pamyat president Dmitri Vasiliev: "No democratic, no
communist system or any other ism will be able to stop this
irresistible drive toward purification and freedom."

    The forces of opposition will test their strength during
this week's session of the Congress of People's Deputies.
Yeltsin has signaled he will fight for his government at the
Congress, but his success could depend on what alliances are
formed between warring political factions and how strong the
extremists really prove to be. In the end, the balance of power
between the President at one end and the front at the other may
be decided by the man in the middle -- Volsky. If neither
Yeltsin nor Volsky can achieve some kind of consensus, the
Congress could embolden the most radical opponents of reform.
Then the fear that dark forces are secretly planning a coup
could become a reality.