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- THE WEEK, Page 20WORLDKremlin Compromise
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- To quiet obstreperous Deputies, Yeltsin triggers a referendum
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- First he tried persuasion. Then he offered compromise. When
- that didn't work, Boris Yeltsin declared war. And that finally
- led to compromise. After eight days of haggling with Russia's
- supreme legislature, Russia's first democratically elected
- leader took the podium on Thursday and proceeded to heap buckets
- of scorn upon the Congress of People's Deputies, a legislature
- populated with Soviet holdovers. Their simmering feud had
- finally boiled over. He blasted the body for "blocking reform,"
- for orchestrating a "creeping coup." He accused Deputies of
- defiling the Kremlin meeting hall with "the sick ambitions of
- failed politicians." Then he called for a referendum to end the
- political stalemate. "I am asking the citizens of Russia to make
- it clear," he said, addressing the electorate. "Which side are
- you on?"
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- Yeltsin was furious at the Congress for refusing to
- confirm acting Prime Minister Yegor Gaidar, his handpicked
- architect of reform. When confronted with a stark choice of
- submitting or facing the President at the ballot box, the balky
- Deputies under leader Ruslan Khasbulatov became more inclined
- to deal. So, on reflection, did Yeltsin. By week's end he had
- agreed to submit three candidates for Prime Minister and
- modified his referendum. Although a popular vote would still be
- Yeltsin's to lose, Russians will not be asked to choose directly
- between him and the Congress. Instead, they will determine who
- should have more power by voting on a new constitution on April
- 11.
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