Asia Times: As Yeltsin becomes irrelevant, post-Soviet team regroups



	January 23, 1999	atimes.com

Central Asia / Siberia

As Yeltsin becomes irrelevant, post-Soviet team regroups
By Sergei Blagov

MOSCOW - With the spectacular failure of the Russian road to capitalism and President Boris Yeltsin becoming irrelevant due to illness, a legion of ''Gorbachevites'' and former Soviet state security officers is emerging to rule the country.

One of them is Prime Minister Yevgeni Primakov, former head of the Russian intelligence service FSB, one of the succesors of the KGB, the Soviet state security ministry.

The news of Yeltsin's latest illness - this time an ulcer - created a brief flurry of excitement, followed by a ''business-as-usual'' climate as his poor health becomes a matter of routine.

For the time being, Yeltsin's formal holding of his post, though in hospital, seems to suit everybody's interests. He will continue to take the blame for the economic meltdown while the elite figure out how to face Russia's mounting problems.

But Yeltsin's health problems once again raise the question of who is in charge, and who is going to steer Russia into the next millennium.

The uncharacteristic calm of the Russian political elite in the wake of Yeltsin's disappearance from the scene could probably be explained by the emergence of a new ''social contract'' - at least within the ruling group.

The August 1997 financial meltdown signaled to all that the era for free-wheeling, neoliberal economic reforms had ended in failure, that Russia was not a brilliant emerging economy, and that the dramatic stand-off between ''reformists'' and ''hardliners'' was over.

The crisis also produced a somewhat unexpected result: the revitalisation of a third force, the Gorbachevites - heirs of the Soviet Union's last communist president, Mikhail Gorbachev.

Local analysts say these people have something else in common - many of them are former KGB officers.

This ''third force'' seems to be emerging as a winner in the political infighting long before the year 2000 - the year set for the next presidential elections in Russia.

Surveys show that the majority of Russians would welcome early elections, and that they favor a strong government able to stop corruption and crime and revive the economy.

In spite of Yeltsin's office's assurances to the contrary, Primakov seems to have taken over most presidental tasks. Guennady Seleznyov, speaker of the State Duma, the lower chamber of the Russian parliament, says that Yeltsin should formally transfer all powers to him.

That view is supported by 74 percent of Russians, according to an independent survey, but Yeltsin's deputy chief of staff, Oleg Sysuyev, quickly dismissed the idea.

In a sign of political confidence, Primakov left Moscow this week to attend the inauguration of Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev.

In spite of the KGB's sinister reputation, most of its officers were among the former Soviet Union's brightest. They appear now to be politically neutral and efficient bureaucrats, the only force able to curb corruption and inefficiency.

Among former KGB officers in positions of power is Yeltsin's new chief of staff, General Nikolai Bordyuzha, a career KGB and border guard officer.

Bordyuzha was appointed head of the powerful border troops in January 1998, and the group is now due to be merged with the federal security service as part of cost-cutting reforms.

Grigory Rapota, a former deputy head of the intelligence service, became director of Rosvooruzheniye, Russia's leading arms exporting company and one of the country's main foreign currency earners.

In 1998 Yeltsin appointed Vladimir Putin, 45, a former KGB intelligence officer posted to Germany during the 1970s, first as his first deputy chief of staff in charge of relations with Russia's regions, and then as head of FSB - the KGB's main successor agency.

General Viktor Zorin, a former FSB deputy chief, was appointed head of the Department for Special Programs, a secretive office believed to be involved in regional issues.

General Nikolai Patrushev, 46, another high-ranking FSB official, was appointed head of the presidential Main Control Directorate, with the task of controlling how regional officials spend federal funds.

Primakov's own chief of staff is Yury Zubakov, a former deputy chief of the internal security service, and the service's current spokesman, General Yuri Kobaladze, is said to be the next deputy director of the Russian state-owned RTR television channel.

Many other former officers have found their way into Russia's banking and business sector, while many others are entering politics in increasing numbers.

Amid the backdrop of the KGB's resurrected political weight, it came as no surprise that the State Duma recently voted to reinstate a statue of Felix Dzerzhinsky, the KGB's founder, in Moscow's notorious Lubyanka Square, in front of KGB headquarters.

The statute had been knocked down in the fall of 1991, in the wake of the failed coup attempt organised by KGB and high-ranking communist officials to stop the reform process known as ''perestroika''.

Local analysts argue that the Kremlin's increasing reliance on former KGB officers is an attempt to recruit officials with no ties to any of the powerful business clans vying for political influence - thus bringing a semblance of political stability.

(Inter Press Service)