A Bone for the Dogs

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YEGOR GAIDAR NEVER EXPECTED TO LAST LONG IN power. Appointed to Boris . Yeltsin's government a year ago, the 36-year-old architect of Russia's economic reforms foresaw a "kamikaze" mission: launch Russia's transition to a market economy and then withdraw, battered and no doubt vilified for making his nation suffer. His prediction proved accurate last week, when he was ousted as acting Prime Minister. In his place rose fears that Russia had begun a slow retreat from democratic reform.

Gaidar's demise came after two weeks of turmoil at the Congress of People's Deputies. After compromises had collapsed and a constitutional crisis had been averted, Gaidar fared poorly in a vote, and a weary Yeltsin caved in to the conservatives. To succeed Gaidar, Yeltsin sullenly chose Victor Chernomyrdin, 54, a former Communist Party apparatchik from the powerful energy industry.

Yeltsin promised "no backtracking" and named Gaidar as his economic adviser. On Saturday he cut short a visit to China, claiming he had to "restore order" in Moscow and ensure that the "inner core" of Gaidar's team was not excluded from the new government. But the show of authority could not obscure Yeltsin's political weakness. And his nation remains impoverished. Although officials from the G-7 industrialized nations agreed to permit Russia to defer payments on $15 billion of the $16 billion it owes in foreign debts for this year and next, the country is still $86 billion in arrears.