RUSSIA'96: THE PEOPLE CHOOSE

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Yeltsin uses another tactic to calm the anger he encounters--an immediate dispensation of funds. In the U.S. such pork-barrel spending is usually hidden in a maze of worthwhile legislation. In Russia, Yeltsin earmarks billions of rubles with abandon. In just the past several weeks he has signed a decree giving a $5 billion subsidy to farmers and has said commercial electricity rates will be cut in half. Those big items are ruinous enough, but Yeltsin's aversion to fiscal sanity goes further. In Yaroslavl, for example, he pledged $700,000 to house veterans of the Afghanistan war, $10,000 to help with the housekeeping costs at a convent of the Russian Orthodox Church, $20,000 to build a Muslim cultural center and $2 million for new barracks at a military college.

That last bit of largesse was classic Yeltsin. After reviewing the college's corps of cadets, the President had an aide yell the name "Panskov" across 50 yards of parade ground. Out of sight of his boss, Russian Finance Minister Vladimir Panskov rolled his eyes and shook his head. He knew what was coming. As some of Yeltsin's other aides snickered, Panskov rushed to the President's side. Thousands watched their animated conversation, after which Yeltsin proudly declared he had "found" the money for the new quarters. Panskov shuffled away, skulking--but more was in store.

At a tense meeting that afternoon with local officials and factory directors, Yeltsin dismissed Panskov's arguments and promised to reinstate a tax break for failing companies that had been removed last year under pressure from the IMF. "These people are trying to hide their profits and dodge taxes," Panskov pleaded in the open session. "They are telling us fairy tales. This move will bust the budget of the entire country." To which Yeltsin replied, "You can see that the government is against this. Now can any of you think of another way out?" When the audience shouted "No!", Yeltsin turned to Panskov and said proudly, "Before the election, let's submit a decree."

If buying votes is common the world over, so is the attempt of one politician to steal his rival's thunder. Yeltsin began his campaign by promising he would not "deviate from [his reforms] a single centimeter. A halt or any attempt to reverse them," he said ominously, "would deal a crushing blow to the country from which it might never recover." But the officials most closely associated with his reforms have been fired, and more than once Yeltsin has said he is still "for reforms, but not at any price; I am for correcting the course."

Yeltsin's moves toward the Communists' positions have gone far beyond his economic "course corrections." He jettisoned his Foreign Minister, Andrei Kozyrev, and abused him, in the same terms used by the opposition, as being too pro-Western. Yeltsin has also usurped a fair amount of nationalist, great-power rhetoric, and he has signed a treaty with Belarus that permits people to believe he favors re-creating the old Soviet empire (a Communist priority). Suddenly too the old World War II Red Army "victory banner" has been ordered flown alongside Russia's new white-blue-and-red tricolor on occasions commemorating that war.