BATTLE OF THE BANKERS

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The present fight between Chubais and the bankers is not just about who controls the economy in the next couple of years; it is also about who rules Russia after the year 2000, when presidential elections are due. Until now the oligarchs had clearly planned to have a major hand in electing the next President. They might well have put forward one of their own. In fact, Potanin, energetic, smart and articulate, is already being talked about as a future President, though he denied any such ambitions in an interview with TIME. Chubais, meanwhile, wants at least to be Prime Minister. But to succeed in politics one needs lots of money and media. Potanin has the money and is acquiring the media. By forming an alliance with Potanin, Chubais is not only weakening the other oligarchs. He is also creating his own independent political base.

The bankers' war, with its attack articles and smears in various financier-controlled media, has taken its toll. It has deepened the impression, widespread in the West, that Yeltsin's Russia is in danger of becoming what U.S. researchers recently called a "criminal-syndicalist state" controlled by an alliance of corrupt politicians, businessmen and crime bosses. It has shattered the credibility of the media, which for a few brief years following the collapse of the Soviet Union had a reputation for independence and integrity. And it has damaged the standing of the young reformers, Chubais and Nemtsov. Alexander Oslon, who polls every week for the presidential administration, takes a bleak view of the war. Says he: "This will be a conflict without winners."

--Reported by Yuri Zarakhovich and Andrew Meier/Moscow