11.2 A new constitution

Economics and politics are always intertwined, nowhere more so than they were in the Soviet Union or have been in post-Soviet Russia. A new state apparatus had to be created on the ruins of the defunct Soviet Union, and this was every bit as difficult as making the market economy function. The success of the market economy depended on a functioning state, and conversely the political reforms were endangered by the misery created by the economic reforms. The problem of both economic and political transformation and their relative lack of success was the same: there was no constituency demanding them. The Russians craved neither private enterprise nor doing away with the Soviet system and everything that entailed. The great changes that occurred took place with little public involvement.

Nevertheless, the transformation was real. Gaidar’s reforms demolished the basis of the Soviet system. Whatever problems and dangers Russia would face in the future, a return to the Soviet system was out of the question.

Regular, free, and more or less fair elections took place, registering the public mood; Russians could freely travel abroad; civil liberties came to be better protected than in the Soviet era; and freedom of expression and freedom of religion were not merely meaningless phrases. Russian newspapers expressed a variety of points of view, some of which were worth reading. What did not change, however, was the conviction of most Russians that they had no control over their own fate. Their confidence in the major institutions of society, such as the police, the courts, the parliament, and the president, not only did not improve in the 1990s, but it further declined.

It was inevitable that survivors from the Soviet nomenclatura would continue to dominate politics. Where else would the personnel for the rejuvenated democratic state come from? Ambitious people, who had made themselves prominent in the Soviet era, were well placed to take advantage of the new opportunities. With the exception of a handful of dissenters, most prominent figures of the 1990s had compromised themselves by their association with the old regime, but that did not seem to matter. The dissenters, courageous people as they were, by and large proved themselves incapable of participating in the rough and tumble of politics in a confused, almost anarchic era. The talents and personality traits that were needed to resist the Soviet state were very different from the ability to become actors in politics. In the central government, but even more on the local level, the same people remained in their posts, although they may have had different job titles. The holdovers inevitably brought with them a mentality that was not appropriate in a democratic state.

Yeltsin himself was a product of the Soviet world and as such did not think in terms of legitimacy based on popular approval. He made no effort to create a political organization, a party, that would be his support in difficult political battles. An autocratic strain in his mentality almost immediately manifested itself. The populism that had won him followers in the late Soviet era was not helpful in a leader who was responsible for governing a big and varied country. At the outset he arrogated to himself enormous, almost dictatorial, powers. In addition to being president, he was able to select members of the cabinet. In November 1991 the Congress gave him the power to implement reform by decree (although the Supreme Soviet could rescind the decree by a two-thirds majority). Yeltsin was an impulsive politician who in moments of crisis could gauge the public mood, but he preferred to operate in the background. He had no long-term strategy or vision of a post-Soviet democratic Russia. As a product of an autocratic system, he did not understand the necessity of compromise and political give and take. To be sure, he was willing to give concessions when he was forced to, but that was not the same as a commitment to democratic governance.

That the unpopular economic reforms would create a backlash was inevitable. Not only pro-communist papers, but also respected economists who had advised Gorbachev, such as Nikolai Petrakov and Stanislav Shatalin, predicted catastrophe. But the dangerous opposition to the Yeltsin-Gaidar policies was concentrated in the parliament, the state Duma. According to the rather cumbersome Soviet constitutional system, the large Duma, with its more than one thousand deputies, elected a Supreme Soviet of 252 members. Since the Duma was rarely in session, the real political force was the Supreme Soviet. That legislature had been elected in 1990, when the Communist Party, at least in theory, was still the dominant political force. Eighty-six percent of the deputies had been party members. The assembly was an amorphous, ill-organized body that contained no political parties to impose discipline on its members. The lack of parties gave the speaker especially great influence. After Yeltsin’s election as president of the Russian republic, his place as speaker was taken by his protégé, an ethnic Chechen, Ruslan Khasbulatov. It was Khasbulatov and another previous Yeltsin ally, his vice president Aleksandr Rutskoi, who became the vocal leaders of the opposition.

The mood in the parliament became increasingly hostile to the president. Previously distinct groups, such as communists, who disliked the economic reforms; nationalists, who resented the dissolution of the Union and the greatly diminished role of Russia in world affairs; and democrats, who came to oppose the government because of its autocratic ways, formed an unofficial coalition based on their dislike of Yeltsin and his shock therapy.

In retrospect it is clear that Yeltsin, at the height of his popularity in the first months after the August 1991 coup, should have called for new elections. Although the opposition to the reforms was organizing and was able to stage large demonstrations in Moscow, Yeltsin’s popularity was still such as to be able to call together an assembly much more favorable to his policies. This would have been the time for Yeltsin to create a strong political base. He could have gained the support and confidence of the past democratic opposition by consulting with them, but he did not do so. Not calling elections, alienating genuine democrats, and not creating a base of support for his policies when that was still possible were Yeltsin’s greatest political errors. His political capital, his popularity, was gradually eroding due to frequent drunkenness, unpredictability, and his high-handed treatment of his associates.

Yeltsin’s political course became erratic. He fired some of his reformist ministers as a concession to the parliament and included in his new cabinet ministers who were not committed to reform. Foremost among these was Viktor Chernomyrdin, a representative of the oil industry, and Viktor Gerashchenko, the head of the national bank whose policy of continuing to issue subsidies to factory managers was contrary to the principles of economic reform as envisaged by Gaidar. The consequence of Gerashchenko’s profligate spending was the government’s inability to keep inflation in check. Inflation necessitated high interest rates, which made economic recovery more difficult.

Yeltsin was willing to give concessions as far as economic reforms were concerned, but he resisted limitations on his powers. The parliament wanted him to resign as head of the government and name someone who would be responsible to the legislature. Khasbulatov’s goal was to restrict Yeltsin’s power and gain control over the cabinet and thus over governmental policies. As so often happens, issues of personality, that is, struggle for power, and genuine differences concerning policies came to be intertwined to such an extent that the participants in the struggle themselves could not separate them. In theory the issue was whether Russia would become a parliamentary republic, like most Western European countries, or a presidential one, like France and the United States. In reality, it was a struggle for power.

In their claim of legitimacy both sides had profound weaknesses. On the one hand it was an understandable desire on the part of the parliament to want to curtail the power of the chief executive, especially given Russia’s history and Yeltsin’s personality. On the other hand, Khasbulatov and Rutskoi, the two leaders of the anti-Yeltsin camp, were hardly convinced or convincing democrats: Khasbulatov was manipulative and devious and Rutskoi was a man of limited intelligence with little understanding of politics. They spoke in the name of an institution whose legitimacy was very much in question, since it was created in 1990, under very different circumstances, on the basis of a constitution that went back to the era of Brezhnev and had been amended hundreds of times. Many exceptionally unattractive figures, including pathological anti-Semites and admirers of Hitler, were among the vocal opponents of Yeltsin’s policies, giving the congress an even worse image.

Drawing up a new constitution became the most contentious issue. The parliament resisted adopting a new constitution because the deputies understood that if the assembly was dissolved and new elections held, they would have little chance of returning to office. The deputies had been receiving generous compensation and were reluctant to lose it. The weakness of Yeltsin’s position was that in order to call a referendum to pass a new constitution, he needed the permission of the congress, whose tenure would not run out until 1995. A constitution could be created only by nonconstitutional means. It was clear that while the conflict could be postponed with various maneuvers, the two sides were so far apart in their political programs that an ultimate struggle for supremacy would sooner or later occur.

The struggle became ever sharper. The congress, which according to the still existing constitution regarded itself as the supreme power in the land, forced Yeltsin to dismiss Gaidar in December 1992. In March 1993 the congress stripped Yeltsin of his emergency powers and attempted to impeach him. Although a majority of deputies voted to impeach, Yeltsin prevailed because the constitution required a two-thirds majority. After the failure of the impeachment effort, the congress finally agreed to a referendum to ask the voters whether they approved of the policies of the president. The results were by no means a ringing endorsement of the reforms; nevertheless, they demonstrated that the public preferred Yeltsin to the parliament, and the partisans of the president could correctly interpret the vote as a victory.

It may have been a political victory for Yeltsin, but the constitutional issues, that is, drafting a new constitution and holding elections, remained unresolved because of the low participation rate of the voters. The struggle over economic policies continued, with the congress putting one obstacle after another in front of the reformers, challenging almost every move of the government. It was an impossible situation; the government and the legislature pursued different policies and issued contradictory orders and regulations. Russia was in a crisis.

The resolution, when it came, was bloody. In a televised address to the nation on September 21, 1993, Yeltsin issued an order dissolving the Duma. He coupled the order for dissolution with the promise of a new constitution and elections, not only for a new parliament but also for president. This promise enabled his followers to argue that although Yeltsin might have acted unconstitutionally, the promise of new elections could not be considered anti-democratic.

This was the most dangerous moment in post-Soviet history. The parliament’s response was predictable: the delegates impeached Yeltsin and swore in Aleksandr Rutskoi as acting president on the very day of Yeltsin’s announcement. In effect, they called for civil war. They promised to punish severely those who sided with the impeached president and readied themselves for battle, but they overestimated their forces. The army remained neutral, and therefore the delegates could count on the active support only of small bands of unreconstructed communists and extreme nationalists. Khasbulatov and Rutskoi overplayed their hands; the call for a general strike was not answered. Life in Moscow and in the provinces continued more or less undisturbed. The members of the liberal intelligentsia, the descendents of the dissidents, either sided with Yeltsin or blamed both sides for the crisis. Even Chernomyrdin, the choice of congress for premier, in the crucial moment supported President Yeltsin.

The government forces successfully blockaded the White House, the building of the parliament, and were planning to wait out the besieged delegates. The denouement came on October 3, almost two weeks after the beginning of the crisis. When the followers of Khasbulatov and Rutskoi attempted to take over the television station and the Kremlin, government troops responded, bombarding and ultimately occupying the White House. We have no reliable estimate of the number of victims: official Russian figures underestimated them, and the partisans of the defunct parliament overestimated them. Probably several hundred people died and thousands were wounded.

Prev 🔺 Next