At What Price Yeltsin’s ‘Victory’: A Blank Check To Military To Restore Soviet Empire, Endanger West?

As the West rejoices in Russian President Boris Yeltsin’s apparent triumph over his unreconstructed communist adversaries in parliament, a dangerous prospect is being entirely ignored: If Yeltsin does in fact prevail, his "victory" will be primarily thanks to the support he enjoyed from the successors to the Soviet military and internal security services — or more precisely, the failure of these organizations to throw their support behind Vice President Alexander Rutskoi, parliamentary speaker Ruslan Khasbulatov and the hardline Congress of People’s Deputies.

The presumption in most quarters seems to be that the Russian military, its supporting industrial complex and the intelligence community have backed Yeltsin over the parliament out of a preference for democracy and free market reform with which the President has generally been associated. This premise, unfortunately, has no basis either in logic or in fact.

Indeed, a genuine structural transformation of Russia along democratic and free market lines is a serious menace to the future viability of the ex-Soviet military-industrial complex and intelligence apparatus, their access to resources and freedom of operation. What is more, most available evidence suggests that these institutions are, at best, exploiting the weakness of the Yeltsin regime to pursue nefarious objectives, in the process enriching their leaders and preserving robust, offensive capabilities. At worst, they are engaging in these activities with Yeltsin’s approval and assent.

Either way, in the aftermath of the pivotal role they have played in the latest "constitutional" crisis, the former Soviet security establishment and its allies will certainly be in a position to dictate key elements of policy to Boris Yeltsin under no illusions about his still-precarious political position.

Up to No Good

As the Center for Security Policy has observed in a number of recent papers, the Russian military services are engaged in a number of activities highly inimical to Western security interests. For example, as noted in the Center’s Decision Brief of 15 September 1993 entitled Will the Senate Give Russia a Subsidy to Serve as the Radical Entente’s ‘Fed-Ex’ Service? (No. 93-D 79), Russia’s sizeable airlift fleet is being utilized to provide rapid, secure transport of North Korean extended-range Scud-C missiles to Syria.

The military-industrial complex has also been directly involved in such activities as: the sale of rocket propellant to countries like Libya; the transfer of missile technology and manufacturing know-how to India; and massive, destabilizing arms transfers to developing nations in Southeast Asia and elsewhere. Other behavior associated with the threat posed to the West by the Soviet Union during the Cold War are not slackening, either. Published reports indicate that nuclear attacks against the United States are still being exercised (see the Washington Times, 14 September 1993) and Russian espionage activities in Germany are being conducted as aggressively as ever (see the New York Times, 14 September 1993).

Restoring the Empire?

There are also troubling indications that the Russian armed forces are intent on reestablishing the bulk of the Soviet Union’s former imperial holdings. The Center for Security Policy has recently received a number of indications that ominous threats of military action against Ukraine were employed a few weeks ago to induce Kiev to relinquish half of the Black Sea fleet to which it had laid claim and all ex-Soviet nuclear weapons still on Ukrainian territory.

These threats, combined with successful economic warfare measures, were evidently sufficiently credible to prompt Ukraine’s President Leonid Kravchuk to take the immensely unpopular step of acceding to Russia’s demands. With Ukrainian renunciation in the past few days of this coerced agreement, however, the stage may be set for Russian military strikes (nominally at the invitation of "threatened ethnic minorities" in Eastern Ukraine) — the sort of aggression on the part of the former Soviet armed forces that Boris Yeltsin may be unwilling or no longer able to prevent.

The Bottom Line

The Center for Security Policy has long believed that the elimination of the Soviet-era constitution and the undemocratic, reactionary parliament it legitimated was a necessaryDecision Brief issued on 21 September(1) — while news of Yeltsin’s move against the parliament was breaking — this step was not, however, sufficient. condition for the genuine structural transformation of Russia along pluralistic and free market lines. As noted in its

The decisive role played by the military-industrial complex and intelligence apparatus in saving the Yeltsin government clearly has strengthened their hands in decisions the Kremlin will shortly have to make concerning such policies as:

• relations with non-Russian majorities in former parts of the Soviet empire;

 

• access to and use of sensitive Western technologies (notably those that will flow as a result of the new space cooperation agreement with the United States and recent cuts in U.S. export controls);

 

• control over the $2.5 billion in U.S. taxpayer funds now awaiting Senate approval. In this regard, Yeltsin’s reappointment today of the hardline Viktor Geraschenko — a long-time ally of the Parliament and subversive opponent of market economic reform — as head of the Russian Central Bank and Yeltsin’s appointment this week of General Nikolai Golushko — a fixture of the old-Guard KGB — as the new head of the security ministry are deeply worrisome signs; and

 

• the sale or transfer of weapons of mass destruction and related technologies to dangerous nations and possibly even terrorist organizations around the world who are prepared to pay cash for the service.

These considerations underscore the concerns expressed in the Center’s 21 September Decision Brief: Now more than ever, discipline, transparency and accountability are essential in Moscow’s dealings. Accordingly, the Center believes that the recommendations it made in that Brief have taken on all the greater urgency and should be adopted without further delay by the U.S. executive and legislative branches:

• Suspend further action on large-scale U.S. and multinational aid flows to Russia, particularly those directed toward the strategic energy sector — which is still effectively controlled by, and which primarily benefits, the old military-industrial sector. The Center finds totally incomprehensible in this regard the Clinton Admnistration’s contention that the latest multi-billion dollar aid package now awaiting Senate approval should go forward irrespective of the outcome of the power struggle now underway.

 

• Serve notice on all parties that there will be harsh penalties associated with interference with the elections President Yeltsin has called for 11-12 December.

 

• Arrest the free-fall in U.S. investment in military preparedness and power projection capabilities.

 

• Insist that the autocratic character of the Yeltsin alternative constitution approved last April be modified to provide for a system of genuine check-and-balances between elected executive and legislative branches.

 

• Put on ice further planning for or implementation of the recently signed bilateral space cooperation agreements and liberalization of remaining export controls.

 

• Express support for the democratically elected — and possibly endangered — governments of the nations recently liberated from the Soviet empire.

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1. See Yeltsin Finally Moves Against the Communist Parliament; Clinton Titters When Serious U.S. Response is Needed (21 September 1993, No. 93-D82).