Boris Yeltsin Foreign, Domestic

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Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin who was the first President of the Russian Federation, serving

from 1991 to 1999 and Vladimir Putin who served as the second President of the Russian
Federation from 2000 to 2008 had similarities and differences in their foreign policy
implementations. Yeltsin was dealing with chaotic economic conditions and a decreasing public
support and failing reforms inside, while his successor Putin benefited from economic rise, rising
oil prices and successful domestic reforms. Different conjunctures had different reflections in the
Russian foreign policy of the presidents. In this paper, firstly, I tried to describe the conditions
that Putin and Yeltsin encountered, then I made a comparison between the two leader in their
foreign policy applications.

Background
In 1991, when the Soviet Union collapsed, Russia lost control over 5.3 million km2 of territory
and 139 million citizens which included over 17% of the ethnic Russian population. Invaluable
natural resources, historical and cultural sights, and some of the most advanced Soviet military
infrastructure and equipment were also out of Moscow’s reach. [1] The world politics has turned
to unipolarity from bipolarity. Russia was restricted with a shrinking economy and transition
policies to free market economy. Moscow was in a disastrous chaotic economic situation after
the collapse of communism. The Russian economy fell dramatically; experiencing goods
shortages in 1991 and 2500% hyperin¬‚ation in 1992.

In the 1990s, the dynamics of Russian foreign policies shifted considerably. In the Yeltsin era,
Russia gradually withdrew from its global military and political role to focus its foreign policy
on the transformation of the former superpower relationship with the United States and its
relationship with Europe, and on the development of relations with the other states immediately
on its borders. [2] But Russia lost the capacity to continue providing financial aids to the other
states of the former Soviet Union and thus to maintain its economic attraction. [3] At the same
time, there were NATO expansion and new European Union memberships were being made
among nations of the former Soviet bloc in Eastern Europe. There was again the threat of
dissolution of Russian territory. US led international investment started to get advantage of
economic spaces in energy sector in the Caspian Basin in Central Asia. Russia’s economy
deteriorated more badly when devolution occurred in 1998.

Russian energy power declined in the late 1980s and 1990s, due to low oil prices, the
dislocations of the collapse of the USSR, and the privatization of many oil companies. Oil
production decreased from 600 to 300 million tons per year between 1990 and 1995. However,
Russia’s ample resources and extensive network of pipelines ensured that its ‘petro-power’ was
ready to re-emerge under President Putin. [4] 

After a noticeable decline under Yeltsin (starting from Gorbachev), the Putin era saw a
resurgence of Russian power. Putin focused on recovery after a great economic depression.
Russia, having the world largest energy resources, benefited positively from the increasing
energy prices due to prevailing international concern about energy security, instability in the
Middle East since 1999. This increase in prices gave great support to the Russian economy.
Since 1999, Russia’s annual GDP growth was averaged between 6 and 7 percent. The
government boasted a healthy budget surplus and record currency reserves. [5] 
Since 2000, having the advantage of improving economic power which was in chaotic condition
in Yeltsin era, Putin started to use soft power to influence neighboring states to implement its
regional policies and he also evaded from using its military power to ensure its geopolitical
position.

Russia has turned itself from a dead military superpower into a new energy superpower in Putin
Era by using soft power. Energy revenues no longer supported a massive military-industrial
complex as they did in the Soviet period. As Fiona Hill underlines, new oil wealth has been
turned more into butter than guns. Russian natural gas, technology, culture, consumer goods, and
job opportunities became a Russian power in Ukraine, the Caucasus, and Central Asia. [6] And
energy-rich countries like Kazakhstan benefited from the same oil price increase as Russia. As
Eurasian economies started to recover and grow, Russia’s neighbors began to look to it as a
market for their exports. [7] Since then dependency on Russia grew increasingly.

The emergence of new transnational threats to US and Western interests, especially terrorism
emanating from Afghanistan and the Middle East, shifted international priorities. It was also
evident that, with the notable exception of the three Baltic states, none of the other states of the
former Soviet Union was likely to be a viable candidate for membership of either NATO or the
EU in the near term. [8] 

Similarities in Foreign Policy Implementations


Russia doesn’t want world domination as it did in Soviet times, but plan to rebuild itself as a
great power. Russian foreign policy implementation of both presidents is different from Soviet
Era and Tsarist Era policies. For Moscow, in general Eurasian politics are no longer priority.
Ideology doesn’t exist and military power is hardly appealing.

‘Multipolarity’ is a key concept of Russia’s foreign policy both in Yeltsin and Putin era, which
aims to secure Russian position as a great power on the world arena and to help to keep the
balance of power. Russia is a member of the Mediator Quartet for the Israel- Palestine conflict
along with the United States, the United Nations and the EU, and it has become a participant in
the six-nation talks concerning North Korea’s nuclear programme with the USA, South Korea,
China and Japan. Russia has participated in the G-8 summits since 1997, both in two era. Both
presidents tried to utilize multipolar staretegy in their foreign policies.

Russia both in Yeltsin era and especially in Putin era, gave special importance to the UN
Security Council, where it has a veto right with other 4 powerful member countries in the world
politics. Russia within this platform opposed to the invasion of Iraq which was brought to the
table by United States. In addition, Russia accepted the US intervention in Afghanistan in 2001.
Cooperation against terrorism with US in Afghanistan improved relations and contributed to the
decision to accord Russia a seat on the G-8 and to create the NATO-Russia Council.

In order to exert influence and be recognized as a major power, Putin, as Yeltsin before him,
relies on so-called strategic partnerships with the most important western states, especially the
United States, the only indisputable superpower in the world. [9] EU is the main trade partner of
Russia. The EU states were Russia’s main trading partners, and some of them are quite
dependent on Russian oil and gas. Russia prefers to develop relations with EU members
separately, with Germany, France, Greece, Spain, Portugal, Italy, rather than as a group.

In addition, although that Russia left the vision of “Common European Home” aiming to share
common European values which was forwarded by Gorbachev, Europe is still the region where
Russia wants to see itself. Judged by any criterion-level of political commitment, economic
involvement, and security engagement, human and cultural contacts-Moscow’s world-view
continues to be overwhelmingly Westerncentric. [10] 

Differences in Foreign Policy Implementations


Yeltsin, during its presidency, was dealing with chaotic economic conditions and a decreasing
public support and failing domestic reforms inside, while his successor Putin benefited from
economic rise, rising oil prices and successful domestic reforms. Energy power set a big
advantage both in domestic and foreign politics. Putin managed to use it as a foreign policy tool,
while being experienced improvements in economies of Russia and Eurasian countries.

In Yeltsin era, Russian interests were not purely aiming to enhance regional security but also to
restore the post-Soviet space under Russian leadership. Knowing that it was beyond Moscow’s
economic capacity, Yeltsin aimed to build common threat assessments as well as having strong
mutual ties between Russia and individual countries. Russian actions during Yeltsin can be better
understood as being opportunist.

Putin was more pragmatic. Putin ceased to thinking of a new reintegrated Eurasia. Russia
became a stronger actor in the international system but had no ambition to reassert itself as a
Cold War global power. Putin put Russia’s sovereign interests as a priority in foreign policy.
Putin was also more pragmatic in its assessment of threats than Yeltsin. For Putin, the key threats
do not come from the United States, but from terrorist activities and those nations falling behind
in economic development. Although the Kremlin is wary of US policies and intentions, it prefers
engaging with Western partners rather than the balancing tactics implemented in Yeltsin
era. [11] 

Putin gave more importance to the use of soft power in the near abroad which means using
cooption rather than coercion in foreign policy. Soft power speaks to people and societies rather
than governments and elites. [12] The absence of pro-Russian governments in Georgia, Ukraine
and elsewhere, the task of mobilising ties amongst peoples, rather than with governments, is seen
as especially important for preserving in¬‚uence. This is a key lesson learned by the Kremlin
from its defeat during the Orange Revolution in Ukraine. [13] Russia gave start to policies as a
tool of soft power such as spreading of Russian mass media, fostering the use of Russian
language, giving financial support to Russian diaspora, increasing economic interdependence and
creation of a special department for Interregional and Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries
at the Kremlin. The Kremlin aimed to integrate Russia into regional structures and processes.

Soft power which speaks to people and societies, rather than governments and elites can be
divided into three components: political legitimacy, economic interdependence, and cultural
values. [14] Relating political legitimacy aspect, Russia, in Putin era, was considerably more
con¬dent than the Russia of Boris Yel’tsin. [15] According to the assessment of Economic
Development and Trade Minister GermanGref, the GDP almost tripled from 1999 to 2005 and it
continues to grow at the annual pace of 4 – 6%. [16] 

Putin conducted a marked “Asianization” of Russian foreign policy. Unlike Yeltsin, for whom
Asia served mainly to counterbalance the United States, Putin has pursued closer relations with
China, Japan, the Koreas, and the ASEAN member- states both for their own sake and as
building blocks in a larger challenge to American “unipolarity.” [17] Ceasing the endeavors to
integrate central Asia as a whole, gave importance to bilateral relations. Private sector was used
as a soft power. On the February 2003 an agreement were made to create the Common Economic
Space with Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine, to eliminate trade barriers and provide shared
energy transport policies.

In the security area, by the foundation of mutual security institution, the Shanghai Cooperation
Organization (SCO) in 2010, Russia strengthened its counter terrorism and security policy in
Central Asia with members countries China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, and
Uzbekistan. In addition to this, Russia signed an alliance treaty with Uzbekistan In November
2005, concering peace, security and stability in the region. In addition, Russia, Belarus,
Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Armenia- created the Collective Security Treaty
Organisation (CSTO) in 2003, with the aim of ¬ghting terrorism in the area. The Kremlin
stepped up efforts to integrate Russia into regional structures and processes. Bilateral “strategic
partnerships” have been supplemented by membership of, or increasing interaction with,
organizations such as APEC, the ASEAN Regional Forum, ASEAN, the East Asia Summit, and
the Organization of Islamic Conference.

In the area of economic interdependence, Putin increased its economic presence in the economies
of the former Soviet republics. Russia participated in energy privatization in the former Soviet
region, and as a result of bilateral negotiations, the Kremlin asserted control over the strategic
property and transportation of the former republics. As a result of soft politics conducted by
Putin, Turkmenistan has turned out to be an energy partner. Russia obtained the right to be the
main electricity provider in Georgia. Russia obtained a nuclear power station and became main
gas provider in Armenia.

Finally, in the area of cultural values, Putin allocated more financial support for Russian
diasporas in the post-Soviet area. For instance, in 2003, the government allocated R210 million
towards this goal, and in 2004 such funds grew by 20%. Russia has devised the ‘Russian
language’ federal programme led by Lyudmila Putin, the president’s wife. [18] 

Conclusion
Although that the two presidents faced with different conditions during their presidencies, both
of them conducted a multilateral and multivectoral policy in the international relations. Their
policies were without ideology and they didn’t have any ambition of world domination as were
in Soviet era. In Putin era, there was a more self-reliant and pragmatic Russia in the foreign
policy, who got the benefit of Russian soft power more intensively.
Summary:  In making assessments of Russia's behavior in the world, it is critical that we
recognize that Russia is not a totalitarian state ruled by a Communist Party with a single, clearly
articulated foreign policy. That state disappeared in 1991. Rather, Russia is a democratizing
state, and Russia's foreign policy, in turn, is a product of domestic politics in a pluralistic system.
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What are Russian foreign policy objectives? It depends who you ask. In making assessments of
Russia's behavior in the world, it is absolutely critical that we recognize that Russia today is not a
totalitarian state ruled by a Communist Party with a single and clearly articulated foreign policy
of expanding world socialism and destroying world capitalism and democracy. That state
disappeared in 1991. Rather, Russia is a democratizing state - a weakly institutionalized
democracy with several deficiencies - but a democratizing state nonetheless. Russia's foreign
policy, in turn, is a product of domestic politics in a pluralistic system.

In democracies, "states" do not have foreign policy objectives. Rather, individual political
leaders, parties, and interest groups have foreign policy objectives. Under certain conditions,
these various forces come together to support a united purpose in foreign affairs. At other times,
these disparate groups can have conflicting views about foreign policy objectives. Likewise, they
can even support the same foreign policy objective for different reasons.

Russia, today, is no different. Although Russian leaders share in supporting a few common,
general foreign policy objectives, they disagree on many others. They also disagree on the means
that should be deployed to achieve the same foreign policy objective. The foreign policy that
eventually results is a product of debate, political struggle, electoral politics, and lobbying by key
interest groups. Because Russia is undergoing revolutionary change internally, the foreign policy
that results form Russian domestic politics can change quickly.

In my brief remarks today, I would like to cover six topics. First, I will outline the small set of
foreign policy issues around which a consensus has emerged in Russia. Second, I will briefly
describe the major schools of thought in Russia about foreign policy. Third, I will give a brief
historical overview of the evolution of Russian foreign policy since the collapse of the Soviet
Union in 1991, demonstrating how the fates and fortunes of different political groups in Russia
have, in turn, impacted on changes in Russian foreign policy. Fourth, I will then turn to Kosovo
and show how these different schools of thought understand Russia's role in the conflict. Fifth, I
will outline briefly how Russia's upcoming parliamentary election (Scheduled for December
1999) and presidential election (scheduled for June 2000) could change Russian foreign policy.
Sixth, I will end by discussing the implications of this discussion of Russian foreign policy
objectives for U.S.-Russian relations.

I. Russian Foreign Policy Objectives Recognized by All Major Political Actors in Russia

Every major political leader and party in Russia today recognizes that Russia is a country in
rapid decline as an economy, a coherent state and an international player. Since 1991, the
Russian economy has contracted faster and longer than any previous major power's in modern
history. With economic decline has come state weakness. The Russian government struggles to
provide the most elementary of public goods, such as a single currency, a common market,
security, welfare and education. This
domestic feebleness has played havoc with Russia's international clout, turning the once-proud
actor into a mere observer with mostly symbolic roles to perform. The North Atlantic Treaty
Organization's campaign against Yugoslavia brought Russia's international impotence into
painfully sharp focus.

All political leaders and groups in Russia agree, therefore, that Russia's first foreign policy
objective must be to reverse Russia's internal decline. Russia cannot be a major international
actor with a shrinking economy that today is roughly the size of Denmark. Russia cannot be a
serious player on the international stage if it cannot control its own borders. No major political
force in Russia disagrees with these objectives. How Russia should achieve economic growth
and preserve internal unity, however, remain contested issues.

In addition to reviving the economy and avoiding further disintegration of the federation, almost
all of Russia's major political actors agree that Russia must pursue economic, political, and
military cooperation within the Commonwealth of Independent States. Russia's foreign policy
elite remains committed to establishing a Russian sphere of influence within the region. Again,
they disagree about the means for achieving this objective. But no major political actor opposes
greater cooperation within the Commonwealth as a Russian foreign policy goal.

A final foreign policy objective recognized by most leaders and parties in Russia is the
maintenance of Russia's nuclear superpower status. Russia's nuclear weapons stockpile is the one
power attribute that still accords Russia special status in the international system.

This set of objectives shape Russian foreign policy behavior and influence Russian foreign
policy responses to other international issues in general and predictable ways. For instance,
because of Russia's internal economic problems, Russia has supported tacitly the control of the
international oil supply recently, which has raised oil prices, increased hard currency revenues
for Russian oil companies and the Russian government, and indirectly propelled a small boom in
the Russian stock market. Because of Russia's problems with its own separatist republics
including first and foremost, Chechnya, Russia does not support independence for Kosovo or a
peace settlement that might create momentum for independence in the future. Because of
Russia's desire to maintain the Commonwealth of Independence States as its sphere of influence,
Russia does not support the deployment of American troops in Azerbaijan and fears further
NATO expansion towards its borders. On these kinds of issues, Russians are united in defining
their foreign policy objectives.

Beyond this rather short list of consensus issues, however, Russians remain divided over many
important foreign policy questions. Rather than discuss every foreign policy issue in detail, I
want to next outline the basic approaches to foreign policy from four distinct political groups in
Russia today.
II. The Different Schools of Thought about Russian Foreign Policy Objectives within
Russia

Pro-Western Idealists

After seventy years of Soviet communist rule, Russia only became an independent state again in
December 1991. Innate structural forces did not cause the Soviet Union to collapse and compel
Russian to emerge as an independent state. Rather, Russian democrats - in alliance with
democratic forces in the Baltics, the Caucuses, and Ukraine - dissolved the Soviet Union. In their
struggle against the Soviet empire, the command economy, and the totalitarian political system,
Russian democrats adopted an ideology of opposition inspired principally by the West. Ideas
about democracy, the market, self-determination, and integration with the Western capitalist
system eventually crystallized during the peak of polarized confrontation in 1990-91 as concepts
most clearly antithetical to the Soviet ancien regime. Consequently, when Boris Yeltsin assumed
control of the newly independent Russian state in December 1991, he and his government were
guided by this set of liberal ideas, ideas that included in foreign policy matters a distinctly pro-
Western and peaceful foreign policy. Initially, these ideas had everything to do with the domestic
revolutionary struggle against Soviet communism and virtually nothing to do with Russian
national interests abroad or interests of economic groups, civic organizations, or the electorate at
home. In other words, these groups had a normative commitment to Western values and Western
integration, and were not driven solely by self-interest.

Advocates of this approach to Russian foreign policy (and political and economic reform
internally) have always constituted a minority within Russia. In the early part of the decade,
Democratic Russia represented this view. Until his dismissal as foreign minister in January 1996,
Andrei Kozyrev represented this view regarding Russian foreign policy and performed his
functions as foreign minister accordingly so. Today, some, though not all, members of the
political groups, "Right Cause" headed by Anatoly Chubais, Yegor Gaidar, Boris Nemtsov, and
Boris Fyodorov; Yabloko headed by Grigory Yavlinsky; and Our Home Is Russia headed by
Viktor Chernomyrdin, might still be identified with this normative commitment to reintegrating
Russia with the West.

The most important advocate of this idealist, pro-Western approach to Russian foreign policy,
however, has been Russian President Boris Yeltsin. Yeltsin's identification with liberal ideas and
pro-Western foreign policies evolved because of his revolutionary struggle against the Soviet
Union and the Communist Party. Because Western capitalist democracies were prosperous and
opposed communism, Yeltsin and Russia's democratic movement looked to Western countries as
allies in their common struggle against the Soviet system. Besides democracy and capitalism,
there were no other attractive models or ideologies in the international system with which
Russian revolutionaries could identify.

That Yeltsin should be associated with these ideals, however, is somewhat an accident of history.
Unlike Walesa in Poland or Havel in the Czech Republic, Yeltsin was not a dissident in the
Soviet Union, but a Communist Party apparatchik. Yeltsin teamed up with Russia's democrats in
the late 1980s because they shared the same enemy -Soviet communism. Had Gorbachev not
removed him from the Soviet Communist Party's leadership, he is unlikely to have become such
a proponent of capitalism, democracy, and integration with the West. Had Yeltsin rose to power
buoyed by a different ideology or backed by a different set of allies, Russian foreign policy
might have adopted a more anti-Western bent much earlier.

This brief history of Yeltsin's political career and his beliefs is important for our discussion for
two reasons. First, it underscores how lucky the West was that Yeltsin and his allies like Foreign
Minister Kozyrev defined Russian foreign policy objectives in the early part of the decade. Had
neo-nationalist Vladimir Zhirinovsky won the presidential election in 1991, Russian foreign
policy in the 1980s would have been much more anti-Western. Likewise, had Communist party
leader Gennady Zyuganov won the Russian presidential election in 1996, Russian foreign policy
today also would be much more anti-Western than it is today.

Second, because Yeltsin was not a pro-Western dissident within the Soviet system during his
formative years, his commitment to Western ideals and values is not as deep as other anti-
communist leaders in the region. Consequently, Yeltsin has wavered over time, especially when
under the pressures of electoral politics.

Yeltsin also is not a healthy man. With increasing frequency, he allows himself to make off-the-
cuff remarks that contradict his own foreign policy objectives. Sometimes, these comments even
contradict statements that he made only a day earlier.

Pro-Western Pragmatists

Eventually, this normative impetus for pursuing liberal, integrationist foreign policies faded as
Russian expectations concerning Western assistance were not and could not be met, while
euphoria for the markets, democracy, and the Western way ended. Even by the end Russia's first
year of independence, foreign policy appeared to be drifting back to more anti-Western patterns
of the Soviet period. Support for maintaining a pro-Western orientation in foreign policy was
reinvigorated, however, when emergent economic interest groups with tangible interests in
cooperative relations with Western countries, began to assert their influence in foreign policy
matters. Groups with economic interests-Gazprom, oil companies, mineral exporters, and the
bankers-began to replace individuals and groups with political ideas as the main societal forces
influencing foreign policy outcomes.

Russian exporters desire access to Western markets, importers need Western goods, while
Russian bankers seek partnerships with Western capital. Russian capitalists have used their
influence over the Russian state to insure that the terms of trade remain favorable to local actors
and that Russians, rather than foreigners, obtain the most lucrative Russian properties during
privatization. These kinds of activities, however, should not be interpreted as ideologically
motivated or normatively anti-Western, but rather a reflection of the foreign policy interests of
Russia's capitalist class.

More perversely, Russia's new economic oligarchies also want Western financial institutions to
remain engaged in Russia's economic reform process so that they do not have to pay for it alone.
A billion dollars in transfers from the International Monetary Fund is a billion dollars that
Gazprom does not have to pay in taxes. A multi-million dollar World Bank investment in
restructuring the Russian coal industry also represents costs avoided by domestic capitalists.
Even the smaller investments in institutional reforms provided by such international actors as the
Agency for International Development or the European Bank for Reconstruction and
Development represent projects that benefit local capitalists paid for by foreign governments.

The Russian business lobby has a rather limited scope of foreign policy interests. Above all else,
they seek to maintain access to Western capital and markets. When security issues such as
opposition to NATO expansion threaten these access interests, the coalition of liberals within the
Russian government and their allies in Russia's economic society cooperated to sustain
engagement. Regarding other foreign policy issues that are not seen to have a direct relationship
to these economic interests, this same coalition either has neglected the problem altogether or
allowed other foreign policy entrepreneurs to assume center-stage. For instance, Russian oil
companies and bankers have demonstrated little interest in arms control issues, allowing other
interest groups to dominate debate on issues like START II or CFE negotiations. Similarly, this
engagement coalition has ceded arms trade promotion to the Ministry of Atomic Energy and
individual enterprises of the military-industrial complex. When Western diplomats have
attempted to link these peripheral issues with engagement, such as in the case of Russian sales of
nuclear reactor materials to Iran or in the case of START II ratification, their strategy has failed.

Business people such as bankers, oil exporters, and CEOs at technology companies do not
constitute the only group with tangible interests in a pro-Western Russian foreign policy. Many
governors of Russian oblasts (such a Titov in Samara or Prusak in Novgorod) and presidents of
Russian republics (such as Shaimiev in Tatarstan ) see relations with Western companies, banks,
and governments as the best way to jumpstart economic growth in their regions. Regional leaders
have pushed for investment-friendly legislation such as Product Sharing Agreements. Through
their control of the upper house of parliament, the Federal Council, regional leaders have become
an increasingly important political force that has acted as a pragmatic check on more passionate
anti-Western initiatives of their counterparts in the State Duma, the lower house of a parliament.

Although a less powerful political group than regional governors, hundreds of Russian non-
governmental organizations -- including church groups, trade unions, student associations, and
women's organizations -- have cooperative relationships with their Western counterparts and
therefore also have a stake in good relations with the West.

Finally, opinion polls show that the majority of Russian citizens still see good relations with the
West as an important objective of Russia foreign policy. This pro-Western orientation, however,
has waned over the years. After the NATO bombing campaign in Yugoslavia, over seventy
percent of Russians polled in early April 1999 have a negative view of the United States, while
only fourteen percent still held a positive view.

Anti-Western Pragmatists
Like the second group, a third group that influences foreign policy debates in Russia today also
attempts to define Russian foreign policy objectives in terms of interests rather than ideas,
norms, or missions. However, this group does not think that Russia stands to gain from a pro-
Western foreign policy or Western integration more generally. Rather than seeing Western-
Russian cooperation as a "win-win" proposition, this group perceives international politics as a
zero-sum game. If the West (and the United States in particular) is gaining, it means that Russia
is losing. As self-acclaimed realists and balance-of-power strategists, this group sees the
weakening of the United States and its NATO allies as the principal foreign policy objective of
Russian diplomacy. These foreign policy thinkers want to transform the unipolar international
system dominated by the United States into a multipolar system in which Russia would be one of
many poles. Russian must pursue three strategies simultaneously to achieve this goal - become
internally stronger both in economic and military terms, weaken the Western alliance by
fomenting divisions, and balancing Western power by forming anti-Western alliances with
countries such as China, Iran, Iraq, and India. Though less threatening to the West, this group
also sees strengthening military ties among Commonwealth states as a way to weaken American
hegemony.

At the same time, this group is also acutely aware of Russia's current weakness on the
international stage. They understand that Russia has few levers of power to threaten or
undermine American hegemony. In the short-term, they also recognize that Russia needs
Western financial assistance to avoid further economic decline. Consequently, for pragmatic
reasons, the understand the necessity of cooperation with the West in the short-run even if their
long-term objective still remains the weakening of the United States and its allies.

This view of world politics is most prevalent among Russia's foreign policy elite. The chief
proponent of this perspective is prime minister Yevgeny Primakov. Moderate members of the
Communist Party of the Russian Federation also adhere to these foreign policy goals as do some
important nationalist organizations such as Spiritual Heritage. Directors of military enterprises,
Ministry of Defense officials, and the Russian intelligence communities also understand foreign
policy through this lens.

At times, Moscow mayor Yurii Luzhkov and his new party, Fatherland, issue statements on
foreign policy that sound similar to this perspective. Krasnoyarsk governor, General Aleksandr
Lebed, also and often sounds like an anti-Western pragmatist and sometimes even echoes themes
articulated by anti-Western ideologues. Yet neither of these potential presidential candidates has
developed a comprehensive foreign policy agenda, in part because neither candidate has been
involved with foreign policy issues.

Anti-Western Ideologues

A fourth perspective on Russian foreign policy is passionately anti-Western. This group also sees
international relations as primarily a balance-of-power battle between Russia and the West. In
contrast to the anti-Western pragmatists, however, this group believes that material interests
should not be the only motivation in foreign policy. In addition, ethnic, civilizational, and
reputational concerns should be part of the equation.
For some in this camp, such as Vladimir Zhirinovsky, Russia must defend the Slavic nations of
the world from NATO aggression as well as Islamic fundamentalism. China also features
prominently as a civilizational threat to Russia for many foreign policy thinkers in this school.

For more openly fascist groups such as the Russian National Union, Russian foreign policy must
be openly anti-Western, anti-Semitic, and anti-Islamic. From their perspective, Coca-Cola and
MTV are just as much threats to Russian national security as is NATO. Radical groups on the
left such as Viktor Anpilov's Working Russia hold the same view of the world, only their
messianic mission is still world communism, not Pan-Slavism.

Even for more mainstream groups such as the Communist Party of the Russian Federation,
passionate foreign policy aims can eclipse Russian material interests. For instance, Russia has a
security and economic interest in ratifying the START II and moving on to START III because
Russia simply cannot afford to maintain START II levels of nuclear warheads. Yet, Communist
leaders in the Duma have blocked ratification because they perceive START II ratification as
fulfillment of an American foreign policy objective.

As just mentioned, Vladimir Zhirinovsky and his Liberal Democratic Party of Russia is the most
well-known political group in Russia that espouses this approach to Russian foreign policy.
Radical groups like RNU and Working Russia also belong in this group, as do many members of
the Communist Party of the Russian Federation. Although these Russian leaders often get the
most attention in the West for their radical pronouncements, they are also the smallest and
weakest lobby when it comes to the actual conduct of Russian foreign policy.

III. The Evolution of Russian Foreign Policy: From Pro-Western Romanticism to Anti-
Western Pragmatism

Over the last decade, the ebb and flow of the political fortunes of the four groups just described
above has influenced the definition of Russian foreign policy objectives and the conduct for
Russian foreign policy. In the euphoric days soon after the collapse of Soviet communism, pro-
Western idealists dominated the definition of foreign policy objectives and the conduct of
Russian foreign policy. Under the leadership of Andrei Kozyrev, Russian diplomacy aimed first
and foremost to promote Russian integration into the West as well as secure Western assistance
for the internal transformation of Russia's economy and polity. To achieve these objectives,
Russia foreign policymakers were prepared to accommodate Western interests on a whole range
of issues.

The sway of liberal idealists over Russian foreign policy suffered their first setback after the
1993 parliamentary elections when Vladimir Zhirinovsky's Liberal Democratic Party of Russia
captured almost a quarter of the vote. In the next parliamentary election in 1995, pro-Western
political forces suffered an even greater defeat when the Communist Party of the Russian
Federation emerged victorious replacing the LDPR as Russia's main opposition party. In
response to this electoral outcome, Yeltsin fired Kozyrev and replaced him at the Foreign
Ministry with Yevgeny Primakov, a candidate that the Communist Party applauded.
Primakov's appointment as foreign minister, however, did not signal a radical change in Russian
foreign policy. Though Primakov himself was (and still is) a anti-Western pragmatist, he did not
dominate the definition of Russian foreign policy objectives during his first years in office.
Rather, Russia's financial groups played a key role in Russian foreign policy especially after
Yeltsin's reelection victory in 1996. Russia's westward foreign policy orientation faced a major
challenge during this period in the form of NATO expansion. No political actor of importance in
Russia today, including even unabashed, pro-Western liberals, has supported NATO expansion.
Yet, despite the black-and-white nature of this foreign policy issue within Russia, Russian
liberals and economic interest groups that benefit from Western integration did not allow NATO
expansion to derail Russian relations with the West.

The coalition of political leaders and economic interest groups in favor of Western integration
suffered a real setback after the August 1998 financial crash. As a result of this economic crisis,
Russia's financial oligarchs lost their influence within the Russian government, Yeltsin became a
much weaker president, Primakov became prime minister, and Primakov's loyal aide, Igor
Ivanov, became foreign minister. With this new configuration of power internally, Primakov has
had the opportunity to play a much more influential role in Russian foreign policy.

While the anti-Western pragmatists have assumed a dominant position in the conduct of Russian
foreign policy since the August 1998 financial collapse, they do not have a monopoly on foreign
policy. Pro-Western idealists have been severely weakened, but still are not extinct. Through
their special relationship with Yeltsin, liberals such as Anatoly Chubais continue to have a
marginal role in foreign policy matters as do the liberal-dominated media in Russia. On the other
side of the spectrum, anti-Western ideologues have more prominence in Russia today than they
did just three years ago, but these political groups are still not central players in foreign policy.
The coalition of pro-Western pragmatists, however, still does compete for influence over Russian
foreign policy even if they no longer dominate the process. On different issues, different
coalitions emerge to define the policy. Debates and foreign policy changes in response to the
Kosovo conflict offer a vivid example of how competition between different interest groups
influence Russian foreign policy.

IV. Russia and Kosovo

Like no other international crisis of the last decade, NATO's bombing campaign against
Yugoslavia has threatened to isolate Russia from the West. Siding with Yugoslav President
Slobodan Milosevic and thwarting liberal reforms at home do not serve the long-term interests of
Russia as a world power or Russians as a people. In the passion of the moment, however,
Russian leaders have been tempted to take drastic measures to assist Serbia. Had they done so (or
if they do so in the future), they would have precipitated a passionate anti-Russian response in
the West. To date, however, these worst case scenarios have not unfolded. Although anti-
American sentiment in Russia has skyrocketed in Russia and may remain widespread for some
time to come, Russian foreign policy in response to Kosovo gradually have gravitated towards
Western interests. This evolution is a direct consequence of the Russian domestic politics and the
rise of fall of different foreign policy groups over the last six weeks.
The initial response to the NATO bombing campaign against Yugoslavia was passionately
negative. Yeltsin, Primakov, and even some foreign policy experts from liberal parties like
Yabloko adopted the rhetoric of anti-Western ideologues to record their outrage against NATO
aggression. Conveniently forgetting the Soviet invasions of Hungary, in 1956, and of
Czechoslovakia, in 1968, Foreign Minister Ivanov has called the NATO bombing the worst
aggression in Europe since World War II. No one in Russia is prepared to disagree publicly with
him. Nationalists and Communists long have rallied to the anti-American battle cry. Communist
Party leader Gennady A. Zyuganov has compared "NATO ideology" to "Hitlerism," while
several members of his party are calling for a military response. In the heat of the moment,
Lebed advocated the transfer of anti-aircraft weapons to Serbia, Zhirinovsky's LDPR signed up
thousands of Russian volunteers to send to assist Milosevic, and the Duma voted to form a new
Slavic nation by uniting the countries of Russia, Belarus, and Yugoslavia. At anti-Western
protests near the American embassy in Moscow, Zhirinovsky and his ilk were front and center.
Yeltsin even sent a Russian intelligence-gathering ship into the Adriatic Sea. Russian liberal
leaders, many of whom privately detest Milosevic, nonetheless joined the anti-American chorus.

Russian public opinion was also united in its criticism of the NATO campaign. According to
some polls, ninety percent of the Russian population believed that the NATO bombing campaign
was a mistake, while 65 percent believed that NATO was the aggressor in the conflict. Anti-
American sentiment in Russia, of course, is nothing new. What is new about this crisis, however,
is both the degree of consensus and the new composition of the anti-American chorus.
Traditionally, Russia's foreign policy elite rant about US hegemony while Russian grandmothers
show up at anti-American demonstrations. At the beginning of the Kosovo conflict, however, it
was young people throwing beer bottles at the US embassy in M

DOMESTIC POLICIES

YELTSIN AS PRESIDENT

After adopting a degree of sovereignty, The Russian republic had elections in June 1991. Boris
Yeltsin won and was sworn as president on July 10, 1991 as Russia's first president. After the
failed coup attempt in August 1991, Yeltsin usurped Gorbachev as the de facto leader of the
Soviet Union and began transferring the assets of the Soviet Union to Russia. In December 1991
when the Soviet Union broke up, Yeltsin became leader of the Russian Federation.

In 1991, Yeltsin appointed a reformist government to carry out his shock therapy economic plan.
He made himself prime minister, defense minster in addition to the Russian president, the
position he was elected to.

A new constitution that replaced the Soviet-era one was approved in 1994 through a rigged
national referendum. It weakened the parliament and gave the president (Yeltsin) tsar-like
powers and made a mockery of the democratic principles that helped place Yeltsin in power. It
also gave Russians the rights of freedom of movement and free speech, endorsed free trade and
the ownership of land, and banned torture, censorship and the imposition of an official ideology.
Yeltsin opened up Russia to Westernization and reform but lacked vision and had only limited
knowledge of economics. It often seemed that all the important policy decisions were made by
his aides while he decided whom to fire.

Rather than moving into the Kremlin, Yeltsin continued to live in his modest four-bedroom
apartment in an unfashionably part of Moscow with his wife, daughter Tanya, her husband and
grandson Boris. For security reasons his family was advised to spend most of their time at their
government dacha outside of Moscow. In his early years as president, Yeltsin usually only slept
fours a night and arrived home at around 10:00pm, ate, watched the late news and worked until
he went to bed. His wife only slept when he did.

Yeltsin had a reputation for sometimes reeling off anti-American and anti-Western bluster but
ultimately giving into all the demands made by the United States and Europe. By contrast, Putin
was much less pliable.

Yeltsin had a reputation for sometimes reeling off anti-American and anti-Western bluster but
ultimately giving into all the demands made by the United States and Europe. By contrast, Putin
was much less pliable.

Yeltsin and Domestic Policy

The first years of Yeltsin's presidency, which began with an overt challenge to the Soviet Union's
authority over Russian affairs, brought a surge of activity that promised economic and political
reform and an end to the economic stagnation and social malaise of the 1980s. Both Russians
and Westerners hoped that Russia could make a short, painless transformation to democratic rule
and free-market economics. Although events of the first five post-Soviet years provided some
reasons for optimism, all observers soon realized that whatever transformation Russia was to
experience would require much more time, and would yield much less predictable results, than
initially expected. *

Soon after Yeltsin became president, the 20 nominally autonomous ethnic regions scattered
throughout Russia—some of them rich in important resources—began declaring themselves
autonomous republics. There were some concerns that Russia could disintegrate the same way
the Soviet Union did. A potential showdown was averted when an agreement between the
regions and Russia was worked with a federative treaty in 1992 and a new constitution in 1993
that gave the regions more say in their own affairs.

Yeltsin was constantly battling hardliners and Communists that controlled the Parliament and
seemed to spend most of their time creating obstacles for Yeltsin's policies and trying to oust him
that doing anything constructive. Yeltsin response was to circumvent them and issue decrees.

Yeltsin Reforms the KGB and Closes the Gulags

After coming to power Yeltsin tried to control the KGB by dividing it into a dozen agencies and
diminishing their power. He eliminated the feared Fifth Directorate which pressured dissidents
and spied on ordinary citizens. Later, Yeltsin became heavily dependent on the military and
security services in carrying out his agenda. By the mid-1990s the KGB had regained much of its
power. Yeltsin gave the secret police broad powers as part of is his anti-crime initiative. Police
were allowed to conduct searches without warrants, tap hones, set up front organizations,
interrogate suspects for days, and make arrests without charges. They were also put in charge of
the prisons.

Parliament members and former Yeltsin ministers complained they were being bugged. But the
KGB provided poor intelligence on Chechyna and worsened that situation. The KGB was
renamed the Federal Security Service (FSB). It leaders accompanied Yeltsin on hunting and
fishing trips and reportedly provided him advice on the occult and astrology.

In 1992, Yeltsin ordered the release of "last 10" political prisoners a the camp near Perm. Among
the last prisoners at Perm was one man sentenced to 15 years in 1978 for seeking asylum in Iran.
Another was a man imprisoned for switching over to the mujahidin in Afghanistan. Another was
sentenced to 13 years for planning to flee the Soviet Union in a crop duster.

In 1990 a team of French journalists headed by Jean-Pierre Vaudon visited one of the last
Siberian Gulags. The only noise they heard was the sound of electric razors, prisoners reciting
bible passages and the shutting of doors. Some prisoners they said passed out in front of their
cameras and others hugged the walls.

The prisoners worked eight hours a day, six days a week for US$40 a month. Half was taken for
board. If they refuse to work they were placed in a four-by-eight-foot cell with no blankets and
only a wooden plank for a bed. Former dissident Natan Sharansky claims it was worse when he
was a prisoner when they weren't even allowed to lay down.◘

Yeltsin's Disbands the Russian Parliament

On September 23 1993, Yeltsin ordered the Supreme Soviet—which had opposed him and
planned to remove many his president powers—to be disbanded and called for new elections.
Hardline communists and nationalists that were elected in the Soviet Union era and had
supported him during the coup in 1991 were outraged by the pace and comprehensiveness of the
economic reforms, the weakening of the state and friendly relations with the West.

The old constitution was partly to blame for the 1993 showdown because it failed to clearly
define the separate powers of the president and the legislature. Also to blame was the fact that
most of the members of parliament were communists who were elected before the break up of
the Soviet Union.

Yeltsin delayed taking action for three days partly because he feared that events were unfolding
as they did before the 1991 coup. Yeltsin later wrote, "the fate of the White House of Russia
leaves me no peace. It was amazing how the events of August 1991 coincide with details of the
'defense' of the White House in October 1993. I don't want to look into that mirror,' but I must."

Hardline communists and nationalist deputies refused to disband and they "stripped" Yeltsin of
his powers and formed their own government with their own president. The deputies barricaded
themselves inside the White House, the Russian parliament, and demonstrators surrounded it.
Even though the support of the military was only lukewarm, Yeltsin was able to round up
soldiers and tanks loyal to him and ordered them to surround the White House and blockade it.
"Even I felt as if I'd been knocked out the ring," Yeltsin wrote. His effort to win support from the
Russian military he said was met with "a heavy, morose silence."

Tanks Open Fire on the White House

On October 3, 1993, extremist nationalists and communists, attempting to spark an insurrection,


overwhelmed the troops outside the White House and roamed through the city and attacked the
central television station while Vice president Alexander Rutskoi threatened to charge the
Kremlin.

Yeltsin negotiated with his opponents for 13 days and finally called for tanks because, he said, he
had no other choice. "The country was hanging by a thread," Yeltsin wrote. On October 4, 1993,
following a plan to recapture the White House devised by presidential security guards, Yeltsin
ordered tanks to blast the hardliners out of their stronghold in the White House.

The tanks blasted the Supreme Soviet into a burning shell. Snipers fired at people from rooftops.
The deputies surrendered by that evening. The next few weeks Moscow was under a curfew and
gunfire was often herd at night. So much for democracy. As tanks fired on the Moscow's
parliament building, one journalist insisted, "Russian democracy has to be strong to defend
itself." The plotter of the coup, Ruslan Khasbulatov said, "I have known Yeltsin for a long time,
but never expected anything like this from him."

The violence around rebellion left at least 150 dead, including 62 during the attack on the
television station and 70 during the blasting of the White House. Rutskoi and other hardline
leaders were arrested.

Yeltsin’s First Wave of Economic Reforms

For the new Russian Federation, the Yeltsin administration set ambitious economic reform goals
in 1992: strict limitation of government spending to cut inflation; redirection of state investment
from the military-industrial complex and heavy industry toward consumer production; a new tax
system to redistribute financial resources to more efficient sectors; cutting of government
subsidies for enterprises and eliminating government price controls; and lifting of government
control of foreign trade. Privatization of the major sectors of production, still virtually state
monopolies in 1991, was another primary goal. [Source: Library of Congress, 1996 *]

In 1993 and 1994, soaring inflation and government deregulation of prices robbed consumers of
much of their purchasing power before a government tight-money policy brought inflation under
control in 1995 and 1996. In December 1996, prices rose by 1.4 percent, although wage arrears
made that figure irrelevant for many Russians.*

In 1992 worsening economic conditions brought a confrontation with the Supreme Soviet
(legislature) over economic policy. The clash forced Yeltsin's dismissal of reform Prime Minister
Yegor Gaydar and a general modification of reform goals under Gaydar's pragmatic successor,
Viktor Chernomyrdin. At that point, failing enterprises still received easy credit from the
banking system and from other enterprises--a continuation of Soviet-style fiscal management and
a crucial flaw that began to be corrected only in 1995.*

The course of foreign investment has been uneven. Although Western and Japanese firms have
shown great interest in joint ventures with Russian enterprises, Russia's unfinished and uncertain
commercial and legal infrastructure has limited foreign participation, and protectionist laws
restrict foreign activity in industries such as communications and automobiles.

Shock Therapy for the Russian Economy

In 1991, Yeltsin initiated a reform program that fell in line with the "shock therapy," a strategy in
which a country switches over quickly to a market economy employing price liberalization,
budgets stabilization, ending subsidies and privatizing industry. The primary aim of shock
therapy is to change the economy as quickly a possible to a market economy. The main cost is
that inefficient companies quickly go out of business and large numbers of people become
unemployed.

Under the Russian "shock therapy" program, Yeltsin phased out state subsidies, freed prices,
reduced government spending and privatized state businesses. shock therapy, relinquished
control over the ruble, and freed prices, which had been held artificially low, on consumer goods
but kept prices fixed in oil, timber and minerals.

The "shock therapy" strategy was partly devised by Harvard economist Jeffrey Sachs and
supported by Lawrence Summers, the U.S. Under Secretary of the Treasury in charge of
International Affairs. Sachs made a name for himself by developing an economic strategy that
ended Bolivia's 24,000 percent of inflation. He was called on to develop an economic strategy
for Poland and then was asked to do the same thing for Russia.

Sachs and Summers encouraged the United States to push the IMF and World Bank to lend
Russia tens billions of dollars to prop up the ruble so it could be internationally convertible and
attract investment and kickstart the economy.

In 1991, the economy was already in chaos and the changes didn't help matters. There were huge
budgets deficits. The harvest was the lowest in years due to breakdowns in the distribution
system. Some regions hoarded foodstuffs and declared autonomy and control over their
resources. In the end real shock therapy did not take place. The government was unwilling to
face the unemployment, bankruptcies and other hardships that would take place if the shock-
therapy reforms were taken. Many economist feel that even if shock therapy was fully
implemented it wouldn't have succeeded because Russia is too big and fundamentally different
from the West for Western strategies to work.

Elections of 1993
In November 1993, Yeltsin issued decrees prescribing procedures for multiparty parliamentary
elections, which would be the first since tsarist times. Besides setting the configuration of the
new bicameral parliament, the Yeltsin plan called for half of the 450 State Duma deputies to be
elected from national party lists with representation proportional to the overall votes received by
each party. The other half would be elected locally, in single-member districts. The party-list
procedure, a new feature in Russian elections, was designed to strengthen the identification of
candidates with parties and to foster the concept of the multiparty system among the electorate.
To achieve proportional representation in the State Duma, a party would need to gain at least 5
percent of the nationwide vote. [Source: Library of Congress, July 1996 *]

The CEC declared thirteen parties eligible for the party list, and 2,047 individual candidates were
selected to compete for Federation Council seats (490) and State Duma single-mandate seats
(1,567), allotted to individuals regardless of their parties' overall performance vis-à-vis the 5
percent threshold. Although the CEC reported some voting irregularities, the vast majority of the
more than 1,000 international observers termed the elections largely free and fair, with some
reservations expressed about manipulation of results. In several republics, the referendum results
were invalidated by low turnouts caused by boycotts, or because voters failed to approve the
constitution. *

Many experts divided the myriad parties of the 1993 elections roughly into three main blocs:
pro-Yeltsin reformists, centrists advocating a slower pace of reform, and hard-liners opposing
reforms. The main reformist party was Russia's Choice, led by former prime minister Yegor
Gaydar. The main centrist parties were the Yavlinskiy-Boldyrev-Lukin bloc, commonly referred
to as Yabloko (the Russian word for apple), headed by economist Grigoriy Yavlinskiy and
former ambassador to the United States Vladimir Lukin, and the Democratic Party of Russia,
headed by Nikolay Travkin. The main hard-line parties were the LDPR, the KPRF, headed by
Gennadiy Zyuganov, and the Agrarian Party, which represented state- and collective-farm
interests and was headed by Mikhail Lapshin. *

In 1993 the strongly nationalist, antireform LDPR emerged with the largest vote on the State
Duma party lists, followed by Russia's Choice. By faring much better in the single-member
districts, however, Russia's Choice emerged with sixty-six seats, the most in the State Duma. The
LDPR followed with sixty-four seats. Altogether, reformist and centrist parties emerged with the
greatest number of seats in the State Duma, followed by nationalist and antireform parties. Some
127 State Duma seats were won by individuals not formally affiliated with a party, many of
whom were former CPSU members. *

Of the thirteen parties participating in the December 1993 legislative elections on the party lists,
eight exceeded the 5 percent threshold to win seats in the State Duma. In addition, all thirteen
parties, as well as some local parties, won seats in single-member districts. Once the new
parliament was seated, the parties aggregated into several factions. A number of deputies
coalesced into the Union of December 12 faction. Sixty-five centrist deputies formed the New
Regional Policy faction, and some LDPR members shifted their affiliation to the KPRF or the
Agrarian Party, or supported former vice president Aleksandr Rutskoy's Concord in the Name of
Russia policy agenda. *
Russian Legislative Elections in 1995

In December 1995, there were more than 8,000 candidates from 43 parties vying for 450 seats in
the Duma. An estimated 60 percent of Russia's 104 million registered voters turned out. By
1997, only 15 members of the original reform-minded 1990 legislature remained in the 450-seat
Duma.

In June 1995, the Federal Assembly passed--and Yeltsin signed--a new law to govern the next
legislative elections, which were planned for December. This legislation echoed many provisions
of Yeltsin's 1993 electoral decree, such as the division of the State Duma seats into party-list and
single-member districts. Yeltsin had urged a change in this provision because he feared that
Zhirinovskiy's LDPR might again gain many seats in the party-list voting, but the Duma had
insisted on retaining the even-split voting procedure that gave such meaning to the party lists.
The 1993 election had demonstrated that voting by party lists generally encouraged party
formation and program pledges, whereas voting by district encouraged loyalty by deputies to
local interests. The 5 percent threshold for party-list voting also was retained. In September
1995, Yeltsin decreed that the Federation Council seats would not be filled by regional elections;
instead, the upper house would be composed of regional and republic executive and legislative
leaders--a group with which Yeltsin had close contacts and from which he could expect strong
loyalty. All of the suggested provisions were incorporated into the new election law. [Source:
Library of Congress, July 1996 *]

In anticipation of the legislative races, early in 1995 Yeltsin encouraged the creation of two
political parties that would lend support to his policies and form the basis of a stable, moderate,
two-party system in Russia. One party would be led by State Duma speaker Ivan Rybkin, the
other by Chernomyrdin (who by that time had proven himself a loyal and competent manager of
the Yeltsin agenda). The unnamed "Rybkin bloc" was designed to attract centrist and leftist
voters, and Chernomydin's party, Our Home Is Russia, was envisioned as a right-center coalition.
Both parties would occupy the moderate band of the political spectrum. Having attracted the
support of many Russian Government ministers and regional leaders, Our Home Is Russia
became known as the "party of power." The Rybkin bloc, which was supposed to serve as the
loyal opposition in the parliament, attracted several tiny parties, but major parties and groups
refused to join the bloc because of opposition to some or all of Yeltsin's reforms. As a result,
Rybkin's unification effort received little practical support. *

To qualify for the party-list voting, parties were required to obtain 200,000 signatures, with no
more than 7 percent of signatures coming from any single federal jurisdiction. The latter
requirement was designed to encourage the emergence of broad-based rather than regionally
based parties. Candidates wishing to run in single-member districts had to obtain signatures from
at least 1 percent, or about 5,000, of their district's voters. Forty-three parties succeeded in
getting on the party-list ballot, and more than 2,600 candidates were registered in 225 single-
member district races. Many individuals listed on the party ballot also ran in single-member
districts. This was especially true of locally popular candidates whose minor parties could not
surpass the 5 percent national threshold needed to get on the national party-list ballot. *
In the legislative elections of December 1995, voter turnout was high (about 65 percent), and
international observers again evaluated the balloting as largely free and fair. The second such
evaluation in two years boosted the image of electoral democratization in Russia.

Analysis of the Russian Legislative Elections in 1995

Dissatisfaction with the Yeltsin administration was conspicuous in the election results, but the
showing of the reformist and centrist parties that supported some or all of Yeltsin's program was
undermined by the disunity of that part of the political spectrum. Among the forty-three parties
participating in the party-list vote, only four met the 5 percent requirement to win seats for their
national party lists, although several other parties won seats in individual races. In the aggregate
of party-list voting, reformists and centrists performed much better than they did in the single-
member phase, receiving almost as many votes as the hard-liners. But pro-reform and centrist
votes were dispersed among a multitude of parties, negating almost two-thirds of the party-list
votes they received and costing these parties dozens of seats by keeping them below the 5
percent threshold. In contrast, the KPRF and its allies suffered much less from such dispersion
and gained many seats from the party-list vote. *

Although centrists and reformers split single-mandate seats about evenly with the antireform
parties, nonaffiliated candidates gained more than one-third of these seats. About 40 percent of
the sitting State Duma deputies were reelected, and fifteen Federation Council deputies entered
the State Duma, providing some continuity of legislative expertise. Under a provision of the new
constitution, Government officials were obligated to resign their positions if elected to the
parliament.

Overall, reformist parties did not do as well in the 1995 elections as they had in 1993. Gaydar's
party, now renamed Russia's Democratic Choice, failed to meet the 5 percent requirement.
Altogether, reformists and centrists won 129 seats in the State Duma (less than one-third of the
total), and independent, nominally nonaffiliated candidates won seventy-seven seats (about one-
sixth). The KPRF and its ally, the Agrarian Party, gained 179 seats as the KPRF achieved a
plurality of seats, and the anti-Yeltsin nationalist parties won another sixty-five. Zhirinovskiy's
LDPR received much less electoral support than in 1993, gaining 11 percent of the vote--a
distant second to the KPRF--and fifty-one seats.

More than in the 1993 alignment, parties now tended to be either for or against reform, with
former centrists moving either left or right. In the 1996 State Duma, the main reformist parties
were Chernomyrdin's "official" Our Home Is Russia, the main advocate of Yeltsin's programs,
and Yavlinskiy's Yabloko coalition, which was highly critical of Yeltsin's approach to reform but
supportive of reform principles. The main hard-line, antireform parties in the Duma were the
KPRF, headed by Zyuganov, and the LDPR, headed by Zhirinovskiy.

Altogether, in 1996 communist, nationalist, and agrarian parties controlled slightly more than
half the State Duma seats. Their strength enabled them to pass some bills and resolutions if they
voted together, but they still lacked enough votes to override Federation Council votes or
presidential vetoes. The numerical proportions also did not permit antireformists to approve
changes in the constitution, which require a two-thirds majority, that is, at least 300 votes of the
full chamber.

1996 Russian Presidential Elections

Presidential elections were held in June 1996. The contenders were Yeltsin, Communist leader
and nationalist Gennaday Zyuganov, general Aleksandr Lebed and the liberal reformer
Yavlinsky. Communists controlled the Duma after sweeping the Parliamentary elections in
December 1995.

Yeltsin won 35 percent of the vote and Zyuganov took 32 percent. The 46-year-old Lebed took
15 percent and played a pivotal role in determining the election's outcome by supporting Yeltsin,
who won the run-off against Zyganov by 13 percentage points. When asked why he voted for
Yeltsin, one man told Time, "it was a case of the lesser evil. The one thing I wanted to avoid was
a turn back to the past. If Yeltsin didn’t win in 1996 there were worries that the Communists
would win and possibly re-establish a dictatorship.

Before the runoff, Yeltsin had a serious heart attack. With the help of the media, the Yeltsin team
was able to cover up the fact. Foreign reports were ignored. Old clips of a healthy Yeltsin were
shown and the public had little idea anything was amiss.

Yeltsin’s Campaign in 1996 Elections

During the campaign before the election in July 1996, Yeltsin was shown on television doing a
silly dance with Russian folk dancers and walking around blindfolded and carrying a long stick,
playing a Tatar game. The 1997 novel China Lane, a fictionalized account of Yeltsin's 1996
presidential campaign, was regarded as a Russian version of Primary Colors.

American political consultants George Gorton, Dick Dresner and Joe Shumate went from
working for the 1996 presidential campaign of Republican California Governor Pete Wilson to
helping Yeltsin in his 1996 campaign. Bankrolled by the oligarchs oligarchs (super rich Russian
tycoons), they were sequestered in a hotel and were sworn to secrecy. The convinced the Yeltsin
“family” to incorporate some American campaign tactics into their strategy: focus groups, photo
ops and negative ads. Their story was made into the Showtime movie Spinning Boris.

In 1996, Yeltsin sold a large chunk of Russia's diamond stockpile to pay for his reelection
campaign. It was estimated that Yeltsin made $11 billion in campaign pledges, promising miners
back wages and expansion of the subway system in Novosibirsk. Chubays estimated that
spending promises made during Yeltsin's campaign amounted to $250 per voter, which if
actually spent would approximately double the national budget deficit (most of Yeltsin's pledges
seemingly were forgotten shortly after his reelection).

Analysis of the 1996 Russian Presidential Elections

The 1996 presidential campaign yielded two distinctly opposed theories of governance: the
KPRF's frank appeal for return to the central rule of Soviet days and Yeltsin's sometimes timid
commitment to democratization and economic reform. In general, however, the national party
system remained quite fluid. Although a large number of parties with national constituencies
emerged, much shifting occurred among the smaller parties as coalitions formed and dissolved.
Some forty-three parties and coalitions registered for the 1995 legislative elections. In 1995
Yeltsin attempted to dominate party politics by forming two nominally opposed parties with
essentially pro-administration positions, but his strategy was unsuccessful. The one major party
that emerged from his manipulations, Our Home Is Russia, captured relatively few seats in the
State Duma in 1995 but retained national standing as a major party because of its identification
with Chernomyrdin. [Source: Glenn E. Curtis, Library of Congress, July 1996 *]

Of the proreform opposition groups, the Yabloko coalition remained the strongest in 1996, but its
influence was limited because it refused to join forces with other reform parties. The candidates
of Yabloko and other reformist groups fared poorly in the first round of the 1996 presidential
election. Meanwhile, the KPRF had developed a unified and loyal following among Russians
disillusioned with Yeltsin and nostalgic for the Soviet past.*

As the presidential campaign developed, the KPRF candidate, former CPSU functionary
Gennadiy Zyuganov, emerged as the prime competitor of Yeltsin. The president used his access
to broadcast and print media (which feared the repression that would result from a KPRF
victory) to climb steadily in the polls. In the first round, Yeltsin defeated Zyuganov narrowly.
Before the second-round faceoff with Zyuganov, Yeltsin dismissed the most visible hard-liners
in his administration, added popular third-place finisher Aleksandr Lebed' to his administration,
and coaxed lukewarm endorsements from Yabloko and other reformist parties.*

In the second round, Yeltsin easily defeated Zyuganov, a dull campaigner who could not
convince undecided voters that a KPRF victory would not mean a return to the days of Soviet
repression. In what amounted to a contest between anti-Yeltsin and anticommunist sides, Yeltsin
attracted an estimated 17 million voters who had voted for Lebed' or Yabloko candidate Grigoriy
Yavlinskiy in the first round, and for whom Yeltsin now was the lesser of two evils.*

To gain acceptance as the main opposition faction at the national level, after the presidential
election the KPRF attempted to broaden its constituency by forming a coalition called the
National Patriotic Union of Russia. The coalition included the leftist and nationalist groups that
had supported Zyuganov's 1996 presidential bid. To improve its national image from one of
disruption to one of constructive cooperation, the coalition softened its antigovernment rhetoric.
A prime example of the new approach was KPRF support of the Chernomyrdin government's
draft budget in the State Duma deliberations of December 1996-January 1997.*

The KPRF found this position tenable while Yeltsin was ill and the moderate Chernomyrdin had
a strong position in the Government. However, the Government reorganization of March 1997
gave new power to reformists with whom the KPRF shared little common ground. The party also
showed signs of a split between moderates and radicals who rejected compromise. Meanwhile,
young Russians showed little interest in joining the KPRF, which offered few constructive ideas
about Russia's future and whose membership increasingly was based on an old guard of Soviet-
era activists.*
Yeltsin’s Second Term

Beginning his second term, Yeltsin filled his new cabinet with individuals with reformist
credentials. Free-market advocate Aleksandr Livshits was appointed minister of finance, and
reformist Yevgeniy Yasin retained his position as minister of the economy. In another indication
that economic reform would continue, Yeltsin named reformist Al'fred Kokh as deputy prime
minister for privatization. Retained from the previous Government were Minister of Foreign
Affairs Yevgeniy Primakov (a 1996 appointee), recently appointed Minister of Defense Igor'
Rodionov, and hard-line Minister of Internal Affairs Anatoliy Kulikov. [Source: Glenn E. Curtis,
Library of Congress, July 1996 *]

The Ministry of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources was redesignated the Ministry
of Natural Resources; environmental issues were shifted to a new, subcabinet agency, the State
Environmental Protection Committee, headed by Viktor Danilov-Danil'yan, who had been
minister of environmental protection and natural resources in the first Yeltsin administration.
The only minister affiliated with the KPRF was Aman Tuleyev, a strong proponent of
reintegration of the CIS states, who was appointed to head the Ministry of CIS Affairs.*

In August 1996, Chernomyrdin listed among the new Government's goals a dramatic reduction
of the state bureaucracy, including the elimination of twenty-four ministries and agencies.
However, no streamlining occurred until March 1997, when Yeltsin dropped three of his deputy
prime ministers and announced a large-scale Government reorganization as a remedy for what
Yeltsin admitted was poor performance by his second-term appointees. The new, smaller
Government was to include eight deputy prime ministers (compared with twelve previously),
twenty-three ministries (three of which were headed by deputy prime ministers, and a reduction
of one from the previous organization), sixteen state committees (compared with seventeen
previously), and twenty other federal agencies.*

A key appointment in this period was Boris Nemtsov as deputy prime minister in charge of
social issues (including the crisis of wage and pension arrears) and the extremely prob-lematic
reform of state monopolies and housing subsidies. As governor of Nizhniy Novgorod Oblast,
Nemtsov had gained international recognition for his brilliant regional economic reforms.
Nemtsov's reputation for honesty also was expected to improve the tarnished image of Yeltsin's
administration.*

The Government reorganization process required much more time than expected because
factions struggled to gain coveted posts and no qualified persons could be found for others.
Reportedly at least twelve individuals refused appointments to head ministries and committees.
The reorganization also sharpened the power struggle between the Government and the State
Duma, the main political bastion of numerous special interests that the initiatives of Chubays and
Nemtsov promised to attack, and whose patron, Chernomyrdin, now was fading.*

In June 1996, the appointment of former general Aleksandr Lebed' as head of the Security
Council improved the prospects of an already promising political figure. In this position, Lebed'
remained in the public eye by making controversial speeches on matters of policy and by
negotiating what turned out to be the conclusive cease-fire of the Chechen conflict. Lebed' had a
base of avid supporters who craved charismatic, assertive leadership. Unlike most other Russian
government figures, he created a positive image on television, which by 1996 was the most
important source of news for most Russians. In October Yeltsin responded to continued criticism
from Lebed' by dismissing him from the Security Council. In the months that followed his
dismissal, Lebed' polished his public image in Russia and abroad. He began preparations for a
future presidential campaign by seeking funds for future political activities, and by traveling to
the United States and Western Europe. Although he virtually disappeared from the pro-Yeltsin
television networks after his dismissal, in early 1997 polls indicated that Lebed' remained the
most popular political figure in Russia. In March he established a new opposition party, the
Russian People's Republican Party, which he described as an alternative to the KPRF and the
ruling elite.*

Chubays

During Yeltsin's absence, another figure bore the brunt of opposition attacks on the
administration. In 1995 and early 1996, Yeltsin had dismissed reform economist Anatoliy
Chubays from two high-level economic positions in response to strong criticism from antireform
factions. However, after directing Yeltsin's successful 1996 presidential campaign, Chubays was
rewarded with the chief of staff position in Yeltsin's second administration, at the same time
increasing the prospects that the pace of reform would increase. [Source: Glenn E. Curtis,
Library of Congress, July 1996 *]

Although too unpopular to have a realistic chance at the presidency, Chubays maneuvered
effectively within the Yeltsin administration. He formed an alliance with Yeltsin's ambitious
daughter, Tat'yana Dyachenko, who was rumored to have substantial influence over her father's
policy decisions. The work of Chubays was widely seen in the dismissal of the Aleksandr
Korzhakov coterie in June and of Aleksandr Lebed' in October. Chubays was credited with
maintaining some sort of order during Yeltsin's convalescence in the early stages of the second
administration, even as Chubays's many enemies spread rumors of illegal campaign funding and
links with organized crime.*

Despite speculation that Yeltsin would limit Chubays's power by increasing the prestige of
rivals--a technique Yeltsin had used throughout his presidency--in the Government
reorganization of March 1997 Yeltsin advanced Chubays to the positions of deputy prime
minister in charge of economic affairs and minister of the economy. Chubays now had direct
control of the governmental restructuring that Yeltsin prescribed to end bureaucratic gridlock,
and the new faces that Yeltsin appointed at that time improved the prospect that the new minister
would be able to accelerate economic reform in 1997.*

Bureaucratic Maneuvering Under Yeltsin

In July 1996, experts had seen Yeltsin's creation of a civilian advisory Defense Council as an
effort to balance the power that Lebed' had gained as chief of the Security Council. In October
the head of the Defense Council, Yuriy Baturin, supplanted Lebed' as the primary architect of
military reform, dismissing six top generals and reassigning several who remained. By the end of
1996, Baturin was in a bitter battle with defense minister Rodionov for authority over reform
policy. By March 1997, Rodionov's position in the administration was reported to be quite
tenuous. [Source: Glenn E. Curtis, Library of Congress, July 1996 *]

Late in 1996, another extraconstitutional organ was formed in the Yeltsin administration: a
permanent, four-member Consultative Council that included the president, the prime minister,
and the speakers of the two houses of the Federal Assembly. The council was to meet twice a
month in an effort designed to smooth differences between the two branches of government. The
inclusion of the State Duma speaker brought a prominent KPRF deputy, Gennadiy Seleznev, into
a top advisory group--a move calculated by Yeltsin and Chubays to either divide or conciliate the
strongest of the opposition parties. The fourth member of the council was Yegor Stroyev,
speaker of the Federation Council and usually a Yeltsin supporter. During Yeltsin's illnesses,
Chubays represented the president at council meetings.*

Already in the mid-1990s, the executive branch contained numerous directorates and
commissions answering only to the president. In 1996 the addition of extraconstitutional
governing bodies such as the Defense Council and the Consultative Council continued Yeltsin's
propensity to govern by decree and outside constitutionally prescribed lines of power. According
to some experts, the existence of seemingly redundant presidential policy-making groups was a
new manifestation of Russia's long tradition of arbitrary rule; according to others, such organs
were necessary to circumvent the gridlock of opposition in the State Duma.*

In the fall of 1996, Yeltsin's illness brought demands from all political factions for clarification
of the 1993 constitution's vague language on replacing a disabled head of state: the conditions for
such replacement are listed in the constitution, but the authority to make the decision is not
specified. In this case, Yeltsin responded by temporarily delegating to Prime Minister
Chernomyrdin his authority as commander in chief of the armed forces, head of internal security,
and custodian of the codes needed to unleash a nuclear attack. Within hours of his successful
heart bypass surgery in November, Yeltsin publicly reclaimed full control, apparently seeking to
end the impression of a power vacuum in Moscow. In the months that followed, however,
government assurances of Yeltsin's continued competence met increasing skepticism as the
president appeared only in carefully edited news film. In the first months of 1997, KPRF
deputies introduced motions in the State Duma to impeach Yeltsin on health grounds, and the
Duma discussed constitutional amendments limiting the powers of the president.*

Rise of Regional Governments Russia in the 1990s

Between September 1996 and March 1997, Yeltsin's administration faced a new political
challenge when a series of regional elections provided the KPRF and its nationalist allies another
opportunity to weaken Yeltsin's political base. Fifty-two of Russia's eighty-nine subnational
jurisdictions were to elect chief executives during that period, and all of those executives are ex
officio members of the Federation Council, the upper house of parliament and a bastion of
Yeltsin support until 1997. (The chief executives of republics are called presidents; those of
other jurisdictions carry the title governor or administrative head.) [Source: Glenn E. Curtis,
Library of Congress, July 1996 *]
Before the elections began, experts identified fifteen of those constituencies, primarily in the
"Red Belt" along the southern border from the North Caucasus to the Far East, as sure to elect
communist leaders. At the end of 1996, a Yeltsin-appointed incumbent chief executive had been
defeated in twenty-four of the forty-four elections decided to that point. The KPRF had backed
fifteen of the new officials, and six had had Yeltsin's support. Among the victors were former
vice president and outspoken Yeltsin critic Aleksandr Rutskoy, who was elected governor of
Kursk Oblast, and Vasiliy Starodubtsev, a central figure in the 1991 coup against the Gorbachev
government, who was elected governor of Tula Oblast. In most cases, successful candidates took
less partisan positions and were more ready to negotiate with their opposition than experts had
predicted when the elections began. Incumbents generally fared better in northern and urban
regions where economic conditions were the most favorable. Yeltsin's doubtful health and the
rescinding of his 1996 campaign spending promises hampered some progovernment candidates.
All the chief executives elected in 1996 were expected to wield greater political power because
they now had direct mandates rather than presidential appointments, and that legitimacy also
would bolster the power of the Federation Council vis-à-vis the State Duma in the Federal
Assembly.*

In 1996 the central government's economic and legislative control of subnational jurisdictions
continued to slip away as the power of regional chief executives increased proportionally.
Governors such as Yevgeniy Nazdratenko of strategically vital Maritime (Primorskiy) Territory
on the Pacific coast and Eduard Rossel' of Sverdlovsk Oblast in the Urals already had established
personal fiefdoms outside Moscow's control. Nazdratenko openly challenged the national
administration on a number of issues, including the transfer of a small parcel of his territory's
land to China as part of a Sino-Russian border treaty. In 1993 Sverdlovsk Oblast briefly declared
itself a republic under Rossel'. As of January 1997, Moscow had signed bilateral agreements,
establishing a wide variety of power-sharing relationships, with twenty-six subnational
jurisdictions.*

By 1996 regional governments raised 50 percent of taxes and accounted for 70 percent of
government spending in Russia. Although only fifteen of eighty-nine subnational jurisdictions
were net contributors to the federal budget and sixty-seven relied on federal subsidies for
pensions, in 1996 Moscow still had no centralized system to account for movement of funds
between the federal government and the regions. Many jurisdictions complained that the 1997
budget did not allocate sufficient funds to them to compensate for their tax payments to Moscow.
As of March 1997, no subnational jurisdiction had received a full allotment of federal pension
funds, and only ten jurisdictions had paid their federal taxes in full.*

In October 1996, the emergency tax committee was forced to withdraw its threat of bankruptcy
proceedings against the Kama Automobile Plant (KamAZ), one of the Republic of Tatarstan's
largest industries, for nonpayment of federal taxes. Citing the 1994 power-sharing treaty between
the republic and the federal government, Tatarstan's president Mintimer Shaimiyev convinced
Chernomyrdin that ending KamAZ's favorable tax status would intrude on the republic's
economic sovereignty.*

Experts predicted that tensions between Moscow and the subnational governments would
intensify during the shaping of Russia's new federal system, especially as that system addresses
the question of who controls the country's vast national resources. After the regional elections, a
loose coalition of jurisdictions that were net contributors to the federal budget ("donor regions")
was in a position to gain significant economic concessions from the federal government. At the
same time, the eight regional economic associations, which include all of Russia's eighty-nine
subnational jurisdictions except Chechnya, showed new cohesiveness and also were expected to
gain greater autonomy and attention from Moscow in 1997. Those associations are: the Far East
and Baikal Association; the Siberian Accord Association; the Greater Volga Association; the
Central Russia Association; the Cooperation Association of North Caucasus Republics,
Territories, and Oblasts; the Black Earth Association; the Urals Regional Association; and the
North-West Association.*

In October presidential chief of staff Chubays began a campaign to reverse the movement toward
regional autonomy. Chubays called for a review of the many regional laws that contravene the
national constitution, in an effort to curtail the autonomy that such legislation encourages.
(Several of the regional constitutions adopted after 1991 contain language contradicting the
national constitution, and the electoral laws of some twenty-seven regions reportedly violate
federal law.) However, the project was postponed because regional procurators, who would be
responsible for such an investigation, lack sufficient authority over regional officials. After the
elections of 1996-97 gave most regional leaders a popular mandate, the lack of federal sanctions
on subnational jurisdictions violating federal law became a more significant threat to the
integrity of the federation as well as to human rights and the balance of political power within
jurisdictions. Meanwhile, local and municipal administrations chafed under restrictions imposed
by regional jurisdictions, just as the latter complained about Moscow's restrictions.*

Yeltsin and the Oligarchs

Yeltsin was an underdog going into the 1996 election with an approval rating in the single
digits . Many analysts believe that the abundant air time and positive publicity he was granted in
the newspapers and television stations controlled by the state and the oligarchs (super rich
Russian tycoons) was the deciding factor in the election. If Yeltsin hadn’t won there is good
chance the President would be a member of the Communist Party and that would have been very
bad news for the oligarchs.

Under Yeltsin the oligarchs were created in rigged auctions that allowed them to acquire
properties for a fraction of what they were worth. The oligarchs in turn supported Yeltsin by
giving him money and television exposure, in the media they ran to allow him to get reelected in
1996. Yeltsin in turn was then committed to support the oligarchs as they became even richer
and more powerful

The oligarchs became very powerful under Yeltsin. One Yeltsin aide told the New York Times,
“To some degree the oligarchs regarded themselves as the real government of Russia and to
some degree they were the real government. They could easily dismiss ministers and nominate
people who people who would be loyal to them in ministerial positions.

The oligarch Boris Berezovsky was referred to as Rasputin because of the influence he had on
Yeltsin and his family. Valentin Yumashev (a former journalist and ghostwriter of Yeltsin's
memoirs) said Yeltsin’s daughter and son-in-law were close to Berezovsky. Berezovsky fell out
of favor after one of his companies was accused of bugging Yeltsin.

Image Sources:

Text Sources: New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Times of London,
Lonely Planet Guides, Library of Congress, U.S. government, Compton’s Encyclopedia, The
Guardian, National Geographic, Smithsonian magazine, The New Yorker, Time, Newsweek,
Reuters, AP, AFP, Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic Monthly, The Economist, Foreign Policy,
Wikipedia, BBC, CNN, and various books, websites and other publications

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