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Meltdown in Moscow - SPECIAL REPORT

© Jeffrey Deutsch

Russia is in BIG trouble.

Just this past Sunday, President Boris Yeltsin announced the firing of Premier Sergei Kiriyenko and, of course, the rest of the Cabinet. He was returning from a month's vacation and displayed exquisite timing: Kiriyenko was with his Cabinet at that moment in marathon discussions preceding the presentation of a massive debt-restructuring plan (the idea was basically to exchange a whole bunch of short-term notes that were coming due for longer-term securities that would give the government some breathing space). The plan was to be presented the following day. It has now been postponed indefinitely.

The "new" acting Premier? Our old friend Victor Chernomyrdin, who left (if not in disgrace then certainly against his will) just five months before. But, we won't be seeing all the old faces: First Deputy Premier Boris Nemtsov wants no part of the "new" - that is, previous, government. And he's probably not alone in this.

Chernomyrdin seems to have learned something about his old/new boss: he's reported to have demanded that, as a condition of returning, Yeltsin have nothing to do with filling the Cabinet posts, or the day-to-day running of the government.

Oh, by the way, even getting Chernomyrdin in will be quite a challenge for Yeltsin. It's not going to be the cakewalk it turned out to be with Kiriyenko. The Duma Communists and others smell blood, and they've made it clear that they want big-time concessions for accepting Chernomyrdin as Premier. Remember the previous discussions of "coalition government" in my prior pieces? That was when the Duma Communists and nationalists were demanding a significant say, if not outright representation, in the forming of the Cabinet. Six months ago, Yeltsin and Chernomyrdin were in a perfect position to tell them to go fly a kite. Now it's the Duma leaders who seem to be pulling the strings.

Now, the Communists aren't yet wholly settled with regard to wanting places in the Cabinet. They may well feel that Russia is about to collapse anyway, and they'd rather be where you and I would be in the case of a collapsing house - on the outside, ready to pick up the pieces. And Communists are unmatched in the fine art of picking up the pieces (sometimes even hooking up the dynamite plunger) - ask any older Russian, Chinese, Vietnamese, Cambodian, Laotian, Cuban, Nicaraguan, etc., etc., etc...

(Communist style is more along the lines of setting up alternative government structures - the very word "Soviets" [the Russian word for councils] refers to the Communist councils set up in cities, factories, etc. to prepare for the actual Communist takeover in Russia in 1917.)

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