One and half hours ago Boris Eltsin has declared in direct intervention on TV about the step which his supporters were waiting for and his opponents were affraid about already for at least two months. He stated that:

1) According his decree, the fullpower of People's Deputies Congress and Soviet Supreme are stopped.

2) Instead of current body - Supreme Soviet will be elected the new two-chamber parliament, Federal Assembly. The elections are appointed on December 11-12 this year.

3) All the constitutional rights and freedoms of citizens are reserved for them.

All the news agencies report that in a few minutes after Mr. Eltsin's intervention, Alexander Rutskoy, vice president who was earlier released by Eltsin from all his functions, has defined this event as a coup d'etat and sayed that he takes on himself all the functions of the president of Russian Federation. The same definition gave to Eltsin's declaration also speaker of Supreme Soviet Ruslan Khasbulatov, he has appealed to the deputies to come to Moscow to an extra-ordinary session of Supreme Soviet.

The question now is only: has Mr. Eltsin enough force to inplement all he declared or not?

In my opinion, this Mr. Eltsin's step, being maybe not correct from point of view of the old Soviet constitution according to which Russia was still existing till the moment, is however absolutely necessary and corresponding to the logic of radical economic and political reforms which Russia didn't know after Peter The Great. It became clear already for a long time that Supreme Soviet became a sort of hadquarter of an extremist "red-brown" opposition, which is stopping not only economical, but makes also impossible a democratic constitutional reform.

So, my heart says that Eltsin is absolutely right, and ask myself: how I can help him immediately, right now? But my brain warns that the reasque of this step is very big. And, frankly speaking, I am affraid. For Eltsin. For democracy in Russia. For Russia itself.