Ogonyok No. 27, 14 - 20 Jul 97 pp 20-22
(signed to press 13.07.97)
Feature by: Leonid Radzikhovskiy
"A WOLF OF WAR OR A FOX OF POLITICS?"
General Rokhlin has attracted attention to his own person only rather than to the army
Appeal on the Eve of Vacations
A political appeal on the threshold of summer vacations is like a prayer for the dead at a wedding celebration.
Obviously, Rokhlin's "lion roar" frightened nobody in the Kremlin jungles. The news was chewed up for want of something better while suitcases were being packed -- and people departed for resorts. Lieutenants and colonels, those "courageous, organized and disciplined" people whom the chairman of the Duma committee tried to confuse with his letter remained absolutely indifferent. The officers, melting down in hot weather, did not gathered together for officer meetings. They have other concerns. One of them said that they are aware of everything that Rokhlin wrote but do not want to play games. Indeed, who among the officers in a far-away garrison behind the Baikal has ever read Rokhlin's address, who among them heard his name at all... In our time the old words are called back from oblivion, everyone wants to see something very noble in them and find... nothing but dust.
Indeed, these are lofty words: zemstvo, officers' club. Aiguillettes and adjutants, sword belt and moustache, St. George and St. Vladimir orders, "lieutenant Golitsyn-Cornet Obolenskiy". This nostalgia was tended by Soviet film makers who relished tsarist and German military uniforms. This romantic feelings are for the civilians. A real officer knows to what extent his colleagues resemble "lieutenant Golitsyn". He is also well-aware of what real tsarist lieutenants were, as described by Kuprin rather than shown by Keosanyan and Motyl... It is easy to call an officers' meeting -- indeed, they are called and will be called. But not ordered from the Duma. This is all nonsense. Should this be taken to mean that when deciding to wage a battle General Rokhlin attacked windmills? Andrey Cherkizov, political observer of the Echo of Moscow radio station already said this. He produced the following aphorism: "Rokhlin is a general, a Jew and a fool. Three mutually exclusive properties." I think that Cherkizov
was wrong at least in half of his pronouncement. Rokhlin, indeed, is a general, a Jew by his father and no fool. There are no inner contradictions in him; I see him as an integral personality and a crafty man. He is typical for the military milieu.
Epistolary Style
Rokhlin can be seen in his letter written in a very original style. "Your decisions were volitional improvisations of your fleeting moods". "Next to you there have always been people whose honesty was doubted and was confirmed (!) by removal from their posts". "These people are dangling on the hook of the Western special services and are facing a choice...". He speaks in the same style -- clumsily, with powerful jerks, bending down his head and forcing his way through a heap of words. He and his style match one another -- badly cut and tightly sewn together. When he first appeared on TV screen two years ago Rokhlin looked an embodiment of courage: tired, deadly tired. He was like a soldier on the march, in heavy boots with mud on them. It is hard to visualize him in a ceremonial uniform. His look goes well with his background: a real soldier, he saw fighting, was wounded in Afghanistan, took Groznyy, saved the lives of his soldiers, declined the Order of the Hero of Russia for the Chechen campaign...
What Happened Then?
This TV screen hero turned out to be a real Russian general-97, a new Russian general. Accusations that have never been confirmed nor refuted. Arms trade and a strange story about a pistol from which somebody had killed and which (the pistol) was somehow associated with the general's son-in-law. And a very real and brutal political manoeuvring -- against Grachev, for Rodionov, against Armenia, for Azerbaijan. An obvious taste for public politics. And, finally, this address. No, with Rokhlin this was not a "decision of volitional improvisations of his fleeting moods". This was a calculated and harsh criticism hurled at the Supreme Commander's face. The accusations were equal to those invented by "Zavtra" -- against the traitors, the liberals, the democrats... one feels like Zionists will be in place here. This could have been written by Govorukhin, Nevzorov, Ilyukhin (who already stated his complete agreement with every word the general wrote). Yet, Rokhlin is no imitator of Nevzorov. These words about
the general's honor could be written only by the person who is convinced he has the right (and it is recognized by others).
The General Who Fights for Himself
It would be wrong to say that Rokhlin is waging a political game with a cold head -- he hits at thegenerals and officers' most sensitive places thus earning prestige and trying to take the still vacant place of the military's political leader. This is not that simple. He learned many of the things he is writing about with his "flesh, blood and sweat." It would be even more wrong to take the letter for a spontaneous outburst of the old soldier's soul. Rokhlin, a true political actor. would like to produce this impression. A talented actor he blends with his character and plays at the brink of truth. This is the right way to conduct a political game on a large scale: the effect is calculated in advance while the performance does not look like theatre, it gives an impression of an impulse. It would be completely wrong to take the letter for a sincere attempt to solve the army's problems. It even does not mention this. There is not a hint at an alternative military policy -- just an emotional enumeration of
the well-known problems. And a covert call for disobedience, for dual command in the army that caused indignation of many people: "organize yourself, elect heads of the officers' meetings and demand that your legal rights be observed." These "Rokhlin's meetings" have been already likened to the events of 1917. On 1 March, 1917, the Petrograd Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies issued "Order No. 1" which put an end to the Russian Army. Point 1 of this historic document said: "Committees of elected representatives of the lower ranks should be created in all units, batallions, regiments, depots, batteries, squadrons and individual services at all sorts of military departments and on men-of-war of the Navy." The sad results of this dual power (the commander-the committee) for the country and the army are known too well. Rokhlin is well aware of them, too. But we should not exagerrate. The general knows well that nobody will hold "an officer meeting" without a command. So the army is in no threat of d
estruction and perish. Yet he knew that he could attract attention to his own person, not to the army. When deciding to fight he never though who would replace him if he perished. After all, the fight is being waged not for the army, Motherland and other ideas, but for himself, his political image and political capital. Rokhlin is fighting like any other Russian politician. This is the most interesting element in the intrigue he has started. He is playing on the field where all other Russian politicians are playing today. This is a public, populist and unscrupulous game. He plays it like a true general: in an aggressive style, aggravating the conflict, ready to receive blows and prepared to rebuff them (he has been doing this all the time throughout his hard life). He keeps in memory the bloody mud of the war -- he does not shun political mud.
New Russian General
A Russian general-politician is a rare bird. In the last 200 years they can be counted on the fingers of one hand. Indeed, the Orlov brothers were not military or politicians, they were courtiers and royal favorites. The Decembrists were mostly Russian nobles just showing off. Those who could have developed into an adventurist dictator (Pestel) had no time to manifest their abilities and died "a thing in itself". A pause of nearly 100 years followed. Politics attacked the generals in 1917 -- and they proved impotent. Kornilov, known as a "lion heart with the head of an ass", Kolchak and even Wrangel, the most skillful of them, were nothing more than mere chips in the political storm. We should be just in our judgment -- it was Lenin, the political genius of the 20th century, who stood opposed to them. As for Russia's officers' corps, it served loyally the new, Bolshevik powers and Trotskiy in the way they used to serve Nicholas II or Kerenskiy. It is a fact that there were more former officers in th
e Red Army than in the White Guard. The Soviet rule did not encourage political talents in the military. The end of two, most talented military leaders, Frunze and Zhukov, who had political will as well, was sad, though different. Stalin ordered Frunze to be murdered during appendectomy and replaced him with Voroshilov, "a fool on horseback." Khrushchev could not forgive Zhukov for rescuing his power, dismissed the popular marshal and made loyal Malinovskiy minister [of defense]. The latter remained loyal to the Presidium of the CC CPSU and helped dismiss Khrushchev. Malinovskiy showed no political initiative. The revolution of 1991 - 93 made politicians out of the defense ministers. We have seen how skillful they were. Yazov, who was arrested after GKChP [the events of August 1991] wrote to Gorbachev: "Will you forgive me, the old fool." The best Soviet Marshal Akhromeyev hanged himself (as was announced officially) leaving a note saying that he had achieved nothing in anything. Grachev, while behavi
ng as a bull doomed to slaughter, ordered artillery attack on the White House. We have seen that the tradition: "the army is outside politics" and "the army is an instrument in the politicians' hands" is still valid. The army is as defenseless in the face of democracy as it was in the face of the totalitarian state. When the hard times came the people with arms accepted their poverty more meekly than the people with pointers at schools or, even less than the people wielding miner's picks. They are disciplined. The army has no political leaders; the politicians in military uniforms, from Rutskoy to Lebed, never paid much attention to the army. They have left their greatcoats behind. They preferred to play on the entire political field. Rokhlin is a fundamentally new figure. The military who has turned into a public politician concerned with military matters is a new phenomenon in Russia.
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Johnson's Russia List
#1028
9 July 1997
djohnson@cdi.org
