>From RIA Novosti

Nezavisimaya Gazeta

August 20, 1997

TWO GENERALS

Political Tandem of Lev Rokhlin and Alexander Lebed May Lead to a New Reality in Russia - "a party of coup"

BY Sergei Mulin

Prospects

The politically unsophisticated "best defense minister after Zhukov," paratrooper general Pavel Grachev has succeeded in creating a new Russian army, which is not only harmless in the event of a seizure of power in the Kremlin, but also helpless if the situation gets out of control, as was the case on the eve of storming of the White House on October 3-4, 1993.

Hostilities in Chechnya did more than just created a new political reality, the movement of officers fed up with fighting. Fortunately for the powers-that-be, the spontaneous protest movement was channelled into two separate organizations in the fall of 1995 - first, Alexander Lebed's and Igor Rodionov's "Honor and Motherland" movement, who mainly critiqued from the outside the degradation of the armed forces; and second, the pro-government "Our Home is Russia" bloc, where army general Lev Rokhlin, who had rejected the Hero of Russia title for his performance in the Chechen campaign, was made one of the nominal leaders. Both stakes were successfully played then: the two generals got State Duma seats; however, the post of the Committee for the Army chairman, which was the target of both, went to an NDR member.

Alexander Lebed's Kremlin biography, brief as it was, still abounded in suspicious actions on the part of the President. The desperate attempt of the general, whose presidential ambitions never faded, to include in his retinue Alexander Korzhakov, the "bodyguard" whom the President had demoted personally, became the final brush-stroke in the activity of the "party of coup."

The lack of success of Lebed's "Third Force" union, and the Russian People's Republican Party of his, which failed to grow into mass movements, has cleared a niche for a "general-presidential hopeful" in the public consciousness, according to Lev Rokhlin's supporters. This must have been the reason for the famous open letter to the Supreme Commander-in-Chief. (See Daily Review of June 25 and 27, and July 1). However, Lev Rokhlin's move, which quickly got him out of the ranks of Viktor Chernomyrdin's NDR allies, was duly made use of. What at first seemed a political move of genius was appropriated by the main left patriotic opposition force, that is Gennady Zyuganov's party, which immediately put its members on all the organizing committees of Rokhlin's DPA (Army Support Movement). It looked like the long-conceived optimal scenario of left opposition winning the presidential polls could now be materialized: united opposition and a popular personality, one like Lebed of 1996. However, Rokhlin lacked Lebed's ch

arisma. In addition to his lack of political experience, he is tongue-tied, which may be OK for the army, but obviously not for the political arena.

What surprises me though, is the decision by Lebed's "Honor and Motherland" to join forces with DPA: the former's leader is superior to Rokhlin in almost every respect. What we are witnessing is most likely a "brotherhood in arms": an honest officer helps his comrade, who had fallen under bad influence, to improve. It is nothing more. Otherwise it could most probably suggest that the two generals are on the verge of disappointment with peaceful means of coming to power, and are ready to rely exclusively on the military circles and defense industry. Their "party of coup," which narrowly missed the resurrection of the sentenced to death Soviet Empire, can again provide a match for the ruling oligarchy. These August days, one tends to believe that our society can readily stop any attempt to impose a dictate on it. However, one cannot be so sure that this "democracy's" social base is more solid than that of possible "dictatorship" of army generals - whatever their names.

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Johnson's Russia List

#1135

21 August 1997

djohnson@cdi.org