Yeltsin was held up in the West as the great saviour of democracy – the man who stood on a tank to defend the rights of parliament. Now this self-same parliament turned into his most deadly enemy. Those who stood against him were not political parties, but a coalition of rival groups and interests. Yeltsin had only two alternatives – either win over the decisive sections of the Congress, or else dispense with parliament itself. This the Congress could not tolerate. It was a fight to the death.
The different factions in parliament could all agree on one thing: Yeltsin needed to be stopped. The managers wanted to halt the reform programme. The regional bureaucrats, who ran their Republics like feudal barons, wanted more autonomy and a weak centre, not a dictator. The military caste wanted to recover its lost prestige and privileged positions, and bitterly resented the breakup of the Soviet Union, the loss of Eastern Europe and the humiliating dependence upon US imperialism on the world stage. The struggle between Yeltsin and the Congress was a graphic illustration of the unbearable contradictions in society.
The struggle came to a head in December, when Congress forced the resignation of arch-reformer Gaidar as prime minister. Yeltsin manoeuvred to gain time, replacing Gaidar with Chernomyrdin while preparing a counter-stroke. An uneasy compromise was arrived at, whereby Yeltsin accepted the loss of his chief henchman, while Congress accepted holding a referendum in the spring. It was a truce. But a truce is only a piece of paper reflecting the balance of forces at a given moment and will hold just as long as that balance of forces is maintained.
The aim of the referendum was, in theory, to work out a new constitution. The one in operation, left over from the Gorbachev period, had already been amended 300 times and was full of contradictions. In practice, nobody paid a bit of attention to the constitution. What mattered was the relative strength of the contending forces. And that could only be measured in struggle, not in constitutional committees, though the latter can be – and were – used as weapons in the struggle.
Immediately upon concluding the December deal, both sides commenced manoeuvring. Yeltsin decided to make a bid for absolute power, based upon rule by decree. In March 1993, Yeltsin drafted a decree on emergency rule, but the constitutional court declared it unconstitutional. Khasbulatov, the speaker of the Russian parliament, set out to undermine Yeltsin, eliminating his powers one by one and leaving him as a paper president, to be cast aside when the opportunity presented itself.
By the end of the March Congress, Yeltsin only narrowly escaped impeachment by a paltry 72 votes, out of 1,003. In protest, he walked out of the Congress, but only a few deputies followed him. He now put all his efforts into securing a majority in the April referendum and holding new elections in October. The Congress voted to go ahead with the referendum, but added two questions of its own, “for or against Yeltsin’s economic reforms”, and also, “for or against elections for parliament and the presidency”. In addition, they laid down the norm that the referendum must get over 50 per cent of the total eligible to vote for it to be valid. Yeltsin managed to get the Constitutional Court to overrule this.
In the meantime, US President Bill Clinton agreed to a US-Russian summit where he announced a $1.6 billion US aid package and pressed the G7 to announce a further package ten days later. In April 1993, $42 billion assistance was agreed by the G7 powers. On this basis, Yeltsin promised workers and pensioners increased allowances and an increase in the minimum wage as a bribe before the referendum. This, of course, was an attempt to bolster Yeltsin’s position and affect the result of the referendum – a blatant attempt to interfere in Russia’s political affairs.
This sounds ironical today when compared with the loud protests of the American media about the alleged interference of Vladimir Putin in helping Donald Trump win the 2016 Presidential elections. But then US imperialism has never hesitated in interfering in the political affairs of other countries, including the overthrow and murder of their leaders, as the people of Chile, Guatemala and many other countries can testify.
In the end sixty-four per cent turned out to vote. It was announced that fifty-eight per cent supported the president and nearly fifty-three per cent had backed his economic programme. But there were widespread and persistent reports that Yeltsin had rigged the referendum vote which gave him a narrow majority. Rutskoi immediately dismissed the result: “There are 105 million eligible voters,” he said. “Somewhere around 32 million supported the president and his course. So, between 71 and 72 million were either against or did not go to the referendum… There can be no talk of popular support.”
Yeltsin then attempted to use his victory to change the constitution, neuter the Congress, and increase his presidential powers. After a bitter struggle the draft constitution was approved by the Constitutional Conference. Yeltsin lost no time in moving against his opponents. But this was no easy task. In May, he was humiliated when the trial of the August 1991 plotters collapsed. Matters were coming to a head. In September 1993, after some hesitation, Yeltsin took the plunge and suspended parliament by decree, calling for elections to a new state Duma in December.
Yeltsin had concentrated power in his hands. Like all dictatorial rulers, he promised future elections under a constitution drawn up by himself. He acted as judge, jury, and executioner. Immediately Rutskoi denounced the decree as an “overt coup”, and the Congress voted to impeach Yeltsin, remove him and confirm Rutskoi as president. This was tantamount to a declaration of civil war. Khasbulatov, the parliamentary speaker, appealed to all military and security chiefs to disobey all the “criminal” decrees and orders of Yeltsin.
The Western imperialists rushed to Yeltsin’s defence. Clinton declared that Yeltsin’s actions were “ultimately consistent with the democratic and reform course that [Yeltsin] chartered”. The imperialists were of course not concerned with ‘democracy’ but only with their material and strategic interests. They were not concerned with the illegal dismissal of parliament. This was in sharp contrast to their howls of protest when ‘democracy’ was flouted in the attempted coup two years earlier in August 1991. But then it was a question of the interests of the nascent capitalists being crushed or threatened. It is always their class interests that dictate their home and foreign policy. Imagine the international outrage that would have broken out if the so-called hard-liners had behaved in this fashion!
The time had come to forcibly deal with Congress. In an open act of defiance, Gaidar was re-appointed deputy prime minister and minister of the economy. The stage was set for a showdown. There was no going back. But Yeltsin’s grip on the armed forces was very tenuous. A great part of the officer caste was openly hostile to Yeltsin’s regime, humiliated by the collapse of the Soviet Union and the grovelling before the West. Many soldiers had not been paid wages for months, and there were reports from the Pacific region that soldiers faced starvation. 80,000 officers had been discharged from the army in the previous year without jobs or homes to go to. Only fourteen per cent of conscripts had responded to call up papers. General Pavel Grachev, the minister of defence, was originally ambivalent towards Yeltsin, but threatened with dismissal by parliament, he sided with him.
Opposition to Yeltsin also came from the regions. When, on 18 September, he met members of the Federal Council and asked them to supplant Congress until the new elections, 148 out of 176 regional leaders refused to support the proposal. Even the St Petersburg city council condemned Yeltsin’s decree after rejecting an appeal from the city’s mayor, Sobchak, a Yeltsinite. Yeltsin even failed to gain the support of the regions for a new constitution with a two-tier chamber, where the regions would form the upper house. They insisted, instead, on the current constitution. His proposals were seen as a trap which would effectively clip their powers and concentrate greater power in the hands of the presidency. They were promoting their own interests which at this stage conflicted with those of Yeltsin.