Michael McFaul comments that events during Russia's July 1996 runoff election have highlighted the flaws in the new democracy there.

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The last year of Russian politics presented a great challenge for analysts both in Russia and the West. Polarized for years over the future of Boris Yeltsin and Russian democracy, both optimists and pessimists faced a critical test of their assumptions, models and ability to predict events. With the main event -- the presidential election -- now over, the optimists can claim victory.

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Who are Alexander Lebed's supporters? How these voters act in the second round is one of the two critical factors that will determine whether Boris Yeltsin or Gennady Zyuganov is Russia's next president.

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Reprinted in Russian as "Komu otadadut golosa storoniki Lebedya?" Kapital, June 26-July 2, 1996, p. 12.

Michael McFaul says Russian President Boris Yeltsin's decisions regarding the hostage crises in Chechnya and changes in his government reflect his new strategy as he runs for a second term as president, and the success of Yeltsin's strategy will depend upon how the war in Chechnya unfolds.

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On 17 December 1995, Russian voters elected representatives to the Duma, the lower house of parliament. For the first time in the thousand-year history of Russia, these elections were held under law, as scheduled, and without serious fraud or falsification. Though the balloting occurred in the dead of winter, was only for one house of the parliament, did not include a presidential election, and was confused by the participation of 43 parties, nonetheless an amazing 65 percent of eligible voters turned out. In historical perspective, the conduct of this election must be seen as a positive step toward democratic consolidation in Russia. But while the process was encouraging for democracy, the results were not. Parties with questionable democratic and reformist credentials made significant gains in the Duma.

In this book, distinguished U.S. and Russian scholars analyze the great challenges confronting post-Communist Russia and examine the Yeltsin government's attempts to deal with them. Focusing on problems of state- and nation-building, economic reform, demilitarization, and the definition of Russia's national interests in its relations with the outside world, the authors trace the complex interplay between the Communist legacy and efforts to chart new directions in both domestic and foreign policy. They give special attention to the defeat of liberal reformers in the latest parliamentary elections and to the implications of that shift for Russia's domestic and foreign policy in the years ahead.

Western analysts have become increasingly alarmed with Russia's assertive foreign policy -- in both the economic and the political/strategic spheres -- toward the new states of the former Soviet Union. Many have cited Russia's military interventions in Georgia, Tajikistan, and Moldova as signals of Russia's new imperialist designs. Russian policy toward the Baltic states has also spurred alarm. While Russian troops pulled out of the Baltic states as planned, the Russian Foreign Ministry has nonetheless threatened economic sanctions against Estonia and Latvia if citizenship rights for Russians are not further delineated in these states. Beyond the territory of the former Soviet Union, Russian assertiveness regarding sanctions against Serbia, NATO expansion, and arms trade with developing countries has compelled several analysts to speak of a renewal of Russian expansionist tendencies and hence a return of Cold War tension between West and East.

Despite the alarmist cries in the West over the outcome of Russia's election on Sunday, the overall balance in Parliament between the Communists and nationalists, on one hand, and the broad reformist middle, on the other, will not change.

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The increasing prospect of a communist and nationalist victory in Russia's parliamentary elections this month has fueled doubts about whether Russia's presidential election, scheduled for next June, will take place.

Even before President Boris Yeltsin's latest heart attack, the odds were only 50-50 for a democratic transfer of power, which has never occurred in Russia or the Soviet Union. There is a determination to preserve the status quo on the part of those who have prospered under Yeltsin's reign - whether Russia's new banking tycoons, gas and oil executives or the entourage of Kremlin aides that surrounds Yelstin. Re-electing Yeltsin, of course, has been their preferred strategy.

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Initially printed as "Signal Our Support for Democracy," Los Angeles Times, December 11, 1995.

Michael McFaul comments that the process leading up to the parliamentary vote on Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin's government in Jul 1995 suggests that the future of Russia's fragile democracy may not be so bleak.

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