#10
The Russia Journal
May 13-19, 2002
Don't wait for Pinochet
By ALEXANDER GOLTS

The death of Krasnoyarsk Gov. Alexander Lebed in a helicopter accident raises a question that now and then preoccupies Russian life: What role does the military play in politics?

Five years ago, the arrival of prominent generals such as Lebed, Lev Rokhlin, Alexander Rutskoi and Ruslan Aushev into politics had many analysts feeling concerned, if not afraid. The generals, who all had combat experience and were popular with the troops, didn't hide their preference for an authoritarian style. Lebed, for example, said quite plainly that "Pinochet was a good thing for Chile" and remarked that a democratic general was as exotic an idea as a Jewish reindeer herder. Some said a "Russian Pinochet" would be a tragedy; others saw it as Russia's only hope. But whether for or against, everyone thought it a possible turn of events.

The surprising thing is that there are more generals in politics now then in the mid-'90s. Yet no one worries about a possible Pinochet. With Lebed's recent death, the last of the generals who came into politics on the wave of the democratic revolution have now left the scene.

Aushev, Rutskoi, Rokhlin and Lebed had different, often thoroughly opposite, views. They were men of varied aims and character. What they had in common was a deep contempt for the authorities that brought them into politics in the first place.

These were the same authorities whose orders they were committed to following without question as military officers. The generals, who had known war and had brilliant careers behind them, felt insulted at the way the Kremlin bosses, first Mikhail Gorbachev and then Boris Yeltsin, threw the army into dubious undertakings and then pretended that everything had been the generals' initiative.

Rutskoi became a political figure after striding to the podium at the Congress of People's Deputies to denounce the authorities for sending troops to Vilnius and Tallinn. Aushev decided to run for president of Ingushetia out of disdain for the way Moscow reacted to the conflict between Ingush and Ossetians in the Prigorodny district. Rokhlin was initially ordered to go into parliament by the defense minister, but he became an independent political figure when he decided that Yeltsin and his entourage had betrayed the country and the army.

Lebed was probably the most prominent of them all. He insisted that he had always only followed orders. When the order came, he took his division to bring order to Baku. A year later, during the coup attempt of August 1991, then-Defense Minister Pavel Grachev ordered him to defend the White House. Lebed obeyed and would never agree later when people said he had saved democracy. A year later, he was ordered to enter the Transdniestr region, where his tough and decisive action brought the bloody conflict there to a halt.

But Lebed only became a real politician when, while still an active general and commander, he began relentlessly criticizing the authorities, including Grachev, for leading Russia into the debacle in Chechnya. As a result, his popularity with the Army and the public shot up. Indeed, he became so popular that the authorities decided it was best that he be relieved of his duties.

But his dismissal from the Army only further helped his political rise. He was elected to the Duma and then took third place in the 1996 presidential election. He ensured his votes went to Yeltsin in the second round in return for the post of national security adviser. By then, he was only half a step away from the summit of power.

As it turned out, there was no need to fear that one of the generals would become a Russian Pinochet. The generals, Lebed included, had taken part in enough misadventures brought about by others to have an aversion to launching their own.

Despite their dislike of the democrats, each of them - even Rokhlin, a fierce critic of the Kremlin - had his share of problems under the Soviet regime and did not want the Communists to return to power. In any case, none of them had his own ideas on how to run the state. Eventually the angry generals were absorbed into the political system and accepted their roles as regional leaders.

There are more generals in politics today than in Yeltsin's time. But the authorities don't fear rebellion from disgruntled generals, because they were the ones who appointed them to their political posts. Top generals and people from the secret services have become the main personnel pool for the "managed democracy" system under Putin.

The authorities needed someone reliable to be president of Ingushetia, and they helped ensure that FSB Gen. Marat Zyazikov got elected. The Navy's Baltic Fleet commander, Adm. Vladimir Yegorov, answered the call when the authorities sought a loyal governor for Kaliningrad. Of the seven presidential representatives to federal districts, five are retired military officers.

The situation has changed so much that, today, overly active military officials are deliberately moved into politics. This was the case with Gen. Vladimir Shamanov, for example, who threatened in 2000 to remove his stripes if Putin stopped the troops at the Terek River in Chechnya. The authorities decided Shamanov should become governor of the Ulyanovsk region.

But Putin's appointees won't turn into Pinochets: They don't have political initiative of their own.

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