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Among soldiers, ultranationalist Vladimir Zhirinovsky jumped from fourth to second place in popularity polls last year. He received strong support from the army in parliamentary elections 13 months ago: according to confidential Defense Ministry data, more than 60% voted for him. The only way for Yeltsin to win back the sympathy of servicemen would be to buy them off with a hefty pay raise, but the government simply does not have that kind of money. Soldiers will vote in the next presidential election for a leader who will protest more vigorously the feeble overall reforms of the present government; who will express the hopes of an exhausted people for a better life, stability, law and order; and who will infuse the military with new faith in its combat potential. This leader might be Zhirinovsky or General Alexander Lebed, commander of the 14th Army in Trans-Dniestr, who is popular for his role in stopping a bloody war there and for his outspoken criticism of military corruption. Or it could be former Vice President Alexander Rutskoi, a onetime combat pilot famous for his exploits in Afghanistan, who has always been more popular than Yeltsin among the military.
In carrying out reform of the military, political leaders failed in one significant way. They did not develop a constitutional mechanism that would exclude excessive involvement by the military in politics. More than a dozen servicemen are parliamentary deputies, representing a variety of political factions. There are an additional 50 organizations whose members include servicemen, and some of which have their own paramilitary structures. They are supposed to provide for the social and legal defense of servicemen, but such goals may quickly change if instability in Russia grows. Then these nonpolitical organizations might carry out armed actions, and the military deputies in parliament may also grab their Kalashnikovs and urge their fellow officers to join them at the barricades.
A number of major differences have emerged recently between Russia and the U.S. So whose fault is it that the specter of cold war might be coming back? We believe the political and military leadership is to blame for pursuing a line of total camaraderie with the U.S. A strong America promised billions of dollars in support, always dictating its own conditions. They were sometimes humiliating, but Yeltsin, Foreign Minster Andrei Kozyrzev, and Prime Minister Victor Chernomyrdin accepted them without a murmur. Now Yeltsin realizes he has given away too much, too fast. He knows patriotism and a healthy nationalism will be the watchwords in the next election, so he is trying to change horses and has made a number of statements against U.S. policies.