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That may be part of the story, but Chubais was going to leave anyway. He handed in his resignation in February, though he had not named a firm date. He told the President he wanted to be appointed head of United Energy Systems, the national power company. "We'll think about it," Yeltsin said.
According to a well-informed account, Chubais made sure his enemy Kulikov went out the door with him. The Internal Affairs Minister, who longed to roll back the privatization Chubais has engineered, had leaked information so damaging to some of Chubais' deputies that they had to resign. Chubais was determined to get him for that, and the oligarchs were perfectly happy to see Kulikov go. He was no respecter of private property. And he seemed eager to be a political kingmaker in 2000, using his ministry troops and snoops to back Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov, another foe of the free market.
On Friday Yeltsin named his choice as the new Prime Minister. He is Sergei Kiriyenko, 35, who had been busy filling in at the job for four days. Kiriyenko is a potential reformer, a petroleum expert who held the post of Minister of Fuel and Energy in the old Cabinet. He's a former communist youth leader and oil-company executive from the reform-oriented city of Nizhni Novgorod. He arrived in Moscow last year, along with Boris Nemtsov, who became a First Deputy Prime Minister. Nemtsov, the former mayor of Nizhni Novgorod, is one of Yeltsin's favorites, and he will probably reappear in a senior post in the next Cabinet. The combination of Kiriyenko and Nemtsov might provide a small boost for reform, the lagging pace of which Yeltsin has been insisting was the main reason for the mass firing. American energy officials who knew Kiriyenko during his brief seven months as Fuel and Energy Minister say he is a bright, able technocrat who is easy to work with.
The Duma must approve the President's nominee and will almost certainly go along with Kiriyenko. The communists who dominate the parliament are complaining that he is too young and too inexperienced. But they are expected to accept him in due course. If they reject the President's choice three times, Yeltsin can dissolve parliament and call new elections. Most members of the Duma will not want to risk their jobs on the issue, so they might vote against Kiriyenko once or twice, then accept him in the end.
Yeltsin's choice of a young newcomer implies, of course, that he intends to be the boss and that it matters little who is Prime Minister. That could be a bad thing for a Russia that desperately needs continuity and leadership. For years Yeltsin's bursts of energy have been followed by illnesses and disappearances, vacations and prostration. He seems to have no reserves of stamina left, and the breakdowns are coming more frequently now. After he ousted the government last week, he tried to pump himself up again for a summit session with German Chancellor Helmut Kohl and French President Jacques Chirac. But at their meeting outside Moscow, Yeltsin looked confused, weak and fumbling. The price he pays for proving he is in charge is growing higher every day. What is good for Boris may not be good for Russia.
--Reported by Paul Quinn-Judge and Yuri Zarakhovich/Moscow and Douglas Waller/Washington