Two years ago, on Oct. 3, 1993, Russia appeared to be sliding toward outright civil war. Today, with elections approaching and power once again possibly up for grabs, people could be forgiven for looking nervously back at those days when vicious nationalist and communist paramilitaries were on the verge of seizing the main television station, the City Council and, perhaps, the government itself.


Or were they? In "An Empire's New Clothes," a clear, forceful and well-written account of the past five years in Russia, Bruce Clark argues trenchantly that the parliamentary leaders were set up by the Yeltsin administration. Clark, a correspondent for The Times of London during the October events, maintains that the Moscow police were ordered to let the demonstrators "break through," and even to hand over their vehicles and equipment; and that Ostankino, far from being barely defended and in danger of capture, was in the hands of 400 elite troops. These soldiers smashed the attackers with one massive burst of fire, losing only one man in the process. And President Boris Yeltsin had his excuse to bombard the White House into surrender.


For more than an hour, the troops at Ostankino went on firing at any figure they could see -- moving or stationary. It is now clear that several of the journalists and innocent bystanders killed outside the building were picked off in cold blood by the troops inside. In his chapter "A Terrible Ugliness," Clark writes of these events with understandable bitterness: One of his friends -- and indeed one of mine -- the gallant and distinguished cameraman Rory Peck, was among those killed that night.


It is difficult to fault Clark's arguments and evidence that the Yeltsin administration, or at least a hardline element within it, was determined to bring matters to a head. For it was considered desirable to finish off the opposition quickly and block the growing risk of a compromise with parliamentary speaker Ruslan Khasbulatov and Vice President Alexander Rutskoi in their demands for early presidential and parliamentary elections.


As Clark points out, the Federation Council of Regional Leaders was due to meet on Oct. 5, and a demand from them for a compromise on elections would have been hard for Yeltsin to resist. The Yeltsin camp had to act quickly to keep the upper hand. And, when one considers the way in which the Chechen war was planned last autumn, the notion of a plot by a hardline group of Yeltsinites in the autumn of 1993 seems pretty plausible.


Clark places these events in what he sees as a pattern of successful deceptions by the Yeltsin administration -- deceptions for which the West has generally fallen. He also views ultranationalist leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky as having been, if not created, then at least secretly strengthened, by pro-Yeltsin forces so as to divide the opposition. But Clark's fears -- that next year these forces may again try to set up Zhirinovsky as Yeltsin's main rival, thus ensuring a Yeltsin victory but reducing Russian democracy to a farce -- have been rendered obsolete by the recently declared candidacy of the popular former general Alexander Lebed.


Clark's book makes pessimistic reading for democrats. A Russian nationalist, however, might find the book unduly optimistic. Clark thinks that under Yeltsin the Russian state is now emerging as not simply authoritarian, but also economically strong and militarily formidable, a state capable of playing a powerful role on the world stage.


Here I cannot agree. Clark's premise that the Russian economy is stronger than official statistics would suggest and that private bankers and industrialists now form a set of powerful nexuses quite prepared to accept authoritarian rule if it will guarantee their positions, is of course true.


But a relatively rich private economy does not necessarily make a strong state if that state -- due to corruption, administrative chaos and regional resistance -- is incapable of turning that wealth into revenue. And here the Russian state remains weak. Moreover, the bulk of Clark's book seems to have been written before the Chechen war revealed the full extent of the Russian military's decline and demoralization.


Also, on the international stage, Russia has not been playing the strong role that Clark suggests. It has been sidelined by the West in former Yugoslavia and contemptuously overruled regarding NATO expansion. The Russian response has been vocal but entirely impotent. In the Transcaucasus, Russia has regained a qualified hegemony; but the biggest prize in the former Soviet Union, Ukraine, remains resistant to Moscow's pressure, and Russia is evidently too weak to bring Kiev to heel.


As to the survival of Yeltsin's own rule, Clark would probably argue that the presidential apparat will be able either to rig another victory in next June's elections or to cancel them without provoking dangerous revolt both outside and within the government and security forces. In my view this is possible, but, given the decrepitude and unpopularity of the president, it is a risk which only the recklessly power-hungry would take. By July of next year, we will know which one of us was right.





"An Empire's New Clothes: The End of Russia's Liberal Dream" by Bruce Clark. Vintage original paperback, 335 pages, ?7.99 ($12.70).