The market panic that shook Russia last Tuesday was undoubtedly the main economic event of the week. Before discussing the reasons for the catastrophic collapse of the ruble on Oct. 11, we must make clear what was not the cause of the crisis.


The ruble was not the victim of political intrigue. I cannot emphasize this enough, especially since President Boris Yeltsin has already spoken of a possible political "diversion" and has created an investigatory commission that includes, in addition to economists, the director of the Federal Counterintelligence Service, or FSK.


The inclusion of the FSK in the "Black Tuesday" commission would seem to be a sign that the authorities are not interested in the economic factors behind these events, but would rather find "a group of saboteurs" who have set out to destroy the ruble and with it, the government and the president.


Several times last week, Yeltsin's chief of staff, Vyachislav Kostikov, repeated this version of the events, and it appears that several other people in the president's inner circle also favor this idea. In addition, such important government figures as Economics Minister Alexander Shokhin believe that the plot was engineered not by Yeltsin's political enemies, but by a group of commercial banks.


We've heard these stories before. When former Soviet Premier Valentin Pavlov annuled the old 50 and 100 ruble bills, he tried to calm the ensuing storm of protest by saying that a group of western banks had been hoarding the bills in order to bring down President Mikhail Gorbachev.


The new conspiracy theory is, however, having the effect of freeing the government from discovering the true causes of the collapse and from reevaluating the economic policies that led to such a severe financial shake-up. It is also possible that talk of a conspiracy will destroy the fragile political stability that Russia has experienced since last December's parliamentary elections.


Unfortunately, the "political plot" theory may prove interesting not just to our superficial politicians, but to some serious businesspeople as well. Implicating major banks or financial structures in such a plot could turn out to be an ideal way of destroying or weakening one's competition. The president's statements have been contributing to such a mood in the country.


It may turn out that, along with former acting Finance Minister Sergei Dubinin, some major commercial structures may become victims of this "financial earthquake." Two well-known Russian banks -- Imperial and Most -- last week circulated a statement precisely on this topic. These banks, at least according to some media reports, were suspected of creating instability in Russia's financial markets. In response, Imperial announced that it did not participate in trading at all on Black Tuesday and Most said that it actually sold $10 million, which could only have helped the ruble.


It is easy to understand Yeltsin's irritation: Already on Tuesday the Americans were accusing him of deceiving them about the achievements of Russia's reforms during his recent visit to Washington. But if there really is a conspiracy to bring down the ruble, then the conspirators are Russia's industrial lobbyists, who have managed to get the government to pay out a trillion rubles to the military and to the country's unprofitable collective farms and mines. But it doesn't seem likely that the president's commission will get around to these conspirators.