As practically everyone knows by now, Viktor Gerashchenko owed his accession to the position of acting head of the Central Bank of Russia mainly to Yegor Gaidar. When the Russian president led preliminary discussions about the bank's leadership, Gaidar made no move to defend Georgy Matyukhin to prevent his removal.


Not only was Matyukhin cooperating ever more closely with the government, he also picked as his deputy one of Gaidar's men - Sergei Ignatyev, who became one of the key figures at the bank and, naturally, carried out the government's policies as much as possible. It was Matyukhin, in fact, who on July 1 isolated Russia's cash turnover from the noncash circulation of other C. I. S. states, which could have saved the ruble from the credit expansion of other national banks in the ruble zone.


But the groundswell of dissatisfaction with Matyukhin had gained tremendous force, and the radical reformers evidently decided that the time was ripe to "reinforce" the bank with one of their own. When in the course of the president's discussion the name of Boris Fyodorov, former finance minister of Russia under Ivan Silayev, came up, Gaidar spoke definitively in favor of Gerashchenko. He explained this by saying that Fyodorov would not be confirmed by the parliament anyway, and that all the others, except for Gerashchenko, who was a first-rate professional, were considerably worse. Gaidar's friends were nevertheless surprised that he would choose a professional over an ideological cohort, which Boris Fyodorov unquestionably is.


Gerashchenko the professional immediately reestablished the possibility of credit expansion on the part of other Commonwealth states. The government fought with the Central Bank chairman for three days to set up even minimal restrictions on the influx of noncash rubles into Russia.


Gerashchenko emphasizes the mutual understanding between himself and Gaidar. In practice, though, the government is constantly having to work things out with Gerashchenko, trying, not always successfully, to dissuade him from one or another of his decisions.


And so the industrialist's lobby does not even have to ask the head of the Bank of Russia for anything; he is already doing everything possible to advance the interests of state enterprise directors. There is no doubt that Gerashchenko, by his policy of unconditional support of industry, has guaranteed himself the requisite number of votes in parliament, which has to confirm his candidacy.


Gaidar has so far refrained from criticizing the actions of the bank leadership directly, evidently considering Gerashchenko the least of all possible evils. But for how long and, most importantly, on what basis can their cooperation last?