Voices in the Wilderness

On Dec. 17, as the Russian Army was being readied for the final showdown with Chechnya, Mikhail Gefter published an article in Nezavisimaya Gazeta called "A Voice from an Enforced Solitude." Gefter is a distinguished historian and former head of the Methodology of History Section of the USSR Academy of Sciences. In the early 1970s, Gefter's department was dissolved and his books were banned. He retired and began to write samizdat.


Gefter's letter is a powerful statement of his revulsion at the events in Chechnya, at the prevarications of the generals leading the troops into battle, at the strident propaganda calling upon Russians to unite behind their leadership, at Boris Yeltsin and his not-so-secret advisers who helped push him into a new war, and at the damnable Russian contempt for compromises, tolerance, and accommodation.


"No one need prove to me," writes Gefter, "that General Dudayev is not a hero." But, he cries in desperation, "in addition to such generals, Chechnya is the home of "people -- people!"


Above all, Gefter's letter is a denunciation of the intelligentsia, which supported Yeltsin uncritically until the very last moment and failed to take any steps to prevent the present tragedy. Gefter does not hide his disdain for the so-called democrats --whom he in effect accuses of complicity, by virtue of doing nothing -- in the ongoing and, most probably, worsening massacres. He pays tribute to Duma deputy Ella Pamfilova, who has twice traveled to Grozny to seek a solution. But he notes that she is one of only a very few who have attempted to really do something.


Gefter was appointed by Yeltsin in February 1993 to the Presidential Council (a meaningless body designed to provide the president with a veneer of respectability), but he resigned in protest at last October's shelling of the White House. He is seen as something of a noble figure, and perhaps even a quixotic one. In his letter, for instance, he calls for the resignation of either the whole Duma or of Yeltsin, or both. Neither of which is a very likely scenario.


Nevertheless, he speaks for a growing constituency, and his letter might yet prove a watershed in the relations between the "democratic intelligentsia" and the president. After years of playing the critic and the gadfly, but without real power, the intelligentsia suddenly caught a whiff of power. During perestroika, it convinced itself it could be an ally, as well as critic, of the ruling elite.


After Yeltsin led the opposition against the operetta-like "putsch" in August 1991, he became the darling of the democratic intelligentsia. True, they never succeeded in making him part of the Democratic Russia alliance or of its successor, Russia's Choice. Yeltsin was playing a different game, which consisted of the pursuit of power -- first in the Soviet Union, and afterwards in the successor state that he had begotten. Moreover, he intended to pursue it in the guise of a man dedicated to the highest democratic values. Not only did the democrats fail to understand Yeltsin; they did all they could to bolster his power. In Yeltsin's confrontation with the Supreme Soviet in 1993, they cast Ruslan Khasbulatov as the culprit -- a representative of the "red-brown alliance" and so forth -- and Yeltsin as the virtuous knight, interested only in preserving democracy.


To portray the players in that drama so simplistically was virtually criminal -- and more than that, as the saying goes, it was a mistake. And a costly mistake it was -- for the intelligentsia, and for Russia. Yeltsin's Oct. 4, 1993, massacre was hailed as a victory against "reaction." Strangling the Constitutional Court was justified on the ground that its chairman, Valery Zorkin, was allied with Khasbulatov. The new constitution, which made it possible for Yeltsin to act without the consent or even knowledge of the lower house of parliament, was cheered by the democrats as another victory for democracy.


At the same time, the intelligentsia wrote letters swearing fealty to Yeltsin and asking him to take the strongest measures possible against the "fascists." In general, the intelligentsia kept wringing their hands over the danger of fascism, while ignoring the real danger of authoritarianism on the part of their beloved leader.


The intelligentsia's most recent display of pro-Yeltsin loyalty occurred on Nov. 19 in the Kremlin, when after Yeltsin assured them of his respect the octogenarian academic Dmitry Likhachyov expressed his "gratitude to Boris Nikolayevich" for all he has done for Russia and Russian culture.


What the "democrats" failed to see was that there is a logical chain between the events of last October and the invasion of Chechnya. The use of force then, the violations of human rights, the special "anti-banditry" decree that makes a mockery of the constitution, the failure to get the Constitutional Court in place -- all these are parts of a pattern.


Some "democrats" still refuse to see what is happening. The respected sociologist Tatyana Zaslavskaya told me the other day that a friend of hers, a loyal "democrat," argued fiercely with her that the invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 was criminal because Russia attacked an "independent country," whereas the offensive against Chechnya is a different matter, since Chechnya is part of Russia. What a remarkable reapplication of the Brezhnev Doctrine!


A democratic friend of mine, a deputy in the Duma, when asked why he continued supporting Yeltsin, answered ruefully, "And whom should we support? Zyuganov?" The "no alternative" mentality, it has been said, is a step toward totalitarianism. Today's Russia is still far from a totalitarian country. But unless the people who have supported Yeltsin step back and begin to act as a real opposition, they will find themselves, with all of Russia, creeping toward a new autocracy.





Abraham Brumberg writes frequently on Russia and Eastern Europe. He contributed this comment to The Moscow Times.