Memories of '93 Fade as Key Figures Move On

At the time, a mere two years ago, it seemed that the images would live forever: A defiant Alexander Rutskoi, self-proclaimed president of his own Russian Republic, exhorting followers to storm the Ostankino television center; a blackened White House, under fire from government tanks; a near-catatonic Ruslan Khasbulatov being led away to prison after he and Rutskoi finally left the burning parliament building.


But the candlelit sessions in the electricity-starved White House; the campfires outside it, where opposition supporters huddled and sang; and, finally, the bodies in the streets after two days of bitter fighting have receded in the collective memory, replaced by the more recent spectacles afforded by the Russian political scene.


"It is a sad state of affairs to think that the people responsible for October are doing fine now," said Sergei Parkhomenko, political observer for the newspaper Segodnya.


But who was responsible for the tragedy? The standoff between the president and the Supreme Soviet left at least 123 people dead, hundreds wounded and caused incalculable damage to the nation's fragile democratic aspirations.


An investigation by the Prosecutor General's Office, released in September, apportioned blame equally between the president and his foes. Not that it mattered much judicially: The hardliners who urged their supporters on to violence ended up in prison, but were amnestied by the State Duma, against the president's wishes, in February 1994.


A recent poll by the Public Opinion Foundation found that 48 percent of Muscovites had no strong feelings about who the guilty parties were -- 36 percent placed the blame with the president and his supporters, while 16 percent faulted the Supreme Soviet.


Attempts to stir public indignation on the anniversary of the events have been largely ignored. Despite a warning by Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov that there would be "provocations" during the anniversary aimed at derailing the democratic process and postponing the parliamentary elections, the capital has remained quiet, almost indifferent.


The date has been marked by a series of small, and, in the main, dignified gatherings devoted more to honoring the dead than to damning the living. The vast majority of the public have no taste -- and no patience -- for remembering the nightmare days of 1993.


Most of the key players in the events of Oct. 3-4,1993, have also put the past behind them, although the long-range effects of the tragedy are hard to gauge.


President Boris Yeltsin, the central figure in the 1993 confrontation, has seen his support crumble in the two years since October 1993. The once vigorous reformer is now seen as an ineffectual bumbler at the mercy of his handlers.


Khasbulatov, the wily speaker of the Supreme Soviet, is back on the political scene after two years in obscurity. With the president's blessing, Khasbulatov is trying to use his influence in the region to broker a peace agreement.


Rutskoi, who proclaimed himself president of the republic after Yeltsin dissolved parliament on Sept. 21, 1993, is apparently trying to make it official now. As head of the nationalist party Derzhava, Rutskoi is campaigning for a seat in the Duma with his sights firmly set on the 1996 presidential elections.


But most analysts have written off the erstwhile war hero and vice president as a viable political figure.


Vladislav Achalov, Rutskoi's "defense minister" is also back, heading the list of the Patriots's Union electoral bloc. Together with radical nationalist General Alexander Sterligov, he is campaigning on a platform that includes a stipulation that only ethnically pure Russians be allowed to hold office.


Many of the other names that figured prominently in the news of the period are now surfacing in the political vocabulary: Sergei Baburin, Ilya Konstantinov, Oleg Rumyantsev and Viktor Anpilov are all campaigning hard to be included in the new Duma.