Word: kremlins
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Hardly anyone in the Yeltsin administration, including those close to the top, seems to believe that Lebed was really planning a coup. The Kremlin's willingness to tolerate Lebed's constant criticism, however, has provided a subtle barometer of the Yeltsin administration's own confidence. In the past few weeks this appears to have declined sharply. Lebed, the most popular politician in the country at large, has never had many admirers in the government. Until now, however, the predominant view among people like presidential chief of staff Anatoli Chubais has been that Lebed should be kept inside the tent, where...
Lebed's firing was the climax of three unedifying weeks of political maneuvering and smear campaigns, conducted through the media and sometimes by them, during which former Kremlin officials and present senior ministers have traded mutual accusations of contract murders, high treason, corruption and spying on one another. Nobody, of course, has been arrested in connection with these allegations. During most of this time Yeltsin--now largely reduced to symbolic 60-sec. taped appearances on the evening news--sat quietly by, occasionally expressing incongruously mild disapproval. All this came to an end in the middle of last week. Interior Minister...
...dismissal also sheds a revealing light on the deep anxiety that lies behind the bland confidence the Kremlin likes to exude. The President's entourage are much more worried about Yeltsin's health--and the possibility of abrupt incapacitation--than they will admit publicly. And if the government falls even farther behind this fall and winter with its payroll, aides are concerned about public uprisings. Their nightmare is that both events will happen simultaneously. Speaking to TIME, a Kremlin adviser described the scenario they sought to pre-empt by firing Lebed: unrest breaks out, Yeltsin's failing health disables...
...plain speaking and his undiluted conviction that Russia has a place as a great power make him popular with the electorate. Now that Lebed is out, he can portray himself as the last honest man in the Yeltsin administration, a result which is probably a calculated risk on the Kremlin's part. After a series of confrontations with former ally Defense Minister Igor Rodionov, and Interior Minister Anatoly Kulikov which sent charges of contract murder, treason, corruption spying and coup plotting (which no one seems to believe) flying through the press, Yeltsin seems to have decided that Lebed was better...
...long run, if there is a long run, Lebed could face a serious challenge from the Prime Minister. Chernomyrdin, 58, received a very restrained vote of confidence from Yeltsin last week when, after two weeks of hesitation, the Kremlin announced he would indeed act as President during the President's incapacitation. But if Yeltsin has his way, Chernomyrdin will have little time to project himself to the public as a steady, reassuring leader. He will assume presidential powers when Yeltsin goes into the operating room and surrender them when the anesthetic wears off. Chernomyrdin has other problems. The most immediate...