Russia divided

Those looking for signs of the likely direction Russian President Boris Yeltsin will take in his second term did not have long to wait. First came the shameful escalation of his war against the Chechen people, despite his campaign promise to seek a negotiated solution. Then came the suspicious appointment of Anatoli Chubais, a committed reformer and deft bureaucratic operator, as his chief of staff.

That these two important signals seem contradictory should come as no surprise. Mr. Yeltsin, Russia's first democratically elected leader, zigged and zagged through his first term in office, and his second is likely to follow the same pattern. This is so because Russian society itself remains radically divided, as the 40 percent vote for Mr. Yeltsin's communist opponent shows, and because the country faces problems of almost unimaginable severity, for which any remedy will pain many.

An example: entire cities in the far north are not economically viable, relics of a vain Soviet ambition to conquer nature at any cost. Russia can no longer afford to run those cities, but neither can it afford to resettle their inhabitants farther south. The inevitable intense struggle over such issues works against bold and consistent action.

Such pushes and pulls are bound to increase, moreover, since with his reelection Mr. Yeltsin became a lame duck. The struggle now is for the succession as well as for influence, the more so as his physical and psychological health remain in question.

The United States will see these contradictory impulses in Russia's foreign policy. Nationalism and resentment of the West are strong and perhaps growing. But powerful players in the new economy, represented in part by Mr. Chubais and by Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin, understand the benefits of trade and openness. These strands, too, will continue to do battle.

Through his first term, Mr. Yeltsin managed to push and be pushed generally in the direction of economic reform and democratization. His reappointment of his prime minister, a pragmatic moderate, and especially his appointment of Mr. Chubais suggest that he now may hope to jolt the nation further in that direction. Whether his failing health or the sapping war in Chechnya will undermine such a move remains to be seen.

In fact, the most important events in Russia no longer take place inside, nor are they controlled by, the Kremlin. After seven decades of centralized rule, regions are going their own way and people are shaping private lives unencumbered by ideology or fear. If Mr. Yeltsin survives long enough, the most telling consequence of his second term for many Russians may be irrelevance. For survivors of totalitarianism, that would be no small triumph.

-- The Washington Post