CHUBAIS DISMISSES POSSIBILITY OF RENATIONALIZATION.

CamdessusÕs insistence that there must be no backtracking on privatization goes to the heart of a debate now raging in Russia: if a future Communist government tries (as seems likely) to renationalize significant areas of the Russian economy, will it be able to do so? Former first deputy prime minister Anatoly Chubais argued in an interview published yesterday that it will not. He said that, as a result of the policies implemented since 1991 (that is, during the period that Chubais was overseeing privatization), renationalization is now impossible in Russia. "When I hear [Communist party leader] Gennady Zyuganov telling western businessmen that he favors the coexistence of different forms of ownership and that he supports foreign investment,Ó Chubais said, ÒI realize that he says these things because we have left him with no other choice. It seems that we have established the kind of roadblock that will doom communism in Russia to total defeat." (2) ChubaisÕs comments form part of a debate over nationalization between members of the reform camp and their Communist opponents. The debate crystallized in the pages of Izvestiya last week. In an article published February 14, Academician Sergei Alekseev, a leading constitutional lawyer, argued that RussiaÕs new Civil Code, which comes into effect next month, will defend the country against attempts by a Communist government to roll back economic and political reforms. The following day, a leading Communist party member countered in the same newspaper that a Communist government would not feel itself bound by laws passed under previous administrations. ÒWhat right has a court to oppose itself to the will of the people?Ó demanded Yuri Ivanov, Communist deputy to the Duma. (3)

Russian Parliament Approves Council Of Europe Membership.