CHUBAIS EXPLAINS WHY HE IS SUPPORTING YELTSIN.

Anatoly Chubais, sacked from his government post by President Yeltsin earlier this year, reacted calmly in a recent interview to the Duma’s latest efforts to reverse the privatization program that Chubais masterminded. (Novoe vremya, No. 16) Chubais dismissed accusations of wrongdoing leveled against two of his former subordinates in the State Property Committee (GKI) as "an attempt to use the law to settle political scores" and said none of the charges would stick in court. He stressed that Duma investigators had produced no evidence of corruption by the GKI officials — Petr Mostovoi and Alfred Kokh — and that the two have been accused merely of "overstepping their official authority." "Everyone knows," Chubais said, "that that charge is brought only when it’s impossible to find anything more compromising."

But Chubais is not sanguine about the possibility of a Communist victory in June’s presidential elections, since "some political forces are calling not just for nationalization, but for confiscation." Chubais said confiscation of private property would destroy the rule of law so painstakingly established in Russia. He defended his own controversial decision to support Boris Yeltsin’s campaign for reelection on these grounds. "Yeltsin is only one person in Russia today who is capable of stopping the Communist revenge." Other candidates, such as Grigory Yavlinsky, might be personally more attractive, Chubais acknowledged, "But we aren’t choosing a friend or a bride, we’re choosing the future of Russia." (Novoe vremya, No. 16)

Duma Looks Into Army’s Problems.