POLITICAL CHANGE AND THE NORTHERN CAUCASUS…

The financial crisis is not the only source of political turmoil. The rising violence and threat of civil war in Chechnya and Dagestan provoke more emotion and bear more directly on the fundamental nature of the Russian state. Four political figures, not previously known to be allies, jointly sent an open letter to the government, attacking President Yeltsin’s handling of the situation and demanding a coherent (but unspecified) policy toward the region. The four bedfellows, all with personal experience as negotiators with the Chechens, are former Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin; Krasnoyarsk governor, General Aleksandr Lebed; media, banking, and energy magnate Boris Berezovsky; and Tatarstan’s president, Mintimer Shaimiev.

The letter left many with the impression that a new political bloc is under construction, to be completed in time to compete for the presidency in the year 2000. Nezavisimaya gazeta, Boris Berezovsky’s newspaper, reinforced this impression by commenting that the four are “unlikely to restrict themselves to writing letters.” But Saratov governor Dmitri Ayatskov, who harbors presidential ambitions of his own, took them down a peg. “You can’t,” he said, “mate a hedgehog, a snake, a rhinoceros, and a parrot.”