THE “PARTY OF POWER.”

Happily claiming this rubric for his own, Russian Prime Minister Chernomyrdin held an organizational meeting of his new political bloc, “Russia is Our Home,” Itar-Tass reported April 29. While Foreign Minister Kozyrev has said he will not join the bloc, others have rushed to join the new party, including first deputy premiers Anatoly Chubais and Oleg Soskovets, deputy premier Sergei Shakhrai, the heads of major industrial enterprises, and Tatarstan President Mentimir Shaimiyev. Chernomyrdin claimed that extremists of the left and right would be “sidelined once our movement and another constructive bloc created by Ivan Rybkin gain strength.” The new bloc is to have its first congress May 12.

The “Inertia of Instability.”