YELTSIN SPEECH GETS MIXED REVIEWS.

Reception for Yeltsin’s speech inside Russia was largely negative. The reform-oriented newspaper Segodnya voiced unease that, instead of attacking the Communists, the president directed his fire at the reform wing of his own government. (4) The Communist speaker of the Duma, Gennady Seleznev, pointed out how close many of Yeltsin’s statements were to Communist party policies, but party leader Gennady Zyuganov complained that, while he agreed with much of what the president had said, this was merely because Yeltsin had parroted things the Communists had been saying for the past three years. The president "blames everyone but himself," Zyuganov said. Mikhail Lipton, leader of the Agrarian party, took issue with what he saw as Yeltsin’s promise to facilitate private land ownership through legislation allowing the mortgaging of land. (5) Western news reports, meanwhile, concentrated on Yeltsin’s promise not to abandon economic reform and expressed the hope that his criticism of the mistakes made in the reform process would prove to be merely electioneering rhetoric.

Increased Government Expenditure Could Backfire on Yeltsin.