October 21, 1997   
This Date's Issues: 1299 • 1300 • 1301

Johnson's Russia List
#1300
21 October 1997
davidjohnson@erols.com

[Note from David Johnson:
1. Rossiiskaya Gazeta: President Yeltsin's October 17 radio
address on conflict with the Parliament.
2. AP: Communists Withdraw Campaign Bid.
3. Reuters: Solzhenitsyn Creates Literary Award.
4.Aleksandr Domrin: Re Jaworsky vs Domrin (#1281).
5. Interfax: Yeltsin Aide Skeptical About Recognition Of Chechen 
Independence.
6. Los Angeles Times: Robert Scheer, Moving From Russia to 
the World. Gorbachev has wholeheartedly taken on the unfinished work 
of peace--global environment. 
7. Boston Globe: Benjamin Schwarz, Why Russians are worrying.
8. Interfax: Soros Denies Getting Involved in Russian 
Politics.
9. Segodnya: Georgy Bovt, ROUND-TABLE KNIGHTS. There are no 
issues which Boris Yeltsin could not resolve with leaders of 
Communists.
10. Komsomolskaya Pravda: IMPLEMENTING THE RUSSIAN MILITARY 
REFORM. High-placed Russian experts and officials speak their mind
on the current military reform.
11. New York Times: William Broad, Scientists Say Tremor in 
Russia Was Not Caused by Nuclear Blast. (DJ: Shades of the
Reagan era. The Pulitzer-prize winning history of the assorted
trumped up charges against the Evil Empire in the 1980s
has yet to be written. Of course, all's fair in love and war but
at some point one hopes to get the history straight.)
12. New York Times: Warren Christopher and William Perry, NATO's 
True Mission. (Excerpt re Russia)]

********

#1
>From RIA Novosti
Rossiiskaya Gazeta
October 18, 1997
YELTSIN'S RADIO ADDRESS [October 17]

Dear Russians, stormy political events are now taking
place in this country. The State Duma is displeased with the
Government's work and does not like the draft budget it
submitted for the next year. They even tried to make the
Government resign. As people read the papers and listen to the
news on radio and television, they worry how this would all end
and how this would affect their lives.
Their concern is understandable. Too often in the
past--and even quite recently--political conflicts hit the
ordinary people hard, so now any possible changes may seem
ominous and dangerous to them. It seems that they may threaten
their normal life.
I declare with a full sense of responsibility that
everything that is taking place today is part of civilised
political struggle. You can't expect all to agree about
everything in a normal society.
Look: in all industrialised nations conflicts often arise
between parliament and government. Governments change and
parliaments are re-elected and there is no catastrophe. There
is no catastrophe in Russia either. It's all part of normal,
everyday life.
The Government keeps working. The President is fully in
control of the situation in the country. How will the situation
further develop? What surprises and unexpected developments may
be in store for us? 
I want to reassure you: there will be no surprises. All
procedures are described in detail in the Constitution. It
states in no vague terms that when the Duma gives the
Government a vote of no confidence, it is for the President to
decide whether to let the Government resign or disband the Duma
and call a new election. As you can see, there is a simple and
comprehensible political procedure.
We often gripe about our life and do not want to see
changes. If there was anything we lacked, it is the democratic
mechanism to change power. 
Let us recall how this all happened before: through
intrigues, plots and coups. Let us recall 1953, the year when
Stalin died. Remember 1964, the year when Khrushchev was
removed. I remember how many people tried to guess a year and a
half ago if the President would cancel the election or not.
Many argued: why should he let the election take place if he
may lose it? It's silly to take such risk.
During many long years people became accustomed to seeing
the rulers do whatever they saw fit. They became accustomed to
regarding the Constitution as decoration. Since it was an
accepted thing in any civilised society to have a Constitution,
we also had a Constitution. Those times are history now. I am
convinced that they are gone for good. Now we can say that we
have a stable system of political power. 
We build upon clear constitutional procedures, which rule
out any surprises and political conflicts are gradually losing
their power to influence people's lives and no longer worry
them much.
We may not be aware of this, but our life has changed
dramatically and although political passions still run high,
they run high without breaking the law. True, there are people
who are not happy with the regime, the Government and the
President. I know that some of them will take to the streets on
November 7. They have the right to do so and no obstacles will
be put up for them. 
I'm sure, however, that most will take a rest and enjoy
their day off. 
True, the authorities could have done more to improve
people's lives and ensure order in the country. But it's wrong
to say that nothing has been done. A lot has been done and
thanks to what has been done, we can survive all political
cataclysms without fear. We are learning a lesson in democracy
and I think we are learning it well.
Whoever may call for mass riots must know that there are
effective and working mechanisms for change of power. They are
legitimate, normal and peaceful.
Nevertheless, I would like the current political crisis to
resolve as soon as possible. It has done this country no good.
During a week of debate in the Duma the price of Russian
industrial shares fell by three trillion roubles. It is an
enormous lot of money. We should no longer increase these
losses or leave the country without a Government. We must not
let the situation lead to a new election of deputies. That
would be too hard a blow at our economy.
The executive and legislative branches of power should sit
at a table and start a dialogue. They must look for compromise,
having Russia and the well-being of its people uppermost in
their minds.
That is why I believe that a "roundtable" of political
parties and movements will be useful for the earliest possible
resolution of the crisis. The President, the Prime Minister and
the speakers of the two houses of the Federal Assembly will
continue their constructive co-operation. We shall be able to
settle all disputes and remove all differences. They are not so
insoluble after all. All depends on our political will. The
President and the Government have this will.
Once again I'm taking a step forward, once again I'm
holding out a hand and one shouldn't interpret this as a sign
of weakness. It is a call for common sense. Now it's the
deputies' turn. I hope they will heed my call.
We have created an effective and stable political system
and that is why autumn is an ordinary, not "hot", season for us
now. It is the time for doing ordinary things, such as making
sauerkraut and canning vegetables and fruit. It's time for
caulking windows and buying winter clothes. This is what autumn
is for us now. 
Thank you.

********

#2
Communists Withdraw Campaign Bid 
October 21, 1997
By SERGEI SHARGORODSKY 
Associated Press Writer 

MOSCOW (AP) -- Boris Yeltsin's Communist-led opponents decided today to
end a campaign to try
to force his government from office, saying they were satisfied with the
Russian president's efforts to
meet their demands. 
``All the questions we posed, he promised to solve,'' said Communist
leader Gennady Zyuganov, who
leads parliament's largest faction. ``The faction has made the decision to
take this issue off the agenda.''
The no-confidence motion had been scheduled for a vote Wednesday. 
Yeltsin and the parliament have been sparring for weeks over the 1998
budget and other key issues
such as land reform and a new tax code. 
Last week, parliament debated a motion to vote no-confidence in
Yeltsin's administration, but put off
the vote after the president intervened. Since then, Yeltsin has worked to
avert a vote. 
``I think neither we nor the Russian people need such a fight,''
Yeltsin said during a meeting with
parliament leaders in the Kremlin. 
The Communists' decision came after a day of high-level meetings and a
letter from Yeltsin in which he
promised to consult the opposition on a number of issues, including land
ownership and taxes. 
Specifically, Yeltsin ordered his government to withdraw the current
version of tax reform and consult
with parliament on a new version. He also pledged to work on housing
reform and land ownership,
and to consider ways to compensate those who lost their savings when the
ruble plummeted after the
collapse of the Soviet Union. 
Yeltsin and the prime minister have also agreed to hold regular
meetings with parliament leaders and to
convene a roundtable of 23 political leaders to discuss controversial
issues. And they agreed to give
parliament more access to the state-run media. 
The Communists and other hardliners in parliament argue that Yeltsin's
proposed 1998 budget is too
austere. They would like to increase state funding for the military,
agriculture, pensions and other social
programs. 
The hardliners control the largest bloc of seats in the 450-member
Duma. They would have needed
226 votes to pass a no-confidence measure. 

********

#3
Solzhenitsyn Creates Literary Award 
Reuters
21 October 1997

MOSCOW -- Alexander Solzhenitsyn, the Nobel prize-winning author, on
Tuesday announced the creation of an annual literary prize aimed at
reviving the traditions of Russian literature. 
The award, made public by his family, represents a challenge to the
Russian literary establishment, which has largely shunned the reclusive
writer since his return from a 20-year exile in 1994. 
Solzhenitsyn, 79, spent two weeks in hospital last May, suffering from
what his family said was angina pectoris, a complaint caused by the failure
of the coronary arteries to carry sufficient blood to the heart. 
Solzhenitsyn's wife, Natalya, said he had now recovered, having never
interrupted his grueling work schedule, not even in hospital. 
"He did not have a stroke. He did not have a heart attack," she said. 
In some cases, bypass surgery may be needed if drugs fail to control
angina, but she said the doctors had ruled out surgery in Solzhenitsyn's
case. 
"The doctors said it was not necessary," she said. 
The Alexander Solzhenitsyn prize will be worth $25,000 and will be
funded entirely from royalties for Gulag Archipelago, his history of the
labor camps in which Lenin and Stalin sent millions to work and die. 
Solzhenitsyn was forcibly deported from the Soviet Union after the
book's publication abroad in 1974 and decided to donate all earnings from
Gulag Archipelago to help the families of Soviet political prisoners. 
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the money from Gulag Archipelago
has mostly been used to support Russian culture, as well as to provide an
income for some 1,000 sick and elderly camp survivors. 
His wife said annual payments from the Alexander Solzhenitsyn Fund had
in recent years averaged $500,000. The book has been translated into 30
languages. 
A statement said the prize would be awarded to works which helped
Russian society to understand itself and "made a significant contribution
to the development of (Russian) literary traditions." 
His wife said there would be no bias in favor of old fashioned works and
that the only consideration was that the prize-winning book "should make
people think." Both Solzhenitsyn and his wife will be members of the jury. 
Solzhenitsyn himself is within 12 months due to bring out a book of
recollections of the 20 years he spent in exile, she said. This will be
followed by his reflections on what he has seen in Russia since his return. 
She said in purely literary terms, he had returned to a classical
Russian tradition, writing short stories and poems in prose -- whose length
contrasts starkly with that of his mammoth historical cycle, The Red Wheel. 
Last month, he denounced the decay of Russian culture over the last two
decades, blaming the pernicious influence of money, cheap television and a
lack of spirituality. 
His difficult relations with the Russian literary elite -- many of whose
members enjoyed a pampered life under Communist rule -- were summed up last
June by Lyudmila Saraskina, a member of the Solzhenitsyn prize jury. 
She said his enemies could not forgive him his uncompromising stand
during Soviet rule or the fact that he had been right over the future of
communism. 
"Now they are trying to persuade the world he is an empty vessel, a
fallen idol," she wrote. 

******

#4
Date: Tue, 21 Oct 1997 17:44:26 +0400
From: "Aleksandr Domrin " <esmir@gov.ru>
Subject: Re Jaworsky vs Domrin (#1281)

Greetings from Kupavna, Russia -
In my letter on Stalin Era Graves and Against What Nations Stalin's Crimes
Were Aimed (JRL # 1219, 23 September 1997), I quoted a serious study based on
archival evidence. I would agree with Mr. John (Ivan) Jaworsky that my
citation
was "woefully incomplete" (JRL #1281, 13 October 1997), only if he was able to
prove - with archival evidence and statistics in his hands - that the
conclusion 
of J.Arch Getty, Gabor T.Rittersporn, and Victor N.Zemskov was false, or if
he 
was able to present data covering post-Stalin period. However, Mr. Jaworsky 
admits himself that he hasn't conducted "any research" on the subject. 
What we hear from him instead are stories based on some memoirs and other 
secondary sources. Are they more reliable and less "woefully incomplete"? 
I checked the publication in American Historical Review (Oct.1993) again. 
That's what Table 4 says (P.1028):
Ethnic Group 1939 camps % 1939 Census % 

Russians 63.05 58.09
Ukrainians 13.81 16.47
Tatars 1.89 2.52
Jews 1.50 1.77
Germans 1.41 0.84
Poles 1.28 0.37 
Latvians 0.58 0.07
/.../
On the next page, the authors make two remarks. The first one explains
repressions against the Latvians by the fact that they "were heavily 
represented in the party and state administration". (Remember "Lettysh
shooters", the most trusted guards of Lenin and his gang?) The other one
concerns Jews: "The under-representation of those of Jewish background is 
somewhat surprising, given the relatively high proportion of Jews in the
party membership and in responsible positions. At the beginning of 1937,
they constituted the third largest ethnic group in the party" (P.1029).
By a coincidence, at this moment I am preparing a lecture dedicated 
to hysteria around circumstances of Petr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's death. 
Nicholay Slonimsky, a prominent Russian-American musical critic visited the 
USSR in 1962 to collect materials clarifying Tchaikovsky's "misterious"
death, 
and had to admit that what he heard from his "educated" friends among Russian 
"intelligentsia" reminded him of "gothic horror stories". In one of them, 
Tchaikovsky was killed by Rimsky-Korsakov out of jealosy, like Mozart was 
allegedly killed by Salieri (another lie); in another story, Emperor
Alexander III 
was allegedly so infuriated with Tchaikovsky's homosexual relations 
(Tchaikovsky's homosexuality is a fact) with a member of the 
Royal family that he (personally!) made an ultimatum to Tchaikovsky's family: 
"Poison or Siberia!", and the poor composer chose death. 
In reality P.I. died of cholera. 
DA MALO LI CHO TOLPA BOLTAET! exclaimed Slonimsky. 
Think about it, Mr. Jaworsky.

*********

#5
Yeltsin Aide Skeptical About Recognition Of Chechen Independence

MOSCOW, Oct 21 (Interfax) - The Chechen leadership's claims that several
countries are ready to recognize the independence of Chechnya "contain a
big dose of overestimation of Grozny's international potential," President
Boris Yeltsin's press secretary told Interfax Tuesday referring to a Monday
statement by Chechen First Deputy Prime Minister Movladi Udugov. 
Sergei Yastrzhembsky called it wishful thinking on the part of the
Chechen authorities. 
He said the question of international recognition is monitored by the
Russian Foreign Ministry and presidential administration. "We have no facts
confirming such forecasts by Udugov," he said. 
He said Udugov's claim that stability in the North Caucasus directly
depends on the recognition of Chechen independence by the federal
government Yastrzhembsky said: "Grozny is interested in stability no less
than Moscow." 

********

#6
Los Angeles Times
21 October 1997
[for personal use only]
COLUMN LEFT
Moving From Russia to the World 
Gorbachev has wholeheartedly taken on the unfinished work of peace--global
environment. 
By ROBERT SCHEER
Robert Scheer Is a Times Contributing Editor. E-mail: Rscheer@aol.com
  
Mikhail Gorbachev and James Bond, united to save the environment. Hard
to believe, but there was Gorby, the once all-powerful leader of the Soviet
empire, beaming happily at a star-studded bash in Beverly Hills. Gorbachev
is now the president of the environmental group Green Cross International,
and its local affiliate was giving actor Pierce Brosnan, who has played
Bond, an award for his work on behalf of the planet. 
     "I love being on the same side as James Bond," Gorbachev said. "He
always wins." It was a bittersweet comment from a man honored throughout
the world for ending the Cold War but ignored, at best, in his own country. 
     Interviewing him later in a small hotel room in Beverly Hills, he
seemed the same as when I last observed him 10 years ago holding sway at a
conference on nuclear disarmament in the Kremlin--didactic, long-winded,
but ever thoughtful. 
     Back then, his forceful words carried the import of a history that was
his to control: the ending of the Cold War. Then, he was the leader of vast
armies, and we hung on every word. But now he is a man without a country to
lead, left to remind us of the unfinished business of peace--to make the
world whole. 
     Crisscrossing the globe, he speaks of dolphins and resource-efficient
affordable housing and the fragility of our supply of fresh water. In Los
Angeles, he hunkered down with officials of the Department of Water and
Power and other experts on the preservation of scarce water resources. He
takes seriously his role as an ombudsman, invited by leaders in the Middle
East and South America to help resolve the water conflicts in the Jordan
River and the Pilcomayo River basins. 
     But the more provocative message of Gorbachev and his organization,
which is called Global Green in this country, is that rapid economic growth
in the developing as well as industrial world, if not checked in a socially
responsible way, will prove disastrous. 
     His is one of the rare voices challenging the equation of individual
freedom with an unfettered market economy. "If we insist on consumerism as
the new Utopia," he has said, "nature will reject such a system as surely
as cultural diversity rejected the totalitarian system." 
     Gorbachev is the ghost of our pretensions to be adult stewards of the
world. He believed us when we talked of a postwar era in which military
preoccupations would give way to solving the enduring problems of global
waste, human rights and poverty. Instead, we, along with our new partners
in Russia and China, are major purveyors of the arms trade, rapidly
equipping others to fight. At the same time, our old enemies are now
seeking to emulate our vastly disproportionate consumption of the earth's
nonrenewable resources. 
     When still in power, Gorbachev attempted through perestroika to move
Russia down the path of Western European style social democracy. He was
criticized during the Reagan years for not more fully embracing the
dictates of the market economy and was denied most-favored-nation trade
status. 
     By contrast, the inherently undemocratic Chinese model, which offers
none of the religious and political freedoms that Gorbachev opened up in
the old Soviet Union, has been hailed as an enormous success. Gorbachev
presided over the dissolution of the Soviet empire while China has gobbled
up Hong Kong, demands the return of Taiwan and is more repressive than ever
in Tibet. But China has those free trade zones, a work force kept docile,
weak environmental protections and other concessions to business that would
warm the heart of the toughest corporate executive. 
     Now, the powerful U.S. corporate-financed China lobby is pushing the
president to authorize the transfer of U.S. nuclear technology to China
despite the judgment of the CIA that Beijing is the key supplier of
missiles and nuclear materials to rogue states. Westinghouse and General
Electric see big profits building nuclear power plants in China, but
Gorbachev is less sanguine about the future of nuclear power, having
memories of presiding over the dark uncertainties of the Chernobyl disaster. 
     At a time when Nobel laureate Henry Kissinger hustles deals for
communist China and any other country with big bucks, it is refreshing to
find Nobel laureate Gorbachev looking out for the interests of the rest of
us. 
     There is an ebullience to the man that marks him more indelibly than
the famous birthmark on his forehead, and one wishes him well. But as actor
Brosnan pointed out in his acceptance speech at the awards dinner, in the
real life battles to save the environment, as opposed to those fought by
James Bond, the good guys often lose. 

********

#7
Boston Globe
21 October 1997
[for personal use only]
Why Russians are worrying 
By Benjamin Schwarz
Benjamin Schwarz is executive editor of the World Policy Journal and
contributing editor of The Atlantic Monthly. 

NEW YORK
With the recent opening of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee's
hearings, official discussion and debate on expanding NATO eastward has
begun. The public should take heed, because what is being debated is
nothing less than the most significant and dangerous extension of the US
security commitments since the late 1940s. Before Americans pursue this
course, which is favored by both Republican and Democratic leaders, they
should understand where it could lead. 
First, the logic that dictates NATO expansion, like the domino theory,
ensures an exhausting proliferation of ''security'' commitments. The
reasoning goes that if America must guarantee the stability of Western
Europe, under the revised mandate of NATO, it must also stabilize those
areas that could unsettle Western Europe. 
Proponents of enlarging the US-led alliance often argue, for instance,
that NATO must spread to prevent turmoil in Eastern Europe because mass
immigration to Western Europe could threaten stability there. But unrest
in, say, Ukraine or North Africa could also destabilize Western Europe.
Must NATO and its nuclear umbrella, then, expand still farther eastward and
southward than is proposed? Senator Richard Lugar, an ardent advocate of
NATO expansion, argues that ''there can be no lasting security at the
center without security at the periphery.'' But if this formula is
accepted, the ostensible threats to American security will be nearly endless. 
Although, as President Clinton has recognized, the dollar cost of NATO's
expansion will be high - last year America spent about $90 billion just to
maintain the stability of Europe's Western half - other costs may be even
greater. NATO expansion could provoke a new Cold War. 
The Cold War ended with the dissolution of the Warsaw pact and the
breakup of the Soviet Union. Moscow agreed to quit Eastern Europe and to
allow German unification - a development, given the history of
German-Russian relations in the 20th century, that Moscow regarded with
trepidation. Moreover, Russia acceded to the continued existence of an
alliance that had been hostile to it and even agreed to the inclusion of
the newly unified Germany in that alliance. In return, Moscow received
assurances from the United States and its allies that they would not take
advantage of this situation to tip the geopolitical balance in a way that
would potentially threaten Russia's security. 
From Moscow's perspective, the United States, by pushing to bring its
powerful military alliance to Russia's borders, has reneged on this
bargain. Indeed, opposition to NATO's extension is probably the one issue
that unites virtually the entire Russian political class, from pro-Western
''moderates'' to ''ultra-nationalists.'' 
Of course, some US foreign policy experts argue that no democratic
government in Russia could regard the enlargement of America's sphere of
influence in Eastern Europe as a hostile act and that only ''extremist''
Russians could harbor suspicions about NATO's intentions. 
Partisans of this view assume that if Washington regards NATO expansion
as a benign act, Russia should view matters the same way. Any deviation
from that perspective is evidence of faulty thinking, or worse, malign
intent. 
But Russians have good reasons to worry about an enlarged NATO. Great
powers have always been more concerned about competitors' capabilities than
about their intentions - because intentions can change quickly. In the
post-Cold War era, NATO remains the most powerful military alliance the
world has ever seen. Even those Russians who are not closet aggressors are
anxious about having such an impressive military association poised on
their borders. They wonder, for example, what NATO's response might be if
Moscow (for whatever reason) opposed Western policy toward Ukraine, where
Russia has long-standing ethnic ties and other interests. 
An enlarged NATO bloc would, at the very least, be an intimidating
presence, guaranteeing that Russia would have little choice but to go along
with the alliance's policy preferences - even if Russian leaders believed
those policies to be misguided, unjust, or contrary to Russia's own best
interest. Any great power would chafe at such constraints and the
subordination they symbolize. 
Although American officials argue that NATO expansion is a
nonthreatening act, it is, as President Clinton has acknowledged, a means
to consolidate and extend America's military and political leadership in
Europe. If NATO becomes the dominant security organization on the
continent, Russia, a European power, will be excluded from Europe's councils. 
Moscow has thus advocated that in the post-Cold War era Europe's
security not be tied to Cold War institutions but to broader organizations,
such as the Organization of Cooperation and Security in Europe, in which
Russia plays an important, though not dominant, role. Granted, such large
and unwieldy assemblies cannot be easily transformed into efficient
military alliances. An alternative might be to transform the European Union
into a body with collective security, as well as political and economic,
responsibilities. Regardless, the question that Russia's leaders ask
remains a legitmate one: With no enemy threatening the continent, why must
Europe's security remain the responsibility of an orgtanization run by a
superpower across the Atlantic? 
Forty-seven years ago the French commentator J. J. Servan-Schreiber
defined America's role in Europe: ''When a nation bars the responsibility
for the military security and the economic stability of a geographic zone,
that nation is in fact - whether it wants it or not - the head of an
empire.'' Whatever Washington's motivations, the America's expansion of its
imperial role in Europe cannot help but alarm Russia and thus create an
enemy where none now exists. 

*********

#8
Soros Denies Getting Involved in Russian Politics 
Interfax
20 October 1997
MOSCOW -- U.S. businessman and philanthropist George Soros on Monday denied
a suggestion that by buying shares in Russian telecommunications holding
company Svyazinvest, he had become involved in Russia's politics. 
Soros told a news conference in Moscow the purchase was a normal
investment deal. 
The scandal over the sales of Svyazinvest stock has made it possible to
make the privatization process in Russia more open, he said, adding that
the uproar raised in the Russian press about the deal has shown to what
extent this kind of procedure used to be manipulated. 
Soros said he spent nearly $1 billion on the Svyazinvest investment. He
said the Russian media had reported a lot of misinformation as well as
truth about the deal and himself. 
Media outlets controlled by the losing bidders in the Svyazinvest
auction launched a heated attack on President Boris Yeltsin's reformers,
First Deputy Prime Ministers Anatoly Chubais and Boris Nemtsov. The attacks
prompted Yeltsin to call the country's leading bankers and businessmen to
the Kremlin to ask for a cease-fire. 
Soros also said as he and the Renaissance Capital company were putting
their money into Svyazinvest, he knew the investment company was a
competent partner. He expressed his willingness to deal with other
investment companies which operate in the open market. 
Soros described Renaissance Capital head Boris Jordan, a U.S. citizen,
as a competent, energetic and capable person. He said he had known Jordan
for a long time. (Jordan recently had his multi-entry Russian visa revoked,
an incident decried by Nemtsov, who characterized Jordan as a victim of the
war between Russia's bankers.) 
Soros also said he had met Uneximbank head Vladimir Potanin, with whom
he teamed up to purchase the Svyazinvest shares, two weeks ago. 
The financier denied he would take part in an auction for the sale of
another 24 percent of Svyazinvest shares, saying he hoped foreign as well
as Russian companies would present bids in the auction. 
Soros said he plans to hold the Svyazinvest shares until he can resell
them at a profit. He added, however, that he plans to spend much more on
charitable programs in Russia than on making business profits. 
Soros said he would be glad to cooperate with the current Russian
government, especially its reform-minded elements. 
He denied he was buying politicians, but said he was using his capital
to pursue his own policy aimed at building an open society. He said he did
this openly as he had nothing to hide or be ashamed of. 
In response to a suggestion that his business deals in Russia served to
consolidate the country's oligarchy, Soros said strengthening the oligarchy
would benefit Russia. This would be a step forward for the country, he
argued. It was the oligarchy's task, he said, to take Russian society from
robber capitalism to legitimate capitalism. 
Soros said Quantum, his international investment fund, did not plan to
take part in the Rosneft privatization. 
Asked whether he planned to make investments in Russia's oil and gas
sector, Soros said he had already made investments in a large number of
Russian oil and gas companies, but did not elaborate exactly which
companies. He said he might buy new shares or sell some which he owns, but
that he would behave exactly as any other investor in a free market. 
Soros said the foundation he heads would take active part in the
upcoming tenders in Russian oil and gas companies, adding that he insisted
the tenders be transparent and fair.

********

#9
>From RIA Novosti
Segodnya
October 21, 1997
ROUND-TABLE KNIGHTS
There are no issues which Boris Yeltsin could not resolve 
with leaders of Communists
By Georgy BOVT

It should be noted that for the past few days the
Communists have significantly cut the list of their ultimatum
demands to the executive branch. Actually, it now includes only
five out of initial eleven demands: 1) to hold regular meetings
of the four and round-table discussions of all the branches of
power no less than twice every month; 2) the demand that the
Russian President sign the law on the government adopted by
both houses of the Russian parliament; 3) the demand that
direct access be ensured to television, and public supervisory
councils are created for the 1st and 2nd television channels;
4) the demand that prices of housing and utilities are frozen;
5) the demand that rouble re-denomination should not be
extended to the public deposits in Sberbank devaluated as a
result of the economic reform launched in 1992. 
The list does not include either the demand on the Land
Code or the demands on the resignation of the first two Vice
Premiers of the Russian Government which were rather
embarrassing for the Russian President (for it would have
affected his reputation). 
As regards the demand of the opposition to hold regular
meetings of the four, it can be easily fulfilled without any
additional burden for the executive branch. 
In a word, the feelings about the coming Reconciliation
were true. As Gennady Seleznyov said after his arrival back to
the State Duma from the Kremlin, the meeting of the four, which
lasted forty minutes, was held in an entirely constructive
atmosphere, and there was no irritation of either party. 
After the October revolution holidays (November 7 - DR),
the first session of the round table, much sought by the left
opposition, will be held. Apart from the representatives of the
executive power, it will be attended by the chairmen of both
houses of the Russian parliament, the heads of regional
associations, the mayor of Moscow and the leaders of
parliamentary factions. Seleznyov did not say anything about
the representatives of big business. And this final touch
involves the greatest sense of what is going on with the
Russian political elite. 
Russia is witnessing its consolidation. This
consolidation, according to the long-established Russian
tradition, is taking place not along the "state - bourgeoisie"
line but along the "political figures - state bureaucracy"
line. Today it is almost forgotten that the recent meeting of
Boris Yeltsin with the country's leading bankers spoke about
the creation of some group of strategic planing. However, it
has not been created. It can be assumed with definite certainty
that it will not be created or, if it is established, it will
have purely nominative functions. All the current conditions
point to the fact that there is being gradually formed in
Russia one big power party, initially with two wings - left and
right. And the President will be the only head of this party. 

********

#10
>From RIA Novosti
Komsomolskaya Pravda
October 18, 1997 
IMPLEMENTING THE RUSSIAN MILITARY REFORM

High-placed Russian experts and officials speak their mind
on the current military reform

Defense Minister and Full-Star General Igor SERGEYEV: 
The military reform's goal is clear enough. We must
dovetail the Armed Forces with current realities and the
state's potential. We must also raise the Armed Forces' combat
readiness and combat capability by streamlining their
structure, organization and numerical strength, by
qualitatively improving their technical-equipment levels, by
ensuring the required training and logistics-support standards
and by guaranteeing the social status of servicemen.

Leo ROKHLIN in charge of the State Duma's Defense 
Committee: 
We have already learned that the two stages of the
military reform have been accomplished under the guidance of
the nation's "best defense minister" Pavel Grachev. At present
the word "reforms" mostly implies the reduction of the Armed
Forces. One can agree with the army's reduction, provided that
a military-development concept, as well as its feasibility
study, are published. Besides, military development must be
firmly controlled by Russia's powers-that-be. Apart from that,
the army and the navy alone are being pruned at this stage,
what with other military departments continuing to swell in
size. As a matter of fact, such departments now boast just
about as many servicemen as the Armed Forces do.

President Boris Yeltsin's national security aide 
Yuri BATURIN: 
The military reform has the following strategic objective
-- we must bring the numerical strength and combat potential of
our Armed Forces in conformity with existing latent
national-security threats and the state's economic potential.
The Russian army must conform to present-day requirements. With
this in mind, we have to allocate sufficient appropriations for
the upkeep of the corresponding defense-industry sectors. Our
Armed Forces should become smaller and more compact, adopting
state-of-the-art weaponry and combat hardware ever more
actively.

Former National Security Council Secretary 
Alexander LEBED: 
Any reform, which presupposes the reduction of the army's
officer corps, doesn't amount to any reform whatsoever. All
transformations fail to reach beyond the General Staff. No one
cares about officers and soldiers serving with remote
garrisons. But the thing is that the military reform should
begin from precisely this component, which is the army's
mainstay.
First of all, we have to reorganize combat elements,
creating mobile forces that would be expected to guarantee
Russia's security. On the other hand, we must not forget about
all demobbed servicemen. Among other things, all demobbed
officers should be covered by the relevant state-backed social
program.

Former Defense Minister Igor RODIONOV: 
Unfortunately, quite a few politicians and statesmen
continue to confuse such notions as the military reform and the
reform of the nation's armed forces.
Even the loftiest wishes and intentions are not enough to
accomplish a military reform.
It is well-nigh impossible to overhaul the Russian Armed
Forces, unless we restructure the nation's military-industrial
complex and unless we streamline sectoral production processes.
Such restructuring programs should be closely linked with the
transformation of the following main systems, e.g. defense
spending, mobilization preparations as regards the overall
economy and this country's population, state and military
administration, logistics support, material-and-technical
supply, military education, the military infrastructure and
information support.
Transcript by Andrei BARKOVSKY. 

Plans are also in place to reduce the number of top army
officers. (See table)
------------------------------------------------------
Military Organic Number of
ranks Military Positions
------------------------------------------------------
1992 1993 January 1, Suggested 
1997 number
------------------------------------------------------
Marshal 
of the
Russian 
Federation
(In line with
a special 
statute) 35 35 32 2

Full-Star 
General 14 14 12 6

Col.-Gen. 184 177 169 67

Lt.-Gen. 575 545 470 353

Maj.-Gen. 1,513 1,347 1,242 1,072
-------------------------------------------------------
Grand total 2,321 2,118 1,925 1,500

********

#11
New York Times
October 21, 1997
[for personal use only]
Scientists Say Tremor in Russia Was Not Caused by Nuclear Blast
By WILLIAM J. BROAD

Civilian scientists are strongly criticizing the federal government for
saying that a seismic event that rocked the Russian wilds two months ago
might have been an underground nuclear blast. 
The scientists say the tremor was unquestionably natural in origin, and
they suggest that bureaucratic foes of the nuclear test ban treaty are
distorting the truth in a bid to torpedo the treaty's ratification in the
Senate. 
A nuclear test would violate the global accord signed by Moscow that
outlaws such detonations. 
"This test scare should be investigated by Congress and the president,"
Dr. Jeremy Stone, president of the Federation of American Scientists, said
on Monday. The federation, a private group in Washington, advocates arms
control. 
Dr. Lynn Sykes, a seismologist at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory
of Columbia University and an authority on detecting nuclear blasts with
sensitive instruments that monitor ground vibrations, said he had canvassed
peers around the world and could find none who believed the event was
nuclear. 
"We need an investigation," Sykes said in an interview. "This is a
crucial time for the test ban and this issue is absolutely central to
whether it appears verifiable. There are a number of people in government
who claim we cannot tell if it was a blast or an earthquake." 
Advocates of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty contend that it can be
policed; its opponents say it cannot. The treaty's goal is to halt the
development of new weapons of mass destruction by imposing a global ban on
nuclear detonations. 
One of the treaty's main tools is an emerging global network of hundreds
of seismometers, both public and private, that track ground vibrations.
These rumbles are carefully studied to try to find underground nuclear
blasts hidden among the natural din of earthquakes small and large that
occur regularly. 
The treaty has been signed by 146 nations, including the United States,
Russia, China and the other declared nuclear powers. The administration
recently sent the treaty for ratification to the Senate, which is not
expected to act any time soon. 
In late August, the Clinton administration said it had evidence that
Russia might have detonated a nuclear weapon on a remote island in the Kara
Sea, an arm of the Arctic Ocean, and that it was investigating the matter
and seeking an explanation from Moscow. Russia later denied that it had
conducted a nuclear blast and reaffirmed its commitment to the test ban. 
On Monday, an intelligence official who spoke on condition he not be
identified confirmed that the government is still divided about the event's
nature. "We haven't reached a conclusion on whether that event was an
explosion or an earthquake," he said. "The data is rather ambiguous." 
A civilian scientist recently briefed by the CIA on the event said that
the agency was stretching the truth to the breaking point. 
"They've labeled it an enigma to save face," said the expert, who spoke
on the condition of anonymity. "They've spun out bizarre scenarios of
deception and cheating." He accused the agency of failing to retract early
assessments when accumulating evidence all but ruled out a blast. 
By all accounts, the event was worth worrying about at first. On Aug. 16
in the vicinity of Novaya Zemlya, an Arctic island where Russia maintains a
site for underground nuclear testing, the ground heaved and alarm bells
quickly went off in Washington. 
The government's interest was already high because it was remotely
monitoring a series of experiments at the site, which Moscow later said
were small-scale tests of warhead reliability similar to those conducted by
Washington at its underground testing site in Nevada. 
Such experiments involve no nuclear blasts and no shaking of the earth
but they do involve nuclear components and are therefore held underground
to stem the possibility of leaks of radioactive materials into the
atmosphere. 
One of these Russian experiments took place on the 14th, and another on
the 16th, said a federal intelligence expert. The seismic event on the 16th
rang alarm bells because analysts immediately seized on it as possible
evidence that Russia had detonated a nuclear bomb, albeit a small one. 
The nation's intelligence agencies quickly informed the White House and
State Department, which asked Moscow for an explanation. The
administration's suspicions were first reported publicly in The Washington
Times on Aug. 28. 
Meanwhile, further analysis showed that the seismic event was centered
not on land but about 80 miles southeast of Novaya Zemlya in the Kara Sea,
breaking the link to the Russian test site. 
The Air Force Technical Applications Center, which aids intelligence
agencies in seismic analysis, wrote a secret report on the Kara location
dated Sept. 4. That report was distributed widely throughout the White
House and executive branch. 
Even so, intelligence agencies and administration officials have been
reluctant to backpedal. 
On Monday, the intelligence official conceded that the event's location
was in the Kara Sea but emphasized that the event was still suspicious. "It
might have been explosive," he said. 
In contrast, scientists say the distinctive seismic signature of the
event clearly makes it natural in origin. Its waves, they say, are
characteristic of an earthquake. 
Dr. Carl Kaysen, chairman of the Federation of American Scientists and a
White House security adviser during the Kennedy administration, on Monday
wrote Sen. Richard Shelby, chairman of the Senate Select Committee on
Intelligence, to ask for a formal investigation of the incident. 
"In our view," he said, "this event reflects a longstanding cold war
practice of acting on semidigested intelligence information which is,
inevitably, leaked to justify an alarm after which no sound is heard after
the alarm turns out to be false." 
"Accordingly," Kaysen added, "we believe that the director of Central
Intelligence should be asked to explain the role of the Intelligence
Community in this matter so that the Committee can determine whether or not
this kind of intelligence distortion is symptomatic of a larger problem." 
But Frank Gaffney, Jr., a former Pentagon official in the Reagan
administration who now directs the Center for Security Policy, a private
Washington group that opposes the test ban, strongly criticized the
scientists' claims of atomic impossibility for the event. 
"There's a lot of thrashing going on to provide certitude where there is
no certitude," Gaffney said in an interview. "I believe there is compelling
circumstantial evidence to suggest this was a nuclear test." 
He added: "The fact that you have these people rushing forward saying we
got it wrong, that it was in the ocean, I find to be preposterous. In the
service of arms control, the truth is always expendable." 

********

#12
Excerpt
New York Times 
October 21, 1997
[for personal use only]
NATO's True Mission
By WARREN CHRISTOPHER and WILLIAM J. PERRY 
Warren Christopher was Secretary of State from 1993 to 1997. William J.
Perry was Secretary of Defense from 1994 to 1997. 

....What should NATO do with, and about, the Russians? An evolution in the
alliance's focus and forces from defense of territory to defense of common
interests would signal to Russian skeptics that NATO had moved beyond its
original purpose of containing Moscow. Moreover, Russian military leaders
can well understand the alliance's shift from the large static deployments
of the cold war to smaller, more mobile forces. They are trying to do the
same in their own program of military reform. They have a strong incentive
to carry out such reforms in cooperation with other partners. 
The NATO-Russia Founding Act, which provides the framework for the new
alliance and the new Russia to work together, is an important step toward
forging a productive relationship between the two. Putting the act's
political provisions into practice will require responsible actions on both
sides. But the Founding Act's military provisions are less problematic and
more important. They offer tangible benefits to both sides in the short and
long term. 
The objective of these provisions should be permanent, institutionalized
military relationships modeled on those forged in Bosnia, where NATO and
Russian soldiers have served shoulder to shoulder. As has happened before
in the alliance, such cooperation changes attitudes by creating shared
positive experiences to supplant the memory of dedicated antagonism. It
also engages a critical constituency in the formation of the new Eurasian
security order: the Russian military. Practical cooperation dealing with
real-world problems of mutual concern is more important than meetings and
councils. 
And what should the alliance do about other countries seeking admission?
It should remain open to membership to all states of the Partnership for
Peace, subject to their ability to meet the stringent requirements for
admission. But no additional members should be designated for admission
until the three countries now in the NATO queue are fully prepared to bear
the responsibilities of membership and have been fully integrated into the
alliance military and political structures.... 

*********