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Disease of Power

26 January, 00:00

By Vitaly PORTNYKOV, The Day Journalists hang out for hours near Moscow's Central Clinical Hospital in the hope to learn something new about the health of Russian President Boris Yeltsin. Meanwhile, another post-Soviet capital, Baku, looks forward to news from Turkey where President Geydar Aliyev of Azerbaijan is receiving medical treatment. A sad coincidence? Of course, but this is also a vivid characteristic of the generation still populating the post-Soviet space. Messrs. Yeltsin and Aliyev are people very different in their leadership styles, political destinies, and everyday attitudes. One lost his seat in the Politburo because he was considered too conservative an opponent of the Mikhail Gorbachev's perestroika, the other because he advocated too radical reforms. What they had in common is that both were members of that Politburo. The Politburo, as well as the Communist Party of the USSR and the Soviet Union, are now history.

But their alumni remain in power.

We always repeat that what is needed is a change of generations: look, Moses led his people in the wilderness for decades, while we want everything all at once. Sorry, what kind of Moses are you talking about, if you can learn the biographies of today's leaders from a time-battered Propagandist's Reference Book - and these will be true biographies and not what they tell us about themselves today. One such person went to an international forum and, in order not to disgrace himself in front of the Rockefellers, wrote in his resume: "Was engaged in political activity before being elected."

What kind of activity, Comrade? Did you run a section at a district Party committee? Then at a city Committee? Then in the Central Committee? Shall I remind you of the Politburo?

No doubt, there are extremely gifted and strong personalities among these people. Yeltsin, after all, is one. But these are old men with an old style of thinking and ruling and who have their own problems. They suffer from their own maladies, lust for power being the most dangerous.

They do not want to become historical figures just yet. However, before they make their way into the history books, the latter will also feature us, post-Soviet people, as the best example of the whole nations once so arduously experimented upon by those invincible Politburo members.

Newspaper output №:

№3, (1999)

Section

Day After Day