			Foreign Correspondent

		      Inside Track On World News
	    By International Syndicated Columnist & Broadcaster
		 Eric Margolis <emargolis@lglobal.com>

	                  ,,ggddY"""Ybbgg,,
	             ,agd888b,_ "Y8, ___`""Ybga,
	          ,gdP""88888888baa,.""8b    "888g,
	        ,dP"     ]888888888P'  "Y     `888Yb,
	      ,dP"      ,88888888P"  db,       "8P""Yb,
	     ,8"       ,888888888b, d8888a           "8,
	    ,8'        d88888888888,88P"' a,          `8,
	   ,8'         88888888888888PP"  ""           `8,
	   d'          I88888888888P"                   `b
	   8           `8"88P""Y8P'                      8
	   8            Y 8[  _ "                        8
	   8              "Y8d8b  "Y a                   8
	   8                 `""8d,   __                 8
	   Y,                    `"8bd888b,             ,P
	   `8,                     ,d8888888baaa       ,8'
	    `8,                    888888888888'      ,8'
	     `8a                   "8888888888I      a8'
	      `Yba                  `Y8888888P'    adP'
	        "Yba                 `888888P'   adY"
	          `"Yba,             d8888P" ,adP"'
	             `"Y8baa,      ,d888P,ad8P"'
	                  ``""YYba8888P""''


Half Beast, Half Giant
by
Eric Margolis  19 Feb 96

Over a vegetarian dinner one night in 1942, Hitler observed
that when he finished conquering the Soviet Union, he would
put Stalin, whom he called, `half beast, half giant,' back
into power. `Stalin,' quipped the Fuhrer, `is the only man
who knows how to rule the Russians.' 

Half a century later, Russia's political culture still
remains in the Dark Ages. The old control systems of  
Czarist  knout, and Leninist-Stalinist terror machine, have
gone.  What has emerged in their place is a half-formed 
political Frankenstein, a stumbling monstrosity fashioned
from bits and pieces of crudely stitched  marxism,
socialism, capitalism, gangsterism and militarism.

Hitler was dead right about Russia. No one has really ruled
the Soviet Union, or successor Russia, since Stalin. 
Russian governments do not rule.  They merely cling to the
bear's back,  expending  all their energies struggling to
simply hold together the geographical immensity and
overwhelming backwardness of Mother Russia.

Stalin was uniquely able to master and drive Russia - but
only after murdering 40 million of its people and imposing 
a reign of terror so pervasive and profound that most 
Russians actually believed they were personally being
watched by Great Comrade Stalin.

Today, shockingly, too many Russians long to see a  return
of  Stalinism.  That's why the west breathed a huge sigh of
relief this week when its favorite Russian, Boris Yeltsin,
announced he would run for a second term as president.  The
65-year old Yeltsin swept aside concerns over his multiple
heart attacks, and rambunctious  drinking, proclaiming his
fitness to fight and win a gruelling campaign against the
increasingly powerful opposition.

The Clinton Administration, which has based its entire
Russian and East European strategy on accommodating Russia
and Boris Yeltsin, rushed to loudly back him.  Washington
trumpeted that a new tranche of US $9 billion in loans would
go to Russia, along other aid programs and trade
concessions.  

Moscow's continuing ruthless massacre of the Chechen people
is being ignored by the US.  Clinton needs the support of
Yeltsin for his re-election  - just as he needs that of
Serbia's Slobodan Milosevic.  A quiet Russia and Serbia
allow  Clinton, who has recast himself as a foreign policy
president,  to claim two international successes. 
Unfortunatly for Clinton -and for America's honor - the
pileup of civilian corpses in Bosnia and Chechenya is
proving increasingly awkward.  


Even so, the natural tendency is to help Yeltsin stay in
power.  As ineffectual, brutal and undemocratic as he has
been, the alternative seems far worse.  The communists and
their allies, under Gennady Zuganov, now control the
parliament, or Duma.  This  positions Zuganov as the main 
contender in upcoming presidential elections.  The
nauseating, fascist buffoon, Vladimir Zhirinovsky is still
disturbingly popular.  Pro-western liberals, under Grigory
Yavlinsky, are nosediving in the polls.

Overtly helping Yeltsin, however, is sure to turn the
majority of foreign-hating Russians against him.  Besides,
there's really not much western nations can do to keep
Yeltsin in power. More important, no matter who ends up
ruling in Moscow, the `entente cordiale' between Russia and
the West, that ran from 1989 to the present, is ending.
Whether Yeltsin or Zuganov,  Russia will increasingly flex
its muscles, and resume asserting its natural geopolitical
interests,

Moscow's eager cooperation (or subservience, say Russian
critics) to Washington, begun by the idealistic Mikhail
Gorbachev, was an historical anomaly.  Russia's past is
replete with efforts by its tiny, western-oriented upper
class (whether Czarist or communist) to Europeanize the
nation.  All such efforts have failed.  Today, pro-western
reformers are once again being eclipsed by the enduring
darkness of Russian xenophobia. Russia is reverting to its
old, brutish ways.

No matter who wins presidential elections, free market
reforms, including vital privatization of land, will slow.
Moscow will accelerate efforts to reconstruct the old Soviet
Union.  Key arms agreements with the west are now being
routinely violated - notably in the Caucasus.  Expect Russia
to begin rebuilding its influence in  the East Europe and
the Mideast under the skilful hand of new  Foreign Minister,
Yevgenny Primakov, one of the smartest men in Moscow. 
Russia is also modernizing its run-down armed forces.

It is naive in the extreme to believe, as Washington and
Ottawa do, that Russia would continue its post-Soviet
timidity.  As Russia lumbers to its feet, albeit painfully
and slowly, Moscow will assert its great power interests.
These must inevitably clash directly with those of the West. 
Anyone who thinks Moscow will permanently accept loss of
East Europe, Ukraine, the Caucasus, Central Asia and the
Baltics, simply does not understand geopolitics nor Russia's
history, psyche and ardent national pride.

The West's best policy is to let Russia be. The billions of
aid being squandered by the west in Russia have only
enriched its gangsters,bankers and robber barons.  Aid
should be halted - or at minimum tied to a halt of  Russia's
crimes in Chechenya.  

As this column has long maintained, the west's true
strategic interest is a weak, uncertain,  divided Russia. 
Just as Russia's is a weak, uncertain, divided West. When
Russia grows strong, as it must one day, the smiles are
going to vanish. A cold wind will resume blowing from the
east.   

copyright 1996   eric margolis

**********************************************
---------------------------------------------------------------
	To receive Foreign Correspondent via email send a note
	to Majordomo@lglobal.com with the message in the body:
		subscribe foreignc
	To get off the list, send to the same address but write:
		unsubscribe foreignc
	Back Issues can be obtained from:
		ftp.lglobal.com/pub/foreignc
	For Syndication Information please contact:
	   Email: emargolis@lglobal.com
	   FAX: (416) 960-4803
	   Smail:
		Eric Margolis
		c/o Editorial Department
		The Toronto Sun
		333 King St. East
		Toronto Ontario Canada
		M5A 3X5
---------------------------------------------------------------

