Russian elections The dire prospects ahead

By Steve Lawton

RUSSIAN elections, officially underway this Sunday, are unlikely to yield any surprises. Acting President Vladimir Putin is widely expected to be confirmed, though this will not reflect the fact that many millions will fail to vote.

The second war against Chechen separatism -- the first in the period 1994-6 was never resolved, has demonstrated Russian determination to defend its sovereignty from which Putin will gain. He has shown that there is a line beyond which a threat to the Russian state will be actively resisted,from wherever it comes.

He intends to keep troops in place while the process of securing Chechenia continues. But if there is no permanent solution, such deployments may
become permanent in the future. Meddling Western interests, particularly in oil, are moving to take command of the resources of the northern Caucasus.

Putin is backed by the Union of Right Forces (SPS), which includes key leaders Like Boris Nemtsov who recently called for capital flight to be
returned to Russia, so long as it has a free 'responsible' hand and creates Western-friendly opportunities.

US and British companies want a centrist reform government to stabilise extraction of profit, in preparation for intervention in untapped regions
of Russia under the cover of regional development.

State industry and property, now largelv in private hands, especially oil and gas, telecommunications, raw materials, so-called banking and finance,
is expected to remain outside the Duma's (parliament's) power to intervene. And the Duma, Russia's lower house, itself represents only a fraction of
Russian people.

Opposition forces point out that Putin has not put forward an economic programme for Russia's crisis and its future for votes to decide upon --
something he said he had no intention of declaring a head of the elections -- and that he will toughen Presidential powers at the expense of the Duma.

The war in Chechenia strengthens that possibility, particularly since it can now be argued that decisive powers are needed to maintain an all-fronts
vigilance in its wake, to protect the state and, supposedly, the peoples' security. Industrial and defence capabilities have been targeted by Putin, which may be linked to Nemtsov's position. This focus is also related to the difficulties over de-nuclearisation and the US threat of a new Star
Wars emphasis.

Putin has said that he will refrain from overt forms of publicity suggesting a confidence in the outcome thaf in effecf tacitly mocks the whole show. Clearly, as the cosy transition from Yeltsin to Putin revealed, he represents the continuity of interests preserving the wealthy minority.

Even so, as a realist, he will increasingly be faced with the disintegrating effect of deteriorating conditions of the people in Russia, driven through in part by the relentless US-led economic and military encroachment in the former Soviet Union. In fact, the entire basis of Russia's wealth is threatened.

Firstly, counter-revolution and Western connivance ended the Soviet state, which laid it wide open to transnational interests as it fell from global power ranking. Secondly, the lives of most Russians were quickly assaulted to the point where, now, more than half are said to be barely existing below a harsh subsistence level. That's more than equivalent to Britain's entire population being at or near complete destitution.

Once Soviet power was destroyed, it was inevitable that the diminished state would become directly exposed to the interests of Western transnationals. The consequences were immediate: workers, having lost power, lost virtually everything, the social and economic infrastructure was wrecked, and ethnic hostility continues to be fomented.

Until the Russian people regain state power and a genuine commonwealth of peoples' states -- the former Republics -- is created, imperialist interests will continue to toy with tiny rich elites and the puppet regimes of former Soviet Republics. Millions, meanwhile, will sink deeper into desperation and conflict.

Civil war, as many communists have warned, could well stem from increased imperialist-backed attempts to undermine Russian territorial integrity if nothing is done by the Russian leadership to remedy the economic crisis faced by the people.