But early last Monday morning, Chubais could not get in to see Yeltsin, even though he had a scheduled appointment. Other members of Yeltsin’s tight circle of advisers had schemed to keep him out, after orchestrating the ailing president’s most recent “there he goes again” moment. With Russia on the brink of yet another war in the northern Caucasus with Muslim separatists, Yeltsin had been persuaded to fire his inoffensive prime minister, Sergei Stepashin, after just three months in office. His replacement: Vladimir Putin, a former KGB agent who has never held a high-level political office. Extraordinarily, Yeltsin not only nominated Putin as prime minister, but in a taped address later that day–delivered with such painfully slow pacing that one politician called it “Dead Man Talking”–he claimed he wanted Putin to succeed him in next summer’s presidential election.
Chubais, who had maneuvered Stepashin into the prime minister’s job, had gotten wind of the plan the previous week and was going to use his 9 o’clock session with Yeltsin to talk him out of it. “I thought it would be disastrous,” he told a friend afterward. But Yeltsin’s influential daughter Tatyana Dyachenko, chief of the presidential staff Aleksandr Voloshin and longtime adviser Valentin Yumashev were one step ahead of him. They had Stepashin summoned at 8 o’clock, and Yeltsin sacked him. Then they canceled Chubais’s appointment.
In Russia they call them “The Family”: a small knot of key people who have access to and influence on Yeltsin. And like too many families, this one is seriously dysfunctional. Its undisputed head is Dyachenko, who has an official position as a Kremlin adviser. She is the president’s gatekeeper, protector and final, most important voice on all major political questions. “Nothing gets done unless she approves it,” says Yelena Dikun, a political reporter in Moscow who has covered The Family for years. All the others in Yeltsin’s court defer to Tatyana and eagerly seek her favor. That includes the man routinely called the son Yeltsin never had: Yumashev served as the president’s chief of staff from March 1997 to December 1998 and ever since has been, next to Tatyana, his most trusted adviser. He gets along very well with Dyachenko. Former officials say these two now have consistent access to what Kremlin insiders call “The Body”–the president himself.
It was Dyachenko and Yumashev, along with current chief of staff and Family member Voloshin, who, knowledgeable sources say, decided that Stepashin was too weak to serve Yeltsin’s purposes now. They were, Moscow political analysts believe, no doubt egged on by another Family member, the ubiquitous oligarch Boris Berezovsky, who helps manage Yeltsin’s finances. Another influential businessman, 32-year-old Roman Abramovich, who over the past three years has quietly become very close to both Dyachenko and Yumashev, apparently did not feel so passionately about dumping Stepashin, but didn’t do anything to prevent it. Only Chubais fought for his friend the former prime minister.
What united the rest in kicking Stepashin out was simple: fear. Russian law does not yet provide immunity for former presidents, let alone their key aides, for crimes or abuses allegedly committed in office. In a country as unstable and economically troubled as Russia today, that matters to The Family. In Yeltsin’s final year in office, serious corruption allegations surround Berezovsky, as well as a powerful member of the Kremlin staff (though not a Family member), Pavel Borodin. Rumors–though they are nothing more than that–also persist that investigators in Geneva may be able to track down Yeltsin’s personal funds laundered through Swiss banks. Dyachenko has frequently dismissed such allegations.
The corruption investigations coincided with political events that were also deeply ominous for The Family. Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov had persuaded a large group of powerful regional governors to ally with his newly formed political party–called Fatherland–in December’s legislative elections. According to Moscow media reports late last week, he also stood on the brink of enticing former prime minister Yevgeny Primakov into the group. If Primakov accepts Luzhkov’s invitation–and two governors last week said he would –the political power center will shift dramatically.
Primakov is the most popular political figure in the country. He is also a sworn enemy of Berezovsky’s (and vice versa), because while prime minister he let the general prosecutor’s office continue its investigation into the businessman’s alleged corruption. Put bluntly, the prospect of a Primakov presidency potentially means a life in exile for Berezovsky. That’s why, by last week, says journalist Dikun, The Family was “in agony–panicked and confused.”
The prospective Luzhkov- Primakov alliance also infuriated the president. According to former Kremlin advisers, nothing, not even corruption allegations, riles Yeltsin more than the idea that power may be slipping through his hands–even in the last year of his presidency. He wants to choose his successor, and the idea that Luzhkov suddenly seemed to have a better shot at doing that drove him to distraction, aides say. Specifically, a key former Kremlin aide says Yeltsin was furious that Stepashin hadn’t done more to dissuade the regional governors from allying with Luzhkov. Aware of that, Dyachenko, Yumashev and Berezovsky knew they could steamroll Chubais and persuade Yeltsin to boot Stepashin. On Friday, Aug. 6, sources say, they did just that.
That leaves Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin with a lot on his hands. First he must try to put down the Islamic rebellion in Dagestan. Its leader is Shamil Basayev, a rebel general who gave Moscow fits during the war in Chechnya. Late last week, Russian troops were pouring into the region, and Putin said on Friday that another incursion into Chechnya was not out of the question. Second, he somehow has to restore Yeltsin’s fading political influence, and protect The Family from the corruption investigations.
That daunting agenda had Russia’s media speculating feverishly last week that Putin had been put into place to declare a “state of emergency.” The immediate cause, according to this theory, was the crisis in Dagestan, but the emergency decree could also be used to postpone elections, an outcome at least one former aide said publicly was discussed among the inner circle. Putin, while saying “special measures” might be required in Dagestan, dismissed the idea of a nationwide emergency. And Yeltsin, in his “Dead Man Talking” speech, specifically said legislative elections would occur as scheduled on Dec. 29 and that next year, “for the first time in the country’s history, the first president of Russia will transfer power to a fresh, newly elected president.” Sadly for a man who is said to care deeply about his historical legacy, not everyone in Russia believed him. That’s mainly because the intrigue now swirling around the Court of Yeltsin has reached operatic proportions, and despite the president’s soothing words, a truly tragic finale does not seem completely out of the question. Yeltsin has a year to show that he is the Master of his Family, and not vice versa.
