WASHINGTON WATCH: RUSSIAN LIES SPAWN DISOBEDIENCE

Earlier this week I wrote about a Moscow press conference that I attended in 1989, where angry Russian citizens criticized their government for failing to tell the truth about the Afghanistan War. Remarkable to me at the time was the openness and bluntness of their criticism. One gentleman, frustrated by the duplicity of the Soviet government, called the war their Vietnam.

"We will change the government if that must be done," he said.

Two years later, Boris Yeltsin became the first democratically elected president of Russia in over 70 years, ending Soviet communism and heralding in a new era of freedom and self-government. Or so the Russian people and the world hoped.Today, President Yeltsin's handling of the crisis in Chechnya has raised anew the specters of Afghanistan: brutal warfare against civilians, forced conscription, questionable goals, failed propaganda and duplicity towards the Russian people. As a result, Yeltsin's government, just as the Soviet one before it, finds itself under political siege at home and abroad.

The significance of ChechnyaEven after the breakdown of the Soviet Union, Russia remains a troubled empire. For centuries before Lenin was born it built and maintained a national structure through brute force, subjugating millions of people of different races and religions. When the Bolsheviks came to power, many of these people were relocated thousands of miles from where they grew up to make them more compliant, as well as to open their homelands for communist exploitation.As Soviet communism crumbled, those who once lived under its yoke demanded old lands back, along with independence and autonomy. Unfortunately, not all groups could be accommodated. Their lands, some quite precious with oil and other resources, fell within the boundaries of larger states that were unwilling to relinquish them. How to deal with this legacy is the great challenge facing the nations of the former Soviet Union, including Russia. The fear of leaders like Boris Yeltsin is that if they concede to one group, like the Chechens, there will be a domino effect of demands leading to chaos and strife. The Clinton administration bought into this theory when it looked the other way as Yeltsin ordered troops to quash the Chechens' cry for freedom.But the Chechens have not gone quietly, and the Russian people have shown no stomach for quashing them.

Nightmares of AfghanistanFrom the beginning, there has been little support from the Russian people for a military incursion into Chechnya. So pervasive was the disapproval that Russia's military command had to piece together an invasion force with a hodgepodge of divisions that had never trained together. Two generals refused to take the command. Other officers sent to the front are surrendering at the first signs of danger.The reasons for the popular disapproval range from distrust of Boris Yeltsin to sympathy with the Chechens. Most significantly, the conflict is eerily reminiscent of the disaster in Afghanistan. Russian army Maj. Igor Mozorov, who surrendered his unit of paratroopers to a ragtag group of Chechens last weekend, explained: "In Afghanistan, I concluded that you should not fight a war against the people. The war here was being waged against the ordinary people."

Burgeoning democracyBoris Yeltsin's troubles with Chechnya are both reassuring and troubling. Reassuring, because in a democracy Yeltsin deserves to be in hot water because of his actions. Only in a free society can leaders come under such withering criticism, and his duplicity and authoritarian tactics have earned it. Troubling, because no one knows what will come next. Will Yeltsin become even more authoritarian? Will he be overthrown?One thing is clear, however. The Russian people will no longer put up with lies from its leaders. In the long term, that heralds much good.

Jon K. Rust is a Washington-based writer for the Southeast Missourian.