Moscow Coup Alert

In my "Global War Articles" I outline a potential scenario world history might follow in order to fit the huge upset of Western expectations that is implied by the coming Grand Supercycle collapse in stock prices. This scenario highlights the likelihood of some sort of right-wing coup in Russia that will be associated with an outbreak of world war three. The probability of such a coup in the near, if not immediate, future appears high.

Just as the stock market has started to rollover, reports have emerged that Russian President Boris Yeltsin, who was just reelected, might be gravely ill. Today Vice President Al Gore had a scheduled meeting with Yeltsin abruptly cancelled supposedly because the Russian President needed some rest. Since Russian authorities clearly could have sufficiently planned ahead based upon Yeltsin's condition (whatever it supposedly might be) to avoid such an embarassing scene, the implication of Moscow's newest move is that Yeltsin's second term as President of Russia might not last very long.

It is likely no coincidence that the current situation in Russia is eerily similar to what occurred in "Weimar" Germany when Hitler took power. As I have explained before, according to Marxist-Leninist doctrine, when democracy fails to serve the purposes of capitalism, then democracy is supposedly overthrown and replaced with a fascist dictatorship. Thus, communist Russia has been transformed over the past decade into "Weimar" capitalist Russia by "reformers" who are almost all former communists. Now Yeltsin has become a debilitated, weak-handed president while an ambitious hardliner, Alexander Lebed, has been placed in a powerful position in a new coalition government. The current political situation in Russia is, of course, a parallel to 1933 when Hitler was made Chancellor of Germany in a coalition German government run by an ailing, weak-handed president. From that powerful position, Hitler eventually took control of Germany and then unleashed the second world war. This time around, the stage is being set for a Hitler-like figure to gain control of "Weimar" Russia and unleash a third world war.

As explained in my 1994 editorial, "The Balkan Trap", a potential trigger for a coup in Moscow may be NATO military action against the Serbs. Over the past year, tens of thousands of NATO troops have been sent into the former-Yugoslavia, what was once a communist puppet state, in order to quell the civil war that had been underway there since 1991. Now with NATO in the middle of the Balkan fray, high- level calls are going out for the overthrow and arrest of the Bosnian Serbs' populist political and military leaders Radovan Karazdic and Ratko Mladic for crimes against humanity. The Serbs have threatened to retaliate against NATO if any attempt is made to detain their leaders. Thus, there is movement toward a violent confrontation between the Western Allies and the Russian-backed Serbs. Such a confrontation along with the political fragility in Moscow clearly could be used for staging a hardline coup in Russia and the rise of a nationalist Russian dictator like Alexander Lebed or Vladimir Zhirinovsky.

All in all, now that the Grand Supercycle peak in stock prices appears to have been passed and "The Crash" is beginning, world events are moving in the direction I have long been warning people about. The simple fact is that the faith and confidence people have placed in themselves, the world and money- something signified by the record heights recently reached in stock prices- is grossly misplaced. Indeed, the world has bought into a great big lie once again, and so the cycle of history and human error is repeating- something best reflected by what is going on in Moscow at present.

At Gen Lebed's headquarters in Tiraspol, the impoverished capital city of the Trans Dnestr Republic which broke away from Moldova three years ago, hero-worship is strong. As they sweep invisible dust off the driveway, the immaculately uniformed young soldiers of the 14th army cannot find enough superlatives to describe their 'comrade leader': he is 'as intelligent as Albert Einstein and as strong as Arnold Schwarzenegger', 'a second Suvorov, a second Kutuzov' (two of Tsarist Russia's greatest military leaders), 'in all ways a remarkable man'.

The past few weeks have demonstrated that Gen Lebed's writ runs beyond Tiraspol. The Kremlin has felt uneasy about Russia's most popular officer since this spring, when Gen Lebed told a Russian newspaper that his country needed a man like Pinochet, the Chilean military dictator, and described the Russian president, Mr Boris Yeltsin, as 'a minus'. However, when Russia's top brass - which is losing its grip over regional commanders throughout the former Soviet Union - took on the outspoken general in August, trying three times to oust him, Gen Lebed won. Adoring Russians responded last week by electing Gen Lebed to the 'Olympus' of Russia's 100 most popular politicians, a list compiled monthly by the pollsters at Nezavisimaya Gazeta, one of Moscow's top daily newspapers.

Ranked as the nation's 13th most popular leader, Gen Lebed drew more support than better known hard-liners such as Mr Vladimir Zhirinovsky, the neo-fascist politician, and out-scored Mr Yegor Gaidar, the standard bearer of market reforms.

But while, in the public eye, Gen Lebed appears to be rapidly growing into a leader of national stature, he is careful not to express open political ambitions.

'In these times of troubles, I cannot rule out anything,' is Gen Lebed's careful answer to the question of whether he will one day be the leader of all Russia. 'But I will do anything my country requires. I have served my country in foreign wars and civil wars. Whatever my country needs, I am not afraid to do.'

On the topic of what it is that his country needs, Gen Lebed is more forthcoming. 'What's wrong with a military dictator?' the general asks, recrossing long legs clad in camouflage fatigues which look freshly pressed even late in the evening and enormous black boots gleaming with polish. 'In all of its history, Russia has prospered under the strictest control. Consider Ivan the Terrible, Peter the Great, Catherine the Great or Stalin.'

Gen Lebed's critique of Russian democracy is delivered with the calm assurance of a battle-tested officer and the smooth charm of a gentleman. 'What our country is trying to do now is completely impossible,' Gen Lebed explains, offering imported Danish biscuits and rising to prepare coffee. His intense gaze helps to explain his soldiers' slavish devotion, but does not detract from the toughness of his message. 'Our leaders have said, 'for centuries our state has been totalitarian but starting this minute we will be a democratic state'. This is just not possible. After all, we are still Soviet people.'

Gen Lebed is also convinced - and many sophisticated political observers would say he is right - that the democratic order Russian leaders have struggled to build at such great cost is a matter of absolute indifference to most Russians: 'Most Russians don't care whether they are ruled by fascists, or communists or even Martians as long as they are able to buy six kinds of sausage in the stores and lots of cheap vodka.'

Although Gen Lebed shares some of the hard-liners' preoccupation with Russia's lost power - he speaks sadly of Russia, with 'our proud history', now reduced to blindly following recipes 'dreamed up in Arkansas' - he is no neo-imperialist.

He says he refused an offer to become the minister of defence in the Central Asian republic of Tajikistan because 'why should I help one group of Tajiks kill another?'

This sober realisation that Russia's greatness cannot be recaptured through force of arms in foreign countries is only one way in which Gen Lebed differs from Russia's civilian hard-liners, whom he dismisses as 'dangerous populist fanatics'.

As a decorated Afghan veteran he embodies a military order leaders like Mr Zhirinovsky can only describe and as a central figure in the defeat of the 1991 hard-line coup, democratic politicians cannot accuse Gen Lebed of undue sympathy for the old, vanquished regime. But, for all his insistence that order and discipline are the keys to Russia's renewal and his coy disavowal of any overt political role, Gen Lebed has a rather idiosyncratic notion of the command structure to which he is subordinate.

'I have never served Tsars, or Commissars or Presidents,' Gen Lebed says. 'They are mortal men and they come and go. I serve only the Russian state, and the Russian people, which are eternal.'