IS RUSSIA COMING APART?

• Author: SCHMEMANN, SERGE
• Position: Bombings in Moscow raise new fears

A DECADE AFTER THE FALL OF COMMUNISM, CHAOS THREATENS THE STABILITY OF THE WORLD'S LARGEST NATION

The explosions came in quick succession, but the full impact came later. The first was in a shopping mall just outside Red Square, the very heart of Moscow, in August, but only one person was killed. The next was a military housing block in the southern province of Dagestan, but there had been battles there between Muslim militants and Russian troops, so that was considered explainable.

Then, two minutes after midnight on September 9, a massive blast shattered one of the faceless nine-story apartment blocks that spread for miles from Moscow's old center. Clawing slowly through the rubble, rescuers found 94 bodies. Four days later, another bomb ripped through another apartment building, killing 95.

I could see it from my window," says Olya Astakhova, 15, a Moscow ninth-grader. "There was such a shock wave from the explosion that all the windows shook. In the morning when I got up, I saw that half of the house was gone. We couldn't understand what had happened."

Another blast, which took place in o the southern city of Volgodonsk on September 16, brought the toll to almost 300. By now, what was happening was clear. Suddenly, in addition to crime, corruption, and a crashing economy, a wave of terrorism had come to Russia.

FEW WINNERS IN NEW RUSSIA

The Russians have suffered many ills since the Communist system collapsed in 1991 and the Soviet Union broke up into separate republics. Unfamiliar with democracy or the free market, Russians watched their old system, in which the biggest slice of the pie went to the Army, disintegrate. A relatively small group of people, some with close connections to the government, made huge fortunes, either on trade or by selling the nation's oil, minerals, or other natural resources.

But for most people, the collapse of the old system meant a loss of jobs and incomes. Many schools, hospitals, and factories just ran out of money and stopped paying workers. In the chaos, organized crime grew rapidly, forcing many small businesses to pay protection money. Corruption spread to the highest levels of government. In August 1998, the banking system collapsed, forcing many banks to close--a disaster that Russians refer to simply as "the crisis."

As bad as it was, at least Russians didn't have to worry about their personal security. The Cold War, the 50year struggle between the Soviet Union and the U.S., was over, so there...