Yeltsin: shadow of a doubt.

• Author: Satter, David
• Position: Boris Yeltsin

THE RIPPLED WATERS of the Moscow River flowed under the Borodino Bridge as crowds of spectators lined up along its banks to take pictures of the blackened facade of the former Russian Parliament building. In the distance, crows circled the devastated building and the golden hands of the Parliament building clock were stopped at 10:05.

The street was filled with traffic and passers-by hurried to their destinations. To all appearances, the Russian capital had slipped back into its usual mood of frantic indolence. But a month after the events of October 3-4 when a pitched battle took place in the streets to decide the fate of Russia, there is an uneasiness in the air, borne of fear for the future and unanswered questions. On November 4, the headline in the newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda, for example, read "A month after the Moscow tragedy, we don't know the number of dead or their names. Without this truth, it is, of course, possible to live but it's hard to feel like a human being."

Other questions concern Yeltsin. Amid unconfirmed rumors that the number of dead might have been as high as 1,500, many Russians are wondering whether it was right for him to risk civil war by dissolving Parliament, and, although few persons sympathize with the defenders of the "White House," many believe that they were deliberately provoked. On October 4, Yeltsin said, "we did not prepare for war" but he raised the salaries of all members of the armed forces 1.8 times effective September 1, and, in August, promised a "hot autumn." On the morning of Sunday, October 3, a Russian writer left his home on Nezhdannoi Street and felt that there was something missing. He finally realized that in the center of the city which was usually well patrolled there were no police. It occurred to him that someone was organizing a provocation....

The outline of events is known. On September 21, Yeltsin dissolved Parliament and the deputies barricaded themselves in the White House. On October 3, supporters of the Parliament broke through police lines, attacked first the Moscow mayoralty, and then the Ostankino television headquarters. In response, military units attacked the White House and Parliament's resistance was crushed.

The logic of events, however, is puzzling. Yeltsin insisted that he wanted to avoid bloodshed yet many of the government's actions seemed intended to assure that it took place.

In the negotiations held under the auspices of the Russian Orthodox Patriarch Alexei II, Parliament was ready to agree to new elections of both the president and Parliament, which could have left the future shape of Russia to the people to decide, but Yeltsin refused. Yeltsin also ordered that the phones, electricity, and water of the White House be cut off, steps nearly certain to push the defenders to a frenzied rage.

At the same time, the supporters of Parliament were given every reason to believe that a resort to force might be a success. Despite trouble at a demonstration on October 2, on the following day there was no show of resistance by the police. This seemed like many to be an invitation to violence. At 3 p.m., the crowd broke through police lines at the Krimsky Bridge and then, thirty minutes later, broke through the police line outside the White House. The demonstrators, quickly joined by trained fighters, seized the Moscow mayoralty in a little over four minutes. Urged on by Rutskoi, the crowd then left the mayoralty for the Ostankino television tower and, for the next two hours, marched unhindered through the center of the city to Ostankino.

At 7:30 p.m. the demonstrators attacked Ostankino with armored vehicles and grenade launchers. In fact, the attackers were outnumbered. According to official figures, the television tower was attacked by 4,000 unarmed persons and a hundred armed men using armored vehicles and grenade launchers. They were faced by 400 armed interior ministry troops and six armored personnel carriers. As the building came under attack, however, the defenders were nowhere in evidence. Once the battle was finally joined, they dispersed the attackers easily, but not before the impression had been created of a deadly danger.

There are reports of panic and uncertainty in the Kremlin on the night of October 3-4 but the upshot of the attack on Ostankino was that Parliament's cause was...