Volume 40, Number 8 · April 22, 1993
Yeltsin and Russia: Two Views
By Elena Bonner, Translated by Antonina W. Bouis
Radio Liberty and the Voice of America recently acquainted Russian listeners with Peter Reddaway's article, 'Russia on the Brink?' [NYR, January 28]. The eschatological title and its general tone are not appropriate to the real situation in the country. The author knows Russia very well, but he has experienced the same psychological change that occurs when people who live permanently in Moscow find themselves abroad for a length of time. Isolated from daily life, when information is drawn from the surrounding atmosphere, and forced to rely on newspapers, radio, and television, they very quickly—sometimes in a matter of days—begin to perceive everything hyperbolically, more acutely and even more tragically than they would if they were living at home. I know this from my own experience. In view of recent events, no one could say that everything is all right in Russia. But still, the future is not as black as it seems to Reddaway. And the reason for today's difficulties does not lie in the errors on Yeltsin's part that Reddaway describes or, at least, they alone did not create the problems.
Feature, 5000 words
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