On the Scene Yeltsin’s Unfinished Revolution

IN post-Soviet Russia, political crises are as frequent and as predictable as winter snow flurries. The next is scheduled to erupt on December 1, when the Congress of People’s Deputies, the nation’s highest legislature, convenes its winter session.

There, President Boris Yeltsin will confront yet another in a seemingly endless series of challenges to his rule. An array of enemies, from unrepentant Communists to nostalgic worshipers of the earlier incarnation of the Russian Empire, will rise to assail him. At stake are the future of the two shaky pillars of the Yeltsin government—the emerging market economy and the half-formed democracy.