[PEN-L:1311] A progressive coup?

[valis <valis@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Quoth Jim D:
> My prediction (if it's worth anything, coming from a total non-specialist
> on Russian questions) is that there will be a "progressive" military coup,
> of the sort that hit Peru in 1968. It will be "in the name of the people,"
> nominally against the big-money boys and the gangsters, perhaps organizing
> the economy in a military way. Of course, the military budget will
> increase, while most of the problems will remain.

Well, in Lebed it would certainly have the best face to put up front.
The Naguib-->Nasser coup of '53 is probably a closer model, since the
Peruvian officers could do no more than shoot for better terms from
Wall Street (No nukes, no high-tech, no popular organization, etc).
BTW, a few nights ago Russian poetess Irina Ratushinskaya was on a BBC
news show.  She served 4 years in a labor camp, courtesy of the KGB,
in the early '80s.  She and her husband, characterized as a businessman,
are pulling "a Solzhenitsyn."  If they're going back, they must expect
that their kind of Russia in the offing.  She emphasized that they are
Christians, and that she wants to offer her mind to her country.

Well, I call that a high-stakes crapshoot, anyway.

                                                                  valis