general who would be President, The

General Alexander Lebed My Life and My Country By Alexander Lebed Regnery Publishing, 1997 385 pages $29.95

A Russian friend, a battle-scarred veteran of Afghanistan turned reformer, complains that the West is transfixed on an ethnic stereotype-Ivan the slob, a bellicose, mercurial bully who passes from jingoism to maudlin sentiment as he gets deeper into his bottle. In recent years, Gen. Alexander Lebed has played this role of consummate Ivan for the Western media. He warned of World War III if NATO was expanded. He praised Chile's Pinochet for his judicious use of executions. He denounced "foreign religions" as "mold and scum."

Since Yeltsin summarily fired him as national security chief, Lebed has been preparing for his 2000 presidential bid by presenting a new face to the world. His wilderness year has taught him two things. First, one can still be a nonperson in today's Russia, denied even negative coverage by the bankers' oligarchy that controls television and newspapers. Second, foreign opinion counts-a lesson reinforced by the hidden hand of American political consultants in Yeltsin's spectacular comeback.

So Lebed, who this spring won the governorship of Siberia's Kranoyarsk province, is now reaching out to his admirers in Russia's ailing hinterlands and seeking international respectability by creating media of his own-an autobiography.

He presents an appealing image. As the Soviet Union crumbled, Lebed tells of arriving in one dusty square after another to put down a rebellion, only to ignore his orders and defuse violent confrontation. He is no pacifist but does want to be known as a realist who avoided needless bloodshed in Azerbaijan, declined to stamp out the democrats in the Moscow White House, and ended Russia's bloody and humiliating war in Chechnya.

Lebed's book offers a surprisingly generous view of the courage and motivations of his Afghan enemy. "A man, who has absolutely nothing to do with the war and who doesn't want to fight, returns home one day to find that the wife he had is now gone; the children he had are now gone; the mother he had is now gone. And his blood boils. He ceases to be a man; he is now a wolf-ready to kill without stopping."

Lebed tells the story of his life with the quick pace and sharp characterizations of a novelist. He tosses aphorisms like horseshoes ("A conscientious fool is more dangerous than an enemy"). When he describes a plan as a "ruble-sized operation which brought in `chump change' results," Lebed's voice comes through, and it has the gravel and rude wit of Robert Mitchum as a film noir detective.

Lebed has a keen sense of the absurdities of Soviet life and the contrary nature of the Russian soul. He documents how Gorbachev's campaign against alcohol only encouraged teetotalers to become drunks by giving out vodka rations. Instead, he suggests, if the Kremlin had erected monuments to alcoholics and organized socialist drinking competitions, peasants would have risen up to destroy liquor shops.

Lebed believes that Russia's cure will not come from copying the United States, Europe or Japan ("Don't risk your butt looking across the ocean for something you don't need"). Russia can be saved from the moral rot of criminal violence and the dregs of Western culture only by the invigorating moral strength of the Orthodox Church and Russian military.

In his last chapters, Lebed's tone loses all balance, describing the degradation of Russian society by wallowing in deep wells of self-pity reminiscent of Mein Kampf "We should always remember," he quotes a Russian army document, "that we are surrounded by enemies and people who envy us, and that we Russians have no friends."

At his worst, Lebed comes close to raving, tuning his wrath against insect-like apparatchiks, "termites" and "fat, insolent worms" working their way into the democratic system. At other times, Lebed calmly endorses democracy and free markets, even noting that the Laffer Curve proves the foolhardiness of Russia's high tax rates. The effect of altemating between shrieking anger and steady analysis is a bit unnerving, somewhat like watching Dr. Strangelove wrestle with his own hand.

Lebed ends with a penetrating insight into American politics and an explicit warning. He postulates that NATO expansion is driven by nothing more substantive than domestic American politics and our leaders' desire to celebrate the SOth anniversary of the Marshall Plan.

While NATO expansion is largely ceremonial, "structure without much substance," it is alarming to many Russians. In this, Lebed sees great danger. "If our national dignity continues to be degraded, German history could repeat itself in Russia. In 1918, Germany was crushed. Fifteen years later, Germany was again in uniform and had rearmed:'

What is clear is that Lebed believes a society can be reformed by simple discipline and common sense, much in the same way in which a commander retrains an army. Much more remains unclear. Would Lebed in power be a classic strongman, a populist democrat with an authoritarian streak? A wild-eyed Bonaparte? Does he really see the unraveling of Weimar Russia as a threat? Or his big opportunity?

Mr. Daris, fonnerly a White House speechwriter. is coauthor with Gary Alrich of a forthcoming thriller, Speak No Evil, from Regnery Publishing.

Copyright Human Events Publishing, Inc. Jul 10, 1998
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