CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

By Bruce W. Nelan

VLADISLAV LISTYEV BECAME A posthumous cult hero in Moscow in less than a week. At his funeral Saturday, March 4, thousands of mourners piled his grave with mounds of mimosas, roses, carnations and spruce boughs. As thousands more continued to arrive in Moscow's historic Vagankovskoye Cemetery and place flowers beside the crepe-trimmed portrait of the TV journalist gunned down in the stairwell of his apartment building, they were sending Russia's leaders a powerful message. This callous murder, like no other, has demonstrated to every citizen that President Boris Yeltsin and the men in the Kremlin are facing forces beyond their control. If a prominent personality like Listyev cannot be protected from violence, who is safe in Russia, and who really runs the country?

Crime, not economics or political rivalries, is the No. 1 issue in the country today. In cities all across the nation, gangs operate with near impunity, practicing fraud and extortion, conducting illegal trade, bribing and corrupting officials and viciously murdering anyone who gets in their way. When Listyev, a popular television host and businessman, was shot down two weeks ago in what police said was a paid-for assassination, it was another brutal killing in a series of shootings, car bombings, kidnappings and gangland battles that have overwhelmed post-Soviet Moscow.

Now Russians are demanding to know what Yeltsin's government is going to do about it; a failure to bring crime under control could cost not only the President his job but also Russia its whole experiment with democracy. The unremitting violence and growing loss of confidence could produce sudden political swings, toward a dictatorial crackdown on civil liberties or away from Yeltsin's government.

"Among the many thousands who have visited Listyev's grave there were some who loved him," says Alexander Yakovlev, chairman of the board of the new Russian public-television network where Listyev was executive director. "But most people came as a protest against the helplessness and inaction of the government in dealing with crime." Yakovlev, one of the architects of the reforms put in place by Mikhail Gorbachev, says he too is "amazed" at the government's lethargy. When he talks with Yeltsin about it, "he agrees with me, but nothing gets done."

Faced with a mushrooming crisis, Yeltsin last week called for a new effort to stem crime. Turning to the well-tested tactic of seeking a scapegoat, he fired Moscow police chief Vladimir Pankratov and city chief prosecutor Gennadi Ponomaryov for failing to "provide proper organization" to deal with "grave crimes." He chaired a meeting of the Security Council, which issued a stern warning: the continued activities of organized crime were "discrediting state powers" and "threatening the security of Russia."

But in the eyes of many Muscovites, Yeltsin seemed to be engaged less in controlling crime than in preparing the ground for his campaign for the 1996 presidential elections. Given the fact that little had been done until now to put teeth in a federal crime-busting program, Yeltsin's sudden burst of energy struck many as an attempt to bolster the President's image.

The purge touched off an unseemly political tug-of-war between the Kremlin and Moscow's city hall. Sergei Gerasimov, the prosecutor appointed to take Ponomaryov's place, quickly resigned. In Parliament Yeltsin's opponents pushed through a lopsided vote of no confidence in Interior Minister Victor Yerin, who is in effect the national chief of police. Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov, once a strong Yeltsin ally, fumed that only "criminals and bandits" would be in favor of firing senior police officials. Then he threatened to resign.

Ponomaryov, the fired prosecutor, says those who use the killing to demonstrate that crime is out of hand are aiming for a political payoff. "Some dishonest leaders use it to their advantage," he says, "claiming the reforms are going nowhere because of crime." He argues that compared with the rest of the world, "the situation in Russia has not reached levels that warrant extraordinary measures."

Perhaps not, but if Russians come to believe the criminals have taken charge, they may favor a return to more authoritarian rule, even if they lose their civil rights in the process. As one of Listyev's colleagues, TV commentator Nikolai Svanidze, puts it, "One day we'll follow any bastard who will promise us law and order."

The Kremlin is beginning to respond to the growing get-tough mood. Two weeks ago, Yeltsin spoke favorably of methods used in Uzbekistan, where he claimed the government grabbed members of six criminal gangs and shot them. He may not be considering measures quite that harsh. But if it is true that Yeltsin is surrounded by officials more hard-line than he is, some of them may be wishing they could take a page from the Uzbek crime-busting book.

--Reported by John Kohan and Yuri Zarakhovich/Moscow

With reporting by John Kohan and Yuri Zarakhovich/Moscow