俄罗斯1993年宪政危机
维基百科，自由的百科全书
俄罗斯1993年宪政危机开始于9月21日，当时的俄罗斯总统叶利钦解散了国家立法机关人民代表大会及其最高苏维埃，因为他们反对叶利钦所推动的新自由主义改革。叶利钦这一行动违反了当时的俄罗斯宪法。在危机过后的10月15日，叶利钦举行了公民投票通过了新宪法。
当时议会拒绝解散并投票弹劾叶利钦，要求当时的副总统亚历山大·弗拉基米罗维奇·鲁茨科伊按照宪法宣誓执行总统职责。9月28日起反对叶利钦政府的群众走上街头举行大游行，并发生了流血事件。当时叶利钦仍掌握军队，这决定了危机的最后结局。军队包围了议会所在地俄罗斯白宫。之后的一周反对叶利钦的抗议不断升级，在10月2日达到最高潮，使俄罗斯差点陷入了一场内战。在关键时刻安全部门和部队的领导人支持了叶利钦，军队包围了议会大楼，并用坦克火炮轰击大楼，使其几乎摧毁，并成功驱赶了议会。
至1993年10月5日，对叶利钦的武装对抗溃散。这十天是自1917年十月革命以来俄罗斯死伤最惨重的街头斗争。据政府的估计，共有187人死亡，437人受伤。
目录 |
[编辑] 危机原因
[编辑] 不断加深的行政-立法权力对抗
叶利钦的改革自1992年1月2日开始。(参阅Russian economic reform in the 1990s)。很快出现了物价飞涨，政府支出锐减，和沉重的税收。深度的信用体系崩溃使大量工厂倒闭，造成长期的经济衰退。在这种情况下，一些政客很快不再支持改革。叶利钦和反对激进改革的政客日益对立，最终分歧集中到政府的两个分支的对立。
在1992年中，反对叶利钦改革的力量不断增涨，反对力量主要的关注点是俄罗斯工业的发展状况以及一些地区领导人希望从莫斯科获得更多的自治权。俄罗斯的副总统Aleksandr Rutskoy称叶利钦的改革为“经济的种族屠杀”。[1]石油富产区的加盟共和国，如鞑靼斯坦和Bashkortostan要求从俄罗斯独立。
同样在1992年中，叶利钦和最高苏维埃（常设立法机构）与人民代表大会（国家的最高立法机构，并负责选举最高苏维埃）的政治斗争不断，双方都试图主导政府和国家政策。最高苏维埃的议长Ruslan Khasbulatov于1992年公开宣布反对改革，虽然他仍然支持叶利钦改革的总体目标。
叶利钦关注着于1991年后半年通过的宪法修正案，这一修正案规定总统的特别执法权于1992年终止（叶利钦之前为了执行改革措施而扩大了总统在一般情况下被宪法所限制的权力）。为了执行它的私有化措施，叶利钦要求议会恢复他的执法权（只有议会有权变更或修改宪法）。但是在俄罗斯人民代表大会和最高苏维埃，代表们拒绝通过增加总统法定权利的新宪法。
[编辑] 第七届人民代表大会
1992年12月召开的议会和叶利钦在一系列问题上发生了争议。最激烈的争议发生在12月9日，当时议会拒绝批准叶戈尔·盖达尔为首席部长。叶戈尔·盖达尔是被广泛批评的俄罗斯“休克疗法”，即市场自由化的设计者。议会拒绝提名Gaidar，要求修改经济改革措施并要求被议会所掌控的中央银行继续向企业贷款以避免它们倒闭。[2]
第二天，即12月10日，叶利钦愤怒的指责议会为“保守与反动力量的堡垒”。议会的回应是投票并获得议会军队的领导权。
12月12日，叶利钦和议会议长Khasbulatov妥协并通过了包含以下几点的协议：（1）1993年4月举行全民公决制定俄罗斯新宪法框架；（2）大部分叶利钦的紧急状态权力将延续至此次全民公决举行之时；（3）议会有权提名和选举首席部长；（4）议会有权否决总统提名的国防、外交、内政和安全部长。12月14日叶利钦提名Viktor Chernomyrdin为首席部长，并获得议会通过。
叶利钦1992年12月和第七届人民代表大会的妥协缓和了局势。1993年初叶利钦和议会在全民公决的用词和权力分享的方面争议增加了。在一系列关于政策的碰撞中，议会削弱了总统额外的权力，而这些权力正是1991年下半年由议会授予的。由Ruslan Khasbulatov领导的议会逐渐感觉到他们可以阻碍甚至挫败总统，他们采取的策略是主见的削弱总统在政府中的领导。作为回应，总统要求在4月11日举行关于宪法的全民公决。
[编辑] 第八届人民代表大会
The eighth Congress of People's Deputies opened on March 10 1993 with a strong attack on the president by Khasbulatov, who accused Yeltsin of acting unconstitutionally. In mid-March, an emergency session of the Congress of People's Deputies voted to amend the constitution, strip Yeltsin of many of his powers, and cancel the scheduled April referendum, again opening the door to legislation that would shift the balance of power away from the president. The president stalked out of the congress. Vladimir Shumeyko, first deputy prime minister, declared that the referendum would go ahead, but on April 25.
The parliament was gradually expanding its influence over the government. On March 16 the president signed a decree that conferred Cabinet rank on Viktor Gerashchenko, chairman of the central bank, and three other officials; this was in accordance with the decision of the eighth congress that these officials should be members of the government. The congress' ruling, however, had made it clear that as ministers they would continue to be subordinate to parliament.
[编辑] “特别政府”
The president's response was dramatic. On March 20 Yeltsin addressed the nation directly to declare that he intended to introduce a "special regime," under which he would assume extraordinary executive power pending the results of a referendum on the timing of new legislative elections, on a new constitution, and on public confidence in the president and vice president. Yeltsin also strongly opposed the parliament, accusing the deputies of trying to restore the Soviet-era order.
Vice President Rutskoy, a key Yeltsin opponent, condemned Yeltsin's declaration as a grab for special powers. After the Constitutional Court ruled that Yeltsin had indeed acted unconstitutionally, Yeltsin backed down.
[编辑] 第九届人民代表大会
第九届人民代表大会在3月26日召开，并举行了一个特别会议讨论包括弹劾总统叶利钦在内的保卫宪法的紧急措施。叶利钦对此作出让步，承认自己的错误以在议会中争取支持。在3月28日的弹劾案投票中，距通过所需的2/3多数即689票仅少72票，叶利钦幸免被弹劾。
[编辑] 全民公决
The referendum would go ahead, but since the impeachment vote failed, the Congress of People's Deputies sought to set new terms for a popular referendum. The legislature's version of the referendum asked whether citizens had confidence in Yeltsin, approved of his reforms, and supported early presidential and legislative elections. The parliament voted that in order to win, the president would need to obtain 50% of the whole electorate, rather than 50% of those actually voting, to avoid an early presidential election.
This time, the Constitutional Court supported Yeltsin and ruled that the president required only a simple majority on two issues: confidence in him, and economic and social policy; he would need the support of half the electorate in order to call new parliamentary and presidential elections.
Yeltsin's gamble paid off in the referendum, on April 25. A majority of voters expressed confidence in the president and called for new legislative elections. Yeltsin termed the results a mandate for him to continue in power. Although this permitted the president to declare that the population supported him, not the parliament, he lacked a constitutional mechanism to implement his victory. As before, the president had to use the tactic of appealing to the people over the heads of the legislature elected by the same people.
[编辑] 宪法会议
In an attempt to outmaneuver the parliament, Yeltsin decreed the creation of a large conference of political leaders from a wide range of government institutions, regions, public organizations, and political parties in June — a "special constitutional convention" to examine the draft constitution that he had presented in April. After much hesitation, the Constitutional Committee of the Congress of People's Deputies decided to participate and present its own draft constitution. Of course, the two main drafts contained contrary views of legislative-executive relations.
Some 200 representatives at the conference ultimately adopted a draft constitution on July 12 that envisaged a bicameral legislature and the dissolution of the congress. But because the convention's draft of the constitution would dissolve the congress, there was little likelihood that the congress would vote itself into oblivion. The Supreme Soviet immediately rejected the draft and declared that the Congress of People's Deputies was the supreme lawmaking body and hence would decide on the new constitution.
The parliament was active in July, while the president was on vacation, and passed a number of decrees that revised economic policy in order to "end the division of society." It also launched investigations of key advisers of the president, accusing them of corruption. The president returned in August and declared that he would deploy all means, including circumventing the constitution, to achieve new parliamentary elections.
[编辑] Clashes of power in September
The president launched his offensive on September 1 when he attempted to suspend Vice President Rutskoy, a key adversary. Rutskoy, elected on the same ticket as Yeltsin in 1991, was the president's automatic successor. A presidential spokesman said that he had been suspended because of "accusations of corruption." On September 3, the Supreme Soviet rejected Yeltsin's suspension of Rutskoy and referred the question to the Constitutional Court.
Two weeks later he declared that he would agree to call early presidential elections provided that the parliament also called elections. The parliament ignored him. On September 18, Yeltsin then named Yegor Gaidar, who had been forced out of office by parliamentary opposition in 1992, a deputy prime minister and a deputy premier for economic affairs. This appointment was unacceptable to the Supreme Soviet, which emphatically rejected it.
[编辑] 叶利钦解散国会
1993年9月21日，Yeltsin responded to the impasse in legislative-executive relations by repeating his announcement of a constitutional referendum, but this time he followed the announcement by dissolving the parliament and announcing new legislative elections for December. He also scrapped the constitution, replacing it with one that gave him extraordinary executive powers. (According to the new plan, the lower house would have 450 deputies and be called the State Duma, the name of the Russian legislature before the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917. The Federation Council, which would bring together representatives from the 89 subdivisions of the Russian Federation, would play the role of an upper house.)
Yeltsin claimed that by dissolving the Russian parliament in September 1993 he was clearing the tracks for a rapid transition to a functioning market economy. With this pledge, he received strong backing from the leading capitalist powers of the West and the other Soviet successor states. Yeltsin's biggest political asset has always been his close relationship to the Western powers, particularly the United States, but this has left him open to charges in Russia of being an agent of foreign interests and of groveling before the West.
[编辑] 议会弹劾叶利钦
Rutskoy called Yeltsin's move a step toward a coup d'etat. The next day, the Constitutional Court held that Yeltsin had violated the constitution and could be impeached. During an all-night session, chaired by Khasbulatov, parliament declared the president's decree null and void. Rutskoy was proclaimed president and took the oath on the constitution. He dismissed Yeltsin and the key ministers Pavel Grachev (defense), Nikolay Golushko (security), and Viktor Yerin (interior). Russia now had two presidents and two ministers of defense, security, and interior. It was dual power in earnest. Although Gennady Zyuganov and other top leaders of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation did not participate in the events, individual members of communist organizations actively supported the parliament.
On September 24, an undaunted Yeltsin announced presidential elections for June 1994. The same day, the Congress of People's Deputies voted to hold simultaneous parliamentary and presidential elections by March 1994.[3] Yeltsin scoffed at the parliament backed-proposal for simultaneous elections, and responded the next day by cutting off electricity, phone service, and hot water in the parliament building.
[编辑] 莫斯科大规模冲突
Yeltsin also sparked popular unrest with his dissolution of a parliament increasingly opposed to his neoliberal economic reforms. Between September 21-24, the general atmosphere changed in favor of the defenders of the parliament. Moscow saw what amounted to a spontaneous mass uprising of anti-Yeltsin demonstrators numbering in the tens of thousands marching in the streets resolutely seeking to aid forces defending the parliament building. However, the army leaders remained faithful to Yeltsin.
The demonstrators were protesting against the new and terrible living conditions under Yeltsin. Since 1989 GDP had declined by half. Corruption was rampant, violent crime was skyrocketing, medical services were collapsing, food and fuel were increasingly scarce and life expectancy was falling for all but a tiny handful of the population; moreover, Yeltsin was increasingly getting the blame. [4] Outside Moscow, the Russian masses overall were confused and disorganized. Nonetheless, some of them also tried to voice their protest. Sporadic strikes took place across Russia.
On September 28, Moscow saw the first bloody clashes between the special police and anti-Yeltsin demonstrators. This repression of the mass demonstrations in Moscow had a comparable effect to that meted out by the French police to the students in the May 1968 rebellion that nearly culminated in the fall of Charles de Gaulle. It rallied them for a mass protest action, but one that the popular demonstrators would ultimately lose.
Also on September 28, the Interior Ministry moved to seal off the parliament building. Barricades and wire were put around the building. On October 1, the Interior Ministry estimated that 600 fighting men with a large cache of arms had joined Yeltsin's political opponents in the parliament building. On September 30, the first barricades were built.
The leaders of parliament were still not discounting the prospects of a compromise with Yeltsin. The Russian Orthodox Church acted as a host to desultory discussions between representatives of the parliament and the president. The negotiations with the Russian Orthodox Patriarch as mediator continued until October 2. On the afternoon of October 3, however, Moscow police failed to control a demonstration near the White House, and the political impasse developed into armed conflict.
[编辑] The storming of the television premises
October 2 and October 3 were the culmination of violent clashes with the police. On October 2, supporters of parliament constructed barricades and blocked traffic on Moscow's main streets. On the afternoon of October 3, armed opponents of Yeltsin successfully stormed the police cordon around the White House territory (where the Russian parliament was barricaded). Paramilitaries from the Russian National Unity and Labour Russia movements, as well as a few units of the internal military (armed forces normally reporting to the Ministry of Interior), supported the parliament.
Aleksandr Rutskoy, barricaded inside the White House, hailed the protesting crowd. Rutskoy greeted the crowds from the White House balcony, and urged them to go on to seize the national television center at Ostankino. Khasbulatov also called for the storming of the Kremlin. With some people already dead on the streets, Yeltsin declared a state of emergency in Moscow.
On the evening of October 3, after taking the mayor's office, anti-Yeltsin demonstrators marched toward Ostankino, the television center. But the pro-parliament crowds were met at the television complex by Interior Ministry units. A pitched battle followed. Part of TV center was significantly damaged. Television stations went off the air and 62 people were killed. Before midnight, the Interior Ministry's units had turned back the parliament loyalists.
When broadcasting resumed late in the evening, Yegor Gaidar called on television for a meeting in support of President Yeltsin. Several hundred of Yeltsin's supporters spent the night in the square in front of the Moscow City Hall preparing for further clashes, only to learn in the morning of October 4 that the army was on their side.
[编辑] The storming of the Russian White House
Between October 2-4, the position of the army was the deciding factor. The military equivocated for several hours about how to respond to Yeltsin's call for action. By this time dozens of people had been killed and hundreds had been wounded.
Rutskoy, as a former general, appealed to some of his ex-colleagues. After all, many officers and especially rank-and-file soldiers had little sympathy for Yeltsin. But the supporters of the parliament did not send any emissaries to the barracks to recruit lower-ranking officer corps, making the fatal mistake of attempting to deliberate only among high-ranking military officials who already had close ties to parliamentary leaders. In the end, a prevailing bulk of the generals did not want to take their chances with a Rutskoy-Khasbulatov regime. Some generals had stated their intention to back the parliament, but at the last moment moved over to Yeltsin's side.
By sunrise, October 4, the Russian army encircled the parliament building, and a few hours later army tanks began to shell the White House. By noon, troops entered the White House and began to occupy it, floor by floor. Hostilities were stopped several times to allow some in the White House to leave, but Khasbulatov and Rutskoy stayed to the bitter end before surrendering. Many in the building, including Rutskoy and Khasbulatov, were taken away in the end in buses. By mid-afternoon, popular resistance in the streets was completely suppressed, barring an occasional sniper's fire.
Crushing the "second October Revolution," which, as mentioned, saw the deadliest street fighting in Moscow since 1917, cost hundreds of lives. Police said, on October 8, that 187 had died in the conflict and 437 had been wounded. Unofficial sources named much higher numbers, up to 1500 dead, mostly inside the White House. In any event, nearly all victims were killed by troops loyal to Yeltsin. Russian Army and Interior Ministry lost 12 soldiers, at least 9 of which were accidentally killed by their own men. It had been a close call; Yeltsin owed his victory to the military, the former KGB, and the Ministry of Interior, not to support from the regions or a popular base of support.
But he was backed by the military only grudgingly, and at the eleventh hour. The instruments of coercion gained the most, and they would expect Yeltsin to reward them in the future. A paradigmatic example of this was General Pavel Grachev, who had demonstrated his loyalty during this crisis. Grachev became a key political figure, despite many years of charges that he was linked to corruption within the Russian military.[5]
The crisis was a strong example of the problems of executive-legislative balance in Russia's presidential system, and, moreover, the likelihood of conflict of a zero-sum character and the absence of obvious mechanisms to resolve it.[6] In the end, this was a battle of competing legitimacy of the executive and the legislature, won by the side that could muster the support of the ultimate instruments of coercion.[7]
[编辑] Public opinion on crisis
The Russian public opinion research institute VCIOM (VTsIOM) conducted a poll in the aftermath of October 1993 events and found out that 51% of those polled thought that the use of military force by Yeltsin was justified and 30% thought it was not justified.zh-hans:;zh-hant:[來源請求] The support for Yeltsin's actions declined in the later years. When VCIOM-A asked the same question in 2003, only 20% agreed with the use of the military, with 57% opposed.zh-hans:;zh-hant:[來源請求]
When asked about the main cause of the events of October 3-4, 46% in the 1993 VCIOM poll blamed Rutskoy and Khasbullatov. However, ten years following the crisis, the most popular culprit was the legacy of Mikhail Gorbachev with 31%, closely followed by Yeltsin's policies with 29%.zh-hans:;zh-hant:[來源請求]
In 1993, a majority of Russians considered the events of September 21 – October 4 as an attempt of Communist revanche or as a result of Rutskoy and Khasbulatov seeking personal power.zh-hans:;zh-hant:[來源請求] Ten years thereafter, it became more common to see the cause of those events in the resolution of Yeltsin’s government to implement the privatization program, which gave large pieces of national property to a limited number of tycoons (later called “oligarchs”), and to which the old Parliament (Supreme Soviet) was the main obstacle.zh-hans:;zh-hant:[來源請求]
[编辑] Yeltsin's consolidation of power
[编辑] Immediate aftermath
In the weeks following the storming of the Russian White House, Yeltsin issued a barrage of presidential decrees intended to consolidate his position. On October 5, Yeltsin banned political leftist and nationalist parties and newspapers that had supported the parliament. In an address to the nation on October 6, Yeltsin also called on those regional councils that had opposed him—by far the majority—to disband. Valery Zorkin, chairman of the Constitutional Court, was forced to resign. The chairman of the Federation of Independent Trade Unions was also sacked, and the president took the opportunity to deprive trade unions of many of their administrative functions so as to whittle away their direct working ties to their rank-and-file membership.
Yeltsin decreed, on October 12, that both houses of parliament would be elected in December. On October 15, he ordered that a popular referendum be held in December on a new constitution. Rutskoy and Khasbulatov were charged on October 15 with "organizing mass disorders" and imprisoned. They were later released in 1994 when Yeltsin's position was sufficiently secure.
"Russia needs order," Yeltsin told the Russian people in a television broadcast in November in introducing his new draft of the constitution, which was to be put to a referendum on December 12. The new basic law would concentrate sweeping powers in the hands of the president. The bicameral legislature, to sit for only two years, was restricted in crucial areas. The president could choose the prime minister even if the parliament objected and could appoint the military leadership without parliamentary approval. He would head and appoint the members of a new, more powerful security council. If a vote of no confidence in the government was passed, the president would be enabled to keep it in office for three months and could dissolve the parliament if it repeated the vote. The president could veto any bill passed by a simple majority in the lower house, after which a two-thirds majority would be required for the legislation to be passed. The president could not be impeached for contravening the constitution. The central bank would become independent, but the president would need the approval of the State Duma to appoint the bank's governor, who would thereafter be independent of the parliament. At the time, most political observers regarded the draft constitution as shaped by and for Yeltsin and perhaps unlikely to survive him.
[编辑] The end of the first constitutional period
12月12日，葉利欽managed to push through his new constitution, creating a strong presidency and giving the president sweeping powers to issue decrees. (For details on the constitution passed in 1993 see the Constitution and government structure of Russia.)
However, the parliament elected on the same day (with a turnout of about 53%) delivered a stunning rebuke to his neoliberal economic program. Candidates identified with Yeltsin's economic policies were overwhelmed by a huge protest vote, the bulk of which was divided between the Communists (who mostly drew their support from industrial workers, out-of-work bureaucrats, some professionals, and pensioners) and the ultra-nationalists (who drew their support from disaffected elements of the lower middle classes). Unexpectedly, the most surprising insurgent group proved to be the Liberal Democratic Party (LDPR). It gained 23% of the vote while the Gaidar led 'Russia's Choice' received 15.5% and the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, 12.4%. LDPR leader, Vladimir Zhirinovsky, alarmed many observers abroad with his neo-fascist, chauvinist declarations.
Nevertheless, the referendum marked the end of the constitutional period defined by the constitution adopted by the Russian SFSR in 1978, which was amended many times while Russia was a part of Mikhail Gorbachev's Soviet Union. (For further details on the democratization of the former Soviet Union, see History of the Soviet Union (1985–1991).) Although Russia would emerge as a dual presidential-parliamentary system in theory, substantial power would rest in the president's hands. Russia now has a prime minister who heads a cabinet and directs the administration, but the system is an example of presidentialism with the cover of a presidential prime minister, not an effective semipresidential constitutional model. (The premier, for example, is appointed, and in effect freely dismissed, by the president.)
[编辑] 参考资料
- ^ Celestine Bohlen, "Yeltsin Deputy Calls Reforms 'Economic Genocide,'" 纽约时报, February 9 1992.
- ^ The Central Bank's efforts got in the way of pro-Yeltsin, Western-oriented leaders were seeking to carry out a decisive neoliberal economic transformation of Russia. They undermined the regime of fiscal austerity that the Yeltsin government was attempting to pursue. See, e.g., Thomas F. Remington, Politics in Russia (New York: Addison-Wesley Educational Publishers Inc., 2002), p. 50.
- ^ For further details see Margaret Shapiro, "Yeltsin Dissolves Parliament, Orders New Vote," Washington Post, September 22 1993.
- ^ It is still hotly debated among Western economists, social scientists, and policymakers as to whether or not the IMF-, World Bank-, and U.S. Treasury Department-backed reform policies adopted in Russia, often called "shock therapy," were responsible for Russia's poor record of economic performance in the 1990s. Under the Western-backed economic program adopted by Yeltsin, the Russian government took several radical measures at once that were supposed to stabilize the economy by bringing state spending and revenues into balance and by letting market demand determine the prices and supply of goods. Under the reforms, the government let most prices float, raised taxes, and cut back sharply on spending in industry and construction. These policies caused widespread hardship as many state enterprises found themselves without orders or financing. The rationale of the program was to squeeze the built-in inflationary pressure out of the economy so that producers would begin making sensible decisions about production, pricing and investment instead of chronically overusing resources, as in the Soviet era. By letting the market rather than central planers determine prices, product mixes, output levels, and the like, the reformers intended to create an incentive structure in the economy where efficiency and risk would be rewarded and waste and carelessness were punished. Removing the causes of chronic inflation, the reform's architects argued, was a precondition for all other reforms: Hyperinflation would wreck both democracy and economic progress, they argued; only by stabilizing the state budget could the government proceed to restructure the economy. A similar reform program had been adopted in Poland in January 1990, with generally favorable results. However, Western critics of Yeltsin's reform, most notably Joseph Stiglitz and Marshall Goldman (who would have favored a more "gradual" transition to market capitalism), consider policies adopted in Poland ill-suited for Russia, given that the impact of communism on the Polish economy and political culture was far less indelible. [1]
- ^ For further details see Rusnet.nl, "Pavel Grachev" [2] Updated March 12 2003
- ^ Since the release of Argentine political scientist Juan Linz's 1985 influential essay "Presidential or Parliamentary Democracy: Does it Make a Difference?" the argument that presidentialism is less likely to sustain stable democratic regimes has gained widespread currency in Western comparative politics literature. According to Linz, conflict is always latent between the president and the legislature due to competing claims to legitimacy derived from the same source: electoral mandates from the very same body of citizens. Thus, a conflict can escalate dramatically since it cannot be resolved through rules, procedures, negotiations, or compromise.
- ^ See, e.g., Stephen White, "Russia: Presidential Leadership under Yeltsin," in Ray Taras, ed., Postcommunist Presidents (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1997), pp. 57–61.
