THE RUSSIAN economy continues to concern everyone, particularly the poor Russian people I expect, but I haven't really seen anything impressive in the advice given by the West.

Whatever happens, President Clinton told the Duma last week, don't abandon free market reforms!

Since the Russians freed themselves from the oppressive Communist ideological yoke and state control of the economy, they have

experienced a multitude of changes, most of them not very satisfying.

The economy has collapsed, their country is forced to go cap in hand begging to the Americans, society has polarised between the haves and have-nots, workers don't get paid for months, crime and corruption - both organised and haphazard - has rocketed, pensions are not getting paid, children are abandoned on the streets of Moscow by their parents, well respected professionals are forced to grow their own food or starve and the country's prestige has nosedived to the point where tiny former Soviet republics are prepared to wage war against their former rulers to get their own way.

On the plus side, at least the population are free to complain vociferously or emigrate, but seeing as no-one listens to complaints and the west has erected barriers much more impenetrable than the Iron Curtain to prevent any poverty-sticken Eastern Europeans coming over here or to America to steal our jobs, the ordinary Russians have given up dancing in the streets, bathing in Coca-Cola and worshipping Macdonald's hamburgers.

To prevent total economic, political and social collapse, Russia is now dependent on the International Monetary Fund (IMF) which in essence is the 'American' Monetary Fund because it is run by American bankers.

Its policies are about as international as the 'World' Series baseball competition.

Before it will part with one cent, the IMF demands cast iron guarantees that free market reforms will continue at a furious pace.

Is this because ordinary Russians will be better off under a free market - demonstrably the vast majority are worse off since abandoning the paternalistic state - or is it because free market reforms will inevitably lead to a flood of

imported cheap American goods, thereby

ensuring the continued health of the US

manufacturing and exporting economy?

Russia's problems stem from the rapid introduction of a free market economy.

To tell it's political leaders to carry on

regardless is like a doctor telling someone

suffering from gout to carry on drinking port and eating gourmet food.

The free market dogma is not a well-intentioned politically motivated strategy, it remains first and foremost the ideology created by the demands of the US economy.

The debate between the dubious merits of a state controlled economic system versus the free market is completely irrelevant here.

What has happened is that the former Soviet Union is being forced into a wholesale change of direction at a pace which cannot be sustained without the eventual collapse of social,

economic and political stability.

That drive to anarchy is being directed purely in the interests of American bankers, manufacturers, exporters and currency speculators.

As the disillusionment of the Russian

population grows, so in direct proportion does the influence of the disgruntled former Communist Party apparachiks still firmly ensconced in the economic, military and political elites who have nothing to gain and everything to lose from the mad rush to unbridled

capitalism.

In the light of such developments, it is

terrifying to remember the thousands of nuclear warheads still possessed by the fading superpower and still firmly under the control of the increasingly mutinous armed forces.

The conservative reactionary forces in Russia are being driven into such a desperate position that almost anything is possible if more

pressure is applied.

John F Kennedy almost started World War Three because he felt humiliated over the Cuban Bay of Pigs invasion fiasco and could not back down over the missile crisis.

This latest President is so stupid he may blindly stumble into World War Three in the hope that an East-West crisis might take people's minds off his illicit trouser activities.

It may be fine for Clinton to stand up in Moscow blindingly repeating messages dictated to him by greedy American businessmen, but its about time someone realised that there may be a lot more at stake in the Russian situation than a few points off the Dow Jones index.

Instead of rolling over to have his tummy

tickled every time Bill Clinton pays a visit, our own Prime Minister Tony Blair should combine with other European leaders to try to impress upon the American President that narrow short-term, self-interest is not the most useful direction foreign policy should take in the face of such a desperate situation.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.