From the Front Line:
Players Share their Stories
As Alexander Lebed (Russian Security Council Secretary) I had one thing on my mind: to become the next czar. The best way to do this within the confines of the game was to neither let the communists or the reformers have to much power while staying in bed (so to speak) with Yeltsin. I told Yeltsin I wanted a Vice Presidency immediately and he "hmm and hah" a lot. So I proposed my own budget and voted for it thereby allowing the communist (and the ultranationalists) to take power. Finally, even though I consistently had supported Yeltsin after this and the communist actually had to work with Yeltsin to pass a budget, I went to the communist hard liners with the proposal to become VP and under Yeltsin. Then we would coup him I would become President and the communists VP. Well, the chance arose when Yeltsin became ill (which he's famous for). I told Cherymridin (Prime Minister) if he brought to vote a new position for VP I would retain him as PM. I had the votes so he couldn't really refuse. The beauty was as soon as the VP position was created and I was installed it was only a matter of time for Boris to die. I could wait and solidfy my powerbase. The communist were rather upset I didn't push to become president but I didn't really want them hanging around just underneath me as well. So I settled for VP. Unfortunately Yeltsin held on through the game. The budget also went in my favor with a healthy dose of spending on the military and internal security.
On the Saturday game, I quickly made a deal with Zyuganov with the goal of putting us both in power. We set out to push a very conservative budget, with the intention of seeing how badly it fails, and finding out who we'll have to persuade in order to get coup support. To our surprise, Lebed voted with us. We of course had to get the MoD's support too. My plan was that we let him in on the coup with the promise that he'll become President, since neither Zyuganov nor myself would be very acceptable to the rest of the world, at least initially. I would, of course take over the MoD position and Zyuganov can remain as power behind the throne as ideology chief. The whole reason I wanted MoD (and the ulterior reason I set this up) was to get my hands on some nukes. My goal was to have Middle-Eastern operatives smuggle in a nuke and hit a Western target, and try to have the plausable deniability that I officially had nothing to do with it. (after all, if some renegade colonel wants to embezzle a nuke, there's not much to be done to stop him). Thus the US and the Uniter Arab Republic will get enbroiled in a long war that will drain both sides, and they'll leave Russia alone to pursue conquest of the former Soviet States.
The nuke was packed off in a Cypriot freighter, and set to NY harbor, but was interecepted by the Coast Guard moments before it was armed.
However, the Russian mob somehow found out about my connection in this, and there was enough dissent in the Politboro about the consequences of such a risky operation, that I was removed while talking to the Military controller.
Zhirinovskii "retired" to a heavilly guarded Black Sea dacha, to write his memoirs entitled "Moi Shak" (My Struggle). [When news of his arrest hit the U.S. cell, there was loud cheering]
Well I played the Northeast Electorial college. Basically I formed a voting block with the player in the Midwest. This basically allowed us to elect the president and decide the budget. This let us bypass congress as at least once I totally wrote the budget that was presented to congress by the president's assistant. The president had made a fellow legislator basically VP and told her to run the budget while he worked on other matters. She ended up winning the game as she did EXACTLY what the I and the person playing the Midwest told her to do. Since we had at least 50% of the votes she raked the votes in and just had to co-op a fellow legislator so we could split the votes up.
I played both on Thursday and Saturday, but my best experience was on Saturday, so I will talk about that game. I played Alexander Lebed, former Red Army general and the third-place winner in the recent Russian elections. From the very beginning, the Yeltsin player appeared to have trouble handling Zyuganov, the leader of the resurgent Communist party, and the other factions seemed to be rather divided. I quickly established an alliance with Zyuganov and Kalisnikov, the Minister of Defense (MoD), and was able to get my budget passed.
I happened to bump into the Iranian Army player, who had just had an increase in his budget and was shopping for military equipment. We quickly worked out a deal, approved by Yeltsin, for $2.5 million worth of surplus equipment including tanks and submarines. I then was approached by Zyuganov, Kalisnikov, Zhirinovskii (I think), and the head of the FSB (the successor to the KGB) and asked to join a coup. I readily agreed. Zyuganov suggested Kalisnikov as a suitable president, realizing that the Americans would not stand for the Communists to take direct control of Russia again. I suggested that this would also be a good time to establish a Vice-President, a position that does not currently exist in the Russian government, and I, of course, would be the ideal candidate.
We then launched our coup. The Prime Minister Chernomyrdin and the Ministry of the Interior (MVD) backed Yeltsin, while the others remained neutral. The resistance of the MVD caused bloodshed in the streets of Moscow until I assured the MVD player that he would retain his position. After the successful coup, the Russian cabinet was shuffled around a bit.
About this time, we learned that the Czech Republic was poised to join NATO. This caused some concern, but we didn't react to the event until other countries such as Poland and Ukraine also petitioned for admittance. We decided to push for admittance to NATO for Russia, knowing full well that America and the European powers would never permit it, but it worked as a smoke screen for quite some time. The Secretary of the Air Force spent quite some time trying to convince the Americans to do it.
Well... it was enlightening, for certain. I learned very quickly that Russian politics are extremely volatile and that it's hard to trust anyone, even your "best" allies. As President Yeltsin, and later ex-President Yeltsin, I spent a lot of time negotiating deals to improve the Russian economy. The deal with the Americans to upgrade our Siberian oil-drilling equipment proved especially fruitful when the Madhi took over 70% of the world's oil supply. I also closed two deals worth a combined $300 million a year to the Russian economy with the US Southeast electorate.
Competition within the Russian cell itself was fierce. Yeltsin was beset on all sides and quickly found himself short on political allies. Losing the first-year budget proposal to the communists was a devastating blow which led to the coup the following turn. Dwindling in influence, Yeltsin found himself having to back his enemies in order to regain power.
As a player, I found the whole day to be thoroughly enjoyable, despite the fact that several more-experienced players ganged up on the new guy and quickly squashed him. Don't worry... I'll be after you next year!
Oh... and guys? You can drop the phony Russian accents, too. <
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