The Russian army's assault on the Chechen capital Grozny has led to at least 2,000 dead Russian soldiers and even more Chechen fighters and civilians killed. The city lies in ruins. But the war has also had its effect in Russia itself, accelerating the divisions among Russia's rulers and the disillusionment of many Russians with Boris Yeltsin's regime.

The invasion has shifted the political scene to the right. The fascist Zhirinovsky declared his support for the war from the start and called for an intensification of the fighting. This stand has strengthened his position. He was invited to a closed session with the prime minister Chernomyrdin, where there was almost certainly some sort of alliance worked out to defeat the opposition to the war in the Duma (Russia's parliament).

Up to now Zhirinovsky's party has been kept out of the government, despite the fact that it is one of the largest single groups in the Duma. But the concessions will strengthen his hand.

Although the fascists were the only party to wholeheartedly support the invasion, the opposition in the Duma has been undermined. Anti-war motions were scuppered by an alliance of Zhirinovsky's fascists, the Communists, the Agrarians and the 'Party of Unity and Accord' (which has taken over the unofficial mantle of Yeltsin's party). What all these groups have in common is Russian nationalism, and their criticisms were based on the bungled incompetence of the invasion rather than any principled opposition. As a result, one Russian political adviser has talked in private about 'a wave of Russian nationalism in the Duma'.

The 'Security Council' has emerged as a major driving force behind the war and has been dubbed by some the 'party of war' which has taken over the government. This body is comprised of the ministers of defence, the interior, the secret service, and other military figures. It first came to prominence during the outbreak of fighting around the parliament in October 1993, when the armed supporters of the dissolved parliament were taking control of the television building and the mayor's office. Yeltsin's meeting then with the Security Council in the critical hours after the fighting had started lasted over eight hours, leaving many to speculate on what concessions they had demanded before agreeing to crush the rebellion. Even before the war, Russia's economy was in deep crisis. The government announced the cost of the war would be l percent of GNP, but this is likely to be a very low estimate. The failure of the army in the face of combat has led to calls for increased military spending. The Security Council has been lobbying to be given control of the economy.

To understand what's happening in the Russian ruling class, it is important to understand the level of continuity with the old system. This continuity consists not only of the desire to preserve a strong Russian empire, but also in terms of the people who make up this ruling class. All the generals, industrialists and politicians were part of the old system. They may disagree on which way Russia should go, but these are usually temporary and pragmatically based differences. The allies of yesterday can become the enemies of today and vice versa. Yeltsin sits at the top of this group and balances between them.

All Western leaders have supported Yeltsin throughout the war, declaring that it is 'an internal problem'. He was declared to be 'the West's best friend in Russia', and the links--both financial and military--between Russia and the US remain important. This is recognised even by the pro-war 'hardliners' in the Security Council. But the invasion has shown that these links can come under intense strain.

Initially there were protests against the invasion organised by the political opposition. The largest of these drew between 3,000 and 4,000 people in Moscow in December. Recent protests have been much smaller. The political parties which organised many of the first protests accepted the need to 'maintain the unity of Russia'.

But a new opposition has emerged during January. This is the Committees of Soldiers' Mothers. These groups were set up during the war with Afghanistan, when popular opposition grew to the steady flow of zinc coffins (Russia's equivalent of body bags) filled with young conscripts fresh out of school. These committees have organised small but militant protests, which have huge emotional power. In one town mothers lay on railway tracks to prevent troop trains from leaving. The groups have encouraged soldiers to desert, and the level of desertion is reported to be high.

On 16 January a funeral of a Russian soldier killed in Chechnya was shown for the first time on Russian television. A distraught relative addressed the camera, 'When will we end our silence?' It seems clear that the flow of zinc coffins will not stop. The war in Chechnya has already developed into a guerilla war in the south. Those who say Chechnya is too small to sustain an Afghanistan type resistance forget that it is surrounded by seven other such republics, all with minority Russian populations. Over 7 million people live in these republics and could provide easy shelter for guerillas, as well as potential for fighting to spread.

When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991 it seemed to many that there would be no end to the forces pulling Russia apart. But in the last few years there has been a delicate balance between these forces and other (primarily economic) forces which have led to reintegration. Last year Georgia finally joined the CIS, dominated by Russia. If the result of the war in Chechnya is to upset this delicate balance, we may see the conflict spreading.

Algeria

The civil war in Algeria is being brought home to France, the former colonial power. The French government backs the Algerian rulers, who cancelled elections three years ago to prevent the Islamic organisation, FIS, from taking office. Resistance to that move has escalated the war to its present level, where around (00 people are dying every week.

The Air France hijack over Xmas has been used to the advantage of the French prime minister, Edouard Balladur. His popularity had been sinking since September but an opinion poll in early January boosted it by 8 percent. He is now tipped to succeed François Mitterrand after the presidential elections.

The hijack has been the pretext for reinforcing the racist policies of minister of the interior, Charles Pasqua. Pasqua backed Balladur in the hope of becoming prime minister.

In April 1993 Pasqua identified immigrants as the chief cause of crime and drug trafficking. Then Pasqua accused immigrants of `complicity with terrorist organisations'. In October 1993 the police raided North African immigrant areas. They discovered Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) leaflets, which were used to justify deportations. A few months later it turned out that the police had made the leaflets up.

The latest crisis in Algeria has become an excuse for further harassment. After an attack on a French quarter of Algiers, Pasqua deported 20 Algerians. The police made 30,000 checks on people with a 'dark appearance' in Paris.

The fight against fundamentalism is invoked to justify every racist measure. It was used to back the government's campaign to expel young Muslim women from the state schools for wearing head scarves. It was also used by Pasqua to back laws which allow any foreigner to he deported if found guilty of public order offences and make it virtually impossible for Algerians to obtain visas. In 1994, out of the 800 asylum requests by Algerians only ten were granted.

In Algeria military repression has been stepped up since the president announced elections by the end of the year. The French state has strengthened police cooperation with Algeria in an attempt to unearth terrorist 'networks' between the two countries. It is tightening immigration controls because it fears numbers of clandestine refugees will rise.

But French support for the Algerian regime is not just about domestic political considerations. France is Algeria's number one economic partner (over a quarter of gas imports come from Algeria) and at the same time its main creditor. With 25 million inhabitants Algeria represents a highly attractive potential market: a quarter of all imports are from France.

The attempt by opposition parties--backed by the United States and Britain--to reach an agreement with the Islamic parties in Algeria is a threat to the military regime. If it succeeds it will jeopardise France's dominant position.

The left and anti-racist organisations in France have singled out fundamentalism as the main danger in Algeria and France, in practice putting themselves on the same side as the French ruling class.

They have done little to protest at the racist policies of the right. There was no demonstration against the deportation of Algerians last August. The campaign led by Socialisme International against the expulsion of young Muslim women from state schools was only supported by local branches of the main trade union federation, the CGT, and some student unions.

The anti-racist organisation, SOS-Racisme, even supported the government over the expulsions. The mass weekly paper, Le Nouvel Observateur, which is close to the Socialist Party, had a headline front page 'Fundamentalist plot' which described how fundamentalists had supposedly set up infiltration networks inside French society.

In France and Algeria, hope lies in the growth of workers' struggles against the policies carried out by each government. In November the leadership of the Algerian trade union movement, the UGTA, only managed to prevent a strike breaking out in the oil and gas industry at the last moment. Unrest is also growing in other sectors, notably the building industry which employs 700,000 workers.

In France solidarity with the Algerian people has to be built against a government which supports dictatorship in Algeria and attacks immigrants.

Ireland

'The reputation of British justice, once peerless throughout the world, has not survived 25 years of trouble in Northern Ireland,' said the Guardian's Hugo Young in calling for the release of a British paratrooper found guilty of the murder of an 18 year old girl in West Belfast, shot while a passenger of a car driven by a joyrider.

The list of victims of British injustice in the juryless courts of Northern Ireland is long. So too is the list of innocent people who have served decades in British prisons for crimes which they could never have committed.

Yet it took the Birmingham Six and Guilford Four many years to remedy the injustice they suffered. Now the massed ranks of Daily Telegraph readers, Tory MPs and army veterans are campaigning to get the soldier released immediately. Their campaign intensified with massive sympathetic press coverage, when the House of Lords rejected his appeal last month.

Private Lee Clegg is only the second soldier to have been convicted of murder while serving in Northern Ireland, despite British troops having killed 300 people since the troubles began. The first was Private Ian Thain, who was given a life sentence but was quietly released after less than three years--only to be reinstated in the army. It seems that this process is to be repeated in Clegg's case.

Leading the campaign is defence secretary Malcolm Rifkind whose concern for the wrongly imprisoned is highly selective. Rifkind claims that had there been a jury Clegg would never have been convicted. The fact that prisons in Northern Ireland are filled with people for whom that is the case doesn't seem to worry Rifkind or his allies. They claim that the conviction was politically motivated to placate those who say that members of the British army and the RUC seem immune from the law whatever they do.

Any scrutiny of the facts of the case show that--far from it being politically motivated--this case was so clearly one of soldiers acting unlawfully that the courts had no option but to convict. The force used was out of all proportion to the crime, it was decided.

Initially Clegg claimed that he had only opened fire after the joyriders' Astra had hit one of the soldiers. This was later admitted to be false. In fact after the shooting one soldier was heard to shout, 'Get down, you're it,' to a soldier, who then lay on the ground while another stamped on his leg and hit him with a rifle to make it appear that the car had smashed into him, thus justifying the shooting. The three soldiers later accused of perverting the course of justice in this case were all acquitted.

Even worse is the evidence of how the paratroopers celebrated the double murder. Back in their canteen they built a model of the car complete with a bloodstained head and poster proclaiming, 'Vauxhall Astra. Built by robots. Driven by joyriders. Stopped by A company.'

The hypocrisy of the government and the security forces has rarely been more stark. On duty soldiers have killed hundreds, including unarmed civilians and children, yet it seems in the only two cases where a murder conviction has succeeded that the law will be ignored and the soldiers back on patrol as soon as possible. The Tories' policy of longer sentences for violent crime obviously does not apply to those wearing uniform.

Michael Howard, the home secretary, has let it be known that he will be sympathetic to Clegg's case.

The talk in Ireland may now be of peace and reconciliation and of taking the troops off the streets, but this case shows that the British government still regards the oppression of Irish Catholics as the legitimate role of the British army.