Yeltsin's Key Partners

As Ukraine's top ideological watchdog in the 1980s, Leonid Kravchuk was responsible for stamping out all traces of nationalism. But two weeks ago, after deftly shedding his party past, Kravchuk, 57, rode a wave of nationalist sentiment to election as President of an independent Ukraine, the most powerful of the republics after Russia. Then he went one step further, joining Russia and Belorussia with a plan to form a loosely knit commonwealth.

The move marked the culmination of a stunning political metamorphosis. After August's aborted coup, Kravchuk, then chairman of the Ukrainian parliament, straddled the fence, neither endorsing nor categorically condemning the coup leaders until failure was no longer in doubt. In quick succession, he resigned from the Communist Party and anointed himself the main champion of statehood. His 11th-hour conversion coincided with the political awakening of a majority of the republic's 53 million citizens.

Born to peasants in western Ukraine, he earned the equivalent of a master's degree in political economy at Kiev University, then embarked on a career as a party apparatchik, rising to head the propaganda department of the Ukrainian Communist Party. Authoritarian by nature, he has the acumen necessary to secure a powerful position alongside Yeltsin. To those who question his sincerity, Kravchuk responds, "A man cannot keep the same views all his life." All people undergo changes, he argues. His just happened to come all at once.

Stanislav who? Even Sovietologists had to scramble last week to gather information about Stanislav Shushkevich, the distant third member of the commonwealth troika.

Although he is a burly man, he seemed to shrink a bit last week as he posed for pictures beside his charismatic commonwealth partners. While the more publicity-wise Yeltsin and Kravchuk stared straight ahead, Shushkevich, 57, bowed his head, his hands clasped humbly in front of him. Technically he and the other two are equals, but there seems little doubt that he will exercise the least influence.

Of the three, only Shushkevich was not a professional party apparatchik. The son of a poet, he won a doctorate in physics and math, then served as deputy rector for science at Lenin State University in Minsk. He was long a party member, but did not turn to politics until after the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, when he joined a campaign to expose official attempts to cover up the damage. His reputation as an outspoken critic earned him a seat in 1990 in the Belorussian supreme soviet, where he was elected chairman last September.

Shushkevich did not leave the party until after the August coup attempt, and he has steered clear of identification with any faction. He has also repeatedly stressed that his republic is unlikely to lead the charge for radical economic or political change. With Belorussia's independence just four months old, Shushkevich's primary concern seems to be to thwart backsliding, while not winding up isolated.

Only one man could bring the four predominantly Muslim republics of Central Asia into the commonwealth: Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev. But he is not likely to be bought easily. Irritated that he had not been consulted by the three Slavic republics, he initially sided with Mikhail Gorbachev, arguing that the President "has not yet exhausted his possibilities." By week's end he agreed to join the commonwealth -- provided that Kazakhstan would be recognized as a co-founder.

As head of the sole Central Asian republic outfitted with nuclear weapons, only Nazarbayev can quell Western qualms about a divided weapons arsenal. And only Nazarbayev can lay to rest Muslim fears of Slavic dominance. Short, stocky and sophisticated, Nazarbayev, 51, came to international prominence during the August coup when he steered a level-headed course between renouncing the reactionaries and warning Yeltsin against politically explosive attempts to rearrange borders. He was tapped after the coup to introduce the notion of a state council comprising Gorbachev and the republic leaders.

Born into a family of mountain shepherds, Nazarbayev joined the Communist Party at 22 and went on to become an engineer. He eventually landed a Central Committee post as secretary for industry. In 1989 he was named his republic's party leader, and quit only after the coup attempt. While his political instincts remain cautious, his economic boldness may convince Westerners that he is a man with whom they can do business.