The dismaying success of the neo-fascists in the parliamentary elections not only threatens Boris Yeltsin's presidency, it calls into question Russia's commitment to democracy and to the international order.
Consider: The neo-fascists' leader, Vladimir Zhirinovsky, has called for ethnic cleansing and the re-creation of the czarist empire, including Poland and Finland.Once, he even demanded the return of Alaska.
His book "The Last Push to the South" recalls Hitler's "Mein Kampf" and the Nazis' "Push to the East," as Adrian Karatnycky, executive director of Freedom House, points out.
It proposes "the conquest of Afghanistan, Iran and Turkey in a march on the south in search of warm-water ports."
So Yeltsin urgently needs to try to offset his foes' strength in the new parliament. He should seek to renew his mandate, and schedule a race for president as soon as possible - perhaps as early as March.
This would be risky, because polls show that he has been steadily losing voter support.
If the trend continues, Zhirinovsky could defeat him - and use Yeltsin's new constitution, which creates a strong presidency, to carry out his reactionary policies.
But Yeltsin is still Russia's best politician. If he were to apply himself, he might well defeat all comers.
A failure to face up to this challenge virtually guarantees an ever-deepening crisis: The longer he waits to seek re-election, the greater the likely stalemate between him and the new parliament and the more his popularity will dwindle.
While that popularity helped him win the narrowest of margins for his constitution, it did not head off the unholy alliance of Zhirinovsky's Liberal Democrats and the Communists, which came in third.
A sizable portion of Russian Slavophiles has long opposed close relations with the West; in the elections, they found a natural home in Zhirinovsky's platform.
They were joined by Russians angry over the economic crisis and the social and political collapse that have marked Yeltsin's tenure.
They and the Communists can be counted upon to fight privatization and other fundamental economic reforms imported from the West.
For now, Yeltsin has to return to the basics to improve the day-to-day life of the Russian people. The public wants an increase in cheap consumer goods.
He should continue carrying out land reform (especially doubling the size of peasants' garden plots) and privatizing state enterprises and encouraging entrepreneurs.
The last Soviet President, Mikhail S. Gorbachev, was forced out with several years left in his term. If Yeltsin insists on trying to serve out his term until June 1996 without an early election, he risks the same fate.