The Russian election is a not just a contest between economic systems; it’s a battle over the nature of politics. The communists are on record as saying they don’t believe in the office of president, which means that if they win this may be the first and last real election in Russia. Having watched what they see as the craven (and CIA-inspired) demise of the U.S.S.R. under ““that traitor’’ Mikhail Gorbachev, hard-line party leaders (some of whom were involved in 1991’s coup attempt against Gorbachev) would be unlikely to relinquish power peacefully the next time.
Americans having trouble comprehending the election’s stakes might think of it this way: when MTV launched its ““Choose or Lose’’ campaign in 1992, what was at risk of being ““lost’’ by young people who didn’t vote was a chance to weigh in on, say, student loans. The Yeltsin campaign team, desperate to attract young voters, launched its own ““Vote or You Will Lose’’ spots this year. The quick-cut visual language, rock beat, black clothes and relentlessly laid-back tone made them almost indistinguishable from MTV. What’s different is the off-air response to the question of what could be ““lost.’’ The answer, repeated over and over by thoughtful Russians, is ““everything.’’ For many it’s Choose or Emigrate.
But the clash of political cultures plays out more prosaically as well in the mechanics of electioneering. The choice between Zyuganov and Yeltsin is more than nostalgic retirees versus opportunistic strivers or fearful rural traditionalists versus hopeful urban sophisticates. It’s also seasoned grass-roots field organization versus full-service media campaign. Mayor Daley versus Mike Deaver. Secret cells versus cell phones. Lenin versus Lennon.
At 500,000 strong, the Communist Party is less than one tenth of its former strength but remains a potent political organization. Every polling place in every small village will have at least one party member on hand to get out the vote, which is far more than the Yeltsin forces can muster. All told, 200,000 communists will canvas for votes, and that doesn’t necessarily include members of local election commissions, most of whom are pensioners and therefore inclined toward the communists.
With life expectancy for men now down to the late 50s, this is truly the last hurrah for the old comrades, but it may be the only hurrah they need. Their voters routinely turned out for meaningless Soviet elections (““Our comrade won with 99 percent!’’) and will likely do so again. Rural areas account for less than one third of the total, but the turnout there is 10 percent higher than in the cities. While the central election commission is in Yeltsin’s hands, among the 80 or so powerful regional leaders who will report vote totals, perhaps a third support the current Communist Party, according to Nikolai Petrov of the Moscow Carnegie Center.
But because almost all regional and local bosses are pragmatic rather than ideological, the momentum of the election becomes especially important. By some accounts, Yeltsin backers are boosting his poll numbers in order to persuade local officials to get with the winner. The communists are trying the same sorts of threats. No one knows whose hints of post-election recriminations are more persuasive
The problem for Yeltsin is that he can’t let his poll numbers get too high, because he depends heavily on voters who hold their nose and cast their ballots for him out of necessity. ““Yeltsin wins only when it seems he’s losing,’’ says Artyom Borovik, a Moscow newsman. In any event, the polls are unreliable. The base-line comparisons are weak (too few earlier elections to analyze), the polltakers are viewed suspiciously as representatives of the government (therefore possibly exaggerating Yeltsin’s support) and some are still undertaken by phone, a technique that skews rural results. (Remember Alf Landon, the 1936 GOP candidate who beat FDR in a famous telephone poll but carried only two states?)
But if telephone penetration is incomplete in Russia, TVs are in nearly every home. And it’s clear which candidate understands modern media politics. Last week Yeltsin dropped from sight for two days, reminding Russia once again how much of its fate resides in his arteries. But the president was apparently just feeling a tad overexposed. After all, each night he is featured on the news in different well-planned photo ops – rousing friendly crowds, boogieing at rock concerts or tossing out pork. (YELTSIN PROMISES THE SUN, read one headline after he told voters in the far north that he would restore their old perk of sending children south for holiday.) Whether it’s papering over the war in Chechnya or grabbing a few billion from the central bank to pass out to voters or pioneering direct mail in Russia with a personally addressed letter to World War II vets that many think was actually signed by him, Yeltsin runs circles around Zyuganov as a campaigner.
The communists have taken to simple imitation. Yeltsin is seen dancing on TV one night; Zyuganov tries an awkward two-step the next. This angers party hacks. Retired general Valentin Varennikov, a onetime coup plotter against Gorbachev, says that ““only some machination can keep us from power.’’ He meant not just fraud but the traditional pre-election spending spree that Americans consider ordinary campaigning. The Yeltsinites are merely a little less subtle about it than Bill Clinton (if that’s possible).
Fearful for their jobs if the communists win, the TV networks that often blasted Yeltsin over Chechnya are now firmly in his corner. The chief of NTV, a large public network, didn’t even resign his job when he took over as Yeltsin’s media adviser. The Zyuganov campaign has rejected paid advertising, preferring to use the free TV time for candidates while conserving money for its get-out-the-vote drive. The fascist candidate, Vladimir Zhirinovsky, who is expected to get something over 10 percent of the vote, has aired effective ads blasting foreign companies. (““Coca-Cola! McDonald’s! Is it Russian? Who is buying Russian apples?’')
But it’s the Yeltsin campaign that is all over the airwaves with highly sophisticated commercials. The ads, which come in 15 versions with Russians of different ages, occupations and accents, each feature an average voter, not an actor, showing old black-and-white family pictures as music plays. The housewife/veteran/grandmother/doctor tells a heartwarming story of struggle and happiness, admits that not everything’s perfect under Yeltsin, but looks forward with confidence. The slogan at the end is: ““I believe. I love. I hope. B. N. Yeltsin.''
EVERYONE KNOWS WHY YELTSIN is absent from his own ads. He so dominates the news – and remains so personally unpopular – that a soft sell without him makes sense. But are the spots ““on message’’? They are made by Video International, a Russian advertising agency run by smart young admen trained at American consulting firms like Bain and Co. and the Boston Consulting Group. ““We’re trying to convince the undecideds not to be angry when they think of the problems they face, to understand that “Life is like a box of chocolates’,’’ says Mikhail Margelov, who supervised the spots. The subtext is that Russians should be philosophical about their plight and separate their own pasts from their collective decline as a superpower.
But is this too subtle? ““This is a very dangerous strategy because when we showed focus groups the spots, they really started to remember their young years and how happy they were under communism,’’ says Yekaterina Yegorova, who runs Niccolo M (Macchiavelli’s first name), a Moscow consulting firm helping Yeltsin. ““There’s a clash between our free and paid media, and you can’t tell what the main message is.’’ (Paging James Carville.) In any event, these spots are just for the first round. For the runoff, Yeltsin will switch to tough attack ads conjuring the woes of communism.
Sen. Bill Bradley recently returned from Russia, and like most other politicians, Russian and Western, he thinks it could go either way: ““Will they vote for the emotion that a Yeltsin ad inspires or the reality that they haven’t gotten a paycheck in three months?’’ In the July runoff, much will depend on where the supporters of also-rans turn. Will reformers close ranks around Yeltsin? In 1968, many backers of Eugene McCarthy stayed home rather than vote for Hubert Humphrey, helping tip the election to Richard Nixon. That election changed the United States and the world. This Russian election makes 1968 – or any recent American contest – shrivel into insignificance. It’s not about gays in the military or welfare waivers for the states. It’s about everything.
