By Boris Kagarlitsky
MOSCOW — Most of Russia's population are following the election campaign with confusion and scepticism, mixed at times with curiosity and fear.
The Yeltsin team has put its stake on three methods: "going to the people"; handing out promises; and attempting to frighten voters with the "red menace". Yeltsin's propagandists have managed to combine Stalinist methods, such as leader-worship and unrelenting information pressure, with western advertising techniques.
However, even the best propaganda is powerless if people are presented every day with hard evidence that the authorities' policies are bankrupt. Industrial output is continuing to decline. The exchange rate of the rouble has again begun falling. The state debt is growing rapidly.
Large numbers of people live below the poverty line, and average wages are marking time at a level of about US$100 a month; even these wages may not be paid for months on end.
The situation in privatised firms is even worse than in the state sector. Many privatised firms are lobbying the local and central authorities, demanding to be renationalised.
In most parts of the world, governments go into elections armed with lists of their achievements. The present Russian authorities are reluctant to do this. Better to make new promises than to try to answer for those of the past!
However, this approach works only while there is confidence that the new promises will be met. Yeltsin has now been breaking solemn public pledges for five years, beginning with his 1991 oath to uphold the Supreme Soviet, and there are few people who believe him any more. He signs decrees by the dozen, and gives out cars to his supporters. This is reminiscent of an eastern despot granting favours to his subjects; there is little in it to recall an election campaign.
The authorities are placing special hopes on Yeltsin's decree abolishing the military call-up after the year 2000. But the year 2000 is still a good way off, and today's conscripts are continuing to serve.
Meanwhile, the shooting continues in Chechnya. If the Kremlin is serious about wanting a settlement in Chechnya, it will have to sacrifice its proxies in the republic, where the puppet government of Doku Zavgayev has little support.
In Moscow, however, Zavgayev has influential friends, including Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin and oil and gas company directors with close links to him. The energy chiefs have substantial interests at stake in Chechnya.
These people hold key positions within the ruling apparatus in Moscow, just as they have always done. For the fuel bosses, the retention of Zavgayev in Grozny is a guarantee that control over the republic's economy will remain in their hands. For the Chechens, it is glaring proof of Moscow's insincerity. For millions of electors in Russia, it is proof that the authorities are unable or unwilling to put a stop to the war.
'Red menace'
The authorities have put their main stake on frightening voters with the "red menace". On the television, communists are equated with devils. Young voters are told that Communist (KPRF) candidate Gennady Zyuganov will ban rock music and discotheques. Their elders are assured that the KPRF is preparing a re-run of Stalin's terror, that it will ban foreign travel, and that the day after a Zyuganov victory hyperinflation will break out and all foodstuffs will disappear from the stores.
The KPRF leaders were clearly not expecting such an onslaught. During its years in opposition the KPRF has taken on the character of a moderate, cautious and highly conservative organisation. The last thing its leaders want is abrupt changes.
The party's members are passive and do not control the leadership. The Communists are linked to the representatives of the current administration by their shared experience of the Soviet past and of the parliamentary present. Zyuganov's program is a classic list of Keynesian prescriptions interlarded with general statements about social justice and with patriotic rhetoric that is by no means alien to Yeltsin.
Although this program would allow the nationalisation of some firms, resurrecting the state sector on its former scale is not foreseen. Partial renationalisation is in any case urged by advisers to the present government. Returning the huge natural gas monopoly Gazprom to state control is demanded by none other than Harvard economist Jeffrey Sachs, who in Russia is considered the leading ideologue of "shock therapy".
The panic displayed by the Russian elite is explained by the simple fact that in a country where an entrepreneurial bourgeoisie has not been able to establish itself, wealth and success are tied inextricably to the exercise of state power. A change of government would swiftly bankrupt many of the "new Russians" who have enriched themselves during the years of reform.
The people around Yeltsin are determined to hold on to power at any price. The less chance they have of victory at the ballot box, the greater the likelihood of an "unconstitutional solution". The prospect of electoral fraud is discussed openly on the pages of the newspapers.
Military preparations
The commander of the Interior Ministry forces, General Kulikov, tells journalists that he will not be able to "prevent" bloodshed after the elections, but guarantees that it will be brief.
Military units are being moved into position close to Moscow and other large cities. The cease-fire in Chechnya will allow combat-ready units from the Caucasus to be thrown into operations in central Russia if necessary. The Communists are accusing the authorities of preparing a coup, while the authorities speak of a communist conspiracy and of secret armed detachments of "reds".
The talk of a "red menace" is creating an atmosphere of political hysteria, in which any actions aimed at "imposing order" are seen as possible and justified.
On June 7 Valery Shantsev, candidate for vice-mayor of Moscow, was seriously injured by a bomb explosion outside his apartment building. Formerly a senior Communist Party official, Shantsev has retained his links with the present KPRF leaders while running alongside Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov, who has always been a Yeltsin supporter.
By choosing Shantsev as his deputy, Luzhkov was clearly seeking to protect his position in the event of a communist victory. The attempt to assassinate Shantsev has underlined the point that no compromise is possible.
However, the main rift which will determine the outcome of the elections is not between "communists" and "democrats", but between the capital and the provinces.
Moscow and St Petersburg live their own special lives, showing little interest in what happens outside their boundaries. Not only are the richest elements of the population concentrated in these cities, but life is also more interesting. Here there is hope for the future, or at least a sense that things aren't too bad.
Even in Soviet times, people in the Russian provinces were not generously disposed toward the "bloated" capital. But one cannot even begin to compare this to what people feel today.
Moscow and St Petersburg will vote for the current authorities, once again evoking the irritation of the rest of the country. For millions of provincial residents, the elections will provide a chance to put the authorities in the capital in their place, or at least to remind them that the rest of the country exists. If this cannot be done through the ballot box, people will look for other ways.