Zhirinovsky's splash onto the Russian national stage shocked governmental officials in both Moscow and the West.[91] Because he spouted a venomous brand of racism and chauvinism and criticised in equal proportion the Communists and democrats, Zhirinovsky appeared to represent a new, third force in Russian electoral politics - militant nationalism. Russian fascism seemed ascendant, whilebothpro-democratic (andpro-Western) forces and pro-Communist forces seemed to be on the decline.[92] At this moment, Russia's political and economic future seemed highly uncertain. Public opinion surveys indicated a rise in the degree of trust in the fairness of the electoral process.[93] At the same time, pro-Yeltsin elites in Moscow hinted that the Kremlin would never allow someone like Zhirinovsky to come to power, no matter what the voters said, suggesting that the elections were not the final determinant of who ruled Russia.
With the advantage of hindsight, it is clear that Zhirinovsky's 1993 victory did not mark the beginning of fascism's ascendance in Russia. Rather it was the unique circumstances of the autumn of i993 that allowed his star to rise. After two and a half years of falling production, double-digit inflation and general economic uncertainty, everyone expected the opposition or protest vote in i993 to be substantial. In the immediate aftermath of this mini-civil war in downtown Moscow, the Communists were still regrouping in December. Weeks before the December vote, it was uncertain whether members of the Russian Communist Party would even be allowed to participate. Communist disarray allowed Zhirinovsky to capture the opposition, protest vote. In addition, Zhirinovsky's brilliant television campaign, the first real mass- media campaign in Russian electoral history, established his party as the most aggressive and abrasive enemy of the status quo.[94]
Over the next years leading up to the next parliamentary election in 1995, economic conditions in Russia did not improve, leaving the distribution of
michael mcfaul
support between pro-government and opposition voters relatively the same. In this two-year interval, however, Zhirinovsky's appeal among opposition voters faded at the same time as the Communist Party reorganised and grew once again as Russia's most important opposition force. Although the Communist Party was challenged by important splinter groups on the Left, including Viktor Anpilov's radical Working Russia, the party entered the i995 campaign as the most united and best organised political party in Russia. Building upon networks and structures left from several decades of Communist Party rule in Russia, the CPRF used the resources accorded to the party by the Duma to strengthen regional party organisations during the two-year interval between parliamentary votes.
This organisational work paid off as the CPRF made impressive gains over its 1993 showing by winning almost a quarter of the popular vote and thereby reclaiming its role as the leader of the opposition. Buoyed by party identification on the ballot, CPRF candidates also dominated single-mandate races, winning an astonishing fifty-eight seats. Zhirinovsky's LDPR won less than half its 1993 total, but was still placed second with 11 per cent of the popular vote. The total percentage ofvotes for anti-governmental parties well exceeded 50 per cent, giving hope to the opposition, CPRF leader Ziuganov in particular, that Yeltsin could be defeated in the presidential context in the following year.
Division and poor electoral performances among those considered pro- government or pro-reform helped to fuel optimism in the opposition's camp. The number of electoral blocs that registered for the ballot rose dramatically, from thirteen in i993 to forty-three in i995 and most of the new contestants were considered reformist or centrist blocs. Eight of the new electoral blocs in 1995 were direct descendants of Russia's Choice from 1993, while an amazing twenty electoral blocs emerged from the Democratic Russia of 1991. Early in the campaign period, the Yeltsin administration openly promoted the formation of two new electoral blocs led by Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin and Duma speaker Ivan Rybkin that would be loyal to the Yeltsin regime. Chernomyrdin's Our Home Is Russia was supposed to represent the Right of centre, while Rybkin was ordered to form a left-of-centre bloc. The Rybkin project all but collapsed before the vote, but even Chernomyrdin's new 'party of power' did not perform well, just barely breaking into double digits. Grigorii Iavlinskii's Iabloko (Apple), the self-proclaimed leader of Russia's democratic opposition, won 7 per cent, well below expectations and almost a full percentage point below Iabloko's i993 showing. Former acting prime minister Egor Gaidar and his Democratic Choice of Russia (DVR) suffered the greatest setback in 1995, winning just 3.9 per cent of the popular vote, less than one-third of their 1993 total.
Most analysts interpreted these results as a firm rebuff of both Yeltsin and Prime Minister Chernomyrdin.[95] Yeltsin subsequently began the 1996 presidential campaign looking as if he would follow other first time post-Communist leaders and be defeated in the second election. To defeat Ziuganov and stay in power a second term, Yeltsin turned the 1996 presidential election into a referendum on the revolution.[96] Yeltsin obviously could not ask voters to judge him by the achievements of his administration over the previous four years - a list of accomplishments that included economic collapse, armed conflict with parliament and war in Chechnya (discussed above and below). Instead Yeltsin's strategy was to convince voters that Russia had to proceed with what he and his allies had started in 1991 -the transformation of Russia into a market economy and democratic polity. In making this case, Yeltsin's campaign also emphasised that the current president was the lesser of two evils. The Yeltsin campaign also scared voters into thinking that revolutionary turmoil would ensue should Ziuganov win. To make it easier for voters to support Yeltsin, his campaign first worked to eliminate or mute the president's negatives. First, Yeltsin's image had to be changed. The president lost twenty pounds, stopped drinking and began to appear frequently in public again. Second, negative policies had to be changed. Public opinion polls demonstrated that two were most salient - unpaid wages and the war in Chechnya. To create a sense of urgency around the issue, Yeltsin created a special government commission tasked with paying all salaries by 1 April. In the process of fulfilling this goal, Yeltsin sacked numerous regional government heads as well as several of his own cabinet officials including his deputy prime minister, Anatolii Chubais. Yeltsin also raised pensions, increased salaries of government employees (including military personnel), and began doling out government transfers on the campaign trail. Yeltsin addressed his other big negative at the end of March when he pledged to end the war in Chechnya. In May, the first Russian troops began to leave.
Parallel to this positive campaign to remake Yeltsin's image, policies and government, Yeltsin's team also unleashed a hard-hitting negative media blitz against Communism at the end of the campaign. The Yeltsin campaign successfully defined the election as a referendum on seventy years of Soviet Communism, and deftly avoided lettingthe vote be about Yeltsin's record. Ziuganov tried to bring the focus back to Yeltsin's record, but did not succeed, in part because he enjoyed little access to the national media and in part because he offered no viable alternative to Yeltsin's reforms. Instead of tracking to the centre and becoming a Social Democrat, Ziuganov fused his traditional Communist slogans with nationalist themes. The strategy did not attract new voters. Instead, the campaign became defined by the mass media (virtually monopolised by Yeltsin), as a contest not between two individuals, but between two ways of life.
91
In the wake of the election, the
92
For a flavour of his views at the time, see Vladimir Zhirinovsky,
93
Matthew Wyman, Stephen White, Bill Miller and Paul Heywood, 'Public Opinion, Parties, and Voters in the 1993 Russian Elections',
94
The importance of the PR electoral system cannot be underestimated in accounting for Zhirinovsky's surprising victory. In single-mandate races, LDPR candidates won only five seats in the Duma and no seats in the Federation Council. In a pure majoritarian electoral system, the Liberal Democratic Party would have won less than ten seats in the parliament.
95
Peter Reddaway 'Red Alert',
96
The following two paragraphs are adapted from Michael McFaul,