CNN WORLD News

Communist leader Zyuganov stumps
for votes of the disaffected

Campaign

May 23, 1996
Web posted at: 1 a.m. EDT (0500 GMT)

MOSCOW (CNN) -- Communist leader Gennady Zyuganov is pitching himself as the people's candidate for Russia's presidency -- the honest broker, the one who cares.

On the campaign trail, he sympathized with a teacher who has not been paid in three months, asking how she lives.

His unwavering supporters are workers, clerks, bureaucrats, even professionals, all left behind in the free market push of democracy. The elderly are especially supportive.

Ninety-one-year-old Yakov Isakov has seen nearly all of Russia's history in the 20th century -- the czars, the Bolsheviks, and the democrats.

"Before there were a lot of shortcomings," he says. "But now things are completely bad. Now people are becoming beggars."

Zyuganov takes great joy in making that point on his campaign stops.

"They say they are taking us forward to a market economy, but to survive in the market you need money to produce goods," he says. "Our production has been cut in half ... and one out of two people does not receive their pay on time. What kind of market is this?"

Young voters

Even at the University in Yekatrinburg, opponent Boris Yeltsin's alma mater, Zyuganov finds supporters. But weeks after Zyuganov promised to spell out the Communists' economic plan, the details remain hazy.

Zyuganov's economic experts say the party's philosophy is not to impose restrictions, but that the country must control imports, raising fears that Russia could return to Soviet-era shortages.

The experts also say the party does not plan to re-nationalize banks made private after the fall of the Soviet Union, but they will force the banks to realign their policies to serve the Communists' idea of Russia's national interests.

They promise too that Russians can keep money they've made in recent years, provided it was earned "legally." But they do not clarify what privatized businesses would be considered legal under a Communist rule.

While Zyuganov is garnering hefty support on the campaign trail, some voters are undecided -- and still others know only that they oppose Communism.

"I don't love Yeltsin, but I am definitely against Zyuganov, against the Communists," said one man, "because ten years ago I remember the ration cards."

In large industrial centers like Yekatrinburg -- where at least some businesses are flourishing -- people are not lining up to see Zyuganov. In fact, at times he is met by more press than potential voters.

But ultimately, Zyuganov has only to convince the people that his message is new, containing not just criticisms of the recent past, but a blueprint for the future.

To accomplish that, Zyuganov must forge a union of the divergent ideas of some 200 Communist-oriented factions in his coalition. To win the battle over Russia's undecided voters, he may need to strike a more moderate stance in the party's platform, against the staunch wishes of his more radical supporters.

CNN Moscow Bureau Chief Eileen O'Connor and Correspondent Steve McNally contributed to this report.

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