““How can we live like this? We haven’t been paid in five months.’’ . . . ““They don’t pay workers, but they are building mansions – for themselves and their children.’’ . . . ““Everyone is to blame – Yeltsin, the government.’’ . . . ““The mafia is living well. That’s why they’re all for Yeltsin.’’ . . . ““We lived better under the communists. Of course we did.''
Of course? For Zyuganov supporters, it’s a matter of faith that life was better in the Soviet era. The U.S.S.R. may have been the ““evil empire’’ to its subjugated neighbors, to the West and to citizens who tried to challenge Soviet authority – but the politics of nostalgia explains why Zyuganov is Boris Yeltsin’s top challenger in the June 16 presidential elections. ““Yeltsin is today, with all of its problems, and Zyuganov is yesterday,’’ says sociologist Yuri Levada, the director of a leading Russian polling organization. ““That is the choice.''
Yeltsin is trying to quell discontent, promising voters back wages, higher pensions and compensation for the savings stolen by hyperinflation. He has moved to end the unpopular war in Chechnya, signing a ceasefire with Chechen rebels last week and flying to the breakaway region to tell Russian troops optimistically: ““The war is over and you have won.’’ But the struggle to shape Russia’s collective memory is as important as the debates over current issues. Define the past as the good old days, and the present is a disaster. Define the past as a nightmare of mass terror and massive incompetence, and the present looks pretty good.
After the revelations of glasnost and the collapse of the Soviet Union, the judgment of history seemed final: the Soviet system was a political, economic and moral failure. But Zyuganov has won acceptance for an audacious historical rewrite. In his standard campaign speech, Zyuganov conjures his version of the past: ““What happened to the people who defeated the fascist beast and liberated not only themselves but all of Europe? Why did this country that calls itself democratic deprive the people of elementary rights: the right to work, to get medical treatment for the elderly, to send their children away to pioneer camps?’’ His usually older audiences nod with the fervor of true believers.
Russians are not alone in their amnesia. Polish and Hungarian communists were able to stage swift comebacks, too – but at least felt compelled to repackage themselves as ““social democrats.’’ Zyuganov leads a party formally committed to ““communism as the historic future of mankind.''
The rise of nostalgia is most easily understood as a rise in frustration. There’s nothing like rampant crime and corruption to make people long for the old police state; there’s nothing like going without a paycheck for months or losing a job to make a subsistence wage seem like a security blanket. The stores are flooded with goods – expensive ones. Even those who have modestly improved their living standards, purchasing new VCRs and better food, often feel poorer because they see how much they are missing out on.
But living standards aren’t the whole story. Rejecting the present is a way to reject the version of history that seemed to write off not only the old state but those who worked for it. And decades of party propaganda left their mark as well. As journalist David Satter explains in his new book ““Age of Delirium,’’ Soviet life was organized to create an artificial version of reality, and many Russians still seem to accept the old mirage. At any Zyuganov rally, supporters will argue that the Soviet Union was a democratic state – and that they didn’t have to stand in long lines for meat.
What are Zyuganov’s followers really yearning for? Many talk wistfully about the lost Soviet empire: their lives may have been bleak, but their country inspired fear abroad. Some talk about the need for another Stalin to deal with crime. But even among the believers, they are in the minority. Most hark back to the period of decaying communism, when Leonid Brezhnev ruled and labor discipline was notoriously lax.
In private, Russians sometimes confess to the less exalted things they miss: the ability to steal, drink and loaf on the job without any fear of being fired; the ability to collect bribes. A restaurant doorman felt important because he kept out customers, no matter how many tables were empty, unless he was slipped a few rubles. Today he is just a doorman, if he still has the job at all. But most of all, older Russians are inspired by the most basic of emotions: a longing for their youth.
The young are not immune to the lure of nostalgia, either. At Moscow’s May Day rally, Aleksei Knyazev, 23, sported a Brezhnev button and recalled the grief in his family when the Soviet leader died in 1982. ““Brezhnev was a symbol of wisdom.’’ And the food lines? ““The lines were romantic,’’ he replied. ““You found out all the news while waiting on line, and you didn’t lose half your salary when you bought something.’’ Among the under-40 crowd, such views remain very much in the minority. ““Young people are for Yeltsin,’’ declared Sergei Zakharenko, 25, who sells cosmetics at the Klintsy market. ““There’s no question that life is better now.’’ For those who agree, Zyuganov’s challenge sometimes prompts ironic thoughts. ““If we wouldn’t have to pay such a high price, especially in human lives, it would be good for the Russians to see once again for themselves what communism really is,’’ muses human-rights activist and former political prisoner Sergei Grigoryants. A radical cure, to be sure, and the patient might not recover.
