Comrade Trishkin, who works at a nearby tractor station, rose to his feet in the high school auditorium demanding to know why elected officials hadn`t solved the problem of garbage collection in this rural farming community.
”We request that our candidates pay attention to communal services,” he declared during a town hall-style campaign meeting, part of a historic Soviet election year in which some voters are choosing from multiple-candidate slates.
About 250 neighbors gathered in the hall applauded as Trishkin added,
”Otherwise, our streets will turn into garbage bins.”
Of the eight candidates vying for six positions on the local Soviet, or executive council, two then strode to the podium.
”I pledge to bring to life all of your requests,” said Mikhail Selevanov, chief physician at the community hospital. And Valentin Krasilov, a veteran legal investigator, promised to ”spare no effort” to deal with ”the painful points of our city.”
Thus does democracy come with baby steps to the USSR.
The polls will be open from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. Sunday as voters across the Soviet Union gather to cast paper ballots for representatives to governing councils on the regional, city, township and village level.
This year, the Soviet Union has answered Kremlin chief Mikhail Gorbachev`s call for democratizatsiya by embarking upon an electoral experiment in approximately five percent of the nation`s polling districts.
More candidates than elected positions will appear on the ballots in those areas, and voters will be given a chance to cross off names of less-liked contenders.
Since the 1930s, Soviet voters have been offered only one candidate for each post, resulting in election victories in the 99th percentile that would make any Chicago ward boss salivate.
The campaign in Surovikino, located amid fragrant sage and prairie grass on the Russian steppes 85 miles west of Volgograd, a key industrial center, illustrates the differences in Soviet and American concepts of democracy. At the same time, the process gives greater insight into the Russian character.
Surovikino, with its population of 17,000, is the regional center for agricultural and light-industrial collectives. The total population of the area is 37,000, and residents over 18–the legal voting age–number 26,600.
Elections will fill posts on the city council, one township council and 13 village councils. In all, there are 662 candidates running for 525 positions. An alderman here is called a deputy.
Candidates are nominated by their work collective, where it is assumed the aspirant`s personal habits, moral tenor and political correctness have been on display before colleagues.
During meetings in the workplace–whether a factory, farm, or institute
–names are proposed, debated and voted up or down.
On the campaign trail, however, it is considered bad manners for a candidate to brag about his credentials, his ideal family life, or his deep patriotism and suitability for public office. Modesty is deemed an important attribute.
Therefore, the work collective also elects a companion for each of the candidates to serve as a campaign manager, proxy and agent to introduce the chosen to the electorate, giving an enthusiastic recital of the candidate`s high qualifications.
This campaign assistant receives the marvelous title of doverenniy litso, translated as trusted person.
Together, the candidate and the trusted person travel throughout the election district, lobbying voters door-to-door, in apartment courtyards and during larger assemblies.
Democracy, as the people of Surovikino are now learning, can sometimes be messy.
Nikolai Pshenichny, president of the regional executive committee, said that one local candidate made a final campaign stop last week, went home and beat his wife. The woman had to be hospitalized.
”Now, we have one candidate less on the ballot,` Pshenichny said.
Asked about that incident–and the scandal in America over former Democratic presidential candidate Gary Hart`s alleged dalliances–one supporter of hospital chief Selevanov said such a thing could never happen with the good doctor.
”In our collective, we know everything,` she said.
Also an important part of the election process is the agitator, whose role is strikingly similar to an old-time Chicago machine ward heeler. Agitators are assigned a certain territory–in Surovikino it`s about 10 houses apiece–and they are responsible for informing the residents of election laws, making sure they get to the polls and helping out the elderly or infirm with absentee ballots.
The agitators also guide voters in making a wise choice.
A campaign rally, part of the regular election season schedule, showed that a fine Chicago maxim also holds true in the Soviet Union: All politics is local politics.
In a nation where few actually influence policy at the top, the citizens of Surovikino were unfettered in speaking out on issues that trouble their lives but can be remedied by local councils.
The majority of complaints were like those of any municipality in the West: roads, bus lines, sidewalks along Lenin Street so children walking to school could avoid heavy traffic.
Ivan Uskov, deputy head of organization for the Volgograd Oblast
(province), said results from the multicandidate elections in his jurisdiction ”will be placed under a microscope” by those who hope to draft national legislation by year`s end.
A benchmark for the growth of Gorbachev`s democratic reforms will be elections in 2 1/2 years, when polling takes place for the national parliament, called the Supreme Soviet.
”These elections could, potentially, be very significant,” said a senior Western diplomat in Moscow. ”Is it a trend that will grow beyond the five percent? Will it happen more than once? Anytime you have multicandidate elections, that is important.”
Residents of Surovikino say this year`s election has sparked greater interest, although concern remains over the demands of participatory democracy, even at such preliminary stages.
”This is only our first step,` said Alla Gritsoyenko, chairman of the Surovikino People`s Court. ”It is better than before, because at least we see our right of choice.”
The new experimental electoral system has troubling points, she conceded. Citizens are compelled to choose. ”We now are obliged to cross out names,`
she added, ”and that is difficult.”
