How Soviet Strategists Rig Elections In ‘Russia’ (VERY IMPORTANT DOCUMENT)

Julie A. Corwin RFE/RL IU Russian Elections Workshop Preliminary draft – Not for citation 17 February 2004

Relatively little has been written about Russia’s spin doctors, its Lee Atwaters, James Carvilles, and Dick Morrises of Russia, although Russia’s elections themselves, particularly its national elections, have been dissected many times over. This is a curious gap in the literature given that some analysts -- as well as the participants in the elections themselves -- believe that political consultants often play pivotal election roles.

Following the December 1993 State Duma elections, Russia’s Choice leader and former acting Prime Minister Yegor Gaidar acknowledged that the campaign had been lost because of poor media tactics.(1) Analysts of the 1996 presidential campaign almost universally credit President Boris Yeltsin’s handlers for his surprising come-from-behind victory. In the 1999 Duma campaign, the rapid gains of the newly created Unity party were largely attributed to aggressive public-relations campaigns, as was the equally rapid rise of little-known former KGB agent Vladimir Putin to the ranks of the country's most popular political figures.(2) Michael McFaul has written that “the victory of the hastily created Unity [party] in the State Duma elections is a clear example of the application of manipulative technology.”(3) Sarah Oates referred bluntly to Unity as an “impressive piece of political marketing.”(4) The results of the December State Duma 2003 race are still being analyzed, but the Russian press at least has given major credit for Unified Russia's win to the so-called master of political spin, presidential administration deputy Vladislav Surkov (5)...

Determining the precise role that political consultants play in any elections is rarely easy…

…The fundamental puzzle for students of Russian politics as Stephen Hanson has noted is why elections continue to be so important in Russia while democratic institutions remain soweak. (6) According to Hanson, neither pessimists nor optimists among Russia analysts have been able to fully explain why elections at first remained competitive despite themuch documented weakness of democratic institutions such as political parties and the independent media and the dominating importance of informal -- clannish – connections among politicians and financiers/industrialists(7)...

Analyzing elections in Omsk Oblast in 1993 and 1995, Neil Melvin found a partial answer to the puzzle presented later by Hansen.(8) According to Melvin, elections in Omsk served the interests of the most powerful local group by giving them a means to consolidate their position of dominance in the region.

Since Hanson's and Melvin's articles were published, both Russian regional and national elections have become less competitive. (Competitive in this context means the voter has a real choice between candidates – not that elections are "free and fair" and that election rules are enforced.) The outcomes of regional elections are increasingly predictable, as elites appear to be engaged in a process of negotiation long before candidates can even be registered. For example, competing interests groups from the oil and timber industries agreed in advance to back the same candidate rather than competing ones in December 2003 Sakhalin Oblast gubernatorial election(9)...

The question of why elites may be increasingly relying on pre-election negotiations instead of counting on winning at the ballot box would probably be best answered by the members of these elite groups themselves, assuming that they would be willing to answer…And unlike the members of the regional elites, the political consultants, as members of a Moscow-based or Yekaterinburg-based elite, have less of a personal stake in local battles...

Political consultants in Russia generally have broader job descriptions than their counterparts in the West. Most of the firms engaged in “political technologies” in Russia offer a wide range of services from conducting focus groups and organizing opinion polling to producing paid political advertisements and designing media strategies for campaigns.

Also involved in the mix can be a variety of "dirty" and "not-so-dirty" tricks ranging from digging up dirt on rival candidates and organizing the transportation to the polls for elderly voters to registering "double" candidates (people with the same or similar name as a rival) to issuing counterfeit campaign materials under a rival candidate's name. In a practice that is regarded as strictly unethical in Western democracies, political consultants are often hired specifically to work against a particular candidate.

The self-identification of “tekhnolog,” or consultant, can be fairly broad and include people who do radically different things day to day. Similarly, the term, public relations, is often used in Russia as a more general term for a number of techniques that would not usually be included in a strict classification of public relations in the West.

In addition to the term “tekhnolog” in Russian, there is also the moniker “prshchik.” This term generally has a negative connotation and is used to describe people who conduct “black public relations.” The terms "black public relations" and "dirty technologies" are used more or less interchangeably to describe a broad range of dirty tricks from very simple ones, such as pasting leaflets of opposing candidates on voters' car windshields with hard-to-remove glue to more complex and elaborate hoaxes such as creating websites containing compromising materials about rival candidates. Few consultants ever refer to themselves as "prshchiks," although the term is much bandied about in the press. Maksim Dianov of the Institute for Regional Issues -- an academic who is also a political consultant -- offered a definition of the two terms that avoids value judgments. He believes that a “prshchik” is primarily concerned with the image of the client in a narrow sense, while a “tekhnolog” employs a broader array of tools for accomplishing defined tasks for his clients. These can range from raising a client’s public profile in local political circles to winning an election.(10)

Who are the consultants? Many leaders of the political consulting profession spring from the Moscow-based, Soviet-era political elite. They were part of that section of the intelligentsia that performed "services," such as political consulting and image making for the elite.11 A random sampling of the backgrounds of some of the best known figures shows how some members of the old elite adapted themselves quickly to the new world of elections and multiple political parties.

Take, for example, Igor Mintusov and Yekaterina Yegorova, the founders of the Nikkolo M consulting agency. They worked at the Moscow-based USA and Canada Institute. In the 1980s, Yegorova reportedly prepared background information about American political leaders for the Communist Party apparatus.12 In 1995, Yegorova and Mintusov reportedly established a relationship with Aleksandr Kazakov, who was then the head of the presidential administration’s territorial department. This relationship resulted in the firm gaining important clients and contracts.13 Although Nikkolo M was founded in 1992, Mintusov did not officially resign from the Institute until 1996. Kazakov went on to become first deputy head of the presidential staff under Anatolii Chubais. And it was Chubais, who ran Russian President Boris Yeltsin's successful 1996 presidential campaign.

Another leader in the field, Vyacheslav Nikonov, the head of the Politika foundation, is also former member of the Communist Party elite and grandson of former Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov. Nikonov was a top speechwriter at the Central Committee in the late 1980s where he wrote speeches for Mikhail Gorbachev and former KGB Chairman Vladimir Kryuchkov.(14) He founded the Politika foundation in 1993 together with Yeltsin-era adviser Georgii Satarov, who now heads the INDEM foundation. The same year, he was elected to the State Duma on the Party of Unity and Accord party list. In 1996, he was co-chairman of Yeltsin's re-election committee. He is also the author of "From Eisenhower to Nixon: From the History of the Republican Party" and "The Republicans: From Nixon to Reagan," among other books and articles.

Aleksei Koshmarov is another former member of the Soviet Communist Party elite who spent the bulk of his early professional life working at the Moscow-based Committee for Youth Organizations.(15) Koshmarov likes to joke that his firm is close to the Kremlin, because Novokom’s office is located just a few kilometers from Red Square. In an interview in 2002, he admitted that he maintains close ties to deputy head of the presidential administration Aleksandr Abramov, ties that were established during their Komsomol days.16 He became general director of Novokom in 1992. According to "Moskovskie novosti," Koshmarov boasted at a conference in 2000 that he created the populist image of the notoriously anti-Semitic former Krasnodar Krai Governor Nikolai Kondratenko.

Koshmarov played a leading role in the successful 1996 campaign of Vladimir Yakovlev to become governor of St. Petersburg, and in 1998 he spearheaded a highly controversial effort to elect a pro-Yakovlev majority to the St. Petersburg Legislative Assembly, an effort that included a wide range of dirty tricks including the widespread use of "double" candidates. He remains an adviser to Yakovlev. He also headed the unsuccessful 1996 campaign of Volgograd Mayor Yurii Chekhov to become governor of Volgograd Oblast. Communist Nikolai Maksyuta won that race, despite the Kremlin's support of Chekhov. Image-Contact President Aleksei Sitnikov -- who is younger than Nikonov, Yegorova, or Mintusov -- hails from Novosibirsk and was initially a bit of an outsider in Moscow politics. But he was able to capitalize on his ties with fellow Novosibirsk native and former Railways Minister Nikolai Aksenenko. In an interview, Sitnikov acknowledged having a warm personal relationship with Aksenenko and said that “one of the great events in his life was helping [Aksenenko] to create the Unity party.” However, Sitnikov insisted that his firm was awarded business and contracts based on its merit, noting that it won a contract to reorganize the Railways Ministry together with two Western firms in an open tender and after Aksenenko had left office.

Sitnikov founded Image-Contact in 1989 and, according to his website, the company has conducted more than 300 election campaigns at all levels, including unspecified participation in the 1996 and 2000 presidential elections. Some of Sitnikov's colleagues have alleged that he enjoyed close ties with former Kremlin powerbroker Boris Berezovskii, but Sitnikov denies this. However, he admits that he organized Berezovskii’s winning campaign for the Duma in Karachaevo-Cherkessia in 1999 and that he has met with the tycoon in London during business trips, in addition to his role in the creation of Unity, which is widely seen as a Berezovskii inspired and funded project (17)

While many leading political consultants got their starts in the business around the beginning of competitive elections in 1989, the profession itself is considered to have really begun in Russia in 1993. “Before [seven or eight years ago], there was no profession such as political technology," Dianov said, "and no one knew what public relations was or they thought it was some kind of swear word.”18 It was not until 1993 that the application of so-called “election technologies” became widespread.(19) Many of consultants entered the profession of election management more by accident than design. They joined election campaigns through friends or acquaintances and those who proved successful at this activity stuck with it. Many political consultancies grew more through informal, personal contacts than through more formal means of seeking new clients such as advertising. For example, Novokom's Koshmarov explained that his firm got its first big campaign -- representing Yakovlev in the 1996 St. Petersburg gubernatorial race -- through a referral by “friends.” 20 Later business flowed to the firm from its good contacts with Aleksandr Abramov, deputy head of the presidential administration under Putin. Sitnikov explained that he was hired to manage Sergei Darkin’s successful 2001 campaign for the governorship of Primorskii Krai because he was an old acquaintance of Darkin’s from their days as leaders in the Komsomol(21)...

...By negotiating before the elections, the candidates and the interest groups that they represent might have been able to avoid damage to their reputations and the hit on their wallets. They could have cut out the unpredictable factor of the voting public and reduce their reliance on the services of political consultants. Of course, not everything is up for negotiation, but if Koshmarov's account is accurate, then even the rebellious Cherepkov was willing to bargain. At that time, the Kremlin apparently didn't like his terms and decided to take its chances, and wound up being forced to accept a compromise candidate, Darkin. With the memory of these elections and others, Moscow and regionally-based elites may opt in the future for less costly and less risky option of bargaining with each other than the messy unpredictable process of elections.

Read:

(Excerpt taken from declassified 1989 memo to the CIA published in Golitsyn’s second book The Perestroika Deception, 1995)

‘PERESTROIKA’, THE FINAL PHASE: ITS MAIN OBJECTIVES

‘The new method sees ‘perestroika’, not as a surprising and spontaneous change, but as the logical result of thirty years of preparation and as the next and final phase of the strategy: it sees it in a broader context than Soviet ‘openness’ has revealed.’

‘It sees it, not only as a renewal of Soviet society, but as a global strategic design for ‘restructuring’ the entire capitalist world.’

‘The following strategic objectives of ‘perestroika’ may be distinguished:

For the USSR

(a) ‘Restructuring’ and revitalization of the Soviet socialist economy through the incorporation of some elements of the market economy.

(b) ‘Restructuring’ of the Stalinist regime into a form of ‘Communist democracy’ with an appearance of political pluralism [= ‘democratism’, or false democracy].

(c) ‘Reconsructing’ a repressive regime with a brutal face into an attractive socialist model with a human façade and seeming similarity to the Swedish social democratic system.’

maestro wrote: The 'invisible'......Nosenko 'Card'......?

Additional Predictions on ‘perestroika’ in Golitsyn’s memoranda to the CIA

(Taken from declassified memos published in Golitsyn’s second book The Perestroika Deception, 1995)

August 1985: ‘There are no valid grounds for favourable illusions or for the euphoria in the West over the Gorbachev appointment and the coming ‘liberalisation’. In fact, these developments may present a major challenge and serious test for the United States’ leadership and for the West. The liberalization will not be spontaneous nor will it be genuine. It will be a calculated liberalization patterned along the lines of the Czechoslovak ‘democratisation’ which was rehearsed in 1968. It will be initiated from above and will be guided and controlled by the KGB and the Party apparatus. The ‘liberalisation’ will include the following elements:

(a) Economic reforms to decentralize the Soviet economy and to introduce profit incentives on the lines of those in Hungary and China. Since Gorbachev is a Soviet agricultural expert, one can expect a reorganization of the kolkhozy or collective farms into sovkhozy or state farms. In fact, Lavrentiy Beria was already planning the liquidation of the kolkhozy in 1953.
(b) Religious relaxation along the lines of Iosif Stalin’s relaxation during the Second World War. The recent sensational Soviet invitation to the Reverend Billy Graham to preach in Soviet churches indicates that the Soviet strategists have already introduced this element and have not waited for the formal installation of Gorbachev as Party leader.
(c) Permission for a group of Jewish émigrés to leave the USSR.
(d) Relaxation of travel restrictions to allow Soviet citizens to make visits abroad. This will be done to impress the West with the Soviet government’s compliance with the Helsinki agreements.
(e) Some relaxation for Soviet intellectuals and cultural defectors. Soviet writers and producers will be permitted to write books and produce plays on controversial subjects. Cultural defectors, musicians and dancers will be allowed to perform in the USSR and to travel abroad, thus getting the best of both worlds. One can expect that amnesty will be declared for the so-called dissidents.
(f) Some reduction in the military budget and the transfer of some military funds to improve the state economy’.

‘If presented and advertised by the innocent and uninitiated media as major radical change in the Communist system, the “liberalization” will allow the Communist leaders immediately to regain the political initiative and to revive the political and diplomatic détente which was so disastrous for the West and so beneficial to the Communists in the past. The charismatic personality of Gorbachev may play an important role in the over-reaction of the Western media’.

‘The Soviet “liberalization” is a major part of the strategy of the whole Communist Bloc, and particularly of Poland and East Germany, against the West. The main objective is to launch a political offensive against the United States and NATO and to develop a military détente in Europe by changing the political and military situation. This strategy is designed to accomplish the following:
(a) To bring about a “German Confederation” of East and West Germany and withdrawal from both the Warsaw Pact and NATO.
(b) To break up NATO and force a United States withdrawal from Europe’.

‘One can expect that, in order to accomplish their objectives, a similar “liberalisation” will be introduced in Poland and East Germany.

‘Presented and advertised as a new reality in Europe, the Soviet, Polish and East German “liberalization” will have a stunning and mesmerizing effect on both West Europeans and Americans. The resulting confusion will be exploited by the Soviet, Polish and East German leaders through their activist diplomacy especially towards West Germany. Czechoslovak, Hungarian and Romanian leaders may actively contribute to this strategy…’

‘The “liberalization” in the USSR, Poland and East Germany may set off a chain reaction in the West and inflict irreparable damage particularly on the NATO countries and the US military posture unless its true nature and role in Communist strategy are realized.’

‘The “liberalization” and its strategic manipulations, combined with overt and covert Communist operations, will also present problems for the leadership of the West. It will be aimed at confusing the Western leaders, splitting the West European allies from the United States and then splitting the people from their elected leaders. The leaders who are taken in by the “liberalization” can be expected to make erroneous and costly decisions, albeit unwittingly, in the interests of the Communists’.

Winter 1986: ‘The essence of the strategy is to introduce a calculated and controlled false democratization and to revive a discredited regime by giving it an attractive aspect and a “human face”. Its strategic objective is to generate support, good will and sympathy in the West and to exploit this sympathy in the West and to exploit this sympathy in order to shape new attitudes and new political realities which will favour Soviet interests. Another objective is to undercut and isolate traditional political parties and their leaders, particularly the conservatives and the realists in the West. A further objective is to shape new attitudes towards the Strategic Defence Initiative, the budget and the US military and to disarm the United States, basing these new attitudes on the premise that “the new regime which has emerged in the USSR is liberal and no longer poses any threat to the United States”. Given the surprise aspect of the Soviet Strategy, it may succeed. The possible implications of a failure to understand the essence of this strategy would be damaging to both the United States and Western Europe. The Americans, the West Europeans, their leaders and their military strategists would be influenced and misled by these developments all to the detriment of the national interests of the democracies. The probable impact on the West of such a Soviet revival would be equal to or greater than that of the October Revolution’.

‘The impact would in fact be greater and deeper because it would not be alarming but disarming for the West. The revival would become a significant influence in the political life of the United States and Western Europe. The revival might have a disproportionate influence on the attitudes of the democracies towards their military strategy, the NATO alliance and the Strategic Defence Initiative, all to the detriment of their national interests. It might eventually lead to the realization of the final goal of Soviet strategy, namely the convergence of the capitalist West with the Communist East on Soviet terms and the creation of a World Government as a solution to the arms race and nuclear confrontation’.

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