RUSSIA'96: THE PEOPLE CHOOSE

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As Yeltsin knows better than anyone else, the centrist voters are key, and Kuptsov thinks Zyuganov has the edge in capturing them. "We should win, because more of those people are hurting economically than have managed to get rich," he says. Kuptsov sees the electoral math of a runoff like this: "Yavlinsky's support will split 60% for Yeltsin; we'll get 80% of Lebed's followers and 70% of Zhirinovsky's. The rest will be shared about equally." Agrees Andrei Kozyrev, Yeltsin's former Foreign Minister: "I'm afraid that might be exactly right."

The real key to Zyuganov's campaign, however, is not his careful positioning. Rather, it is the old-fashioned political organization he commands. Instructions from Kuptsov's office are rocketed daily to Communist cadres nationwide, and compliance is monitored carefully. "Our mode of work is what it has always been," says Kuptsov, "especially now, when we are frozen out of the media. We rely on word-of-mouth, on the kind of door-to-door hard work we've always been good at." As an example of the organization's brute strength and savvy, Kuptsov offers this: "When it came time to collect the required 1 million signatures to become a candidate, Yeltsin gathered 1.4 million, but we went out and got 7 million. Why? Because we used the signature-collection process as a legitimate excuse to visit in people's homes beyond our Communist base. It was a chance to get people to get to know us, to help them not be afraid of us, as Yeltsin wants them to be."

Ivan Morozov, a Communist Party district leader in Yaroslavl, is a typical lieutenant in Zyuganov's ground war. "We work through factory people and teachers who are Communists," he says. "A lot of what we do is illegal. We're not supposed to push Zyuganov in the workplace or in schools, but we do it anyway. And we're training people to be at the polls to guard against Yeltsin's cheating."

Zyuganov can't be everywhere at once, so more than 200 designated surrogates prowl the country touting his virtues. There are also scores of affinity groups, like Veterans for Zyuganov, Farmers for Zyuganov and Factory Workers for Zyuganov. It's all low-budget, but the message is intense, and stripped of flourishes, it is always the same: As Yeltsin seeks to scare voters about a Communist future, the Zyuganov coalition seeks to keep the focus on Yeltsin's failures. "It could work," says Anatoli Chubais, the architect of Yeltsin's privatization program. "The real standard of living is so low that many Russians are desperate to believe in anyone who promises them a better life."

With Chubais' worry in mind, some of those close to Yeltsin have publicly called for the election's postponement. Given such comments from the likes of Alexander Korzhakov, chief of the President's security staff, and Leonti Kuznetsov, Moscow's military district commander, many fear that a serious signal has been sent. Yeltsin has forthrightly quashed such speculation, but Zyuganov won the round by appearing thoughtful and nonthreatening. "I am for the law, and the law calls for elections," Zyuganov said almost immediately after Korzhakov's remarks.