RUSSIA'96: THE PEOPLE CHOOSE

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Russia votes on June 16. Eleven candidates are running for President--an office with near absolute power--but most observers view the race as between Yeltsin and his Communist rival, Gennadi Zyuganov. The stakes are enormous. "Nothing will prevent the forces that are dreaming of the past from introducing their own rules if they gain power," the President said of the Communists recently. That's right, says Valentin Kuptsov, first deputy chairman of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation: "The choice could not be greater. We will determine whether Russia is turned completely into a Western vassal controlled by the U.S. or reacquires its status as an independent, great power."

This is "one of those rare moments in history when a nation is undergoing a true social revolution," says Michael McFaul, a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment Moscow Center. "It is not simply a transition-to-democracy situation, when both sides agree on the ultimate outcome and contest for the right to lead the way there. In Russia today both camps seek a zero-sum victory, with no consensus about or commitment to the new rules of the game in the wake of the ancient regime's collapse. Everything is at stake here, the entire political, economic and societal makeup of the nation."

Recent polls have shown Yeltsin pulling even with Zyuganov, or even slightly ahead, with the support of about a quarter of the electorate. If no candidate receives more than half the vote on June 16, a run-off between the two top finishers could be held as early as July 7. It is in the second round that Yeltsin hopes to win, as those scared that their past may become their future swallow their misgivings and vote for him. Yet even that mathematically plausible scenario is considered dicey. Talk of postponing the elections is the rage in Moscow, and serious observers wonder whether Yeltsin would--or should--yield power if he loses to Zyuganov.

These speculations gain currency almost daily as Yeltsin reaches for ever more apocalyptic "red scare" metaphors. When the President says, "I cannot let the forces of the past come to power; I will resist their comeback in every way," his aides nod in agreement. "I know what it would mean for your Western view of democracy," says Georgi Satarov, a top Yeltsin aide. "But if there were a chance that Hitler would come to power in America by winning an election, wouldn't you be wondering if it wasn't right to stop that?"

Why would a people so recently freed from totalitarian rule choose a course that could quickly lead to their renewed oppression? Part of the answer can be found in the abuse Yeltsin received in Yaroslavl. "A lot of Russians have come to identify various aspects of what we call reform not with a better future but with hardship," explains U.S. Deputy Secretary of State (and former TIME editor at large) Strobe Talbott, who oversees the Clinton Administration's Russia policy. "Crime and corruption are both broad based and deeply rooted," Talbott says. "They pose huge obstacles to Russia staying on a reformist course. [So] Russians tend to identify reform not only with hardship but with physical danger and gross inequity."