Russians Discouraged but Won’t Turn Back, Polls Find

MOSCOW — They feel impoverished, deceived. They don’t like the way Russia’s reforms are turning out. They have little hope for the near future. But they don’t want to go back to the old Communist order.

This, pollsters say, is the Russian electorate--the people who cast their ballots today in a climactic referendum that will decide President Boris N. Yeltsin’s political fate.

In a gamble that could force his resignation, Yeltsin is betting that he knows these people well enough to put his future in their hands. In the end, he is wagering, they will support their embattled leader; they will choose to push forward with reforms no matter how painful.

Is he right?

The acid test is the referendum, four questions meant to resolve a paralyzing conflict at the pinnacle of Russian politics. As nearly as he can, Yeltsin is asking Russian voters to choose between him and his nemesis, the more conservative Congress of People’s Deputies that he contends is blocking Russia’s transition to capitalism.

Along with promising some political peace, the referendum gives the Russian public its first post-communism chance to formally voice its opinion after 16 months of excruciating economic reform. When they pronounce judgment on Yeltsin, Russians will also be determining their country’s future course--continued radical change or a retreat to slower measures.

Some of the latest polls show that Yeltsin could manage to win the 50% backing of voters that he needs on the main question--whether the people trust him.

The second question, whether they support his economic reforms, is far more iffy.

But pollsters said that question will carry little weight anyway because it is improper by its nature. “You shouldn’t ask a person whether he likes the doctor who’s cutting off his arm,” pollster Grigory Pashkov observed. “He’s doing something necessary and you don’t have to like it.”

On the last two questions--whether people want early presidential and parliamentary elections--pollsters see public opinion as overwhelmingly in favor of elections for the widely despised Parliament and mixed on the president.

When it comes to a direct contest between Yeltsin and the conservative Parliament, Yeltsin always wins, said pollster Masha Volkenstein, who noted: “Yeltsin’s rating has gone up because the Congress is so nasty. It’s a natural Russian response. The more they pound on Yeltsin, the more people defend him.”

Yeltsin’s overall approval rating appeared to be hovering around 60% last week, according to various polls. That level of support shows just what an amazing electorate this is, especially compared to American voters, who dumped President George Bush largely because the economy drifted downward during his term.

Here, many prices have increased 150 times--not 150%, but 150-fold--since Yeltsin took office. According to pollster Nugzar Betaneli, about 35% of more than 1,000 Muscovites polled by his Institute of Parliamentary Sociology say that economic conditions are unbearable, while a steady 50% say that things are tough but just about bearable.

Deputy Prime Minister Boris G. Fyodorov said last week that 15 million people, from kiosk owners to factory shareholders, have benefited from Russia’s reforms--impressive, but only one-tenth of the population.

“On the one hand, everyone is dissatisfied with everything,” pollster Betaneli wrote recently in the newspaper Izvestia. “But all of the people polled are prepared to patiently tolerate the numerous political changes.”

A poll by the independent Nezavisimaya Gazeta found that 57% of Russians believed that life would get worse in 1993, and only 28% had hopes of improvement. And yet, in Moscow at least, 68% are still in favor of the idea of reforms, Betaneli found.

“No one likes a government that causes pain,” Pashkov said. “But if you ask people, ‘Do you want to go back to the old system,’ you get less than 25%. The population has the clear feeling that there is no road back.”

It also has the clear feeling that there is no real alternative right now to Yeltsin.

In ratings that yield Yeltsin 30% or 40% or 50% support, no one else even comes close. Vice President Alexander V. Rutskoi sometimes manages a showing of 10% or so; everyone else, including Parliament Chairman Ruslan I. Khasbulatov, Yeltsin’s archfoe, is down in the single digits.

“We have a vacuum of political figures,” said sociologist Boris Grushin of the Vox Pop polling service.

So Yeltsin stands far above any rivals. But pollsters here caution that his support is shallow and could quickly erode if circumstances change. As it is, it fluctuates almost wildly.

Yeltsin’s ratings shot upward after March 20 when he tried to grab more power to ram through reforms. In a quintessentially Russian response, voters applauded his fulfillment of their old longing for an “iron hand,” an extreme version of American calls for law and order.

On the down side, Yeltsin’s support plummets when he appears weak. Volkenstein warned that one more public appearance in which Yeltsin seemed drunk could do him in. Opposition deputies contended during the Congress last month that Yeltsin’s slow speech during one of his appearances showed he was inebriated. He said he had not slept in three nights.

Grushin said that with support so flimsy, he had told Yeltsin himself that the referendum was a “maximally risky” move. “We don’t have information that points to the unconditional support of the population; Yeltsin has only one-third of the population, maximum,” as solid supporters, he said.

Yeltsin has reason to think differently. Lawmaker Vladimir Lysenko, a Yeltsin ally, recalled that last winter, when the Russian president decided to call for a referendum, he told his political allies that his experts had informed him that he had an 80% approval rating. “We said, ‘Where did you find such (experts)?’ ” Lysenko said. “ ‘Boris Nikolayevich, it’s 30% at best!’ ”

That inside tidbit raises the fascinating possibility that Yeltsin launched the referendum in large part because of faulty information about the people’s mood. If he did, he unwittingly fell victim to the legacy of a system that traditionally held public opinion in contempt.

The 19th-Century satirist Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin derided Russians’ political consciousness, quipping: “They feel like they want something--maybe a constitution, or maybe just some herring with mustard. . . .”

The czars ignored and belittled public opinion, then Communist propagandists figured that they knew it well enough to manipulate it.

With Russian polling still a young practice, and the people caught in what Grushin dubbed a “socio-quake” of earthshaking change, the electorate remains contradictory and somewhat enigmatic even to itself.

Contradictions abound. One poll finds 68% support for the idea of reforms; another finds that only 10% support the reforms as implemented. One poll gives Yeltsin an approval rating of 60%, another of 30%.

Grushin believes that the study of public opinion is further hampered by Russia’s tradition as an “anti-information society,” in which leaders felt little need to study public opinion.

Pashkov said the popular attitude is so detached and skeptical that when doing approval ratings for political figures, he cannot ask whether people “trust” Yeltsin or anyone else, because they don’t trust anyone. Instead, he asks whether they think a leader should continue in his post.

Still, some interesting overall portraits of this evolving people are emerging.

Overall, Grushin said, at this point, probably less than a third of Russians would like to go back to the past, one-quarter actively support reforms and nearly one-half are still watching from the sidelines.

At the same time, however, a recent poll found that for the first time a majority of Russians depend mainly on themselves, having abandoned the old Communist-fostered idea that the state will always provide.

Betaneli has found in general that surveys of Russians’ hopes and desires show that they are much like people everywhere--they mainly want economic prosperity, peace and basic freedoms. But, he said, “they are less willing to make decisions for themselves.”

Yes or No on Yeltsin? Russians Vote Today

Russians go to the polls today for a crucial referendum on the fate of President Boris N. Yeltsin and his reform government. Each of the four questions will appear on a separate, yes-or-no ballot. Yeltsin needs a simple majority of those voting for a victory on Questions 1 and 2. But for Questions 3 and 4 to pass, they must win the approval of the majority of the total electorate.

THE QUESTIONS

1. Do you have confidence in Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin?

2. Do you approve of the socioeconomic policy carried out by the president of the Russian Federation and the government of the Russian Federation since 1992?

3. Do you consider it necessary to carry out early elections for the president of the Russian Federation?

4. Do you consider it necessary to carry out early elections for the deputies of the Russian Federation?

HOW THE POLLS SEE IT

Yeltsin has more support in Moscow than in the hinterlands. Here’s a comparison of three separate polls. The first was taken in Moscow, the second in a city in eastern Siberia and the third was taken nationwide:

Question 1: “Do you have confidence in Yeltsin?

Don’t know/ Yes No other Moscow 54% 23% 23% Siberia 41 41 18 Nationwide 53 30 17 Question 2: Approval of the socioeconomic course? Don’t know/ Yes No other Moscow 33% 37% 30% Siberia 16 23 61 Nationwide 39 38 23 Question 3: Early presidential elections? Don’t know/ Yes No other Moscow 28% 51% 21% Siberia 17 na na Nationwide 32 53 15 Question 4: Early parliamentary elections? Don’t know/ Yes No other Moscow 62% 14% 24% Siberia 23 na na Nationwide 63 21 16

Some categories may not add up to 100% because of rounding

na=not available

Sources: The Moscow Poll, 1,049 respondents questioned by phone April 16-18; Siberia poll is of 950 residents of Yakutia, a city in eastern Siberia, released April 15 and conducted by the State Statistics Committee of the Yakutia Sociological Research Department; nationwide poll by the Public Opinion Fund, an independent Russian polling organization. This poll was done April 3-4, sample size unknown (but their polls usually run from 1,000 to 1,200 respondents).