Zyuganov

'TC MOSCOW -- They come from the same Soviet mold, but the two men who will face each other in Russia's presidential runoff election Wednesday have very different destinies in mind for their nation.Both roundish, baritone bureaucrats given to the drone of formal speechifying, President Boris N. Yeltsin and his Communist rival, Gennady Zyuganov, were children of Russia's beautiful but always hungry and backward countryside.Yeltsin, the rough and tumble kid who lost two fingers playing with a grenade, and Zyuganov, the "A" student who always played by the rules, both rose from dusty obscurity to Moscow power through the Communist Party.

MOSCOW -- After boasting on election night that he had gotten through the campaign without making any promises, President-elect Vladimir V. Putin said yesterday that the government needs to improve Russia's standard of living -- but then quickly caught himself. Don't expect miracles, he told his countrymen, and don't expect anything soon. Great flurries of political speculation were wafting across Moscow yesterday, but just as with the snow that has been falling off and on the past few days, nothing has been sticking.

PERM, Russia -- Gennady A. Zyuganov, the Communist who wants to be Russia's president, is trying to rescue his party from its own history. But the past keeps rising up to taunt him.On a campaign swing through Perm, infamous as the gateway for political prisoners on their way to the concentration camps of the Soviet-era gulag, a former inmate grabbed the microphone at a news conference and demanded that Zyuganov accept responsibility for the repression of...

MOSCOW -- Vladimir V. Putin won an outright victory today in Russia's presidential elections, avoiding a runoff even as his opponents charged widespread fraud after long delays in the vote count. At 10 a.m. today, with 94.08 percent of the vote counted, Putin had been credited with 52.57 percent, enough to claim election as Russia's second president. Gennady Zyuganov, the Communist leader, made a strong showing for second place, with 29.45 percent. The liberal Grigory Yavlinsky did much worse than he expected, at 5.85 percent.

MOSCOW -- If the fate of Russia hinges on one man in this pivotal election year, most people would assume that man to be President Boris N. Yeltsin. Some would choose another name: Yeltsin's Communist opponent, Gennadi A. Zyuganov.They all might be wrong. At this point, the person most likely to influence the outcome of Russia's presidential voting beginning on June 16 is probably a candidate with almost no chance of winning: Grigory A. Yavlinsky.Yavlinsky, an economist who leads the largest democratic faction in parliament, is running as the only man who truly represents reform in Russia.

MOSCOW -- Russians choose who will lead them into the 21st century today in a presidential runoff between reformer President Boris N. Yeltsin and Communist Gennady A. Zyuganov.Public opinion polls suggest that Yeltsin, who won 35 percent of the first-round vote to Zyuganov's 32 percent, holds a lead of up to 20 percentage points over his rival. But all political analysts agree that turnout is the critical factor in the race.The electoral math suggests that a turnout of 60 percent or higher would assure Yeltsin of a victory.

AS RUSSIA'S JUNE 16 presidential election draws closer, the specter of a communist comeback is rising. Although President Boris N. Yeltsin has surged in recent polls, the reconstituted Communist Party's candidate, Gennady Zyuganov, is favored to win. Just five years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the sickle and hammer may soon be re-established as Russia's symbols.This possibility has produced some intriguing political scrambling in Moscow.As nearly always since the disintegration of the Soviet Union, Russia's reformist democrats are split and feuding.

MOSCOW -- The film clips open with a trip down memory lane. As ordinary Russians -- a farmer, babushka, factory worker or schoolteacher -- talk about growing up under the Communist system, the camera flips through their old photos, like a family album.They share the stories of how forced collectivization, purges, shortages and other Soviet-era deprivations affected their lives, and of the new struggles and successes their families have experienced under Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin.

WITH THE CLOCK ticking before Russia's June 16 presidential election, the outcome is anyone's guess. Some polls suggest Gennady Zyuganov, the communist challenger, will sweep to power; others indicate President Boris N. Yeltsin has a chance for re-election. One thing is clear, though. The winner has to garner the support of Russia's women, particularly the legendary babushkas.Which way will the babushka vote go? That is one of the most intriguing puzzles of Russian politics today.In her new book, "Waking the Tempests: Ordinary Life in the New Russia," veteran journalist Eleanor Randolph argues persuasively that rather than benefiting from the Russian market economy, women have been big losers.

Once again, the specter of Weimar Germany haunts Russia. If the outcome of last month's parliamentary elections is taken as a straw poll for the presidential race in June, one can easily imagine a nightmare choice between Communist Gennady A. Zyuganov and ultranationalist Vladimir V. Zhirinovsky, or between Mr. Zyuganov and a weak reform candidate like Grigory A. Yavlinsky. A less nightmarish choice would pit Mr. Zyuganov against an ailing Boris N. Yeltsin or Viktor S. Chernomyrdin, a prime minister fatally damaged by his loyalty to an unpopular president.

MOSCOW -- Russians choose who will lead them into the 21st century today in a presidential runoff between reformer President Boris N. Yeltsin and Communist Gennady A. Zyuganov.Public opinion polls suggest that Yeltsin, who won 35 percent of the first-round vote to Zyuganov's 32 percent, holds a lead of up to 20 percentage points over his rival. But all political analysts agree that turnout is the critical factor in the race.The electoral math suggests that a turnout of 60 percent or higher would assure Yeltsin of a victory.

'TC MOSCOW -- They come from the same Soviet mold, but the two men who will face each other in Russia's presidential runoff election Wednesday have very different destinies in mind for their nation.Both roundish, baritone bureaucrats given to the drone of formal speechifying, President Boris N. Yeltsin and his Communist rival, Gennady Zyuganov, were children of Russia's beautiful but always hungry and backward countryside.Yeltsin, the rough and tumble kid who lost two fingers playing with a grenade, and Zyuganov, the "A" student who always played by the rules, both rose from dusty obscurity to Moscow power through the Communist Party.

PARIS -- An optimist would say that all went remarkably well in the first round of the Russian presidential election. Boris Yeltsin's pretensions and excesses were punished by a drop in support and a narrow escape from defeat.Gennady Zyuganov's relative success motivates Mr. Yeltsin's supporters to turn out in July to vote in the second round of the election.Gen. Alexander Lebed's unpredicted success and his willingness to support Mr. Yeltsin in the second round imply a guarantee that Mr. Yeltsin will be kept to the reform road.

WHEN RUSSIAN voters go to the polls this Sunday to elect their new president, they can choose from among 11 candidates. But only two, the incumbent Boris Yeltsin and Gennady Zyuganov, the communist candidate, count. And they offer the voters a fundamental choice.If Mr. Yeltsin wins re-election, Russia's experiment in crafting a post-communist society roughly modeled after western democracies will continue. Should Mr. Zyuganov win, the country would face political and economic uncertainty as his communists attempt to undo many of the market reforms.

MOSCOW -- The film clips open with a trip down memory lane. As ordinary Russians -- a farmer, babushka, factory worker or schoolteacher -- talk about growing up under the Communist system, the camera flips through their old photos, like a family album.They share the stories of how forced collectivization, purges, shortages and other Soviet-era deprivations affected their lives, and of the new struggles and successes their families have experienced under Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin.

PERM, Russia -- Gennady A. Zyuganov, the Communist who wants to be Russia's president, is trying to rescue his party from its own history. But the past keeps rising up to taunt him.On a campaign swing through Perm, infamous as the gateway for political prisoners on their way to the concentration camps of the Soviet-era gulag, a former inmate grabbed the microphone at a news conference and demanded that Zyuganov accept responsibility for the repression of...

WASHINGTON -- Russians are learning what we Americans know too well: that no freedom is ever fully won because some group is forever trying to take it away, and freedom-lovers must repel them.Blacks and other minorities in America see our November presidential election as a mandate over whether educational and job gains are to be wiped away through troglodyte assaults on ''affirmative action,'' and whether black voting power is to be diluted by court-ordered rejuggling of voting districts.

MOSCOW -- President Boris N. Yeltsin yesterday rebuffed a call from one of his closest confidants to postpone next month's Russian presidential elections.Yeltsin assured the Interfax news agency that elections would be held as scheduled on June 16. He said he had instructed his chief bodyguard, Alexander Korzhakov, "not to get involved in politics anymore or make such statements."Twice in the past week, the usually secretive Korzhakov had urged cancellation of the balloting, making it clear that he fears Yeltsin could be defeated by the Communist Party front-runner, Gennady A. Zyuganov, and that a civil war could erupt after the election.

WITH THE CLOCK ticking before Russia's June 16 presidential election, the outcome is anyone's guess. Some polls suggest Gennady Zyuganov, the communist challenger, will sweep to power; others indicate President Boris N. Yeltsin has a chance for re-election. One thing is clear, though. The winner has to garner the support of Russia's women, particularly the legendary babushkas.Which way will the babushka vote go? That is one of the most intriguing puzzles of Russian politics today.In her new book, "Waking the Tempests: Ordinary Life in the New Russia," veteran journalist Eleanor Randolph argues persuasively that rather than benefiting from the Russian market economy, women have been big losers.

MOSCOW -- President Boris N. Yeltsin yesterday rebuffed a call from one of his closest confidants to postpone next month's Russian presidential elections.Yeltsin assured the Interfax news agency that elections would be held as scheduled on June 16. He said he had instructed his chief bodyguard, Alexander Korzhakov, "not to get involved in politics anymore or make such statements."Twice in the past week, the usually secretive Korzhakov had urged cancellation of the balloting, making it clear that he fears Yeltsin could be defeated by the Communist Party front-runner, Gennady A. Zyuganov, and that a civil war could erupt after the election.