An older president isn't sure whether he should run for a second term. His approval ratings are low and there are concerns about his health. His advisers, convinced that he is the only bulwark against a formidable opponent, insist that his candidacy is crucial for the survival of democracy. If he doesn't run, they say, the dictatorship will triumph. Despite his reservations, the president agrees. He promises to defeat his opponent and protect the future of his country.
This is not the America of today; it is Russia in 1996. That elderly president is not Joe Biden but Boris Yeltsin. His formidable rival is not Donald Trump, but the communist leader Gennady Zyuganov. As I watch the American presidential campaign unfold, I am constantly reminded of their struggle. Despite all the differences between them, I can't shake a feeling of déjà vu.
In the 1990s, Russia stood at a crossroads, seemingly faced with a clear choice: democracy or tyranny. Today it is clear that this was a false dichotomy. Instead, a dishonest campaign based on fear not only undermined Russians' faith in democracy, but also inadvertently facilitated the rise of a future dictator, Vladimir Putin. It's a pretty scary story.
At the end of 1995, Boris Yeltsin's popularity was woefully low, with an approval rating of around 6 percent. Still, his advisers were optimistic. While they overlooked other, more popular democratic candidates – Viktor Chernomyrdin and the young Boris Nemtsov – they believed that Yeltsin was the only one capable of saving the nation from a communist resurgence, citing his election victory over the communists in 1991. The country's young democracy was at stake. He was hesitant at first, but eventually he was convinced.
It is true that there was reason to be concerned. Amid the nationwide discontent, Mr. Zyuganov waged a campaign that could be summed up with a well-known slogan: “Make Russia Great Again.” By the end of 1995, his party had won the elections parliamentary elections, effectively securing control of the lower house. In early 1996, his presence at the World Economic Forum in Davos was strengthened his status as Russia's presumptive next president, with many considering his victory all but assured.
But Yeltsin's advisers had no intention of giving up anytime soon. Instead, they began mounting a remarkably effective campaign, following what they called the Formula of Fear. One of the campaign leaders, Sergei Zverev, explained their ideas to me when I was researching a book about the 1990s in Russia. “It was essential to use every tactic to sow fear among the population about the future,” he told me, “and to ensure that the potential horrors of a non-Yeltsin victory would overshadow any existing dissatisfaction with his personality .'
The Russian media, which previously enjoyed a significant degree of freedom, turned into an extension of the presidential propaganda machine. Major television channels and newspapers not only supported Mr. Yeltsin, but also vilified Mr. Zyuganov. They painted grim scenarios of a communist victory – including the restoration of the Soviet Union, mass arrests, widespread repression and the introduction of strict censorship.
The lack of press scrutiny made the president's re-election campaign opaque. Officially, there were voluntary contributions from big business to prevent a communist victory. The reality was very different. Large sums of state money were funneled to businessmen close to the regime, who siphoned off some for themselves before spending the rest on the campaign. Several years ago, several oligarchs openly admitted to me that they had profited from the campaign, exposing the depth of the corruption underlying it.
In the spring of 1996, Mr. Yeltsin's re-election was in full swing. He wasn't doing well. He had suffered several heart attacks and there were numerous reports that he regularly drank excessive amounts of alcohol, which his family consistently denied. But despite his health problems, he traveled extensively in Russia, speaking energetically at countless rallies and even dancing on stage to allay any concerns about his vitality. In the meantime, the media continued to do their work.
Despite early concerns about his performance, Mr. Yeltsin narrowly won the first round of elections in June, in which he edged his communist challenger by a narrow margin of 3 percent. But just days before the second round, disaster struck: Yeltsin faced another disaster heart attack. His campaign team made a shocked decision. The seriousness of the president's health would be hidden from the public. He made no more live appearances; instead, television channels broadcast old footage of him.
Mr Yeltsin emerged victorious in the second round of elections. Yet it remains unclear whether he was capable of governing. His inaugural speech was alarmingly short, lasting just 44 seconds, and many crucial decisions afterward were reportedly made not by him but by his family. Vladimir Potanin, a prominent Russian oligarch and first deputy prime minister in the late 1990s, once described the era starkly: “No one was running the country.”
In 1999, while Yeltsin was still ill from his latest heart attack, his inner circle orchestrated his early resignation. They were looking for someone who was easy to manage and named the director of the Federal Security Service as his successor at the time. Mr. Putin would come to embody the dire predictions spread by the media in 1996. He initiated efforts to restore certain aspects of the Soviet Union, introduced censorship and began a series of repressions – a level of authoritarianism that, in retrospect, seems to go far beyond what Mr. Zyuganov could have imagined at his worst .
Remarkably, many architects of the 1996 elections still believe their actions were justified. Anatoly Chubais, head of the presidential administration in 1996 and '97, told me that those elections were crucial for preserving Russian democracy. He even claimed that they paved the way for what he called the “Russian economic miracle of the 2000s.”
Other views are available. Alexei Navalny, for example, argued that the 1996 elections had significantly eroded Russians' confidence in the principles of freedom of expression and fair elections. While imprisoned in 2022, he wrote: “My fear and horror”, in which he expressed disdain for those he believed undermined Russia's democratic prospects in the 1990s. “I despise those who sold, squandered and squandered the historic opportunities our country had in the early 1990s,” he wrote. “I detest those we wrongly called reformers.”
Many Americans may think that the comparison between the 1996 Russian election and the current US presidential campaign is a bit of an exaggeration. Sure, there are plenty of differences. Mr. Biden is clearly a very different leader from the hard-drinking Mr. Yeltsin; the American electoral system is considerably more transparent, with campaign financing regulated by law; and the media, far from being an organ of state propaganda, is free and highly polarized. Moreover, American democracy is not a novice.
Yet Yeltsin's campaign is a cautionary tale. In addition to underscoring the need for a candidate to offer voters more than protection against something worse, it also reveals the risks of the argument that only one person can save democracy. The formula of fear, no matter how well-founded, is a losing formula. If voters do not vote for but against – only out of fear – it undermines confidence in the system. And trust in democratic institutions, once lost, is difficult to restore.
Russia's tragedy did not fully unfold in 1996; On the contrary, the year laid the foundation for Putin's eventual dictatorship by undermining public trust and promoting widespread cynicism among citizens. These days in America I often hear that the fate of democracy depends on the upcoming elections. I agree with that. But as the Russian experience shows, it's never as simple as just defeating the bad guy.