Fast-Track Democracy : Pollster, Delegation Give Soviet Reformists a Quick Course in U.S. Multiparty System

On a recent visit to the Soviet Union, Southern California pollster Gary Lawrence prompted whispered speculation among politicians.

Dusting off his college language lessons, Lawrence was the only member of a six-man delegation who greeted his hosts and thanked them for the caviar and salmon in Russian. And that marked Lawrence as someone suspiciously special.

Traditionally, when Soviet delegations traveled abroad they were accompanied by a KGB representative; therefore, an undercover man from the Central Intelligence Agency must be lurking in the Americans’ midst, and Lawrence was surely him.

“They said, ‘We know he understands everything we say, but he hides it well,’ ” laughs Lawrence, flattered that his token phrases of Russian were taken so seriously.

It was a humorous leftover from spy-master times in a glasnost -era meeting of minds between Soviet radicals and American conservatives. Part of a delegation sponsored by the Free Congress Foundation, a Washington-based, right-wing think tank, Lawrence was on a weeklong visit last month to give newly elected reformist politicians a cram course in the rudiments of the multiparty system--or what the Americans considered the “political science 101” of daily democracy.

The foundation, which has sponsored similar seminars in half a dozen Eastern European countries, was invited to the Soviet Union by the InterRegional Group, the new liberal reform movement that includes populist leader Boris N. Yeltsin. Meeting under the bust of Lenin in Communist Party office buildings in Moscow, Leningrad and the industrial city of Sverdlovsk, the Americans quoted Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln, and the Soviets at one point booed a now discredited Karl Marx.

“Every once in a while I would have to blink my eyes and say, ‘Am I here? Am I saying these things? “‘ says Lawrence, 48, a public opinion expert who heads the Santa Ana polling firm, Lawrence Research, and was on his first trip to the Soviet Union.

After the elimination of the Communist Party’s political monopoly, the new officeholders were voted into power during March elections in three of the Soviet Union’s constituent republics: Russia, Byelorussia and the Ukraine. They hold seats on city and regional councils, as well as in the Congress of Peoples Deputies, the national legislature.

“They are some of the most brilliant, with-it, young officeholders I’ve ever met. I’d put them up against any politicians in America,” says Lawrence, whose group worked with about 400 politicians, including Moscow’s newly elected mayor, Gavriil Popov, and Arkady Murashev, InterRegional’s 32-year-old executive secretary.

Most of the reformists, Lawrence says, were in their 30s, were educated principally in the hard sciences, and one-third of them were women.

They talked with fervor about such concepts as the division of powers, individual freedoms, private ownership and free enterprise. In role-playing sessions, they practiced the functions of the three branches of U.S. government, drafting and passing legislation that would variously provide tax incentives to entrepreneurs, grant the private ownership of property and phase in unrestricted travel.

They also welcomed a proposal by Lawrence that a portion of Leningrad be designated a free-enterprise zone modeled after Shanghai, fitting “into the Gorbachev pattern of experimenting with the strengths of democracy.”

Forming the nucleus of the leading opposition party, the Soviets expressed their determination to make the most of the opportunity for reform, regardless of personal risks.

“One guy confided in me, ‘I’ll probably be expelled from the party next month’ ” for wanting to initiate change more rapidly,” says Lawrence.

In another informal encounter, an official in Sverdlovsk told Lawrence that five years ago Soviet stores were relatively well stocked, there were no drugs or crime and life had a stability to it. “ ‘Today,’ she said, ‘the shelves are mostly empty, we have drugs, crime and the possibility of a civil war, and yet we are happy because now there is hope. I envy the next generation.’ ”

The Soviets’ principal concern during the encounters was how to accord government the power to function efficiently without becoming abusive. The politicians worry that Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev may accrue too much power, says Lawrence, and were especially interested in the U.S. system of checks and balances.

Their attitude during the legislative exercises, however, reflected the traditional dominance of the Soviet government. “They were writing legislation declaring ‘The state shall give the people these powers,’ ” says Lawrence.

The officials were also concerned about establishing greater regional authority and loosening dependency on Moscow for decision-making. “They all wanted to be active at the city level. They felt that’s where the coming progress in Russia will take place. What the city councils do is going to be in the forefront of change.”

According to the U.S. delegation, the reformists realized the extent of their power when, after Popov’s election as Moscow’s mayor, Gorbachev declared the Kremlin a federal zone free from municipal jurisdiction. Popov also stood at Gorbachev’s side overlooking Red Square during the May Day celebration.

For the moment, the reform-oriented politicians are operating as favored outsiders. “They knew if they were the only ones to challenge the party hacks (in elections), it was a slam-dunk,” says Lawrence. Now, in their push for reform and decentralization, their main concern is not to move so quickly as to trigger a backlash among farmers and blue collar workers, who feel threatened by change. “The transition (to a market economy) is the thing that is hanging everybody up,” says Lawrence.

In Moscow, the most public criticism of communist leadership occurred when a politician from a nearby town stood up before a meeting and said, “Isn’t there anything in Marxist thought that is to be commended?” “He was booed down by the rest of the Russians,” says Lawrence.

On the issue of Lithuanian independence, the reformist politicians in all three cities supported secession, though they were divided on the issue of whether it should take place immediately or as a negotiated settlement.

“Most of them were of the opinion that the Russian republic would do better without all the other parts of the empire,” says Lawrence, adding the politicians were speaking especially of the three Baltic republics and the Muslim republics of Azerbaijan and Tadzhikistan. “They felt that Mother Russia is supporting a lot of republics that are not carrying their own weight. They said, ‘If they secede we will have a higher standard of living as a result. A lot of what we produce goes to feed these other republics.’ ”

The Soviets’ greatest doubts about the U.S. political system concerned the existence of special interest groups gaining unfair advantage in the lobbying process. And at times, says Lawrence, ingrained assumptions caused communication gaps. When the Soviets learned that the size of the typical U.S. city council ranged from five to 15 members, whereas Moscow has 498 members and Leningrad 400, “they were just flabbergasted,” says Lawrence.

“ ‘How can all the work get done?’ ” the group in Sverdlovsk asked, assuming council members in American cities also oversee all aspects of local industry. “Then it dawned on me,” says Lawrence. “The state doesn’t own any means of production.” When he explained that their American counterparts were merely policy-makers, he said, “I got an audible gasp.”