Endless Promises Propel Extremist Party Near Top : Politics: Foes liken its leader to Hitler on the rise. Voters respond to pledges of cheap vodka, strong Russia.

Typist Tatyana Kuzovleva let herself be seduced into giving away her vote Sunday for a bouquet of flowers. No, not even for the bouquet itself--merely for the sweet assurance that she, as a Russian woman, is worthy of receiving one.

Pensioner Alexander Alexandrov surrendered his ballot in exchange for a dream of the glorious Soviet past. And engineer Nikolai Ivanov wielded his to bring iron-fisted order to Russia’s current confusion.

All three residents of this industrial region about 60 miles east of Moscow voted for Vladimir Volfovich Zhirinovsky, the ultranationalist demagogue who managed to become all things to all people in the course of his campaign.

Judging from sketchy, preliminary results of Sunday’s elections, it is Zhirinovsky, whom rivals have compared to Adolf Hitler on the rise, who gained the most out of the nationwide balloting.

His party appeared to be running neck and neck against pro-reform Russia’s Choice for first place.

“Zhirinovsky promised every category of people what they want most,” said Viktor Glebov, a polling-station watchdog in Orekhovo-Zuyevo. “He even promised that if he comes to power, no women will have to stay single anymore.”

Dismissed as a political clown as little as two years ago, even after he won nearly 6 million votes in the 1991 presidential elections, the 47-year-old lawyer now represents a powerful--and to many, hair-raising--force in Russian politics.

Sociologists say he may take as many as 50 seats among the 450 in the Duma, the lower house of the new Parliament.

And that is no joke. Zhirinovsky has threatened to squeeze the neighboring former Soviet republics with economic sanctions, crank up a new arms race with the West if it tries to draw Eastern Europe into the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and boost Russia’s weapons production.

In past speeches--though not in his polished campaign--he has blamed Jews for the two world wars and promised cheap vodka around the clock on every corner.

More recently, he has focused on pledging support for ailing state industry, higher pensions, cheaper goods and a strong Russia. He speaks of expanding the Russian empire toward the Indian Ocean, setting up military courts to shoot organized crime leaders on the spot and barring from Russia the peoples of the Caucasus--Armenians, Azerbaijanis and Georgians.

His skill and tremendous energy as an orator, extensive television time and willingness to promise anything under the sun persuaded many--even some who admitted that they should know better.

“I don’t believe him, but I like how he speaks,” said Anna Fyodorova, a former duck handler at the Malaya Dubna Fowl Factory here. “Who knows? Maybe things will get a little better.”

Typist Kuzovleva, 25, said Zhirinovsky won her over with his description of how “a woman should always be pretty and shouldn’t have to stand in line with heavy bags. He said you should give flowers to women. . . . He wants to do something for women so they have something nice to remember.”

Asked what exactly Zhirinovsky would do for women and how he would help them, Kuzovleva said she did not know.

Pensioner Alexandrov said he voted for Zhirinovsky because “he’s for the rebirth of the Soviet Union,” and engineer Ivanov, 50, said Zhirinovsky “will bring order. And it should be a one-man order, even a military order. We need an authority.”

Of a dozen people interviewed at two polling stations in Orekhovo-Zuyevo, half said they voted for Zhirinovsky.

Russia’s industrialized provinces were considered his strongholds, but he appeared to be doing well in Moscow proper as well.

“It’s the same as in 1917,” said Svetlana Ustinova, editor in chief of the Orekhovo-Zuyevo independent newspaper Kolotushka. “He promises land to the peasants, peace to the soldiers and factories to the workers, and then ends up destroying everything.”

How Zhirinovsky will act in the Duma remains as unpredictable as the man himself.

He has said that he sees himself as prime minister under President Boris N. Yeltsin, and that he would create such a strong government that Yeltsin could limit himself to a symbolic role: “Giving medals, receiving ambassadors, delegations, trips abroad. . . .”

Zhirinovsky told Radio Liberty last week that he imagined his party--the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia--acting as an isolated bloc in Parliament rather than entering a coalition.

“If we have a fraction amounting to even one-fifth of Parliament, I think it will be advantageous for the president to count on us,” he said. “It will be like a (force for) reconciliation.”

He has also said, however, that if he comes to power he will ban all parties, including his own.

Mikhail Poltoranin, one of Yeltsin’s top aides, warned Friday that if Zhirinovsky’s party managed to gain a strong foothold in Parliament, “by the fall of 1994, Zhirinovsky will be president of Russia.”

“He has mastered the campaign experience of Adolf Hitler,” Poltoranin said.

The pro-Yeltsin Russia’s Choice bloc called Zhirinovsky a “threat to the existence of the nation.”