Stumping Yeltsin Tries Out Guise of ‘Good Czar’

President Boris N. Yeltsin, in a shift of reelection strategy, has softened his anti-Communist crusade and adopted the demeanor of a “good czar” for all Russians, bestowing favors, flattery and lofty promises on beleaguered voters.

On a campaign trip down the Volga River that ended Saturday, Yeltsin promised federal grants everywhere he stopped, ordered tax breaks for war veterans and failing factories, and vowed to replenish every Russian’s savings account to offset the inflation let loose by his painful free-market reforms.

He waded into discontented crowds in every port and, when some appeal struck him as worthy, waved an imperial hand and promised a decree to satisfy it, no matter the cost. His finance minister was often as stunned as the beneficiaries.

Russians never chose their czars or the Soviet Communist rulers who abolished the monarchy in 1917. Yeltsin, who became the country’s first freely elected leader five years ago as an upstart democrat, is now an unpopular incumbent, trailing Gennady A. Zyuganov, head of the resurgent Communist Party, in most voter surveys.

But interviews in all three Volga cities where Yeltsin campaigned for 10 days indicate that the 65-year-old president’s renewed vigor, aura of authority and skill on the stump are earning him support.

“The Russian people like a resolute leader, no matter how unpopular,” said Mikhail Sukyasyan, a political scientist and rector of the Volgograd Academy of Government Service. “They like it when Yeltsin comes to town, drags a table out of a shop and sits down to sign decrees.”

Since launching his campaign, Yeltsin has rallied a core anti-Communist following, but its growth has leveled off in recent opinion polls at less than 30% of the electorate. On his strategists’ advice, he dropped direct criticism of his Communist rival last week and posed as a healer of Russia’s divisions.

Political analysts caution that his gains from the Volga trip may be too little to vault him ahead of Zyuganov. But Yeltsin, who is spending more time with ordinary Russians than at any other period of his presidency, has scheduled a dozen more outings before the June 16 vote.

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In Volgograd last week, he won converts as he strode down the gray granite steps of the Heroes Promenade past white marble monuments to the city’s World War II defenders.

Waiting in the crowd with a cigarette in one hand and a red carnation in the other was Viktor Solovyev, a 32-year-old Afghan War veteran. He said he was leaning toward retired Gen. Alexander I. Lebed because of the opposition candidate’s law-and-order theme.

However, Solovyev said, “Yeltsin still has time to get my vote.” Explaining that he and a group of other veterans in need of housing are trying to start a business, he said he wants Yeltsin to “go after bureaucrats who demand bribes” and to lower taxes.

Minutes later he was standing nervously before the president, repeating his appeal.

“Let’s do it this way,” Yeltsin replied. “You set up a cooperative. I shall exempt it from taxes. And you spend all your profits to build housing.”

Yeltsin plunges into crowds for about 30 minutes in each city, followed by aides with portable loudspeakers that boom his voice up and down the street.

His largess is meant to appear spontaneous. In fact, some recipients are pre-selected by Kremlin advance teams from among his local supporters. Students from Volgograd State University, whose rector is a big supporter, recited some lines begging for a science library and then acted surprised when Yeltsin pledged $2 million.

The advance people also help Yeltsin tailor his messages. In Volgograd, which elected a Communist City Council last fall, they urged him to avoid partisan politics and tell people what they wanted to hear.

He obliged by addressing older citizens as “Stalingraders,” after the city’s Soviet-era name, and praising their “special character” for resisting the deadliest Nazi siege of World War II. He turned up at a pop concert on the riverfront, delighting most of the young crowd, and won points for calling Volgograd women “the most beautiful in the world.”

The Volga meanders 2,300 miles through a political cross-section of the Russian industrial heartland. In his campaign swing, Yeltsin hit the port city capitals--Yaroslavl, Volgograd and Astrakhan--of three regions where his supporters got clobbered in December parliamentary elections.

By venturing onto such hostile turf, Yeltsin hopes to be seen as courageous. While doing so, he is redefining himself as a ruler above the political fray.

His speeches last week warned that “opponents of reform” are ready to take back private property and democratic freedoms. But he didn’t mention the Communist Party or its leader by name.

In his effort to win over voters, though, Yeltsin faces two daunting obstacles--the war in Chechnya and the chronic, weeks-long delays of government wages and pensions to millions of Russians. Last week he was besieged, often heckled, about these problems; his mantra--”Life will get better, believe me!”--is wearing thin.

Marching off his gleaming river cruiser here in Russia’s caviar capital, he walked brusquely past a man holding a sign demanding “Stop the genocide in Chechnya!” Later the president said he will go to the region to talk peace with separatist rebels.

As for wages--not to mention all his promised giveaways--there’s simply not enough money. Yeltsin can only hope voters will remember his decrees and forgive him, as their ancestors once forgave the “good czar” for failing to prod “bad bureaucrats” to follow through.

“Yeltsin is a good man,” said Maria S. Ivantsova, 37, a municipal economist in Astrakhan who joined a folk dance troupe to earn extra rubles and performed for the president. “He is not to blame when the local authorities fail. It’s good that he came. More people will vote for him.”

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A more accurate expression of the popular mood may have come from a woman in Yaroslavl. Facing Yeltsin beside a statue of the city’s 11th century founder, Prince Yaroslav the Wise, she put it as politely as she could.

“Boris Nikolayevich,” she said into the microphone, “I listen to your speeches closely, and I like your decrees very much. They are very good decrees. The only thing that would be better is if someone would enforce them.”

Admitting that “laws and decrees do not always work to the fullest,” Yeltsin could not resist one more promise.

“I shall issue a decree to punish those who are to blame for the fact that decrees and laws are not being enforced!” he boomed. “They will be punished severely!”