Moscow Mayor’s Odd Style May Suit Russia

Mayor Yuri M. Luzhkov formed a broad and weighty coalition with a group of Russia’s most influential governors Wednesday, creating the first political bloc that analysts say has the potential to unseat the Communists from their dominant position in parliament.

The merger of the Moscow mayor’s Fatherland coalition with the governors’ All Russia movement shifts the landscape of Russian politics and accelerates politicking for parliamentary elections in December and presidential elections in June.

“Fatherland-All Russia will not be just another election coalition,” said Andrei V. Ryabov, political analyst with the Carnegie Moscow Center think tank. “This is a prototype for a ‘party of power’ that will take over after Boris Yeltsin serves out his term.

“This is the alliance that will determine Russia’s future political structure.”

Formation of the new coalition has been watched closely, even jealously, by the Kremlin. President Yeltsin, apparently trying to decide whether to view it as a threat, summoned one of the central governors, Mintimer S. Shaimiyev of Tatarstan, to explain the movement’s aims.

“Whenever such a decisive political force appears in society, Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin is interested in it,” Shaimiyev said later.

So far, Luzhkov, 62, is the central figure in the alliance.

In the past few months, he has used a potent mix of populism and centrism to attract tremendous support for the idea of building a “party of power”--a kind of post-Soviet ruling party.

“Our wish is to serve our citizens, to solve the country’s real economic problems,” Luzhkov told a news conference. “Our wish is to live in a unified and strong federation. Our wish is to care for and develop the values of a democratic society, to develop the economy on free-market principles.”

Luzhkov is assumed to have presidential ambitions, but he has spent much time in recent weeks trying to entice Russia’s most popular political figure--fired Prime Minister Yevgeny M. Primakov--to accept top billing from his movement.

The polls tell why. If the election were held now, Primakov would beat Communist leader Gennady A. Zyuganov by a healthy margin of 6 percentage points, according to the respected Public Opinion Foundation. If Luzhkov faced Zyuganov, the race would be neck and neck.

Primakov Is Coy About His Future

Before he was fired by a jealous Yeltsin in May, Primakov insisted that he wasn’t interested in the presidency, in part because at 69 he is even older than Yeltsin.

However, since his dismissal, Primakov has grown coy about his political future, and Luzhkov has become a bold suitor. Analysts say a Primakov-Luzhkov joint bid for president and prime minister could be unbeatable. And if Primakov declines to run, he may at least give Luzhkov his blessing.

Luzhkov repeated his entreaties to Primakov during the news conference announcing the new bloc.

“We have all known Yevgeny Maximovich for a long time and deeply respect him,” Luzhkov said. “The political council of the Fatherland movement is ready to put his candidacy at No. 1 in the national list of candidates.”

Whether or not Primakov signs on, Luzhkov has already helped redefine the terms of Russia’s political debate. In a country overfed on ideologies, there is a strong appetite for Luzhkov’s emphasis on pragmatism. He eschews labels such as “reformer” and “hard-liner.” He says he is less concerned with abstractions like “democracy” and “the free market” than fundamentals like putting food on the table.

That confuses many in the West, where observers still tend to view Russia through post-Communist lenses and look for “democrats” and “reformers.” In Russia, those terms have ceased to have much meaning.

“It all depends on your definitions,” said Kemer B. Norkin, Luzhkov’s chief of staff. “According to one definition Luzhkov is a democrat, and according to another he is not. Regardless, he will not sacrifice Russia’s interests for the sake of some abstract concept called ‘democracy.’ ”

What Luzhkov calls himself is a khozyaystvennik--a forceful manager. But what he manages isn’t a market economy, exactly. Under his tutelage, the city of Moscow has become an economic hybrid governed in part by market incentives and in part by Soviet-style oversight.

To gain insight into how his views work in practice, all it takes is a quick inventory of cabbages in northern Moscow.

At the fancy private Megapolis supermarket, they cost 62 cents a pound. At the regular corner grocery store, the price is 17 cents. But the bargain is found at the city-sponsored vegetable depot, where cabbages sell for 10 cents a pound.

The depot--and its cheap prices--are Luzhkov’s brainchild, an important link in a network he has built to keep the capital happy and well-fed at a reasonable price.

Officially the depot, with its vegetable market, is a private business. In practice, it serves the government.

Depot workers call cabbage a “political vegetable,” along with beets, potatoes, carrots and onions. They are the staples of the Russian diet, and the Moscow city food department monitors their price and supply, just as in Soviet times, to prevent politically dangerous shortages or price increases.

Under contract with the city, the depot keeps thousands of tons of each in storage lockers--as much as 70,000 tons at any time. Should prices rise or supplies fall, the city will stabilize the market by releasing some reserves. The depot is otherwise free to do what it likes, buying and selling other farm products or imports, and it keeps its profits.

It’s not exactly a Soviet-style command economy, but it’s not exactly a free market, either.

In the past year, the northwest depot has become the first of the city’s 27 food “bases” to implement another of Luzhkov’s ideas: controlling production as well as distribution. It has taken over a former state farm outside Moscow, which now supplies a majority of the “political vegetables.” And since it started selling directly to the public last year, the depot now controls the food from seed to shopping bag.

Shoppers Don’t Care If It’s Soviet

To a Westerner, that kind of centralized control might appear Soviet. But such criticism makes little headway with shoppers.

“Do you think an old woman who is counting every kopeck stops to worry about whether this system is Soviet or not?” asked Alina Guseva, a 38-year-old mother carrying home three soda bottles she filled directly from the farm’s milk tanker. “It’s all the same to me. I have two children to feed.”

In his seven years as mayor, Luzhkov has become adept at splicing forces that most Westerners would consider opposites.

For instance, he is frequently called a “nationalist”--a term often applied to those who blame non-Russians and Jews for the country’s troubles.

Luzhkov does adopt nationalist positions on most foreign policy issues, denouncing the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the International Monetary Fund and ardently supporting the Russian Orthodox Church. But at the same time he is one of Russia’s most visible supporters of the Jewish community, attending synagogue on holy days and taking the Communist Party to task for keeping avowed anti-Semites among its leadership.

Another area of hybrid policymaking concerns Luzhkov’s relations with Moscow’s gangsters and shady businessmen. Instead of fighting them, he has enlisted their aid for some of his pet projects.

“It’s very hard to make these guys pay taxes,” explained a Luzhkov advisor, Vyacheslav A. Nikonov. “So [Luzhkov] assembles the guys and says: ‘I need a cathedral. I can’t make you pay taxes because all your accounting is rigged. . . . So each of you tomorrow bring $2 million or I’ll start really digging into your affairs.’ So they bring the money.”

“It’s not a normal style of governing,” Nikonov acknowledged. “But we don’t live in a normal country.”

Blair Ruble, director of the Kennan Institute for Advanced Russian Studies in Washington, calls Luzhkov’s system “imperial urban corporatism.”

“He has a real authoritarian streak,” Ruble said. “I don’t think he likes competition. What he wants to do is make the state more efficient through authoritarian means.”

It is too early to determine whether Luzhkov or his new coalition will succeed at the ballot box. That will depend on the situation in Russia’s impoverished provinces, home to more than 60% of the population.

That’s where the new alliance comes in. In a sprawling country like Russia, governors hold tremendous sway in their regions, ruling them more like fiefdoms than provinces. With the support of at least two dozen governors, Luzhkov is well on his way to gaining the support of their constituents.

Luzhkov prefers to focus on December’s parliamentary race. But when pressed, it’s clear he has a presidential strategy in mind.

“The election won’t be decided by philosophy,” Luzhkov recently told a couple of American visitors. “The person who wins will be the person who says: ‘There will be no hunger. There will be heat. There will be no corruption in government. There will be order.’ ”

And after seven years of post-Soviet upheaval, a few years of cheap food, heat and calm may be precisely what voters choose.

“What Russia really needs now,” Nikonov said, “is to be governed.”