The Zhirinovsky Connection

The success of militant nationalist Vladimir Zhirinovsky in the election surprised just about everyone, including the so-called experts. Consequently, all kinds of theories have emerged to explain the "Zhirinovsky phenomenon". Some say his success in the election was the consequence of a "protest vote" by the Russian people against economic hardship. Others say that Zhirinovsky's flamboyant style and aggressive use of television led to his win. These theories, however, don't really cut it; they are irrational rationalizations. The truth is that there is no way this seemingly insane politician, calling for a new dictatorship in Russia, the return of the Soviet empire, and a third world war, could have captured a quarter of the vote and come in a strong first in the Russian parliamentary elections.

How, then, does one explain the election results as reported by Russian authorities? The answer is that it's a lie- part of a large-scale political deception. In fact, based upon the theory that Russia has been deceiving the world since Gorbachev's "New Thinking" was introduced in the mid-1980's, I have been predicting Zhirinovsky's rise to power for almost two years now.

So that you may get a better idea of just what Vladimir Zhirinovsky is all about and what Russia is really up to, the following is a paper I wrote the week before the parliamentary election. In it, I predicted that Zhirinovsky would "astound the world through his party's success in the election of the new Russian parliament."

Vladimir Zhirinovsky's political party, the "Liberal Democratic Party" (LDP) is a bogus creation of the KGB that was designed to serve the purposes of the Central Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) under Gorbachev. First off, the deceptive nature of the LDP is evident in its name. The LDP is a neofacist party- the total opposite of liberal and democratic. Secondly, the LDP was supposedly the first non-communist party to be registered in the Soviet Union. In fact, it was registered even before the legislation to register new parties had been passed and enacted. The reason this was possible was likely due to the fact that the communist government was responsible for the creation of the LDP, and the LDP is therefore not a "non-communist party".

That this is the case was revealed following the Russian presidential election and August coup in 1991. In the wake of the coup, there was an investigation into the activities of Zhirinovsky and his party. Investigators found that, "to all intents and purposes, the Liberal Democratic Party, headed by Vladimir Zhirinovsky, does not exist". Almost all of the 5000+ signatures Zhirinovsky had to collect to register his party in the Russian presidential election were forged. Furthermore, investigators found that, contrary to what was supposed to be the case, "there are no territory, province or district organizations of the LDP, and its membership does not exceed 500-600 people". The investigators rendered the following conclusion:

There are clear indications that the LDP and Zhirinovsky are part of a large-scale political deception that includes the government under Gorbachev and Yeltsin. First off, one should note that there is little difference between the communist government of Gorbachev and the supposedly democratic government of Yeltsin. Virtually all of today's supposed "democrats" and "reformists" in the Russian government are ex-communists, including, of course, Boris Yeltsin. As for the Zhirinovsky connection, in the Russian presidential election Zhirinovsky surprised everyone by receiving almost seven million votes and coming in third out of seven candidates. Given that, as was later revealed, he did not even have a true political party when he ran, his success is even more surprising- in fact, it is literally unbelievable. Given Zhirinovsky's neofacist platform, and given that he had no party and, in turn, no base of support, there is no way he could have received millions of votes and came in a surprising third. The rather profound implication, of course, is that the Russian presidential election was fraudulent.

Further evidence that Zhirinovsky is part of a large-scale political deception stems from the government's failure to check his illegal activities. The failure of the Central Electoral Commission to verify Zhirinovsky's authorization when he nominated himself as a candidate for the Russian presidential election was highly suspect and went against standard procedure. Furthermore, the parliamentary commission that investigated Zhirinovsky and the LDP recommended that "the activity of the LDP should come under the Russian president's decree on terminating the activity of the CPSU and its structures" and therefore be disbanded. However, no such action was ever taken by the Yeltsin administration. (In fact, in the wake of the recent political crisis in Moscow, Zhirinovsky's party was the only right-wing party *not* disbanded by Yeltsin!)

To assist Saddam Hussein in its effort to resist American "imperialist aggression", Zhirinovsky sent a delegation of militant LDP members to Baghdad in January of this year to engage in terrorist activities and form a "protective circle" around Saddam Hussein in the event of further Western military action such as was taken earlier that month. Although this political stunt was suspicious in and of itself, what was even more suspicious was that:

If Zhirinovsky sending militants to Baghdad was not suspicious enough, in September of this year (1993), Baghdad secretly sent its intelligence chief and an Iraqi delegation to Moscow. This delegation met with officials in Russian intelligence and, "as a gesture of goodwill toward Russia's Security Ministry", disclosed that Ruslan Khasbulatov, ex-Speaker of the now-disbanded Russian parliament, had received over $7 million dollars from Iraq. In association with this, a spokesman for LDP stated that Zhirinovsky had never received any financial aid from Iraq or Ruslan Khasbulatov.

Beyond historical parallels to make Zhirinovsky's rise to power more believable, the recent political crisis ended in the elimination of all of Russia's right-wing parties except the LDP. Upon announcement of elections for a new parliament, Zhirinovsky was the first to register candidates. As the French Press Agency reports, his party is now in an advantageous position because the LDP is "the only far right party still left in the race after the crushing of a revolt by hardliners opposed to President Boris Yeltsin on October 3 and 4". In other words, the recent crisis has set the stage for Zhirinovsky's rise to power since he supposedly will inherit much of the right-wing support that had previously been dispersed over the numerous, now-outlawed right-wing political factions that comprised and supported the old parliament.

In association with the defeat of alternative right-wing parties in parliament, the only other potential nationalist candidate for this weekend's legislative elections was blocked from registering his party under highly suspicious circumstances. Sergei Baburin, leader of the right-wing Russian People's Union, had collected the necessary 100,000 signatures for registering his party when "petitions with 20,000 names (were) stolen by uniformed armed men on the eve of the deadline". Baburin subsequently failed to gather enough signatures to register and his party was disqualified. Consequently: "With the elimination from the race of the Russian People's Union headed by hardliner Sergei Baburin, Zhirinovsky's party has been granted a clear advantage in appealing to the nationalist vote."

Anisimov, Anatoly. 'Did Khasbulatov Receive $7 Million From Saddam, Or Not?' Russian Press Digest: 10/26/93.

Boulton, Ralph. 'Russian Militant Sends Fighters to Iraq to Fight America'. The Reuter Library Report; 1/24/93.

Dejevsky, Mary. 'Communist Losers Offer Excuses for Russian Poll Defeat'. The Times: 6/15/91.

Dibrova, Kirill. 'Liberal Democratic Party Founded in the Soviet Union'. The Telegraph Agency of the Soviet Union (TASS): 3/31/90.

Kampfner, John. 'Russian Poll Campaigning Opens Amid Fraud Claims'. The Daily Telegraph; 11/22/93; p11.

Krivoshei, Boris and Sergei Staroselsky. 'Russian Spokesman Blasts Maverick Politician's Visit to Iraq'. The Telegraph Agency of the Soviet Union (TASS): 11/24/92.

Nadler, Gerald. 'First Non-Communist Party is Founded in Soviet History'. United Press International/BC Cycle: 3/31/90.

'Press Briefing on the Abolition of the Rules of the Liberal Democratic Party By Deputy Justice Minister Gennady Cheremnykh'. Official Kremlin International News Broadcast: 4/11/92.

'Ultra-nationalist First to Present Party List for December Poll'. Agence France Presse: 10/12/93.

Womack, Helen. 'Russia: Hardline Communists Take Road to Facism'. The Independent: 12/1/92; p11.

'Zhirinovsky's Fighters Fly to Iraq to Engage in Terrorism'. Current Digest of the Post-Soviet Press: 2/24/93.

Lapenkova, Marina. "Zhirinovsky Said to Have Received Communist Party Blessing." Agence France Presse; 4/13/94.

"Zhirinovsky Party Has KGB Roots, St. Petersburg Mayor Claims." The Associated Press; 1/12/94.

"It is surprising that the Russian press has failed to sound the alarm," the author writes in connection with the fact that the overall results of the elections have still not been published, although the Central Elections Commission had promised to do it. "Quite surprising is the fact that the results of the first democratic multi-party elections to the supreme legislative body of our great country have been turned into a most guarded state secret," he notes. "There is not a single figure in any of the official documents, pertaining to the elections held according to party tickets. Nobody knows how many voters cast their ballots, for instance, in the 116th (Murmansk) constituency for Foreign Minister Kozyrev, who was campaigning for a seat in the State Duma, and how many people voted against him. It also remains to guess the scope of Vladimir Zhirinovsky's overwhelming victory in the 114th (Shchelkovo) constituency". The electoral rules make it incumbent on the Central Elections Commission to publish these figures "within ten days after they are received, but not later than one month after the elections". "The Central Elections Commission has not fulfilled its duty," the author stresses.

"The elections and the vote-counting were organized in such a way as to create ideal opportunities for falsification," Lubarsky writes. The election commissions were flooded by a huge number of protocols, coming from the polling stations. For instance, the District Electoral Commissions received up to 35 thousand protocols, which had to be counted and checked, and the Central Elections Commission-- more than 90,000. Therefore, the vote counting was entrusted to "working teams" at all levels. The latter were set up by the administrations of the subjects of the Russian Federation, which were not always in favour of the reforms. The members of the electoral commissions were simply "familiarized" with the results of this work. The known results of the elections, the author believes, "warrant the conclusion that falsifications were perfectly possible". Moreover, "an analysis of the available figures, even if not complete, show that there have indeed been certain falsifications". Lubarsky claims that Zhirinovsky's Liberal-Democratic Party, the Russian Communist Party and the Agrarian Party had benefited from the falsifications. "It is symptomatic that no falsifications in favour of the 'Russia's Choice' movement and other reformists could be discovered so far". The reasons for the falsifications, the journalist believes, were not identical, although "a desire of the falsifiers to get anti-reformist deputies elected" was prevalent.

Lubarsky touches in his article also on the December 12 referendum on the new Russian constitution and the widespread opinion that the stand of Zhirinovsky and his supporters had allegedly contributed to its adoption. "There is an absolutely clear-cut correlation between the sum total of the votes polled in this or that constituency by the Communists, Agrarians and Zhirinovites combined, and the number of votes cast against the constitution," he writes. "In most cases it is not even a correlation, but an almost exact coincidence". The author corroborates his conclusion by several examples. "The reformers owe nothing to Zhirinovsky, and least of all for the new constitution," he asserts. "They will not have to pay any debts."

St. Petersburg Mayor Anatoly Sobchak said Zhirinovsky's Liberal Democratic Party was set up in 1989 as a toothless alternative to the Communist Party. Zhirinovsky has denied any links to the KGB. President Boris Yeltsin split up the spy agency into several intelligence and crime-fighting agencies.

"I have trustworthy facts, known to only a handful of people today, concerning the origin of Zhirinovsky's party," Sobchak said in Wednesday's edition of the weekly Literaturnaya Gazeta.

Sobchak said former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev decided to establish a weak opposition party after the Communist party gave up its constitutional monopoly on power in 1989.

"We must ourselves set up the first alternative party, making sure that it will be controllable," Sobchak quoted Gorbachev as telling the ruling Politburo.

A spokesman for Gorbachev denied Sobchak's story. "It's simply not true. Neither Gorbachev nor the Politburo gave such an order," the spokesman, Vladimir Polyakov, told the AP.

According to Sobchak, the KGB was ordered to select the new party's leader.

"It was able to find in its active reserves a man with the rank of captain, whose name is now well known," Sobchak said, referring to Zhirinovsky.

Sobchak said the KGB thought up the "Liberal Democratic" name for Zhirinovsky's organization, which became the first non-communist political party in the Soviet Union.

Sobchak didn't cite the source of his information or present any documents to back up his story. The former law professor and Gorbachev ally served in the Supreme Soviet legislature.

Sobchak failed last month to win election to Russia's new parliament, which opened Tuesday.

Zhirinovsky's party won nearly a quarter of the vote in the Dec. 12 parliamentary election, appealing to the anger of Russians over economic disarray, rising crime and the loss of the Soviet empire.