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thanks to the regime as well as the names of the actors typically ensued.

Another obligatory point in the reports was to mention that by noon,

nearly all registered voters had, in fact, cast their votes.34 During the after-

noon, the main task was to search for the missing voters. A mobile ballot

box was used not only to visit the old, sick, and disabled people in their

homes, but also to reach reluctant voters. Viewing the amount of care

taken by the state for them, they normally did not dare to refuse to drop

their ballots in the box. Thus in 1958, two people just expelled from a

kolkhoz
did not risk not voting when suddenly the commission entered

their house.35 In 1989 some voters were complaining bitterly that such a

service was no longer provided by each station.36 In order for this after-

noon program to be feasible for the members of the local voting commis-

sions, it was necessary to provide transport for each polling station. Thus,

since the 1950s, a black Volga was usually parked in front of the station.

However, it was just as obligatory to mention some failures at the end

of the report. In May 1963, the Party secretary of Rybinsk reported that the

collective of the artisan college did not show up in time for their concert,

and one election district was reprimanded for not offering a concert at all,

another for closing the buffet before the end of the voting.37 Since the end

of the 1950s, the reports sometimes had to mention that young hooligans

played a trick on the commissions, stealing the Volga in front of the station

for using it on a joyride.38 On election day 1960, in the Zavolsk voting

district of Yaroslavl, horse meat was erroneously delivered to the buffets in

the polling stations instead of cooked sausage, which caused strong dis-

content among the voters, who then almost sabotaged the vote.39 Cases

reporting civil courage amongst the voters are rare. For example, an old

lady in Yaroslavl in 1960, took the ballot and tore it to pieces in front of

the election commission, visiting her at home.40 State security investigated

nearly every case of refusal to vote, as becomes evident from the case of a

twenty year old student from Azerbajdzhan, studying in Yaroslavl, voting

——————

34 TsDNIY, Fond 272, opis’ 226, delo 1044 (1955), ll. 28–34; opis’ 227, delo 196 (1957), ll.

83–92; delo 353 (1958), ll. 156–59; opis’ 229, delo 167 (1966), ll. 96–104; delo 301

(1967), ll. 16–24.

35 Ibid., opis’ 227, delo 355 (1958), ll. 94–96; cf. also ll. 268–69.

36 GARF, Fond R–7522, opis’ 13, delo 72, l. 26.

37 TsDNIY, Fond 7386, opis’ 5, delo 4, ll. 206–16.

38 TsDNIY, Fond 272, opis’ 227, delo 222 (1957), l. 101; delo 622 (1960), l. 119.

39 Ibid., delo 622 (1960), l. 120.

40 Ibid., l. 119.

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for the first time in his life and hardly able to understand any Russian. He

was arrested by the police after leaving the polling station, as he had

dropped only one ballot in the box. He was released after the investigation.

He testified that he simply had not understood that he had to drop all four

ballots into the box, the three others pertaining to different levels of So-

viets.41 The reporting Party secretary added that the evaluation of the stu-

dent, which he had required the director of the technical institute in ques-

tion to write, was positive in nature. This incident, however, confirms the

information that the refusal to take part in the elections was one of the

most important causes of expulsion from universities, on the one hand.

On the other hand, it was important to show one’s engagement during the

election campaign to receive upward social mobility as a reward (Zaslavsky

and Brym 1978, 367–68).

Comments by voters on and suggestions to the Central Election Com-

mission primarily focused on two points, i.e. the lack of choice between

candidates and the problem with the secret ballot. As the original plans

from 1937, which also prescribed the secret ballot, had specifically included

a choice between candidates, remarks about these aspects could be made in

relative safety. Comments on the voting process were sometimes also

written on the ballots. Only on the ballots themselves, and additionally in

anonymous letters to the regime, can we find sharp criticism of the politi-

cal system, denying the Soviet Union’s democratic nature.42

As Stalin was in favor of the idea of choice between candidates, a rather

disturbing instruction was given to the voters not only in 1937, but in all

following elections as well: “Leave on the ballot only the family name of

the candidate for whom you would like to vote, and cancel43 the names of

——————

41 Ibid., opis’ 227, delo 489 (1959), ll. 326–27.

42 TsDNIY, Fond 272, opis’ 229, delo 318 (1967) mentioned one voter’s remark on not agreeing with the voting system, and one dissatisfied with the government; delo 319, ll.

29–30; RGANI, Fond 5, opis 66 (1973), ll. 120–22. For a letter dropped into the box by a voter explaining his voting against the candidate as a protest against the undemocratic voting and local supply see: TsDNIY, Fond 272, opis’ 227, delo 353, ll. 158–59. Kozlov and Mironenko (2005, 5–62 and 233–37) claim that writing anonymously cannot only be explained by the risk of repression. These people in their understanding spoke in the name of the people or the inhabitants of a certain city. As the Russian understanding of autobiographical writing presupposed its objectivity (Herzberg 2011), signing such writings by name would have delegitimized the argument. Such protest held a quasi-religious or mythical character. Cursing the criticized leader, especially Khrushchev, aimed at overcoming these ignoble leaders in order to establish the reign of liberty.

43 Merely crossing out the name was counted as consent.

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the others.”44 Some persons were puzzled to read this on the model ballot

published before election day. Some simply proposed to erase this sen-

tence from the ballot. The commission, however, objected to this, and

explained that it was the duty of the local election commission to check the

candidates. It was the commission that decided who was the best candi-

date. As this candidate came from a block of communists and non-Party-

members, the other candidates would withdraw their candidacies. The final

purpose of Soviet voting was the demonstration of unity. Unlike in capi-

talist countries, there were no different parties.45 Other writers openly

demanded the nomination of more candidates. The tenor of these letters

was that a true democracy had to allow the voter a choice among candi-

dates, otherwise it was to be an election without choice.46 Some voters

asked for their involvement in the process of selecting the candidates, or

suggested that they should get the possibility to run for office themselves.47

Among the communications to the Central Election Commission were

always ten to twenty letters concerned with the arrangements for securing

the secret ballot in the polling stations, which was required by the voting

regulations. Their concern was well-founded: as only one name was on the

ballot paper, voting for the candidate simply required the voter to drop his

ballot into the box. This, however, put the secrecy in flux, as each person

intending to enter a voting booth obviously wanted to make a change on

the ballot. Voters using the booth therefore ran the risk of being suspected

of canceling the name of the candidate, which was prosecuted as a criminal

offence. The writers suggested that each voter on his way to the box had to

pass by the voting booths, protesting against the regular arrangements,

which was simply to place the booths in one corner of the room. Some of

the letters contain drawings of the supposedly best arrangements of booths

and the box in the station to guarantee the secret ballot. Citing the voting

rules, they claimed that open voting was unconstitutional, and that open

announcements of voting decisions should have been unlawful.48

——————

44 GARF, Fond R-7522, opis’ 6, delo 28, ll. 25–27.

45 GARF, Fond R-7522, opis’ 7, delo 23, l . 3–5, 119–21.

46 Ibid., opis’ 11 (1984), delo 24, l. 2, 26, opis’ 10 (1979), delo 23, ll. 1–2: voters asking for change and to present more candidates; opis’ 9 (1974), delo 24, l. 4; opis’ 8 (1970), delo 30, ll. 5–8, 126–27, opis’ 7, delo 23, 3–5, 7–9, 18–21, opis’ 6, delo 28, ll. 17–20.

47 Ibid., opis’ 7, delo 23, 29–31.

48 Others complained about the number of booths not being sufficient to allow each voter to use them. Ibid., opis’ 11 (1984), delo 24, ll. 5–6, 37, 69; opis’ 10 (1979), delo 23, ll. 2–

11, 38–39, 73, 81; opis’ 9 (1974), delo 24, l. 3, 16; opis’ 8 (1970), delo 30, ll. 5–8, 126–27;

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Letters and telegrams to the Central Election Commission in 1946 were

often sent by local election commissions, containing questions concerning

the interpretation of the voting regulations. One commission reported a

dispute on how to correctly use the four available rooms for the voting

process. The argument was about putting the box in room three and the

booths in room four, or to do it the other way round. The Central Com-

mission, in accordance with the idea of the constitution, suggested putting

the box in room four, giving as its explanation the security inside the sta-

tion: if the box were in room three, people would enter room three from

both directions, which certainly would be inconvenient. Others questioned

how the rule that nobody apart from the voter was allowed into the room

with the booths was put into practice, if at all. Might a member of the

election commission watch the room? Was the cleaning lady allowed to

enter the room? In this case, the Commission saw problems with neither

the cleaning ladies entering nor the commission members watching the

room with the booths.49

The complaints to the Central Election Commission document to what

extent the voting regulations were violated in many polling stations, un-

masking the illegitimacy of the elections even further. Often, it was possi-

ble to obtain the ballot even without showing one’s ID. It was a wide-

spread practice to hand out the ballots for all members of a family or even

for someone’s neighbors to one single voter upon request.50 The extent of