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ies a testament to the acceptance of the system. It functioned as the ulti-

mate form of protest, applicable when the local authorities had failed to

take care of the individual’s living conditions. The crucial question in this

regard is to what extent falsification of voter lists occurred, i.e. not regis-

tering possible non-voters or dissenters in order to keep the reported

number of non-voters small. In my impression, this did not take place over

the whole time, and even under Brezhnev, although it became more wide-

spread, did not occur in all districts.

Analyzing the results of single voting districts, it becomes evident that

the number of votes against the candidate strongly depended on his per-

sona. This is easy to see, as usually two or more elections were held simul-

taneously: on the upper level, it was the election of the Supreme Soviet and

of the Supreme Soviet of nationalities, on the lower level, the election of

local and regional soviets. If voting against the candidates was, in fact, a

protest against the regime, we should expect the same numbers of non-

affirmative votes. If the vote somehow related to a candidate, there should

be significantly different results for each candidate. We find that the num-

bers of votes against some candidates were significantly higher (up to ten

or even twenty times!) than the medium votes against other candidates.

Particularly high numbers of non-affirmative votes often affected young

ladies, viewed as incompetent or even morally questionable as protégées of

senior male officials, and candidates known to be rude or selfish in their

behavior. In addition, we can find strong differences in voting by looking

at neighborhoods. In certain places in big towns, protest could amount to

5 per cent of the vote in the 1960s. However, only one of the candidates

was concerned in these cases, while the other remained widely accepted.61

——————

delo 318, l. 33, lists 149 deliberate non-voters in the Leninsk Rayon of Yaroslavl, 126 of them due to housing, 6 as they do not agree with court convictions.

61 GAYO, Fond R-2513, opis’ 1: Commission for the election to the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, the RSFSR and local Soviets. Delo 194 gives the reports about the single polling stations of the Yaroslavl’ City
okrug
for the election on March 14, 1954. In election
okrug
354, 2,431 voters canceled the candidate’s name. In the more rural parts of Yaroslavl’
oblast’
canceling the candidate’s name happened quite seldom. In the city of Yaroslavl’, the candidate’s name was canceled by 1 per cent of the voters on average, in single voting stations of the Zavol’skii and the Krasnoperepolovskii Rayon it reached 5

per cent. In one station, 87 canceled the name of Papavin, but only 8 the name Kairov, the minister of education of the RSFSR. In the rural
raion
Stalino, crossing out of the names hardly took place. In the election
okrug
355 0.4 per cent of the voters canceled the candidate’s name, however, in one single rural polling stations 96 out of 862 voters (11 per cent) crossed out the candidate’s name (delo 195). Cf. as well RGANI, Fond 5,

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S T E P H A N M E R L

Notes on Ballots

Coming across archival material on Soviet elections for the first time, it

was most surprising to me to find out that many voters utilized the ballots

to compose short notes to the authorities. While in Western elections, any

inscription on the ballot renders the vote invalid, they were welcome under

the paternalistic rule in the Soviet Union (Carson 1955, 75–76). It serves to

emphasize that the voter perceived voting as a process and opportunity of

communication and bargaining. The voters were convinced that the ruler

would, in fact, take notice of their messages. They went so far as to give

clear instructions to the people reading the message. This was the core of

Stalin’s
secret ballot
.

Some voters—on the basis of the available data ranging from 0.01 to 1

per cent in cities—and very few in rural areas,62 used the ballots to address

the ruler with their remarks: patriotic appraisals, recommendations, com-

ments, demands, and complaints. They were using the ballots as a means

of communication in addition to the many letters, applications, and peti-

tions. Sometimes, voters even dropped prepared letters into the ballot box.

The local election commission compiled lists of this type of communica-

tion, attaching them to their report to the district committees. A selection

of this information was reported to the Central Committee by the
oblast’

Party secretaries.63

For historians, these are ideal sources. Due to time constraints, the

messages are short, direct and express something the voter really wanted

the ruler to be aware of. Typical voter messages on the ballots read:

“thanks to Stalin”, “you swine”, “croak like a dog”, “bootlicker”, “hang

——————

opis’ 76 (1979), delo 137 and 138: Reports from all regions of the Soviet Union show that while on average up to 100 voters canceled the candidate’s name, in single districts up to 2,000 voters did this. Cf. also TsDNIY, Fond 272, opis’ 227, delo 221 (1957), ll.

252–53.

62 RGANI, Fond 5, opis 77’ (1980), delo 102 and 103. The percentage of the voters differed strongly, ranging from 0.8 per cent (
oblast’
Sakhalinsk: 3,700 remarks and 439,981

voters), 0.5 per cent (Krai Primorsk, 6,757 from 1,477,775 voters) to as low as 0.015 per cent in
oblast’
Burjatia. Cf. as well TsDNIY, Fond 272, opis’ 227, delo 196 (1957), ll. 87–

92, 221; delo 355 (1958), ll. 133, 180.

63 RGANI, Fond 5, opis’ 66 (1973), delo 124, ll. 161–65: Report of the CC Secretary to the Central Committee of the Communist Party from June 25, 1973. The manipulation in reporting to the ruler is evident. While the report spoke of overwhelmingly patriotic remarks, at the very end it mentioned an insignificant minority making negative remarks on the voting system and Soviet democracy; opis’ 90 (1984), delo 59.

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Khrushchev”, “We want meat, not deputies”, “corrupt”. Western reports

certify that at least in the cities, the booths were used by 2 to 10 per cent of the voters (Ritterband 1978, 81; Jacobs 1971, 64–65). The lack of persecution of individuals making anti-Soviet notes proves that the secret ballot

was upheld to some extent. This becomes evident from the fact that un-

masking the anonymous writers was difficult and took years in some cases.

Their successful identification in the end was often thanks to the stub-

bornness of this small group of mavericks, who not only wrote anti-Soviet

remarks on their ballots, but continued to write anonymous letters to the

regime. Analyzing these letters and comparing them to the ballot notes

could then eventually reveal their writers.64 For the writers of the notes, it

was by no means easy to estimate what was going to be classified as anti-

Soviet. Definitive rules did not exist, and today’s reader is puzzled by cer-

tain classifications in both ways. Even the demand to “Hang Khrushchev!”

could be read as patriotic once he was out of office (and Kozlov reports at

least one convict released for this remark).

Considering even the somewhat large amount of patriotic agreement

with the system, some notes interpreting the voting process as a process of

negotiation can be discerned: “I am a 71-year old pensioner, and in ex-

change for my work, Party and state take care of me in old age—many

thanks for all the care and attention paid to us pensioners (name)”.—“I

vote for our deputies, for a happy life and a peaceful world. I am 59 years

old, and life has become so splendid, so very wonderful that I dare not

think of death” (both from 1959).—“Greetings, Comrade Stalin, in casting

my vote and participating in the elections, I am expressing my thanks to

Party, government and Comrade Stalin” (1953). “I vote for you, Ivan

Andreevic, but don’t sell the sausage for 3.20 rubles any longer, it’s only

fed to the cats, anyway” (1962).65 The fact that this remark was categorized

as “positive” underlines the difficulty in anticipating how a particular note

was going to be perceived.

The following request demonstrates just how well the voters under-

stood the mechanisms of petition treatment: “Comrade K., I am voting for

you, asking you to check the documents sent by Khrushchev from Mos-

——————

64 Cf. Kozlov and Mironenko (2005, 186–212) on the basis of court investigations. For example, a student was sentenced to several years in the labor camps for saying that voting for either Stalin or a dog did not make a difference to him (Ibid., 186).

65 TsDNIY, Fond 272, opis’ 226, delo 767 (1953), l. 2; opis’ 227, delo 489 (1959), l. 242, opis’ 228, delo 206 (1962), l. 231.

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cow. I wrote to the Kremlin last year. Please, comrade K., check the
oblast’

committee in room no. 11. I have been living in a wet and damp room for

ten years, and I expect an answer.”66 It was common practice to combine

the personal request with the denunciation of the respective person who

had hitherto failed to meet the initial demand; one’s petition could also be

emphasized by threatening to contact superordinate positions: “Comrade

K., I live on 11.5 square meters with a family of three; my mother-in-law’s

house burned down, and she, having worked in the
kolkhoz
for 40 years,

has nowhere to go now that she is 67. We appealed to the deputy chairman

of the executive committee, comrade N., but what was his reply? If every

mother’s house burned down, we could not provide them with living

space. I do think his answer is wrong.”67

Petitions demanding improvements of communal infrastructure in ex-

change for votes read as follows: “Remember the mandate.” “I am voting

for improving the invalid’s standard of living in the city of Shcherbakov.”

“Election by the working people of our rayon requires greater effort in

fulfilling this duty, such as taking an interest in the living conditions (can-

didate M.).” “As deputy of the local soviet, I am voting for the candidates.

Working people on the other side of the Volga gave their candidates, as

they did in the last elections, but the working people’s requests are still not

being fulfilled. We hereby ask a) once more to build a bridge across the