GLOBAL VIEWPOINT: President Yeltsin is said to have spent more than one billion rubles in recent weeks to fund unpaid pensions, and to raise wages for state workers, miners and the like. Is this effort, which some believe is an effort to "buy" votes, working?
GENNADY ZYUGANOV: Glasnost has taught people to see through such transparent acts. They will take his money, but put their votes elsewhere.People ask, "If Yeltsin is so sincere about helping us, why didn't he do it before these last two weeks before the election?" They know he is not interested in attending to the real interests of Russians. They know he has no plan to get the economy - in which industrial production has dropped more than 50 percent during his time in power and cast more than 39 million into poverty up and running again.
He has destroyed Russia. And a few handouts aren't going to change what most people know from their own daily experience - that he has ruined their lives and livelihood.
VIEWPOINT: So, people hurt by the market reforms aren't comforted when Yeltsin recalls for them his long-time Communist credentials? His effort to convince the voters he is a "good red" is not convincing?
ZYUGANOV: No, he is not convincing anybody that he is a good Communist, but without the Party. People don't forget that, when he raises high the red flag this afternoon to get some votes, only this morning he was stomping on it.
VIEWPOINT: Yeltsin's campaign manager, Sergei Filatov, has charged that the Communist Party is again organizing party cells in the workplace, something banned by the Constitution. Is it true?
ZYUGANOV: No, that is not true. We are building no clandestine organization anywhere. Our party organization is open to anyone who agrees with our program. Anybody can join, including you.