Eltsin’s Election Platform
Eltsin's Election Platform. March 21, 1989
In this election platform, Boris Yeltsin presented himself as the candidate who could turn perestroika’s stalled promises into enforceable change. He coupled a populist attack on party privilege with a program of institutional reform: stronger republican sovereignty, competitive elections, separation of powers, and legal guarantees for civil rights. Economically, the platform pointed toward market mechanisms and the depoliticization of management, while insisting on social protections during transition. Read against the late Soviet crisis, the document shows how Yeltsin linked democratic legitimacy to a direct mandate and used it to challenge the authority of the Union center.
Original Source: Moskovskaia pravda, 21 March 1989.
The country's supreme legislative body must express the people's will in the resolution of all fundamental matters and must prevent the adoption of unnecessary and at times even harmful decisions and resolutions. All government, political and public organizations without exception, including the party, must be legislatively accountable to it.
It is necessary to introduce a practice whereby central bodies report to the Congress of People's Deputies and the USSR Supreme Soviet.
The current law on elections is not genuinely democratic. Elections of deputies and chairmen of soviets at all levels must be universal, direct, equal, secret and always competitive, including the election of the Chairman of the USSR Supreme Soviet.
It is necessary to create a state-legal mechanism ruling out relapses into authoritarian forms of rule, voluntarism and a personality cult.
It is necessary to struggle against the existing elitist bureaucratic stratum via the transfer of power to elected bodies and the decentralization of political, economic and cultural life.
Legislation must not be anonymous: every draft law and amendment must be attributed to its authors, and authors must be responsible for it.
A people's deputy must have the right to demand referendums on the most important issues of state life (the building and use of the armed forces, priority avenues of economic and social policy, construction of nuclear power stations and so on).
Concern for man is the main objective of socialism. It is necessary to give even greater priority to a strong social policy and to concentrate all efforts along the three most important avenues: supply of foodstuffs and industrial goods; the services sphere; housing. Larger sums must be appropriated for the solution of these tasks, including by means of reduced appropriations for the defense and other sectors. The implementation of a series of space programs ought to be postponed for five to seven years. This will make it possible to substantially enhance Soviet people's living standards within two to three years.
Priority in social policy must be given to the socially least protected members of society: low-income families, pensioners, women and the disabled.
Bearing in mind the unjustified stratification of the population according to property criteria, it is necessary to intensify the struggle for social and moral justice. It is necessary to aim for equal opportunities for all citizens - from the worker to the head of state - as regards the acquisition of foodstuffs, industrial goods and services and the receiving of education and medical services. The fourth directorate of the USSR Ministry of Health, which today serves the leaders, should be reoriented to meet the needs of society's socially least protected members. The sundry special rations and special distribution centers must be eliminated. The sole incentive for good work ought to be the ruble, with identical purchasing power for all strata of society.
Only an efficient economy can provide a lasting foundation for a strong social policy. There is a need for a clear-cut scientific program to improve the economy's health as soon as possible.
Within the framework of this program - the slogan "Land to the peasants!" must be implemented. Land must be transferred under long-term leases. People must choose for themselves the forms of economic management; - there must be a sharp reduction in the number of ministries and departments and their apparatus must be gradually transferred to full economic accountability. Enterprises must be given an opportunity to withdraw freely from ministries and the right to engage in autonomous economic activity; - there ought to be a 40% reduction in appropriations for industrial construction and they ought to be excluded from the budget as lacking commodity backing. This ought to result in a sharp reduction of the state's internal debt and stabilization of the ruble's exchange rate.
The solution of economic and social problems is possible only under further development of democracy. Mass media must be given greater independence and a law on the press ought to be adopted defining the duties of press, radio and television workers and protecting their rights. Mass media must depend not on groups of people but on society.
Serious attention must be given to relations between nationalities. All USSR peoples must have de facto economic, political and cultural autonomy.
I share people's anxiety over the acuteness of the ecological problem. It is necessary to adopt a law on ecological responsibility. An ecological map of the country must be drawn up, and an end must be put to industrial construction in regions under ecological pressure, including Moscow.
A number of legislative acts on young people ought to be adopted. Agreement in principle must be given to the possibility of alternative young people's organizations being created.
Restructuring and democratization must bring revolutionary changes in our society and the struggle for them ought to be waged in revolutionary fashion.
Source: BBC World Broadcasts, SU 0421 Cl (30 March 1989).