COMMUNISTS AND NATIONALISTS DO WELL IN REGIONAL ELECTIONS.

Communist and nationalist candidates scored strong election victories in several Russian regions this past weekend. In Tula oblast near Moscow, Vasili Starodubtsev was elected governor with 62 percent of the votes. Starodubtsev, who manages the region’s Lenin collective farm, is a leader of the Agrarian party, which is allied to the Communist party. He made his name in August 1991 as a member of the abortive coup d’etat that triggered the collapse of the USSR. In Amur oblast, an economically depressed region on Russia’s border with China, Communist candidate Anatoly Belonogov was elected governor with over 60 percent of the vote. And in Voronezh oblast, south of Moscow, Dmitry Rogozin, leader of the nationalist Congress of Russian Communities, was elected to the Duma in a by-election. (RTR, March 24)

Russian Government Jittery in Advance of Thursday’s General Strike.