TV critic Irina Petrovskaya lamented NTV’s metamorphosis. ‘NTV, my sorrow and my pain! Where did its objectivity and even-handedness go? What happened to its European correctness? Evgeny Kiselev resembled in his manners and his tone political commentators of [Soviet] Central Television.’ She saw far enough into the future to pose the key question of that fraught time: ‘If they manage [to get Yeltsin elected], will television be able to return to those democratic principles? Will the new (old) power allow it? Or will it turn a temporary love affair with the media into a compulsory admiration?’40
Yet, while some media executives saw Yeltsin’s campaign purely as a money-making opportunity, most journalists who participated in the election campaign did so because they too had much to lose. The return of the communists or the victory of Korzhakov’s clan would have spelled the end to free journalism and its special status in Yeltsin’s Russia. As Kiselev said, ‘Yes, we were biased, but we genuinely believed – and still believe – that Yeltsin’s victory would save the country and that Zyuganov would throw it back. We were defending ourselves. When a house is in flames you don’t worry about spoiling books and carpets by throwing water on them.’41
Judging by NTV’s own standards in previous years, the Yeltsin coverage was clearly biased. By the standards of Russian television in the late 2000s, when it became nothing but propaganda, it was an example of restraint and moderation. Even more crucially, Malashenko and his journalists campaigned not just for Yeltsin per se, but for a Yeltsin who would end the war in Chechnya, carry on with reforms and bring Russia closer to the West. NTV continued its highly critical coverage of Chechnya. ‘Every time NTV showed something about Chechnya – they looked at me in the Kremlin as though I was a traitor,’ Malashenko recalled. ‘But I kept telling them: if you want it to look different on the screen – do something about Chechnya itself – don’t try to doctor the picture.’42
On 31 March, Yeltsin went on television and announced he was ready for peace talks and promised a ‘political solution to the crisis’. A few weeks later, on 21 April, Dudaev was killed and Yeltsin flew to Chechnya to meet the elders and to thank the soldiers for their service. ‘Peace in Chechnya has been restored,’ Yeltsin declared, effectively admitting that the army was unable to end the insurgency. Pressing his pen and paper against the side of an APC, Yeltsin theatrically signed an order to decommission soldiers. Opinion polls showed Yeltsin’s rating climbing steadily while Zyuganov’s figures were either flat or falling. Yeltsin was clearly ahead of Zyuganov in Moscow and St Petersburg and in other large cities. He was overwhelmingly supported by the educated, the well-paid and the young. This was NTV’s prime audience.
But apart from mobilizing the general public, television also communicated the ‘party line’ to all regional bosses who controlled election registers. Although many of them were natural communist supporters, they took their instructions from the state media. By the end of spring 1996, Malashenko’s team was clearly winning over Korzhakov’s group inside the Kremlin. On the eve of the first round of elections, Kiselev published an article in the weekly news magazine Itogi – the namesake of his television programme and part of Gusinsky’s media empire. ‘Yeltsin will win, despite the shameful [fact] that an ex-KGB bodyguard with the rank of a major has become the number-two man in the country… Korzhakov and his men won’t forget and forgive those who pushed them aside. And they won’t forget us journalists for the way we covered this campaign.’43
On 16 June, in the first round of elections, Yeltsin got 35 per cent of the votes, Zyuganov 32 per cent. Another 15 per cent went to Alexander Lebed – a gravel-voiced and charismatic army general, a sparring partner promoted by Yeltsin’s team to split the communist vote. The calculation was that in the second round Lebed’s votes would go to Yeltsin.
A few days later the battle between Malashenko’s and Chubais’s analytical group and Korzhakov’s group broke into the open. Korzhakov’s people arrested two men from Chubais’s team, one of whom was the author of the slogan ‘Vote or Lose’, who were carrying a cardboard box with $500,000 in cash out of the White House. The cash had been earlier taken out from the ministry of finance: state money was being used to pay for Yeltsin’s campaign, including the ‘God Forbid’ news-sheet. Korzhakov knew about this. In fact, he was supposed to provide security for transporting the money, but instead set a trap.
Gusinsky, Malashenko and Chubais were at Berezovsky’s lavish ‘House of Receptions’ in central Moscow when the news came. They were furious. This was a clear set-up by Korzhakov designed to foil the second round of elections and reassert control over Yeltsin. While Chubais was unsuccessfully trying to raise Yeltsin from his bed in the middle of the night and Berezovsky was summoning Dyachenko on the phone, Malashenko mobilized his journalists. He called Kiselev, told him the news, and asked him to go on air immediately. At two o’clock in the morning, NTV interrupted its night programming with an ‘emergency’ news bulletin. The country, Kiselev told the audience, was on the brink of a political catastrophe and an attempted coup by Korzhakov, Barsukov and Soskovets. An hour later, Lebed also went on air to say that ‘any mutiny will be crushed and crushed with extreme severity’. Television declared Yeltsin’s chiefs of security traitors while they still held their positions.
Two hours later Korzhakov blinked and the two men detained with the box were released. In the morning Chubais went to see Yeltsin to tell him that Korzhakov had just jeopardized Yeltsin’s campaign for the sake of his own position. Chubais also showed Yeltsin a blackmail letter that Korzhakov had sent to Kiselev a few days earlier. In his letter Korzhakov addressed Kiselev as a ‘colleague’, implying Kiselev’s affiliation with the KGB. ‘Why such contempt for our joint profession, colleague… Be sensible…’ Attached to the letter was a copy of Kiselev’s article in Itogi magazine and a facsimile of the first page of a KGB personal file with Kiselev’s photograph and his secret name, Alekseev, that identified him as an agent. The letter was signed with the military-style ‘on my honour, Alexander Korzhakov’. ‘He has no honour,’ Yeltsin grumbled, picked up the phone and told Korzhakov he was fired. Having seen the proof of Malashenko’s and Chubais’ work in the first round of elections, Yeltsin no longer needed Korzhakov.
Yet, the tussle and the exertion of the campaign took their toll on Yeltsin. Less than two weeks before the second round, he suffered his fifth heart attack. That day he was supposed to record his last election broadcast to the nation. He was clearly unfit for the job. Yeltsin’s family kept the news secret, even from members of his election team. After a few days, Malashenko decided the recording could wait no longer. He realized Yeltsin was too weak to go to the Kremlin, so the recording had to be done at his country residence. But to make it look as though he was speaking from the Kremlin, Malashenko ordered that Yeltsin’s office furniture and wooden panelling be moved to the country.
When Malashenko arrived at the recording, he saw Yeltsin sitting at a table with the Kremlin wooden panelling behind his back, looking straight ahead, his face frozen, almost unable to move. Chernomyrdin sat next to him, but Yeltsin did not see him. ‘Yeltsin was using all his energy for sitting up straight,’ Malashenko recalled.44 Yeltsin spoke slowly and often inaudibly, leaving words and sentences unfinished. It was a sorry sight. The tape had to be heavily doctored, retouched and edited to make Yeltsin look less wooden and sick. ‘Reality’ was not something that occurred in real life, but instead was something that television portrayed, and which therefore could be edited and improved. It turned the genuine historic figure that Yeltsin was into a television character.