ABSTRACT
Mikhail Gorbachev spoke of the need to think of changing the procedure for the election of secretaries of district, area, city, regional and territorial party committees and the central committees of the communist parties of the Union republics. In Gorbachev's lexicon, democracy did not mean the abolition of single-party rule, but it did envisage a greater role for the general public in the selection of candidates for official posts. Gorbachev's most controversial proposal was that multiple candidacy and secret balloting should be introduced in party elections. Such elections had previously been carried out by a simple show of hands, even though the party rules explicitly stated that they were to be conducted by secret ballot. Press reports of the election provided detailed descriptions of both old and new voting methods and showed that the idea of a contested party election, conducted in secret, was in practice totally new. Indeed, many members of Izhmorsky Raikom expressed doubts about the experiment.
