ABSTRACT
Towards the end of the twentieth century the people of Russia received the gift of free elections. Mass populations in Western Europe, the United States and Australasia had won the right to take part in collective choice at the beginning of the century. They had a head-start of some eight decades over the Russians. Moreover, in many countries they had been obliged to engage in struggle with the powers-that-be for the piecemeal broadening of the electorate, until finally all adult citizens were drawn into the political process by periodically selecting their representatives and, in some countries, their supreme executive. With the enactment of universal adult suffrage early in the century, popular legitimation through general elections became the prime mode of legitimation of governments - to such an extent that ruling parties in dictatorial political systems such as the Soviet Union went to great lengths to design deviously intricate electoral systems meant to mask the absence of choice for the individual voter.
