Moscow, January 1996. Boris Yeltsin gets ready to run for a second mandate of the presidency of the young Russian Federation. Polls are in the single digits. A painful economic transition, war in Chechnya, and the rise of criminal groups have left the majority of Russians dissatisfied with Yeltsin⊠and willing to vote for the communist leader Gennady Zyuganov. Yet six months later, Yeltsin won the election with nearly 54% of the vote. How did that happen?