Word: agitatori
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Getting a 100% turnout of all eligible voters 18 or older is the main task of the million or so agitatori attached to the Soviet Union's 176,982 electoral commissions. During the 60-day preparation for the elections, teams of two or three agitatori visit every household, from the fruit farms of Moldavia on the Rumanian border to the Eskimo fishing villages of Kamchatka on the Pacific. Some ward-level political banter takes place during these house calls. Irate voters are likely to grumble, "The hot-water system doesn't work here" or "When are we going...
Very rarely does a Soviet tell the agitatori that he or she does not intend to vote. In Stalin's time, not voting literally led to a midnight knock on the door and a one-way ticket to Siberia. Now there are no overt punishments, but a notation may be entered in the non-voter's police file...
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