At a luncheon for Russian Federation President Boris Yeltsin during his most recent visit to the U.S., a speaker from the public relations firm handling his visit rose to offer his views on how to sell capitalism to the Soviet masses. The firm, closely aligned with the Republican right, felt that a PR campaign that featured Soviet sports and entertainment stars pitching free enterprise might just persuade the Soviet people that prosperity was just a money market fund away. A baffled member of Yeltsin's entourage said that if the Soviet people heard a soccer star speaking about capitalism they would most likely want to know what the heck this guy knew about it. This encounter points out a real pitfall in the movement to transform Soviet society. How do you avoid substituting one group of empty slogans for another? This, after all, is a society that has been benumbed by endless harangues about the " superiority " and " scientific-ness" of a wholly irrational way of doing things. One can easily imagine new propaganda posters — "Glory to the Free Market!", "Glory to Our New Democratic System!" Indeed, much of the free media has been suppressed at one time or another "in order to protect democracy."

Recently, a Times-Mirror poll conducted in the Soviet Union showed that a vast majority of its respondents preferred "Swedish-style capitalism" to "American-style capitalism." Do the Soviets even know what these terms mean? Do they know that in both Sweden and the United States people own private property, pay interest on loans from privately-held banks, own land, and get fired if they do their job poorly? Do they know that both countries are suffering from sluggish growth, large budget deficits, and are being forced to cut back on their social welfare systems as a result? The very truths that the Soviets are arguing about exist as much in Sweden as in the United States. The only place they don't exist is in the utopian imagination of some Soviets. The poll was a good one. but one can't help but wonder if the pollsters knew what the Soviets may not know.

It is also important to remember that anti-Communism doesn't necessarily translate into pro-Western views. Several years ago, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, that most ardent of Russian nationalists, was invited to speak at Harvard by a group of prominent political conservatives. Solzhenitsyn shocked his audience by railing against the decadence of Western culture and warning of the dangers of democracy. Much of the audience, including William F. Buckley, Jr., later skewered him for his alleged ungratefulness. What they didn't understand was that the Russian intelligentsia has always been divided between the pro-Western (or " Westernizer ") and pro-Slavic (or " Slavophile ") camps. There has always been, and continues to be, a strong element that is always suspicious of Western concepts. This is as true as ever today. After all, a German, Karl Marx. came up with the philosophy of communism. It is on this basis that the likes of Solzhenitsyn opposed Communism.

The key to this problem is to first recall a basic fact about our Western traditions. The first line of the Declaration of Independence reads, " We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal." Jefferson could have said, " We believe that a democratic society with a system based on free-enterprise capitalism is superior to any other socio-political system." In other words, he was not speaking of a system, but of natural laws. These truths are self-evident. All are free to do what they wish, provided no one gets harmed. Over time, this has been modified to include programs and laws that provide for the common good. These basic principles are commonplace throughout the Western world. Yet, when they were being promulgated, the Russians were still too busy fighting off the Mongols to be paying attention.

So, if sports stars parroting Maggie Thatcher won't turn on the Soviet people then what will? How does one halt the relentless search for Nirvana-on-the-Volga? The same way it's done in the United States every day — personal testimonials. There is such a thing as real honest-to-God Russian business success stories. For example, Mr. Alexei Pazhitnov became quite well-to-do by inventing a little computer game called Tetris. Why doesn't he pay for ads in the Soviet media (both private and state-sponsored) to promote his products and tell his life story. In this country. Ford and GM routinely take out ads featuring ordinary assembly-line workers. Why not have workers from privately-owned textile mills crow about how happy they are and the pride they take in doing an honest day's work? Sony advertises on Soviet TV all the time and their products can't even be found on Soviet shelves. The Soviet people need to see that reform can be relevant to their lives.

The Russian people, for all their faults, have many fine attributes. The dignity of the ordinary person has been a frequent theme in Russian literature and culture. So, too, has the search for spirituality and inner peace. The resourcefulness necessary to survive against the harshest of conditions has been elevated to an art form. These are the chords which those seeking to assist the Russian people should be striking.

Times are changing. When Yeltsin was sworn in, a group of rabbis, muftis, and Protestant ministers observed from the front row. This act would have been unthinkable in Russian history until now, Tolerance for differing views now exists in a way it never has. People are willing to listen. Nevertheless, buzzwords and slogans are the least of what they need.

Mitchell Polman is a research assistant with Peter Hart Research in Washington, D.C.