"So I understand," the other said. "The vote turned out as was to be expected."
Simonov's eyebrows went up. "The Party has been voted into power?"
"Ha!" the other snorted. "The vote for the Party has fallen off by more than a third."
The security colonel scowled at him. "That doesn't sound reasonable, if the economic situation is as bad as has been reported."
His table mate put down the paper. "Why not? Has there ever been a country where the Party was voted into power? Anywhere—at any time during the more than half a century since the Bolsheviks first took over here in Russia?"
Simonov looked at him.
The other was talking out opinions he'd evidently formed while reading the Izvestia account of the Italian elections, not paying particular attention to the stranger across from him.
He said, his voice irritated, "Nor will there ever be. They know better. In the early days of the revolution the workers might have had illusions about the Party and it goals. Now they've lost them. Everywhere, they've lost them."
Ilya Simonov said tightly, "How do you mean?"
"I mean the Party has been rejected. With the exception of China and Yugoslavia, both of whom have their own varieties, the only countries that have adopted our system have done it under pressure from outside—not by their own efforts. Not by the will of the majority."