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Zyuganov's parents, neither of whom ever joined the party, were schoolteachers. His father Andrei, a peaceful man whose hobby was beekeeping, nearly lost his right leg to a German bullet in the fighting near Sevastopol and walked with a severe limp for the rest of his life. Like much of rural Russia, Mymrino still lacks plumbing and paved roads. The region suffered from the mass arrests and forced collectivization of Stalin's time, although you won't hear Zyuganov talk about that when he rhapsodizes about Russia's rural past in his speeches.
Zyuganov left Mymrino for the army and then went to Oryol, the regional capital, to study mathematics at the Oryol Pedagogical Institute, where he set himself on a fast track to a party career by leading both the student union and the local branch of the Komsomol Communist youth organization. Svetlana Voronina, a former classmate, remembers him as a voracious reader. ''Every book I bought on trips to Moscow, he wanted to read," she says. One Zyuganov favorite was a book titled Raising Children in the Atheist Manner. Mindful of his nationalist supporters, for whom the Orthodox Church is inextricably linked to Russia's identity, Zyuganov now brags about having read the Bible (twice) and has eliminated the party's ban on religion.
Like any good politician, Zyuganov knew how to take care of his constituents. Valeri Yermikov, a lanky sports trainer who played volleyball with Zyuganov at the institute, recalls how he later endured nine years on a waiting list for a telephone line at his new apartment. Finally he petitioned the state-run phone company but was rudely rebuffed. On that very day, Yermikov ran into Zyuganov, who at the time was Oryol's top party functionary. "Why do you look so sad?" Zyuganov inquired. Yermikov recounted his troubles. A few days later, without any explanation, his phone was installed.
Zyuganov steadily climbed the rungs of the regional party apparatus in Oryol, becoming chief of ideology. He was also tapped by the party's Central Committee to go to Moscow. Instead of settling behind a desk, Zyuganov was sent around the Soviet Union to check on party work, an experience that he says put him in touch with the country's problems. In 1990 he broke with then party leader Mikhail Gorbachev and helped found a hard-line Communist Party based in Russia.
Zyuganov's career as an opposition leader has been characterized by caution and measured ambition. In July 1991 he and 11 others signed an open letter titled "A Word to the People," a blistering plea to save the Soviet Union from Gorbachev's reforms. The letter, which Prokhanov wrote, marked the birth of the union between Communists and nationalists that some fear will transform Zyuganov's coalition into a Russian version of Hitler's National Socialist party. It also foreshadowed the failed coup by party hard-liners the following month. Although he proudly calls himself a "leading ideologist" of the attempt, Zyuganov was on vacation when it happened and he did not return to Moscow until it was over.