as moderately progressive and incorporated many aspects of Gorbachev's politics. Bakatin was essentially regarded to be a moderate communist. His positions foremost appealed to reform-Communists. Bakatin dubbed himself to be the "only independent" candidate in the election. At the close of the campaign, he asserted that his positions were more closely similar to those of Yeltsin's than they were to those of Ryzhkov. He argued that, of the candidates, only he and Yeltsin represented democracy. He criticized Ryzhkov as a backwards-looking "man of yesterday". Bakatin asserted that it was imperative that whoever won the election would need to pass anti-corruption legislation as well as a legal act on state service. He criticized the Russian government for being inactive and allowing corruption to spread throughout itself. Bakatin said that he personally favored private ownership of land, but condemned Yeltsin's efforts to force privatization through, arguing that the general population was not yet ready for such reforms. Bakatin stated that, "the right to private property should be acknowledged as sacred" and that after that, "everything will fall into place." He believed that the Communist Party of the Soviet Union suffered from the fact that it was unable to, "coherently say words like 'private property.'" He derided Gorbachev's foreign economic policy as a, "humiliating search for whoever will give us loans." References Bakatin