Russia’s Communist Party becomes history

It seems that we are not going to expect anything new from the Communist Party these days. The action of protest, which the party held February 23, became a demonstration of old slogans, outdated approaches to actual problems and old-fashioned methods of political struggle. Modern-day communists also showed the lack of logic in their other statements.

Photo: Russia’s Communist Party becomes history

It is hard to say that the slogan “Stop the collapse of the army!” is wrong. Everyone shares this point of view and has nothing against it: the opposition, the people and the authorities. Another slogan – “No to army reform!” – seems to be quite surprising too. It was probably a good slogan during the systematic destruction of the Soviet Army, but it has absolutely no sense nowadays. Does the Communist Party stand against the reform of the Russian Army? It looks like the party believes that the Soviet Army will reappear under a different defense minister.

The meeting of the Communist Party on February 23 was a surprising event indeed. The party leader, Gennady Zyuganov, delivered a speech in which he quoted everyone, whom he had apparently listened to lately. He particularly repeated Boris Nemtsov’s report about the crisis, which said that the production setback in Russia made up 70 percent against a 30-percent reduction in the United States.

Afterwards, Zyuganov proceeded to quoting nationalist activists. He spoke of the threat that thousands of unemployed guest-workers were posing to Russia. He repeated market liberals’ ideas and said that billions of dollars had been wasted to support the economy. He later acknowledged, though, that the Russian government had coped with the first stage of the crisis.

To be honest, it is very hard to understand the logic of the modern-day Communist Party. Its nearly pro-governmental slogans “Down to US boots on Russian land”, “Long live heroes of Tskhinval”, “Professionals and patriots, defend your motherland!” are often accompanied with appeals for Putin’s resignation. The communists want all Russia’s key ministers to step down. They want to nationalize the nation’s natural resources and raise people’s pensions and wages. It seems that they want President Medvedev to accomplish all those goals, for the communist do not ask him to step down.

All of the above-mentioned communist slogans make an inseparable part of every communist meeting, which usually gathers about 1,000 people, or a little more. The time, when the party used to take tens of thousands of people to the streets, was over in the 1990s. The recent “protest” looks like a vestige of nostalgia, the nostalgia for the 1990s, when the party was at the height of its powers.

Sergei Yepanchintsev