by
our European Affairs Correspondent
SOCIALISM in the 21st century
is socialism of genuine people’s will and we seek to replace western-type
parliamentary democracy with a Soviet-type democracy. That’s how Russian
communist leader Gennady Zyuganov put it at the 15th Congress of the
Communist Party of the Russian Federation (CPRF) in Moscow last month and more
and more Russians are agreeing with him these days.
The CPRF has
recruited a new generation to join the veterans who served the Soviet Union
before the revisionists and traitors finally destroyed the USSR in 1991. This
was clearly seen in the age of the delegates and observers at the congress that
met during the last weekend in February
Last year Zyuganov
came second in the presidential election, with just over 17 per cent of the
poll and over 12 million votes in a contest that was inevitably won by Vladimir
Putin amid allegations of electoral fraud and ballot-rigging in favour of
Putin’s ruling United Russia Party.
Putin’s Russia
is a country run by oligarchs and corrupt bureaucrats who plunder the country
and stash their ill-gotten gains in the West while the country runs on a
“pipeline economy” based on diminishing oil and gas resources. But the
communists have made gains even in Moscow, the capital that has long been seen
as a Putin stronghold, while the global capitalist slump hits Russia and the
living standards of workers plummet.
Zyuganov has led
the CPRF from the very beginning when it was established in 1993 when the ban
on communists was lifted in Russia. It is now the biggest communist movement in
the country with some 160,000 members and four million active supporters. It is
the second biggest parliamentary party with 92 seats in the 450-strong Duma.
New Communist
Party of Britain leader Andy Brooks attended the Congress, together with 105 other
delegations from communist parties and progressive movements from all five
continents, at a conference centre in the capital’s 1980 Olympic Village hotel
complex. And the significance and
importance of this congress was reflected in large number of fraternal
delegates from the world communist movement.
Delegations from
the ruling parties of China, Cuba, Democratic Korea, Laos and Vietnam took part
in the Congress as well as those that participate in popular front governments
like the two Syrian communist parties, the Communist Party of Venezuela, AKEL
in Cyprus and the South African Communist Party. Progressive movements like the
ruling Syrian Arab Socialist Renaissance Party (Baath), United Socialist Party
of Venezuela and the Sandinista National Liberation Front of Nicaragua were there as well as representatives from
the World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU), World Peace Council, Women’s
International Democratic Federation and the European United Left.
Zyuganov’s party
is the direct Russian successor of the old CPSU – but not that of the CPSU’s
discredited politicians who led the Soviet Union to disaster in its final
years. The party upholds the doctrines of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin to
lead the class in the 21st century. As the Russian leader said in
his report of work:
“The look of
socialism in the 21st century is that of a developing socialism with
a communist perspective. For us communism is a logical result of scientifically
planned progressive movement of socialism. It is not just a beautiful dream,
nor is it a position that can be achieved by a certain date. That was why
Khrushchev’s slogan of “building socialism by the 1980s” caused great damage to
socialism.
“Joseph Stalin in his time thus formulated the main
economic law of socialism: ‘Maximum satisfaction of the constantly growing
material and cultural needs of the whole society through continuous growth and
improvement of socialist production on the basis of high technology’.”
Zyuganov
said that Russia was in deep crisis and that there were four possible
scenarios:
“Our Party will do everything to make
our programme one for the salvation of the country so that Russia’s pivot to
the left can be consolidated by the formation of a government of popular trust”
Zyuganov declared.
The communist
party has drawn up a programme for a people’s government that would restore the
rights of working people and prevent the collapse of the Russian economy,
including the renationalisation of the railways and all the key industries
including mining, energy and other strategic sectors and the partial
renationalisation of manufacturing and the power sector. The private banks will
be curbed and progressive income tax will be used to fund the social programme
to restore workers’ and farmers’ living standards.
The CPRF has a
programme that can take Russia out of economic crisis and elevate the class
struggle to replace capitalism with socialism.
“Capitalism is
dangerous,” Zyuganov said. “Humanity’s need to get rid of it is becoming even
more urgent. ‘Socialism or barbarism’ – this is an increasingly stark choice.
We Communists have no right to lose that battle. Our policy is the policy of
the majority. Our goal is socialism.”
