BORIS KAGARLITSKY, MOSCOW
THE LAST TRIUMPH OF THE COMMUNIST PARTY
To believe the pollsters, Gennady Zyuganov’s Communist Party of the Russian Federation (CPRF) will make mark at the parliamentary elections in December 2007. During the last two years, the Communists have been loosing electorate and political influence ending up today as a faint shadow of the once powerful organization that embodied the hopes for restoration of the Soviet Union, suspension of the neoliberal reforms and ousting Yeltsin from power. Those hopes were doomed to disappointment for the plain reason that it was impossible to turn around the history of the whole nation, but also because the Communist party leaders simply didn’t intend to act up to their promises. Though the party’s propaganda was based on absurd retrograde slogans, the top Communists were pragmatic enough to never even try to bring them to life.
The party’s genuine goal through the last seventeen years was getting enough seats in the State Duma and all the implied perks. That was quite a challenge for the party constantly loosing electorate, which was disillusioned with the Communists’ anti-government rhetoric and its conformist policy. It became evident that despite its leftist rhetoric, CPRF is of the right wing of the political spectrum – a conservative nationalist and clerical party. In 2003 elections it turned out that CPRF had lost its left voters, despite the efforts of some “red spin-doctors” to attract the anticapitalist youth. Having once lost credit in CPRF, the left electorate have been sitting out the elections ever since. This partly explains the failure to crate the left-of-center alternative to Zyuganov’s party. There was no vote to be taken away from the Communists. First of all, the people were to be motivated to take part in the election, but the bureaucratic socialist demagogy repeatedly failed to bring electorate to the polling stations.
Soon the Communists’“core voters” could be boiled down to apolitical pensioners indifferent to news, party’s priorities, unable to tell yesterday from today. To give you an idea of how these people behave, I want to quote an anecdote from the life of one Russian provincial town. Once by mistake they distributed here an issue of the “Soviet Russia” newspaper outdated by three years. People bought and read the newspaper – nobody even noticed that the issue was outdated unless the distributors in Moscow discovered the mistake.
The problem is that this type of electorate is dying out both for social and biological reasons. Every year the CPRF electorate becomes less considerable in numbers, and the forthcoming elections won’t make surprise. The party is degrading. But luckily for the Communist leaders, the country’s electoral system is degrading quicker than the CPRF itself is.
On the one hand, there’s little point in coming to the polling stations. Those who don’t agree with the current political situation in Russia will not take part in the election, for participating means being loyal and supporting the existent status quo. It was all the same during the previous elections, but currently civic awareness has taken root within larger social groups. The Central Election Commission of the Russian Federation and the MPs who excluded from the ballot papers the option “against all”, opened the eyes of the simple-hearted citizens. Not too many people really intended to vote against all candidates, but as long as present on the ballots, this option supported the illusion that the game is fair and the outcome is not preordained.
Now that Vladimir Putin has headed the party ticket of the United Russia, hopes of all other political parties are being reduced to nothing. Coming to the polling stations and supporting them has become senseless. Thus, those loyal to the authorities will vote for the Putin-led United Russia’s list. Those disappointed and disillusioned will stay at home. And it is then that the Communists’ notorious “core voters” will do their part – despite the weather and general absurdity of the event. CPRF won’t have to spend anything on campaigning – their unreflective electorate should only be informed when and where to come.
Neither any kind of revelatory information can change CPRF’s results at the election. Despite thousands of leaflets disseminated by the Communist party’s political opponents, opening voters’ eyes at the true motives behind the CPRF’s pseudo-communism, little changes in people’s heads. Those who can understand anything, have already made their conclusions. As to “core voters”, they hardly know what revelatory journalism is about. As we’ve seen they don’t even delve into their party’s developments.
The only factor that could undermine the Communist party’s positions at the 2007 parliamentary elections is that the party leaders ignore the party’s functionaries, except Zyuganov’s “inner circle”. But given that the party, as it exists now, is most likely to make it into the next State Duma, the “inner circle” will perfectly do without the rank-and-file members. A group of MPs representing the thinning list of “core voters” that’s the CPRF’s future.
Vladimir Putin’s party system seems to be perfect for Gennady Zyuganov’s Communist party. The presidential administration has repeatedly failed to substitute CPRF with some other structure. The Kremlin officials have hardly managed to construct the party of power – it would be unduly to ask them to generate the opposition. Aren’t they doing their best?!
Since no puppet opposition has been created, the bureaucrats will work with CPRF. With Communists as the only opposition force, the new Russian Duma will be an apolitical institution without ideology. This invalid apolitical body will lay basis of the new parliamentary system in Russia…a system with minimum political substance.
Well, this time form will prevail over substance.
Boris Kagarlitsky is Director of the Institute of Globalization and Social Movements
November 8, 2007
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