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Gennady Zyuganov Report to the Plenary Session of the CC CPRF “On the Work of the Party in the Conditions of the Financial and Economic Crisis”

March 28, 2009, Moscow.

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(Abridged version)

          Comrades,

         The Plenum of the Central Committee is a good occasion for us to think together about the processes taking place in the country and the world, to work out the tactics of actions for the coming months and the strategy for the more distant perspective.

         The Party has just emerged from another and extremely difficult election campaign. We have lived through a lot during our political life, but the last campaign was exceptional because the authorities behaved in a more brazen way than ever before. They were more cynical in neglecting elementary legal norms, in crudely and universally persecuting our activists and supporters. The media dished out unprecedented amounts of dirt. In fact the Central Election Commission tried not to find out but to falsify the will of the people in order to consolidate the dominance of the bureaucratic and oligarchic capital.

         Even so, the overwhelming majority of our comrades won the battle with flying colours. We gained votes practically everywhere. In some places we achieved results that attracted attention not only in Russia but in the world. I am referring to the elections for the City Duma of Tver where our Party won half of the votes leaving the United Russia far behind.

         We could have achieved similar results in many other places but for the monstrous pressure on the part of the authorities. It is notable that last year practically all the city elite in Tver were put in prison. The local people got a chance to breathe freely and, freed from the diktat of crooks, the people immediately cast their votes for the Communists. I am convinced that sooner or later it will happen all over the country.

         A less publicized but equally outstanding result was achieved by our comrades at the other end of our country, in the town of Vanino, KhabarovskTerritory. Not only the head of the district administration, Nikolai Ozharovsky, is a CPRF member, but the newly elected Mayor of the City, Mansur Gabaidullin, is also a Communist. Of the 15 members of the City Council 13 are members of our Party.

         The mounting left-wing sentiments in society are evident. The United Russia is losing support. Attempts to throw the CPRF back by using phony parties, be it the notorious Zhirinovsky party or the pseudo-socialists from Mironov’s Just Russia party, are failing. It is increasingly clear to the people that the CPRF is the only real opposition force that can take the country out of the grave crisis.

         However, there are no grounds for complacency. The coming months and years promise to be turbulent. We must equip ourselves and our activists with a complete analysis of the situation, chart the right course for our Party in the current emergency conditions.

         It is just four months since the 13th Congress of the CPRF, yet the assessments of the situation in Russia and the world made in the Central Committee’s Report and in the Congress documents have been fully vindicated.

         If anything, the situation has grown worse since that time. The world is being swept by a wave of strikes and protests which threaten to merge into a crushing tsunami sweeping away the model of liberal capitalism which until recently was presented as eternal. A new revolutionary situation is taking shape. It is only emerging, but one thing is clear: the winds of history are again filling the sails of the left-wing forces, our sails.

         By contrast, clouds are gathering and lightning is flashing over the heads of the supporters of capitalism and very soon the great thunder storm of transformations will break out. Humanity, which has been led into a dead end by the champions of greed and egoism and apologists for unbridled consumption, needs such a purifying thunderstorm.

         Over the past 20 years the bourgeois ideologists in the West and those who echo them in Russia have been vehemently arguing that the general crisis of capitalism was something invented by Marx and Lenin. Now we see the garish wall of globalism crumbling. What is happening before our eyes fully vindicates the thesis of Marx and Lenin about imperialism being in a dead end. The gigantic financial bubble which the Americans have been blowing out for nearly half a century has burst and its metastases have riddled the planet. The world monetary system turned out to be a banal pyramid scheme built by the Americans in order to cheat the whole world.

         The Communists have long been warning that the model of society imposed on Russia after 1991 is hostile to the interests of the overwhelming majority of our fellow citizens. It runs counter to our history and traditions. That model is an alien cutting forcibly grafted onto the powerful tree of a thousand-year-old Russia. That cutting is doomed to die.

        

         What are the manifestations of the crisis?

         Six months have passed since the upheavals began. Some conclusions and generalizations can already be made:

         1. The crisis has been knocking on the doors of every Russian everywhere, rich and poor, old and young, educated and semi-literate. Not everyone is fully aware of which way things are moving. By inertia some people hope that either the benevolent tsar or the notorious Russian “maybe” will rescue us.

         However, not only those who have been fired or had their wages cut, but also bankers, bureaucrats and oligarchs are increasingly scared. What they had hastily declared to be immutable is crumbling. The sucker fish who have all these years fed themselves on crumbs from the table of their masters are also in panic.

         2. Crisis has struck every sector of the economy and public life. The previously flourishing trade is contracting. The restaurants, markets and travel offices are being deserted. Building cranes are stopped. The cheated shareholders are groaning and cursing the authorities. Real estate speculators are in panic. Hundreds of banks feel very uncertain. House mortgages and bank loans have turned out to be a disaster for many families. The few factories that had not been driven to bankruptcy by the so-called “effective owners” are grinding to a halt.

         3. Russia has been swept only by the first wave of the crisis. More waves will follow. They are inevitable because “the American disease” will last for years. The foundations of the society into which the insane Yeltsin team had dragged us are shaking. What the CPRF had repeatedly warned of is happening: the counterrevolution and the destruction of the USSR put Russia on the tracks that lead into an abyss.

         Our fall into the abyss has been postponed by the windfall oil profits. All these years the CPRF has been urging the need to use that “windfall” for the good of all the citizens, to pour the life-giving credits into industry, science and agriculture. The authorities turned a deaf ear and today Russia is reaping the fruits of its deafness. The monetarist course based on the dominance of the financial sector in which money makes more money in total divorcement from production has failed. It is not only a financial and economic crisis of the country, it is a spiritual crisis of a society which has been taken in by the blandishments of the pro-marketeers and has mindlessly followed them.

         4. Russia has turned out to be the weakest link in the chain of capitalist countries although the Kremlin has been at pains to assure us of the opposite. In reality the country most affected by the crisis is Russia which lives off its trade in non-renewable natural resources. While Western stock markets plunged by 30% Russian ones dropped by 70%. Prices for food and drugs in Russia are growing many times faster than in Europe and America.

         Stability of which Russian rulers have until recently boasted was sustained by expensive loans the banks obtained from abroad while Mr Kudrin was pumping our windfall oil profits into Western banks at ridiculous interest rates. Now loans are not available. Corporations have made debts of over $500 billion secured by our property. This year alone we will have to pay 150 billion. The so-called “effective owners” do not want to pay for their reckless actions and prefer to see the state, that is all of us, pay for them.

         5. The “safety cushion” of which the ruling group has been so proud is getting leaner by the day. Of the $594 in gold and currency reserves accumulated over 8 years, more than a third – $218 billion – has been spent within several months. At this rate Kudrin’s “cushion” will turn into an “empty pillowcase” this year. Russia will have no money to pay its foreign debts.

         The seven trillion roubles the authorities have spent in order to fight the crisis never reached the real sector of the economy. Was it worth keeping Russia on a lean diet for 8 years in order to throw all the money accumulated during this period to save the “fat cats”? If this is called government policy what is foolhardiness or, worse, a crime against one’s own people.

         Who benefits?

         The main anti-crisis measure the Russian authorities use is generous financial injections into the banking system under the pretext of safeguarding the savings of citizens. Meanwhile pumping money into “distressed” banks and billionaires reveals the oligarchic nature of the present administration  which tries to protect from the crisis not the people, not the enterprises, but financial capital.

         The economic system of present-day Russia is only declared to serve the interests of the state. In reality it caters to the interests of the oligarchs through the hands of government officials. As soon as their opportunities for deriving profits, better described as plunder of Russia, diminish, the ruling group prefers to urgently export capital abroad. The “anti-crisis” support of banks is a form of legalized export of capital from Russia by its top officials.

         In the West when production falls the prices also fall. In Russia prices merely grow which shows that Big Business totally lacks social responsibility and its interests are at odds with those of society. The oil price has fallen by three times while the price of petrol in this country has dropped by several roubles. It means that the oil tycoons are trying to maintain their profits by robbing their own people.

         The rate of the rouble is used for unbridled speculation. It brings faster profits than production can ever bring to the big “players”. The profit margin from currency speculations has reached 40%. Therefore the bankers are trading money instead of stimulating production.

         Because money goes into speculation credits for industry are not available or are issued at exorbitant interest rates. The whole world is moving towards cheaper and longer credits while the Russian authorities are careening in the opposite direction, towards short and expensive money. The refinancing rate in Japan is close to zero, in Europe, 2%, here it is 13% and more. This means that the banking oligarchs who thrive on budget injections are lining their pockets while what remains of the real sector is crumbling before our eyes.

         This is a classic example of a feast during a plague when the top bureaucrats and oligarchs, oblivious of the country’s interests are feverishly stuffing their pockets displaying a lack not only of elementary decency, but even of a sense of self-preservation.

         While the more experienced big Western capital agrees, if only temporarily, to moderate its appetites and renounce fabulous salaries and bonuses, the Russian oligarchy is swelling like a bug sucking blood. Apparently it is confident that there will never be a repeat of 1917 in Russia. It shouldn’t be so confident.

         The impotence of power and corruption

         The amateurism and incompetence of Russian power today combined with venality and irresponsibility have long beaten all records. The country’s leadership did not foresee the onset of the crisis. And when it broke out they breezily declared that Russia would not be affected by the crisis. Allegedly it would remain “an island of stability” and would even be ready to help bankrupts such as Iceland.

         Now the ruling elite and its intellectual servants are trying to prove to society that it is a worldwide crisis and therefore the Russian Government is not responsible for it and cannot do anything about exiting from the crisis.

         Do not deceive society. The crisis of our economy began long before the world recession. Dramatic industrial decline has been going on in Russia, with short interruptions, from 1991. However, power, blinded by oil and gas profits, has for years claimed that the economy is recovering.

         The new budget proposed by the Government is impossible to implement. The expenditure is not supported by revenues which are falling at the rate of up to 40%.

         The Government’s anti-crisis measures, first, come too late because they were initiated six months after the world crisis broke out. Second, they confirm the abiding concern for banks which have been given another 300 billion roubles. Meanwhile the impoverished regions have been given half that sum, 150 billion roubles. And the small-business sector has to make do with crumbs, 6.2 billion roubles. Need one add anything to prove the class nature of power in the Russian Federation?

         The money directed to support the agrarian sector is ten times less than was made available in the Soviet times. By the way, the money will again pass through banks and leasing companies. Will it ever reach agriculture?

         All the other government measures boil down to glib declarations. The Russian leadership is telling us that everything will be fine if billions continue to be funneled into the insatiable banking system. Moreover, it is bold enough to lecture the Western leaders about the danger of government interference in the economy.

         The ruling group in Russia is in fact a team of political bankrupts. With trillions at their disposal they failed to build a single major modern production facility over the past ten years. They have bled agriculture white. They have ruined the Army and science. They have turned skilled workers, strong farmers, talented intelligentsia and the best educated youth in the world into an anonymous mass of consumers, reluctant merchants, paupers and homeless people.

         One sometimes gets a feeling that the authorities are consciously provoking an aggravation of the situation and internal upheavals. What makes the situation tragic is that the levers of power in our country belong to the people who live by the notions of primitive capitalism of yesterday. While the Western elite is smart enough to look at the theory and practice of capitalism in the early 21st century, our elite has no intention of renouncing the Russian “model” which is reminiscent of 19th century capitalism with all its ills described by Charles Dickens and by Russian literary classics.

         It is worth remembering, however, that the first general crisis of capitalism led to the First World War. After the second crisis – the Great Depression – America rose to its feet due to another war, the Second World War. One cannot rule out that the world oligarchy which has made a nest in America, may again use military force to get out of the crisis and that it will choose Russia as one of its victims.

         Western powers badly need our resources. We account for 2% of the population and more than 30% of the world resources, 50% of clean water, coniferous forests and black soil. In search of a way out of a global crisis the scramble for raw materials resources is inevitable. Meanwhile the Russian “reformers” are criminally destroying the Armed Forces. The CPRF resolutely condemns the latest destructive “reform” of the Army, and demands that it be stopped and that Defense Minister Serdyukov resign.

         Russian rulers only pretend to be confident. In reality the authorities are at a loss. They have neither the courage nor the will to enlist those who have real experience of running the state in order to work out effective measures to save the country. The process should be controlled daily with a firm hand. The current ministers are unable to ensure that even part of the allocated money reaches the real sector of the economy.

         The trips of the President and the Prime Minister to various parts of the country look more like “shows” during which lavish promises are made and an illusion is created of problems being tackled. However, everybody knows that once our leaders return to Moscow the problems often become worse instead of being solved.

         The authorities have neither the wish nor the ability to rein in the money grabbers, speculators and middlemen, to control the prices of prime necessities, petrol, drugs and the housing and utility rates. After Mr Putin issued a much publicized warning to the heads of regions and entrepreneurs to avoid mass layoffs, the owners of enterprises and firms started forcing people to resign “of their own accord”. Once again, the authorities are unable or unwilling to oppose such coercive practices.

         One of the main problems that the authorities are unable to solve and that will hamper even the feeble anti-crisis measures that are being taken is corruption. The banking system fails to respond to desperate calls “to steal in moderation”. In this context, the authorities have to set aside their favourite dogmas about non-interference of the state in the economy and sends “commando groups”  – representatives of the FSB, the Interior Ministry and the Prosecutor General’s Office – to seize banks.

         This will be of no avail. Corruption is all pervasive and it is the underpinning of the state apparatus today. The state is fast becoming ungovernable. Putin’s vertical power structure is a shaky contrivance which stands as long as the lower rungs are allowed to chip off pieces of the national wealth and the upper rungs to brazenly make billion-dollar fortunes.

         Who will suffer from the crisis?

         Every day brings ever new data about the swelling ranks of the unemployed. They now number 6 million, or 8% of the working population. By the end of the year the number of jobless people may reach 10 million.

         The position of those who will keep their jobs will be only slightly better. The average wage in industry today is 15 000 roubles, half of which is bonuses which will soon have to be forgotten. The average wage in industry may drop to 7000-8000 roubles by the end of the year. For many it will approach the size of the unemployment benefit, which is at most 4900 roubles.

         The life of entire regions that are dependent on single enterprises is sharply deteriorating. Their citizens have no chance to find another job in their region. The times in store for working people are not just hard, they will see a revival of social-economic “Darwinism” in its most brutal forms applied by Gaidar and the “crazy democrats” in the early 1990s. The Government declares that it will bankrupt uncompetitive enterprises. The list runs to about two thousand enterprises. That means that millions of people will lose their jobs and livelihoods.

Even those whom Putin’s propaganda has declared to be the “comfortable middle class” are in danger. They are the inhabitants of large cities: bank clerks, medium businessmen, the staffs of firms and the ideological servants of the government, the artists and journalists, including those who are loyally serving the Government and ardently extolling the virtues of rule by the United Russia party. They too are swelling the ranks of the unemployed. The military will also suffer, hundreds of thousands of them will be discharged ahead of time without housing and without employment prospects. The graduates of secondary, secondary-technical and higher technical schools and higher education institutions will face extremely hard times.

In future the pension contributions of the working people may turn out to be a fiction by being wasted by speculators acting under the tutelage of the oligarchic state.

The oil and gas bonanza of recent years has thrown up totally new problems. The banks overflowing with money were forcing people to take loans. The people, tempted by the illusions of immediate prosperity, readily obtained loans to buy and repair housing, cars, pay for education and foreign travel. That created a semblance of prosperity and led many to support the Government.

However, the feast is over and it is the bitter “morning after”. On the one hand, jobs are being shed, wages are cut and people are sent into unpaid leaves. On the other hand, the banks demand the payment of loans and interest. Millions of people are in danger of losing everything they have received in recent years.

Opinion polls show that 60% of the country’s population have sympathy for social protest actions and 23% - almost a quarter of the country’s population – are ready to take part in such actions.

Citizens’ confidence in the myths about social and economic stability is vanishing. The authorities can no longer lean on the support of large segments of the population. Millions of people are losing confidence in them.

What is to be done?

Obama’s programme of taking America out of the catastrophe signals not only a renunciation of neo-liberalism, but very active participation of the state in supporting industry, science and education and social protection. All the corporations and banks which get stimulus assets are put under strict government control to rule out the possibility of enrichment at the expense of the state. This is happening in the citadel of the market economy.

The proposals made by the USPresident show clear signs of attempts to draw on the experience of planned economies such as those of the USSR and China. It is no accident that some have already accused Obama of introducing socialist methods into America although Obama of course, like Roosevelt, merely tries to save American capitalism. Alan Greenspan, the once revered financial magician and the former head of the US Federal Reserve System, admits he had committed a gross error by claiming that the market would regulate itself and that the main thing was to prevent government interference.

In America there are loud voices that say that the crisis was caused not only by economic mistakes. A revision of the world view and philosophical approach is taking place there. A recurring idea in the speeches of the US President is that in accordance with the Christian commandments money and profits are not an end, but a means of existence and that people should devote themselves to spiritual values: country, family, productive work and creativity. The head of the biggest capitalist state is urging people not to forget the principles of human solidarity and social justice.

Chinahas earmarked $580 billion to stimulate production in 2009. The money will be used to build affordable housing, rural roads, 60 airports and to introduce environment-friendly technologies. These measures will create a huge number of jobs.

Simultaneously tax breaks are offered to the producers of 3700 Chinese export items. No support to commercial banks other than allowing them greater opportunities to issue loans to enterprises. This is a coherent economic and social policy of a government that is working for the country’s future honestly and with a sense of responsibility.

A year ago it would never have occurred to Americans to speak about nationalizing a bank, that is, resort to what is essentially a socialist measure. Now they are doing it. President Sarkozy of France proposes socialist methods of tackling the crisis. Only the Russian elite is fanatically clinging to the dogmas of capitalism. Messrs Putin and Kudrin remain the last champions of unrestricted market freedom, loyal servants of the oligarchs rejecting state interference in managing the economy. The Russian leaders cannot cope with the crisis because they face an insuperable barrier of their own class interests.

Our tasks

The real political force that opposes the dead-end policy of the authorities and proposes an effective plan of anti-crisis measures is the CPRF. Our plan is based on the experience of advanced countries and the proposals of top Russian specialists. It proceeds from the provisions of the Party Programme adopted at the 13th Congress.

First.  Nationalize the extractive industry and the basic sectors. Introduce direct government management of the sectors most damaged by the crisis. Create a centralized body of economic management to mobilize and effectively use the assets required for the recovery of the country.

Second. The state currency reserves should be used exclusively to invest in the domestic economy. Introduce tough measures to prevent the outflow of capital abroad. Nationalize the key sectoral banks, create a system of state investment in the real sector of the economy.

Third. Establish strict control over the financial system. The banks and monopolies that seek government help must not pay their executives salaries above 100,000 roubles a month as well as bonuses and other benefits during the period when government assistance is used. No dividends should be paid to the shareholders in these enterprises. The profits of the banks and concerns which have received government support should be appropriated by the state as payment for the government credits. That will stop attempts to obtain budget allocations on easy terms by those who do not need assistance, but merely take advantage of the crisis to enrich themselves.

Fourth. Issue government anti-crisis bonds to be offered to all who wish to buy them. However, the purchase of such bonds should be made mandatory for citizens whose family property (money, movable and immovable property) exceeds $3 million. They should acquire these bonds every year to the tune of not less than 2-3% of the above value until the crisis is over. The maturity of the bonds should be 10-15 years. The money thus raised is to be used to finance anti-crisis programmes.

Fifth. Introduce progressive taxation starting from an income of 100 000 roubles. It is inadmissible when a rural school teacher and an oil oligarch both pay a 13% income tax. The rich are obliged to shell out. 5% easy-term loans should be introduced for industrial and agricultural enterprises for the purpose of investment without the right of any alternative use of the money.

Sixth. Increase the solvent demand of the population by raising wages, pensions, stipends and children’s allowances. Introduce price caps on the basic goods. Reduce by at least two times the prices of fuel and lubricants as well as railway, air, water and bus passenger fares. The housing and utilities rates cannot exceed 10% of the total monthly family income.

Seventh.  Dramatically increase allocations for the construction of cheap housing and the overhaul of the utilities system. The state should buy out at the real cost and transfer into the social fund the flats not sold by developers to be distributed among the needy and those who are on the waiting list to receive flats.

Eighth.  Earmark up to 10% of budgetary spending to support agriculture. Create consumer cooperatives for the purchase, processing and marketing of agricultural produce.

Ninth.  Put land tenure matters in order, take measures to bring abandoned lands into cultivation. Mobilize the state resources for the spring sowing season: provide peasants with machinery, fuel and lubricants, fertilizer and credits.

Tenth. Declare a tax holiday for small and medium businesses. Introduce a tax amnesty for agricultural enterprises. Support the development of small enterprises producing consumer goods, ensure import replacement, above all of food and drugs. Cut taxes, notably the VAT,  forbid the natural monopolies to increase tariffs. Take measures to safeguard the existing jobs and create new ones.

Eleventh. Restore the single government-controlled power grid. Bring the power rates back to those that existed before January 1, 2008.

Twelfth. Reviveive machine-building, above all aviation and shipbuilding, the building of instruments and machine tools. Take urgent measures to restore the light industry which ensures quick returns on investments and makes it possible to replace the import of goods for the population.

Thirteenth. Vigorously develop the transport infrastructure, including in Siberia and the Far East. That would require the use of massive labour resources and would defuse the unemployment situation.

Fourteenth. Substantially increase spending on research and development (by 2-3 times). Ensure budget financing of the training of most specialists in higher education institutions. Dramatically increase the salaries of university and school professors and teachers. Provide schools and higher education institutions with modern plant. These proposals are not pipedreams. “Only by nationalizing banks is it possible to ensure that the state knows where and how, from where and at what time millions and billions are poured. Only control over banks, the center, the main core and mechanism of capitalist turnover would make it possible to establish in reality and not in words control over the entire economic life, the production and distribution of the most important products, to establish regulation of economic life which would otherwise inevitably remain a ministerial phrase intended to dupe the populace.”

This recipe of coping with the crisis was prescribed by Lenin more than 90 years ago. At the time it was the crisis into which the Provisional Government had driven the country. Luckily, it did not rule Russia as long as the present Government. Yet the situation then is increasingly similar to that of today. Lenin’s foresight once again shows us the way out of the impending catastrophe.

Herein lies the grandeur of the thinker and practitioner whom bourgeois theoreticians and practitioners who are not worth his little finger were eager to consign to oblivion. And yet the results of the vote in the “Name of Russia” contest in which, in spite of all the tricks to which the authorities resorted, Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin occupied top places show that an invisible and powerful reappraisal of the past is taking place in among the grassroots. The people are casting aside the filth purveyed by television and are coming to understand that the revival of Russia should be based not on ruining the country but on the solid foundation of our Soviet past.

This year sees the 130th anniversary of the birth of Stalin. We must pay tribute to his memory not only by staging festive events and by launching a campaign to recruit into the party young, energetic and talented people, but also by tireless struggle for the revival of the Soviet state towards whose creation Stalin had made an invaluable contribution.

Comrades,

To us, the analysis of the social and economic situation is merely the basis for working out the Party’s action plan. We must proceed from two main theses: the crisis will be long-lasting and it will result in a substantial deterioration of the living conditions of tens of millions of people. Clearly, major changes in the economic and political situation are inevitable. The main question is how to accelerate them and who will spearhead these changes. Events can develop according to three scenarios:

Under the first scenario, the ruling group manages to hold on to power. Under the second, the Yeltsin-era activists may try to stage a comeback. These forces dominated in the early 1990s but then suffered a debacle. Today they are trying to stage a comeback.

Under the third scenario power is taken by the left-wing and patriotic forces.

The current state of the establishment

The ruling group is convinced that its power is all but eternal. However, that group has irretrievably lost the opportunity to carry out a profound modernization of the economy and raise the people’s living standards on that basis. Therefore the strength of the vertical power structure is illusory. So far it has been sustained by “three pillars”: the fabulously high prices of oil and gas that made it possible to throw crumbs from the rulers’ table to the people from time to time, interminable scaremongering and duping of people with the help of the “box” and various election shenanigans.

But today the main “pillar”, oil and gas, is fast losing its strength and is becoming less and less of a prop for the regime. Hence the increased efforts to brainwash and victimize people. However, the possibilities of duping people are contracting. The people have been lied to far too long. Confidence in the main instrument of fooling people – television – is waning fast. Support for the Russian rulers and their political base, the United Russia, is diminishing.

That said, the administration is not interested in public opinion. Even the docile State Duma has been removed from the discussion of key problems and the taking of key decisions.

The Government’s anti-crisis measures rely heavily on the use of force: reductions of the Interior Troops have been stopped, police salaries have been raised and the fight against extremism has been declared to be almost the main task of the law enforcement system. Extremism is often interpreted as any show of discontent with the present administration. By the way, while reductions of the Interior Troops have been stopped, reductions of the Army and Navy are gathering pace. This shows who is the main opponent of the ruling group: it is not the external enemy but the people of their own country.

However, putting the stake on repressions is as old as it is futile. There are no major social forces that are prepared to fight for the oligarchs. The developments in the PrimoryeTerritory where the local police effectively refused to suppress the popular protests making it necessary to bring punitive units from Moscow shows that the machine of coercion is unreliable. The reform of the Army provoked powerful resentment in the Armed Forces which can hardly be seen as a reliable base of the administration.

Our tentative conclusion is as follows: the current ruling group will keep its power for a certain period. However, it is increasingly apparent that the interests of Russia and its rulers are opposites. By its incompetence, greed and contempt for the interests of the people and of Russia as a whole the present administration is undermining its own position.

Let me quote again: “One cannot rule a country without heeding the voice of the people, without meeting its needs, denying it the ability to have its own opinion and not recognizing that the people themselves are aware of what they need”. This is not Lenin or Marx. It is a letter from Grand Prince Alexei Mikhailovich to Tsar Nicholas II. The Tsar did not heed the opinion of the people around him. The consequences of neglect of the people’s needs are well known.

The “orange” scenario

The pro-Western opposition today is weak. It has long discredited itself both by openly cannibalistic ideas of Gaidar and Chubais and by the actions of such leaders as Nemtsov and Khakamada. However, it should not be underestimated. It has the support of Western powers and their special services. These people have considerable amounts of money at their disposal. They have the sympathy of influential media outlets in Russia and abroad.

The Western intelligence services and the liberal “fifth column” in Russia have a ready plan of the so-called “colour revolution” which has been tried in other countries, a plan that uses popular discontent to bring their puppets to power.

This pseudo-opposition is still loyal to the “liberal values” that pushed our country into a permanent catastrophe in 1991. It believes that the crisis gives it a chance to come back to power. Its only real difference with the present administration is over who is to be the master of the land and its natural resources. They have no substantial differences as regards the social and economic strategy.

The recipe for coping with the crisis proposed by the “liberal doctors” is still greater radicalization of the market policy and subordination of the Russian economy to transnational corporations, the IMF and foreign banks.

Plainly, this is a road that leads to the demise of the country. That is why the liberals cannot gain popular support. The main social base of such an “opposition” are sections of the emergent middle class in the big cities. These are the people most susceptible to ideological manipulations and the myths about “liberal values”.

That social group is not numerous. But if the situation gets out of control as the crisis unfolds it may provide the puppeteers who put the stake on the “managed anarchy” technology, with an instrument for seizing power in the capital and in some major cities. We should bring home to the potential supporters of that “opposition” the obvious truth that by entrusting their fate to the heirs of the “shock therapists” of the 1990s they will consign themselves to more social upheavals.

Our actions

It is obvious that only a broad alliance of left-wing and patriotic forces can defeat the ruling group today. In recent months we have seen mounting activism among the working people caused by the deteriorating economic situation. This means that people are beginning to shed the illusions that arose during the eight years of the windfall profits. It will be recalled that the last parliamentary and presidential elections took place in the context of increased production and economic buoyancy. Hence the results of the elections in which the ruling group gained massive support. However, the windfall has ended and economic austerity is setting in. People’s sentiments are changing. Of course it would be naïve to count on an instant upsurge of the opposition movement. Many people have adapted themselves, have made some savings which will enable them to sustain their habitual living standards for a while. Besides, people hope to somehow make a new start in this life and try not to be involved in resolute actions. However, savings will run out some day. No new jobs are in sight. People’s living standards will continue to fall and people’s patience is not boundless.

As we have said, our social base is the working class and the peasantry. Their position is deteriorating fast and dramatically. Latent unemployment is greater than the six million recognized by the authorities. Putin’s calls to prevent layoffs are falling on the deaf ears of entrepreneurs. Their aim is to preserve their profits.

The employment opportunities that existed during the crisis of the 1990s when a lot of people survived by becoming “shuttle merchants” have now vanished. Trade has been monopolized and there are no niches for the millions of people looking for ways to survive. The official promises to organize public works are hard to implement.

However, the working class is poorly organized. We share part of the blame for this. We have not done enough to organize the working people to fight for their interests and today we must rectify that situation together with the independent trade unions and the councils of workers and peasants.

Unfortunately, serious working class organizations, for example, the Zashchita trade union or the Interregional Union of Automobile Industry Workers, do not get their due share of attention from our leaders. Moreover, energetic and battle-tested leaders of work collectives, such as Alexei Etmanov at the Ford plant, have even been rejected by some of our comrades. Several leaders of the all-Russian trade union Zashchita, which is closest to the CPRF, have even been expelled from the Party. This cannot be tolerated.

We should be more resolute in getting rid of the old habit of bureaucracy and endless meetings. The slogan “to go to the people” is more relevant today than ever. Especially since the people is waiting for us. The people must see that we are ready not only to put forward programmes, but to fight for them outside the parliament walls, in the street which is fast turning into the main arena of political struggle. What are the things on which we should focus attention? The closure of enterprises or the enterprises and institutions which cut their staffs significantly. We should work hard there. We should come to the factory gates and the doors of institutions. We should tirelessly explain our programme of taking the country out of the crisis to the working people.

This is a labour-consuming task. So far popular action has not been high. So we cannot count on a groundswell of support for the CPRF. But we should gear ourselves up for this work which will undoubtedly yield results as the crisis sharpens.

It is important to get the people to understand that their woes stem not from the actions of this or that businessman or local administration but above all from the policy of the central authorities. The authorities for which many of them consciously voted in the recent elections. People must understand themselves that by voting for the United Russia and its presidential candidate they have chosen their present fate. If they want to change it there is no other way but to change the Government team.

That of course puts into high relief the question of the effectiveness of our propaganda. The chances that we will be given access to television are still slim. So our activists must vigorously distribute our printed publications, both the Pravda and Sovetskaya Rossiya newspapers, which are highly regarded, and local party publications.

We still underestimate the new and modern means of mass information. The Internet is ceasing to be an exotic form of communication used exclusively by young people, and is a system that has entered every home. Unlike television, power has no monopoly on information there.

Particular attention should be paid to the social consequences of the reduction of the Armed Forces launched by the present Government. Tens of thousands of people in the prime of life, highly educated and disciplined, possessing managerial skills and patriotically minded, will soon be thrown into the street. It is our duty to win these people over to our side.

A major political issue is interaction with the so-called middle class, that is, the entrepreneurs, managers of small firms and organizations. It is a fairly numerous and active part of our society.

Historical practice shows that petty bourgeois elements are the most active in times of major social upheavals. They are driven above all by their personal interests. Yet we are talking about millions of people many of whom until recently were engineers, teachers and skilled workers. They have been thrown into the wild market and are thrashing in it seeking to support their families. It is our duty to help these people. Of course we are aware that the middle class is also exposed to anti-communist propaganda and is entertaining the prejudices characteristic of petty proprietors. However, life inevitably pushes them in our direction.

The so called “office proletariat”, the lower level employees of banks, enterprises and commercial firms find themselves in a difficult situation. They are subject to mass layoffs just like the industrial proletariat. They are a young and educated social stratum.

Of course we cannot count on interaction with the trade union aristocracy. The present-day Moscow trade union bosses represent a detachment in the ranks of the exploiting class. But they too are forced to adjust themselves to the new realities and are trying to jump on the bandwagon of the working class protests.

However, the lower you go down the trade union ladder the more opportunities for interaction present themselves. The local trade unions are under growing pressure from the rank and file working people who need protection. Therefore our task is to expose the appeasement policy of the “pocket” trade union bosses and simultaneously to interact more with the leaders at the local and factory level who are capable of upholding the interests of the people. Pskov, where the regional trade union council is led by V.V. Ivanov, a CPRF member, offers a fine example.

The experience of our foreign comrades who have been faced with a similar situation shows that it is necessary to work towards the broadest alliance of the forces that oppose the destructive policies of the present administration.

That requires a measure of flexibility. We should not seek to head up every organization that we join or gain full control over the alliance of the forces which includes communists. We should gain the confidence and support of the people by practical actions, correct assessment of the situation, staunchness and a superior knowledge of modern methods of struggle. Then people will themselves be drawn to us and will call on us.

In the local elections the Party must not hesitate to include in our lists the people who have acquitted themselves as opponents of the present administration. We should not wait for people to come to us. We should spot them and actively support them.

All the Party organizations should invariably proceed from the criteria formulated at the 13th Congress: the broadening of Party ranks; participation in protest actions; collection of dues and contributions, subscriptions to patriotic press publications and their distribution and broadening of the circle of our allies.

It is necessary that our branches do not simply register the overall worsening of the people’s living conditions. We must have a clear map of “hot spots” and potential seats of discontent. We must have an idea of the background to every conflict and foresee its development. It is necessary to prepare an action plan for each such “hot spot”. We should assign activists specifically to such “spots”. As it is, we have a lot of people who are all too ready to speak on general topics, but far fewer people who can organize something concrete, go out there and persuade people and win them over to their side.

Of all the major political forces only our Party has a clear programme for getting the country out of the crisis. But we should not entertain any illusions. We should concentrate on the programme of minimum demands with which the broad masses can identify themselves in order to unite them in the struggle against the present power without infringing upon the independence of various segments of the broad protest bloc. There are class differences, differences of ideology and intentions, however, they all share their rejection of the present official course. That dictates the need to unite.

At this point, however, I must mention our relations with various organizations of a dubious nature which claim to be in opposition to the establishment. Such organizations spring up almost every day. They are becoming increasingly vocal, and they get reliable sources of funding.

I would divide these organizations into two groups. The first is spouting pseudo-left rhetoric, berates the CPRF and is obviously committed to using radical slogans in order to hijack the new political associations and their leaders. I am referring to various Trotskyite groups and the so-called “Left Front” which is but a screen behind which are hiding our old “acquaintances”, people from the oligarchic circles. They are the agents of the authorities intent on misleading and diverting the disgruntled people in the direction that the authorities want.

The second group is an avowedly pro-Western opposition. It has no popular base and therefore needs “foot soldiers” for its street actions. They are highly interested in cooperating with us. But their intentions are thinly veiled. Their leaders intend to use us in order to piggyback their way into power and then have a field day. We should tell them bluntly: no way, gentlemen, you have been there once already.

Although we understand the nature of these groups it would be dogmatic to renounce all forms of interaction or parallel actions with them in achieving concrete objectives. Decisions on that score should take into account local conditions, the composition of the political forces and the personalities that lead them. Let us not forget that various “orange” movements have followers who have a vague idea of the hidden agendas of these leaders, but are genuinely outraged by the current state of affairs and are determined to fight to change it.

In short, we must attentively study the emerging new forms of resistance, take a close look at the experience of opposition groups, form temporary alliances with them and work out useful compromises. Our benchmark should be the end result: the interests of the working people and the revival of our power.

Dear comrades, the anti-Sovieteers of every stripe have for a long time mocked the well-known Soviet propaganda thesis about the “decadent West”. However, today even the zealous supporters of capitalism no longer take that thesis with irony. The idea of the free market, at the end of the day, has turned out to be fraught. By the way, this was noted by the outstanding physicist Albert Einstein. He said that the “economic anarchy of the capitalist system is the real root of the evil: I am convinced that there is only one way to fight this evil: to introduce a socialist economy along with a system of enlightenment aimed at social good”.   

The intellectual and bureaucratic servants of the Russian oligarchy are unable to conceal their bankruptcy. They find it ever harder to deceive the citizens by accusing the CPRF of calling the people back into the past.

We are not calling people back. Our slogan is “Forward to Socialism”. Life shows that the future belongs not to wild capitalism but to socialism.

Our great ancestors did not create, develop and defend Russia in order that it would go to rot in the hands of a group of thieves, bribe-takers and fools. There is growing awareness of this in society. As the recent elections have shown, the scientific and technical intelligentsia, skilled workers and engineers, the nationally-minded businessmen, students, the inhabitants of large cities and “science cities” vote for the CPRF.

The wind is indeed filling the sails of the left-wing forces, but we must make sure that it fills the sails of our ship. That will be a test of the skill, cohesion and validity of actions of the whole of our team. The Party is facing a serious test of its maturity, perseverance and will to win.

We call on the citizens who are not indifferent to the destiny of Russia and who are aware of the need for a change of policy to join us. This is the road to overcoming the hopeless condition that invariably accompanies the system of the “liberal market” into which we were once forced.                    

                 

           





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