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G.Zyuganov - Political Report of the CPRF Central Committee to the 13th Party Congress
Moscow November 29, 2008
Esteemed delegates,
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Distinguished guests,
Comrades, a congress is always a milestone event in the life of the Party. It is a review of troops and of the results of the work accomplished. It sets the tasks for the near term and for the longer perspective. It provides new benchmarks of theoretical, political and organizational activities. It is a powerful impetus for more active work of the whole Party and every individual member. It is a challenge to the political opponents, an address to friends and allies, to the country and the world with our vision of the problems and the ways to solve them.
Today this vision is becoming ever more relevant. Life dictates a transition to the socialist forms of the structure and development of society. It vividly demonstrates the crisis of modern imperialism, its ideology of globalism and the unipolar world. The wind of history is again filling our sails. It strengthens our optimism, our faith in the triumph of socialist ideals and the rule of the people, in the growing strength and authority of our movement in Russia and the world. Our faith in the cohesion and militant solidarity of all the left-wing forces.
Permit me to welcome from this rostrum all the brothers-in-arms and like-thinking people who have come to take part in the work of our Congress from more than 80 countries. Our special greetings to the representatives of the Communist Party of the Great China which is moving into the leading positions in the modern world and demonstrates the superiority of socialism over senescent capitalism. We watch with admiration the successes of Byelorussia, Cuba, Vietnam and India, our friends and allies in Asia, Latin America and Africa, the steady growth of left-wing forces in Europe.
And of course I would like to express profound respect, gratitude and sympathy for the Communists of our near abroad. We are linked by unbreakable bonds of brotherhood, a sense of belonging to one family which took shape over the centuries of joint history, the struggle to build socialism in the USSR, for early revival of our common Homeland.
Dear comrades, thank you for being ever ready to offer the Russian Communist Party a supporting shoulder. You can rest assured that we remaian committed to waging an uncompromising fight against any attempts to divide our peoples and deepen the consequences of the criminal collusion at Byelovezhskaya Pushcha. The future of our countries does not lie in running away from each other, but in mutual assistance, rapprochement and support. This has been and will be the firm stand of the Russian Communist Party.
We and the World
Our Congress is taking place at a time of profound aggravation of the systemic crisis of the imperialist world. We see its mainstays shaking ever more violently. The heads of monopoly associations together with their political and bureaucratic servants can no longer cope with the processes of collapse and disintegration. They are feverishly forming themselves into packs under the slogan: “Oligarchs and exploiters of the world, unite to save capitalism”. It is significant that the epicenter of the crisis is the Wall Street, the citadel of the world capitalist system, its heart and brain. They have been paralyzed not by noble revolutionaries or assorted terrorists, but by the forces that the American ruling class has fostered itself, only to precipitate its own demise. Fate is knocking on the door of the “yellow devil” as Maxim Gorky described American imperialism. This is the sign of the times.
Twenty years ago when, as a result of the treacherous Gorbachev-Yeltsin policy and the intrigues of their Western accomplices, the Soviet Union was destroyed, it was announced to the whole world that an end had come for all the forms of social justice, that everything would develop according to the model of the free market and the world dominance of the US. Many will remember how socialism and everything connected with it were trampled underfoot and reviled. Only strong and courageous people, those who were convinced adherents of our righteous cause, withstood the attack. The fellow travelers, career-seekers and time-servers scattered like cowards and became the servants of the new masters.
But truth has always been on our side. After swinging to the right in the early 1990s the pendulum of history is moving left with growing speed. It has set its course on people’s rule and socialism. It is becoming increasingly apparent that socialism is not a whim of ideologists, but a natural and inevitable stage of human progress. The collapse of the speculative financial market with its unpredictable consequences for the US and globally marks a turning point. There will be no return to the past. The model of society which has been assiduously imposed on the whole world is sinking in the waves of the crisis.
The octopus of world capitalism is sinking.
Its apologists had promised to make base instincts, greed and lust for gain, aggressive egoism, the cult of consumption and violence the engine of human prosperity. And now they are suffering a crushing fiasco. The much-touted “beacon” of the capitalist world, the USA, ceased to be attractive. Now even the main servants of capital in Russia are saying: the US can no longer act in its former capacity. The liberal market philosophy has failed dismally. It is failing in Russia too.
The crises of the world capitalist system in the past century gave rise to fascism and two world wars. Humanity must draw far-reaching conclusions from this.
It would seem to provide the ruling group in Russia with a unique opportunity to adjust its dead-end policy, especially since it claims to be patriotic. Yet nothing has been done towards that end.
A patriotic government would never have frittered away the reserve resources. Instead of throwing trillions of roubles into the market melting pots to rescue the financial predators and speculators it would have invested them in the development of the real economy, in making the country self-sufficient for food, in saving agriculture. As it is, the reverse is happening.
Instead of relying on the Soviet science foundation and the best education system built during the 20th century they are starving science of cash, pushing the schools on the path to degradation and supplant our unique culture and spiritual values with surrogates.
Instead of enlisting broad popular support the country is saddled with a “sovereign democracy”. That means the dictate of the new masters who have unlawfully lined their pockets, trampled underfoot all human rights and cover up their outrageous actions by the lame and false “Basmanny Court justice”.
Instead of protecting the country’s heritage, strengthening the army with modern means and the legacy of the great traditions the nation’s defense shield is being dismantled, the personnel and control structure is being destroyed and the mentality of shop-keepers is inculcated in the Army. The Army is shrinking physically.
It is the task of the Communists to issue a denial of such policy as being a total and final failure thus putting an end to the prolonged period of turmoil, humiliation and plunder of Russia.
The world is waiting for Russia to stand up on its feet. The world wants to see its comeback as a great humanistic power. As an equal member of the family of nations. As a champion of peace, justice and progress. As a wise protector of the weak and the oppressed. It is our duty to do all we can to accelerate the movement in that direction working hand-in-hand with all the progressive forces on our planet.
The Party In-Between Congresses
With your permission I will pass on to the analysis of the state of our Party. Our Congress is taking place in the wake of two major election campaigns. We have repeatedly commented on its preparation and conduct. Let me just note that there are grounds for assessing the outcome of the elections, especially the presidential elections, in a positive life.
Everything becomes clear by comparison. We should recall the situation on the eve of our 10th Congress. At the time the group that ruled the country, taking advantage of its agents and the defection of some comrades, launched an attempt to “raid” and hijack the CPRF. The situation was very serious. Some members of the Central Committee and the heads of regional organizations came out against the Party’s line. They were confident of success and were already busy dividing the portfolios among them.
But they met with the most powerful resistance where they least expected it: from the Party grassroots which were quick to realize that the petty bourgeois opportunists were trying to lead them into a quagmire. We have seen fresh proof of that again when the new draft of the Party Programme was discussed. The broad Party ranks value the Leninist revolutionary principles, the socialist ideals and Communist convictions. The plans of political adventurers were overturned at local Party meetings and conferences. This confirms that the true base of the Party are its “primary cells”, the rank-and-file Communists. During the report period the leadership of many regional branches has changed significantly. They are now headed by battle-tested, staunch and often young people.
We were criticized at the time that the allegedly most experienced and competent cadre had been thrown out of the leadership. Where are these “capable people”, these heroes of the “water-borne congress”? Practically all of them have either vanished from the political arena or have become the servants of the ruling regime.
By throwing out “the turncoats” the Party has grown stronger organizationally and ideologically.
The CPRF remains the major and active left-wing patriotic party in the country. We have courageously withstood the attempts to ban us, intimidate us and destroy us from within. We stood our ground against attempts to put us in the dock, to bribe us, to absorb and discredit us. The CPRF is a true Party of and for the working people. Today it enjoys the growing support of the thinking, honest and patriotic forces in our society, of educated and highly qualified people. We must live up to the faith they put in us.
During the four years between the report congresses, the Party’s collective bodies have worked vigorously. Two extraordinary Party congresses, the 11th and 12th, were held to discuss the preparation for national elections, 15 plenary sessions of the Central Committee, more than 100 sessions of the CC Presidium and 156 sessions of the Secretariat took place. Dozens of issues pertaining to the Party’s strategy and tactics, its organizational and ideological work were considered. In order to gather and analyze collective experience 12 seminars/ conferences with the heads of regional branches were held. Zonal seminars with our activists was another widely used format. The Electoral Headquarters of the Central Committee headed by I.I. Melnikov demonstrated good teamwork during these four years. Elections to power bodies of various levels are now held twice a year, so our comrades are on constant “operational duty” looking for new approaches and developing modern methods of political struggle. The Party, in spite of all the efforts of the authorities to discredit it, successfully withstands the electoral pressures and is strengthening its positions.
An effective coordinator of mass activity is the All-Russia Protest Action Headquarters headed by V.I. Kashin. The headquarters has mounted a series of nationwide campaigns which have met with broad public resonance. I am referring to the campaign against the penetration of NATO into Russian territory. The tough fight against the egregious Law No. 122 “On Monetization of Benefits” and many other anti-people laws. The marches on the “Empire of Lies” at Ostankino. The protection of the Victory Red Banner. The rallies and demonstrations to mark the anniversaries of the government coup in October 1993. We must now resolutely move forward and create such a system of actions in every city and region.
An important element of our struggle has been the judicial process in which we charge the authorities of rigging the parliamentary election. The battle over the results of these elections continues. We have no illusions about the biased Russian courts. But these trials enable us to publicly expose the mechanisms of the massive machinations of the authorities, to demonstrate the base and wicked nature of many of its local stooges who brazenly cook the books and openly steal votes.
We have fought and will continue to fight at the Constitutional and the Supreme Courts. At the Constitutional Court, much to the surprise of the authorities, we have managed to uphold the right to an All-Russia Referendum. The Party has managed to defend its activists who had been illegally prosecuted by police: Krasnodar comrades A.I. Kiryushin and N.V. Priz, young champions of genuine democracy and some other comrades. We are currently defending I.I. Kazankov, the recognized Communist leader in Mari-El. I must say that the Legal Service of the CC CPRF, headed by V.G. Solovyov, has become a powerful instrument of our Party policy. His young deputy, Andrei Klychkov, is doing a good job.
We have not only criticized the authorities but we have engaged in active creative work. We came up with major alternatives to the policy of the regime. We launched the preparation for a nationwide campaign, the All-Russia Referendum. After it was illegally banned we have organized a People’s Referendum which evoked a broad public response.
Among our initiatives are 11 targeted programmes to ensure economic recovery and an election platform, “Twenty Steps to Ensure a Worthy Life for Everyone”. We have done much thinking and we have been able to offer society many ideas during our thorough work on the new CPRF Programme. Much credit must go to our intellectuals whose activities were coordinated by CC Secretaries D.G. Novikov and N.V. Arefyev.
The Central and local Party bodies have carried out a lot of time-consuming work to take stock of the Party’s property after it was pillaged by the “Semigin moles”. We have managed to pay back the debts the then pseudo-allies had saddled us with. We have been vigorously strengthening the material basis of the Party, including premises, transport and office equipment. A good deal of work has been done and I think that it has been very real for many of the delegates present here.
In the period between congresses the collection of dues and voluntary donations have significantly improved. One must give due to the efficient work both of local and central organizations as well as the Central Committee’s administrative office headed by A.A. Ponomaryov.
One must note that side by side with the CC CPRF the Central Auditing Commission led by its Chairman V.S. Nikitin was acting in a constructive and principled manner. We are grateful to the Central Auditing Commission for its joint work, for its exacting and active attitude. In the period after the 10th CPRF Congress the meetings of the Commission heard reports by all the leading Party members, which contributed to strict compliance with the Party’s Programme and Charter.
The Party in the Duma has acted aggressively on a broad front. Its work is constantly coordinated by S.N. Reshulsky. Of course the ruling party at the State Duma is trying to obstruct any initiatives put forward by the Communists. It sometimes comes to ridiculous lengths: first United Russia rejects an important and vital draft law proposed by us and then, after making slight changes to it, proposes the same document on its own behalf. Our parliamentary party at practically every meeting scrutinizes the draft laws proposed by the “ruling party”, makes proposals regarding parliamentary queries and protocol assignments, puts forward draft laws and resolutions of the State Duma. Among the most diligent and energetic Party deputies are Zhores Ivanovich Avlferov, Vasily Alexandrovich Starodubtsev, Pyotr Vasilyevich Romanov, Svetlana Yevgenyevna Savitskaya, Tamara Vasilyevna Pletneva, Nikolai Mikhailovich Kharitonov, Valentin Stepanovich Romanov, Victor Ivanovich Ilyukhin, Sergei Georgievich Levchenko, Yuli Alexandrovich Kvitsinsky, Vladimir Petrovich Komoyedov, Alevtina Victorovna Aparina, Nina Alexandrovna Ostanina, Nikolai Vasilyevich Kolomeitsev, Vladimir Nikolayevich Fedotkin, Anatoly Yevgenyevich Lokot, Oleg Nikolayevich Smolin and Sergei Ivanovich Shtorgin. The newly elected Duma deputies N.F. Ryabov, N.V. Razvorotnev, S.P. Obukhov, A.Yu.Russkikh and A.V. Kornienko are joining the work ever more actively. In the regions the young deputies Yu.V. Afonin, A.A. Andreyev and K.V. Shirshov are working vigorously. Our chief editors Valentin Vasilyevich Chikin and Valentin Sergeyevich Shurchanov have been working aggressively and very fruitfully. That enabled the Party to build up its information and propaganda muscle. In the report period the circulation of special issues of the newspapers Sovetskaya Rossiya and Pravda reached 10-15 million copies. That work was coordinated by the department of the CC CPRF under Secretary O.A. Kulikov.
The development of the Internet site of the CC CPRF as well as the Internet resources of some regional organizations was a major step forward. We are making more active use of modern means of agitation and propaganda aimed at young supporters of the Party. Setting the tone in the organization of Internet work are our young Communists Zhenya Kozin, Anya Klyuyeva, Yura Lyashuk and others. We have more and more organizations that are working in a creative and committed manner and achieving good results. These organizations often work in difficult conditions. For example, the Party organization of the Novosibirsk Region (headed by A.E. Lokot) is constantly looking for new, modern and more effective forms of work using state-of-the-art means of communication and information diffusion.
In the Bryansk Region where the Party organization is headed by S.N. Panasov, our comrades came in third in the parliamentary elections, and in the presidential election 27.3% voted for the CPRF candidate. This is the best result in the Party. In the Bryansk Region between 30 and 40% of voters at 100 polling stations voted for the CPRF candidate.
In the Tver Region where the First Secretary is L.F. Vorobyova, a charming and courageous woman, we won 31.5% of the votes in the elections to the City Duma. We increased our representation in the municipal councils by almost five times.
In the Omsk regional organization under its able leader of many years, A.A. Kravets, a modern base for tackling many Party tasks has been created. Work with the media is handled professionally. A system of alternative subscription for our newspapers has been put in place which provides activists with constant feedback from the population. In spite of stiff resistance from the authorities, protest actions are pursued aggressively.
In the Rostov Region the two Kolomeitsevs have been an effective tandem for more than ten years. They have to work against heavy odds, yet they manage to work in an interesting, vigorous and effective way.
The Tobolsk city Party organization in the Tyumen Region enjoys great authority under T.N. Kazantseva, a member of the CC CPRF.
The Communists of Sakhalin and Yakutia where the Party secretaries are S.V. Ivanova and V.N. Gubarev have been working in difficult political and climatic conditions in a militant and aggressive way.
It is impossible in the report to enumerate all the Party branches which are conducting vigorous and creative work, which have actively discussed the Party’s policy documents, making concrete proposals on how to improve its work. But I can safely say that an overwhelming majority of our Party organizations are like that.
However, there are organizations which, even in the current emergency situation, devote the lion’s share of their time not to championing the interests of the working people but to internal squabbles. Unfortunately, this is true even of some major Party organizations. But they do not set the trends in the Party. I am sure that we will put that department in order.
In What Situation We Work
To act effectively and confidently the Party must understand in what situation it exists and works. What are the historical perspectives of our movement? What are the key internal and external factors to be borne in mind?
First. The state-controlled media and the United Russia, together with their underlings in the Duma, keep saying that the regime is solid and has a brilliant future. They are drumming it into people’s heads that the Russian state has left the dire crisis behind it and that we are entering an era of resurgent Russian power under the leadership of Medvedev and Putin. There are many people in the country who want and are ready to believe it because they are tired of two decades of degradation, hopelessness and national humilitation. The people are longing for a return to justice, order and normal life and respond credulously to the Kremlin’s promises and handouts.
Second. Objectively, Russia’s position remains complicated, not to say dismal. The population is dying out. Thanks to the “heroic efforts” of the Yeltsinites the country has lost 5 out of the 22 million square kilometers of its historical territory. Russia has lost half of its production capacity and has yet to reach the 1990 level of output. Our country is facing three mortal dangers: de-industrialization, de-population and mental debilitation.
The ruling group has neither notable successes to boast of nor a clear plan of action. All its activities are geared to a single goal: to stay in power at all costs. Until recently it has been able to keep in power due to the “windfall” high world prices for energy. Its social support rests on the notorious “vertical power structure” which is another way of saying intimidation and blackmail of the broad social strata and the handouts that power chips off the oil and gas pie and throws out to the population in crumbs, especially on the eve of elections.
Third. The capitalist paradise our people were promised back in 1991 has remained a mirage. It is crumbling before our eyes. Instead of a paradise the people have to support 100 dollar billionaires and 200,000 millionaires. Meanwhile a severe financial and production crisis has set in. That accounts for the natural and tangible interest in past Soviet experience and the ideas of social justice. The present administration, under the pressure of public sentiments, increasingly has to adopt left-wing patriotic rhetoric.
All this prompts a very important conclusion: we are on the threshold of major social-political shifts and changes both in the world and in our country. This requires from us new approaches, new ideas and a new quality of work.
Our conclusions about the state of society and proposals on how to get Russia out of its deep crisis are spelled out in the new edition of the Party Programme on which we have all worked together and which we are about to adopt. A more detailed analysis of the text of the Programme will be provided by Comrade Melnikov. In the meantime, proceeding from the main policy goals, I would like to concentrate on the assessment of the Party, society and the State, and on key international problems.
The State of the Economy and the Social Sphere
Politics is known to be a concentrated expression of the economy. It will be recalled that the so-called democrats came to power on promises that the wrecking of the socialist-economic model and the introduction of the capitalist market model would quickly improve the life of the whole people. They declared that these mechanisms were far superior to the plan mechanisms, that the market would create a modern industry which would quickly absorb the latest scientific and technological achievements.
A sound economic policy usually begins to bring returns within 2-3 years. It is 18 years since the rabid “pro-marketeers” seized power. But under their rule Russia has been in an interminable crisis. The scale of devastation caused to the country is monstrous.
Industry has been smashed. The production of metal-cutting machine tools has dropped by 11 times since 1991. I stress, not by 11%, but by 11 times. The production of tractors has dropped by 14 times and of computer technology by 15 times. Industrial plant has on average outlived 50% of its lifespan. Industrial output is a mere 45% of the 1991 level. A similar production slump only occurred when the fascists had seized a third of the most developed European part of the country.
Not a single major modern enterprise has been built since 1991. Entire sectors that set the pace of technological progress – electronics, radio and instrument building – have been wiped out. Russia is capable of producing only half of the components needed for its defense industry. The space industry, once our pride, has little to show for it. As it marked the 50th anniversary of the first sputnik and the 45th anniversary of Gagarin’s spaceflight, the country did not have a single weather satellite in space. How can it claim the status of a superpower in such conditions? There will soon be no one to man our industry. The age of most of the workers is 50 and older. Young people don’t want to work in factories, mostly because of low wages. Our system of vocational technical training, once the best in the world, has been destroyed. Even business is worried. It turned out that money alone cannot generate profits without working hands. Capital has no one to exploit. Once again it urgently needs a working class.
The situation in the countryside is nothing if not tragic. The countryside is dying out. During the years of “reform” 15,000 villages have disappeared from the map of Russia and 9,000 villages have between 20 and 30 residents left. More than 40 million hectares of arable land have been abandoned and half of the cattle population has been slaughtered. Rural areas have been swept by unemployment, destitution, drunkenness and a high death rate. Village schools and hospitals are shutting down. As a result of a deliberate devastation of the countryside the country has lost its food security. It buys half of its food abroad.
The authorities are shouting from rooftops that their main concern is to combat inflation. Yet this year the official inflation runs at 15% and for many of our voters at all of 25%. The tariffs for housing and utilities services, and the prices of consumer goods are up 20-30%. Most of the growth is due to the rising tariffs for energy which are mostly in private hands. Petrol in oil-exporting Russia costs more than in the US. We see the old truth confirmed: the rich are becoming richer and the poor are becoming poorer. Could this be the essence of the economic policy pursued by present-day rulers?
The authorities brag that they have almost paid off all the foreign debts. However, the debts of Russian corporations and regions are soaring. They already topped $500 billion (12.5 trillion roubles) to almost equal the country’s sovereign wealth reserves and the Stabilization Fund.
Such huge loans make our economy unstable and totally dependent on the West. This became clear in the early days after the financial crisis broke out in the US. Our “effective owners” instantly turned out to be insolvent, and the ruling elite rushed to their rescue.
The gold and currency reserves and the Stabilization Fund kept in foreign banks began to rapidly lose their value. They may even be confiscated on political grounds. The impression is that Finance Minister Kudrin who has put in place a system of unrestrained export of national capital is not answerable to the parliament, to the head of government and to the country’s President? Whose interests then does he represent? The answer was highlighted by the way the Russian authorities have behaved in recent months. They had no money for the invalids, the pensioners, for children’s allowances, for healthcare, for the development of production and culture or for strengthening the country’s defenses. The Stabilization Fund had been declared to be a sacred cow not to be touched. But it was immediately taken to the slaughter house as soon as our “fat cats” – the bankers and the oligarchs who are already wallowing in luxury and gold – needed more money. Trillions of government money were found within hours. I hope that by now even the most naïve of our citizens have realized in what state we live, whose interests it represents and caters to. Certainly the State and Russian power are neither people’s nor democratic, nor free, nor fair. The authorities boast of economic growth. Yet the whole secret of “growth” calculated in terms of the GDP is the windfall profits that came to Russia in the shape of high world prices of oil during the eight “Putin” years.
However, this year saw the beginning of a slump not only of the world oil prices, but of oil production in Russia. Scientists say this is an irreversible process because the oilfields had been exploited in a profligate way in order to maximize profits. Geological exploration has been destroyed. So, against the background of industrial and agricultural decline, the fall of oil production and oil prices augurs hard times ahead. The golden rain is ending and a severe drought is descending on the economy. The authorities pretend that they have finally put their act together and are going to rectify the situation. But it would be a dangerous illusion to think that the present-day Russian state can effectively run the economy. Russia is experiencing a profound crisis of state management. The United Russia still ridicules Lenin’s dictum that every “housewife” should be able to run the state. Yet having a government machine that could be run by any literate housewife is the ideal of any society. It is far worse when the state is run by fools and alcoholics. Because a fool who finds himself in power tends to embark on “acceleration”, “restructuring”, to declare a “transition” economy – and everything collapses.
The Russian civil service will soon lose the last remaining competent Soviet- era managers and will become increasingly incompetent. Corruption has penetrated all the pores of government making it disastrously dysfunctional. The government is simply unable to implement major projects. Nothing of any importance has been built for the 2014 Sochi Olympiad, yet there has been one high-profile scandal after another.
Instead, there is a lot of hollow rhetoric on television. It would not be irrelevant to recall Konstantin Simonov’s words about Stalin: “He spoke little, did much, had many business meetings with people, seldom gave interviews, seldom made speeches and as a result every word of his was weighed and valued not only here, but all over the world.” The prevailing style of today’s top leaders is diametrically opposite: a lot of television appearances, interviews, promises, meetings with actors and directors, but little real work.
The Kremlin has recently been talking about restoring production, innovation and diversification. But it has neither the organization, nor the human resources, nor other prerequisites for that. It is not by chance that present-day rulers paint glowing pictures of a happy future for Russia in 2020 or even in 2050. It is important for them to give the people hope, and it does not matter what will happen in 20-30 years and where they will be themselves.
The Social Sphere
We have two Russias. One is rich, living in luxury behind the tall walls of elite houses and country palaces. A hundred richest citizens of the RF have a combined fortune of $520 billion, which equals Russia’s gold and currency reserves. The other Russia is poor. According to Academician Lvov, 85% of the people derive only 8% of the incomes on property. Yet three quarters of these incomes are generated by land, oil, gas, forestry and water resources, that is, by the use of natural resources which by definition belong to the whole people. Why then are they owned only by the rich and those who cater to their needs?
As a result of the grab of the people’s property by a handful of the new rich the gap between the incomes of the 10% of the richest and 10% of the poorest people is widening. Officially it is 15:1, but experts say it is 30:1 and in Moscow 42:1. On that, as on some other indicators, Russia is one of the unhappiest countries in the world. This is nothing if not apartheid.
The situation in the social sphere is becoming catastrophic. Healthcare is less and less accessible and its quality is deteriorating. Over the past 8 years more than 3000 hospitals and 2500 polyclinics have been shut down. The prices of medicines are rocketing, the most essential and even habitual medicines are out of reach for the majority of people. Drinking is killing this country. The consumption of pure alcohol per person, including infants, stands at 18 liters a year. Up to 70% of men and 40% women use alcohol every day. Stresses, disease and drinking are one more manifestation of people’s uncertainty about tomorrow.
Education and science are also heading for disaster. 7800 schools have been closed. Free higher education is practically a thing of the past. The division of higher education into Bachelor’s and Master’s courses deprives the country of fully-fledged specialists. The “pro-marketeers” in government are selling out research institutions. Already 800,000 top-notch specialists have left Russia. So have more than 100,000 scientists. 20,000 scientists work for the needs of the EU countries while remaining on the payrolls of Russian institutions. The country is becoming an intellectual donor and a human resource colony for the “golden billion”.
Cultural degradation is in full swing. Russia is losing the look of a great and original civilization becoming part of the surrogate American mass culture. Lumpenization affects even those social strata which form the cream and the pride of every nation. They are the technical intelligentsia, scientists, doctors, teachers, librarians, cultural workers and university professors. All this is being done deliberately. The 2009 budget allocates 12% to the law enforcement bodies and less than 9% to education, healthcare and sports. In the USSR an average 128 million square meters of housing was built every year. In the late 1980s eight out of ten urban families lived in free government apartments. Today 3 times less housing is built in Russia. Even if one counts in the elite houses, palaces for the rich. House mortgage is failing because of the exorbitant housing prices and the high mortgage interest rates. One square meter of housing costs 100,000 roubles. The price of housing in other big cities is almost as high. Who can afford to buy such housing? The authorities may shout about economic success. But a single factor – demographics – overthrows this beatific picture. The population continues to shrink, above all at the expense of the Russian people which forms the core of the state. The country’s population is falling by 500,000-700,000 a year. Today Russia has a population of just over 141 million. It ranks 157th in the world in terms of life expectancy. And yet Russia has had no epidemics or natural disasters. The cause of the current disaster is the course and the policy pursued by the ruling group. What can be a more damning indictment of the current administration than the existence of millions of homeless children. Even in the most difficult years, after the Civil War and the Second World War, the state cared for the children. Now children, a privileged class in the Soviet era, have become a burden for the state run by oligarchs. With such an attitude can a demographic disaster be prevented?
The Character of the Political Struggle
How do we see the essence of the political struggle in the country? In our opinion, the main contradiction is the contradiction between oligarchic capital which has unlawfully grabbed most of the public wealth and the labour of the multinational people of Russia deprived of political and economic power. It has a class and national character. The cleavage runs both between Labour and Capital, and between the interests of the pro-Western “elite” and the country’s national interests. The CPRF believes that its key task is to combine social-class and national-liberation struggle. Such a combination is the key condition for Russia’s transition to socialism. For socialism is a political system that alone can ensure both the national and class interests of Russia’s working people. We are not calling the country “back to the former socialism”, we are calling society to move “forward to 21st century socialism” which takes into account the spectacular achievements of the USSR as well as its bitter lessons and negative experience.
We are convinced that the fight for reviving a strong, authoritative, economically and culturally developed power will have the support of the broadest social strata.
The Russian question is the key factor in uniting the two strands of social struggle. The Russians have become the biggest divided people in the world. 25 million of our fellow countrymen live outside the country. Ethnic Russians constitute 80% of Russia’s population. However, they have effectively been denied a decisive say in the country’s political, economic, information and cultural spheres. Look at the oligarchs who really run the country, at the list of those who dominate the mass media, and you will hardly need any further explanations.
However, for the working people there is no difference between the oligarchs of Slavic origin and the exploiters from amongst ethnic minorities. We seek to give back the stolen public wealth, the command heights in the economy and political power to the whole multinational people of Russia of which the Russian people forms the core. The humiliation of all the peoples of Russia can only be ended by giving them back the natural riches and nationalizing the main means of production. That is, through socialist transformation of Russia.
Our opponents are well aware that the liberation of the Russian people from the oppression of the oligarchs would liberate all the peoples of Russia. They understand that the Russian people forms the nucleus of the unique multinational community. If that nucleus is split, that community will fall apart and Russia will disappear. That accounts for the years of attempts to denigrate the Russian people, to infect them with an inferiority complex, to drive them into apathy, intimidate them by accusations of chauvinism and xenophobia, to separate them from other fraternal peoples by fomenting crude and primitive nationalism.
We come out resolutely against Russophobia. But we are also against nationalism which represents people’s morbid reaction to the suppression of their language, culture, customs and traditions and which the bourgeoisie uses to pursue the “divide and rule” policy.
That question, if anything, is becoming ever more pressing. What do we propose as the immediate steps to solve the Russian question? Our programme was declared at the 10th Party Congress. It was closely examined by the Plenum devoted to the protection of Russian culture. In spite of fierce opposition from various sides, we will steadfastly seek to implement that programme. Below are its main items:
-Resisting any forms of Russophobia as extremist manifestations of instigation to ethnic discord.
-Real equality in the representation of Russians, like all the peoples of Russia, in government bodies from top to bottom.
-Protection of the Russian language. An end to the “Americanization” of our life, especially on television. Vigorous resistance to the spiritual aggression against the Russian people, its national and cultural traditions. Protection of the historical sacred monuments of Russian history.
-Proper representation of Russians in the information and cultural spheres, especially in the mass media.
-Equal opportunities for Russians and all the other peoples of Russia in the sphere of entrepreneurship.
-Vigorous protection of our compatriots abroad.
Government is unable to propose to society ideas that could unify it, mobilize people’s energy to great exploits because the state today reflects the interests only of a handful of parasites who seek to grow rich by plundering the people. The authorities, seeking to conceal this fact, have to resort to hypocrisy taking on board “patriotic vocabulary”, engaging in populist demagogy while keeping political gimmicks and police clubs at the ready. The people readily recognize all this as bluff and the apologists for the regime get a worthy rebuff. Here is a recent example. In spite of all the tricks used by the organizers of the “Name of Russia” contest Vladimir Ilyich Lenin and Iosif Vissarionovich Stalin are invariably named among the most outstanding people of this country over its thousand-year history, according to opinion polls.
The name of Lenin is associated above all with the old dream of justice. That puts him in one category with such world historical figures as Jesus, Mohammed, the Buddha, and Moses. A hundred, two hundred and five hundred years will pass, but Lenin will remain the greatest and most revered of our countrymen. He will remain that “name of Russia”. But not today’s Russia which is kowtowing to Uncle Sam, but the great Russia that chased away the lords, saved the world from the “brown plague” and put the first man in outer space.
Our people are beginning to understand that the Soviet past was about the great transformation of the country and not a succession of crimes, as some would have us believe. Our Party has condemned the abuses of power during the political struggles of the 1930s and the tragic mistakes committed at the time. But we have no right to forget that it was in the 1930s that the powerful production and scientific base was laid which ensured the defeat of fascism and still forms the foundation of the country’s economy.
The history of the USSR is the history of mass heroism and inspired service to the Motherland. The GOELRO plan, the liquidation of illiteracy and unemployment, the Dneproges and Magnitka, Kuzbass and BAM projects, the nuclear and space programmes, the galaxy of great scientists, winners of the Lenin and Nobel Prizes, writers, poets and artists. No other country in the last century produced in such a short space of time such a constellation of great names and accomplished so many great deeds and exploits as the Soviet Union. The collective labour and military feat of the people could not have been accomplished out of fear or due to reprisals. It was a conscious exploit in the name of our socialist Motherland. We were rightly proud of our Motherland, of our Soviet land. As the great proletarian poet Mayakovsky rightly said, “with such a land as ours people lived and worked, celebrated life and died”. They did it consciously and selflessly.
History has again confronted the peoples of our country with a choice similar to that they faced in 1917 and in 1941: a great power and socialism or further devastation of the country and its degradation into a raw materials appendage. And we say again: the national and class issue can only be solved on the path of socialism.
We are a great people and we will cope with this twin challenge.
Russia’s Path to the Future
Our programme for the revival of Russia has been thoroughly considered and spelled out. This is what we propose:
To stop the nation from dying out, first of all through a dramatic change of the social and economic course and also by boosting the birthrate, restoring benefits for families with many children, restoring the network of kindergartens, providing housing for young families and elimination of homelessness among children.
To bring back to society the natural wealth of Russia and the strategic sectors of the economy: the power industry, transport, the defense industry, oil and gas fields, unlawfully privatized factories and coal mines. To bring back to Russia the assets of the Stabilization Fund and to use them to revive the country.
To stimulate the development of science-intensive production, and not screw-driver assembly. To cut taxes on production. To stop the practices of bogus bankruptcies of enterprises and capture of enterprises by “raiders.”
To ensure the country’s food security. To allocate no less than 10% of the budget spending to support agriculture. Collective farms for the production and processing of farm produce should be the drivers of the resurgence of the countryside.
To revise the laws that have worsened the position of citizens and made it possible to plunder the country’s riches. These include Law 122 On the Monetization of Benefits, the Labour, Housing, Land, Forestry and Water Codes. To pass a new package of laws on local government.
To immediately tackle the problem of poverty. To introduce state control over prices for prime necessities and fuel. To set the living minimum at the level of 10,000-12,000 roubles a month. To guarantee that the wages, pensions and grants are not below that living minimum. To bring back the benefits to the vulnerable categories of citizens.
To introduce progressive taxation. To exempt low-income citizens from taxes. To establish the priority of the internal over the external debt. To bring back to the people what the state owes them, the deposits that disappeared during the years of reform.
To restore the responsibility of the government for the housing and utilities sector. To expand government construction of houses. To forbid evictions of people. To limit the size of utilities rates to no more than 10% of the aggregate family income.
To increase the funding of science. To support the existing “science cities” and to create new ones. To provide scientists with decent salaries and everything necessary for research activities. To stimulate the return of scientists to their country. To restore high quality universal free education. To preserve its secular and edifying character. To stop the destruction of the world’s best Soviet system of higher education. To restore the system of vocational technical and secondary specialized education.
To make quality healthcare accessible. To provide subsidized medicines to those who need them. To encourage people to go into sports. To revive sporting schools, clubs and groups for children and youth. To propagate the healthy way of life.
To ensure that culture is accessible and to stop its commercialization. To protect the Russian culture, the basis of the unity of multinational Russia, the national-cultural and spiritual traditions of the country’s peoples. To ensure an objective study of the history and culture of Russia as the basis of patriotic upbringing. To prevent the spread of vulgarity and cynicism.
To make government more effective. To cut the number of bureaucrats. To support diverse forms of self-organization of the people to control the civil service. To smash the system of wholesale falsification in elections. To create an electoral system free of administrative and information terror and foul technologies. To restore direct elections of the Federation Council and the heads of regions.
To curb corruption and crime. To lift the moratorium on the death penalty for very serious crimes. Broaden the powers of law enforcement bodies and enhance their responsibility for abuse of office.
To enhance the combat ability of the Armed Forces, provide them with modern weapons and enhance the prestige of military service. To ensure social guarantees and housing for servicemen, to pay back arrears on military pensions.
To ensure the territorial integrity of Russia and protection of compatriots abroad. To implement a programme of measures to develop Siberia, the Far East, Northern Russia, to stop the outflow of people from these areas.
To pursue a foreign policy based on mutual respect among countries and peoples. To oppose the forces of aggression. To contribute towards overcoming as early as possible the tragic rifts between the fraternal peoples of the USSR and voluntary restoration of the UnionState. There are no impossible items in this programme. What is needed is the political will. However, the ruling group does not and cannot have such will because its goals are opposite to the interests of vast majority of the people. Hence change of power is necessary if this programme is to be implemented.
Russia’s Position in the World
Now on our vision of the country’s international position. Internal instability in Russia is increasingly compounded by the growing external threats.
With the destruction of the Soviet Union war has again become a legitimate policy instrument for the leading imperialist powers. They use it ever more frequently and brazenly. After Yugoslavia, Iraq and Afghanistan followed a barbarous attack on South Ossetia. It had been thoroughly prepared long in advance. Its aim was by no means to restore the alleged territorial integrity of Georgia. In reality it hasn’t existed for the last 20 years.
No, the aim was to quash Moscow’s timid attempts to deal with the West as an equal, to discredit Russia in the eyes of its neighbours and to allow the US and its allies to break into the Caucasus and Central Asia. The assumption was that Russia, as before, would not have the guts to defend its own interests and would confine itself to protests on paper and futile appeals to international law.
Did the West have grounds for embarking on this adventure? Yes, it did. Early in the year the Russian leadership did not dare to use the Kosovo crisis in order to recognize the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia and protect them. Such behaviour was seen in the West as an invitation to launch an offensive on Russia in the South, to speed up the admission of Georgia and Ukraine to NATO, and to increase pressure on Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan to induce them to take an anti-Russian stand. The Kremlin continued ambivalent maneuvers over Iran, tolerated the discrimination of Russians in the Baltics and in Ukraine, demonstrated its helplessness over the issues of Sebastopol and the Crimea, paid lip service to the agreement with Byelorussia to create a union state and humbly listened to lecturing on the part of the European Union.
Those were not accidental mistakes of the Russian Foreign Ministry. No, it was a considered line which was again clearly manifested in the Foreign Policy Concept written under Putin and signed by Medvedev on July 12, 2008, i.e. less than a month before the attack on Russian citizens and peacekeepers in South Ossetia.
What was in this document, which the West surely had studied before giving the green light to Mr Saakashvili? While fulminating against the plans of including Georgia and Ukraine into NATO, the authors of the concept at the same time proclaimed the “commitment to finalizing the international legal formalities to fix the state border of the Russian Federation”, i.e., final recognition and sealing of the results of the criminal Byelovezhskaya collusion. This was also the aim of the recent initiative of the Russian President: to renounce the international documents that define the situation in Europe, such as the Helsinki Final Act, and instead work out a new European Security Pact that “is relevant to the realities of the 21st century”.
Such a pact could have brought nothing but the recognition and consolidation of Russia’s losses in the 1990s and its contraction to within its 16th century borders. The concept declared that Moscow was ready to build its relations with the CIS not in order to integrate them with Russia, but in order to put them on a “market footing”. In other words, there was no question about a new Union.
The proclaimed main foreign policy goal was “the unity of the Euro-Atlantic region from Vancouver to Vladivostok” which effectively ran counter to the earlier calls for creating a multipolar world in which Russia would be one of the poles. Our self-styled strategists expressed “an interest in a stronger European Union, and the development of its capacity to act in concert.”
Well, Russia was opposed “in concert” when Saakashvili unleashed a war against the people of South Ossetia under the guidance of the US and with the support of NATO and the EU. Now, the Kremlin’s much loved partners are doing everything to whitewash that war criminal and libel Russia.
In the face of this brazen aggression the Russian leadership, not without hesitation and intense internal struggle, took the necessary counter-measures because it could not behave otherwise. The damage for the ruling regime inside and outside the country would have been too great.
Russia finally recognized the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. That is undoubtedly an important step forward. The CPRF has been advocating it for many years. Our efforts have been crowned with success. And not only there. For the first time the Russian Government has been speaking about international affairs in a language we had urged it to speak throughout the past years. At the time we were branded as “red-brown” for our adherence to patriotism and the national interests. We were accused of chauvinism and other deadly sins for always regarding NATO as the main danger to Russia’s interests and warning about the West’s hostile intentions.
The defeat of the Georgian aggressors enabled Russia to boost its international authority which had been greatly damaged since 1991. Patriotic sentiments began to increase in the country, there was a growing sense that the policy of submitting to the US, NATO and the EU without a murmur could not continue. Unwittingly, the West “set up” the pro-Western group in the Russian leadership when it declared that it was impossible to preserve the former relations with Russia. Deprived of outside support that group had, reluctantly, to accept an adjustment of policy in order to give greater consideration to the national interests and to make Russia more independent.
Let us not forget, however, that the current Russian elite still seeks to be part of the imperialist world and is ready to live according to its laws and act together with it. That “elite” still dreams of being admitted to the “golden billion”, but only as an equal member.
The Russian elite has been trying to do it for some fifteen years. The West keeps it in the anteroom, seeks to dictate its terms and misses no opportunity to take advantage of its weakness. It remains to be seen whether the current government will have the determination to stay the course for restoring Russia’s independence. The South Ossetia conflict is a harbinger, a test for the Russian leadership. The test occurred because of the pressure of the patriotic forces and broad popular support, but still more difficult times lie ahead.
It is high time, for example, to revise the muddled and spineless policy with regard to Ukraine. Ukraine’s admission to NATO which would bring the hostile bloc to the Kursk-Don-Krasnodar line with subsequent extension of that line to the Caucasus must be prevented. Kiev is currently run by out-and-out nationalists, the heirs to that traitor, Mazepa, and the German underling, Bandera. The preservation of their power in Ukraine poses a mortal danger to Russia. Ukrainian nationalists must not be allowed to ruin the lives of millions of Russians living in Ukraine. They should not be allowed to put the peoples of Ukraine in a NATO yoke. NATO’s jackboots cannot be allowed to trample Sebastopol and the Crimea, Donbass, Kharkov and Odessa. We will demand from the Kremlin a fundamentally different approach to Ukrainian affairs, well-thought out and vigorous and aggressive actions. I am sure we will be able to mobilize the people of Russia and Ukraine in support of that course.
Our relations with NATO and the EU are in need of a fundamental revision. We should stop kidding ourselves and pretending that these are two entirely different organizations. In reality these are just different names for the alliance of the same imperialist countries. As a rule they act together. The last vivid example was their support of Saakashvili, his regime and his territorial claims. There are, to be sure, differences between them as to how to handle Russia. These differences, by the way, were first clearly manifested after the West met with a resolute rebuff on our part in the Caucasus. But there are no differences between the US and the EU, nor within the EU itself as to the need to keep Georgia as an outpost of the West’s anti-Russian policy in the Caucasus. Our government should not entertain any illusions and engage in wishful thinking by praising the constructive European approach as distinct from NATO’s approach. Self-deception in policy is a losing approach.
We do not need a powerful European fist in the shape of the European Union close to our borders. That is a dangerous neighbourhood. We do not need the kind of cooperation with NATO which may easily end up with NATO moving its army into Russia. We do not need to take part in aggressive “peacekeeping” led by the US and NATO in various regions of the world. We do not need NATO or EU military posing as peacekeepers in Abkhazia, South Ossetia, Transdniestria and the Crimea. We know the negative role they have played in the Balkans.
Our natural allies are the peoples of the former USSR. We should seek to restore a voluntary union of our countries and not reduce Russian policy in the CIS to preserving some kind of “civilizational and cultural” values and personal friendship between the leaders of these states regardless of the policy they pursue towards Russia.
Among our natural allies are the countries of Asia, Latin America and Africa which face similar problems in their relations with the “globalizers” and need a strong Russia that pursues an independent foreign policy and whose might deters those who seek to dominate the world.
We should not be misled by the current tough foreign policy rhetoric of the Russian leadership. In reality no decision has yet been taken at the top as to what to do next: to raise hands or to let them drop, to surrender the national interests or try to uphold them in the face of Western pressure. In order to uphold them it is necessary to have popular support. However, it is far easier and more habitual to continue the surrender to the acclaim and plaudits of a handful of comprador moneybags and the people around them. Time will tell who will gain the upper hand. If more retreats happen, an unenviable outcome for the present government and for Russia can be safely predicted.
As a result of the complex intertwining of internal and external factors a new situation is emerging for the work of the Party. It should try to get the maximum mileage of this situation to step up our actions in the foreign policy field.
It is clear even to a child that Russia’s international position hinges on its strength or feebleness. When the country is strong it is respected and its opinion is taken into account. When it is weak, it is pushed around, humiliated and plundered. It is high time to put an end to the policy of hostility and hatred based on selling national riches and plundering the working people. We should resolutely expose its apologists, tackle the problem of reviving industry, agriculture, the army, science, culture and education. The current Russian government must take this turn if it doesn’t want to find itself on the sidelines of history.
I would like to stress once again that patriotism and anti-Sovietism are absolutely incompatible. Look at the calendar, Messrs democrats and United Russia supporters. The Civil War ended 77 years ago. And you still continue your attack on the foundations of our historical statehood that you began in August 1991. The October Revolution and the Great Victory in the Second World War had put Russia at the center of world politics securing its status of a world power. By contrast, your “perestroikas” and “reforms” reduced the country to the level of developing states. All that remains for you is to keep saying that the country was following a wrong path during the 70 years of Soviet government. We were following the right path: towards the summits of justice, people’s rule and strong statehood.
The CPRF’s International Activities
During the report period the CPRF has significantly increased its international activities, it has been declaring ever more loudly and vigorously its claim to having a real say in the shaping of the foreign policy of Russia. Our firm and staunch line went a long way to induce the Kremlin to take the decision to recognize South Ossetia and Abkhazia. The party and its representatives at the State Duma claim an undoubted credit for that. The active stance of the CPRF put a serious obstacle in the way of penetration of NATO into our territory, making the Russian Government move and postpone joint exercises with the NATO troops. Together with the Communist Party of Ukraine and the patriotic organizations in the Crimea we managed to disrupt NATO exercises on that peninsula and to force the US naval ships to leave the Crimean harbours ahead of time.
Our deputies are members of 11 permanent missions to international and regional parliamentary organizations where they play a notable role. The CPRF was one of the main initiators of opposing the anti-Communist hysteria at the PACE. As a result the attempt to demonize Communism, present it as fascism and launch a massive offensive on the Communist movement worldwide was disrupted. We have caught the provocateurs and stooges by the arm. However, the attempts have not stopped. They will continue in connection with the 70th anniversary of the Soviet-Ge
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