NationStates Jolt Archive

Their ideology led and inspired a superpower for most of the 20th Century. When their regime crumbled, they were briefly banned.

[...] Now the Communists could become the sole opposition political force in Russia that is actually represented in the Russian parliament, the Duma.

Current opinion polls suggest they may be the only party, except for the Putin-backed "United Russia", to win any seats in December's elections.

It's a comeback, of sorts - something of a survival story.

Russia's Communists have avoided the fate of some of their counterparts in other parts of the former Soviet bloc. They still exist. They still have an electorate.

By contrast, the Western-style democrats who sought to forge a new Russia in the 1990s are disunited and discredited.

Many of their supporters are drawn from the generation which lost the most from the end of the Soviet Union.

These were people who toiled all their lives to build a Communist utopia, only to find that their reward was a penance of a pension doled out in the harsh, new, capitalist Russia of the 1990s.

With the campaign for Russia's parliamentary election already under way, the Communists gathered in Moscow to mark the 90th anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution, the day in 1917 when Lenin's Bolshevik party seized power and laid the foundations of the Soviet state.

[...] The Communists continue to allege that Boris Yeltsin's re-election as President in 1996 was fraudulent - that after five years of bewildering transition, a majority was ready to go back to the old ways.

Russia under President Putin is a different country. Mr Putin's speeches have convinced many of the electorate that Russia is on the path back to the diplomatic weight which the Soviet Union enjoyed.

The current administration has stolen the Communists' thundering rhetoric about a great and powerful country.

With National Projects to improve housing, education, agriculture, and healthcare, the Kremlin is also seeking to show that it cares for those who haven't had a decent share of the country's oil-and-gas-fired economic boom.

Sixteen years after the end of the Soviet Union, there are still people who mourn its passing.


(link (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7083186.stm))

This should be interesting to watch. Obviously Russia isn't going to go back to what it was before 1991. But the nostalgia -and the political movement that still sustains it as Russia's second biggest party- is interesting in itself.

I don't know where you got this idea, but this isn't exactly news, back in Putin's first election the only real opposition were the communists, and they still are, the only other opposition were Yeltsin's oligarchs, but now they are pretty much the most hated people in all Russia, most now in exile, dead or in jail thanks to Putin (thank God).

I don't know where you got this idea, but this isn't exactly news

I did indicate the source quite clearly, y'know. The Beeb did an article on it, hence my drawing attention to it.

"The Soviet Union? I thought you guys broke up."

"That's what we wanted you to think!"

The communists will be back in total power in Russia within 25 years. The cold war never ended, it only thawed.( I blame Global Warming:p) It will freeze again soon.

if it works i might move to russia

run a gulag or 2.. roflol:p:p

"The Soviet Union? I thought you guys broke up."

"That's what we wanted you to think!"

Must Crush Capitalism ARGH! (http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=lHnSf22NSPE)

To break your bubble. I see the National Socialist front in Russia having a bigger prospect to power than Communism ever will again. Considering some of the images below (sadly only youtube links);

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7Qz-O5T25E

If those scenes of hordes of Neo-nazi's didn't intimidate you. Well in Russia the neo-nazi's are actually hunting and killing off the members of anti-fa. In stark contrast to Europe/America where Antifa is making the lives of Neo-Nazi's difficult. In Russia Antifa is at risk of being wiped out through intimidation and killings of it's members;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQoJJaGVyY0

Or here simply a nice documentary about hate crime and nazism in Russia;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LWZ8hBWNHKs

Arise, ye workers from your slumber,
Arise, ye prisoners of want.
For reason in revolt now thunders,
and at last ends the age of cant!
Away with all your superstitions,
Servile masses, arise, arise!
We'll change henceforth the old tradition,
And spurn the dust to win the prize!
So comrades, come rally,
And the last fight let us face.
The Internationale,
Unites the human race.
So comrades, come rally,
And the last fight let us face.
The Internationale,
Unites the human race.

Anyway...Russia may just go back to the Soviet Union, and if so, more power to it. I hope to actually be the one behind that, but whatever. The West gets exactly what they pay for and Communism is not dead nor dying.

Of course, another problem is that many Communists have ties to the far-right and neo-Nazi groups as is, making it even harder for them to reunify without a split in their ideology. Compounding this fact is that the majority of the shestidesyatniki are long since displaced or gone, having either died or been replaced with the much more cynical generation that grew up under Brezhnev and saw the system collapse under Gorbachev, so there really isn't a strong group of ideologically committed people to build up support for the party.

Personally, I'd rather see the resurgence of the mainstream Communists than the Neo-Nazis and their Stalinist allies any day. As much as I am opposed to the overall system, it did do some good and it may be worth learning from to address Russia's modern day problems.

I'm down with this. I, for one, miss the Cold War.

*snip*

No savior from on high delivers.

Even if they wrap themselves in red flags and call themselves communists.

This is to be expected, but is probably not a good thing... though it depends on the specifics of their positions.

Especially if they remain in the opposition, they may end up actually defending liberty and equality at times when Putin wants to erode it.

Their voter base seems to consist of those people who mourn the good old days, in which case, they're likely to slowly die off.

I suspect it would take another revolution against the new aristocracy to return Russia to communism - I'm not sure it wouldn't be a bad thing either.

Must Crush Capitalism ARGH! (http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=lHnSf22NSPE)

lmao *favorite*

Their voter base seems to consist of those people who mourn the good old days, in which case, they're likely to slowly die off.

I suspect it would take another revolution against the new aristocracy to return Russia to communism - I'm not sure it wouldn't be a bad thing either.

The youth are also an important part of the base.

I'm down with this. I, for one, miss the Cold War.

I don't. The thought of two countries capable of annihilating each other several times over is a pretty scary one.

The youth are also an important part of the base.

You seem to be right in the sense that it's being refreshed by a younger base now.

Here's (http://www.economist.com/countries/Russia/profile.cfm?folder=Profile-Political%20Forces) an interesting overview of the Russian parties, I copy and paste the Communist section.

The Communist Party remains strong and well organised

The CPRF, the successor to the ruling party of the Soviet era, was launched in February 1993 and remains one of Russia's largest and best-organised political parties. In October 2006 the CPRF reported having 134,000 members across the country. Although the CPRF has a better-defined programme than most other Russian parties, it still comprises an ideologically incoherent coalition of social democrats, Stalinists and nationalists. For many years the CPRF could rely on a loyal support base of around 30% of the electorate. However, in the 2003 Duma election it received a mere 13% of the party-list vote and lost half of its parliamentary mandates. Around 40% of the CPRF's supporters are over the age of 55, and the party's unreconstructed ideas and uncharismatic politicians—in particular, the party leader, Gennady Zyuganov—have little appeal for younger voters or for the emerging middle class. Nevertheless, the party has recently begun to make at least some inroads among younger voters.

However, and abridged...

A new leftist party emerges in 2006

A new left-of-centre party appeared in the fourth quarter of 2006 through the merger of Motherland (Rodina), the Pensioners' Party and the Party of Life. Designed to compete with the CPRF in capturing votes among left-wing voters, the new formation, called Justice Russia, is headed by Sergei Mironov, speaker of the Federation Council (the upper house of parliament). Although it claims to offer an alternative to United Russia, the new party is similarly loyal to the presidential administration. The party's leaders have denied suspicions that it is a Kremlin creation..... With a membership of around 340,000, the new party aims to come second in the 2007 Duma election. Justice Russia has already secured almost the same number of votes as the CPRF in the local elections in March 2007, and the new grouping should see its vote share rise further as its name recognition increases.

Personally, I'd rather see the resurgence of the mainstream Communists than the Neo-Nazis and their Stalinist allies any day.

*shudders* Definitely.


As much as I am opposed to the overall system, it did do some good and it may be worth learning from to address Russia's modern day problems.

The brutal transition from one system to its opposite has left a mess. Eventually Russians are going to have to work out a system that does work for them, yes.


Especially if they remain in the opposition, they may end up actually defending liberty and equality at times when Putin wants to erode it.

That's what I was thinking. If they're a strong enough Opposition. Unfortunately, the article suggests Putin is tapping into some of the Soviet nostalgia himself to undermine his opposition. (And then, as Barringtonia showed, there's "Justice Russia" - possibly a Putin puppet party.)

"The Soviet Union? I thought you guys broke up."

"That's what we wanted you to think!"

lol

The U.S.S.R. is coming back (at least on clothing racks)


Empowered by an oil boom that pushed the country's trade surplus past $94 billion this year, Russia has been flexing its muscles abroad. At home, meanwhile, young and trendy Muscovites are in the throes of nostalgia for the staples of Soviet childhoods, relics of a time when the U.S.S.R. was at the height of superpower status.

That may explain why one of the most popular fashion designers this fall is Denis Simachev, who is selling overcoats fastened with hammer-and-sickle buttons, gold jewelry minted to look like Soviet kopecks and shirts festooned with the Soviet coat of arms, complete with embroidered ears of wheat.

"People in their 30s see these kinds of symbols as reminders of happy memories, like going to pioneer camp where they lived together, ate breakfast together and played sports," said Simachev, 33, who wears his hair in a Samurai-style ponytail. He insists he is no Communist — for one thing, his overcoats sell for about $2,100 and his T-shirts for about $600.

[...] By tapping into a generation that is experiencing an identity crisis, Simachev, who is also known here as a D. J., a Ducati motorcycle rider and a snowboarder, has quickly become the epitome of Russian cool for a subset of gilded Moscow youth.

[...] Victoria Tirovskaya, 24, says she wears the designer's clothes because they are chic and a bit audacious. "I have a classic blouse and shorts from Simachev but I also have a U.S.S.R. sweatshirt," Tirovskaya, an interior designer, said. "Before Simachev, nobody dared to use the symbol of our country as a fashion icon."

[...] After more than a decade of Westernization, in which international brands have flooded the Russian market and the Russian elite have taken to wearing designers from Valentino to Louis Vuitton, a "Back to the U.S.S.R." movement among consumers seems a logical step, some social observers here say.

"At first, the people of my generation wanted to try those things that our parents could not, but now that we have seen everywhere, we are coming back to our roots," said Evelina Khromtchenko, the editor in chief of the Russian edition of L'Officiel, a French fashion magazine.


Oh, the ironing! :eek:

(link (http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/11/27/europe/27designer.php?page=1))

I hope that their dream would never be realised. One would think that 80 years with people like Lenin and Stalin would have thought the Russians not to trust communism...

"COMMUNISM: Liberation of the people from the burdens of liberty."
-Rick Bayan, The Cynic's Dictionary

Ahhh...fascists and communists being the only significant parties in Parliament...where have I seen that one before?

Oh...yeah... :eek:

80 years with people like Lenin and Stalin

Psst... Stalin died in 1953...

Psst... Stalin died in 1953...

Yes I know... I just ment that when Russia has had a system that is led by people like Stalin and Lenin and Krushchev for 80 years, they must be stupid if they want that system back..