In response to the loss of leadership posts in the Duma, communist leader Gennadi Zyuganov is promising mass demonstrations in May. In fact, however, Zyuganov and Co. lack the masses ready for non- parliamentary actions in their support. Moreover, the Communist Party itself is in deep crisis, a fact concealed from the public. Actually, the situation within the party is the Communists' major secret.
Despite its title, the Communist Party of the Russian Federation is not really a communist party. Given its objectives, ideology, strategy, and tactics, this is a party combining social democracy with populism and nationalism.
Even Zyuganov, formally the party theoretician, is not a communist. Read his books and you will see how often he quotes from the Bible or patriarchs of the Church and Russian religious philosophers of the early 20th century - not from Marx or Lenin. On the other hand, ordinary voters who support the communists in elections do not read Zyuganov's books, and the Communist Party is never in a hurry to remind its electorate that according to Zyuganov, "the limit of revolutions in Russia has been exhausted."
Voters represent a major problem for the Communist Party. Perhaps the most serious problem. Most of them vote for Zyuganov and his party out of habit, and are elderly. Apart from this stratum, the Communists can only rely on success in the so-called "red belt". But even the elderly do not actually vote for communism or socialist revolutions. They vote for a policy of state paternalism with regard to the poor. That was why Zyuganov's electorate voted for Putin in the first place. They saw him as a man ready to re-establish state paternalism.
In parliamentary elections, the Communist Party usually gets the votes of three categories: firstly, advocates of communist and socialist ideas; secondly, those longing for the Soviet Union and wanting stability; and thirdly, victims of the reforms. That means the protest vote. The total always amounts to about 25% of the vote. The situation is changing, however. Advocates of communist ideas doubt effectiveness of parliamentary methods of battle (in Russia). The nostalgic Russians are quietly dying off. The protest electorate remains, but it is the least stable (it has already voted for Lebed and Zhirinovsky). Upper echelons of the Communist Party have become so accustomed to their traditional 25% that they have utterly forgotten that the nation is changing.
There are lots of problems within the Communist Party itself. Internal discipline is holy, and all these problems are kept under the lid. This keeping under the lid does not, however, solve them. Problem one is reduction of numerical strength. Upper echelons of the Communist Party recall its "500,000 members" even now, sometimes. The party has never numbered 500,000 members but it did number at least 200,000. These days, it cannot have more than 50,000 activists.
Zyuganov's regular attempts to recruit the youth into the party have proved vain. The youth does not find communist ideology attractive. All sorts of youth organizations in the last decade inevitably split from the Communist Party, castigating Zyuganov for what they called opportunism and revisionism. The union of communist youth, the Communists' last attempt, is inactive. Its presence can be seen only in the regions the Communist Party is in the corridors of power and can support the youth with budget money.
The few who joined the youth organizations for ideological reasons either quit politics altogether or eventually form their own left organizations. This way the Russian Maoist Party was formed by former activists of Zyuganov's youth organization in Obninsk.
The organization where there were a lot of workers deteriorate at a faster rate than all other. The Communist Party in the regions depends on the so-called red directors which means that it always backs up the management in its frequent conflicts with the workers. That is how the party of the working class undermines its positions in then working class itself.
All official assurances notwithstanding, the Communist Party itself is not monolithic. There is a lot of dissatisfaction with Zyuganov in the regions. The subject of replacement of the leader is regularly brought up but never ends in anything. The party lacks prominent figures and there is no one to replace Zyuganov with. There is actually a stable group of supporters of Alexander Kuvayev, chairman of the Moscow municipal committee of the Communist Party. Unfortunately for him, Kuvayev is known in the party to be much too reckless and stupid, like Anpilov, and the Communists fear his unpredictability.
The Communist Party is a non-revolutionary parliamentary party representing the interests of the part of the Soviet elite that found itself elbowed out of the feeding-trough in the early 1990s. Financially, the Communist Party depends on the budget in part and on "red directors" in part. It is losing its traditional electorate and becomes less and less attractive for the protest electorate.
The Communist Party should earnestly thank the Kremlin and Surkov - the Duma turnover is an invaluable gift for it. The Kremlin's plans of a two (or three) party system specified a large and moderate controllable party on the left flank. Attempts to promote Seleznev's Russia or social democrats failed. The Communist Party is all that is left. But the Communist Party has discredited itself in the eyes of the electorate with its compromising nature. It is running the risk of polling too few votes in the next election and needs the image of the harassed, of the oppositionist.
In the place of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, its Latin American replicas would have reared on their hind legs and slammed the door walking out of the parliament. They would have called their followers to the streets. The Communist Party cannot do that. It does not have followers ready to fight the police. The Communist Party fears elections, its leaders all too painfully aware of the rapidly deteriorating popularity.
In principle, the Communists' withdrawal from the Duma and a campaign of pressure initiated by red governors and red directors might have made the country so uncontrollable as to force the Kremlin to organize early parliamentary election. The election would have taken place in the fall, simultaneously with the planned American (NATO) operation against Iraq. Activization of the American (NATO) military machine always generates a powerful anti-Western mood in Russia, and riding the crest of the wave during an election campaign is easy indeed. Unfortunately for itself, the Communist Party lacks the brains or the courage for this.
All its energy will be spent in May demonstrations.