[RIA NOVOSTI, 12:00, DECEMBER 10, 2002] SOURCE: FEDERAL NEWS SERVICE (http://www.fednews.ru/)
Moderator: Good morning. Let us start. December is traditionally the time for reviewing the results of the outgoing year. And an assessment of the year 2002 will be given today by the Chairman of the People's Patriotic Union of Russia, Chairman of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, and leader of the CPRF faction at the State Duma, Gennady Zyuganov.
Zyuganov: Good day. I regularly speak in this hall, but it is first time I see it refurbished in this way. So, my congratulations to the designers who have provided very comfortable conditions for everyone. The only thing that makes me uncomfortable that I am sitting above the journalists. So, you will forgive me for that. We are a proletarian party and we prefer justice and equality.
I think we are about to see out one of the most complicated and contradictory years in the history of the Russian state. We have submitted proposals on adjustments to the economic course which was formulated in the report of the Khabarovsk Territory governor and it was discussed at the first meeting of the State Council. We thought that this course would be implemented this year because at the time it had the approval of all the levels of the executive and legislative branches. But the policy of Gref-Kudrin-Kasyanov prevailed. As a result tomorrow a budget will be approved and it is just 72 billion dollars, that's 10 times less than the budget of the Russian Federation ten years ago.
This budget fails to address any problems -- economic, social or political. We proposed to hold a referendum on the basic issues that could change the way the budget policy is determined. The question of the land rent and the use of the resources that the country has and which were developed and defended by generations of Russians -- it would permit to increase the budget by almost 500 billion, but that version, too, was turned down.
We have proposed to go to the people to ask their opinion and consider the issue about fair payment for housing and utilities services and payment for electricity. Given the average incomes they cannot exceed 10 percent of the aggregate household income. But this too was turned down. The authorities demonstrated this year that they can re-write constitutional laws within a week without agreeing any of the provisions with the subjects of the Federation.
We proposed that the relatively minor privileges enjoyed by the army and the police and the law enforcement system as a whole, the pensions, the rural professionals, doctors, educational workers should be retained. But the government prevailed and the docile majority at the Duma rubberstamped this too.
We proposed that agricultural land should not be allowed for sale, but the law that was pushed through the Duma has already generated conflicts in the fields and the situation will take a dramatic turn for the worse from next year when the law is implemented on a wide scale. We have just reviewed the performance of different sectors of the economy in the Russian Federation in the outgoing year.
Our people are hard-working and in some sectors the results are not bad. I was just attending hearings at the Duma were leading agrarians had a meeting and reviewed the results of the year. They said with one voice that we are bankrupt. Although the crop is not bad, the average price offered for a ton of grain was 800-1,000 rubles, while it cost was 1,200 in Russia, but middlemen bought it up on the cheap leaving nothing to the farmers. Even the richest farms barely reached the break even point. If one subtracts the cost of fertilizer and harvesting, practically none of them gained profits.
In my native Oryol region they had grown a bumper crop and they are doing well in livestock breeding, they now sell a kilogram of meat at 35-40 rubles, this is not enough to cover even the elementary costs. Fishermen brought in good catches of fish but the housewives did not get any wages from them.
The same is true of science. Scientists came up with some interesting programs but they have not been implemented.
So, I assess the course pursued by Putin and Kasyanov in the outgoing year as the continuation of the old liberal course plus a strengthened vertical police power structure and further violence with regard to society. This is a dead end road.
In terms of geopolitics, Russia has become forced to the wall. NATO is at our gate, in fact it is already in our backyards. NATO is sitting in Central Asia developing military bases built by the Soviet Union. In Tbilisi its colonels supervise operations. Naval vessels and aircraft are to arrive soon to the Baltics where Peter I built ports, where the borders were defended by Suvorov and Zhukov. This worsens the situation.
We think that the absolute majority of citizens understand that the current policy has no future. They understand that Putin is truly an heir to Yeltsin. They feel that the Kasyanov government gives no thought to domestic producers whatever their form of ownership may be. They mistrust this course and they are ready to act more vigorously to defend their rights.
I recently looked at the report on protest actions and strikes. Usually, a day's actions occupied 3-4 pages, the latest report runs to 15 pages from almost 50 regions of the Russian Federation.
We offer a different course and a different program, a different policy beginning from the development of the country to the budget area and this is the program that we will take to our constituencies. Our faction has decided to report in each region about its work during the year. Starting from December 15 we will be doing this work in a planned manner in all the regions.
The first report will be on December 19-22 on the legendary land of Stalingrad. This year sees the 60th anniversary of the Battle of Stalingrad. The whole nation will mark that date on February 2. It is incumbent upon us to display the same fortitude as that by the soldiers in Stalingrad at this critical moment. Our deputies will visit at least 50 leading regions in the country which are home of about 80 percent of the population. And we consider it to be very important to expose the actual policy and to lay out our programs and suggestions.
In January we will finish preparing the program on how to rescue the country out of the crisis. It will cover all key industries, take into account the peculiarities of regions, and formulate proposals.
Our bloc and the broad-based patriotic association will give citizens guarantees that a totally new policy will be carried out. We believe that patriotic forces will have an opportunity in the new Duma to get at least controlling interest to make sure that the policy that has been pursued over the last 10 years is no longer implemented on Russian soil.
We are confident that if we work energetically for one year, we may garner broad public support for the elections. We have conducted sociologically polls and studied various sections of the population. The bogus ratings that show public trust for one person and that are regularly published have nothing in common with the real state of affairs.
When we met with business people and workers in Putin's home town, one in two expressed serious doubts about the correctness of the current policy. In force ministries, especially after a recent scandal in the Defense Ministry when the Defense Minister had to publicly read out secret sections of a report for the sake of Putin's public rating, which is punishable by law, the level of support here does not exceed 18 percent.
I have recently held a series of meetings with students and young people. They showed deep understanding of the situation and the fact that the current policy offers them no opportunity. The same kind of sentiment exists among small and medium-sized businesses. In assessing the economic situation, many said things are moving toward a new default. If the Americans seize oil fields in Iraq, and it seems they are prepared to go further, lay their hands on Saudi oil too, they will ruin the Russian economy in a matter of weeks or months.
By the way, there is actually nothing much to ruin. If we take Russia's GDP, some get bloated with self-importance, but Africa is also big but no one in the world really reckons with it. The entire GDP in Russia after Yeltsin is about as big as that in Holland.
We are determined that we need a new policy, a new team, a new course and a government that will serve national interests. The current government is a government of dyed-in-wool liberals like Nemtsov, Khakamada. It reflects the interests of five, or seven maximum, percent of citizens. So, this government did not and does not act in the social interests of voters. We believe this government must resign. We are ready to form a government of national interests and we will do everything we can to make sure that forces that love Russia, understand it and care about its history, culture and best traditions come to power next year.