"Zyuganov is crazy." "Zyuganov has gone mad." This can be heard everywhere. "Zyuganov is destroying the party!" said the admirers of Gubenko and Goryacheva after their idols left. I venture to object: Zyuganov is saving the party. He is acting absolutely correctly, like Lenin did. Moreover, I can see a will and force behind his actions which are obviously "not Zyuganov's". I venture to presume that we are now witnessing a plan set in motion by one of the Kremlin's former political consultants, who are bored with tiresome centrism and ardently strengthening the state power hierarchy. They are tired of St. Petersburg security officers, the power of grey mediocrity; but the main thing is that they are frightened of a slow but sure attack on the rich. Wealth allows a person to be independent to some extent in his or her judgments - and the new authorities do not approve of this. They believe, rather justifiably, that it is possible to prevent a large empire from breaking up only by transforming it into a huge army barracks.
I presume, in this situation, some great expert on political intriguing and party construction started looking for a real force that could oppose to the coming mediocrity and grayness: former KGB officers and scared to death regional leaders. Neither the Union of Right Forces nor Yavlinsky's party can be such a force - in these terms, it is necessary to put stakes on people, who have not lived better since Putin came to power. In any case, it is possible to form a party of people's indignation only from the Communist Party - of course, on the condition that the Communist Party will no longer be a party of "apparatus-men" and refuses to participate in Putin's tamed parliament. In other words, party needs to radicalize and the process started very timely, two years before the elections. This time is enough to turn the Communist Party from a boring refuge of dummies and an stronghold of pensioners into a powerful radical movement that would protect freedom ideals and values and opposed as much as possible to the world globalization. Beside other things, Vladimir Putin became friends with George Bush, which became a serious trump card for forming opposition.
However, it is not ruled out that none of Kremlin political consultants has anything to do with Zyuganov's demarche. There are ordinary rules of society development, which to some extent are close to physical laws, and if the authorities are stubbornly suppressing all non-standard and living, they should be ready that sooner or later they will be resisted.
Under Yeltsin, it was possible to "fight from the inside", from the Duma. However, after the power grew stronger, any legal cooperation with it became out of the question. Now the Communist Party is slowly but surely transforming into a real fighting opposition.
It should be mentioned that at present radicals have great opportunities for this. It is not an accident that Vladimir Putin is fighting them so stubbornly by means of exaggerating skinhead danger in Russia and threatening marginal parties, like Eduard Limonov's movement. Today, civilized parliamentary opposition is unpopular, it has neither electorate or ideology. Meanwhile, people are becoming more and more indignant and embittered, Putin's popularity rating is falling and someone should become the mouthpiece of the people's wrath. It is very curious that the National Bestseller Prize was given to Alexander Prokhanov, for his appalling novel "Mister Hexogen" which was promoted and lobbied by Boris Berezovsky. However, Berezovsky is not the main thing that makes crowds of young intellectuals become radicals. Currently, we are witnessing a rare unity of the left and right wings, communists and liberals, in the Russian politics: they unanimously criticize Putin's personnel and measures. Any attempt to strengthen the power hierarchy causes a roar of disapproval, and Putin's loyal electorate seems to have guessed that strengthening of any hierarchy adds more pressure but not money.
That is why in the near future - to be more precise, by the 2004 presidential election - a substantial party will oppose Putin and his clan, which will have significant support in the regions, and a membership refreshed after a radical purge. It will be a party without conformists like Gennady Seleznev or ambivalent artists like Gubenko, or civilized communists like Kuptsov, or orthodox communists like Shandybin. It will be a left wing party of intellectuals, which will unite the NBP, the radical wing of the Eurasians, all anarchists, the lesser members of Anpilov's movement, and a considerable number of angry middle class citizens - radicalism is quite fashionable in this layer of society at present.
(Translated by Arina Yevtikhova )