Zyuganov is a populist politician, with everything good and bad that that entails. He is appealing for votes with his electorate, which is largely elderly, poor and poorly educated, and often rural (in other words, the disenfranchised in Russia). (Though I am sceptical about frequent claims that the CPRF electorate is "dying off" due to old age, since their popularity is increasing.) These people tend to be Russian nationalists with an idealized view of the USSR and a bevy of the prejudices that come from living in small towns in rural Russia, where the number of minorities can be zero in some areas, and GZ is appealing to that. It gets him votes. Large numbers of these people served in the Red Army in WWII, or lost friends and family in the fight against Nazism, so for obvious reasons they tend to have a rose-tinted view of Stalin. They want to view their youth as a glorious battle against the forces of evil. (In Russia, by the way, lots of people will tell you that, though Stalin was a monster, Russia was lucky to have him, because only a monster could have beaten Hitler. People whose relatives died in the purges will tell you this, in fact.)
He is not a red-brown, unless you think Patrick Buchanan is a red-brown. He is a lobbyist. (Actually, the CPRF was against the recent tightening of immigration laws.) I don't like the CPRF, but they shouldn't be demonized. The remind me of the Reform Party in the US.
BTW, I noticed several factual errors Zyuganov made in that press conference.
Chris Doss The Russia Journal -------- Date: Mon, 6 May 2002 12:00:55 -0700 From: "michael pugliese" <debsian at pacbell.net> Subject: Re: Zyuganov
Comrade Z sez Jews, "had a controlling interest in the Western economy during WWII, " and Stalin killed only 500,000. (The official Russian figures in the J. Arch Getty edited volume in the Yale Univ. Press series, "Annals of Communism, " say slightly more than 2 million, "premature deaths, " the largest # of which happened in '37.) Whatta loon.
For the views of Russian liberal, Alexander Yanov on Zyuganov see, http://www.bu.edu/iscip/pubseries/GennadiZyuganov.pub12.html
Neo-con Kremlinologist, Walter Laqueur, "The Black Hundreds: the Rise of the Russian Far Right, " has substantial material on the Red-Brown, "national patriotic, " alliance of Z with Prokhanov, Dugin et. al.
The Weekly Worker of the Communist Party of Great Britain, circa Dec. 2000, if memory had a great piece by Michael Malkin, "Red-Brown Bilge, " on Z and co. Check their archives or just do a google, "lbo-talk Malkin Pugliese, " I think I posted it here long ago.
Neo-con SDUSA'ite, Adrian Karatntky (spelling?) on Z, http://www.bu.edu/iscip/pubseries/12intro.html
Another SDUSA'er, blurbed by Hitchens, "Socialism: The Impossible Utopia, " or somesuch, hot off the presses, by Muravchik or Puddington or one of the other neo-cons. Betcha it has some details on Z. Michael Pugliese