Rossiyskaya Gazeta 15 April 2003 Article by Anna Zakatnova: "The Weak Ones Die Off, the Quick Ones Leave. A Social Democrat for Every Party"
As a party, the social-democrats have practically no chances at the elections. Evidently, it is for this reason that all of the political parties are going all out, "treating themselves" to those slogans and conceptions that have traditionally belonged to social-democratic political associations. So there are social-democrats in Russia, only with a particular national feature: There are center-right social-democrats, there are center-left ones, and there are ones that are completely in the center.
The official contenders to the status of social-democrats are three: the Unified Socialist Party of Aleksey Podberezkin, the United Social-Democratic Party of Mikhail Gorbachev and Konstantin Titov, and also Gennadiy Seleznev's Party of Russia's Rebirth. Furthermore, survey data invariably show that at best, 1 percent of voters are prepared to vote for the new social-democrats. At the parliamentary elections of past years, the results have turned out to be significantly worse: 0.13 percent in 1995 and 0.08 percent in 1999. The main problem of contemporary Russian social-democracy consists in the fact that they are not particularly needed by anyone. Sociological survey data clearly show that there is not yet an electoral base in the country for the social-democratic idea - there is no middle class.
Thus, survey research of the All-Russian Center for the Study of Public Opinion indicate that over the past three years, the opportunity for choosing produce, clothing, footwear, and other day-to-day goods are changing for the better for an absolute majority of Russians. The choice of produce, for example, improved over the year 2000 for 51 percent of Russians; over 2001, it changed for 61 percent; and over 2002, for 70 percent. But then, the situation on the labor market, that is, the opportunity to make a good living, has changed little: In 2000, some 18 percent of those surveyed noted a changed for the better, and 25 percent noted a change for the worse; in 2001, the respective figures were 21 and 32 percent; and in 2002, they were 26 and 36 percent of those surveyed. True, a more detailed study of the survey data show that "in 2002, for the first time in recent years, the demand for a highly qualified workforce on a country-wide scale exceeded its supply."
There is also one more cause for optimism. When the All-Russian Center for the Study of Public Opinion conducted research on the lifestyle expectations of Russians, a rather curious tendency of the so-called Putin period came to light. The number of people oriented on living no worse than the majority rose from 46 percent in January 2000 to 55 percent at the present time. But at the same time, the number of those who would like to live in accordance with Western standards or better decreased from 14 percent to 11 percent. As sociologists believe, the "Putin" period is characterized by an averaging out, an evening of Russians' lifestyle expectations: There has been a stabilization in the number of Russians striving to "live better" than the majority in their city or rayon, and an increase in the number who are focused on "living no worse." The weakest are dying out, the quickest are leaving, and the rest are gathering into small groups. Thus, in Russia a middle class is slowly growing. But very slowly.
Not that the social-democrats themselves do not realize their difficulty with the electorate perfectly well. Thus, at the congress of the Unified Socialist Party of Russia, which took place last Saturday, Aleksey Podberezkin, famous for his optimistic views on the prospects for social-democracy in Russia (which was certainly one of the reasons for his break with the CPRF), honestly informed his comrades in arms about the party's problems: "In these conditions, we have three variants for action: to support Unity unconditionally; to act independently, realizing that we will not get the 5 percent; or to form a "leftist bloc" with 10 to 12 left-wing and patriotic parties." In the end, Podberezkin declared the priority to be the formation of a kind of left-wing coalition, which could be joined, in addition to the Unified Socialist Party, by the Party of Russia's Rebirth, the Social-Democratic Party, and a number of others. And on that same day, Gennadiy Zyuganov, speaking at the 35th Moscow party organization conference to hear reports and to elect new officials, called upon all the left-wing forces to come out at the upcoming elections as a united front: "We are obligated on the patriotic flank to unite everyone, and together, in concert, to come out at the elections; there are all the necessary capabilities for this." Within the CPRF, in general, talk of the social-democrats is greeted with a condescending smile, as if to say, Why create complications, if we have 30 percent of the electorate as it is? Which, however has not at all prevented the Communists, for several years now, from sprouting their own kind of social-democratic wing in the People's Patriotic Union, and also from becoming nervous on the subject of the appearance of a coalition of small left-wing parties (including the Eurasians) surrounding Gennadiy Seleznev's Party of Russia's Revival. And this is entirely understandable; according to the data of Mark Urnov, about 15 percent of the Red electorate is in favor of private property in land, and about 30 percent demand that unemployment benefits be minimal and not corrupt people. So the successor to the Russian Social-Democratic Workers Party needs to conform to the demands of the political climate.
But on the whole, a modern understanding of the social-democratic concepts at one level or another is present in the party programs of all the political associations represented in the Duma. First and foremost, this is a question of a fixation on succession, a repudiation of the revolutionary path in favor of the evolutionary, but then, without fail, social protection guarantees, and finally, patriotism and support of the state ideology of a "gathering of the lands." All of these postulates in one form or another are absolutely held by all the leaders of the parliamentary race - the Yabloko people, the United Russia people, the Communists, the rightists. Moreover, one of the points of the party program sounds almost verbatim, regardless of the colors of the party banner: "Raising the level of the minimum wage to the level of the subsistence minimum." This provision could be categorized as a cost of pre-election promises, if not for the fact that similar proposals are systematically repeated from one year to the next in the Duma during discussion of the budget.
Meanwhile, even a minimal increase in federal budget expenditures is possible only in the event that the party actively cooperates with the Government. And that means that modern social-democracy operates already completely differently: The social-democrats are no longer leftists, even if they are in opposition to the ruling regime, and modern party members are prepared to cooperate with it and come to an agreement, supporting public stability at least partially. And in this sense, the Russian social-democrats, first of all, are rightists, or at least centrists, and second of all, are not viable as independent parties, because political associations cannot exist solely on slogans of cooperation with the President and the Government. Then they begin to look too much like a part of the state apparat and to savor of the CPSU. In a word, there are social-democrats in Russian politics, but they are kept a deep secret.
_________________________________________________________________ Protect your PC - get McAfee.com VirusScan Online http://clinic.mcafee.com/clinic/ibuy/campaign.asp?cid=3963