RUSSIA: The elections, the crisis of the CP and the new left
BY BORIS KAGARLITSKY
While declaiming in ritual fashion about the miseries of the population, the KPRF leaders have no inclination to summon anyone to struggle. Instead of socialism, they speak of “great-power patriotism”, and view Russia's main problem as the excessive number of Jews among the country's capitalist oligarchs. This is all strikingly reminiscent of fascist propaganda.
--- Actually, the Jew angle is rather marginal, though Jew-bating does take place. ---
Unfortunately for these people, by the middle of Putin's first term in office his team had decided to recast the political landscape. The new people who had taken over the Kremlin following the departure of Boris Yeltsin were experiencing acute frustration. Several years had gone by, and they had not managed to steal anything of consequence. The time had come for a redistribution of property.
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There was, of course, no question of nationalising property or of handing it over to the population. Nevertheless, the squabbling between the oligarchs of the first and second waves was destabilising the political space.
--- Where is this "second wave of oligarchs?" I would like some names. Kag assumes a priori that the Yukos affair is about redistribution of capital to people close to Putin. We will see what happens to the 44% of frozen Yukos shares. Personally, I think they're going to go to the state. Yukos will be an oil Gazprom.
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Society moving left Russian society is moving to the left, as is shown both by surveys of public opinion and by the growing print-runs for translations of radical texts, from the works of Noam Chomsky and Naomi Klein to those of Herbert Marcuse and Georgy Lukacs.
--- Yawn. Wow. Noam Chomsky. If Russian society is "moving to the left" in this sense, where are the books by RUSSIAN AUTHORS? Kagarlitsky doesn't write books for a Russian audience himself, because nobody in Russia will read them. Russian leftists are almost always nationalists and usually not democrats, not the kind of left-of-the-mind Kagarlitsky seems very much to want to exist. ---
Left-wing parties in Europe and Latin America find most of their support in large industrial cities and in university centres, --- I.e. priviliged academics.
--- while the KPRF receives most of its backing in the countryside and in small towns. --- I.e. poor people.
--- The international left is traditionally strong among young people, --- Who are much more likely to join the National Bolshevik Party. ---
while the KPRF puts its stake on pensioners.
--- I.e. poor people. ----
Despite the spread of left-wing moods among young people, and especially students, finding young people to fill the ranks of the KPRF remains an unsolved problem, since joining the party is something that young leftists simply will not do. ---- Most new members of the KPRF are under 40; a third are under 30. ---
Ideologically committed leftists can be found almost anywhere — in the environmental movement, in human rights organisations, and in Trotskyist groups, but not in the KPRF. --- "Almost anywhere"? These groups are miniscule. ---
In some voters, the KPRF arouses memories of Stalinist repression, while other people are alienated by the party's nationalist rhetoric.
--- The nationalist rhetoric attracts far more than it alienates. --- For large numbers, the KPRF is too moderate, and most importantly, ineffectual. --- True. That's why KPRF votes switched to Rodina. Kag for some reason fails to mention the most striking recent phenomenon in Russian politics. ---
All the same, there is cause for optimism. The present crisis is opening up prospects for the formation of a new left movement, free of nationalist demagogy, cowardice and provincialism. These opportunities, of course, will only be exploited if the left devotes less attention to pseudo-parliamentary scheming and more to genuine work among its social base.
--- Kag ends practically every other article with some variant of this final paragraph.
In my opinion, "a new left movement, free of nationalist demagogy, cowardice and provincialism" is a pipe dream. The non-nationalist Russian left is microscopic. As a matter of fact, internationalist rhetoric reminds people of Gorbachev's hated "New Thinking," which didn't work out very well.
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