Via JRL.
Argumenty i Fakty August 2, 2006 GENNADI ZYUGANOV: UNITED RUSSIA IS TREADING ON EVERYONE'S TOES An interview with Communist Party leader Gennadi Zyuganov Author: Nikolai Zyatkov [Gennadi Zyuganov: "The pendulum is swinging to the left again. Attitudes are changing - among young people, teachers, scientists. The military, industry, small business, medium-sized business have all shifted to the left. United Russia has been treading on everyone's toes."]
Communist Party (CPRF) leader Gennadi Andreevich Zyuganov gave us this interview the same day that the Russian Party of Life (RPL) and Motherland (Rodina) announced their merger plans.
Question: Has the news of this merger alarmed you?
Gennadi Zyuganov: This new party is like an axe that will be waved around on the left, trying to put pressure on the CPRF. [RPL leader Sergei] Mironov is the president's eyes and ears, and quite often his tongue as well. Motherland is the party of the minor oligarchs. This symbiont will have a lot of money and television airtime. They'll try to create something social-democratic. Semigin's ersatz patriots are being drawn into it as well.
The purpose of this operation is to deceive, once again, those left-wing voters who have become disillusioned with United Russia. Housing rates have risen to over 2,000 rubles a month already; the average pension is 2,500 rubles, and the average wage in the state sector is 3,500 rubles, compared to 6-8,000 rubles in industry. Voters are going to ask United Russia: "Why did you trick us? Your campaign promises never mentioned compulsory car insurance or the monetization of benefits. You never said that housing rates would double or triple." So United Russia wants to go into the next election with some convenient and obedient companions: the "Good Life Motherland Party" and the Liberal Democractic Party of Russia (LDPR). They'll be cajoling and bribing voters. The state's fabulously large gold and currency reserves will be useful for that, and so will the Stabilization Fund. But deceiving voters will become more and more difficult.
Question: So you're not concerned about the CPRF's future?
Gennadi Zyuganov: It'll be a tough fight, but the outcome is predictable, if the fight is fair. The pendulum is swinging to the left again. Attitudes are changing - among young people, teachers, scientists. The military, industry, small business, medium-sized business have all shifted to the left. United Russia has been treading on everyone's toes. Nearly 10 million people have taken part in the protests we have organized against rising prices for housing and utilities.
We have our own factions in 40 regional legislatures. In some of them, up to half the lawmakers are CPRF members.
Question: All the same, there is the impression that although you're a hardline opposition party, you're also a safe and convenient party for the authorities. They're harassing the National Bolshevik Party and Mikhail Kasyanov, but leaving the CPRF alone.
Gennadi Zyuganov: From your lips to Putin's ears! If only that were true. You're looking at a man who's been accused of owning hotels in Cuba and abetting Shamil Basayev. They went as far as printing a brochure with those allegations against me and distributing it nationwide. Apparently, I've also been gambling away the CPRF's money - though I've never set foot in a casino in my life. If I'm so convenient for the authorities, why are they spending so much money on these provocations?
Question: But these aren't major crimes, after all.
Gennadi Zyuganov: I recently wrote to the Prosecutor General again about seven unsolved murders - CPRF committee secretaries and CPRF activists, including Professor Martemyanov, a Duma member. Attacks on our offices, and arson, have become more frequent in recent years - such cases have happened in 20 regions over the last year alone.
Would a "convenient" party be targeted like this? My own financial records have been inspected by the authorities ten times, with a magnifying glass.
Question: What can you offer ordinary citizens, or small business owners? Many people are CPRF sympathizers, but they still approach United Russia if they want a problem solved. It has real power.
Gennadi Zyuganov: I don't condemn people for doing that. They have no choice - they need to survive. But this system will collapse, even if oil prices don't fall. Our country is standing on a million kilometers of oil and gas pipelines, and 70% of the piping is worn out! Industrial equipment and infrastructure is 20 years out of date. And this "revolt" of aging machinery and rusting pipes will be worse than some social protests.
On May 25, 2005, half of Moscow was paralyzed by a power blackout. Forty-three hospitals were left without electricty - only two had their own generators. If something like that can happen in our capital city, what about the rest of the country? And last winter, with its severe cold weather - we survived it by a miracle. Another disaster like that, and any government would fall!
Look at what's happening in the regions: livestock slaughtered, a third of agricultural land covered in weeds. Drug abuse is penetrating every village. At the local level, people are horrified by taxation policies. The Mayor of Orel, elected as a CPRF member, collects ten times more tax revenue than he's allowed to keep for the municipal budget. When [First Deputy Prime Minister Dmitri] Medvedev visited Orel, the Mayor got up and told him: "Mamai the Tatar took only a tenth of each household's income, but you're taking nine-tenths of this city's income. You've sucked us dry and sent the money into the Stabilization Fund, while I'm left with no money for residential infrastructure repairs." Budget revenues should be distributed differently: a third to the federal government, a third to the regional government, and a third for local government.
If millions of people go out into the streets tomorrow, they'll force the authorities to listen to the opposition. Look: in the Ulianov region, the Amur region, and other regions, the start of this year saw a steep rise in housing and utilities rates. The people protested in the streets - respectably, without breaking windows. And the authorities were forced to reduce the rates.
Question: Boris Berezovsky has proposed uniting the left and the right into a unified opposition. Do you think this is feasible?
Gennadi Zyuganov: In what cause? We won't have the Orange plague in Russia. We won't take American money to dance to Kasyanov's tune.
Question: You're aware of the problems of ordinary citizens, and you incite them to protest. They vote for the CPRF - and your party makes it into the Duma. But you're not solving any problems there. So you appear to be using ordinary citizens for your own gain. Can you name any cases where you've actually succeeded in defending the people's interests?
Gennadi Zyuganov: First of all, it's not the CPRF that "incites" people to protest, but the authorities and their policies. Are we responsible for the fact that professors earn 4,000 rubles a month? Have we turned workers out of factories? Are we the ones who set housing rates higher than pensions or state-sector wages? Secondly, as long as our party had the ability to block savage bills in the Duma, such abuses didn't happen. But now we no longer hold that kind of position in the Duma. And why not? Because we're denied coverage in state-controlled media and prevented from explaining our policies to the people.
And now look at what we have done. We've saved the nuclear industry - by demanding special status for the cities where nuclear scientists live. We've saved the Topol-M missile production program. I took it to Putin myself. We prepared a program for supporting the aviation industry and rescuing the machine-building and agricultural machinery industries. Those policies are also on the president's desk.
Actually, the president has never ignored any of my requests to speak. But with his power, of course, it's ten times easier and faster to resolve many questions. I do speak out, but the CPRF's proposals are often shelved.
Question: So the only way you can get things done is by bypassing the Duma and going to the Kremlin?
Gennadi Zyuganov: It's no use trying to get anything done in the Duma. Everyone votes as they're told to vote. In Russia, a great deal has always depended on the head of state. That's how our country is - autocratic by nature.
Question: So, to take that thought further, should Russia have one leader and one party - like the Communist Party of the Soviet Union?
Gennadi Zyuganov: No. The CPSU was a powerful party, and ten times as intelligent as United Russia. United Russia represents the worst aspects of the CPSU. They're greedy, power-hungry, with no ideas of their own... But the state can't stand on one leg for long - especially a leg as flawed as United Russia.
Question: Haven't there been any positive developments?
Gennadi Zyuganov: Yes, there have - if only in words, so far. For example, Putin has started talking about the problem of population decline. In reality, however, it's all much more complicated. And then there are the national projects. But the funding for all of the national projects combined is less than what the state is prepared to give the city of Sochi for the Winter Olympics. The state ought to be spending trillions of rubles on the national projects, not just 170 billion rubles.
The state has started doing more for certain sectors of industry. How is it possible for a country that spans 11 time-zones not to have a developed aviation industry? Every couple of weeks, we hear of another plane or helicopter crash. The president seems to understand all this, and he says that the industry needs to be developed. But who's failing to provide the money? Petrodollars are pouring in. And Putin's been very lucky with the weather: no droughts at all during his years in power, and only one unusually cold winter.
Question: Will you run for president in 2008?
Gennadi Zyuganov: As the leader of the largest party, it's my duty to be ready to do so. But the decision will be made by the party congress. You'll find out, all in good time.
Translated by Elena Leonova
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