Why did the Communists Loose?
Russia
Last month David Mandel explained why Boris
Yeltsin won Russia's Presidential election.
This month Andrei Kolganov and
Alexander Buzgalin explain why Genady
Zyuganov lost. The Communist Party candidate failed to mobilise the considerable unrest which exists in the "new Russia."
THE KPRF'S FIRST FAILURE CAN BE SEEN AS stemming from the "congenital" defects of this organisation. There was no reason to hope that the presidential elections of 1996 would feature a large incidence of protest voting against the regime. The stabilisation of the economic situation, though partial, weak and unsound based, was nevertheless a fact; the rate at which the crisis phenomena were unfolding had slowed dramatically. The regime had not allowed itself any crude political excesses during the run-up to the elections. What was involved would not be protest, but the choice of a political line. Here, Zyuganov was already doomed to defeat long before the elections. The crucial point came when he won the fight for the post of leader of the KPRF and began to a large extent to determine the party's political and ideological face. Follow the leader
Why are we going back to the events of this time? For the simple reason that, once the KPRF had taken shape as a new political force, its public face in large measure began to be decided not by the image of the party leaders, but by the composition and moods of the ranks. But initially, the question of the make-up of this mass of rank and file members - ot who among the defenders of the communist idea would stand beneath the banners of the new organisation - depended on the composition of the leadership and on the slogans which these leaders advanced.
The new KPRF retained the organisational and political dogmatism of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. At the same time, the economic sections of its program underwent a noticeable evolution; private property and the market were accepted. The Party also began using a good deal of great-power/patriotic rhetoric. This mixture was perfect for attracting to the banner of the KPRF the most steadfast - and most conservative, or more accurately, conformist - sections of the membership of the old party. For the new Communist Party, these people provided a substantial mass base. The fight to modernise the Communist Party was not lost: no such struggle ever took place. The leaders of the new KPRF effectively renounced the struggle to establish a 20 International Viewpoint modern party, capable in the future of rallying the citizens of Russia.
With its tight internal ideological discipline, refusal to condemn Stalinism, and obvious antagonism to Khrushchev's "thaw" and Gorbachev's perestroika, the KPRF appeared to voters as a party that would fight for social justice using the same that had already once led to the imposing of a totalitarian bureaucratic regime. Some voters found this attractive, but many were frightened off. Slaming the door
While winning a tactical victory, forming a strong opposition party and establishing the largest fraction in the State Duma, the leaders of the KPRF suffered a strategic defeat. They had blocked themselves off from any progress along the road might have led to their winning the confidence of the bulk of Russian society.
With its 500,000 members, the KPRF was the largest political party in Russia. But as the election campaign showed, the party's bureaucratism, together with its orientation toward "people of the past" and pragmaticminded petty bureaucrats dissatisfied with Yeltsin, made it a weak organisation, incapable of devising any effective response to the propaganda and "dirty tricks" of the authorities. In circumstances where the mass media were monopolised by Yeltsin, the idea of carrying on agitation "from door to door" was not in itself a bad one, but the members of the KPRF were unable to implement it in practice. They had no idea of how to perform such work, and could not find a road to people's hearts - except for the hearts of people already inclined to support Zyuganov.
The experience of the elections showed that
Zyuganov does not have anything even remotely resembling a "Lenin Guard". The KPRF's strengths, including its massive size and the presence within its membership of tested, experienced cadres from the
Soviet Communist Party, were turned into weaknesses. Disciplined rank and file "party warriors" turned out to be of use in the conditions of a multi-party system marked by struggle between various ideologies and interests. Meanwhile, the experienced cadres had experience only of bureaucratic kowtowing, not of political propaganda work. The [un]Popular and patriotic bloc
A second failure was linked directly to the first. The KPRF chose a tactical line that was fundamentally unable to attract new voters. As a result, Zyuganov's supporters were limited mainly to the paternalist bureaucracy and to sections of workers who felt nostalgia for the strong USSR and real socialism". From the political point of view it was this problem that was most important.
The KPRF did practically nothing to overcome this problem during the campaign for the 1995 State Duma elections, or during the presidential election campaign of 1996 The approach used in forming a popularpatriotic bloc was mistaken; the people were represented in it were all from the same conservative-Communist and nationalist groups. In order to broaden the electoral base of the bloc by drawing in vacillating groups of electors, it would have made sense to try to draw in another socialist force, more democratic, more modern, and more consistently socialist than the KPRF. Only in this way would it have been possible to attract the votes of people who would not vote for the KPRF, the Russian Communist Workers Party or the nationalists, and to establish a humanistic and democratic counterweight to the excessively rigid, dogmatic and nationalist KPRF, making the bloc as a whole acceptable to the majority of the electorate.
Alongside Zyuganov (and criticising him!) it was necessary to have a leader of the new generation - a consistent democrat and socialist without links either to the Communist Party of the Soviet Union or to the nomenklatura, and without nostalgia for the past. It would have been even better if efforts Andrei Kolganov is a Doctor of Economic Sciences and a senior research associate at Moscow State University. Alexander Buzgalin is a Doctor of Economic Sciences and a professor at Moscow State University.
had been made long before the elections to begin developing such a leader — a person who in his or her character, actions and life could not have been suspected of nostalgia for Stalinism and threatening repression, nor, on the other hand, of irresolution, spinelessness or "intelligentsia elitism". Such a person, at the head of a bloc of the type described, could have attracted the votes of many of the waverers, while the KPRF's nostalgic electorate would not have had anywhere else to turn.
It can be objected that no such leader, party or movement has appeared on the Russian political scene. That is quite true, and here we have one of the key problems of the left in Russia today. There is a democratic socialist tendency a today; this was shown in the parliamentary elections of 1995, when even such semi-socialists with a democratic tinge as Svyatoslav Fyodorov's Party of Workers' Self-Management and a number of smaller blocs identifying themselves as social democratic received 5% of the total vote. Russia is home to a multitude of small political groups (even parties) and ideological clubs espousing democratic socialist ideas. This current also has supporters within the KPRF, though they do not present their ideas openly (within the KPRF this is quite impossible).
What would be required for these currents, tendencies and groups to form a large, influential organisation? No party in modern-day Russia rests solely on a politicoideological base. Beneath them must lie particular social corporations, alreadyestablished institutional structures, or at least, major material and organisational resources. The KPRF, the Agrarian Party, Our Home is Russia, and the Liberal Democratic Party all demonstrate this principle in their own way.
In Russia today, modern democratic communist and socialist ideas are not strong enough to independently attract the material and organisational resources needed to establish an influential organisation. This has to be acknowledged quite definitely. Without these resources the mosaic of left groups, grouplets and associations of the intelligentsia has no chance of consolidating itself into anything durable and effective, capable of attracting the real political support of a significant part of the population. The only possibility is to rest on the organisational and technical support of the forces that would have an interest in the creation of a strong, independent left. Labour Party?
One attempt of this type has been made. This was the labourist project, a plan to establish a left party resting on the most radical layer of activists of the trade union movement. But the organisational and political weakness of the left activists themselves, running up against the opposition of the trade union hierarchs and the passivity of the trade union ranks, prevented this plan from coming to fruition. Another possibility would have had the KPRF or organisations collaborating with it giving direct or indirect support to the left socialist current. There are many ways in which this could occur... But the KPRF, despite its own best interests, does not want such an ally.
The reasons are clear enough: fears that the presence of such a party would tend to undermine the hegemony of the KPRF in the opposition movement. However, it is clear enough that a democratic socialist party would not be able to act as a real rival vying with the KPRF for political influence, since it
Bloa idbath would inevitably be smaller, organisationally weaker, and more unstable, while its supporters would not submit as readily to organisational mobilisation. So far, there is nothing to suggest that if such a democratic socialist party existed, a massive social. movement would line up behind it.
Of course, if Russia possessed mass labour, trade union, environmental and other such movements, and if the leaders of the KPKF were fighting not for a place on the political scene, but for policy changes in the interests of the majority of the population, their choice might have been different. But this would require different objective conditions, and the KPRF itself would have to be a different party - more open, and oriented to the future instead of the past. Lessons for the Future
Could communists and socialists win a national election in present-day Russia, given an optimal choice of campaign strategy and tactics? The answer has to be no, since there has not been and is not an organised mass movement of workers and other oppressed layers, seeking to take power into their hands and capable of doing so. Without this, a victory for the left and real changes in the country's socio-economic, political and cultural life are impossible. In the absence of such an organised mass movement, power cannot be torn from the hands of the powerful clan-corporative structures that have already arisen in Russia. A great deal of patient, stubborn work remains before a genuinely
Russia * democratic, strong and constructive socialist opposition movement of the oppressed comes into being in Russia.
More than just votes
Zyuganov's main error lay in reducing the political struggle to an attempt to draw over to his side a few more voters than his opponent. Even success in such an attempt would not represent real political victory, since Zyuganov was not backed by a massive, organised popular movement, capable of changing the present system of power. Instead of seeking electoral victory at any price, it would make more sense for the KPRF leaders to concern themselves with fostering the growth of such a movement, since this is the only thing able to guarantee that a political course different from that of Yeltsin can actually be implemented. Without such a movement, any electoral success is liable to turn into a bitter defeat.
Nevertheless, a correct choice of strategy and tactics, alternative structures and activities for the KPRF, and a different bloc with a different leader could have saved the KPRF and the left as a whole from suffering a moral as well as a political defeat. (Today, such a situation of defeat exists in Russia, and the victim is not so much the KPRF as Russian society. The defeat of Zyuganov may yet be followed by the sweeping away of the last fragments of leftism in Russia's material and intellectual life - but more on this later). If the KPRF had not made grave errors, the defeat of the left candidate might have been very dubious, Yeltsin's majority insignificant, and the likelihood that rightists would have been forced to compromise with the left correspondingly great.
But these are all speculations. As has been explained, we leftists in Russia find ourselves in a difficult and dangerous situation. Moreover, the present model of the KPRF threatens to have a strong negative effect as the political situation inevitably worsens.
October 1996 #281 21
* Russia
Opposition or integration?
Will the opposition organise mass political campaigns and street protest actions? Will the KPRF and its allies use the levers provided by the parliament for exerting pressure on the president, or will they, on the contrary, seek a compromise in the interests of their self-preservation?
Despite the fact that the authorities are now whipping up a campaign of selfadulation and of disdain for all leftists, the forces of the opposition nevertheless remain very large. The possession by the KPRF of the largest fraction in the parliament and the
40% of votes given to Zyuganov, are not a joke. As the crisis grows more acute, it will be possible, despite the electoral defeat, to use these resources effectively to organise a new long-term campaign to resurrect the labour and mass democratic movement; to defend the interests of workers; and to avert the danger of authoritarianism and of a "witch-hunt".
For this, however, it will be essential for the KPRF to rethink its strategy and tactics, to analyse its mistakes, and to undertake a radical renewal of its model of organisation and activity. The experience of the past forces us to doubt the ability of the present KPRF leadership to conduct such a self-
Much more likely is the following: the defeat will be put down to manipulation of the results (though this was hardly the decisive factor and to the shameless misuse by the regime of the mass media (this cannot of course be left out of account, but the question remains: why were the leftists unable to take effective counter-measures? Why did the supporters of the KPRF include so few journalists, writers and so on who were willing to risk their well-being for the sake of victory? Why were the media organs of the left so weak and limited in their influence? Questions, questions...).
In these circumstances, what is most likely is a diffusion and gradual "creeping" of various KPRF leaders and sympathisers, especially at the regional level, into the structures of power (if, of course, the Yeltsinites have the sense not to drive them away). Meanwhile, the KPRF's base-level organisations will continue dying off, especially if the Yeltsinites have the sense to smother them quietly, instead of bludgeoning them to death in public. Stalinists or radicals?
Under these conditions, the most steadfast and active party organisations will be the most radical, rigid and old-fashioned bodies of the Stalinist type. The left-wing intelligentsia, which was mildly drawn to Zyuganov six months ago and became mildly frightened of him during the election period, is now seriously alarmed by the defeat and by the probable (though not inevitable) witch-hunt. These people will now calm down and to wait for someone else to prepare the conditions for a new "thaw"
What can democratic leftists do in these circumstances?
Above all else, they should not lower 22 International Viewpoint their hands and cease serious day-to-day work. Throughout the years of "reform" we have maintained, and will continue to maintain, that the only left force that will have a chance of success in Russia will be a qualitatively new socialist movement, arising powerful mass democratic organisations of workers and citizens. This new socialist movement will grow on the basis of the radicalisation of these popular movements, transforming them from lotions for the ulcers of capitalism into weapons of organised and determined democratic struggle by workers against the power of corporate capital and of the corrupt bureaucracy. It is necessary to work long and hard for this goal.
This is even more important for the reason that the present defeat is not altogether tragic, or at least, not yet. With an organisation like the KPRF, and a leader like Zyuganov, 40% of the votes is not such a bad result. The socio-economic situation in Russia will not improve in the near future. The political situation is dangerous, and the threat of authoritarianism, of Lebed-style Bonapartism or of something in the same spirit, is dire. We already have a certain experience of work, and we know what lies ahead: new strikes and worker protests, new initiatives in the spreading of left-wing ideas, new political and theoretical debates, and new efforts to set one foot before the other in the process of creating a consistently democratic socialist movement in Russia.
And of course, the most important consideration of all. For leftists in Russia, the immediate future will be difficult. We are not afraid of this prospect. But in a time of tests and trials for all of us, solidarity, collaboration and internationalism are especially important. When we are united, we are invincible. *
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