Zyuganov Censured by Comrades over Ties with Oligarchs and Clergy
A group of former Communist Party members have blasted their ex-leader
Gennady Zyuganov for failing to lead the recent wave of street protests
and for 'opportunistic' ties with capitalists and the church.
The official rebuke was signed by a group of former MPs, including a
91-year old former member of the Central Committee of CPSU, Yegor
Ligachev. The letter said that the protest rallies that took place after
the last parliamentary and presidential elections gave the leftists an
opportunity to increase their popularity but this opportunity was
shamefully missed.
The group behind the letter blamed the Communist Party leadership and its
head Gennady Zyuganovfor this, saying current party policy lacks
resolution and often resorts to opportunism and the approval of the
Russian authorities, who the die-hard communists referred to as the
“bourgeois regime”. Zyuganov’s critics claim he betrayed the core
communist ideology, replacing materialism with idealism and religious
dogmas, and the proletariat’s internationalism with bourgeois nationalism.
The letter also blasted the Communist Party for giving parliamentary seats
won in the elections to representatives of oligarchic capital and party
bureaucrats, instead of giving a chance to workers, peasants and union
leaders.
The letter then says the blunders led to a fall of the number of Communist
Party members from 540,000 in 1993 to 156,000 today.
The authors then suggest holding a new congress of the same Communist
Party members who founded the KPRF in 1993 and develop a completely new
concept of party development.
KPRF officials dismissed the accusations and compared the critics with the
followers of Leon Trotsky. They said the wave of protests against the
alleged elections violations was started by the communists who constantly
uncovered these violations and demanded justice. However, KPRF cannot
formally head the opposition as it still includes a lot of staunch
anti-communists, they added. As for the accusations of ties with
oligarchs, KPRF claims that though there are certain “wealthy pensioners”
among Communist MPs, they by no means act on the orders of capitalists and
therefore should be recognized as true communists.
The KPRF went on to claim that the letter was a trick by their enemies
aimed at weakening the party in view of the universal elections day on
October 14 – the day when municipal and gubernatorial elections will be
held in all 17 Russian regions. “Before every poll people appear who
discredit our candidates, and I do not think that they do it for free,”
KPRF’s top official Sergey Obukhov said in a press interview.
Another top communist, Vladimir Nikitin, claimed that critics think in
categories of the 19th and 20th centuries. “The epoch of Pisces is over
and the epoch of Aquarius has started and this means that a global shift
of ideology is near,” Nikitin said.
http://rt.com/politics/chided-comrades-ties-oligarchs-081/
Received from Irina Malenko
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