Just five years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (CPRF) controls more than one-third of the seats in Russia's parliament, enjoys the strongest organizational network in the country, and anticipates a successful run by its leader, Gennady Andreyevich Zyuganov, in the country s upcoming presidential election. Zyuganov can claim much of the creditfor this state of affairs. He has skillfully exploited the population s widespread fear, confusion, and resentment of government policies and its nostalgia for the orderly, albeit oppressive, Soviet welfare state. At the same time, Zyuganov has assured Western leaders that the reincarnation of a totalitarian Soviet Union is "not on the agenda" and that he inten ds to foster international stability. The exigencies of appealing to both a domestic and a foreign audience and the studied ambiguities characteristic of a politician make it difficult to determine what direction Zyuganov might take as president. Even if he fails to win the presidency, however, he will remain a leading figure in Russia s political arena and a brake on the progress of economic reform and democracy.
Zyuganov s Personal Profile Gennady Andreyevich Zyuganov, a former functionary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), is a competent and vigorous politician, although lacking in charisma. The son of schoolteachers, he was born in 1944 in Orel, a city in the agricultural heartland of central Russia.
Zyuganov graduated from the Orel Pedagogical Institute, where he majored in mathematics and physics. He reminisced that "at the institute, I was the captain of the department Quick Wits team . . . But it is hard to remain a jester these days - there is too much misfortune."1
After graduation, he taught math, physical education, and military training at the institute. One of the students was his future wife, Nadezhda.
During his military service, Lieutenant Zyuganov was the deputy commander of an antinuclear and chemical intelligence platoon and, in 1966, joined the CPSU. In 1983 he became head of the propaganda department of the CPSU Central Committee, and in 1989 he rose to membership in the party s ruling Politburo.
Zyuganov subsequently helped to found the Communist Party of Russia, which broke away from the CPSU, opposing General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev s reform policies. In 1990 he became a secretary in the Central Committee of the new party. Zyuganov did not participate in the 1991 coup attempt against Gorbachev,however.
After the Soviet Union's collapse, Zyuganov became cochairman of the National Salvation Front, an umbrella organization for several nationalist and Communist groups opposed to the government of President Boris Yeltsin. On February 13, 1993, Zyuganov pr esided over the founding congress of the CPRF and became chairman of its Central Executive Committee. During the abortive putsch against Yeltsin in the autumn of 1993, Zyuganov at first supported the antigovernment forces but then demanded an end to the bloodshed. In the parliamentary elections of December 1993, Zyuganov won a seat in the State Duma on the CPRF list.
The CPRF is now the largest and mot disciplined political party in Russia, with about 600,000 members. Zyuganov travels around the country frequently to nourish the party s grassroots and expand its base beyond the pensioners who form the backbone of it s support.
In 1995 Zyuganov received a Ph.D. from Moscow State University. His dissertation, entitled "The Main Tendencies and Mechanisms of Social-Political Changes in Modern Russia," argued, inter alia, that socialism had strengthened Russia and that the country s current pro-Western policy was politically, economically, and morally disastrous. Zyuganov s prescription was a nationaldoctrine based on a conciliar tradition (government by council) and self-sufficiency.2
Zyuganov's socialist and nationalist outlook is tinged with anti-Semitism. During a CPRF plenum, for example, he castigated the International Monetary Fund and "all those Friedmans, Hayeks, and Sachses and other pillars of monetarism" for allegedly subjugating Russia s economy to their interests.3 Nevertheless, Zyuganov moves comfortably in capitalist circles, as exemplified during his attendance at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, in January 1996. He has sought with some success to al lay Western anxieties about his political agenda, and in 1994 he visited the United States for the first time.
Zyuganov boasts that he has sports rankings in track and field, the military triathlon, skiing . . . I wrote a paper on the theory of games . . . I presented tasks that, it appeared, had no solution. Even highbrow chess layers despaired."4
Zyuganov and his wife, who is an engineer at a watch factory, have a son, a daughter, and two grandchildren. Officially an atheist in the Communist mold, Zyuganov told a reporter that "to carry goodness and brotherhood in your heart, it is not necessary to go to church." He added that in my mind, Jesus was the first Communist. . . . Both Christ and the Communists [preached] justice in earthly life . . . 5
During the same interview, Zyuganov revealed that his income consists of his Duma salary and some small book royalties.6 With regard to his drinking habits, I am not against a goblet of good wine or a glass of vodka. . . .I do not permit myself more than three glasses. Someone needs to be sober among today's politicians.7
The Communist Party's Domestic Agenda
The CPRF program, adopted at its third congress on January 21, 1995, and its election platform, published in the newspaper Sovetskaya Rossiya on August 31, set forth the party s policies. The CPRF sports the motto "Labor, People s Power, Socialism, Russia!" and such campaign slogans as "For Our Soviet Motherland!"8
According to the election platform, as long as the country lives under . . . presidential autocracy . . . it would be impossible to fully implement the program of Communists and other left-wing and patriotic forces, even if they . . . win a parliamentary majority. Success at the p arliamentary elections will bear fruit only if it is consolidated by victory at the presidential elections. Proceeding from this premise, we will implement our program in two stages.9
On the domestic side, the first stage entails legislation to reinstate Soviet-style social welfare benefits; regulate and reduce the prices of basic necessities; renationalize land and natural resources, along with major industrial, transportation, and communications sectors; and adopt a military doctrine that enhances national security and bans the use of the armed forces against the population. The program states further that "in principle, the Communists are against the institution of uncontrolled presidential rule . . . and they advocate its abolition . . .But the patriotic forces, during a certain transition period, will exercise . . . presidential powers . . ."10
According to the program, the new "patriotic" president will commit himself to implementing "the following urgent measures": A reform of taxation, credit, and customs policies and the establishment of direct state regulation of the economy with a view to providing financial and other incentives to domestic industries and blocking the drain of financial and material resources abroad; the provision of minimum wages and pensions at subsistence level, along with social supports for vulnerable elements of th e population and the elimination of unemployment; suppression of organized crime and gangsterism and harsh punishment for corruption and embezzlement; restoration of "people s control" of banking and other financial enterprises; "an end to the plundering of state and national property under the guise of privatization"; imposition of a state monopoly on foreign trade in natural resources and other strategically important commodities; protection of the country s technology and food resources by supporting s cientific and technical enterprises and preventing the sale or plundering of Russian land; and support of the peasantry by ensuring parity in the prices of industrial and agricultural goods.
According to the electoral program, enactment of the above mentioned measures will mark the completion of the transition period and will lead to the convening of a constitutional assembly. During an interview with Moskovskiye novosti on October 18, 1995, Zyuganov stated that "we will propose . . . a constitution of Soviet democracy . . . of people s power [narodovlastiye]."
Judging by his speeches to the party faithful about the evils of capitalism, Western cultural influences, and excessive privatization and by the retention of the traditional hammer and sickle emblem, Zyuganov seriously intends to reintroduce some Soviet- era policies and practices. In speeches to non-party audiences, however, he avoids arxist-Leninist lingo and preaches traditional Russian nationalism.
Immediately after the parliamentary elections, Zyuganov declared that "it is impossible to continue this policy [of market reforms]."11 On the key question of private property, he stated on Russian TV that one of the main causes for the collapse of the Soviet Union was that everything had come to belong to the state. . . .to issue a granny with two bags of grain, it was necessary to ring the district executive committee. We are in favor of finding the c orrect proportion between state, collective, and shared and private forms of ownership . . . 12
Zyuganov has stated that successfully privatized enterprises should receive encouragement and support from the government, while those controlled by corrupt or criminal elements should be renationalized. He also advocates incentives for foreign investment. A lingering question, however, is how he would fund his economic subsidy and social welfare programs.
Communist Foreign Policy Positions The CPRF's election program portrays a direct link between the domestic and foreign policy spheres: The foreign political roots of our misfortunes lie in the country s subordination to the West s interests, the illegal and violent dismemberment of the Soviet Union, and the loss of strategic allies. Consequently, [our] paramount interest . . . is t o recreate the union state [and] erect barriers to protect [against] the importation of nuclear waste, commercial refuse, "dirty" money, infectious diseases, arms, and drugs . . ."13
Zyuganov calls for renunciation of the Belovezhskaya Forest accords, in which Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine agreed in December 1991 to dissolve the Soviet Union. He declares that "the Communist Party s priority . . . is to restore the single united st ate: stage by stage, peacefully and voluntarily. The peoples of the former USSR are ready for this."14 He calls the integration of the former Soviet republics "inevitable" and proposes a series of referenda to bring it about.15 Zyuganov also vows to p rotect the 25 million ethnic Russians now living in the "Near Abroad" (the former Soviet republics).
Zyuganov's nationalism leads him to espouse a new "ideology of patriotism" to reflect Russia s "special type of civilization" and unique value system.16 In a New York Times op-ed piece on February 21, 1996, Zyuganov wrote that "our foreign policy priority would be to maintain continuity with the foreign policies of pre-revolutionary Russia and the Soviet Union. We would seek to restore our state s unique role as the pivot and fulcrum of a Eurasian continental bloc - and its consequent role as a necessary balance between East and West."17
Zyuganov accuses the Yeltsin regime of betraying the country by bowing to the dictates of the U.S. State Department and the G-7 group of leading industrialized countries and generally playing "junior partner" to the West.
Zyuganov harshly opposes plans to enlarge NATO. In his op-ed piece, he wrote that "we take an extremely negative view of plans to expand NATO into Eastern Europe, up to Russia s border, and we regard the entry of NATO troops into the former Yugoslavia as the first step toward carrying out those dangerous plans. . . ." He has also warned that the expansion of NATO would destroy any hope of the Duma s ratifying START II.
Zyuganov as a Presidential Contender
As head of the largest party in parliament, Zyuganov has donned the mantle of leader of the opposition and is a leading candidate in the upcoming presidential election. His critiques of the Yeltsin government for "stealing" Russia s resources through pri vatization, launching the "bloody civil war in Chechnya," and acquiescing inalleged Western plans to colonize Russia economically strike responsive chords among the electorate.18 Despite some nasty personal swipes at Yeltsin (characterizing him, for examp le, as an ailing alcoholic prone to "stumbling and accidentally pushing the nuclear button"), Zyuganov s behavior on the campaign trail is usually restrained.19
During the 1995 parliamentary election race, Zyuganov revealed a consummate skill in catering to his listeners. As a U.S. reporter wrote, when . . . Zyuganov . . . visits "Larry King Live" and other Western venues, he . . . talks like a social democrat. . . .In Moscow and in his triumphant campaign trips in the provinces, however, he relies on a politics of bitterness and revenge. The heart of Zyuganov s appeal is a general sense that a great people has been humiliated by a conspiracy of domestic betrayers (Yeltsin and Mikhail Gorbachev, among others) and outside "agents of influence" (the CIA, NATO, and George Soros, among other s).20
Zyuganov's remarks on the stump lso exploit his audiences selective memories. For example, as a Western observer has noted, "many Russians have no trouble remembering that six years ago the price of meat was two rubles a kilo but have forgotten that th ere was no meat."21
Like campaigners elsewhere, Zyuganov promises something for everybody: jobs for the workers; land for the peasants; arms for the military; subsidies for the poor, elderly, and infirm; affordable medical services for the sick; respect for the intellectuals; and profits for businessmen. He also professes a belief in a multiparty system, private property, and freedom of speech, the press, and religion. Avoiding the "C" word (communism), he runs on his party s motto of socialism.
Even if Zyuganov changes his tune after winning the presidency or is coopted by unrepentant Communists in his party, Russia probably will not revert to a replica of the Soviet Union. Privatization has spawned a corporate and commercial class with vested interests in a market economy that would vigorously resist a return to Soviet-style socialism. Moreover, democracy has sunk some roots into Russian soil, and the media have proved willing and able to challenge the government.
In general, Zyuganov s campaign speeches are a softer version of what the CPRF program contains. Nevertheless, it is difficult to avoid the impression that he is a potentially formidable foe of the democratic reform movement in Russia. The Communists a nd nationalists in the Duma constitute a "red-brown" coalition that already has obliged Yeltsin to dismiss prominent reformists from his cabinet. If Zyuganov wishes to steal the thunder of ultranationalist Vladimir Zhirinovsky and other antidemocratic pr esidential contenders, he will have to maintain a hardline campaign.
The Communist Party s name recognition is a boon to Zyuganov's presidential aspirations. Nevertheless, the candidate must appeal simultaneously to Russian voters who are nostalgic for the Soviet Union and to those who regard a neo-Communist government a s the best vehicle for cushioning the shocks of economic and political reform and for restoring law and order without reverting to the excesses of a police state. In addition, he must win over Russian citizens who were willing to install Communists in th e toothless parliament (often as a protest vote against Yeltsin s government) but hesitate to entrust them with the power of the presidency.
Prospects
Gennady Zyuganov has been remarkably successful in projecting an image of a "new" Communist, a flexible and pragmatic politician who is more interested in forming alliances with other parties in the Duma than in subverting them. Moreover, as a New York Times reporter has pointed out, it is hard to argue with success, and in five short years, Mr. Zyuganov . . . has succeeded in taking a moribund, dishonest, and uniformly despised political movement and turning it into the most popular party in Russia. . . .22
The Communists won their first free election in the December 1995 balloting for parliament. The real test of Zyuganov's mettle, however, will come with the presidential election.
The most likely policies that a President Zyuganov would follow include a sharp curtailment of privatization, the re-nationalization of key industries in the energy and transportation sectors and the military-industrial complex, the reinstitution of Soviet-style social welfare programs, at least a partial reintegration of the Soviet Union in the economic sphere, the resumption of a tough posture toward the United States, the strengthening of the Russian military as a bulwark of the new government and of n ational security, and the reforging of links with important Soviet allies through such measures as weapons sales. An industrial policy of state investment and an import substitution policy with high tariffs are also highly probable. The various measures outlined above would not be peculiar to a Communist-led regime, however; another successful presidential candidate might initiate similar policies.
The question remains whether Zyuganov is committed to social democracy or whether he is cleverly using populist rhetoric to cloak a doctrinaire Communist agenda. Even if he deems a return to totalitarianism undesirable or unrealizable, his orientation s eems quite remote from that of contemporary West European Social Democrats. It is also noteworthy that Zyuganov is not the undisputed leader of the faction-ridden CPRF and may be vulnerable to reactionaries in the ranks who want to reduce him to a figure head or depose him.
The bottom line on post-election prospects for Russia in the event of a Zyuganov victory has been aptly summarized by Igor Klyamkin, one of the nation s top pollsters and head of the Foundation for Public Opinion: "Zyuganov is flexible, modern, and pragmatic. He understands his electorate and he understands Russia. He is a realist, and realistic Communists are new to this country. What he would be like as a leader, however, nobody can say."23
Notes
1. Sovetskaya Rossiya, September 16, 1995, 5.
2. Interfax, April 19, 1995.
3. Sovetskaya Rossiya, September 19, 1995.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.
6. Among his writings is a compilation of essays and speeches entitled Derzhava (Great Power) and a book, Rossiya I Sovremennii Mir (Russia and the Contem- porary World).
7. Ibid.
8. See, for example, the party's advertisement in Pravda Rossii, December 7, 1995.
9. Sovetskaya Rossiya, August 31, 1995.
10. Ibid.
11. Reuters, December 19, 1995.
12. Russian television, November 30, 1995. 13. Sovetskaya Rossiya, August 31, 1995.
14. Interfax, November 6, 1995.
15. Ibid., November 28, 1995.
16. Cited by Reuters, December 14, 1995.
17. New York Times, February 21, 1996.
18. Washington Times, February 16, 1996, p.A16.
19. UPI, Moscow, December 6, 1995.
20. David Remnick, "Restoration Tragedy," New Yorker, December 18,1995.
21. Ibid.
22. Michael Specter, "Russia s Political Miracle: A Red Comeback," New York Times, November 8, 1995.
23. Ibid.