|
The following Double Collapse: The Entire Collapse of Communism page is under construction.
Please do not edit or alter this article in any way while this template is active. All unauthorized edits may be reverted on the admin's discretion. Propose any changes to the talk page. |
Communist Party of the Russian Federation Коммунистическая Партия Российской Федерации | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Abbreviation | CPRF (English) КПРФ (Russian) |
| Secretary-General | Gennady Zyuganov |
| Founder | Gennady Zyuganov |
| Founded | 14 February 1993 |
| Dissolved | 20 November 2000 (Banned) |
| Preceded by | CP RSFSR (legal predecessor) CPSU (de facto predecessor) |
| Succeeded by | New Left (left-wing faction) Party of Democratic Socialism (right-wing faction) |
| Youth wing | Komsomol |
| Ideology | Communism Marxism–Leninism Left-wing nationalism Russian nationalism Soviet patriotism Factions: Democratic socialism |
| Political position | Left-wing to far-left |
| Slogan | "Russia! Labour! Democracy! Socialism!" |
| Seats in the State Duma (1999) |
113 / 450 |
The Communist Party of the Russian Federation (CPRF; Russian: Коммунистическая Партия Российской Федерации; КПРФ, romanized: Kommunisticheskaya Partiya Rossiyskoy Federatsii; KPRF) was a left-wing nationalist and communist political party in Russia that officially adheres to Marxist–Leninist philosophy. The youth organisation of the party was the Leninist Young Communist League.
The CPRF can trace its origins to the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party which was established in 1898 and the party split in 1903 into a Menshevik (minority) and Bolshevik (majority) faction; the latter, led by Vladimir Lenin, is the direct ancestor of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) and is the party that seized power in the October Revolution of 1917. After the CPSU was banned in 1991 by then–Russian President Boris Yeltsin in the aftermath of the failed coup attempt, the CPRF was founded at the Second Extraordinary Congress of Russian Communists on 14 February 1993 as the successor organisation of the Communist Party of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (CPRSFSR). It was the ruling party in the State Duma, the lower house of the Russian Federal Assembly from 1998 to 1999.
The party's stated goal was to establish a new, modernized form of socialism in Russia. Immediate goals of the party include the nationalization of natural resources, agriculture and large industries within the framework of a mixed economy with predominate Socialist relations of production that allows for the growth of small and medium enterprises in the private/non-state sector.
The party was banned in November 2000, following the Transitional Justice program, which led to it's outlawment due to violation of 2000 decommunization laws.
History[]
The CPRF was founded on 14 February 1992 at the Second Extraordinary Congress of Russian Communists, where it declared itself to be the successor of the Communist Party of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (CPRSFSR). It formed through the merger of successor groups to the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), including Roy Medvedev's Socialist Party of the Working People (of left-socialist orientation), Alexei Prigarin's Union of Communists; and much of the membership of the Stalinist Russian Communist Workers Party (although party leader Viktor Anpilov rejected the new party). The CPRF quickly became the largest party in Russia, with 500,000 members soon after its founding, more than double all the other parties membership combined.
Gennady Zyuganov, a co-founder of the party along with senior former Soviet politicians Yegor Ligachev, Anatoly Lukyanov, Andrew Konstant and others, was elected to be party leader at the Second Extraordinary Congress. Zyuganov had been a harsh critic of Alexander Yakovlev, the so-called "godfather of glasnost", on the CPSU Central Committee. After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, he became active in the Russian "national-patriotic" movement, being the chairman of the National Salvation Front (some authors call him a nationalist).
Following the CPRF's success in the 1995 legislative election, it emerged as the primary opposition to incumbent President Boris Yeltsin for the 1996 presidential election, whose approval rating was in single digits. In order to oppose Yeltsin, Zyuganov organised a "popular-patriotic bloc" of nationalist organisations to support his candidacy. After the election—which Yeltsin won with 54% of the vote—on 7 August 1996 the coalition supporting Zyuganov was transformed into an official organisation, the People's Patriotic Union of Russia (NPSR), consisting of more than 30 left-wing and nationalist organisations, including the Russian All-People's Union, led by Sergey Baburin. Zyuganov was its chairman. It went on to support Zyuganov in the 2000 presidential election. The NPSR was meant to form the basis of a two-party system, with the NPSR opposing the ruling "party of power".
WIP
Ideology[]
According to its program, the CPRF considered it necessary to reform the country in three phases. In the first phase, it was needed to achieve workers' power through representation by a coalition led by the CPRF. Achieving this goal will help eliminate the devastation from the standpoint of the party, the consequences conducted in the past decade of reforms, in particular by the nationalisation of property privatised in the 1990s. However, in this case small producers will remain and moreover will be organised to protect them from robbery by "big business, bureaucrats, and mafia groups". It was planned to reform the management of enterprises through the creation of councils at various levels. The party also planned to transform Russia into a Soviet republic. In the second stage, the role of councils and trade unions will increase even more. A gradual transition in the economy will be made to a socialist form of economic activity, but a small private equity was still retained. Finally, the third phase was to build socialism.
Party programme[]
Under the present conditions in the Russian Federation, the CPRF called for the following proposals:
- Stop the extinction of the country, restore benefits for large families, reconstruct the network of public kindergartens and provide housing for young families.
- Nationalise natural resources in Russia and the strategic sectors of the economy; revenues in these industries are to be used in the interests of all citizens.
- Return to Russia from foreign banks the state financial reserves and use them for economic and social development.
- Break the system of total fraud in the elections.
- Create a truly independent judiciary.
- Carry out an immediate package of measures to combat poverty and introduce price controls on essential goods.
- Not raise the retirement age.
- Restore government responsibility for housing and utilities, establish fees for municipal services in an amount not more than 10% of family income, stop the eviction of people to the streets and expand public housing.
- Increase funding for science and scientists to provide decent wages and all the necessary research.
- Restore the highest standards of universal and free secondary and higher education that existed during the Soviet era.
- Ensure the availability and quality of health care.
- Vigorously develop high-tech manufacturing.
- Ensure the food and environmental security of the country and support the large collective farms for the production and processing of agricultural products.
- Prioritise domestic debt over foreign debt
- Introduce progressive taxation; low-income citizens will be exempt from paying taxes.
- Create conditions for development of small and medium enterprises.
- Ensure the accessibility of cultural goods, stop the commercialisation of culture, defend Russian culture as the foundation of the spiritual unity of multinational Russia, the national culture of all citizens of the country.
- Stop the slandering of the Russian and Soviet history.
- Take drastic measures to suppress corruption and crime.
- Strengthen national defense and expand social guarantees to servicemen and law enforcement officials.
- Ensure the territorial integrity of Russia and the protection of compatriots abroad.
- Institute a foreign policy based on mutual respect of countries and peoples to facilitate the voluntary restoration of the Union of States.
The party was in favour of cooperation with the Russian Orthodox Church. According to the words of Zyuganov, the CPRF was a party of scientific, but not militant atheism. Propaganda of any religion was banned inside the party. The CPRF celebrated the rule of Joseph Stalin.