In 2021, the Communist Party of Russia will once again become a headache for the Kremlin and once again become a real threat to the country's ruling party. The Communists staged protests, nominating unruly candidates for the State Duma, and opposed the government's unwelcome introduction of COVID-19 vaccine passports. In return, members of the party found themselves under felony investigations and became the center of pro-government media attacks. Medusa's special correspondent Andrey Pertsev examined how the Kremlin and Russian security agencies targeted the Communist Party, and discussed our understanding of President Putin's views on the campaign.
Russia's most notorious elk killer, Valery Rashkin, is not the only Communist Party (KPRF) official who is now charged with a felony and could put him in prison. Last month, the Primorye Krai police arrested Artem Samsonov, a regional legislator, on charges of child molestation, the head of the Vladivostok branch of KPRF. (He insisted on his innocence.) Like Lashkin in the Moscow city council elections in 2019, Samsonov recently led the Communist Party to victory, vowing to meet in the elections in Vladivostok next year. Do better.
A source from a KPRF steering committee told Meduza that the party lacks a "strict leadership structure." On the contrary, there are "a few influential groups" and General Secretary Gennady Zyuganov "manipulated between these groups and the Kremlin." "For now, it applies to everyone," the source explained.
Several other people close to Putin's government confirmed that a coordinated action against KPRF is underway. Russian law enforcement agencies and Kremlin media agencies are responsible for different aspects of this promotion. "The Communist Party has gone crazy, and they need to pay," explained a source close to the leadership of the United Russia Party. Four people in contact with Putin’s domestic policy team stated that the president was dissatisfied with the actions of the Communist Party and was aware of opposition party movements, but reportedly did not issue specific instructions on how to proceed.
In recent years, KPRF has crossed many red lines in Russian domestic politics. Prominent Communist Party members and regional branches joined with the anti-Kremlin "non-systematic" opposition-especially Valery Rashkin and the party's Moscow office-to anger and worry Putin government. A source close to the Kremlin told Meduza that “Lashkin shot his elk in 2019, not in November 2021”, referring to KPRF helping to register 4,000 Navalny supporters in the city council Served as an election supervisor in voting. Obviously, a large number of independent observers overwhelmed the system established to ensure the victory of government candidates, leading to a series of failures.
Meduza's source said that this "encouraged protesting voters" and caused further problems in the future.
After the parliamentary elections in September 2021, the Communist Party also launched a peaceful protest in Moscow, after which the police tracked down and arrested approximately 60 participants. When President Putin met with the leaders of the political parties who won seats in the State Duma, the communists rallied on the streets to dispute the election results. Zyuganov attended the meeting with Putin and even criticized electronic voting and the three-day election. A source in the Kremlin said these actions go beyond what the Kremlin allows Russia's "systematic opposition" to take during the election.
The main purpose of the anti-KPRF movement is to weaken the party’s support rate among voters. In a recent national poll, the party’s support rate was only 10% lower than that of the United Russia Party. The Putin government is also keen to expel any Communist politicians who refuse to abide by its rules. A source in the President’s Office said: “It is still a real, more or less independent political party, an influential group in the leadership that can bargain and give back to the [Kremlin], but the Communist Party has not been fully affected by it. Control." At present, the communists have the opportunity to "repent", a source from the United Russia Party told Medusa.
Nonetheless, the President’s domestic policy team admitted that, given the organization’s growing ratings, it is unrealistic to try to replace KPRF as the country’s second most popular party. Officials attributed it to “due to life The level has fallen and there is a high demand for the left-wing agenda". According to two sources, the government can appoint new leaders "more loyal to the Kremlin" at KPRF.
Sergey Obkhov, secretary of the KPRF Central Committee and deputy representative of the State Duma, quickly pointed out that the persecution of communist politicians did not begin in 2021. Party members such as Vladimir Besonov, Pavel Grudinin and Nikolai Bondarenko all encountered legal problems before this year. "First, they crushed the nationalists, then the Navalny team, and now they are here for the communists," Obukhov told Meduza. "Their goal is to sterilize KPRF to the level of Just Russia," he said, referring to a completely castrated social democratic party.
Both Obukhov and political experts like Alexander Pozalov stated that the difficulty of controlling the Communist Party made it inconsistent with the Kremlin’s domestic policy czar Sergei Kiryenko, whose "corporate style" and The "technocratic method" cannot accommodate the unpredictability of Zyuganov's successor, the party's anti-Putin opposition, or the radicalization of many Communists.
The police agency, which may also be used to prosecute KPRF's loudest members, is now pushing the entire opposition movement. “As early as the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1956, they promised that the security elite would no longer rule,” Obukhov said. "If they are engaged in politics now, it would be terrible."