The first of two commentaries on the Communist Party chief. Tomorrow: The Reluctant Capitalists.








In all of his contacts today with journalists, foreigners and political scientists, Gennady Zyuganov, the leader of Communist Party of the Russian Federation, or CPRF, peddles one line: If his party wins the election, change will be orderly and democratic. He pledges strict allegiance to parliamentarian methods of political action. On the other hand, the hue and cry of the reformers -- including President Boris Yeltsin himself -- is that once Zyuganov's party carries the election, old-style communism is back.


A categorical answer to this is: nobody knows, even Zyuganov. Things could go either way. A lot in Zyuganov's personality argues for the former. Much that is going on inside his party suggests the latter. Most of Zyuganov's smooth campaign talk is in sharp contrast to the stridently anti-capitalist party platform adopted at the party congress earlier this year.


For a number of years now, Zyuganov has proved himself to be, to put it mildly, nonconfrontational. He never made the mistake of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. In August 1991, then a member of Politburo, he was vacationing on the Black Sea. Zyuganov never showed up at the hearings of a marathon court case against the putschists. In October 1993, never a strong force among the leaders of the opposition, he quietly left the White House on the night before the storming of the building. By all accounts, the role of Communists in the defense of the parliament was minimal. This led some political analysts to think, somewhat prematurely, that the prevalence of Communists in the opposition was over.


Zyuganov's decision in 1993 to run for the State Duma was seen by many Communists as a sell-out. On the night after the elections of Dec. 12, 1993, he was making champagne toasts in the Kremlin Palace with those who not less than two months earlier had ordered the Russians to shoot at their fellow citizens for the first time since the Civil War.


Still, Zyuganov put the following two years in the Duma to good use. He built a formidable and most disciplined power base in the parliament, which was only augmented by strong showings by Communists in local elections around the country.


He certainly had something to build on. Today the CPRF commands the loyalty of 550,000 members of his party, a pathetic splinter of a once 19 million-strong Communist Party of the Soviet Union. But it is still a giant compared to the some 130 parties in Russia today, despite the fact that about 80 percent of his party is over the age of 60.


Here is a story told to me by a friend: Last summer, in one of the government dacha compounds near Moscow that had been closed to the general public for the past 75 years, a group of young kids started roughhousing. A pudgy 5-year-old started chasing another boy. The boys stormed into the house that was occupied by a senior official of Yeltsin's Kremlin staff. The pursuer was gently apprehended and asked about his identity.


"Zyuganov," answered the mischievous boy.


He was none other than the grandson of the leader of the CPRF who lives next door to a senior Kremlin official.


So it goes. Despite routine fiery denunciations of Yeltsin's regime by Communists in the Duma, all deputies enjoy the same perks: free cars, closed dacha compounds, the best residential areas in town, special medical services. The monthly paychecks for the deputies are cleared through the financial department of the Kremlin Administration. And the Communists have never missed a payday -- very much unlike their supposed constituency.


So demonstrations with slogans like "Down With This" or "No More of That" are for street consumption only. Offstage, the big guys belong to the same club.


Another story making rounds in Moscow these days is one of a secret pact between Zyuganov and Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin on common strategies of the CPRF and Our Home Is Russia for the elections and beyond. The rumor mill has spun out a story about Zyuganov's offering a couple of slots on his party slate to people connected with the MOST Group -- presumably in exchange for a good chunk of money to beef up party coffers.


Meanwhile, Zyuganov threw support to Yeltsin and Chernomyrdin on a number of critical issues. The CPRF virtually backed Yeltsin on Chechnya. With two of his comrades-in-arms, he voted for Chernomyrdin's budget; the rest of his faction voted against. His faction voted to terminate the activities of a commission investigating the events of October 1993 -- an obvious advantage for the Kremlin.


The result has been growing doubts within the CPRF whether Zyuganov is a true Leninist or not. Anpilov's left Communists were the first to brand Zyuganov a Social Democrat -- a curse in traditional Marxist usage almost equivalent to bourgeois. Former vice president Alexander Rutskoi denounces Zyuganov's Duma faction as "the toy opposition" that the Kremlin authorities find only too convenient.


Here lies both the strength and weakness of the Communist Party head. Strength because he is seen by the powers that be as a rather palatable challenge to the status quo. Weakness because he is increasingly perceived by others as not genuinely in the opposition.


Zyuganov is poised for a strong but not spectacular showing in the Duma elections. The Congress of Russian Communities is fast eating away at the CPRF's electoral base. Circumstantial evidence of that may be found in the number of articles appearing in Pravda Rossii attacking the group.


In the meantime, the question that tantalizes Zyuganov is: Will there be a revolt against him from the rank-and-file after December? Or will his tightrope act last long enough to run a strong race in the presidential elections in June?





Viktor Linnik is the former editor of Pravda. He contributed this comment to The Moscow Times.