Thirty years after refoundation, Russian Communists seek a new leader

Events and campaigns to choose a candidate for the 2024 presidential elections have begun. Uncertainty over the future role of the historic refounder Zyuganov, lukewarm on the attack on Ukraine. Russian Communists attempt to 'rebuild their patriotic virginity'.

Moscow (AsiaNews) - The communists of the Kprf party are preparing for the solemn celebrations of the 30th anniversary of its reconstruction on 21 January 1993, following President Yeltsyn's dissolution of the Soviet Communist Party the year before.

The main act will be the meeting on Red Square with the floral tribute at Lenin's Mausoleum, which will start a new intense political season.

The plan has in fact already been made known: in May, the Central Committee plenum will be held to issue very strong directives for the education of patriotism and the fight against Russophobia at home and abroad.

Then, in December, the party congress will be held, which will choose the candidate for the 2024 presidential elections, and very heated discussions are underway on the criteria for defining the candidatures.

The start of the 30th anniversary procedures was given at the beginning of the new year, with the meeting of the Pan-Russian Committee for Social Protest Actions, convened by party deputy chairman Vladimir Kašin.

The main milestones are linked to the 'sacred' dates of Russian communism: the anniversaries of Lenin's birth and death (21 April and 21 January), those of Stalin (21 December, 5 March) and Victory Day on 9 May.

A number of perplexities surround the participation of the party's re-founder and first secretary, Gennadij Zjuganov, whose absence from the 21 December event remained unexplained.

The party leaders had announced and then cancelled a large meeting on 13 February in Snegiri, Moscow province. This is Zjuganov's birthplace and home town, where the KPRF presented its new leadership on 13 February 1993.

The impression is that there is a desire to sideline the 'patriarch' Zjuganov for his lukewarm support of the military operation in Ukraine, and Kašin has announced a large online conference on 14 February with 40,000 participants among party activists, dedicated precisely to the celebration of the re-foundation.

On 17 February, a celebratory concert will be held in the Hall of Columns of Moscow's 'Dom Soyuzov' after the official leadership meeting. The first deputy chairman of the Central Committee, Jurij Afonin, denied that Snegiri's meeting had ever been scheduled, and in any case 'the dates of re-foundation are sacred, and cannot be the cause of discord, Zjuganov will certainly be there'.

Delegations from abroad are also expected, and the participation of prominent figures from the country's current leadership, but so far the organisers have not named names. Afonin insists on the 'working' nature of the events, with meetings of the regional sections, which will choose delegates to attend the Moscow meetings, especially the one in the Hall of Columns, to fill all 1,200 seats in the hall.

The Plenum against Russophobia will be 'an effort in favour of the entire Russian society', not just a patriotic assembly, but 'an expression of the entire people'.

In reality, the aim of these redundant celebrations clearly appears to be an attempt to 'rebuild a patriotic virginity' in view of the presidential elections, shaking off the dross of the navalnist 'useful vote' that had involved many communist candidates in previous years, albeit with poor results.

It will be difficult in any case to erode support for the pro-Putin majority, but the communists want to be ready for possible scenarios of change, which cannot be ruled out given the uncertainties of war operations in Ukraine.

Kašin proclaims that '2023 will be a very difficult year for our country, but the Kprf will do intensive work to defend workers' rights and interests'. There are also plans to have nominations for the presidency approved by a 'popular vote', a kind of left-wing primary, which has already been partly tested with the 2017 online vote.

Then the leader of Sovkhoz 'Lenin', Pavel Grudinin, who did not come from party militancy, won, and the scheme could point to an even more popular leader this time.