A few months ago I was preparing for an interview for the RAF, and came across this subject. Puts a new spin on post-communist Russian-NATO relations (at least for me).
I'm sure most people are aware of the current situation in Russia. The advent of a free market and democracy, promised the affluence which could be seen in the US and the Western European democracies. This has failed to materialise. It is in this atmosphere, one of hardship and disillusionment, that the very people ousted in the early 90’s have made significant electoral gains in recent years. There is evidence to suggest that a great many people view the Communist years with a sense of nostalgia. Despite the hardships of those years (food shortages etc.), the state provided them with a great deal. Despite the fact that there is now more choice in terms of consumerism, the great majority of people lack the funds to experience this aspect of the free market.
Enter Gennadi A. Zyuganov. Leader of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, he is a staunch communist, and he has managed to form a union between the country’s communists and nationalists by promising to return Russia to Imperial glory. He claims capitalism is alien to the Russia and is openly anti-western. His stance can be described as ‘patriotic’ communism, and like Milosevic in Yugoslavia, he epouses Imperialist nationalism.
He is the main proponent of ‘Eurasianism’, the main tenet of which is the expulsion of ‘atlantic’ i.e. American, influence from Eurasia. Through this principle, he has re-invented the communist party and out-manoeuvred the Nationalits by winning votes on both extremes of the political spectrum.
By appealing to the populist sentiment that ‘the past was better than today’, and that Russia should return to Imperial glory, he enjoyed alarming success in the 1996 Presidential Elections. In the final run-off vote, he gained a not insignificant 40% compared to Yeltsin’s winning 54%. Many believe these gains are illustrative of the dire economic state of Russia today – the large scale support or parties that would be described as ‘extreme’ in Western democracies is a worrying development, and does not bode well for the future.
In the years following his successes he has tried to seem more moderate, trying to distance himself from his hard-line communist contacts. In May 1999 he led the communists in an attempt to impeach Yeltsin, which ultimately failed. The communists lost seats in the Duma following the parliamentary elections in December 1999, but this can be largely attributed to electoral support for the government’s invasion of Chechnya.
But it is notable that it took a popular war to stem the gains the new 'communists' made. The next few years might be interesting.
