

By John Helmer, Moscow
@bears_with
Everybody should know by now that bulls are colour blind. They don’t like or dislike the colour red. They are threatened and so they charge, not at the red, but at the waving of the cape, whatever its colour, or at the bull fighter moving around the ring. Bulls are perceptive – they can tell the difference between an armed man and his camouflage.
Since 1985, when Mikhail Gorbachev became General Secretary of the Soviet Communist Party, the Russian communists have not been as astute.
Like men, bulls grow less intelligent, more stubborn and miscalculating with age. This is also a problem for the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (KPRF) whose leader, Gennady Zyuganov (lead image, left), has recently turned 79 years of age. He is compos mentis compared to the similarly aged leaders of the Democratic and Republican parties in the White House and US Congress. But that’s not saying much – not enough to have persuaded Russian voters to support the KPRF candidates in the regional, gubernatorial, and mayoral elections which were held across the country between September 8 and 10.
This month the KPRF polled significantly more poorly than it had done at the last regional elections in 2018, although it retained its two governors, Valentinin Konovalov in Khakassia and Andrei Klychkov in Oryol; they have the advantage of incumbency, and were first elected in 2018. Communist Party support in the new Donbass regions was poor; 11% was their second place result in Kherson; they ran third in the three other Donbass region polls.
United Russia, the government party, did significantly better than in 2018, taking majorities in the legislative assembles of the regions, and a two-thirds vote countrywide.
A KPRF spokesman claimed the war is the reason for the communist defeat. “In 2018, there was the [government’s] increase in the retirement age and the rise of the pension protest movement which affected our results. Now the situation is reversed – [there is the] special military operation and society is consolidated [around the government].”
In fact, voters viewed the KPRF as having no policy differences with President Vladimir Putin on any significant issue. “Except in Khakassia,” according to one source, “the Communist Party doesn’t really exist.” Even there, the source concedes, the government’s United Russia party withdrew from the gubernatorial race, and the party took the majority of seats in the regional legislature.
Zyuganov insists the KPRF still leads the opposition in the country. “We need to realise that this war has been declared against the entire Russian world, our civilisation,” Zyuganov says in an interview published on the party website on Monday.
“So we have only one way out — to win a complete and unconditional victory. But to do this, it is necessary to correctly assess the current situation, understand our strengths and weaknesses — and resolutely go on the offensive. It is necessary to unite society as much as possible, to mobilise resources, to master all the most advanced and freshest. And to be able to do it in conditions of unprecedented sanctions.”
“Putin has changed his strategy four times over the past twenty years. He came to power after the ‘dashing 1990s’, during which more than 80,000 enterprises were destroyed and sold off, citizens’ savings were blown to the wind, and the Soviet government was shot. In the 1990s, the country turned itself into Uncle Sam’s wagging tail and decided to turn into an oil and gas pipe, a quarry, and a sawmill. But Putin realised it was necessary to change the strategy… But the remnants of the Yeltsin era [remain] in power. They still occupy many offices in the Kremlin and the government…”
“Putin made a very interesting and informative speech at the Fareastern Forum. But I would like to pay special attention to the part of his speech that concerned tax legislation. The oligarchy breathed a sigh of relief — the president says we will not change the situation with taxes. But of all the twenty leading countries in the world, only we have a flat tax scale, in which the same percentage of income is collected from both the poor and the leading rich! This is absolutely unfair and directly contradicts the interests of the state. Thanks to this policy, the oligarchs do not pay normal taxes…They continue to plunder the country at an unprecedented pace. In 2022 alone, $261 billion was transferred from Russia abroad. The total capital of our 25 richest oligarchs has already exceeded $ 300 billion. This is more than the entire Russian budget! And all this happens in the conditions of the special military operation, when help, support, and compassion are needed! When maximum consolidation and cohesion is needed!”
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