I'm a communist from Russia, member of both the Party and the Komsomol.
A year or two ago I made a similar thread where I answered your questions about us. Figured it’s time for an update. Since then I’ve gotten more involved in the Movement and also dug deeper into theory.
So — what do you want to know about Russian communists from someone actually here? Just ask.
>>2267981>What will be the objectives of the Communist Party once the conflict is over in Ukraine, if it does indeed end.< Let me share some key points from comrade Sergey Obukhov’s speech at the Plenum of the Moscow City Committee of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (CPRF):Let us recall Antonio Gramsci, who said that a party aspiring to take power must establish its hegemony before it actually comes to power. That is — it must dominate the discourse and perspectives around the key issues it seeks to champion once in power.
I urge the younger generation of party members to read Gramsci’s Prison Notebooks, written in the dungeons of fascism. In those pages, he clearly emphasizes:
"Hegemony is achieved not only through political rule, but above all through cultural influence. A party striving for power must first win the battle of ideas."
< Therefore, the task at hand — both now and in the hypothetical post-conflict period — remains the same: Who are the 53% of Russian citizens who say they support a socialist path for the country? Many of them are passive bystanders, dreaming of socialism only from the comfort of their couch.
< Our task is to turn them into conscious fighters through class education — and such education is impossible without involving people in concrete struggles for workers’ rights, even if those are purely economic for now.Sounds good on paper, perhaps — but of course, there are problems. So far, we haven’t been very successful in helping the masses recognize their class interests and develop real class consciousness.
We’re still too few, and our resources are limited. Too few comrades are able to commit to this work full-time. Maybe it's just a stage and things will improve in the future.
>>2267984> heard KPRF support is stronger in siberian regions why is that
< The term “Siberian regions” is rather broad and flexible. Besides, I wouldn’t call myself an expert on Russian regional politics. That said, there may be some lingering influence from the so-called “Red Belt” of the 1990s — places like Irkutsk Oblast or Altai. There’s also a protest element against unpopular government decisions, most notably in Khabarovsk.As far as I can tell, the Communist Party (CPRF) is currently strongest in the following regions: Khakassia, Oryol, and Ulyanovsk Oblasts — all of which have CPRF governors — as well as Irkutsk Oblast, Mari El, Moscow, Saint Petersburg and Leningrad Oblast, Altai, and Yakutia… I’d also say the party has a relatively strong presence in Crimea, though the situation there has its own particular dynamics.
>>2267977Your opinion on Great Terror?
Stalin on the extent of mass repressions of 1937-1938
Выступления на расширенном заседании
Политбюро ЦК ВКП(б)
(конец мая 1941 года)
"Сталин И.В. Cочинения. – Т. 15. –
М.: Издательство “Писатель”, 1997. С. 20–37."
Page 32:
Наши враги за рубежом в провокационных целях распространяют слухи о массовых расстрелах, которые якобы имели место в Советском Союзе, проливают крокодиловы слезы по разоблаченным нами и расстрелянным своим агентам, по всем этим Тухачевским, Егоровым, Якирам. Утверждают, что разоблачение иностранной агентуры в СССР якобы понизило боеспособность советских вооруженных сил, а число расстрелянных в Советском Союзе чуть ли не перевалило за миллион человек. Это провокационная клевета. В 1937 году за контрреволюционные преступления судебными органами был осужден 841 человек. Из них расстрелян 121 человек. В 1938 году по статьям о контрреволюционных преступлениях органами НКВД было арестовано 52372 человека. При рассмотрении их дел в судебных органах осужден был 2731 человек, их них расстреляно 89 человек и 49641 человек оправдан.
>Our enemies abroad, for provocative purposes, spread rumors about mass shootings that allegedly took place in the Soviet Union, shed crocodile tears for their agents who were exposed and shot by us, for all these Tukhachevskys, Egorovs, Yakirs. It is claimed that the exposure of foreign agents in the USSR allegedly lowered the combat capability of the Soviet armed forces, and the number of people shot in the Soviet Union almost exceeded a million people. This is a provocative slander. In 1937, 841 people were convicted by the judicial authorities for counterrevolutionary crimes. 121 of them were shot. In 1938, 52,372 people were arrested by the NKVD under articles on counterrevolutionary crimes. During the judicial review of their cases, 2,731 people were convicted, 89 of them were shot and 49,641 people were acquitted.<In 1937, 841 people were convicted by the judicial authorities for counterrevolutionary crimes. 121 of them were shot.<In 1938, 52,372 people were arrested by the NKVD under articles on counterrevolutionary crimes. During the judicial review of their cases, 2,731 people were convicted, 89 of them were shot and 49,641 people were acquitted.121 + 89 = 210 people shot during Great Terror in total.
Furthermore, the full extent of Great Terror was actually 52,372 people arrested, out of which 49,641 people were acquitted.
That's it. That's all there was to it
>>2267996> What strategy does the Komsomol have to attract Russian youth? From far away, it seems like most Russian young people in the major cities idealise America and think that by behaving nonchalantly and sarcastically, they are “cool”.
< Unfortunately, the contemporary Komsomol in Russia is not centralized enough. Even though we try some global/federal measures, mostly in social media, it isn't enough right now. The rulling class pours a lot of resources into the youth politics and promotes various organizations like the Young Guard of the United Russia (basically the youth wing of the rulling party). These pro-government organizations gain all the resources, they gain access to schools and universities, etc.What we do now, is really small-scale. Sometimes we are successful at organizing "open lessons", mostly on historical topics. We regularly agitate people through leaflets, stickers, direct approach and so on.
I think, that the current stage of our struggle should be considered one of the initial stages where we must build our core as strong as possible, and be disciplined also.
>>2268005> Generally what does the populace in your area think of communism?< The majority of Russians are sympathetic to left ideas, especially economically left ideas. Unfortunately, this sympathy is not transformed into the sympathy for our cause. I am from Moscow. People here… mostly have petit-bourgeois consciousness.
Sergey Obukhov had something about this in his speech:
Today in Moscow, for example, 2.3 million people are employed in small businesses. They also have a dual class nature. Workers in small businesses, plus, according to Lenin’s definition, the “stall” and “clerical” proletariat, still harbor unrefuted petty-bourgeois illusions. The “Night of the Long Buckets” in the capital in 2016, when the city administration abruptly organized the demolition of thousands of small business structures, by the way, led to the politicization of semi-proletarian layers. But not for long…
We must take into account the duality of the petty bourgeoisie and semi-proletarian layers. On the one hand, they are workers exploited by oligarchs. On the other hand, they are “owners” dreaming of becoming bourgeoisie. Engels warned in Anti-Dühring: “The petty bourgeois wavers between the proletariat and capital.”
Hence the electoral vacillations of Moscow’s millions-strong semi-proletarian layers, from mass support for the CPRF in the 2021 Duma elections to voting for an ardent liberal during the 2024 presidential campaign.
>>2268138>The “Night of the Long Buckets” in the capital in 2016, when the city administration abruptly organized the demolition of thousands of small business structures, by the way, led to the politicization of semi-proletarian layers. But not for long…Because it wasn't a real politicization. They were breaking the law to begin with, and administration has demanded of them, repeatedly, to relocate elsewhere.
There are economic demands, and there are political demands. Political demands happen, aka politicization, when economic demands cannot be fulfilled. Shopowners and assorted item-hauling personnel of open air markets just had to move spaces, and it was all fine with them.
It's hilarious that KPRF thinks of such minor-iest disruptions in the work of MARKET STALLS as a sign of worker struggle. I also remember people like Rudoy simping for couriers and door dashers as if they were vanguards of the working class, lol
>>2268150Sorry everyone for breaking the order.
Yes, it wasn't a real politicization (how you put it). As noted in the speech, this "Night of the Long Buckets" (Ночь длинных ковшей) is an example of how semi-proletarian layers vacillate electorally.
>>2267978В девяностых все сосали.
>>2267979Тогда кто?
>>2267977>member of both the Party and the Komsomol.Таки ваша партия является субъектом политики?
А листовки? Листовки хоть раздаете? А может быть клеите?
>>2267977KPRF is nothing more than a Social-Democratic party. It's members mostly consist of old people that are just nostalgic for their younger days, and who haven't read a single page of Lenin, Stalin, even Marx or Engels. More so, their leader Gennady doesn't have a clue about what he's doing. He recommended the members to read Deng a few years prior, all he does is just write Tweets about how the current government doesn't give enough money to health etc., while he himself gets paid the same ammount as them, yet doesn't give any of it up, keeps it for himself.
The head of that party gave an interview to a German succcdem paper (one of those that are also masquerading as radical) a couple of years ago and he said the model for his party's goals was the policies of the German SPD. The SPD by that point had already been a neoliberal party for more than a decade, from being a socdem party before that (and, you know, famously the party with the worst history of working class betrayal on the planet). Thought that was already pretty telling and fits your description well enough.
Also, this is a general problem with a lot of the more naive communists in the imperialist countries. Bourgeois and social democratic media reports on the election results in a foreign country where some supposedly communist party or politician made significant gains or even got elected and immediately the conclusion is drawn that this must be a big win for the communist movement. Very few even investigate if the party/politician in question is actually committed to communist politics. To some degree this is probably a result of the large number of newer communists with little theoretical education and whose politics are mostly an online phenomenon. Another factor specific to the US will be the empiricist tradition that leads people to accept things at face value. And, resulting from this lack of real life perspective and experience, some emotional or psychological longing for easy victories and progress without struggle in the world. It's a problem that must be combated.
>>2268689>while he himself gets paid the same ammount as them, yet doesn't give any of it up, keeps it for himself.Is this seriously the critique you chose to levvy?
This fucking website. fml.
>>2268692Religious conservative vermin will always be reactionary. The KPRF are succdem populists spewing pseudo-"theory" trying to justify their existence and participation in elections with the most abominable individuals in their ranks. The "youths" of the party are just as retarded as the "elderly", all theoretical texts are "reinterpreted" to fit a narrative favorable to Russian conservativism as an appeal to populism. They reject any notion of anti-revisionism instead attempting to mish-mash selected quotes from authors to the current RF bourgeois regime. The same retards who still believe "Russia is the same as the SU" are in their ranks working in the party as a business professionally. The kid who made the thread posted his membership card years prior showing off all the dandy fancy items the party has given him, for him it is enough to be "in the spirit" of "communism" commercializing it, turning history into souvenirs rather than advocate for class struggle - social reforms. You will not see much about their demands besides tending towards pensioners and weeping for healthcare programs, anything else is just words on paper. How would they have a successful succdem party monetizing soviet nostalgia if they don't have a proper and paid propaganda head to string together bits of theoretical texts and defend the house of cards? They are paid to do it. They are paid to dissect the works of Marx, Lenin and Stalin to excuse their real policies and views to dismiss any contradictions. Creating a façade between "liberal degeneracy" and "conservative socialism" standing on identity politics. The real reason they do it is much the same as the retardation of "MAGA Communism" in the US, trying to appeal to a broader audience in which case the predominant in Russia being elderly religious shitheads, no less apparent than when you look at their protests. Being a religious nationalist in the west is correctly identified as being reactionary, in Russia, to the communist party, even such individuals can "be communists".
>>2268693>>2268692All the social-chauvinists can be "Marxists" to the KPRF without abandoning their views.
The choice between voting KPRF & LDPR is the choice between two brands of toothpaste.
For any other place in the world, a supposed "communist" party mingling with the right would be immediately dismissed as a party of grifters, for the "East" it is perfectly fine however since they must be the sole hero to save the planet from the "West". Beating up faggots, arresting people for weed and such is only bad when it happens in the US, when its in Russia its "cleansing degenerate western moral corruption".
>>2268804>Lets see you do betterWelcome back, 2007 Deviantart. Oh how I missed you so.
But in all seriousness, anyone who is a student of Marxism should know that revolutions happen because the material conditions allow for them, not because the Marxists living there are special. The Republic of China and Tsarist Russia were both falling apart at the seams prior to Mao and Lenin showing up, they just steered things down the right path.
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