/leftypol/ - Leftist Politically Incorrect

The Communist Party, which has loyally supported the war in Ukraine, has become a target of the Kremlin.

In Russia, even supporting President Vladimir Putin's war policy is not necessarily enough as the security apparatus seeks to eradicate all opposition activity from the country.

This has been experienced firsthand by the Putin-loyal Communist Party, which has now found itself in the authorities' crosshairs, reports the Moscow Times.

The Communist Party is the second-largest party in Russia after Putin's United Russia, holding 57 seats in the 450-seat State Duma.
The party is part of the so-called systemic opposition that nominally opposes the regime but in practice supports Putin on all major issues.

In addition to the Communists, the systemic opposition is represented by the conservative and nationalistic Liberal Democratic Party (despite its name), the nominally social democratic A Just Russia party, and the self-proclaimed liberal New People party.

Before the war in Ukraine, the systemic opposition parties were allowed minor deviations from the official line, but nowadays they are expected to support Putin's line ever more unanimously.

"For those opposing the military actions, it may seem like there is no opposition at all, as all parties represented in parliament officially support the 'special military operation,'" summarized Stanislav Andreychuk of the Russian election monitoring organization Golos to the Moscow Times in April.

According to the Ukrainian human rights organization EHRG, the Communist Party has indeed supported Russia's war effort by, among other things, supplying weapons and ammunition to the front, supporting paramilitary groups, and spreading war propaganda.

But why is the Kremlin persecuting a party that so loyally follows Putin's line?

Parliamentary elections will be held in Russia in September, and as they approach, dozens of Communist Party members have been arrested. In the party's stronghold in the Altai region of Siberia, 11 party members have been arrested over the past three months. Among the arrested is Yuri Kropotin, deputy speaker of the regional parliament.

Gennady Zyuganov, who has led the party since the 1990s, has therefore expressed bewilderment over why communists are being persecuted.

According to a Russian election expert, the persecution of the pro-Kremlin opposition is linked to the upcoming elections. Even loyal support for Putin and the "special military operation" is not enough when the Kremlin fears that even the Kremlin-supporting opposition threatens the system.

"The Kremlin does not want the systemic opposition parties to become a focal point for protest votes," summarizes Ora John Reuter, a Russia expert at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

"[The Kremlin] is trying to suppress all forms of open opposition activity to make it harder for those opposing [the regime] to figure out who to give their protest votes to."

This is clearly visible in the Altai region, where United Russia has historically had great difficulty succeeding. In the 2021 regional elections, United Russia received "only" 33 percent of the vote, while the Communists took 31 percent.

The situation annoyed United Russia because the existence of even a nominal opposition in the regional parliament meant uncomfortable questions.

"I have been interrogated, threatened, and taken to court in the past. I thought those days were over, but now they are returning in an even more terrible form," Zyuganov laments.

Fortunately for Putin, many regional Communist Party deputies have ended up in court primarily on fraud charges. This has also been the case in many other regions.

Furthermore, it seems that nowadays Russians do not want to run as candidates in any kind of elections. The risk of getting into trouble is too high even as a United Russia candidate.

"All parties are having a hard time. When everyone sees this oppressive pressure, finding candidates and supporters is becoming increasingly difficult," an anonymous election expert points out.