By Nina AndreevaIn the Russian Federation the elections to the Russian Duma ended, a game of chance for fools and all cheaters. As was predicted by the present regime, the democrats won the election, these cheaters who brought on these devastating reforms themselves, Otherwise, how can we UNDERSTAND, that the YES vote for this bloc who "had no ideology or even a program," the bloc of Shoyga - the Minster for extraordinary affairs, who managed to support the most reactionary elements of Yeltsin and his protege V. Putin, with tremendous financial support behind the scenes of the financial adventurist in shady maneuvering, B. Berezovsky, even with the public rating for Yeltsin of only 3%... but nevertheless for this regime's election bloc there voted over 23% of the electorate, over 12 million Russian people!?
Of course, the professionals of the media did their best work in promoting Shoyga and Putin, with the help of an unbelievable amount of money that was spent from unpaid wages, pensions, plus the personal fortune of Berezovsky - all this managed to get them the high vote!
In a post-election interview all the winning leaders of the blocs (except Shoyga) stated, that the election campaign was the dirtiest compared to the previous ones and that over 8% of votes were manipulated and had great irregularities. Even the bourgeois media made a statement that showed that during election day the candidates' leaflets were freely shunted from one polling booth to another where it was necessary to make certain that the candidate of the "state" had the edge. The election leaflets were printed all over the country, with no control on the contents or its inflammatory agitation against non-government candidates. It is also hard to believe that the bloc of these enemies of the people, such as the Hakhamada, Nemtsov and Kirilenko, who compromised themselves even before the elections and were guilty of the present situation in the country, received over 4 million votes! The lavish and boot-licking supporter of Yeltsin - Zhirinovsky who got into the Duma, received 3 million votes.
Capitalism is having a ball now and the Duma is just a fig leaf to hide their mechanizations. The place for all honest Communists is their newspapers, their journals and all public meetings among the working class, not in a bourgeois parliament - such as is the Duma!
[text missing] not get over the 5% barrier, they received 5 million votes. For the CPRF which is a social-democratic party and not really a Communist party, there voted 13 million voters, or 12.3%. In this way the votes AGAINST the present regime which had cheated and manipulated the results and spent a fortune in money, in spite of all that, over 70% of the Russian people voted against the present regime and its policies. That is about the same per cent that voted back in 1991 to save the USSR, when the All Union Referendum took place in USSR in 1991.
Therefore the statements to the electorate by Yeltsin, Stepanshin and Putin that "there is no return to the past" is nothing more than a try to convince themselves of this impossibility.
The Communist blocs of Tiulkin or Anpilov did not get into the Duma--- in truth. they were not allowed to get in. We feel that this is a victory for the communists, since seats in the Russian Parliament are not for the dedicated Communists whom some think that they shall use it a as "tribune of the people". These are just lies to hide that these communists only want to have warm chairs, good pay and all the perks given them by the regime to make them ineffective stooges. This is nothing but falsehoods.
Altogether there took part in the election 51.5% of eligible voters or about 54 million people. The elections were boycotted by 52 million voters, or 48.5% of the registered voters. Against all of the candidates there voted over 3 million people or 3% of the registered voters. For the Communist Blocs, who did not make it into the Duma, or that did, parliament will now or eventually break up their party and weaken the Communist movement.
I feel that the lesson, given by the bourgeois government to our communist leaders, shall open up their hot-headed heads and brains about these parliamentary illusions. Of course, it is a crying shame that the hard-earned money given to these leaders for the election campaign as a deposit is lost now. It would have been better to have put them to good use - to help the striking workers, the strike committees, their leaders, who are now without work. At the end of this election campaign the "democrats" were happy that the money deposited (by law) of those that did not get into the Duma is not returnable and thus these democrats are going to utilize these moneys that were deposited by the unlucky candidates for covering the costs of their own campaigns. The democrats have stated that these deposits now total over 230 million rubles, which is about $10,000,000 US dollars...
In this instance the bourgeoisie was not able to throw out the CPRF from the list of candidate for the two party system, a la US style parliament. These "democrats" have themselves brought on this "situation" where they tried to get the bloc "Fatherland-All Russia" that was the home of Primakov and Luzhkov which would have served their own ends, instead this mistake allowed the CPRF to slip in.
But we must realize the demagogic election program of the CPRF during this election. Far from being pro-Stalin in the least, they utilized the Stalin image for their own ends. Being rabid anti-Stalinists, they cleverly used Stalin and his historical successes in order to get the votes of the people who still and always will believe in Stalin. As a result of this demagogy, the CPRF received over 13 million votes, or 24% of the Soviets who voted.
Analyzing the results of these Russian elections, we are confident, that by not being elected to the Duma of dedicated communists and all their parties, they shall, in the end start working WITH US! Otherwise, whether they like it or not, history shall throw them aside. We or no one wants this to happen!
Before we went to press the media reported that Boris Yeltsin resigned as President of Russia and gave his authority to V. Putin!
That is what NSC has predicted, because it's the new strategy of US Imperialism and NATO now, since Yeltsin's popularity after the election is only 3%, there's a need for the West for someone like Putin to be on top.
If in 3 months the presidential election takes place and the CPRF leadership did nor learn from the elections in Ukraine and Russia to unite ALL left forces for this struggle, then the blame will be on their shoulders as opportunists. They might get their 30 pieces of silver as did Judas when he sold out Jesus, hut at least Judas hanged himself! Will Zyuganov have the courage to do the same? We doubt it.
Click here to return to January 2000 index.