Minus elections

The communists cleared the ranks

There are three fewer communists in the country. The plenum of the party's Central Committee last weekend by a majority vote expelled Gennady Seleznev, Svetlana Goryacheva and Nikolai Gubenko from the organization, despite all their services to the Communist Party of the Russian Federation. The benefit of the decision, judging by the words of Gennady Zyuganov, is one: the party confirmed the unity of will and unity of action. The confirmed unity did not cause any particular joy among any of the members of the Central Committee. Absolutely everyone after the end of the plenum called the decision “difficult for the party.”

“A huge mistake has been made, maybe even tragic,” said Gennady Seleznev, having become a non-party member. “But we had no right to make another decision,” Central Committee member and Duma deputy Khapisat Gamzatova explained to the Vremya Novostei newspaper. If the Central Committee, violating the decisions of previous plenums, allowed three high-ranking communists not to leave leadership positions in the Duma, then such a decision, she believes, would be impossible to explain to ordinary communists. Locally, according to Ms. Gamzatova, there are many party members whose business careers suffered because of their party affiliation. And none of them, according to her, abandoned the party in the name of a career.

Nevertheless, almost a third of the members of the Central Committee who arrived at the plenum voted against the expulsion of the guilty, considering it too “harsh punishment.” “It was possible to expel him from the Central Committee or expel him from the faction,” believes Duma deputy Viktor Zorkaltsev, who, having submitted to the party decision, refused to head the Duma committee on public organizations, but the Duma does not yet want to relieve him of his post. By excluding the “iconic figures,” the party, in his opinion, left itself no “options for cooperation” with them. The “disadvantages” of the decision adopted by the plenum, Mr. Zorkaltsev believes, “may appear” at the next elections.

Even the radical Viktor Ilyukhin hoped to the last that “the plenum would find a compromise,” since “Russia and the Communist Party of the Russian Federation do not have a second Gubenko, Seleznev and Goryacheva, which means we must treat these people with care.”

Gennady Seleznev was ready for a compromise. On the eve of the plenum, he, according to him, proposed to both the Presidium of the Central Committee and Gennady Zyuganov personally to “separate” the posts of party leader and leader of the Duma faction. Mr. Seleznev agrees to leave the speaker's chair to lead the faction in the Duma. He claims that such an agreement was with Mr. Zyuganov. The speaker expected that the party leader would make this proposal at the last plenum on April 10. “He didn’t do it, and he hasn’t done it now. This is not the first time that the party chairman simply does not keep his word,” Mr. Seleznev said after his expulsion. On April 10, “man No. 2” in the Communist Party of the Russian Federation Valentin Kuptsov made a similar proposal. Mr. Kuptsov was not at the last plenum - he is in the hospital.

In other words, the debate about tactics in the Communist Party of the Russian Federation is taking place against the backdrop of a struggle for leadership, which obviously did not stop last weekend, having become public. “Although I am now a non-party member, I will triple my energy to help ordinary people and communists who support me,” Mr. Seleznev promised. And he has no intention of leaving for another party: “Stop running around between parties.” Svetlana Goryacheva hopes to return to the party. After the plenum, she reported that from the Ussuri single-mandate district she was offered to join the regional branch of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation. At the same time, the party charter allows everyone expelled to protest the decision made by the plenum. The corresponding application must be submitted within the next two months and addressed to the control and audit commission or the next congress. At the next congress, the Communist Party of the Russian Federation must develop an election strategy and identify candidates for the party list. But instead, the party risks engaging in an analysis of personal affairs, which is unlikely to strengthen its rating in the eyes of voters.

Victor KHAMRAEV