Mikhail Margelov buries the communist idea

On January 20, 2004, Rossiyskaya Gazeta published an article by Mikhail Margelov, Chairman of the International Affairs Committee, "Communists, back."

In it, M. Margelov tries to prove that the results of the last parliamentary campaign testify that the communist influence is finished not only in the state sphere, but also among the masses. He reproaches "relic institutions like the OSCE" (! - ed. ) that with their doubts about the results of the Duma campaign - 2003, they inflict "insult on the people who are freed from the shackles of communism" .

According to M. Margelov, the defeat of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation in the elections "means the end of mass egalitarianism, the overcoming of society's heightened focus on paternalism, collective selfishness with a focus on mediocrity" (here I would like to ask the author of the article to name at least a dozen bright politicians of the "party of winners", and also remind our readers that in 2003 the media, especially Izvestia, repeatedly published various sociological surveys that testify precisely to the paternalistic mood of the Russian population - ed. ).

The author argues that the United Russia parliamentary majority "contributes to the liberalization of legislation, primarily in the field of economics," and "the current strengthening of power is generated not by the denial of democracy, but by its salvation from the anarchy of the 1990s, from the complete collapse of elementary legal discipline. Threat to democracy was contained precisely in anarchism, when, with the weakness of the central government, there was an acute shortage of democratic institutions .

And I would like to note one more thesis in M. Margelov's article. He closely links the activities of right-wing parties, especially "liberal reformers" who used the recommendations of Western advisers, with the growth of left-wing, "communist" sentiments in Russian society in the "pre-Putin" period. All this, of course, is accompanied by anti-Western rhetoric: * "The West has fought and is fighting not against Russian communism, but against Russia, be it a monarchy, socialism or a democratic republic. The persistent actualization of this judgment by the West cannot but give rise to a conservative response in the political elite of Russia, about which the green-pink public of the "Western countries" with some kind of even oral automatism falls into another hysteria.

I would like to remind you that on the threshold of changes in Russia, neither the green nor the pink lifted a finger to introduce these changes, say, into a social democratic channel. No, as usual... here, too, they gave way to their rightists, who advised them to carry out reforms without even the weakest social shock absorbers. The invisible hand of Adam Smith, through the labors of these advisers, became not the hand of Providence, but the hand of a pickpocket. This, of course, revived the communist ideas and allowed the Communist Party of the Russian Federation to emerge from their threatening non-existence ... "*

Sources

• Margelov Mikhail. Communists, back: Russia is not threatened by either "October coups" or "beer" coups // Russian newspaper. 2004. January 20.