When They Came for the Communist Party of the Russian Federation. Arrests, Siege, and Pressure on Supporters after the State Duma Elections

The Communist Party of the Russian Federation received 19% of the votes in the recent State Duma elections. After that, the party's supporters faced pressure unprecedented for the "intra-system opposition". They are detained, fined, placed under administrative arrest, and blocked in party premises. The Communist Party of the Russian Federation continues to challenge the election results and demands an investigation into the actions of the Ministry of Internal Affairs.

The miracle of the last percent

By the September elections to the State Duma, the CPRF had emerged as one of the most promising parties in terms of getting into parliament. Since the collapse of the USSR, the successor to the CPSU had consistently taken second place in parliamentary and presidential elections. It had secured its status as the so-called "intra-system opposition", largely loyal to the Kremlin. In the State Duma, the CPRF often votes for most of the laws aimed at curtailing democratic freedoms.

At the same time, the Communist Party of the Russian Federation is ready to support the population in local protests without direct political demands: against the construction of a landfill at the Shies station in the Arkhangelsk region, the renovation project and the construction of the South-Eastern Chord in Moscow.

The Communists also spoke out against the pension reform in 2018, organizing a large rally in Moscow. The leader of the Moscow branch of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, Valery Rashkin, is widely known for supporting the capital's protest initiatives, legalizing many protest actions in Moscow, banned since the beginning of the pandemic, with the help of "meetings with deputies."

Regional deputy from the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, Saratov resident Nikolai Bondarenko has more than one and a half million subscribers on his YouTube channel. One of the most successful campaigns of opposition candidates in these elections was conducted by the head of the independent trade union of employees of Moscow State University, who ran from the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, Mikhail Lobanov. The personal popularity of politicians from the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, as well as the recommendations of the protest "Smart Voting" contributed to the success of the communists in the elections.

In most Moscow districts, candidates from the Communist Party of the Russian Federation won by a landslide at polling stations. Their rivals from United Russia and candidates close to the Moscow mayor's office lost after 99% of the ballots had been counted.

But everything changed. Pro-government candidates won thanks to electronic voting, which was used as an experiment in several regions of Russia in these parliamentary elections. The results of the electronic vote in Moscow were inexplicably not published for a long time. Independent observers have much less experience monitoring the transparency of online vote counting than voting at polling stations.

After the Central Election Commission announced the results of the vote, the CPRF was now losing in all the capital's districts. In total, the party gained slightly less than 19% of the votes across Russia and received 57 seats in the State Duma. In the previous convocation, the communists occupied 43 seats in parliament, receiving 14% of the votes in the elections.

"In some regions, the CPRF took first place in the elections. There are a number of regions where the CPRF is in second place, but with a very high result (about 30%). There are regions where the votes were so falsified that it is difficult to say what the real percentage of the CPRF was there. In Moscow, if you do not take into account electronic voting, the CPRF is also in first place at polling stations, with a small gap from United Russia. In the real elections [without taking into account electronic voting], they got a result that was completely shocking for the Kremlin. The fact that the CPRF is trying to insist on this result forces us to take extraordinary measures against them," Ilya Budraitskis, a member of the Sakharov Center board, who participated in the campaign of the CPRF candidate Mikhail Lobanov in these elections, tells OVD-Info.

The expert believes that new voters expect real opposition from the CPRF. The party leadership, in turn, wants to show that it will not simply swallow the falsifications.

"There are people inside the CPRF who want the party to be consistently oppositional. They are the ones who attract new voters: Zyuganov must cover for these people, at least for the time being. The main thing the CPRF does not want is for it to look like 'Zyuganov has screwed everything up again.' On the one hand, the CPRF depends on the Kremlin, on the other, the CPRF's influence depends on opposition-minded voters," Budraitskis believes.

Inconvenient "intra-system opposition"

Cases of pressure on the CPRF began even before the elections. Thus, popular politician Pavel Grudinin was excluded from the party's election list, in Barnaul people were detained for posting leaflets, in Kostroma the police disrupted a children's party associated with the Communist Party, in Moscow Asker Geidarov, a trusted person of State Duma deputy Valery Rashkin, was arrested for three days on charges of disobeying the police. During the elections themselves, Svetlana Izotova, a candidate for State Duma deputy from the CPRF, was removed from the polling station in Khabarovsk.

After the election results were announced, supporters of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation protested against falsifications in various cities: Magadan, Yekaterinburg, Vologda, Rostov-on-Don, Barnaul.

In Khabarovsk, local leader of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation Petr Perevezentsev was detained for an "open-air press conference", and in Belgorod, member of the Communist Party Andrei Borzykh was given a warning about the inadmissibility of holding protests. Roskomnadzor threatened to block the Communist Party website because of the announcement of an all-Russian protest scheduled for September 25.

The main pressure on the CPRF supporters was unleashed in Moscow. In the capital, the party was denied permission to hold protests following the elections on September 20, 21 and 25. On September 20 and 25, the CPRF held meetings with deputies in the city center on Pushkinskaya Square. The communists claim that more than a hundred of their supporters and party functionaries were detained in late September and early October, during and on the eve of the protests.

"We were counting on resistance during the election results counting, and that's partly what happened: cameras were turned off, members of the precinct election commissions and observers were removed without justification and harshly, and they were not allowed into problematic precincts. Everything that followed was not so much unexpected as it was completely inadequate. No mass uncoordinated rallies were organized, meetings with deputies were held. I think the government's reaction to holding such standard, legal meetings was very nervous and counterproductive," Elena Yanchuk, a Moscow City Duma deputy from the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, who was detained by the police for participating in meetings with State Duma deputies, told OVD-Info.

Thirty-two lawsuits have been filed against the results of electronic voting in Moscow, including 15 from the Communist Party of the Russian Federation as a party and another 15 from candidates from the Communist Party of the Russian Federation.

"We do not agree to recognize the falsified election results, we do not agree to recognize electronic voting, we continue to defend our point of view. They are trying to intimidate us: we see that in these elections the authorities have gone beyond all legal boundaries. Standard falsification schemes no longer work, electoral sultanates do not give the necessary result. Electronic voting technology and voter bribery have been used for this. [Payments of] 10 and 15 thousand [rubles], driving all public sector workers out in front of cameras from 10 to 12 on Friday - this is also political intimidation," Sergei Obukhov, Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation and State Duma deputy, noted in a conversation with OVD-Info.

Sieges and detentions

The arrests affected not only party members: publicist and Shaninka teacher Boris Kagarlitsky and the leader of the Left Front Sergei Udaltsov received 10 days each for calling for participation in meetings with deputies. Left Front activist Leonid Bogomolov also received 20 days of arrest for calling for participation in a meeting with deputies.

"As I understand it, an order was given to suppress any protest as much as possible, even peaceful legal forms are already becoming a red rag. The reception room of the vice-speaker [of the State Duma from the Communist Party of the Russian Federation Ivan Melnikov] was blocked when the lawyers of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation were there, preparing lawsuits on the results of the elections in Moscow," says Moscow City Duma deputy from the Communist Party of the Russian Federation Elena Yanchuk. " A disproportionately harsh punishment was imposed on the legal adviser of the Moscow City Committee of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation Magomed Bidzhev, who had not previously been brought to administrative responsibility, and who has minor children. The reason was a repost of a recording announcing a meeting with the deputy."

Municipal deputy from the Communist Party Sergei Tsukasov received 10 days of arrest - he was detained during his morning jog.

Clearly exceeding their authority (a special procedure has been developed for detaining members of parliament), police officers in the capital's metro demanded that Sergei Obukhov, a State Duma deputy of the previous convocation, go to a police station.

"As far as I understand, the facial recognition system worked. Obukhov turned out to be a terrible criminal. The police were sent through the subway cars after me. Three people were waiting for me at the Partizanskaya metro station, they took me to the police station - I had to explain the basics to them... I called Zyuganov. Apparently, this and the fact that I am an elected State Duma deputy worked. They let me go, but that same evening they came to my daughter and found out where I was - this is a global special operation. We no longer have drug dealers, hooligans and street crime - all police forces are thrown against the CPRF activists," Obukhov tells OVD-Info.

Against the CPRF, the security forces used tactics that they had developed against Alexei Navalny's supporters this spring: there were few arrests at the meetings with deputies on September 20 and 25; they were mostly detained after the protests.

The leader of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation faction in the Moscow City Duma, Nikolai Zubrilin, was forcibly detained at the police station, where he became ill, and then the court fined him. The Moscow City Duma deputy from the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, Ekaterina Engalycheva, was forced not to leave the Moscow City Duma building for several days, fearing arrest. As a result, she was fined 250 thousand rubles for reposting information about a meeting with deputies. The head of the Moscow Communist Party protest department, Pavel Ivanov, spent a week in the building of the city committee of the Communist Party, and when he came out, the court fined him 30 thousand rubles under the article on organizing an action.

In order to arrest people and prevent the organization of protests, Moscow police blocked the building of the capital's city committee of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, the reception office of the vice-speaker of the State Duma from the Communist Party, and even the Moscow City Duma.

On September 29, the Communist Party of the Russian Federation faction in the Moscow City Duma walked out of the session of the capital's parliament in protest against the arbitrariness of the security forces. The deputies demanded the release of all those detained who spoke out against the falsification of the elections, and also stated that they do not recognize the results of the vote in Moscow. State Duma deputy of the previous convocation Sergei Obukhov told OVD-Info that the Communist Party of the Russian Federation plans to demand a report from the leadership of the Ministry of Internal Affairs within the walls of the State Duma.

"There were no violations of the law, including under Article 20.2 of the Code of Administrative Offenses, on our part! All our events were held in the format of a meeting of deputies with the population. This is a legal form of work for elected representatives of the people, and obstruction of it must be punished. We demand that the unbridled police brutality be stopped and brought back within the framework of the law. At the very first meeting of the Russian parliament, we will demand the creation of a commission to investigate the facts of persecution of candidates for deputy of the State Duma," said the leader of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation Gennady Zyuganov.

On October 4, he addressed an open letter to Vladimir Putin. In it, the party leader complained about the detentions of members of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation after protests, calling them groundless. Zyuganov asked the Russian president to "take strict measures aimed at holding accountable officials guilty of exceeding their authority." He also criticized the three-day election format and online voting.