European Forum

New left-wing party in Russia to defend interests of workers

A new left-wing party in Russia, the United Russian Labor Front (ROTF), held its founding congress today (22 February). Party officials said they plan to adopt a charter and a program, to create party chapters in Russian regions, and to elect party leaders. The party's co-chairman and main candidate to be leader of the ROTF, Sergei Udaltsov, said the party's top priority is to become an officially registered, full-fledged ‘leftist’ political party. He told reporters that 230 representatives from 70 Russian regions were attending the congress. Local opposition media reported that among the attendants were also representatives from civil organizations, and other leftist political parties.

Udaltsov added that trade union representatives and residents of the Moscow suburb of Rechnik whose homes have been demolished, have said they will join the new party.

Vladimir Pribylovsky, a Moscow-based political analyst told reporters that he thinks there is room for another political party in Russia that would be further to the left than the Communist Party and would defend the interests of workers. He explained that "the Communist Party of Gennady Zyuganov is in many ways not communist: it combines nostalgic 'Sovietism' with Russian nationalism and religious aspirations, [Russian] Orthodoxy." Pribylovsky characterized the Communist leadership as "more bourgeois than revolutionary." He predicted that younger voters who previously voted for the Communist Party may well switch their allegiance to the ROTF. According to Pribylovsky, however, the ROTF will probably be denied registration because it does not fit the government's pattern for an opposition party. 

In Russia there are currently seven parties. Four of them are represented in the lower House of Parliament. Lately, only the common project of the former ‘ Union of Right Forces’ was able to politically unite the ‘Civilian Power’ party and ‘Democratic Party of Russia´, into the liberal-democrat ‘Right Cause’ party. Despite the fact that the leaders of the parties called themselves as being the opposition, they did not keep it a secret, however, they were cooperating with the Kremlin.

Sources: NewsRu;RFE/RL