Russia’s Communists Are Putin’s Next Headache
The Communist Party was a big winner in September’s Duma election. The Kremlin will press harder to keep it under control.
Not according to plan.
Photographer: Yuri Kadobnov/AFP via Getty Images
Is the specter of communism haunting Russia again? Not since the election of 1996, the only post-Soviet presidential race in Russia to result in a runoff, has the country’s Communist Party seemed like a real threat. In more than two decades since Vladimir Putin first took the helm, it has played the role of pliant opposition, helping the Kremlin to maintain a façade of democratic choice. The future looks less predictable.
Gennady Zyuganov, the 77-year-old former Soviet ideologue who unsuccessfully challenged Boris Yeltsin back in 1996, remains in charge and unwilling to embark on radical adventures. But more assertive voices are also emerging, speaking up on corruption, social justice, the treatment of Kremlin critic Alexey Navalny and, over the past two weeks, electronic voting fraud.