Gennady Zyuganov will not run for Russian president in 2018

Russian communists have settled on a surprise pick for its 2018 presidential candidate. Pavel Grudinin, 57, a farm mogul running a so-called “island of socialism,” will replace the party’s evergreen leader, Gennady Zyuganov.

It was widely expected that long-time leader Zyuganov, an ever-present who has only missed one presidential election since 1996, would again be the one to challenge the current head of state, Vladimir Putin. But the iconic leader of the Communist Party (KPRF) cleared up the issue, saying that Grudinin would be the party's only candidate. The new communist contender was subsequently backed by over 300 delegates, receiving just 11 “no” votes during a secret ballot at KPRF’s Congress Saturday.

The twist here, is that Grudinin is not even a member of the Communist Party, though he considers himself to be a communist sympathiser. Russian law puts no barriers to such a scenario, allowing parties to choose candidates who are not party members.

The Communist Party's presidential candidate initially came to prominence because of his unorthodox business style. In 1995, he was appointed as the Managing Director of the Lenin Sovkhoz, a large agricultural enterprise in suburban Moscow. Grudinin not only transformed it into a successful and flourishing business, but also into a small, self-sufficient community.

One of Moscow regions biggest producers of fruit and vegetables, as well as being Russia’s biggest strawberry farm, the Lenin Sovkhoz also takes pride in being a model enterprise with almost communist internal rules. Grundinin’s enterprise provides its workers with free housing, healthcare and school dinners, as well as subsidising many regular payments, such as communal fees.

It also actively invests in local infrastructure. Sovkhoz funded the construction of a school building and the renovation of a local clinic. And it appears that's not enough for the new Communist Party frontrunner. The enterprise also provides local medical specialists and teachers with zero-interest loans allowing them to purchase real estate in the neighbouring town, according to some reports.

rt.com/politics/414075-russian-communists-businessman-presidential-candidate/

Thoughts?

Other urls found in this thread:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukrainian_presidential_election,_2010
csmonitor.com/World/Europe/2017/0906/In-capitalist-Russia-a-socialist-garden-flourishes
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Lanark
marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1872/10/authority.htm
twitter.com/NSFWRedditGif

ew

wow such news

Stop using liberal slurs. Putin's Russia is Marxist if not explicitly communist.

Seems like a market socialist. I like him

What makes you think he's controlled opposition?

Eh Zyuganov was a Putin sycophant: the КПРФ under him voted for all the gai laws and supported the imperialist action in Krim. I Don't know much about Grudinin, but a lot of the membership will be glad that Gennady isn't the sole frontman of the party anymore…

...

He was a Putin puppet and also the a ☭TANKIE☭ of the worst kind (I mean his whole ideology was almost based more on Spengler than Marx), so no regrets.

Sorry
Not sorry

He was allowed to run unmolested. He's an awful candidate who only appeals to nostalgic grannies. And what said. Only thing good about him was that he wasn't a neoliberal oligarch billionaire, which is what most opposition leaders seem to be these days.

False flag

reminder there hasn't been a significant leftist presence in Russia since the 1930s

...

Yes because smashing the neo nazi NATO backed separatists is somehow "imperialist".

Also, Putin himself is backing the far right in Western Europe. There's no good sides here.

Isn't that party basically fascist with class collaborationist policies and ethnonationalism?

Also something notable about Zyuganov is that to a lot of the younger members he was just some nostalgia candidate rather than an actual mover of the KPRF forward. I mean as a party and a movement, the KPRF is very much a live: over a third of its membership is under 30. It is not some nostalgia act, it is a presence on the political stage in Russia.

Reading into Grudinin, he seems like some weird Utopian cooperativists of the 1800s: A Robert Owen type. It is also weirder that his nomination comes not from some centrist wing: But "The Left Front", aka the non-KPRF leftists that aren't super ☭TANKIE☭s. I honestly don't know what to feel, but his candidacy was actually supported by the membership so eh.

Also apparently the original plan was to run a joint ticket with "National Patriotic Forces": they don't seem to be a political party and I can't find jack on them in English. I don't think they're fash although perhaps Nazbol.

REVOLUTIONARY DEFEATISM, EVER HEARD OF IT?

seems like a jump to conclusion just because he's not being bothered that he is controlled opp

Why can't we have something nice happen in the Left for fucking once?

Nah the KPRF under Zyuganov has pretty much propped up the Putin government*: supporting military ventures overseas, helping his domestic agenda, refusing to even say "Putin needs to go".

*Also for the record, regime from a pol/sci standpoint is a perfectly acceptable way to describe the United Russia rule of Russia.


And just speaking to a Belarusian mate of mine, apparently Lenin State Farm (the company the new bloke runs) is actually basically just a collective farm coop: he doesn't own it, it is owned communally by all the workers who operate it. His role is more of a director of production. TL;DR: he is a neo-utopian cooperativist, which inherently isn;t actually a bad thing.

Liberalism at its finest.

A centrist who backs foreign far right parties for purely geopolitical reasons is a SIGNIFICANTLY lesser evil than NATO funded (literal) neo nazis.

How about revolutionary defeatism instead?

...

That is the trotskyite 'third camp' 'both sides are bad' position. Anti imperialism means supporting the side resisting imperialism, regardless of their imperfections.

Do you hold the 'revolutionary defeatest' line on Syria as well?

That's literally orthodox Leninism you fucking revisionist

what are the other commie parties in Russia like, such as the RCWP-CPSU and Left Front?

There is a rumour that he accidentally won elections in 1996, despite all his attempts to lose - which is why elections had to be corrected so as to keep Yeltsin as a president. AFAIK his reputation is somewhere below zero even among the Russian pseudo-Communists.


Not discarded. Changed. New candidate got elected with full approval - including Zyuganov. I.e. with approval from Kremlin.

You are a fucking retard.

REVOLUTIONARY DEFEATISM WAS COINED AND INVENTED BY LENIN YOU UTTER DULLARD

Fuck me what happened to leftypol? Back when people actually read theory…

Regime is a slur?

They did, that's why they voted for him.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukrainian_presidential_election,_2010

I'm feeling the Grudininmentum

Honestly, the epitet "businessman" is not correct: he is a director of a Sovkhoz: while not a marxist he is actually a socialist.

csmonitor.com/World/Europe/2017/0906/In-capitalist-Russia-a-socialist-garden-flourishes

one of the lenin sovkhoz's main crops are strawberries.

he's dreamy.

communist strawberry man.

...

what the fuck mate

why are ☭TANKIE☭s always so unread and don't even know what they're heroes espoused?

just end your suffering and go hug a toaster in your bath tub

To me it just seems like they're following the worldwide trend of memeing likable, left-of-center people to the presidency, rather than overtly-ideologized hardliners (say what you want about the late CPSU and it's current counterpart, but Zyuganov at least opposed the glanost and perestroika back then). Just the KPRF getting with the times.

>One of Moscow regions biggest producers of fruit and vegetables, as well as being Russia’s biggest strawberry farm, the Lenin Sovkhoz also takes pride in being a model enterprise with almost communist internal rules. Grundinin’s enterprise provides its workers with free housing, healthcare and school dinners, as well as subsidising many regular payments, such as communal fees.

So basically it's slavic Robert Owen to the presidency.

Not basically, he IS a slavic Robert Owen.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Lanark

Welcome to the world of anti-authoritarian "Left". I think they are arguing their position nowhere near as often as they are "tanking".

He is a Capitalist.

Come on man, if you're going to false flag make it convincing, no tank is this retarded.

and to think Marx settled this debate 145 years ago: marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1872/10/authority.htm

> and to think Marx settled this debate 145 years ago: marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1872/10/authority.htm
I don't even need to open the link to know that "On Authority" was written by Engels.

That actually sounds pretty cool. Why don't more Russians do this

wooooot

Yo that's fucking Stalin

You're not woke enough to understand that annexation of Crimea was necessary to stop NATO expansion Eastwards.

perhaps at one point but not now

Gennady Zyuganov isn't a Marxist either.

There are no sovkhozs left - there is no Soviet state. Sovkhoz is part of the name of the enterprise, not a description of it's structure. I.e. it is not Soviet Enterprise - as in "directly owned by Soviet state", but a joint-stock company called "Lenin's Sovkhoz".

He is a proper Capitalist - he owns ~40% of the enterprise.


They try to. But there can be only so many Capitalists.

Stop pretending. Absolute majority of "tanks" are false-flagging Liberals.

Honestly just leave, go to reddit or leftpol. Stay away from bunkerchan and getchan they're nice peeps.

Common mods, people have been banned for less!

You are a goddamn idiot.

Funny thing is that in this contex, nato is lesser evil that pootin.

T.Russian

Кек.

As a Russian, could you clear something up for me: Is Lenin State farm owned equally by its workers or is there a greater ownership by Mr Grudinn? I find conflicting sources in English.

Seems like a gimmick. But why not, it's not like the CPRF has been doing anything but decline in size under Zyuganov and be a handmaiden for Putin's right populism. If nothing else, his style of doing business will appeal to the nostalgics.

Tbh Qırım Halq Cumhuriyeti nowe.

does grudinin pull any dividends from his share of the ownership or is this just a legal arrangement to keep corporate raiders away?

i.e. if the Lenin Sovkhoz's profits are still being distributed democratically, then it seems socialist?

It would be socialist in a non-marxist sense, yes. The comparison I and others have made to Robert Owen is very apt in the case of Mr Grudinin.

I have no idea, but the choices you are presenting are clearly made with an assumption that there is only one way to get money out of commercial enterprise. That is hardly the case.

What should this mean? Other "members" are not actually members, if they are not shareholders. They are just hired workers and the shareholders have no need to listen to them.

The rationale behind the "circling of the wagons" seems iffy.

Profits are most certainly are not distributed "democratically" - in the Soviet sense. Most of workers legally do not have any say in how the farm is run. Consequently, any distribution of income (wages, for example) or management of the farm can happen without their input.

Not necessarily so. You are taking everything at face value. The fact that he owns 40% of the shares is a sure sign of things not being as they seem. This is too skewed for a co-op.

huh. i'd still vote for him.

つ ◕_◕ ༽つ GRUDININ TAKE MY ENERGY ༼ つ ◕_◕ ༽つ

small brain: Crimea is Ukrainian
large brain: Crimea is Russian
electric brain: Crimea is Turkish
galaxy brain: Chersonesus is Greek

Regardless, as currently organized, it's just a generous employer; what the workers get, they get at the grace of the employer, not because they have assigned it to themselves democratically.

As if Comrade Zyuganov was gonna win eitherways, the last time he won they rigged it and violently surpressed the party, imperialist putin and his party have a monopoly on power.

You know, considering that socialism has absolutely nothing going on for itself these days, I am absolutely fine to endorse the communist strawberry man. Bring it on. Definitely better than that weirdo Zyuganov.

Finally semi thinking ☭TANKIE☭.

Not Communist. Even less of a "Communist" than a Venezuela is. Yes, I know it is SocDem. Which is the whole point.

He seems to be literally all over the place, being part of Kremlin's party "United Russia" at some point.

Lol I'm not a ☭TANKIE☭…

It's always been this bad.

Nah there was a time when people actually knew shit like the fundamental tenets of Leninism…

Good luck, Strawberry Man.
btw he was approved as a candidate by the Left Front, far-left organization in Russia, whose front man is Sergei Udaltsov, the guy who was literally jailed for 4-5 years for his political views. Not even people from liberal "opposition" get this harsh treatment.
At least it says something about Grudinin's legitimacy as a left candidate.

does not compute

To be honest, it's only "socialist" in that he puts a big share of the profits back into production and to the workers, instead of using it to buy yachts to land his private jets with hookers on. Whis is still a good thing in the current situation we are in.

"Literal bourgeous" would be a correct term. But if you look at it from a more pragmatical perspective, it's much better to have a guy who has an experience of running an economy on a semi-large scale in a semi-socialist style and who has leftist views, than to have some radical nobody with no experience, or another faceless KPRF party member.

any russian anons here?
can you tell me about this whole Left Front thing?
from my conversations with russian commies they in general don't have delusions about socdem reformism
seems strange that radical leftists would support the same candidate with KPRF

So far there is no evidence of "semi-socialism" of any kind, nor of "leftist views". The fact that there are no dividends might mean that the majority shareholders are trying to squeeze out minority.

The only known quality is that he is a successful businessman in an environment which is notorious for being borderline AnCap (government is for sale).

It's far "Left".


Just look them up yourself: it's united "Left" with no consistency. Antifa equivalent. They effectively disbanded by 2016 (when this Udaltsov guy was in prison).

COOP legal structure doesn't exist in Russia?
Jesus christ.

Co-op is a kolkhoz (collective enterprise). This is a sovkhoz (soviet enterprise) - i.e. owned by the state.

Then why the fuck isn't "Lenin sovkhoz" an kolkhoz?

No idea. The interview quoted ( ) says something about protection from raiders. Personally, I can't help but see "primitive accumulation of capital".

Pavel "curb stomp a cappie" Grudinin is good for the left.

fuck, my bad


thought of pic related when I read this

Shit false flag mate

Except the guy who made the post was a ☭TANKIE☭.

A false flagging ☭TANKIE☭