The second assembly of Spravedlivaya Rossiya (Fair Russia) took place in Moscow last Sunday. The SRs have once again pledged to follow the ideals of Socialism and called on Russians to multiply to overcome demography problems. Sergei Mirinov, Svetlana Goryacheva and Sergei Shargunov have been named as the party’s leading candidates in the coming parliamentary election campaign.
The Spravedlivaya Rossiya is formed of seven various political parties and forces, and opening the assembly, Sergei Mironov remembered the skeptics who had predicted the party would break up. But instead, the leader said, the party is united and ready to struggle for seats in the Duma. The coming vote ‘is not about just elections, it is a choice of Russia’s further way’, Mironov stated to the applause of the audience.
Mironov and his comrades have no doubt that the ‘new way’ should be a Socialist one, as it was stated at the party’s first general meeting last February. But only now, it is finally clear what sort of public formation Russia’s no. 3 official (Mironov presides in the country’s parliament upper house) is planning to build. He said the 20th century had demonstrated ‘two versions’ of Socialism – the radical military Soviet Socialism, and the ‘mild and toothless' European one. The USSR is gone, Europe’s Socialist Democratic ideas are being reconsidered, and Russia has no choice but to offer the world a new, ‘third’ edition of Socialism, or Socilaism 3.0, Mironov believes.
These new leftists promise to be nice, unlike the Communists were. There will be no ‘enemy class’ for the SRs, Mironov said. His party will concentrate on ‘designing the country’ and creating ‘a new school of scientific Socialism’. But their main task will be to ‘extensively reproduce the multi-ethnic nation of Russia’. The leader said that enhanced investment in education, health care, culture and housing sectors in order to create ‘people of the highest probe’. To increase the investment the state will have to take control over major business that will provide money for the nation-building. “The state is stronger than the capital. There’s no alternative to Socialism in Russia”, Mironov stated, adding that the country’s population is increasingly leaning left.
573 candidates and 90 SR’s regional groups will run for legislators’ seats. The list is headed by Mironov himself, the former Communist Svetlana Goryacheva and the 27 year-old writer Sergei Shargunov. Nobody had doubted that Mr Mironov would be in the ‘troyka’, but the choice of Mrs Goryacheva and Mr Shargunov was a surprise for most assembly delegates. The latter one is a young rebel, Goryacheva is a well on in life lady, so the promise to give 20 percent of the party's list to women and 20 – to youth has been kept.
Regional candidates include a popular actress, former member of other political parties who joined the SR quite recently, as well as leaders of SR's founding party members, and even Vladimir Putin's personal judo coach.
Vera Kholmogorova
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