#9
therussianissues.com
November 26, 2001
Future of Gorbachev’s New Party Could Be Gloomy
The former president of the USSR, Mikhail Gorbachev, elected head of the new political party
By Nikolai Ulyanov

The leading newspapers today (November 26) report that Russia's Social Democrats united into a single Social Democratic Party of Russia (SDPR) last Saturday. The founding congress elected the former president of the USSR, Mikhail Gorbachev, head of the new party. Samara Governor Konstantin Titov was elected chairman.

"Although the more than six-month process of uniting small Social Democrat parties and movements into the new SDPR witnessed numerous scandals and accusations, the founding congress itself, to everyone's amazement, went off quite smoothly," Kommersant writes.

Vremya Novostei points out that in his platform address to the congress, Gorbachev believes that today's Russian society is drawing upon the ideas of social democracy more than ever before. The time has come when being a Social Democrat has simply become the vogue. Gorbachev declared, "It is noteworthy that the Russian Communist Party and the rightists are arming themselves with the slogans of the Social Democrats more and more."

In his opinion, the world is experiencing a crisis in ideology - both on the right and the left. That is why we need the ideology of "a third road" that rejects "both ruling Communism and radical Liberalism." And it is precisely the Social Democrats that intend to offer society this "third road," Gorbachev emphasized.

Izvestia reports that the founding congress brought together more than 800 delegates from practically all the regions in the country, beginning with the Gorbachev's and Titov's parties and ending with representatives from small organizations upholding a similar ideology.

Being equitable partners, Titov and Gorbachev simply divided the top posts in the party between themselves: the former is chairman of the SDRP and the latter is the head of the party. True, Titov conceded that the Social Democrats were still "only heading towards unification" and that is why they intend to regularly upgrade the program documents and are counting on "the intellectual potential of the public" to participate in this work.

This "potential" was not long in coming: Vladimir Zhirinovsky unexpectedly turned up at the founding congress and announced that he was "an ally" of the new party and proposed to divvy up the posts in the following way - Titov - prime minister, Gorbachev - speaker of the State Duma, Gavriil Popov - speaker of Federation Council. As for himself, the leader of the Liberal Democrats ticked off "the modest" chair of president of Russia, Izvestia remarks ironically in its commentary.

Meanwhile, both journalists and independent analysts seem to agree that the idea of social democracy is barely alive in the world today, and because of that, the future of Gorbachev's new party may be very gloomy indeed.

In Vedomosti's opinion, Gorbachev "has missed the boat" again. "If in the years of perestroika he had ordered the (Communist) party activists to rename their party to the Social Democratic Party and to energetically build a state with a socially oriented market economy, he would have been enthusiastically supported by all of us, by George Bush Sr., by John Major and all other non-socialist peoples!

"But nothing of the kind took place. The general secretary (of the CPSU) rushed about in his customary manner from one boat to another as they pulled away. And only now, when the Social Democrats, just like the "national proletariat' (migrant workers that have no citizenship, alas, cannot be taken into account), in essence no longer exist and when the leading leftist parties are sooner becoming champions of the interests of middle class liberals, Gorbachev has at last decided to convert himself into a Social Democrat.

"Well, all that is quite fine and dandy, at least because he is no longer taking any risks. Any way you look at it, Gorbachev is a personality from the encyclopedia - somewhere between De Gaulle and Gromyko."

In the opinion of Andrei Ryabov, a member of the Scientific Council of the Moscow Carnegie Endowment, the Social Democrats today and in the future can count on only 1-2% (of the ballot), Vremya Novostei writes. He believes this is because they (Social Democrats) lack an electoral niche.

The SDPR lacks public support. Ryabov maintains that as long as there are no masses of hired employees in this country, there is no place for social democracy. However, the SDPR has a future, providing the economy undergoes structural changes that result in new jobs, the emergence of real labor unions, a real vibrant economy and a new type of social worker.

According to another Vremya Novostei interviewee, Boris Makarenko (Center of Political Technologies), "In the foreseeable future, the Social Democrats will be on the periphery of the political process." He thinks that "as long as the Communist Party exists, there can be no social democracy. It is either a strong Communist Party or a strong Social Democratic Party. There can be no other way."

In Makarenko's opinion, the Communist Party will be strong for at least a few more election cycles. In addition, he is convinced that the Social Democrats suffer from the leftists' age-old malady: "fractionalization and intolerance to other leaders and opinions. And it is this that prevents them from uniting."