#6017
#10
BBC Monitoring
Book from One Russia compared to Soviet-era Communist
Party literature
Text of report, entitled "The Gospel
According to Unity", and published by Russian newspaper
Izvestiya on 9 January
On the eve of the string of New Year holidays, a party with pretensions to the title of governing party resurrected an almost forgotten genre (at any rate in political circles): the representative's gift publication. The book has little in common with ordinary party literature which is printed in small format, stuffed with tiny print and comes in a soft cover. This is a proper volume, printed on quality paper, weighing almost 3 kg and entitled simply and clearly: "One Russia".
Just as simple and clear as the title is the basic idea behind the creation of this impressive tome: to reflect Russia in the party and the party in Russia. Everything here operates in favour of this notion: from the photograph of the Kremlin's Spasskiy Tower on the cover to the nameless Russian field pictured opposite the contents page. It should be observed that there is little new in this approach: There has already been a party that believed it was the country and it met its end not so long ago (in historical terms). Not for nothing is the freshly created monster-party often compared with the CPSU [Communist Party of the Soviet Union]. The current volume makes transparent references from the very first pages to the obsessional dream of One Russia's party nomenklatura: "The president must head a party and be elected in its name and it is clear to everyone who our head will be if only the hint of such a desire is shown."
Meanwhile, the tricolour appears on the flyleaf, the national anthem is on page one, and Yaroslav the Wise, Aleksandr Nevskiy, Ivan III and Peter I fill the centre spread. Further on, via the logical linkage "Where the land of Russia came from", we see the incumbent president and a schedule of what he has done, picked out in the same font as the achievements of the rulers listed above.
The ardent outpourings of love for our native land do not end with the first chapter but permeate the entire book, every line and photograph. What they represent is unimportant: It may be fields criss-crossed by tracks, a central street in a provincial city, some bright-eyed young women or a mustachioed peasant in a "prison-blue" shirt.
Beside these photos there are always Unity people. In neckties and with fixed smiles, they are seen demonstrating, applauding, making awards and presentations - faction deputies, Political Council members and regional branch heads. With them are governors and regional leaders, mayors and businessmen. Ordinary, honest, local folks. They are the people among whom "the most mass-based party since the CPSU" seeks its support.
The main characters in the book are the party's "forward detachment" (Sergey Shoygu's term): the State Duma faction deputies. The volume is organized according to the principle "deputy (biography, main views) - region (map, achievements, personalities)".
There is also a group photograph of the faction standing on the red-carpeted main staircase of the State Duma. Standing in the front row alongside Boris Gryzlov, Vladimir Pekhtin and Frants Klintsevich, smiling (admittedly in a rather forced way) like all the others, is presidential administration deputy head Vladislav Surkov.
The articles in the body of the book are often oddly titled. For example: "From Ivan the Terrible to President Shaymiyev". The captions to the photos can be equally strange: "Much has been achieved, but even more remains to be done" under a shot of two faction deputies. Or "Unity Political Council member (so-and-so) talks with a vehicle driver who has applied for party membership". Analogies suggest themselves direct from the days of "developed socialism".
There is no disputing the fact that in our day a party (especially one that has its people in government structures at the centre and in the regions) is a serious entity. But, despite its sumptuous presentation, this tome printed in Turkey on art-quality paper leaves a generally unequivocal impression. One Russia's programmes and the results of its activity locally only look convincing to the extent that the party is strong at the centre. But a party can be preserved not by officials with party cards but by young citizens with initiative who understand what they are doing and why. And moss-encrusted Soviet cliches are not the way to attract them into its ranks.
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