Russia is at a sharp turn in its history. By cheating and coercion it has been forced to revert to capitalism. This is a path of social regress that leads to a national catastrophe and the demise of the our civilization.

The Communist Party of the Russian Federation has been waging an uncompromising struggle against the restoration of capitalism, the destruction of the Union of SSR and of Soviet power. The CPRF is the only political organization that consistently upholds the rights of working people and the interests of the nation state. The strategic goal of the Party is to build in Russia of renewed socialism, socialism of the 21st century.

In determining its programmatic goals and tasks, the strategy and tactics our Party proceeds from the analysis of social and political practice , from the Marxist-Leninist doctrine which it is developing creatively, and from the achievements of domestic and world science and culture.

1. The contemporary world and Russia

Russian Communists believe that the fundamental argument between capitalism and socialism which was the feature of the 20th century has not been resolved. In spite of temporary retreats of the revolutionary movement the present-day epoch is one of transition from capitalism to socialism.

Capitalism, which today prevails on most of the globe, is a society where material and spiritual production is governed by the market laws of deriving maximum profits and accumulation of capital. Everything turns into a commodity, money being the main criterion in the relationships among people. The capitalist mode of production means unbridled exploitation of human and natural resources without any concern about the harmful consequences for the life of future generations and for the environment.

The Leninist teaching about imperialism as the highest and final stage of capitalism is being vindicated. The process of concentration of capital in the early 20th century created huge monopoly alliances. Bank and industrial capitals have merged. The ever more acute struggle for redividing the markets caused two world wars which claimed untold human victims, and a multitude of local armed conflicts.

In the second half of the 20th century, having enriched itself by predatory exploitation of the planet’s resources, financial speculations, wars and new sophisticated methods of colonization a group of developed capitalist countries, the so-called “golden billion”, entered a period called “the consumer society”. Instead of being a natural human function, consumption becomes a “sacred goal”, with the individual’s social status depending on how zealously he/ she pursues that goal. In effect it is super-exploitation and market expansion through aggressive advertising and other methods of psychological pressure.

Using the latest technologies imperialism is turning the world’s population into zombies. It seeks to spread its information web throughout the world, to inculcate egoism, violence, crass materialism and cosmopolitanism.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union and restoration of capitalism in the post-Soviet space and in Eastern Europe the US and its closest allies have been pursuing a policy of imperialist globalization. An extremely dangerous situation is emerging. The international confrontation between Labour and Capital is being presented as a “war of civilizations”. The world is being made over. The spheres of economic, political and military influence are being redistributed. The struggle for control of the planet’s natural resources is intensifying. To achieve their goals, the imperialist circles are making active use of military-political blocs and resort to overt military actions.

The world structure that has emerged enables the leading capitalist states to preserve relative stability, to weaken the workers’ and other protest movements, and smooth over social conflicts in individual countries.

However, while ensuring a high level of consumption for a small group of countries capitalism simultaneously is taking humanity into a new spiral of contradictions significantly aggravating all the global problems.

Further preservation of capitalism as the dominant system on the planet may lead to a catastrophe. Even its most ardent supporters admit that the development of production by the predatory methods that are inherent in capitalism leads to early depletion of key natural resources. The world economic crisis is deepening. Capitalism undermines people’s lives by local wars which constantly threaten to develop into a new world war, by redrawing state borders, by human-induced catastrophes, cultural and spiritual degradation. Free exchange of information is also incompatible with the modern market.

Capitalism itself creates prerequisites for the establishment of a better social system. The main material basis of the inevitable advent of socialism is provided by the socialization of production. The driving force of that process has been and remains the working man, the working class. Scientific and technical progress results in a qualitative and structural change of the urban and rural working classes. Engineering, technical and scientific workers, workers in the services are for the most part hired workers. As a result there emerges a vanguard, a nucleus of the modern working class. The communists see it as its main social base. Their ideas are addressed first and foremost to this class which they help to become aware of and promote its interests on the national and international scale. That vanguard holds the destiny not only of Russia, but of the whole human civilization in its hands.

The Russian Communists look to the future with confidence. Socialism alone will be able to abolish the exploitation of man by man, the profligate character of capitalist production and consumption. The restoration of capitalism which has taken place in the USSR and some other countries marks a temporary retreat of socialism. It is not socialism as a social system but its early form that has lost. The forces of socialism are maturing and growing. Socialist China is developing at an accelerated pace. Other countries are also advancing along the road of socialism. Some states are ruled by communist or progressive parties whose leaders are sympathetic towards this path. Following Cuba, the socialist option increasingly appeals to the countries of Latin America. The national liberation struggle in many countries is mounting depriving capitalism of a key reserve and potential that prolongs its existence. The movement of those who oppose imperialist globalization is speaking with an ever louder voice. That is why there is every ground for saying that socialism as a doctrine, mass movement and a socialist system will get a second lease of life in the 21st century.

2. The lessons of history and ways to save the Motherland

Looking at the regularities of humanity’s development, the CPRF proceeds on the basis that every people and every country must follow the regularities of development with due account of their specific traits and historical experience. That fully applies to our Motherland. Russia has made a unique contribution to human development thanks to the dedicated work and military exploits of its peoples, its original social consciousness, the spiritual ardour of its great writers, musicians and artists, scientists and engineers, and the martyrdom of generations of Russian patriots and revolutionaries. The future of our Motherland can only be built on that solid foundation of historical continuity.

The complex intertwining of the geopolitical situation, national and economic circumstances has created a Russian society with a distinctive culture and moral traditions. Its fundamental values are communalism, collectivism and patriotism and close interconnection of the individual, society and state. Hence the people’s wish to implement the lofty ideals of Truth, Good and Justice, the equality of all citizens regardless of their national, religious and other differences. These qualities were an important prerequisite that contributed to the spread of liberation and revolutionary ideas among the masses.

Russian history provides ample proof that revolutions are the locomotives of history. Without the peasant wars waged by Stepan Razin and Yemelyen Pugachov, the ideas of Alexander Radishchev, the Decembrist uprising, and the dedicated efforts of Alexander Herzen and Nikolai Chernyshevsky, serfdom would not have been abolished. Tsarism would not have collapsed without the struggle of the revolutionary forces. Humanity would never have attained a fundamentally new social system without the activities of Vladimir Lenin and the Bolshevik Party which he led. The new type of power, the Republic of the Soviets, generated by the historical creativity of the masses would not have been established.

The Great October Socialist Revolution was the only chance for Russia to preserve itself as a nation in the context of the military, political and economic disarray, the disintegration of the country and total inefficacy of the ruling bloc of capitalists and landowners. The formation of the multinational Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was a logical manifestation of the creative character of the Great October Revolution.

Our country was a trail-blazer in the building of socialism. However, the need to tie the many “loose ends” that remained in capitalist Russia and the fact of being surrounded by enemies made a substantial imprint on that process.

The power of the working majority was established. A planned economy based on socialist property was introduced. Soviet people quickly solved the tasks of the reconstruction period. They achieved spectacular social and cultural successes. Subsequent developments have vindicated the Party’s course for the building of socialism in one individual country.

However, our economy was still lagging behind those of the leading capitalist states. Soviet workers became imbued with the importance of Joseph Stalin’s idea of the need to cover in ten years the historical path that the leading capitalist countries had covered in at least a century. Within a short space of time, mobilization economy methods were used to accomplish industrialization which occupied a whole historical era in the capitalist countries. Collectivization of agriculture was carried out at an accelerated rate. Mass illiteracy was liquidated and a cultural revolution was accomplished. All that elevated society to a qualitatively new level.

The peaceful development of the USSR was interrupted by the perfidious attack by Nazi Germany and its satellites. The aggression claimed the lives of millions of people and wreaked colossal devastation. The mass heroism of Soviet people during the Great Patriotic War, successful reconstruction of the national economy and further development of the country again proved the historical advantages of the socialist path of development we have chosen.

A single national economic complex based on an entirely new type of labour division emerged. Citizens were guaranteed all the key rights: the right to work, leisure, healthcare, a comfortable old age, housing, education and access to world cultural achievements. The well-being and the life expectancy of the Soviet people were steadily growing. The USSR was the first to send a man into outer space, to use nuclear energy for peaceful purposes and to ensure a blossoming of science and culture. Soviet socialism was a powerful factor of peace and stability in the world. “The Russian miracle” demonstrated the enormous potential of the socialist system and earned the respect of all the peoples on the planet.

However, the task of creating the productive forces that matched the socialist mode of production was by no means fully solved. The mobilization economy that was established in the country led to massive state intervention in and centralization of many spheres of social life. The economic mechanism was not adapted to the needs of productive forces in a timely manner. Bureaucratic red tape was on the rise, self-organization of the people was held back, social energy and the initiative of working people were declining. Serious departures occurred from one of the key principles of socialism, “from each according to his abilities, to each according to his work”. The achievements of the scientific and technical revolution were not entirely harnessed to the advantages of socialism. The country was running ahead of itself, as highlighted by the third CPSU programme adopted in 1961.

The main task that confronted society was to pass on from the former and in many ways deficient forms of socialism to its more mature forms. To ensure the development in the USSR of real socialism on its own foundation. Production had to be socialized in reality, and not only in formal and legal terms. It was necessary to achieve a higher level of production forces and a higher quality of life than in capitalism, to pass on to self-management of the work collectives, to introduce more effective labour incentives, and to consistently create conditions for harmonious and rounded development of the individual.

Soviet people became aware of the need for change. However, the country’s leadership was tardy in making the necessary decisions and was not persistent enough in implementing them. As a result difficulties, problems and unfavourable trends were accumulated in society. They impeded the use of the advantages of the socialist system and distorted it and slowed down progress. This generated disenchantment and lack of faith in the minds of many people.

These circumstances must be taken into account if we are to understand such contradictions of our history as the combination of widespread creative enthusiasm of the working people and violations of socialist legality in the 1930s and 1940s which our Party has resolutely condemned.

The Communist Party sought to be a vanguard of the working class and the whole Soviet people, it united the most active and competent citizens and had a cadre dedicated to the socialist cause. It commanded great authority in the world revolutionary movement. However, by the early 1990s serious negative phenomena had built up in the activity of the CPSU. The crisis that affected Soviet society was due in large measure to the crisis within the Party. The CPSU found itself in a protracted period of stagnation in terms of theory.

Besides, as Vladimir Lenin had warned, the ruling party was infiltrated by a large number of alien elements, cynical career-seekers and time-servers. These proponents of petty-bourgeois ideology have always posed a particular danger to socialism.

The compulsion to increase the party ranks, lack of a mechanism to ensure succession and rejuvenation of the leading cadres weakened the CPSU. The politically mature segment of the party was unable to exert the necessary influence on the activities of the governing structures and stem the infiltration of the Party by hostile individuals. Underestimation of the danger of the ongoing processes, the monopoly of power and ideology and the betrayal of some party leaders put the CPSU in a position of an “arrogant party”. Its leaders became increasingly divorced from the millions of communists and working people.

Nevertheless the struggle for the Leninist course, for genuine socialism had never ceased. The USSR was moving forward, its power and international authority were growing. There was a growing movement among the Leninist communists for addressing the outstanding problems, overcoming the negative trends in society and moving to new frontiers. However, that aspiration was deceitfully used by those who had betrayed socialism.

In the second half of the 1980s they hypocritically launched the slogan “More democracy, more socialism”. In reality they set about destroying it. The role of social ownership, the foundation of the socialist system, was undermined in every way. The role of work collectives and cooperatives was perverted. No measures were taken to curb the “shadow economy”. The weakening role of the state, departures from the principles of planning disorganized the economy and the consumer market. The artificially created scarcity of goods provoked popular protests. The media were deliberately put into the hands of the proponents of bourgeois views. Using psychological warfare methods they unloosed on mass consciousness a flood of information that denigrated Soviet and Russian history, which gave a free hand to “the shadow capital”, to nationalists, anti-people forces which opposed Soviet power and a single union state.

The political elite used its position to grab the property that belonged to the whole people. When its actions ran into opposition on the part of genuine party members who called for the preservation of the socialist system and the Soviet Union the turncoats staged a counterrevolutionary coup in August-December 1991 and outlawed the Communist Party.

The Belovezhskaya Pushcha collusion among the undisguised traitors of our country marked another step in imposing capitalism and destroying the country. They grossly violated the sacred will of the people, their wish to live in a single multinational state that had been unequivocally expressed in the All-Union Referendum on Marh 17, 1991.

A disgraceful crowning of these criminal actions was the bloody October of 1993, the shelling of the House of the Soviets in Moscow by tanks and the dispersal of the Congress of People’s Deputies. These events were a prologue to the creation of a bourgeois state and the establishment of a regime of national betrayal.

The anti-Soviet forces in our country were inspired by the US and its allies and the Western special services. Under their protection a “fifth column” was created in our country. It played a key role in completing the counterrevolutionary coup which led to the consolidation and temporary stability of capitalism imposed on the peoples of Russia. The destructive course of the present power and its disastrous policy are becoming ever more evident to millions of people.

The restoration of capitalism inevitably generated exploitation of man by man and caused a deep rift in society. On one pole was the so-called class of “strategic proprietors” whose core was initially made up of bank speculators and exporters of raw materials. It is closely linked with the West economically and has a pronounced comprador character. National capital, in spite of seeking to develop the domestic economy, has not lost his class character. The number of dollar millionaires and billionaires in the country is growing. On the other pole is the huge mass of impoverished people of wage-earners crushed by the threat of unemployment and a sense of insecurity. The antagonistic contradiction between hired labour and capital is back in Russia.

The state machine which underpins this order of things fully expresses the interests and the will of the bourgeoisie and its elite as represented by the oligarchs.

The country is in the grip of a systemic crisis. The restoration of capital entailed a shrinking of industrial and agricultural production, the degradation of science, education and culture. In spite of the flood of petrodollars, not a single sector of the economy has made any substantial progress. The population is shrinking. The citizens are debarred from participating in running the affairs of society. Even the norms of bourgeois democracy are flouted. Elections to government bodies are increasingly turning into a farce.

The gulf between the rich and the poor, between the new tightwads and the majority of the people is widening. Working people have been deprived of most of their social, economic and civil rights. Proletarization of the majority of our fellow countrymen is accompanied by social stratification. The absolute impoverishment of much of the population, veterans and pensioners continues. Millions of children are tramps who do not attend school. Contradictions between regions, between town and countryside are becoming sharper.

The flames of interethnic conflicts are blazing. The Russian question acquired a particular relevance during the years of capitalist restoration. The Russians today are the biggest divided people on the planet. An open genocide of a great nation is taking place. The Russian population is decreasing. The historical culture and language are being eroded. The solution of the Russian question and the challenges of building socialism are essentially the same thing.

Our country has lost its positions in the international arena. The combat ability of the armed forces has declined. NATO is unceremoniously moving towards our borders. The Russian Federation is becoming an object of another redivision of the world, and a raw materials appendage to the imperialist states.

The CPRF is convinced that the salvation of the Motherland can only come through a revival of the Soviet system and through following the path of socialism. History has again put the peoples of our country before the same choice as in 1917 and 1941: either a great power and socialism or further destruction of the country and its conversion into a colony. We are not talking about turning back, but about moving forward towards a renewed socialism cleansed of the mistakes and delusions of the past, a socialism that meets the realities of today.

As the systemic crisis deepens there is a growing popular indignation and resentment of the ruling regime. The sense of humiliation of the oppressed and the disadvantaged blends with the anguish of the patriots at seeing the humiliation of their country. This provides the basis for a broadening national-patriotic movement for the independence of the country.

In the present-day conditions the CPRF believes that its task is to unite the social-class and national liberation movements into a single popular front, in giving it a sense of purpose. The Party is fighting for the unity, integrity and independence of the Motherland, for the recreation of the fraternal union of Soviet peoples, welfare and security, moral and physical health of its citizens.

The Russian communists address their ideas above all to the modern working class. More broadly, the working classes and strata in Russia. Those who by their work create material and spiritual values and render vital services to the population. The communists see these people as their main social base.

Historical experience attests that in difficult years our country has been successful only when the working people and all the people were aware of the real vital interests and resolutely rose up to defend them. It is the duty of the communists to render every assistance to this process and to spearhead it.

The CPRF comes out for a worldwide transition to socialism. At the same time, as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted by the UN General Assembly says, the authorities must care about the needs of the people “if man is not to be compelled to have recourse, as last resort, to rebellion against tyranny and oppression”. The country’s regime, in pursuing its anti-people policy, is digging its own grave.

In seeking to promote social-class and national-liberation struggle the CPRF is aware that it has real and potential political allies. These are the parties and non-governmental associations of the left, socialist end of the spectrum, and progressive patriotic movement. They include the trade unions, workers’, peasants’, women’s, veterans’, youth, religious, educational, creative, environmental, antiglobalist and other non-governmental organizations. All those who care about the working people and fight against the enslavement of Russia, those who have not tarnished their names by appeasing the disastrous course of the ruling regime. The communists respect their right to hold their own views and do not impose their own views on them. But in the course of dialogue and interaction with them they do not believe that they have to hide their firm conviction that protection of the national-state interests of Russia today blends with the struggle for socialism and the Soviet forms of rule by the people. We are sure that life will prove us right.

3. Three Stages in the Country’s Development

The Party envisions three stages in achieving its strategic goals by peaceful means.

Stage 1. The main task at this stage is to establish the democratic rule of the working people and the broad patriotic forces led by the CPRF. The Communists organize the popular masses in the struggle for their social, economic and political interests. They lead the manifestations of working people, veterans and young people in defense of their legitimate rights. The Party seeks to create conditions for fair elections of all the bodies of power and to form a government of popular trust. Getting hold of the levers of power will enable them to eliminate the catastrophic consequences of “reforms”, restoring the main political and social-economic rights of citizens, bringing back to the people and putting under state control the ownership of unlawfully appropriated basic production assets. Nationalization will create a solid economic basis for further transformations. An end will be put to the plunder of small goods providers by big capital, bureaucrats and mafia groups.

Representative bodies of power and the government will ensure the country’s security and independence. They will create guarantees against the attempts of the architects of the “new world order” to grab the natural wealth and the production base of Russia. They will do everything to promote the economic and political reintegration of the Republics of the criminally dismembered Soviet Union.

The CPRF will actively revive and develop direct rule by the people: the local Soviets of People’s Deputies, the councils of work collectives, committees of self-government, self organization and self-defense. They will support the introduction of worker control over the executive and representative branches. The issue of fully restoring the Soviet system of state power will be put to a referendum.

Stage 2. After political and economic stability is achieved the CPRF will take the necessary measures to ensure broader participation of working people in running the state. This should be done through the Soviets, the trade unions, workers’ self-government and other organs of direct rule by the people generated in the course of day-to-day practice.

In the economy, the leading role of the socialist forms of management which are the most effective in ensuring the well-being of the people will be clearly manifested. At that stage the diversity of economic models will still be preserved because of the level of development of production forces. After taking in their hands the natural wealth and strategic production sectors the state will put in place the planning of the main economic indicators. It will form a fully-fledged budget and will become the main contractor for products of domestic enterprises. The people’s government will make active use of planning and market mechanisms to regulate the development of the economy and the social sphere. Agricultural production will enjoy state support. The notorious “price gap” between agricultural and industrial products, the plunder of agriculture and its workers will be liquidated. The party believes that the resurgence of agriculture should be driven by large enterprises which combine production, processing and marketing of agricultural produce. The living standards of the people will grow steadily.

Stage 3. Its content will be vigorous work to complete the formation of socialist social relations, ensure sustained development of the socialist system on its own basis. Public forms of ownership of the main means of production will predominate. As the real level of socialization of labour and production rises its crucial role in the economy will gradually be consolidated. The role of science as a direct productive force in society will manifest itself more strongly. On the basis of the achievements of the scientific and technical revolution the national economy will be reconstructed. People’s needs will be met more and more fully. The authorities will ensure an accelerated development of education and culture.

The CPRF sees socialism as a society free of exploitation of man by man, based on public ownership and distributing life benefits in accordance with the quantity, quality and results of work. It is a society with a high labour productivity and effective production achieved through scientific planning and management, the use of science-intensive and resource-saving technologies. It is a society of genuine rule of the people and a developed culture that stimulates the creative activity of the individual and worker self-government. Man will be the main goal and factor of social development.

As socialism develops the prerequisites emerge and mature for the emergence of communism, the historical future of humanity. It will be marked by a standard of social relations immeasurably higher than that under socialism. It will be a classless association in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all.

4. Minimum Programme

The Minimum Programme envisages priority measures aimed at achieving the Party’s strategic goal. That Programme has matured in the midst of the broadest strata of the working people. They supported it in a popular referendum, through numerous protest actions, manifestations and meetings.

Therefore, in present-day conditions the CPRF deems it necessary:

— to use every legitimate means to remove the mafia-comprador bourgeoisie from power. — to establish the rule of the working people and the popular-patriotic forces;

— to stop the extinction of the country’s population, to restore the benefits for families with many children, to recreate the network of generally accessible kindergartens, to provide housing for young families;

— to nationalize the natural wealth of Russia and the strategic sectors of the economy, the revenues from these sectors are to be used in the interests of all citizens;

— to bring back to Russia the government funds currently kept in foreign banks, to use them for economic and social development purposes;

— to dismantle the system of wholesale rigging of elections;

— to create a truly independent judiciary;

— to implement an urgent programme of measures to combat poverty, to introduce state control over prices for prime necessities;

— to revise the laws that worsen the material position of citizens and allow the country’s natural resources to be stolen, first and foremost the law on the “monetization” of in-kind benefits, the Labour, Housing, Land, Forestry and Water Codes. To prevent the retirement age from being raised;

— to restore the responsibility of the authorities for housing and utilities, to fix the housing and utilities rates at no more than 10% of the family income, to stop evictions of people, to increase government housing construction;

— to increase the financing of science, to provide scientists with decent salaries and all that is necessary for research activities;

— to restore the high standards of universal free education;

— to ensure generally accessible and high-quality healthcare;

— to vigorously develop science-intensive production;

— to ensure the country’s food and environmental safety, to support large collective entities for the production and processing of farm produce;

— to establish the priority of internal over the external debt, to compensate people’s deposits which disappeared in the course of disastrous “reforms”;

— to introduce a progressive taxation scale, to exempt low-income citizens from taxes;

— to make the system of government management more effective, to reduce the number of bureaucrats, to broaden the rights of work collectives and trade unions;

— to create conditions for the development of small and medium entrepreneurship;

— to ensure that cultural benefits are generally accessible, to stop the commercialization of culture, to protect Russian culture as the basis of spiritual unity of the multinational Russia and the national cultures of all the country’s peoples;

— to shield society against the propagation of vulgarity and cynicism in the media, to provide access to state-owned media for all political forces operating within the law,to terminate the denigration of Russian and Soviet history;

— to take resolute measures to combat corruption and crime, to stop the practice of fake bankruptcies, to erect a barrier in the way of raiders seizing assets;

— to strengthen the country’s defense capability, pass legislation that forbids the use of the Armed Forces against the people and the creation of an army of mercenaries protecting Capital, to broaden the social guarantees to servicemen and those employed in the law enforcement bodies;

— to ensure the territorial integrity of Russia and the protection of fellow countrymen abroad; and

— to pursue a foreign policy based on mutual respect between countries and peoples, to promote voluntary restoration of the Union State.

All this can only be achieved by consistently fighting the power of criminal-comprador capital. We call on all the working people to join the ranks of the creators and builders of their future.

5. Ideological and Organizational Strengthening of the CPRFF

The CPRF traces its origin back to the RSDLP-RSDLP(B)-RCP(B)-AUCP(B)-CPSU-CP of the RSFSR. Formed at the initiative of the communists and primary organizations of the CP RSFSR and the CPSU, the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, continuing the cause of the CPSU and the CP RSFSR, is their legal successor on the territory of the Russian Federation. From the previous experience of the Russian, Soviet and world communist movement it borrows everything that has been tested by practice, that enables it to form itself as the true party of the working people that provides answers to the most pressing questions of modern development.

Our Party calls on the compatriots to strengthen and broaden the alliance of the patriotic forces in the struggle for socialism, and in defense of the national state interests of the country. It will do everything to enable the union of workers, peasants and the people’s intelligentsia, all the working people to uphold the honour and independence of Russia and ensure its advance towards socialism.

The CPRF will do all it can to enable the broad strata of the working people to become aware of their interests, the key role of the working man in the salvation of the Motherland, in turning the country toward the progressive path of development. An indispensable condition for the achievement of these goals is greater political activity of the working people, their involvement in the national movement for the revival of socialism, for the freedom and integrity of Russia, for the restoration of the union state.

The party organizes and supports various forms of activities in and outside parliament, including mass protest actions, strikes and other forms of civil protest envisaged under international human rights conventions. The CPRF sees parliamentary struggle as class struggle which precludes compromises with the anti-people course of the present government. Only then can the link between the mass protest movement and the parliamentary activities of communists be effective.

The CPRF is the party of the future, and the future belongs to young people. The party renders every assistance to the Komsomol and the Young Pioneers movement based on the Soviet tradition.

Being an independent non-governmental organization, the Communist Party of the Russian Federation recognizes the independence of all the other communist parties. The CPRF builds its relations with them on the basis of common class interests, political and social goals, comradeship and mutual assistance and the collectivist ethic. It comes out against disunity in the communist movement, for its cohesion on a common ideological-moral and political basis worked out by generations of Russian and all Soviet communists.

The CPRF is a member of the Union of Communist Parties – Communist Party of the Soviet Union (UCP-CPSU). It deems its strengthening to be a key political condition for the recreation, on a voluntary basis, of the union state and the formation of a single communist party on that basis. The CPRF promotes cooperation with the communist and workers’ parties and anti-imperialist movements throughout the world. It comes out consistently for closer coordination and unity of communist actions on the world arena.

The CPRF is constantly seeking to develop and perfect the forms and methods of its activity. To enhance its political influence on the social process the party deems it necessary:

— to ensure that the CPRF is represented in all the spheres of social activity and organizations that are important for the people;

— to combine extra-parliamentary and parliamentary forms of struggle against the capitalist order, to coordinate the activities and make the most of the influence of the parliamentary party and communist groups at representative bodies to uphold the interests of the working people;

— to improve the political work in work collectives, the bodies of self-government, self-organization and self-defense, the trade union, workers’ peasants’ and patriotic movements, creative, women’s, youth, veterans’, charitable and other organizations;

— to interact with the trade unions in the economic and political sphere, in fostering the class consciousness of the workers, peasants and the intelligentsia, in encouraging them to fight for their rights;

— to hold actions in support of the legitimate demands of the work collectives, wage earners, the unemployed, veterans, and students, to create a broad network of associations of CPRF supporters;

— to take part in the elections of power bodies at the federal level and in the elections of local self-government bodies;

— to uphold the civil rights and freedoms in the Russian Federation, the rights and dignity of compatriots in the states formed on the territory of the former republics of the USSR; and

— to defend the country’s history and culture, the honour of the citizen, patriot and internationalist.

The following are the priority tasks in internal party relations:

— ideological and organizational strengthening of the party, especially its foundation – the primary organizations;

— enforcing party discipline on the basis of shared ideology and ethics, criticism and self-criticism, comradeship, equality and democratic centralism;

— firm adherence to Lenin’s warning of the danger both of left-wing and right-wing opportunism. Any manifestation of factionalism or sectarianism is incompatible with party membership;

— consistent rejuvenation and renewal of the party membership. Attracting to the party ranks and governing bodies the young generation by combining the energy and drive of the young with the experience of the older generations of party members and ensuring continuity of policy. Support of party veterans;

— democratization of internal party life, concerted work to form a party of the working masses that rules out bureaucracy and the cult of the leader, systematic renewal of all the elected party bodies and leading cadre and the body of communist deputies in parliament;

— the creation of conditions that prevent the appearance of political turncoats, careerists who use their party membership to further their selfish goals and undermine its authority; and

— political education and training of communists, inculcating advanced social consciousness to the mass of the working people, scientific study of Russian and world reality, the development of fundamental and applied sciences of society.