Overview: The largest of the several communist parties of Russia which considers itself to be the heir of the Communist Party of the RSFSR within the CPSU. The CPRF has three main groups: the National Communists or National Reformists (Gennady Zyuganov, Yury Belov); the Social Reformists or "Social Democratics" (Valentin Kuptsov) and the Orthodox Communists (the "Leninist Platform in the Communist Movement" led by Richard Kosolapov). The predominance of the Zyuganov supporters within the party is unchallenged.
Top three Candidates: G. Zyuganov, 51, Chairman of the CPRF Central Committee, Svetlana Goriacheva, 48, deputy public prosecutor of the city of Vladivostok, former deputy chairperson of the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR; chairman of the Kemerovo regional legislature Aman Tuleev, 51 (no party affiliation).
Political Orientation: While not rejecting private ownership in principle, the CPRF advocates a redivision of property in the name of "social justice" and a restoration of the USSR.
Leading Candidates: V. Kuptsov; President of RAU Corporation Alexei Podberyozkin; Russian Orthodox religious artist Valery Tarasov (author of a self-portrait-cum-poster with a Catholic Crucifix and the slogan "We are for the CPRF"); Albert Makashov, 57, retired general, formerly main organizer of the "defense of the White House" (the seizure of the Town Hall and the storming of the Ostankino TV station) in October 1993, candidate for president of the RSFSR in 1991; August 1991 coup maker Valentin Varennikov; 38 deputies of the outgoing State Duma (including cosmonaut Vitaly Sevastianov and prosecutor Viktor Iliukhin) and 4 deputies of the Federation Council (Yury Lodkin, Liudmila Ivanova, Leonid Ivanchenko and Pyotr Romanov).
The CPRF faction in the previous State Duma numbered 46 deputies.
Contact Address: Moscow, Okhotniy Riad, 1, State Duma
Overview: The party of agricultural nomenklatura, managers of collective and state-owned farms renamed joint stock companies. Regarded as the rural arm of the CPRF, it calls for the liquidation of the "criminal regime", although it has two key ministerial posts (including a vice premier).
Leading Candidates: Director of JSC "Zavety Lenina" near Moscow, Mikhail Lapshin, 61, chairman of the APR; vice premier in the Chernomyrdin government, Aleksandr Zaveriukha; Aleksandr Nazarchuk, 56, former Minister of Agriculture and Food in the Russian Federation; V.Starodubtsev, 64, chairman of the Lenin Collective Farm, Novomoskovsky district, Tula region.
Political Orientation: Initially the APR preached an orthodox communist ideology which is gradually becoming diluted, with the party becoming a lobbying group of agricultural managers (similarly to the industrial managers who have affiliated themselves, "according to their interests", with Chernomyrdin's NDR, Shcherbakov-Volsky's ROPP and the Federation of Goods Producers of Yury Skokov). That process however is in its early stage. The chairman of the party, Lapshin, and the leader of the Agrarian Union, deputy of the Federation Council, the participant of 1991 coup d'etat attempt, Vasily Starodubtsev represent the more orthodox, pro-communist wing; ministers Nazarchuk and Zaveriukha are closer to the center and are prepared to make compromises with the President and the Prime Minister.
The past former APR faction in the Duma had 51 members; and the list of APR election candidates contains 36 deputies of the State Duma.
Overview: Electoral coalition of the left-wing imperial Russian All-People's Union (ROS) led by Sergei Baburin and the communist leaning movement of Mothers for Social Justice led by Yelena Shuvalova. Informal members of the bloc are: the national-bolshevik Great Power Party and the Union of Officers (both headed by Stanislav Terekhov), the Soyuz movement headed by former USSR deputy Georgy Tikhonov, the Kuban regional movement "Otechestvo" led by Nikolai Kondratenko and Sergei Glotov and some smaller organizations.
Top three Candidates: Nikolai Ryzhkov, 66, President of the International Association "Eurasia", the last chairman of the USSR Council of Ministers; Sergei Baburin, 36, deputy of the State Duma, Chairman of the Russian All-People's Union; Stanislav Terekhov, 40, leader of the Union of Officers, organizer of the attack on the CIS Armed Forces headquarters in October 1993; Yelena Shuvalova.
Political Orientation: The bloc differs from Zyuganov's CPRF by being more untolerant of the President and the government, and at the same time less wedded to socialist orthodoxy on economic matters.
Leading Candidates: Chairman of the Board of the (patriotic) Union of Russian Writers, Valery Ganichev; G.Tikhonov; S.Glotov; chess player Anatoly Karpov, 44; writer Vasily Belov; the son of Yury Andropov, Igor Andropov, 34, ambassador at large with the RF Foreign Ministry; Oleg Baklanov, 63, one of the participants of 1991 coup d'etat attempt, former secretary of the CC CPSU, currently adviser to the defense industry bank Mir; LDPR Duma deputy Mikhail Lemeshev; Federation Council deputies Nikolai Kondratenko and Vladimir Strigin. The closest equivalent to Power to the People in the previous Parliament was the group of 11 deputies led by Baburin which called itself the Russian Way.
Overview: A radical communist organization given to staging rallies. It has no prominent personalities on its list. It is an electoral coalition of the Russian Communist Workers Party of Tiulkin-Anpilov (RKRP) and the Russian Party of Communists (RPC) of Anatoly Kriuchkov. Informally, the bloc also includes the movement Working Russia (Anpilov), the Union of Communists and the Russian Party of Communists-CPSU (the leader of both is Aleksei Prigarin), as well as the United Workers Front (OFT) of Vladimir Stradymov. The bloc has a more traditional communist internationalist wing (Prigarin) and the radical national communist wing (Anpilov).
Top three Candidates: V.Tiulkin, 44, first secretary of the CC RKRP; A.Kriuchkov; V.Anpilov, 50, leader of Working Russia and main organizer of communist rallies.
Political Orientation: Some leaders (Anpilov) consider the task of making the 5 percent cut-off unimportant as the main aim of taking part in "bourgeois elections" is to propagate their views.
Leading Candidates: A.Prigarin; Aleksei Sergeev (the running mate of presidential hopeful Makashov in 1991); Andrei Yezersky, first secretary of the CC of the Komsomol restored by him; leaders of pro-communist workers' organizations in Moscow and Nizhni Novgorod Vasily Shishkaryov and Dmitry Egoshin (both are also members of the Russian Party of Workers and Peasants).