– G.A. Zyuganov, Chairman of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation –
On December 21, marking the 145th anniversary of the birth of J.V. Stalin, the parliamentary faction of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (KPRF) in the State Duma of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation, the Central Committee of the KPRF, the Moscow City and Regional Committees of the KPRF, the Leninist Komsomol, the Union of Soviet Officers, the Movement in Defence of Labour Rights, “Women of Russia,” “Children of War,” and other public organizations of the left-wing national-patriotic movement held a ceremony in Moscow to lay wreaths and flowers at J.V. Stalin’s grave near the Kremlin Wall and at the Mausoleum of V.I. Lenin on Red Square.
At the conclusion of the ceremonial event, G.A. Zyuganov, Chairman of the Central Committee of the KPRF and leader of the National-Patriotic Forces of Russia, addressed journalists:
Good afternoon, dear comrades!
Today is the birthday of Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin.
We give special recognition to the birthdays of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin and Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin. These are two geniuses who saved Russian statehood. They were the first in the world to create a state of workers and peasants, a state of the working people, which became the pinnacle of a thousand-year-old Russian civilization.
We are not merely commemorating this day — we have prepared for it thoroughly. In the near future, for those fighting for our Motherland, we will send out the 132nd convoy. This will include 150 tonnes of everything needed by those at the front, by our soldiers in hospitals, and by children and the families of the fallen to support them during these difficult times.
I believe that the Lenin-Stalin modernization should be studied today in the headquarters of all governing bodies. Yesterday, at the Kremlin, during the State Council meeting, we discussed one of the most critical issues — the issue of family and demographics.
The family is the primary unit that shapes future citizens, workers and patriots. Russia itself is like a family of nations. The Russian people created a unique civilization, bringing together 190 nations and ethnic groups without destroying a single faith, culture, religion or tradition.
Today, the defence of our glorious traditions is also reflected in President Putin’s policies. This is, above all, about strengthening sovereignty based on self-sufficiency. Our country is truly self-sufficient. If we look at its history, all the greatest and most talented military leaders, tsars and general secretaries fought to ensure it was independent, free, strong, confident and secure.
Yesterday, speaking from the podium of the State Duma, I emphasized: If you want to have a safe and sovereign state, it must have a population of at least 200 to 250 million people. But here, across these vast lands from the Black Sea and the Baltic to the Pacific Ocean, we are left with only 146 million. If we had preserved the Soviet Union, there would have been 300 million.
If the Anglo-Saxons had not driven a wedge between us and the Slavic people of Ukraine (where predominantly Russian people live), we would now number 210 million.
It is crucial to understand that the so-called “reforms” and the treacherous policies imposed by the likes of Gorbachev, Yeltsin, Yakovlev, Shevardnadze and the thieving Gaidar-Chubais gang are the greatest crimes, not only against the peoples of our country but against the entire planet.
This is a crime against the bright legacy of Lenin and Stalin, against the great Soviet era.
Yesterday, I pointed out that the Russian people are the state-forming nation that brought these territories together, and this was acknowledged by all.
During the Great Patriotic War, 20 million Russian people perished. Altogether, we lost 27 million of the best sons and daughters of our nation. In my homeland, out of one hundred men who went to the front, at most ten returned, all wounded.
As a result of the treacherous policies of 1991, we lost 30 million people. This is why we need a fundamentally different policy, one we have long proposed. We have formed the National-Patriotic Union, which is based, above all, on the ideals of justice, labour and a strong socialist statehood.
There has never been a stronger statehood in history. Within the USSR, we were the most victorious, the strongest, the smartest, the most advanced in space exploration and the most honoured.
Recently, President Putin has taken a “left turn,” and everyone sees it. However, many, including those within his administration, have yet to fully implement this policy.
Yesterday, many governors understood for the first time that it is necessary to care for children and large families, and to raise genuine patriots. But this cannot be achieved without strong families, proper schools and even quality toys. Currently, all toys are foreign — there aren’t even Russian soldiers or Soviet symbols represented.
Today, television channels didn’t even mention that it is the birthday of Stalin and Rokossovsky. Yet they should have shown and told the story of how these geniuses grew up and what they achieved for the great Soviet country.
We all need to become smarter and shift to the left! We have been advocating this for a long time.
In the 1990s, we saved the country twice — from civil war and from default. We pulled the country back from the brink of collapse.
Today, the soldiers on the front lines are fighting under the Red Banner of the Great Victory, wearing the “USSR” patch on their sleeves.
Three years ago, President Putin told journalists from around the world that capitalism has reached a dead end. Yet what we currently have is liberal, criminal, thieving, disgusting, oligarchic, cynical and malicious capitalism. This system was forcibly imposed on us by Yeltsin, Chubais and all that corrupt and dishonest group! We need to find a way out of this dead end.
Putin made it clear for the first time in Munich that Russia has its own history, its own culture, its own civilization. It is based on our spirituality, our great language, literature and music. It is built on our seven great victories, which have enabled us to survive throughout history.
Nonetheless, school textbooks are still not being properly rewritten, and many children are still studying from Soros-funded textbooks.
We created the movement “Children of Russia — to the Children of Donbass.” So far, we have received 22,000 children. Here, they not only undergo recovery but also social rehabilitation. They visit the Red Square. They visit the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour. And these children, after experiencing these meetings, seeing our faces and feeling that they have brothers and friends here, leave with an entirely different outlook.
We have prepared a development budget that is 10 trillion rubles larger than the one proposed by the government. The academician Kashin, along with our team — Afonin, Novikov, Kharitonov, Ostannina, Gavrilov and Kalashnikov — submitted the corresponding proposals. However, United Russia refused to adopt them.
Yesterday, I spent two hours talking with around 50 governors, and they all unanimously said: this is complete nonsense!
But it was the Duma that approved it! I told Volodin: let’s gather and discuss this issue in a closed room (we have one — without any listening devices). Let’s figure out how production can be developed with an interest rate of 21 per cent, a monetization level of 53 per cent and a devalued ruble. The interest rate has skyrocketed, construction projects are stalling and prices are soaring! If they had adopted our law to regulate prices for essential goods (including medicines and utilities), such a mess would not have occurred.
And they respond to me by saying: “It’s impossible!” But why is it “impossible”? I’ve been dealing with this my entire life — explain to me why the price of potatoes has risen by 80 per cent? This is sheer idiocy and a lack of basic management! Nobody eats more potatoes than the country consumes — everyone knows how much is needed. Everyone knows how much is grown in backyards. Implement a state procurement system at a fair price, and you’ll get exactly the amount of potatoes you need.
Now, even at (the major retail chain — NEPH) Pyaterochka, potatoes have started to disappear or the prices have been inflated. This is unacceptable! And yet, there’s no real problem — all of this can be resolved in an hour in a single office. But this shows there’s no effective management among those responsible for this, and there’s no personal accountability.
We proposed our own program, and we are actively advancing it. Yesterday, I invited the governors to visit the people’s enterprises: we’ll start with the Lenin State Farm, Zvenigovsky, Usolye-Sibirskoye and others. I told them: everyone else is asking you for money, but we are not — Zvenigovsky alone produces 200 types of meat products. It generates 27 billion rubles in revenue, and we pay 1.5 billion rubles in taxes.
The average salary there is 80,000 roubles, and there’s a full social benefits package. If you want, come see it for yourselves, and we’ll do the same in every district. The key is — support us. I told them: 200 criminal cases were initiated against the Lenin State Farm, and there were attempts at corporate raids — but we fought them off, and the president helped us fend them off, for which we are grateful.
You’re saying now, “we need people to have more children” — well, come and see for yourselves. In the state farm, families are having children; every second family there is a large one. Visit, and you’ll see the best school in the world. You’ll see kindergartens where children learn to play chess and engage in robotics. I’ll show you the sports complex, which operates 24 hours a day — if you come off the night shift, you can still work out. And most importantly, all of this is free for the workers. Additionally, 200 elderly residents are supported every month, and the average salary is 125,000 rubles per month. There’s also a children’s park themed around Pushkin’s fairy tales.
This is a ready-made model of a socialized economy — this is what a “left turn” looks like. These are our best Soviet people’s traditions! I believe the time for this has not only arrived but is long overdue.
But today, the most important thing is to achieve victory on the battlefield. Remember this and pass it on to everyone: no matter where you live, no matter your nationality, religion or values — there’s a threat standing behind every one of us. That threat is the “war on the Russian world” declared by the Anglo-Saxons.
There are just over 200 countries in the world today. Only about a dozen have a thousand-year history, and only five have invented all types of scientific and technical creativity in their history. We are part of that magnificent five. In the space industry, we were 10 years ahead of the Americans. And in all types of production, we were their equals.
In the past 500 years, only two countries have not lost their sovereignty: us and England. But today, they have come to strangle our sovereignty and destroy Russian civilization. Hitler already attempted this — he planned to flood Leningrad and Moscow, but in the winter of 1941-42, he lost a million of his finest soldiers near Moscow.
Yesterday, I said: to win, a full-scale mobilization isn’t necessary. But it is critically important for us to understand that victory only comes when people are mobilized internally. The 730,000 volunteers who stepped forward, as well as those working in the fields, in factories and in science, must eliminate the gaps we face.
Schools must educate a new generation based on works like How the Steel Was Tempered and The Young Guard. But for this to happen, every ministry, department, deputy and agency must set a single goal for themselves — to win! Unfortunately, this is not happening. People arrive and begin “celebrating,” cutting ribbons and doing nothing to ensure victory.
To achieve victory, we need to toil and work hard. That’s exactly what our team is doing tirelessly. I want to thank N.M. Kharitonov, who was our party’s candidate in the presidential elections. Along with Y.V. Afonin, he travelled across the entire country. Our program — everything I’m sharing with you now — was printed in a circulation of 100 million copies and distributed widely. Our Pioneer and Komsomol organizations (and they are present here) are working on this daily. Our deputies are now reporting back to their voters. Recently, at TASS, we held a press conference summarizing the year, where all committee heads presented their reports.
Consolidation is the responsibility of us, our friends and our allies.
I would like to address our friends and allies directly: no one has ever won alone on the vast lands of Russia. Even to build a wooden hut, it takes eight men to bind the first row of logs. A sense of collectivism, justice and high spirituality is what has driven us throughout history and brought us our greatest victories.
So, put aside your petty grievances and ambitions — they’re worth nothing. Unite and join forces. Our main priorities today are victory and socialization. The choice before us is clear: socialism, justice and people’s power, or fascism.
The scoundrels flooding the world with blood under the guise of their tuxedos and empty talk of democracy — you see it yourself — there isn’t even a hint of democracy. In America and Europe, they’ve lost their minds. What they’re doing in the Middle East is sheer madness. They are destroying entire nations and states.
Without a socialist, just, labour-oriented and united Russia, there will be neither peace nor stability on this planet. Without the BRICS alliance, there will be no counterbalance to NATO and its aggression. Without respect for the working people — and there are seven key professions: worker, farmer, teacher, doctor, scientist, engineer and soldier — there will be nothing. If they thrive, everyone thrives. Our program and the Lenin-Stalin modernization align with these principles.
Once again, I congratulate everyone on the birthday of Joseph Vissarionovich, and I wish you success, along with “Stalin’s” will and character!
I will conclude with one episode: in the autumn of 1941, when the fascists were at the gates of Moscow, J.V. Stalin was offered the option to evacuate. He was asked, “What should we do with your Kremlin Regiment?” Stalin responded, “I will be the commander who leads this regiment in its final battle.” And he stayed in the Kremlin, setting an example for everyone else.
Three cheers for the great J.V. Stalin!
Congratulations on the occasion!
(Translated by NEPH from the Russian original)