Russian Political Parties

What is the current state of Political Parties in Russia?

I know that the USSR only had the Communist party, but since the break-up I haven't heard anything about the parties.

When I watch the news, even though I'm British, I know that George Bush is a Republican, Jacques Chirac is UMP, Gerhard Schroeder is SPD and Jos& Mar&a Aznar is PP, yet from Russia, I know nothing! Vladimir Putin is just Vladimir Putin.

What party is he from, and what other parties are there? Are there Centre left/right parties like in Western Europe, or are the hard Left/right still more popular?



Phil

Russian parliament consists of:

Communist Party of Russian Federation (Коммунистическая Партия Российской Федерации). Leader — Геннадий Зюганов. They are considered as left opposition. http://www.cprf.ru/

Party "The unity" ("Единство"). Leader — Борис Грызлов. This party supports Putin. I do not entrust them hardly because they was created close before President elections and with one purpose›to gain more control upon parliament and to prevent elections of other, mainly left, parties.

"The union of right forces" ("Союз правых сил"). Leader—Борис Немцов. This party fights for democracy but I guess they fight for their own purse and power. http://www.sps.ru/sps/

Party "Yabloko" ("Яблоко"). Leader—Григорий Явлинский. This party is considered as democratic. http://www.yabloko.ru/

Liberal-democratic Party of Russian Federation ("Либерально-демократическая партия Российской Федерации"). Leader—Владимир Жириновский. They are something like democracies too. http://www.ldpr.ru/

Agrarian party of Russian Federation ("Аграрная партия Российской Федерации"). Leader—Анатолий Харитонов. http://www.agroparty.ru/

Hope I do not forget somebody. Also there are many individual deputies.

Putin is not from any party. He is just a man who has been working in KGB all his life and then for unknown reason (probably due to his influential political friends and non-masterful nature) was "made" as candidate to President.

Kommunists and Agrarians are on the left.
SPS and Yabloko are on the right. The difference between them is that SPS tries to be involved in a power and Yabloko just makes some liberal criticism toward the government.
LDPR is nationalistic populists.
Edinstvo is a bunch of clerks who always will do what Putin will say them.

Why do they call Russia a "Federation?" And is Russia a complete capitalist democracy or is it more toward the "real" Socialism?

i think Russia is considered a federation because it has many republics in it.
inside russia there are the republics of
adygeya
altai respublika
bashkortan respublika
buryatiya
dagestan
ingusheytiya
kabardino-balkarskaya respublika
kalmykiya
karachevo-chegkessiya respublika
kareliya
komi
marii el
mordoviya
yakutya (respublika saha)
tatarstan
tyva
udmurtskaya
hakasiya
chechenskaya respublika
chuvashkaya respublika

and many autonomos oblasts ( http://map.rin.ru/ )

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Originally Posted by Veedey

Kommunists and Agrarians are on the left.
SPS and Yabloko are on the right. The difference between them is that SPS tries to be involved in a power and Yabloko just makes some liberal criticism toward the government.
LDPR is nationalistic populists.
Edinstvo is a bunch of clerks who always will do what Putin will say them.

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So Edinstvo is moderates? I'm comparing to the American system, where "left" is more personal freedom, less economic freedom, and "right" is more economic freedom, less personal freedom. Populists are less/less, and libertarians are more/more.

Moderates in the U.S.: Joe Lieberman (D), Jim Jeffords (I), Olympia Snowe (R)

Um, well your idea of libertarians depends on if you mean Libertarian Party (circa 1972 or whenever) or libertarians in the classical tradition (circa early 19th century) of left-anarchism. They sort of hijacked the word in the same way Democrats did "democrat" and Republicans did "republican" and now libertarians have to call themselves anarchists, or the even more banal "libertarian socialist."

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Originally Posted by mike

Um, well your idea of libertarians depends on if you mean Libertarian Party (circa 1972 or whenever) or libertarians in the classical tradition (circa early 19th century) of left-anarchism. They sort of hijacked the word in the same way Democrats did "democrat" and Republicans did "republican" and now libertarians have to call themselves anarchists, or the even more banal "libertarian socialist."

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Are you saying libertarianism has nothing (or not much) to do with, for example, the Democratic Party? If so, I agree, but I might misunderstand you.

No...I said the existence of the Libertarian Party has made the word "libertarian," refer to a member of their party. Much like the Democrats did for the word "democrat" (one who advocates a democracy) and the Republicans did "republican" (one who advocates a republic).

Quote:

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Originally Posted by mike

No...I said the existence of the Libertarian Party has made the word "libertarian," refer to a member of their party. Much like the Democrats did for the word "democrat" (one who advocates a democracy) and the Republicans did "republican" (one who advocates a republic).

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Yes, it's destroyed the original meaning of the name.

Originally "Libertarian" meant someone who sought both personal and economic freedom, by minimizing the size of government with respect to both taxation and intrusions into personal freedom.

Now, "Libertarian" means nutbar third-party freak, thanks to Lyndon LaRouche.

Well, no, I meant that originally (before 30 years ago when the LP was formed) libertarian meant someone who rejected coercive and/or illegitimate authority--the state and capitalism (although some libertarians like Benjamin Tucker seemed more in favor of a free market, despite calling themselves "individual socialists").

I suppose we could distinguish between the two by using the capital L for a member of the Libertarian Party and a lowercase l for anarchists/individualists, however I doubt that is going to make it any less confusing.