Keep in mind that the communist party is claimed by less than 7% of the Russian population and holds no seat in the Duma.
Yet its leader still offers valuable insight to Russian history and fair criticism of current political thought.

🇷🇺🚩 Gennady Zyuganov, General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, on the legacies of Lenin, Stalin, and the Great Patriotic War:

“If you look at Stalin’s words, when he addressed our army, and when Zhukov was asked which three main events had the greatest impact during the war years, on the morale and political spirit of both the citizens and our army, he named three:

First, Stalin’s address of July 3rd 1941 — ‘Brothers and Sisters’ — which united the country. Brothers and sisters went to defend their beloved homeland.

Second, when he addressed the army from the Mausoleum, calling on them to carry forward the glorious victories of our ancestors — from Alexander Nevsky to Dmitry Donskoy, Minin, and Pozarsky — declaring:

‘Above you shall fly the banner of Lenin, the banner of the Great October.’ That was the banner we raised over the Reichstag. Before that, 20 years earlier, those same people had been crushed in World War I, realizing there was no sense in dying for the money of London, Paris, and New York; for the rich who inflated shell prices five to six fold; for a throne that betrayed the country and fled the front.

There was no point. But this time, there was a deep meaning — embedded in Lenin’s idea:

In Lenin’s idea, that we would unite the country on the principles of friendship, justice, and internationalism. We would unite the country through education and science. We would do everything to carry out industrialization, electrification, and a cultural revolution. We would move the country forward. Without this, victory was impossible. Without that, the victory in May 1945 would have been impossible.

That’s why Lenin-Stalin modernization is the core and the main foundation of this great victory. Pay attention — today’s authorities, even while celebrating this victory, try to separate things. On ‘Solovyov LIVE’, they recently said:

‘Stalin was a statesman, Lenin was a globalist.’

I’m sorry, that’s complete nonsense. Lenin-Stalin modernization is a single, indivisible whole. Read Stalin’s complete works — you won’t find a single letter, word, or paragraph carelessly critical of Lenin or his policies. Lenin carried out a brilliant policy, consolidating our national spirit and foundations. He was the first in history to propose socialism, justice, and labor as the basis of a new statehood.

He understood that imperialism, empire, and Russian nationalism could not unify 190 peoples and nationalities. He saw that without quality education, healthcare for all, and an eight-hour workday, the country couldn’t survive. He did everything to make the country literate, enlightened, advanced — and maximally united.

Stalin understood that the Civil War was a trauma for every family, for the whole nation. He worked systematically to heal that trauma by 1941. He helped organize the Tehran Conference and later pushed to open a second front. Then in Potsdam, he ensured the Nazis were put on trial and executed. At first, they suggested just shooting them. Stalin said: ‘No — the world must see the legality and justice of our great struggle and victory.’ I see in this chain of unification a deep political, state, and even sacred meaning.

What was the tragedy of the 1990s? It began when they attacked the entire history of Stalin’s leadership. Then they came for Lenin. Then they shot down Soviet power. Then they brought in CIA agents and handed over the country to a drunken Yeltsin, who with Chubais sold off our millennia-old national wealth for less than 3% of its value — destroying entire industries. And now they’re trying to make excuses, to hide behind this by dividing, among other things, the rule of Lenin and Stalin.