United Communist Party: No to corruption, yes to social revolution!

Statement of the Central Committee of the United Communist Party (OKP)

After a long hiatus, politics returns to the streets of Russia. This time, the main reason for the intensification of protest has been the revelations of corruption that plague the country’s highest officials. The protests of March 26, 2017, were attended by tens of thousands of people. A new burst of activity is expected on June 12. 

As it did five years ago, the government reacts to what is happening with police measures. It launches a campaign of slander against ordinary participants, putting pressure on young people through school and university administrations, fabricates criminal cases and imposes sanctions that are manifestly inhumane and disproportionate to the supposed misconduct.

The government sees the hand of liberal puppeteers behind street protest, and it’s largely right. But the protest, set in motion by Navalny and Co., is not a one-man show, and this is its value to us, the communists. Sharing the anger of our compatriots and, above all, of the young people who grew up under capitalism, we believe it is necessary not to ignore the mass movement, but to join it with a program that is different from that offered by the liberal gentlemen.

Corruption is not something surprising in a market-driven society. Corruption is only a mechanism of payment for the services that the bureaucracy provides to business. And since under capitalism officials are only formally servants of the people, and in fact serve only the richest people of the country, the bribes, “kickbacks” and other similar phenomena should be viewed as a form of “wages” which business awards to the bureaucracy it employs.

However, corruption is not always illegal and a criminal offense. In the so-called “civilized countries,” corruption is widespread in the form of lobbying. This is the mechanism by which the kings of the business, through donations, grants, etc., pay for election campaigns of deputies, governors and presidents, and in exchange receive agents of influence in the government. It is on this principle that the governing institutions in the United States and Western European countries have been built and operated for centuries, and of which the leaders of the liberal opposition in Russia are so fond.

Thus, in latent or overt forms, corruption is inherent in any capitalist state. Therefore, we have today the primitive slogan “Don’t call him Dimon” [Он вам не Димон] and the demands to bring to account individuals like Usmanov and Medvedev.

 

We stand for:

– Opening of all the accounts and records of private and public enterprises in order for ordinary workers to control their activities;

– Direct election of judges;

– Drastic reduction and cleansing of the bureaucracy, eliminating special privileges of civil servants;

– Confiscation of property as a measure of criminal punishment for economic crimes;

– Introduction of a progressive income tax, luxury tax and especially on large inheritance;

– Ensure that the richest earners have a maximum income ratio of no more than 10 to 1 over the poorest;

– Resolute and uncompensated seizure [nationalization] of oligarchic property. This will help to accumulate national wealth for a new industrialization, eradication of unemployment, improvement of working conditions, to ensure access to health care and all forms of education, to provide the population with good housing, to face environmental and cultural challenges.

In short, our program is the seizure of power and property from the capitalists and its transfer to the people, the workers of our country. To establish a system called socialism.

Power to the millions, not the millionaires!

Adopted at the Third Plenum of the CC of the OKP
Moscow
June 3, 2017


Translated by Greg Butterfield

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