Despite Trial, Old Soviet Communists Vow to Survive

While the Russian Constitutional Court ponders whether the ban on the Soviet Communist Party should be permanent, some faithful, rank-and-file Communists pledged Monday to carry on regardless of the verdict.

“Communism is an ideology, which is indestructible, as history shows,” said Alexei A. Prigarin, an organizer of a group trying to revive the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. “The dream of social justice will always fire up people under any regimes.”

Prigarin and eight comrades spoke at a news conference, after a weekend session that they claim was the 20th Party Congress of the Soviet Communist Party. Communist groups across the former Soviet Union sent 298 delegates to Moscow for the little-noted session, where they decided “to start restoring the Communist Party of the Soviet Union” as of Monday, said Yuri P. Izyumov, editor of Glasnost.

The Communist Party was banned by Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin after a coup by hard-line Communists failed in August, 1991. His decree outlawing the party accused it of masterminding efforts to stop democratic reforms.

Several would-be successor groups have cropped up in the last year, including the Union of Communists, the Russian Communist Workers Party and the Anarchist-Communist Movement. The newest aspirants feel their group is the real heir-apparent.

Konstantin A. Nikolayev, a former bulldozer driver now working as a foreman at a construction site, was one of those who made the conference happen. A token blue-collar worker on the old, ruling Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, he complained that all other party bigwigs--including those arguing the party’s side in the case before the Constitutional Court--had refused to support the drive to give the party a second life.

The court is expected to rule on whether Yeltsin’s decree was legal and whether the party itself was constitutional.

“The people, as they become increasingly destitute, are clamoring for a change of the current policy,” Nikolayev said. “But despite all those so-called Communist parties cropping up, there is no organizing force capable of uniting the spontaneous protest welling up among the workers. We intend to fill in this vacuum.”

Many politicians, however, disagree with the goals they have set for themselves; others say that no group that calls itself Communist has a chance of gaining wide support.

Igor K. Pantin--a leader of the People’s Party of Free Russia, which has roots in the former Soviet Communist Party--said he seriously doubts that the old Communist giant can be restored.