Communist Calls for an Economic U-Turn in Russia

Russian Communist Party presidential candidate Gennady A. Zyuganov on Tuesday published a program calling for the restoration of much of the Soviet-era economy.

The lengthy document, while tempered with moderate language, makes clear that if Zyuganov beats President Boris N. Yeltsin in the mid-June election, the state will reassert control over the country’s economy, regulating prices and wages and controlling production.

The plan also outlines protectionist trade policies aimed at allowing Russia to draw into itself for several years to improve domestic production before reemerging on the world market.

Zyuganov’s Communist-dominated bloc “acknowledges the need to reform the economy but rejects the course chosen by current authorities,” says the document, published in Sovetskaya Rossiya, a Communist Party newspaper.

The plan does not call for a complete reversal of Yeltsin’s free-market initiatives; for instance, it largely ignores the complicated issue of what would happen to property privatized during recent years.

Yeltsin supporters have consistently warned that a Zyuganov victory would set the stage for renationalization of the homes, stores and factories that Russians have acquired in recent years. But Zyuganov’s campaign staff insists that only property privatized illegally would be renationalized, and then only through the courts.

Still, pro-market economists quickly denounced the program as a recipe for disaster that would send inflation spiraling out of control and again isolate Russia from the world economy.

“It would mean again shortages, lines and everything disappears,” said Nikolai P. Shmelyov, a leading Russian economist. “We already lived under those conditions for generations.”

Yeltsin supporters--and even some of the more strident leaders of Zyuganov’s bloc--called the blueprint a campaign ploy aimed at assuaging the concerns of voters who appear to be deserting the Communist candidate for Yeltsin by the millions. The latest public-opinion polls show Zyuganov running a close second to Yeltsin as the incumbent’s primary challenger. Until recently, Zyuganov had a healthy lead.

A victorious Zyuganov, the Yeltsin supporters and others say, would probably implement an economic program resembling a much more radical Communist Party program that was leaked to the press earlier this month but later denounced by some party leaders.

That draft document called for complete restoration of state control over banking and finance and for the nationalization of much of the property that has been privatized in recent years.

The blueprint published Tuesday clearly does not go far enough for many Communists.

“It does not represent our views at all, but we don’t care,” said Viktor I. Anpilov, leader of Working Russia, a hard-line faction that captured 5% of the vote in the December parliamentary elections and is part of the bloc supporting Zyuganov. “We must win the elections, and afterward we will sort it out with Zyuganov what kind of economic program we need. This thing is only a propaganda thing and has only tactical importance.”

Lev L. Lyubimov, a leading pro-reform economist, agreed: “It is a tactical document for newspapers in order to attract voters. It was done to show all that Communists are not murderers, not Bolsheviks, but measured democrats of the Gorbachev model.

“Zyuganov is losing, day by day and week by week,” Lyubimov added. “Right now, he knows absolutely clearly that it would mean complete catastrophe three weeks from now if he published a platform that reflects his true plans. He was doomed to make some propaganda to show that he is flexible and ready to make some concessions.”

Some key members of Zyuganov’s team, however, refuted the idea that he would adopt a harder line once in power.

“I am sure Zyuganov will not scrap this program once he comes to power,” said Alexander A. Prokhanov, editor in chief of the pro-Communist newspaper Zavtra, the mouthpiece for Zyuganov’s campaign. “Zyuganov understands that the Communist Party alone is not strong enough to manage the country peacefully and successfully.”

Zyuganov had delayed releasing the economic platform while factions inside the People’s Patriotic Forces bloc, which he leads, squabbled over its contents--and while he tested the political waters. The platform was based on weeks of discussion among leaders of the Communist Party and its smaller partners. In the end, Zyuganov himself decided on the shape of the document published Tuesday.

The central tenet of the platform is the expansion of government regulation to increase employment, root out economic crime and gradually eliminate the economic polarization that has resulted from the policies of recent years.

“The principles and tempo of the reform will be determined by the desire and ability of the majority of the Russian people to accept the changes,” the document states. “It is only in this case that the people will be able to participate constructively in the economic revival of the country and to benefit from the fruit of the reforms, to feel the positive change in their lives.”

The plan calls for reduced reliance on foreign investment and criticizes Yeltsin’s acceptance of strict International Monetary Fund conditions for $10 billion in loans to ease the transition to a market economy.

“The economic sovereignty of Russia is inadmissibly restricted,” the document says.

Zyuganov’s plan envisions a period of seven years when Russia would practice protectionist trade policies and prepare itself for full re-integration with the world economy.

“Under this plan, Russia would be isolated economically, and this will mean political isolation as well,” said Sergei Y. Pavlenko, head of the government’s Center for Economic Reform.

If Russia was no longer restrained by trade interests, Moscow could again “become an aggressive power,” he added.

* YELTSIN IN CHECHNYA: Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin visits rebel region. A9