Boris Guseletov: International Secretary of SDPRНазад
Boris Guseletov: International Secretary of SDPR
Dear friends!
Introduction
I am happy to greet the participants of the Social International Congress on behalf of the Social Democratic Party of Russia. Please, accept the warmest greetings from Michael Gorbachev and Konstantin Titov, Leader and Chairman of the Russian Social Democrats. The Russian Social Democrats were united into a party on 1 November last year and were officially registered in May this year.
Party Building
Our party is preparing for the elections to the highest legislative body of Russia - State Duma, which will take place at the end of 2003. Public interest to our party grows from day to day. Men and women, youth and veterans, workers and entrepreneurs, teachers and doctors come to us, state their civic position and join our party. The dynamics of our party growth is as follows: there were 20 380 members in the party on 1 April 2002 and by the end of May there were more than 30 000 members. The party continues growing even during the summer period. People come to our party with a hope as they realize that the Social Democratic Party of Russia (SDPR) is basically different from communists and radical liberals. The main difference is that our party refused to stage experiments on people - Russian citizens, who experienced all possible horrors of the totalitarian regime and neo liberal shocking therapy in the 20th century. Russian people see that Social Democratic Party of Russia is also different from the conformists of the parties oriented to the acting authorities. Such parties represent interests of different groups of ruling state bureaucratic authorities in contemporary Russia and are far from reality and ordinary people with their problems and demands.
Political situation in the country
I would like to draw your attention to the fact that state bureaucracy in contemporary Russia remains corrupt and morally and professionally degraded. It is not a surprise for us, social democrats. We remember very well the origin of the Russian quasi-liberal bureaucracy. We want western politicians and our social democratic friends remember that Russia is still governed by the soviet type bureaucrats and their disciples. It was just the conservative Soviet bureaucracy that betrayed M. Gorbachev and his reforms in 1991. Russian contemporary social democrats do not mourn over the disintegration of the USSR, but they consider the way of the state destruction a crime. Soviet bureaucracy was the organizer of this crime trying to convert its monopoly authority into monopoly property. They managed to do it via illegal appropriation of the wealth, created by the hard labor of millions of men and women. So, we shouldn"t be surprised that names of many Russian oligarchs have become the symbols of evil.
V.Putin
Recent hopes of the population are connected with the name of Vladimir Putin, whose policy is aimed at limiting bureaucratic pressure over the society and improving competence and responsibility of the civil servants. Russian social democrats will continue supporting Putin"s policy and his acts in this direction. We also highly appreciate the latest reforms, which concern better legal protection of the citizens by administrative and criminal laws. Giving up prosecutorial practice
of the Russian jurisdiction is a considerable achievement of V. Putin in his attempt to make Russia a jural state.
We think that the main obstacle on the way of social and economic development of the country is oligarchy consisting of former president Yeltsin"s milieu. These people are so wealthy, that it allows them to influence all political processes in Russia. They buy journalists and even whole editorial boards. They influence public opinion formation and many state and political decisions. We think that the main Putin"s problem is a mandate of trust, which was given to him by Yeltsin in 1999. But our leader Gorbachev stated more than once (and we share his opinion) that the mandate of the general presidential elections couldn"t be compared to the decision of a private person. People"s mandate ceases the validity of any other mandate. Putin"s position is the same and he has confirmed it during his meetings with the leader of our party M. Gorbachev.
Social sphere and economics.
Any people"s mandate requires actions. Russia has every opportunity for economic and social development, but to start the mechanism of development we have to pursue the policy of anti- monopolization - anti-monopolization of power, property, capital and economy. We want to create such conditions in our country for all men and women, when their social initiative is approved by state institutions, legislature and public opinion. Russia needs a responsible social regulation of the market processes and only social democrats can achieve this. Only in the regions where governor is a social democrat, like Samara region, is it possible to see reasonable social policy and economic growth. Even communists acknowledge righteousness of K. Titov"s social democratic policy and many of them vote for him during the elections. We think that the main objectives of SDPR currently are: to increase the number of social democratic enclaves in Russia, alleviate poverty, overcome spiritual slavery and social passivity to the civil life and encourage entrepreneurship and creative endeavor. We strongly object putting burdens of reforms on the shoulders of poor citizens, which has been done by oligarchic groups of raw materials monopolies for more than 10 years.
It should be mentioned that social irresponsibility of raw materials oligarchs would lead to the serious social upheavals. Recently radical nationalism has been spread all over Russia and its believers use open violence and terror more frequently. It is possible that this threat doesn"t seem to be global and dangerous for the European security. We, Russian social democrats, realize how serious the situation is and warn our Eastern European friends about the violent nationalistic reaction to the shocking therapy in Russia. This reaction is very characteristic of the people with low incomes (about 2/3 of the country population) and may be prevented only by the decisive social reforms and real redistribution of resources in the favor of the poor. Russia needs a policy aimed at high employment and improved well-being of the majority of all citizens and not only representatives of Russian Mafia and state bureaucracy.
Program issue
I am the leader of the SDPR group, which is responsible for the development of the party program. Maybe it is worthwhile to discuss the opportunities for our cooperation in the sphere of international activity. We are very interested in developing fruitful cooperation with the European democrats. What institutes and forms of cooperation and what social and political mechanisms can improve world order? Maybe somebody knows the answers. I think that intellectual and political solidarity of social democrats are equally important. International is a great fraternity and it can respond with dignity to the challenges of globalization. Maybe it is time for all social democrats of the world to recollect something important, which has been forgotten under the burden of authority and political responsibility?
01.03.2007
Док. 279897 Опублик.: 01.03.07 Число обращений: 1728
