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this post was submitted on 24 Apr 2026
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I don't have the time [or honestly the knowledge] to go super in depth, but basically a lot of the old guard who currently runs the party are more in line with "Patriotic socialism." [As in, socialism that supports the current state.] Meanwhile the younger generation who gave joined the party more recently are more principled.
The SMO makes things complicated since, to my knowledge, the CPRF was on board with it before even United Russia/Putin was on board with it.
That's an incorrect usage of the term "patriotic socialism". That term refers specifically to socialists in the imperial core who fail to correctly reckon with the imperial (and settler-colonial) nature of their country. Russia is not a part of the imperial core. There is no such thing as "patriotic socialism" in Russia any more than there is in Iran or Vietnam. Socialism in countries that are threatened by imperialism is by definition "patriotic". This does not have the same reactionary implications it does in the US.
Also, the KPRF only support the current Russian state insofar as this is necessary to be allowed to operate in Russia. If they could, they would much prefer to restore the Soviet Union. What they don't support is the destruction and balkanization of Russia by imperialist forces, as indeed no communist should in any country that is in the crosshairs of imperialist aggression.
My view is that arguing about them being controlled opposition is like arguing that the CPC was controlled opposition of the KMT during the Japanese invasion in ww2.
In the grand scheme of things, Russia is a nation under siege even if the SMO makes it seem like they're the ones doing the siege and the KPRF chose to mantain an united front, we'll see if it's a succesful strategy or not.
Agreed. The hostility may not be as overtly violent by United Russia toward the KPRF as it was by the KMT (who committed actual massacres) toward the CPC, but there is nonetheless open aggression by the much larger and dominant ruling party against this smaller opposition party in the form of vote rigging, dirty political maneuvering, media warfare, arrests of its members, etc.
In my opinion a big part of why the "controlled opposition" accusation appeals to some western leftists is because they are not used to communist parties actually being a meaningful force in politics in their own countries. But to remain that the KPRF has to, for now, operate within the bounds of the bourgeois law.
We could argue about the validity of their choice to pursue an electoral strategy for now (though that is far from the only thing they do), but we have to remember that even Lenin said that whether or not to participate in a bourgeois parliament is not a matter of ideological dogma (always right or always wrong), but rather is determined by the present conditions.
From a dogmatic ultra-left perspective choosing anything other than "we need to do violent revolution right now!" will appear as "controlled opposition. To me, real controlled opposition looks like what the Bernie Sanders/AOC/Mamdani types are doing in the US.
I just didn't have a better term off the top of my head. Conservative socialism isn't exactly a helpful descriptor but I didn't want to say like Tailism either or anything.
I think "socially conservative socialists" is a perfect term.
National socialists?
That has a whole different connotation
It's what I thought of, reading your original post. But I have a distinctly Western, particularly US, frame of reference.