ABSTRACT
This chapter begins with a discussion of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (CPRF) new leadership group as well as an analysis of where its individual members fit according to the classification scheme we have developed with regard to the party’s activist core. It examines the campaign strategies pursued during the successive parliamentary and presidential contests. The most striking aspect of the enlarged CPRF leadership group named at the Third CPRF Congress was the preponderance within it of individuals whom we have designated as Marxist reformers and Russian nationalists. The two remaining CPRF secretaries, Viktor, P. Peshkov and Sergei A. Potapov, were—unlike Melnikov—first promoted to membership in the Presidium after the January 1995 congress. In the meantime, Kuptsov became first deputy CPRF chairman, and eight new members joined the Presidium during the course of 1993. The CPRF thus headed into the fall 1995 election campaign armed with a platform full of populist promises and a star-studded slate of candidates.
