Communists present their vision of Russia’s development

Communist leader Gennady Zyuganov has said that the incumbent government has brought the country to a deadlock and presented his program for coming out of the crisis.

During a news conference on Thursday he expounded on his major points.“We are convinced that a breakthrough is only possible through science and education,” he told journalists. “We have presented a project which we worked out together with the heads of the best universities and competent experts. It got universal support – from the Academy of Sciences members to young specialists,” said Zyuganov. The Communist leader criticized educational reform now underway, notably a draft law on education, which sparked a great deal of controversy, which suggests cutting the number of class hours for humanities, including the Russian language in high schools. So, the party offers their view of free and accessible education for all, which corresponds to the nation’s needs.On the subject of young specialists, he said that his party had worked out a series of concrete steps to motivate them to stay in Russia rather than move abroad. Another area that needs immediate attention is the country’s social net. He said that the current system has failed, so the Communists are pushing for restoring the Soviet standards in the field. One of the most important issues is establishing “genuine democracy”, Gennady Zyuganov said. “We want to develop a real multi-party system, in which elections and competition of parties are obligatory. We have prepared our proposals and will be pushing for them in the legislatures on all levels,” he stressed. As for economic development, Zyuganov repeated that a raw-material intensive economy has been criticized by many, including the president, and that this model should be dropped. The Communists’ program offers a new project for the country’s industrialization with a greater reliance on high-tech industries. The idea, however, is not new. President Dmitry Medvedev has repeatedly said that modernization of Russia implies development of science-intensive economic model. For this purpose several research and education hubs have been created in Russia, of which Skolkovo near Moscow is the largest and the most ambitious project, dubbed Russia’s Silicon Valley. Improving the country’s legal system and raising political awareness have also been high on the agenda, since President Medvedev has come into power. He has been encouraging citizens to become much more broadly involved in public debates on major issues.