Communist Party Leader Zyuganov warns of a 1917 style revolution if government policies do not change

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For those who still think there is no Opposition party in Russia, think again!  For those who believe the official statistics that 80% of the Russian population enthusiastically supports Putin, think again!

Yesterday, 22 April, on the anniversary of the birth of Vladimir Lenin, Russian Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov, who is a calm, collected and moderate politician, stood before the State Duma and warned that there may be a repetition of the revolutionary 1917 scenario in contemporary Russia: “If you don’t quickly take measures – financial, economic and other measures -then by autumn what await us is what happened in 1917.”

Those words touched off a vast controversy in the Russian social networks and the Party later issued a transcript which defined his warning more precisely: “If you do not change course in a fundamental way, then by autumn we may expect what happened in February 1917.”

For those unfamiliar with Russia’s two revolutions in 1917, the first one, in February was in fact a coup d’etat in which the Russian army commanders and chief politicians from the liberal centrist parties forced the abdication of the tsar.  Put in modern language, it was a ‘palace revolution’ by the elites.

Note that Zyuganov was initially quoted as calling for financial and economic reform.  What is that all about?  Of course, it means that Nabiulina has to be fired and the insane high Central Bank interest rates must be brought down to levels that the small and medium sized enterprises can live with.

But as I have been saying in recent days, the Nabiulina interest rates which Putin has backed supposedly to counter inflation are a hidden way that the Putin government has been shutting down the consumer economy and subsidizing the war economy, so the issue is much bigger than just the prime rate by itself.  It has everything to do with Russia’s current foreign policy that is preparing for a war with Europe several years down the road and with its military policy which is dragging out the war with Ukraine to absurd lengths for the profit of the oligarchs.

Russian elites, the foreign policy establishment, wants the war to end now.  They have gotten no satisfaction from Putin. And now Zyuganov is saying in the Russian parliament what some prominent politicians within Russian have been saying:  enough is enough; time to finish off Kiev right now.  That Moscow has allowed Prince Harry to comfortably visit to Kiev as he is doing today just adds insult to injury: why in hell isn’t Russia bombing out the railways to put an end to such tourism which in the Western media makes a mockery of Russia’s war effort.

©Gilbert Doctorow, 2026

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Published by gilbertdoctorow

Gilbert Doctorow's latest book, "War Diaries. The Russia-Ukraine War, 2022-2023" is a unique contribution to literature on the war thanks to the author's reports on the Russian home front written during his periodic visits to St Petersburg at a time when Russia no longer issued visas and nearly all Western journalists had left the country. Doctorow's two-volume "Memoirs of a Russianist" published in 2020 also constitutes a category of its own, consisting largely of diary entries rather than reminiscences written decades later.. Volume 2 focuses on the community of 50,000 expatriate managers working and living in Moscow during the 1990s, about which none of his peers has yet to write. Gilbert Doctorow is a professional Russia watcher and actor in Russian affairs going back to 1965. He is a magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College (1967), a past Fulbright scholar, and holder of a Ph.D. with honors in history from Columbia University (1975). After completing his studies, Mr. Doctorow pursued a business career focused on the USSR and Eastern Europe. For twenty-five years he worked for US and European multinationals in marketing and general management with regional responsibility. From 1998-2002, Doctorow served as the Chairman of the Russian Booker Literary Prize in Moscow. During the 2010-2011 academic year, he was a Visiting scholar of the Harriman Institute, Columbia University. Mr. Doctorow is a long-time resident of Brussels.

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11 thoughts on “Communist Party Leader Zyuganov warns of a 1917 style revolution if government policies do not change”

  1. N’y a-t-il pas une aide prévue pour les PME en ce qui a trait aux taux d’intérêts? Aide qui leur permettrait des emprunts à taux raisonnable? Je crois me souvenir avoir lu ça ici.

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    1. Let us not speak about hypotheticals but about reality. Reality is that ther are thousands of bankruptcies and closures of small businesses and factories across Russia because of the high interest rates and no relief for these companies only for the Big Boys.

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  7. (Apologies for the multiple comments with nothing but a comma. Don’t know how that happened as I was only trying to log into WordPress. I would have deleted them but there seems no option for that on this site.)

    I am utterly bewildered by Putin’s rope-a-dope strategy against Ukraine. Russia is getting hit routinely now by well-targeted drone strikes on oil refineries, port facilities, critical manufacturing plants and oil tankers on the high seas. Not to mention the numerous high profile assassinations of its high-ranking military leaders and a suspected decapitation attempt (or a warning of one) against Putin himself.

    These are not infrequent isolated attacks. They have become the new normal. I can’t think of any Russian red line which hasn’t been crossed without real consequence for Ukraine, EU, NATO and US.

    Worse still, it is galling to see Zelensky boasting about Ukraine’s drone warfare capabilities and strutting around pitching them to the Gulf States against Iran, and even to the US. If this is a sign of a Ukraine crushed in a war that’s almost over, I can’t imagine what a victorious Ukraine will look like.

    What is Moscow thinking off hailing Trump’s invitation to Putin for the G-20 Summit? If Putin attends it, it will seriously damage Russia’s credibility in helping develop BRICS as an alternative forum for a multipolar world. Especially at this juncture when Ukraine remains an unfinished business, Iran is fighting for survival and US is itching for a kinetic showdown with China.

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    1. The UAE kicked the 20 Zelensky-boy “expert” Ukies out of the country. Their AD equipment was useless, and several missiles went haywire and hit high rise buildings instead of knocking down those darn Iranian drones and missiles. The UAE said they were more dangerous to civilians than the Iranians! Now this was a couple of weeks ago, yet you cannot find any mention of the articles reporting the same today — I just looked. lol. Mentions have been erased or disappeared from search results. AI will now only say that reports the Ukies were kicked out cannot be confirmed, and that high rise buildings were hit by debris after interceptions. Sure, and I have a nice brand new 16th century London Bridge to sell. Why Ukie AD would somehow work when Patriots and THAADs are useless and Kiev cannot defend itself against Russian incoming, is damaging to a thinking man’s brain. Pretty good example of shutting down nasty old reports unfavourable to the land of Ukraine once the boys in the US back room decided that saying anything negative about Ukraine was verboten. And the UAE got told to shaddap. And did.

      So far as all these reports dunning Putin for going slow on Ukraine are concerned, and Doctorow was the first to stir the pot on Western alternate-media natter podcasts, I wonder. And I mean, I wonder who’s trying to get at whom? Is it the West managing to get into the mindset of some of the Russian elites to get them to call Putin and co cowards? I mean, supposedly all this criticism of Putin has now approached a thunderous roar in Russia, Zelensky is desperately rattling his tin cup for stray shekels and trying to flog defective AD to the Arabs for real money, and Von der Leyen is still tromping around Brussels gearing up to borrow 90 billion Euros with zero collateral. Some months ago, Doctorow said on several occasions that Von der Leyen was toast. But she’s still there spraying hair-set gel on her do and acting like the little fascist she undoubtedly is. So Doctorow got that prediction thoroughly incorrect that she was about to be ejected as president of the EC.

      I thus remain unconvinced that all this belly-aching in Russia, echoed by many nobodies commenting on forums in the West who have become armchair strategists comparable in their own minds to Alexander the Great and Napoleon combined, will have much effect on Russia’s military strategy against Ukraine. I’m willing to concede I do not know the correct approach, but when everyone gangs up and says it should not be the way Putin is doing things, I sense that we are being put off the scent. Or allowed to be put off the scent. Some Communist Party leader isn’t going to become president of Russia anytime soon, so he can blather away as he likes.

      I simply don’t know all the facts that lead to Russian decisions, and I’m not at all convinced that Doctorow does, inveterate watcher of Russian news and commentary shows that he is. Nor does he convince me he’s a leading economist who knows better than Nabuillina how to run monetary policy. On the other hand, Andrey Belousov, an economist who replaced Shoigu as Russian Defence minister was four years ago saying Nabuillina was nuts and her Central Bank policy stank. So they made him Defence Minister to keep him quiet. Wheels within wheels. I suppose as time proceeds, we shall see who got what correct. And no doubt, no matter how it all ends, the naysayers will always be able to pull a Trumpian style excuse, and say, “Well, if we had done it my way, it would have all been over in 2024!” Yeah sure.

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      1. The news you came across on Zelensky’s AD pitch to the Gulf puppet states is welcome. Can’t fault your skepticism either about Ukraine suddenly becoming the king of drone warfare. From what I gather, most of the drones are manufactured in certain EU countries and quite likely many are being actively operated by personnel from those countries from within Ukraine.

        I wouldn’t be so critical of Dr Doctorow’s growing frustration with Russia’s excruciatingly slow war of attrition against Ukraine. A war which has gone on for too long considering the disproportionate advantages Russia has on the economic, technological and military fronts. While Ukraine is fronting for EU/NATO and has their collective support behind it, this is still a proxy war. Take out Ukraine and those who have thrown their weight behind it lose their flimsy cover for aggression against Russia. If there is some 5D chess known only to Putin, its contours are invisible.

        There is indeed a rising vocal criticism within Russia on how this war is being conducted. It may have begun as a muted susurration at the peripheries of public opinion but it is now very much out in the mainstream. Not just among TV persona but also from high level policy analysts. See this latest from Sergey Karaganov who heads the Russian Council for Foreign and Defense Policy – published in Russia Today. Some may view it as reckless and inflammatory, others may say it is timely and appropriate. So far, such voices have been cautious not to criticize Putin by name. But their implied challenge to Putin’s inexplicable restraint is clear in the face of multiple Russian red lines toppling over like dominoes. Dr Doctorow is only stating the obvious.

        https://www.rt.com/news/639064-eu-has-gone-mad/

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  8. Bit late to the show. The last months we saw:

    Major NATO-Ukrainian drone strikes on oil and energy infrastructure. Drone strikes not only close to the front (Black Sea region) but also very far being the Samara region, Caspian Sea region and Saint Petersburg. The strikes on Saint Petersburg were done by using NATO airspace, then crossing the Baltic Sea, then using Finnish airspace (also NATO) to then bomb oil and energy infrastructure, icebreakers and so on right over the Russian border.

    The UK announced that it will provide 120.000 drones to Ukraine for the year 2026. We also see many European countries merely announcing they are setting up factories for drone production for Ukraine. These countries form Ukraine’s strategic rear and boast about it. The Russian response was meek at best. Russia’s ministry of defense posted a list of addresses of defense enterprises. The Russian political leadership ambiguously down played it.

    While the past years there were spring or winter offenses, there’s none in the making in the foreseeable future. The Russian advances on the front lines have slowed down to meters per day and they seem to be part of fancy MOD reporting.

    In the Russian border regions Bryansk and Belgorod, Russian civilians die on a daily basis due to drone attacks on cars, agricultural vehicles, motor cycles, in their homes… .

    To me this looks like death by a thousands cuts. The 5D chess play must escape me.

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