Film Review: Radical Alternatives Left Out of ‘The Prison Within’

Black political organizations and other anti-imperialist groups condemned the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) raiding early Friday morning the properties of the African People’s Socialist Party (APSP) and its solidarity organization in Saint Louis, Missouri, and in Saint Petersburg, Florida.

Based on the description, APSP appears to be one of several unidentified groups and people implicated in a 25-page indictment of a Russian national, Aleksandr Ionov. The Moscow-based founder of the nonprofit Anti-Globalization Movement of Russia (AGMR) has been accused of attempting to influence U.S.-based groups to turn against the United States and work in favor of Russia.

“Anyone who opposes U.S. imperialism or who has made common cause internationally is endangered,” Black Agenda Report Executive Editor Margaret Kimberley wrote on Facebook. “Not surprising that a Black organization is the first on their hit list.”

The raid began at 5 a.m. July 29 at the Saint Louis home of APSP Chairman Omali Yeshitela and his wife and APSP Deputy Chair, Ona Zené Yeshitela.

Yeshitela said in a Facebook livestream later that day that the APSP was targeted for its support of Russia during the military operation the country has been undertaking in Ukraine since February 24.

Among several allegations, the FBI accused Ionov’s group of paying U.S. activists to attend two conferences in Russia. It also said Ionov helped a group conduct a tour in the United States to drum up support for a petition charging the U.S. government with committing genocide against African descendants. Yeshitela admitted meeting with Ionov twice in Russia.

“Suddenly, we’re supposed to become tools, like Black people don’t have minds of our own to find out what our reality is and who’s responsible for it,” Yeshitela said in the livestream. “It’s white people doing self-criticism and uniting to give money. That’s where the money is coming from, Uncle Sam.”

‘Crisis’ of U.S. Imperialism

Yeshitela said while the United States was targeting Black activists, it has failed diplomatically.

“They’re doing this, in part, because not a single African country—not even neocolonial sycophants—want to unite with the United States and the United Nations in terms of how they are targeting Russia in this Ukraine-Russia question,” he said, referring to the economic sanctions slapped on Russia after it entered Ukraine in February. When Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelensky recently held a virtual meeting with African countries, 93 percent of heads of state did not attend, despite Western pressure.

“This exposes the crisis the United States, that U.S. imperialism, is in,” said APSP Director of Agitation and Propaganda Akilé Anai in a livestreamed press conference in Saint Petersburg. Anai said FBI agents lured her outside her home early Friday morning, saying her car had been broken into. Upon opening her car, they forced her to hand over her devices, she said.

Yeshitela, 80, said he and Ona were awoken Friday morning to the sound of a voice blaring through a megaphone outside their home, asking them to come outside with their hands up. Flashbang grenades were set off throughout the working-class Saint Louis neighborhood, Yeshitela added. He also said a drone almost hit Ona’s face after she opened the home’s front door. Law enforcement agents lately have deployed drones into buildings to conduct a visual search before agents enter.

Yeshitela said FBI agents handcuffed the couple and forced them to sit on the street curb while agents scoured their home. “They indicated they had a search warrant related to the indictment,” he said. The FBI freed the couple after several hours, but not without confiscating from their home all of their devices, such as computers and phones, according to Yeshitela’s livestreamed account.

The FBI was unavailable as of press time.

Black Scare, Red Scare

Black activists have long denounced the U.S. government’s anti-communist rhetoric going back to the early 20th century, saying such calls to take down communists really have translated into attempts to dismantle Black liberation movements and other liberation movements in the United States.

“In reality, what anti-communism/anti-Marxism does is to transform anything counter-hegemonic or non-conforming into subversion, foreignness, or disloyalty by punishing it as communist, communist inspired, or communist infiltrated and therefore illegal, illicit or criminal,” said Dr. Charisse Burden-Stelly in a recent talk.

Burden-Stelly, an associate professor of African-American Studies at Wayne State University, has written a soon-to-be-released book, Black Scare, Red Scare (2023). It attempts to document how the U.S. government’s anti-communist policies repress Black and other oppressed people for organizing for their liberation. This, she has said, helps to protect what she calls “racial capitalism,” in which the most degrading labor is forced upon increasingly exploited racialized groups.

U.S. Government’s ‘Hysterical Response’

Black political groups denounced large segments of the U.S. political left for believing Black activists are stooges of Russia, or the former Soviet Union.

“We agree that APSP doesn’t have to apologize for fighting for justice for all oppressed and particularly African People like our ancestors Marcus Garvey, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, and the Black Panther Party who were spied on, jailed and assassinated for standing up for the freedom and justice for African People worldwide,” said the central committee of Pan-Africanist organization All-African People’s Revolutionary Party in a statement issued Saturday.

Activists like Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr., who were called communists, were assassinated. Jamaican activist Marcus Garvey, who advocated for the unification of Africa under Pan-Africanism and the end of European colonialism in Africa, was briefly imprisoned in Atlanta for what some consider the politically motivated charge of mail fraud. Trinidad and Tobago-born U.S.-based communist Claudia Jones—after whom Toward Freedom‘s summer editorial internship was named—was deported to the United Kingdom for her activism.

“We believe this repression to be a hysterical response to the United States’ loss of legitimacy in the context of the deepening crisis of capitalism and U.S. global hegemony,” said the Black Alliance for Peace (BAP)’s Coordinating Committee in a statement released Saturday. “The unleashing of policing and counterintelligence forces domestically and increased militarism and warmongering abroad in the name of national security are the only avenues left to the U.S. ruling class that is engulfed in an irreversible economic crisis. They represent the hallmarks of a naked fascism that the U.S. ruling class appears to be increasingly committed to in order to maintain the rule of capital.”

Then BAP added a warning in its statement.

“While it is APSP today, it will ultimately be the rest of us tomorrow. Resistance is our only option.”

Julie Varughese is editor of Toward Freedom.

A scene in Nia Dacosta’s film, “Candyman” (2021), might go unnoticed, but it signifies the theme of representation appearing throughout the film. Representation refers to oppressed people being seen in media and politics, but it does not mean they wield power in those sectors.

Actor Yahya Abdul-Mateen II plays the central character “Anthony McCoy,” whom we aren’t sure can be called a protagonist or an antagonist, even by the movie’s end. In the aforementioned scene, he stands at the intersection of a long-abandoned neighborhood, which is composed of former row-house apartments that used to surround the high-rise tower of Cabrini-Green, a public-housing project in Chicago. The street he is facing is empty of typical neighborhood life—adults going to and from work or errands, kids playing, teens hanging out. But remnants of their neighborhood, including the doorless, windowless apartment units that offer nothing but a foreboding darkness, stand as empty, haunting reminders of a people who used to live there but are long gone. The street is marked by a sign for “Mohawk St.”, and as he walks around the corner, another street sign reads “Locust St.” These are actual streets in the Cabrini-Green neighborhood in Chicago, lending credibility to the storyline by anchoring the tale in the actual remains of the infamous neighborhood, whose residents had been long displaced through gentrification.

But the street names seem to also juxtapose the disappearance of Indigenous tribes, like the Mohawk. They are relegated to outposts that are out of sight, out of mind for the rest of us. The impetus behind the mass displacement of both the Black and poor residents of Cabrini-Green and Indigenous people is the locust-like swarm of gentrification, which could be argued is a modern day form of settler-colonialism. It might be a stretch to make this kind of observation of this scene. It might not have been one that DaCosta might have been intending to make. But it is a connection I couldn’t help making, considering “Candyman” is less of a horror film than an indictment of white supremacy and the terror that it inflicts upon the communities it ravages.

I will try not to provide many spoilers in this review. I will say seeing the first “Candyman” (1992) is critical to understanding the expansion of the story and themes in the current iteration. But those themes that are outside of the conventional horror narrative are as important to the experience as continuing the urban legend of “Candyman.”

Abdul-Mateen is convincing in his portrayal of “Anthony,” a young Black aspiring artist struggling to make his mark on the art world. Ebulliant actor Teyonah Parris plays McCoy’s partner, “Brianna Cartwright,” also a young Black up-and-comer working as a curator at the gallery where her partner’s work is being shown. 

The characters live together in one of the trendy, expensive apartments in the gentrified Cabrini-Green neighborhood, long after the towers had been torn down. Brianna and Anthony appear to have a loving, committed relationship, a lovely expression of Black Love that we all enjoy seeing so much, and we need to see more of. That is until Anthony learns about the legend of Candyman from Brianna’s brother, “Troy,” played by actor Nathan Stewart-Jarrett. Anthony is fascinated with the legend and pursues inspiration for new art by visiting what is left of the old Cabrini-Green neighborhood. He meets one of the last remaining residents, seemingly neighborly “William Burke,” portrayed by veteran actor Colman Domingo. 

Here is where I’ll leave off describing the timeline of the movie, because how things happen almost take a backseat to what some of those things seem to represent. 

Anthony slowly transforms into… something, and his physical transformation coincides with what seems like the fraying of his mental state. Anthony attempts to protect his partner, Brianna, in a pivotal scene that exposes something far more sinister in real life than a horror movie boogeyman: The horrifying and lasting effects of trauma and the unaddressed mental illness among Black people, particularly how Black men are misunderstood or ignored when they suffer mental health crises and trauma.

The tendency for many of us to dissociate ourselves from mental illness and trauma is touched on in a seemingly disconnected flashback that Brianna has of a traumatic childhood experience with her father. No, it’s not sexual abuse, but it is traumatic. But because she never confronts what happens, when her partner, Anthony, begins to display behavior that suggests his mental health is fraying, Brianna responds with less and less understanding, and more and more hostility. Focusing more on moving up in her career than her partner’s obvious growing difficulties, she ultimately leaves Anthony alone to face whatever he is experiencing.

Brianna’s brother, Troy, is also pointedly critical of Anthony as the Black Man Living Off a Black Woman. But Troy himself is settling into a relationship with his new partner, “Clive” (played by Brian King), who Brianna accepts and notes is a welcome change from her brother’s usual unsavory choices. It is another interesting play on the trope of listless Black men being leeches on successful Black women that doesn’t sting any more or less because the one employing it in this case is a gay man. Rather it seems that this represents the pervasiveness of the deadbeat Black man stereotype—even other marginalized Black men believe it.

Much of the first third of the film revolves around Anthony’s transformation. That is where the trauma of centuries of racist violence against Black men emerges.

Much of Anthony’s transmogrification occurs in front of mirrors. That is obvious to the storyline and the myth of Candyman, but it doesn’t quite apply to Anthony because he isn’t sure if he is hallucinating or not. When he realizes that what he is seeing is real, the scene conveys less horror movie scare than a deep reflection into what happens to Black men’s souls living in a white supremacist system that loves their culture, their swag, their art and anything else from which society can profit. But this society doesn’t love them, and it will not hesitate to express its disregard for Black men in the most violent, inhumane ways possible.

That long history of racist violence against Black men is told in cleverly laid-out shadow puppetry, which simultaneously removes the physical gruesomeness of the acts portrayed while delivering their inhumane brutality. Each shadow-puppet story relates to a different iteration of Candyman, and the collective trauma of centuries of violent racist brutality against Black men turns the Candyman figure into something other than a villain. Terrifying in his visage and actions, certainly, but the question emerges as the connections are made between this history and the urban legend come to life: Is Candyman the monster, or is the monster what created Candyman?

As viewers hopefully make this connection, they are invited if they are thinking further to ask a larger question: Are Black men, who lash out at a society that finds every way imaginable to destroy them, the monsters society says they are, or is the monster really society?

Indictments of white supremacist society and privilege, and the impact of the trauma of community having been erased, are woven throughout the film, reflecting ways Black people are either dismissed or used before being discarded.

The contempt and condescending paternalism of society’s gatekeepers is represented by the gallery owner and the art critic—and even the Black major-gallery curator—as they have little regard or use for Anthony as he struggles to produce content that will elevate his profile. They do not hesitate to disregard him when he is no longer of use to them.

The ease with which an oblivious white society appropriates Black culture, traditions and even urban legends—believing no consequences exist for that appropriation because they have no connection to the community those things come from—is reflected in a scene that is on the surface typical horror-movie, high-school kid hijinks.

The crushing trauma of surviving the systematic eradication of one’s community, and the desire to get back or revive what was taken or destroyed, is an underlying aspect of the actions of neighborly-seeming sole survivor/resident of Cabrini-Green, William Burke. 

The way society is more accepting of a Black women’s efforts to climb the ladder, and how easily they dismiss Black men as they fall down it—even as they watch—can be extrapolated as we witness Anthony’s growing instability as it manifests itself when he and Brianna are trying to court a renowned gallery owner.

The way that our parents may have been doing the best they thought they could by moving their children out of the ‘hood and into “better” neighborhoods, encouraging them to forget where they came from in an effort to give them a better life, seeps through the cracks as Anthony confronts his mother about a past she has kept from him. The toll of keeping that secret trauma seems to have weighed heavily on his mother, as well, as family secrets are wont to do…  

The running theme of racist police violence in the film—from beginning to end—is reminiscent of… well… every story we know about racist police violence. Brianna is ultimately put in a horrific situation, and then cynically used against Anthony in a way that shouldn’t be unfamiliar to our real-life experience with racist police terrorism. Brianna realizes then who she is, who Anthony is, and that he is the only one who can save her.

I have noticed among online fan reviews wildly divergent reactions to this movie, almost strictly along racial lines. If the reviewer is a white person, they almost unanimously and unequivocally hate this movie. I see these people as those who do not want to face the traumas and horrors of the history and continuing legacy of racist violence against Black people, which I believe this film effectively expands upon from the original “Candyman.” Although, I find it odd some who have seen this film say they loved the original, but hate this one because it’s “too political,” because they clearly missed the political history of Candyman in the original. They’re mad Candyman only kills certain people, but aren’t bothered at all by the historical track record and legacy of the broken bodies and souls of Black men, women, and children that created Candyman. So they do not see the connection between real life reflected in the film’s themes. But selective memory is what this society is great at, so this response is actually not a surprise at all.

But for others who understand what DaCosta’s “Candyman” is trying to say and why, it may not be scary in the traditional slasher/spine-tingler sense, so it’s hard to say whether or not the movie is “good” as a traditional horror film. However, the real-life nightmares and horrors reflected in this film are what many Black viewers will be all too familiar with.  

As Brianna’s brother, Troy, says early in the movie, “Black people don’t need to be summoning shit.” 

We don’t have to summon supernatural boogeymen. The horrors we live are real.

Jacqueline Luqman is a radical activist based in Washington, D.C.; as well as co-founder of Luqman Nation, an independent Black media outlet that can be found on YouTube (here and here) and on Facebook; and co-host of Radio Sputnik’s “By Any Means Necessary.”

TF contributor Fergie Chambers got the opportunity on April 15 to conduct an in-person interview in Saint Petersburg, Russia, with Roman Kononenko, a member of the Presidium of the Central Committee of Communist Party of the Russian Federation (KPRF) and First Secretary of the Saint Petersburg City Committee of the KPRF. The interview ranged on topics including, the Russian “special military operation,” the nature of the Ukrainian state, the KPRF’s standing within Russia, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s popularity and China. This interview was conducted mainly in English and a little in Russian.

Fergie Chambers: Well, first off, can you tell me about the KPRF’s position on the conflict in Ukraine?

Roman Kononenko: From the very first day, we issued a statement in support of the special operation, and we also use this word, “special operation.”

FC: As opposed to war, invasion or incursion…

RK: Yes, we do not use neither war, nor invasion, nor interference. We called it “special operation,” as soon as it was put in Russia’s official documents. So we deeply believe that the current Ukrainian state is not self-governed, is not independent. It is completely controlled by the so called “collective West.” I mean, the European Union, U.S. and NATO. So we believe that the Ukrainian government is a puppet government and puppet, that they do not actually pursue their national interests in what they are doing. And of course, another reason is this unbelievable growth of Nazism, of fascism. We can discuss whether we should call it fascism or Nazism, but there are definitely Ukrainian Nazis. And many efforts were made by the West during the last eight years to support it. They were investing money, through the Western NGOs, for this, officially under the pretext of building national identity. But actually, this was Nazism. And even now, for example, in the town of Melitopol or in Berdyansk, the Russian military have found books, leaflets, published and paid by EU authorities, and also the other NGOs from the European countries. If we study everything carefully, it is obvious that they were trying to create an image that Russia is an enemy.

FC: So when you say Russia, specifically, are we actually talking Russian people, as opposed to just the Russian government?

RK: Yes, Russian people. Everybody who speaks Russian, who comes from Russia is an enemy. He may have a nationality or be from, for example, the Republic of Buryatia or Dagestan or Chechnya, but he speaks Russian. And for them, he’s an enemy.

FC: Mm-hm.

RK: Which is, of course, a dangerous situation. So sooner or later, the situation would have obviously exploded.

FC: It was interesting, because I interviewed a man in Kishinev [Moldova] who was the head of the Ukrainian Association of Moldova, an NGO there. And I asked him about Nazism, and he said, you know, “We’re not Nazis,” like you said. He said, “We’re interested in the creation of a national identity.” And the next sentence was, “Did you know that in 2016, there were blood tests that showed that Russians have Mongol blood, and that Ukrainians have European blood?” To say, “We’re not Nazis,” and then immediately to make a comment about blood and eugenics, it’s crazy. And these are the “moderates.”

RK: And also they have visible attributes, images of belonging to the Nazi movement. You know, that’s the official slogan that they use, “Slava Ukraini” [Glory to Ukraine]. Slava is actually kind of copying the German, “Heil Hitler.” This is actually the same or what they say in the Ukraine. This is, “Ukraine over everything.”

FC: As in, “Deutschland Uber Alles” [Germany Above Everything].

RK: Yes. This is copying. They are copying what the Nazis were doing, what they were saying. They are even using the same explanations to explain why Russians are not the people of the same European blood, you know, swastikas, symbols of Azov, and images of Hitler. We have a lot of photos. We had them before the special operation started, and some of them even managed to get to the pages of Western media, but no reaction at all. And also what we have in Ukraine is that these ultra Nazis not only just exist, but they serve the Ukrainian government. They are part of the Ukrainian special forces. They are part of the Ukrainian army. All of them have military ranks. So, former Nazi paramilitary groups became parts of either the National Guard, or the armed forces of Ukraine. And this is another example that the Ukrainian state uses open Nazis: Either uses them, or serves them. That can also be discussed.

FC: And what about the position of the international “left,” or other “left” parties in Russia?

RK: So as to the position of the left. In terms of this military operation, of course, we have different viewpoints. I have not analyzed what the socialist parties are saying. I have not analyzed what some small leftist groups are saying.

FC: You mean in Russia or elsewhere?

RK: I mean the West. We are just reading what the European communist parties are saying about this, this operation and the whole situation. All of them have denounced “Russian invasion,” and all of them are saying that it’s an imperialist war. [Within the context of capitalism, imperialism involves using military force to protect the capital produced through the exploitation of land, labor and resources after that capital circulates outside the countries inside of which the capital had accumulated.] I can name you only one party which published a statement in support of what Russia is doing. It’s a Serbian party, the new Communist Party of Yugoslavia. I think they are just using the older Marxist-Leninist instruments to analyze the situation. [Marxism-Leninism is the communist ideology that emphasizes building a revolution through the development of a small group of people who dedicate their time to organizing the masses, as opposed to a mass-based party, in which decisions may be made in a more deliberate fashion.]

FC: Explain more?

RK: If you read [Bolshevik leader Vladimir] Lenin’s Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism, and if you read and understand everything literally, then, okay, you could argue that this is an imperialist war. But Lenin always taught us to analyze each situation, taking into account, into consideration, the current situation, the current historical situation and stuff. So, if we take all of the other aspects: Of course, maybe Russia has some of its own imperialist interests. For example, we can take Syria as an example. I don’t believe that Russia wanted to protect Syrian people from what was happening from Daesh, from occupation. Russia was following its interest in Syria. But, had it not been for the Russian interference in Syria, I think today we would not have had any independent, sovereign Syrian state. So we can say that such kind of interference that we that we faced in Syria was of [a] progressive character.

FC: I’ve heard people argue that even in the sense of Lenin’s definition, that Russia does not qualify as an “imperialist state” in the same capacity as the West, because of the lack of finance capital and export capital in Russia. I’m wondering what you think about that?

RK: Yeah, that’s true. That’s true. Russia didn’t export a lot of capital, and I think almost the majority of Russian capital, which was exported, it was to Ukraine, and a lot of it was lost in 2014.

FC: What do you think about these allegations that are coming out about Mariupol, Bucha. You know, every day, there’s a new thing: Azov making a statement that chemical weapons were used…

RK: We can see that this Bucha case is a provocation. It never happened, what we saw on Western TV and Ukrainian TV. This was completely staged by the Ukrainian armed forces, and political technologists, because we know that Russian forces left Bucha on the 30th of March. We saw public celebrations in Ukrainian media that, said, “Okay, now we are here in ‘Liberated Bucha,'” and there was no mention about any kind of massacre. Then there were publications in Ukrainian social media that they were starting a “cleanup” of the territory. And only after the Ukrainian “cleanup,” we saw what we now see in the pictures. So, I think they were just peaceful people, who were killed by Ukrainian armed forces or other nationalist paramilitary groups. Because if we look at the pictures or the photos and videos attentively, we can see white armbands. As it is happening in the Russian controlled territory of the of Ukraine, the Russian armed forces ask peaceful people just to put this white strap on the elbow. So it is obvious that, I mean, I think the Ukrainians killed those people for cooperation with Russians and whatever. As to Mariupol, and other cases, now we can see that Ukrainian armed forces are using, in fact, terrorist tactics. As it was happening in Syria, for example, they are using the peaceful population as a live shield. This makes no sense, because, if we take, for example, the war against Nazi Germany, how was the Army reacting? They were building protective lines in front of the city, trying not to let the enemy army to enter the city. Now they get inside the city, among the buildings, on the roofs, in the apartments. And they don’t let the peaceful population leave the city. They want to get a picture of destruction, devastation, and they want to say that many peaceful people were killed. These are terrorist tactics. This is not classical warfare.

FC: Mm-hm.

RK: The Army’s using its own people to create an image of the crimes they are committing.

FC: So, another thing that seems to really fluctuate every day in the Western media is how the actual battle is going. One day, we see the Ukrainians are “humiliating Putin.” The next, that the “brutal Russian army” is laying waste to Ukraine. How do you see it?

RK: We have a saying, that an almost destroyed enemy begins their cowardly onslaught. Of course, here we are. We don’t know everything. Sure, how the decisions were made, and why, we ask a lot of questions. But I don’t have a full military education. I studied in university at the military faculty. This is like, one day a week, you go to study, and then you become a lieutenant. But I’m not a military expert. What happened when they decided to leave the Kiev and Chernihiv region? I still don’t understand. We lost the lives of our soldiers. There were people who were welcoming the Russian army, and suddenly, we left, and we left those people to the Ukrainians who came and then the Bucha affair happened.

FC: So, from your position, you don’t understand the decision to abandon the North?

RK: I cannot understand this.

FC: The only theories I’d heard about that is just that, you know, the idea was to decentralize the Ukrainian forces, which might have been concentrated in Donbass.

RK: Yeah. But to tie them up for some periods in Kiev or Chernihiv, but now they are free to go back to Donbass. It’s strange.

FC: Yes, strange. So tell me, maybe more broadly, what do you think were the primary factors that played into this having to be resolved in a military way, as opposed to being resolved diplomatically? For instance, why didn’t the Minsk agreements work out? Or what forces do you think were most at play in their failure?

RK: I think the agreements didn’t work out because the Ukrainian government was never going to implement them. In seven years, they hadn’t even made a single step toward implementing them. And, from time to time, you would hear high-ranking Ukrainian officials boasting that they are not going to fulfill anything, oficially, openly on TV and media.

FC: Right.

RK: And also, according to the results of what our armed forces found there after the operation started, we could see that they found plans: Military maps and plans of invasion into Donbass and into Crimea. These documents were shown all over our media and social media. Of course, I think that our government had some intelligence information before, because, you know, the military way of solving issues is the last the way you should be using. I think they had some kind of information, which made them think and believe that the only way to solve this was militarily.

FC: And that a larger invasion of the East might be coming in Donbass. And what do you see as the best possible resolution to the conflict at this moment?

RK: I think in the current stage of the conflict, only complete military defeat of Ukraine can be a resolution of this conflict, because even if they sign any kind of truce or peaceful agreement, nothing would end. Looks [like] we have an entire Russian border with an anti-Russian population. I think even if we would sign a peaceful agreement, and leave everything as it is, nothing would end. The shelling of Russian territories would be continued as they happened for years already, and yeah, yesterday they attacked the Belgorod region, the Kursk region and the Bryansk region. We need to put an end to this. Unfortunately, at this current stage, this is the only solution.

FC: When you say complete military defeat, does that imply, a partition of Donbass, as well? And does it also imply the end of Euromaidan [right-wing protest movement]? Does it imply a change of the Kiev government entirely?

RK: Complete capitulation of the Kiev government, and a new government should come. I think there must be some provisional government. Of course, the new government should be democratically elected, but under new conditions, not under control of fascist forces.

FC: How do you think that these kinds of nationalist conflicts arose so strongly after the fall of the USSR?

RK: I really do not know because I do not live there. But I think that, of course, it took them many years to build this so-called national identity. I am stretching “so-called.” A lot was made in this piece of culture in Ukraine, in the spheres of “studying history.” You know, they were creating a complete fake history of an ancient Ukrainian state, which never existed.

FC: Fake, as distinct from Kiev/Rus?

RK: Yeah. There are a lot of crazy theories there. Some even said that Ukrainians dug the Black Sea. This kind of stuff was being spread everywhere, for many, many years. To show that the Ukrainian nation is something exquisite.

FC: What was your relationship like as a party with Ukrainian socialist or communist parties?

RK: Oh, we had very good relations and we still have with the Communist Party of Ukraine.

FC: And what is their situation? I mean, they’re illegal, no?

RK: They are illegal. Many comrades were arrested during the last years. They were always attacked, regularly beaten in the streets by the fascist thugs. Currently, we don’t know where the leader of the Communist Party of Ukraine is.

FC: Because he was detained, or because he hid? What’s his name?

RK: [Petro] Symonenko. We don’t know which [detained or hiding]. Since February, the 24th, we don’t have any news on where he is. But also, for example, the leader of the Youth Organization of the Communist Party of Ukraine was arrested.

FC: And what was [the Communist Party of Ukraine’s] political position, prior to Maidan? How strong of a party were they?

RK: The party was quite strong, the second or the third faction in the Ukrainian parliament, with many members. But after the coup, they became illegal. It’s kind of ridiculous, because there was a decision of the Ministry of Justice to ban the party. They went to court, and the trial is still going on. So, in fact, the decision has never been made official, to ban the Communist Party of Ukraine. But in fact, all Ukrainian authorities and governmental bodies consider it like a decision, which is already in power.

FC: So they enforce it?

RK: Yes.

FC: What’s the relationship like between KPRF and smaller socialist parties in Russia? Is there a good working relationship with any of the other parties? Is there any kind of a left bloc or is it more scattered?

RK: There is no bloc. Can you name me any smaller socialist parties?

FC: No.

RK: Me neither. We have this party that is called Fair Liberals. They are saying they’re social democrats, but they are not, neither in ideology, nor in their practical steps. We never noticed them, so we don’t even identify them as belonging to socialism. But they were members of the Socialist International.

FC: Some Western leftists, and Russian radicals, would accuse KPRF of being a revisionist party, or dismiss it as a relic of the past, a party of only the elderly. What would you say about the position of the party today? [Revisionism refers to a policy of making modifications without adhering to revolutionary principles.]

RK: We are the second [largest] party in the Parliament. We are the biggest opposition party. As to the accusations of being revisionist, we put it into our program that we use the “creative development of Marxism-Leninism,” because Marxism-Leninism is not a dogma. But of course, think I’m not a revisionist. I cannot admit that I’m revisionist. I will never be revisionist. (Laughs) I have been a party member for 21 years already, and I am relatively young.

FC: How old are you?

RK: I’m 40. It’s not a party of old people. Of course, we have many old party members who were members of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU). But those people who vote for our party are not the people of that age. We are supported mostly by people between [ages] 30 and 50. And the elderly, they vote for Putin’s party.

FC: How has the Party attempted to reach a post-Soviet generation?

RK: We’re just addressing the common problems, because the problems of both younger generations and other generations are very common in Russia. We are talking about social problems and we are proposing our methods to fix the situation. Our measures.

FC: For instance, what are the primary social contradictions at play in Russia from the perspective of the KPRF?

RK: Russia is a capitalist country, yes, with much of its wealth controlled by the oligarchs. We believe that our natural resources should be nationalized, not on paper as they are now. But, in fact should be nationalized and serve the development of our industry, the development of our economy, the development of our, and this is a fashionable term, “human capital.”

FC: In the West, we have heard about some recent nationalization of the Russian economy. When you say it’s “on paper,” what do you mean by that?

RK: For example, oil and gas, in the constitution, it is written there that they belong to the people. But, in fact, those who exploit it are private companies; they simply pay extra taxes, but they take the profits. For example, Gazprom, the biggest gas producing company, is a private company. You know, the several years ago, they put a big campaign on Russian TV saying, “Gazprom is a national heritage.” But this national heritage is a private company. Of course, there is some state participation in its ownership, but it doesn’t even have a controlling share.

FC: But [the state] does have some interest. So it’s different than the way it would operate in the purely capitalist West?

RK: Yes, to some extent.

FC: And when you mentioned, social problems, is that what you’re talking about?

RK: No. Okay. We’ve always had a lot of problems, and these problems have not disappeared since the start of the military operation. There is a big gap between the incomes of the poorest and the richest, which sometimes comes to 30 times different. This is a huge gap. And another thing was the so called “pension reform,” which happened in 2018, when they increased the retirement age. The government did this.

FC: Did you see a spike in popularity around that issue?

RK: In popularity, in support? Yeah, of course. We didn’t have a federal election that year, but we had regional elections, and we seriously improved our results; we received two new governors of the oblasts [regions].

FC: How many governors of the oblasts do you have currently ?

RK: Currently, three.

FC: And seats in parliament?

RK: I don’t remember exactly. Ninety plus.

FC: What’s the rough percentage?

RK: I think 19 percent. But this is second to United Russia, because United Russia controls the state.

FC: And speaking about United Russia, from my perspective, I’m probably more sympathetic to United Russia, from the dialectical lens of an American, than I might be if I was here in Russia. You talk about income, the income gap, you talk about nationalization of resources, you talk about oligarchy. It seems just looking in from the West, that these are problems that the West would like to blame on Putin. But it looks like they’re all things that have improved significantly in the last 20 years, versus the way they were in the ’90s. Would you agree with that? Not that they’ve resolved themselves, but that the material conditions for the masses in Russia have improved under Putin, versus [in] the ’90s?

RK: Of course, but they improved mostly between the years 2000 and 2011, because of the high oil and gas prices in those years. And we call them “fat.”

FC: Like a bubble?

RK: Yes, and we’re still facing many issues that are unsolved, and all of these were made by United Russia. We have a lot of problems in the health care system, because during all these years, they were following one general line of so called “optimization.” They were closing hospitals and clinics, to create one instead of two, like to optimize, not to spend a lot of money. And closing some small group hospitals.

FC: In the name of efficiency?

RK: Efficiency, yeah. And, of course, everything exploded when COVID-19 appeared, because, suddenly, it turned out that in many hospitals or regional centers, the infection departments were closed, or “optimized.” So they didn’t even have medical facilities to isolate people, and they had to take them to neighboring regions. Of course, they had to do something very quickly, and they had to create some new facilities. But what happened in the beginning of 2020—in March and April—was that we didn’t have enough [beds] in the hospitals for those who were infected with COVID.

FC: I didn’t know about that. Tell, me, it’s my belief that the “human rights” issue is often a tool of imperialist propaganda, but is the party concerned about human-rights issues in Russia—or civil rights—with regard to United Russia? Do you feel like state repression is an issue?

RK: Yes, we are concerned. I think civil rights are something important. But they are not less important than social rights, right? Than rights for social protection. But when United Russia is attacking, for example, a civil democratic right for people to come out in the street to protest, we are against this attack. We want to protect this.

FC: So you’re against the detention of protesters?

RK: Yes. We are among those who come out in the streets to protest against them, [and] other anti-people measures of United Russia.

FC: Not to protest the special operation in this moment, but other issues?

RK: Yes. But we know many cases of persecution, and persecution is not legal, even according to their laws.

FC: So this kind of persecution for either protests or journalism, around the special operation or other issues, does it usually look like actual hard jail time, or does it usually look like fines?

RK: Almost exclusively fines. None of our members [were] ever sent to jail because of some political activity. I really don’t think.

FC: Because, in the West, there’s this notion that if you step out of line in Russia, Putin’s going to lock you up.

RK: Basically, no. Most probably, you will be arrested, you will spend the night in a police station. Maybe [the] next day, they will take you to court and fine you. That’s the most common outcome.

FC: The other thing, in the West, we never hear about about the Communist Party being the largest opposition. We hear about [Russia of the Future party leader Alexei] Navalny.

RK: Navalny and his supporters, they exist in small numbers, in Saint Petersburg, in Moscow, the two richest and most European cities. And then they do not present any kind of force elsewhere in Russia.

FC: This is something that I’ve noticed, that there’s a big distinction between the Russian voices that the West wants to highlight. The people you hear from in the West represent a small sliver of the Saint Petersburg and Moscow bourgeoisie, who are probably Western educated, who probably have investments in business dealings with the West, you know, and they may live there or be expatriates. Is this accurate?

RK: You’re completely, absolutely right.

FC: And so that, and that contingency, is also kind of representative of this Navalny tendency?

RK: They are the only supporters of Navalny, and they’re mostly young people, those between 16 and, maybe, 20. Why? Primarily, I don’t know why, but they want to say that they belong to some something, which they call a “creative class.” I really don’t know what it is, but they say it exists.

FC: So we see this in the U.S., really going back to the 1960s and ’70s, how youth counterculture became a really big staging ground for CIA activity, even the proliferation of anarchism. And then here, [media outlet] Vice started to come in and report on Russia a lot, and [Russian feminist band] Pussy Riot started showing up everywhere, like a symbol of Russian resistance. Does that fit?

RK: Absolutely.

FC: What’s the relationship of the party to the Communist Party of China (CPC)?

RK: We have quite close contacts. We have [a] cooperation agreement. We sign it every five years, to extend it for five years. We exchange delegations on a regular basis, and we have cooperation in the scientific aspects of studying Marxism-Leninism, as well. So we are quite closely connected.

FC: So maybe more closely connected with the CPC now than the CPSU was to the CPC was after the [1960 ideological] split?

RK: Yes, we are more closely connected. Of course.

FC: And do you see generally see a Russian-Chinese partnership as an important part of sort of historical progress moving forward?

RK: Of course. It’s a part of the historical process. It can give the world an opportunity to diversify the economy.

FC: Is the goal of the KPRF to re-take power in Russia, and to re-establish a dictatorship of the proletariat?

RK: Re-take power? Yes. But we’re not writing about dictatorship of the proletariat, in our official program. We officially put it as “building renewed socialism of the 21st century.” That’s how we call it, trying to take the best of the Soviet period, and trying to take whatever is good now.

FC: So what is the difference between the Soviet period and this concept of “renewed socialism in the 21st century?”

RK: Well, I can tell you, economically, we are not completely against private property, in general. We are saying that small private businesses can exist, like, for example, a small bakery, or a barber shop, or drug store. That’s the primary difference, because, during the Soviet period, everything was state-owned. So we believe that this, that these things could initially help drive the economy, like Lenin already did in the ’20s, the so-called NEP [New Economic Policy aimed for a transition between the post-czarist period of poverty and communism that featured a “mixed” economy, which permitted small- to medium-sized private enterprises while the state controlled large enterprises, like banks, to help provide the capital necessary for the development of productive forces]. So I think we are pursuing the same goal.

FC: As a means to eventual full communism or as just an adaptation to the current times?

RK: Of course. Finally, it must be full communism. But first, you need to build a socialist state.

FC: Similar to [Chinese leader from 1978 to 1989] Deng Xiaoping?

RK: Similar. We’re not going to copy the Chinese model, but…

FC: So I’m assuming that, at this moment, you’re also not advocating for the violent seizure of the state?

RK: Yes, we are not openly advocating for this. It is put in our documents that we should come to power through elections.

FC: And do you think this is realistic? Do you think that the elections here are open?

RK: No, we don’t. They are not honest. Yeah, but we are fighting to make them more transparent, more open, honest and fair.

FC: And so how does that happen? Because if the people controlling the elections are the ones being dishonest about it, how can you push back against that?

RK: We work harder. This is the only way. To put most responsible people in Congress, to control the voting stations. Which is, of course, difficult when the whole state apparatus is against you. But we never exclude the revolutionary way of changing power. But, of course, first you need revolutionary conditions.

FC: So would you say that maybe your focus is on growing revolutionary consciousness in Russia, or reinstituting political education?

RK: Growing class consciousness. Political education, of course. Even so called “civil activism.” There are Soviet words for this. They have written their budgets. We want to form this class-conscious position in as many people as possible.

FC: And are there any kind of broad political education programs that the party is involved in in the country?

RK: Of course, in in every region, we have our own centers of schools, of political education. And, of course, we are offering our own programs here. But political education is not only just collecting people somewhere and teaching them. Political education is explaining things. Explaining, “Why this is happening and what’s the reason for this?” so education can be achieved by means of elementary leaflets, or newspapers. Or social media.

FC: And you still have Pravda?

RK: Yes, we have Pravda. This is a nationwide newspaper, and we also publish two newspapers here in Saint Petersburg.

FC: Where are some of the geographical strongholds of the party?

RK: I can’t tell you exactly, because it differs from year to year. But I think, the central parts of Russia and the Far East of Russia, Vladivostok or Khabarovsk Altai.

FC: Does does Saint Petersburg present more of a challenge because of this kind of Eurocentrism that exists here?

RK: We have many liberals, so-called liberals, in our Russian understanding. Liberals, not in the way the U.S. understands it. Many liberals here, you know, there is a liberal political party, Yabloko, which has some support in Moscow and Saint Petersburg. Oh, and for example, if you come to the third biggest city in Russia, Novosibirsk, in Siberia, we have a communist mayor.

FC: Do you still consider yourselves a democratic centralist party?

RK: Yes, of course. Because without the democratic centralism, we believe that there cannot be any party discipline.

FC: Would you re-name Saint Petersburg back to Leningrad if you had the opportunity?

RK: (smiles) I don’t think this is the first thing that we have to do. I mean, sort of a joke. Maybe number 33. Yes.

FC: I’m curious about the relationship with the church, and I say this as somebody who is both a communist and Orthodox. I forget what year it was, but I read about [KPRF leader Gennady] Zyagunov and [Russian Orthodox Bishop] Kirill having a rapprochement, or a mutual acknowledgement. What’s the position of the party to the church?

RK: Party leader Gennady Zyuganov is religious. That’s his personal belief. But our party is an atheist party. We are still atheists, as a party. But we acknowledge the right of any party member to believe in God; the only demand is you should not put any religious propaganda within the party. As a person, you have a right to do whatever. And it’s written in our official documents that we are a party of scientific atheism. Not of vulgar atheism.

FC: How do you distinguish between vulgar atheism and scientific atheism?

RK: I think that there cannot be any strict definition of whether it is scientific or not scientific, but you have to fill it. It would be stupid for a communist to go out in the street and shout: “There is no God!” Right. This is vulgar, I think. But trying to explain that, so far, there has not been any proof of such existence. So that may be more scientific. But I’m personally atheist. My wife? She’s also a party member, but she believes in God. It’s okay for us.

FC: Do you think the church has too much of a role in the Russian state now?

RK: It is getting more and more involved in the society. And its role is growing. But, so far, I think it is not as almighty in the state as some people want to depict.

FC: Are there other socialist or communist parties around the world that you have especially important relationships with?

RK: We’ve always had good relations with the Communist Party of Vietnam, with the Communist Party of Cuba. Communist Party of India (CPI).

FC: The Marxist party in India?

RK: Both of them [CPI-Marxist and CPI (Maoist)] because they are different parties, but during the elections, they are part of one struggle. Really, we have international relations with all communist parties.

FC: Do you generally agree that the position of a Western communist ought to be to oppose first and foremost the imperialism of the West?

RK: I think, yes. Most of them, they are opposing imperialism, Western imperialism.

FC: Well, perhaps not in the U.S.

RK: I mean, I’m talking about the Communist Party. I’m not talking about the others, because I don’t know anything about them. Actually, I was never interested.

FC: What about Venezuela, the relationship with the Venezuelan government, with Maduro?

RK: I think we don’t have any official relations, neither with Maduro, neither with the ruling party. We have some contacts, but we cannot call it any kind of relations. Of course, we are saying that Venezuela is suffering from United States imperialism, but we also understand that not everything is okay with the Maduro government.

FC: I did mean to ask you, after the fall of the USSR, how did KPRF reorganize itself? Did it just continue on, or it had to reform itself?

RK: We, the CPSU, could not continue, because [Russian President Boris] Yeltsin banned the Communist Party in 1991. So there were special groups of former party members who worked as small groups, like, “Communists for the Soviet Union.” So then, our party went to the Constitutional Court. There was a long process, which lasted almost the whole of 1992. We tried to prove that Yeltsin’s ban was illegal, and the courts made a kind of split decision.

FC: A split decision?

RK: So it didn’t say that Yeltsin’s ban was illegal; they said it was legal to ban the Communist Party of Soviet Union, to ban the central bodies of the Communist Party of the Russian Socialist Federative Republic. But they did say it was illegal to ban the primary organizations, the grassroots organizations. So the grassroots organizations, they became legalized. I think this decision was made in the end of 1992. And in three months’ time, we organized these small grassroots organizations, and then we, in February 1993, we organized a Congress. It was called the “Extraordinary Congress of the Communist Party of the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic.” And, in that Congress, we created KPRF.

FC: What is the official party position on Stalin?

RK: We have never made any specific decision, or there is no written decision. We’re saying, of course, Stalin did a lot for the country, for the people. But, of course, they were violations of socialist law during this period. So that’s how we evaluate it, officially. And then internally, there are other positions, of course. There are many who would say Stalin is better than Lenin, but then a few who are anti-Stalin.

FC: But no Trotskyists?

RK: (laughs) Of course not.

FC: Who do you think was most the most destructive of the Soviet leaders, most responsible for the deterioration of the USSR?

RK: Khrushchev.

FC: Well, that says a lot. Comrade, this has been extremely interesting. Thank you so much for your time today.

RK: And thank you for coming. It is a pleasure, and you are welcome back any time.

Fergie Chambers is a freelance writer and socialist organizer from New York, reporting from eastern Europe for Toward Freedom. He can be found on Twitter, Instagram and Substack.