National News

A leader of the Communist Party of Russian Federation has said that China has been able to set an example in economic management in the world.

Alexander Potapov, who is currently visiting Bangladesh and spoke exclusively to bdnews24.com in Dhaka on Friday, said “probably the Communist Party of China rules the state wisely. So we can see that China is not a bad example for public construction, rather best example for economy management and so on."

He said, China is leading in several sectors like science and technology and many other fronts.

"They have many many achievements including science, industry and so on. China is not bad example for public construction," he added.

He added in his praise of China "We have many positive features which we include in our notebooks from China."

But it could be different scenario for the development of different countries as it was before 1991, the year indicates the end of cold war.

The Bolshevik revolution under Lenin in 1917 saw Russia adopt socialism. China adopted socialism in 1949 under Mao Tse Tung's leadership.

Although the communists of the two countries were initially in good terms, they fell out in the 60s of the last century over differences in opinions on a host of issues.

Depending on the lines they towed, communism came to be known as pro-Russia and pro-China in other countries as well.

After Mao Tse Tung's death, China implemented wide ranging reforms leading to a more liberated economy that has made it an economic superpower.

On the other hand, Soviet Russia collapsed in the 90s and the communist party there reorganised itself as the Communist Party of Russian Federation.

The party holds on to 92 of the 450 lower house seats in the country's parliament.

Potapov said that there is a lot for Russian communists to take away from the success of their counterparts in China.

"So it is important for us to get knowledge about success of somebody, work it out in our minds and prepared our own strategy our own features of the country," he said.

Speaking about the activities of his party back home, he said, "For all the modern history of Russia which appeared in the political map of the world in 1991, after the USSR has been broken unfortunately for us, our party started to work with elections since the first one in 1993.”

“We still work in the society for our ideas which are actually ideas of many million people of Russia who have a mentality for the socialism, for the social progress and social opportunities for social justice.”

We have support from the labourers and workers from industry and agriculture, engineers, employed people to the intellectual level."

He said that the collapse of the erstwhile Soviet Union left his party in troubled waters.

"We have very difficult political process after the USSR. In 1993, the then president was shot in the parliament. I was one of them in parliament and still alive", he recalled.

Asked why communism fails to appeal to young hearts as it once did, he blamed the Western influence and money of the "black 90s".

He added however, "We for sure attract young generation, but unfortunately the new generation, because of local Russian anti-communist propaganda, doesn’t know anything about USSR, doesn’t know anything about great October revolution.”

“But still young people are coming to our party."

Asked if the Bangladesh Communist party is opposing the Rooppur Nuclear power project, he said, "No, I don’t hear about that the communist party of Bangladesh is an opposition for the project."

He added, "I don’t hear, but few years ago, I talked to some comrades from the Communist party of Bangladesh and they mentioned that the communist party is interested in any sorts of cooperation between Russia and Bangladesh.”

He said that it was good that Russia is getting an opportunity to help Bangladesh- 'an old friend', and this time in the field of energy.

He said that it would open doors to more cooperation that would increase contacts between communists of the two countries.