Hungry Games of the Communists
In the summer of 2019, the Tula region was preparing for local elections. The authorities relied on legal pressure, spoiler parties, and controlled media to keep the campaign in check. However, the Communist Party remained a troublesome opponent, and the city’s political scene briefly centered on a candidate on hunger strike in Lenin Square.
Tula, 2019
At first glance, everything seemed to be going smoothly for the Tula Ministry of Internal Policy in the summer of 2019.
The problematic liberal party Yabloko was busy gathering signatures to support its candidates. The signature requirement remained a useful tool: if needed, some signatures could always be invalidated, and the candidates could be removed from the ballot.
The Liberal Democratic Party and Spravedlivaia Russia showed their usual willingness to cooperate. But there was one obstacle. Old, red, and stubborn. The Communists of Tula. They refused to “reach an understanding.”
By 2019, the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (CPRF) was no longer the party that had once ruled the country. The symbols remained. The slogans remained. But the scale was gone.
Still, they had a wide organizational network, state funding, and a loyal – mostly elderly – electorate.
Most importantly, that electorate was disciplined.
The regional Communist committee in Tula appeared strong. Veteran ideologues collaborated with eager young activists.
Alexei Lebedev, the First Secretary, had the typical look of a party official: a sharp dark suit, a red tie, sweaty palms, chubby cheeks, and thin little fingers that clearly had never done manual labor.
His older brother Oleg sat in the State Duma. The brothers depended on the elder Lebedev’s connections in Moscow and on support from the party’s Central Committee through Yuri Afonin, a native of Tula and deputy to the party’s longtime leader Gennady Zyuganov.
Those Moscow ties gave the Tula Communists a certain confidence.
In the region, they acted boldly. They organized protests against the pension and waste management reforms, supported local activists, and publicly insulted Pavel Veselov, the chairman of the regional election commission.
Most importantly, they did not need to gather voter signatures to register their candidate list. As a parliamentary party, the Communists were automatically allowed to participate in elections. The signature filter — an obstacle that could be used against Yabloko — did not apply here.
Ministry of Internal Policy’s Anton Ageev had to be more creative. In 2018, a new figure emerged in Tula: Yulia Yesina.
In political circles, she was known as a “touring lawyer.” She specialized in the sensitive areas of election law—and in lawsuits aimed at removing candidates’ registrations. If even a small mistake appeared in a financial document, a candidate could be disqualified from the race.
Valery Sherin, the chairman of the regional government, was satisfied with this new personnel appointment.
But Anton realized it would be impossible to remove all Communist candidates through the courts.
So the ministry used another instrument. A spoiler party.
This is how another Communist abbreviation showed up on the Tula ballot.
The Communists Party was officially registered in 2012. According to its official history, it was founded by former members of the Soviet Communist Party and the CPRF who remained loyal to Leninist and Stalinist principles.
Its leader, Maxim Suraykin, had already run in the 2018 presidential election, gaining 0.68 percent of the vote.
In 2019, the Suraykin party proved to be useful in Tula as well.
During the campaign, no one saw them gathering signatures or meeting voters in courtyards. There was no campaigning – not even in August. Yet their candidates were officially registered, and they appeared first on the ballot.
An older voter who notices the familiar word “Communist” might not continue reading.
Anton could not directly remove the Communist Party.
But he could confuse their aging electorate.
The situation grew more complicated because of Alexei Navalny’s Smart Voting strategy. In Tula, the strategy’s recommendations specifically targeted Communist candidates as the main opponents of United Russia.
In the final phase of the campaign, the regional Communist committee decided to stir up some attention.
On August 8, a young man showed up near the city hall. He wore a white shirt and a jacket. He was chained to the railings with a heavy chain.
Several elderly women in light summer dresses stood behind him. They remained silent, with occasional people taking photographs.
The young man sat in a chair and looked up at the sky.
His name was Yury Koretsky, a Communist Party candidate.
Yury wasn’t from Tula and didn’t live there. He was born in the Rostov region. An animal rights activist and a professional protester.
In Moscow, he had already been seen chained to the fences of the State Duma.
This time, he demanded that authorities halt construction of what he called a “death landfill” near the graves of war veterans. He also protested the removal of Communist candidates from the election.
He was so worried about these issues that he went on a hunger strike.
The next day, a man in dark sunglasses and a white T-shirt, stretched over a soft stomach, approached him.
The man lifted a sheet of paper above his head. It read: “I am against it too.” At that moment, Yura’s solo protest officially became an unauthorized rally. The police broke the metal chain and took Yura to the station. The Communists labeled the man a provocateur.
Yura came back the next day.
Ten days later, Yury Tskiipuri, the mayor of Tula and a respected physician of Russia, came out to meet him. He examined Yura as if he were a patient, promised to discuss his demands with the governor, and the hunger strike ended.
It was the second part of August. Three weeks are left until the vote.
Yura was working on staging the scene, not to persuade voters but to make headlines. His goal was not to win outright; it was to create enough noise to unsettle the Ministry of Internal Policy. Tula faced plenty of real problems that could fuel ten genuine protests. But genuine protests are risky. Governors dislike them. Prosecutors dislike them. Political departments dislike them. And so do the men in plain clothes who listen more carefully than anyone else. However, a landfill near veterans’ graves is a convenient topic – emotional, symbolic, and relatively safe.
You can talk about it loudly without bringing up the painful topics.
That is how the systemic opposition functions.
It protests where it is permitted to protest. And it loudly stays silent where it should be shouting.
If you cross the invisible line set by regional authorities, you’ll be erased — along with the party abbreviation on your banner.
And the very next day, no one will remember your fate. Neither enemies. Nor comrades.
In Russian politics, memory isn’t viewed as a strategic category. It is simply a technical issue.