History
The Democratic Party of Russia was founded by Nikolai Travkin. It initially featured Stanislav Govorukhin and Sergey Glazyev, was a prominent democratically-oriented party, member of the Democratic Russia coalition, and had deputies in the first State Duma. After the August coup, the party evolved from liberal anticommunism to centrism (1992–1993) to moderate Russian nationalism (1994–1995).
In 1991, the Democratic Party differed from other liberal/democratic organizations with its 'demopatriotic' stance (similar to Aksyuchits' Christian-Democratic Party and Astafyev's Constitutional Democrats). The Democratic Party was opposed to the dissolution of the Soviet Union and criticised Latvia's and Estonia's policies towards their Russian-speaking minorities. After the signing of the Belovezhye treaty, the DP organized a number of demonstrations against the treaty.
The party's stance on Yegor Gaidar's economic reforms was ambiguous, but developed more critical in the course of time. During the constitutional crisis in Russia (1992-1993), the party did not have unanimous position. The party called for balloting both for re-election of the President as well as of the legislative bodies on the referendum in April, 1993; however, some of the party's leaders took the pro-Yeltsin side. Similarly, during the October 1993 events in Moscow, Travkin initially supported the so-called zero variant (annulling both Yeltsin's decree nr 1400 and the Supreme Soviet's subsequent decisions). On October 4, Travkin supported Yeltsin's actions in suppressing the armed rebellion. The party took part in the Russian legislative election, 1993 and won 14 seats. The party split, however, on the issue of support for the Chernomyrdin cabinet. Travkin who took a more conciliatory stand lost the power struggle to Govorukhin and Glazyev, who were determined opponents of the government course, and Travkin consequently left the party and joined the Our Home is Russia movement.
Glazyev was made leader in 1994 but was disbanded before the following year's legislative election. The rump DR split further between Govorukhin and Glazyev supporters. In the Russian legislative election, 1995, the Glazyev wing took part within the Congress of Russian Communities list, whilst Govorukhin formed his own list, called the Stanislav Govorukhin Bloc.
In the 1996 presidential election, the Democratic Party supported Alexander Lebed, though some of its regional leaders supported Yeltsin's campaign. In the 2000 presidential election, the party supported Vladimir Putin.
In 2001 the party was reformed by Mikhail Prusak. In 2005 Mikhail Kasyanov tried to be elected chairman of the party, but lost to Andrei Vladimirovich Bogdanov. In June 2007 the party proposed a referendum on joining the European Union and in December it took part in the legislative election, but it did not win any seats. The DPR of that time was accused of being a virtual party used to draw away votes from the real opposition parties.
In the Russian legislative election, 2007 the party won 0.13% of votes, not breaking the 7% barrier, and thus no seats in the Duma. As of January 1, 2007, according to the Federal Registration Service, the party had 82,183 members.
Read more about this topic: Democratic Party Of Russia
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“When the landscape buckles and jerks around, when a dust column of debris rises from the collapse of a block of buildings on bodies that could have been your own, when the staves of history fall awry and the barrel of time bursts apart, some turn to prayer, some to poetry: words in the memory, a stained book carried close to the body, the notebook scribbled by hand—a center of gravity.”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)
“Hence poetry is something more philosophic and of graver import than history, since its statements are rather of the nature of universals, whereas those of history are singulars.”
—Aristotle (384–322 B.C.)