CNN - Soviet re-union a key part of Zyuganov's campaign

Soviet re-union a key part of Zyuganov's campaign

June 16, 1996
Web posted at: 8:55 p.m. EDT (0055 GMT)

MOSCOW (CNN) -- Part of Communist candidate Gennady Zyuganov's presidential campaign rested on reviving the Kremlin's former influence over Russia's neighbors -- the former Soviet Republics -- and re-creating the old Soviet Union.

To be sure, it's the idea of a "Soviet re-union" that makes this election so interesting to many outside Russia.

Five years after the political breakup of the Soviet Union, Ukraine and Russia have discovered their economic and ethnic ties are still strong.

In Zyuganov's opinion, the closer links between Russia and Ukraine only support his assertion that the eventual reunification of the former Soviet Union is "inevitable."

The re-integration of the former Soviet Union is especially attractive to Russians in former Soviet republics. Some 25 million ethnic Russians still form large minorities in Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Estonia and other former Soviet Republics.

"When we had one state, we had one economy, and one set of laws and aspirations. All that's different now, and naturally that's why the economies of Ukraine, Russia and Belarus are in such bad shape," said Slava, an ethnic Russian in Ukraine.

Analysts such as Victor Kremenyuk say there are some good reasons for Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Estonia to continue having close economic and political ties with Russia and each other.

Kazakhstan and Kyrgistan have already joined Belarus in a formal economic cooperation arrangement with Russia.

"More and more people talk about the necessity to integrate, to become something like a confederation or some other entity which would be linked by economic, security and other links," he said. (288K AIFF or WAV sound)

The neighboring former republics depend on Russia for public utilities such as oil, gas and electric and telephone systems

"It's a hope that we would have a more or less guaranteed supply of what we sorely lack right now -- mineral resources, oil, energy supplies," said Belarus Deputy Foreign Minister Ivan Antanovich. (171K AIFF or WAV sound)

But a re-creation of the old Soviet Union is seen as a threat by Eastern Europe's former Soviet satellites such as Poland and the Czech Republic, which may move even more quickly to cement their political and military ties to the West.

CNN Correspondent Ralph Begleiter contributed to this report

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Soviet re-union a key part of Zyuganov's campaign

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