Last week, a couple of Armenian communist parties tried to unite but quickly disbanded. On the day of uniting and the days that followed, the communists called each other careerists, traitors, delirious, prates, pro-Serge Sargsyan, pro-Kocharyan…
As a result, they didn’t get anywhere and it’s clear that they won’t anytime soon.
The people who were actually trying to unite were former Communists who had been kicked out of the party, including Yuri Manukyan (current head of the New Communist Party), Vazgen Safaryan (head of the Progressive Communist Party), Norik Petrosyan, Sanatruk Sahakyan and Khoren Sargsyan.
The Communist party blames these people for uniting upon the request of the authorities and helping nominate defense minister Serge Sargsyan as president for the upcoming presidential elections.
Last week, the Communist party bureau and the Communist party’s Yerevan municipal committee declared that they accuse the former Communists of betrayal, careerism and creating an anti-communist hysteria.
“We won’t let them be Communists again,” said first secretary of the Communist party Yerevan municipal committee Tatchat Sargsyan as he threatened the former Communists.
Based on the declaration of July 14, the Communist party bureau has denied the proposal of the former party members to unite as one. But according to some sources, there had never been such an offer made to the Communist party. Even Tachat Sargsyan had confirmed this to the press.
According to former Communist party member Khoren Trchunini, the second secretary of the Communist party Frunze Kharatyan, who has fought against private ownership, has his own university (the “Galik” university). Sanatruk Sahakyan says that first secretary Ruben Tovmasyan has a casino named “SAR”.
Last week, both Sahakyan and Trchunich told the press that they had talked with head of the New Communist Party Yuri Manukyan, who loves Robert Kocharyan a lot, and found out that in reality, he is starting to dislike Robert Kocharyan and Serge Sargsyan. Y. Manukyan had this to say regarding this:
“I don’t change my approaches. I am neither pro-government nor pro-Kocharyan, but rather pro-state. I value Armenian statehood and am ready to serve the country.”
Manukyan says that he is an Armenian and then a Communist, which in his words means that he is ready to serve his people and the country as much as he can and then place emphasis on the ideology. According to head of the New Communist Party, the people who are ready to vote for someone other than Robert Kocharyan don’t realize how big the Karabakh conflict is and don’t understand that they are only making the conflict more complicated.
“The people who are offending me or my friends are Armenian-speaking Turks,” said Manukyan.
Manukyan also said that he has his candidate for the next president.
“We’re definitely going to support him and do everything we can to make the Karabakh conflict settlement benefit Armenia. Only after that will I start thinking about uniting the people fighting for socialism,” said Manukyan without mentioning the name of his candidate and added that he has made his choice based on Karabakh’s interests.
During the interview, Manukyan also touched upon the issue of uniting communists. He says that he had invited the representatives of all communist parties to discuss why the communists aren’t uniting. However, only head of the Armenian Communist Party wasn’t there. As for the disunity of the Communists, Yuri Manukyan says that it has to do with different mentalities.
“For 70 years, we lived with the psychology that we must do what we are told and that has been instilled in our minds. Now it’s time to think and work on our own, but we aren’t ready for that and not only the Communist, but everyone for that matter. Very few Communists were able to change with the times,” he says.
Manukyan suggests leaving personal issues aside and “get out of the game”.
“I don’t want to be the primary figure, or a parliamentarian,” he assures.
But the Communists can’t even gather partially this time either because, according to Manukyan, Sahakyan, Petrosyan and Trchunich demand holding a new Communist party meeting based on the fact that they consider Tovmasyan as an illegitimate first secretary.
“They demand holding a new meeting, but that doesn’t concern me. Vazgen Safaryan says that we should go with an alliance, but that still doesn’t concern me. I’m just asking all communist parties to unite as one. Whatever happened in the past is history. What does it mean to have an alliance of three communist parties? That’s ridiculous for the average communists. There should be only one Communist party in Armenia and that’s the Armenian Communist Party. R. Tovmasyan isn’t against this, but he says that evicted Communist members, like myself, can’t unite with them because the Communist party expelled them and we must follow the rules and regulations for getting back in.”
Besides that, Manukyan says that Sahakyan, Petrosyan and Trchunich don’t realize that times have changed and you can’t move forward just by cursing at the authorities and making “false calls” to the people to start a revolution. By doing that, we will lose control of the country and the people will suffer.
In regard to the Communists’ accusations that the Communists trying to unite are ordered by the authorities to help Serge Sargsyan get nominated as president and form an oppositional ideology, Manukyan repeats that times have changed and you can’t progress by simply offending the authorities. He adds:
“Offenders are no longer needed. There are many people making offensive remarks. There was a time when they said that the person offending is the one to blame (he means S. Sargsyan-R.T.), that we are split up, but we have been demanding unison for the past five years. How come we’re not uniting? Let them announce that the decision they made in 2001 was immoral to the people and it’s considered illegal-I’ll come back and will become a member. What do last names have to do with this?”
Judging from the abovementioned, I can conclude that the Communists have different mentalities and it’s still too early to talk about uniting as one.