MOSCOW, DECEMBER 15: The Stalinist Bloc for the USSR, led by its fire-spitting leader Viktor Anpilov, has virtually inundated Moscow with thousands of posters and billboards, with images of Soviet dictator Stalin, defying all the forecasts by Russian pollsters that the bloc will not be able to cross the five per cent barrier in the State Duma elections on Sunday.In the 1995 parliamentary elections, Anpilov's bloc received 4.53 per cent of the vote and missed the victory to enter the lower house of Russian parliament by a margin of less than half per cent.Under the Russian election law, half of the Duma's 450 seats are allocated according to national party lists, for which at least five per cent barrier has been established. The other 225 seats are contested in single-mandate constituencies.Perhaps, in his frantic effort to cross the barrier, this time around, Anpilov included in the name of his bloc the word `Stalin' and also roped in Stalin's grandson Yevgeny Dzhugashvili, who very much resembles his grandfather.Anpilov, one of the best-known Russia's radical Communists, was jailed in 1993, for his roles in that year's parliamentary bloody uprising.Until recently, Dzhugashvili headed an organization, engaged in defending the name of his grandfather, but was not actively associated with politics.Political observers are baffled at the number of posters and large billboards, put up by a ``fringe'' party. They are also surprised at the big amount of money which the bloc has spent on such a ``luxury'' as slick posters and billboards.Even leaders of the mainstream Communist Party, centre-left Fatherland-All Russia movement and liberal Yabloko, which are expected to cross the five per cent threshold, have expressed their envy at what they called the ``great show'' put up by the Stalinist bloc.In the last parliamentary elections, Anpilov's bloc had concentrated its efforts on the single-mandate constituencies. But only one single-mandate candidate won a seat in the Duma.The bloc has declared in its manifesto to re-establish Soviet Union, abolish the presidency and other executive officers, undo the results of privatisation and punish those responsible for denationalisation, ruining the country's economy, in the aftermath of market reforms.Analysts say, despite the apparent financial backing and Stalin's name, the bloc may have hard time beating its performance in the last elections.
