"The Labor Party is for the simple people, the working class," he says. "That's why I belong to them."
Distinctions subtler than these have divided Russia's communist movement into no fewer than five factions, resulting at times in more dissension among themselves than with their so-called ideological foes. Discord has arisen from such seemingly innocuous conflicts as whether to include the slogan "Proletarians of the world, unite!" on party banners. Nevertheless, a few sometimes-uneasy alliances have been formed, such as the Communist/Labor block that unite's Nikolai's party with on of the more powerful communist parties.
For Nikolai, such political squabbling is of little interest, serving only to obscure the main point, which to him is obvious: "We need to have honest people leading the country," he says. "The men in office today are thieves and liars; they don't care anything about the Russian people, but only about how to make themselves rich.
"The last effective, honest leader we had was Stalin," he says, proudly showing a photo of Stalin and the late dictator's daughter Svetlana. "He really cared about the Russians. He made sure we were fed. After him, the tragedy began. We never had another good leader."
About the terror of Stalin's purges, Nikolai says quietly, "The only
people who don't make mistakes in this world are the people who don't work."
After a moment, he adds, "Stalin got many things done, and built this country up
to greatness. But he wasn't the one who ordered the repressions and killings. We
destroyed ourselves."