Thirty years after the collapse of the totalitarian Soviet Union, Russian society is just beginning to get rid of its allergies to left-wing rhetoric and politics.
For a new generation, socialism is associated more with the left-wing parties of Europe and the American New Left than the Gulag and Joseph Stalin. And there are also politicians who are trying to meet this demand ahead of the parliamentary elections this month.
For example, Mikhail Lobanov, a 37-year-old lecturer at Moscow State University is running for the Russian Communist Party, although he is not a member.
