Moscow City Duma deputy may be expelled from the Communist Party

On Friday, the Communist Party’s primary organization in the metropolitan area of ​​Nekrasovka issued a verbal warning to Moscow City Duma deputy Yevgeny Stupin for signing an anti-war letter and sending positive references to oppositionist Ilya Yashin, who is on the list of foreign agents and is on trial for spreading false information about the Russian army. Earlier, for the reasons listed above, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation recommended that a “principled personnel decision” be taken against Mr. Stupin, up to and including his expulsion from the party. Kommersant’s source in the Communist Party confirmed that some high-ranking communists do support a radical solution to this issue and do not rule out that it can be adopted by higher party bodies. Mr. Stupin himself considers the decision to issue a warning “unconditional support” from fellow party members, but he is not sure that the issue with his exclusion is closed: “The party bodies of the Stalingrad branch, the city committee of Moscow and the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation can cancel the decision and expel me from the party, – the deputy confirmed. – They say that some new personal file has been opened on me. Allegedly, I do not fulfill any obligations to the party. There is no official information yet. Looking forward to the next review.”

It should be noted that Mr. Stupin often contradicts the decisions of the Communist Party faction in the Moscow City Duma and supports projects, initiatives and actions of the non-systemic opposition, in particular, he helps the “Deputy Academy” project. In the spring, the communist signed the letter “Communists and socialists against fratricidal war”, for which he had already received a reprimand from the party. In autumn, he wrote a testimonial in support of the former head of the Krasnoselsky district of Moscow, Ilya Yashin, who was arrested on charges of spreading fake news about the army. In particular, it says that Mr. Yashin, as a deputy, refused to use a company car with a driver, sending this resource to organize a social taxi project. Mr. Stupin later explained that “as a communist” he welcomes the voluntary renunciation “of unreasonable privileges for the benefit of those in need” and does not consider that writing such a characterization runs counter to the positions of the Communist Party.

Kira Dyuryagina