ON THE LEFT:

While Luzhkov tries to build support in the centerof the political spectrum, the left is increasingly divided. TheCommunist Party of the Russian Federation remains the only realnational political party. Since losing the presidency with 40percent of the vote in 1996, KPRF leader Gennady Zyuganov hastried to expand the party’s appeal by combining traditionalsocialist slogans with an even more virulent Great Russiannationalism than Luzhkov espouses. This “red-brown” or communist-nationalist coalition is an uneasy one, no sooner built thanfractured. The head of the coalition’s umbrella organization, thegarishly named People’s Patriotic Union of Russia, expects thecoalition to break into three or four competing groups in theDecember parliamentary elections: a KPRF slate led by Zyuganov, aseparate Agrarian Party slate, a “Patriots of Russia” group, andperhaps a neo-Stalinist, anti-Semitic slate of radicalcommunists.