According to ITAR-TASS news agency report, the Socialist United Party of Russia (SUPR) will dissolve itself and its members will join the Just Russia party headed by Federation Council Chairman Sergei Mironov.

Mironov, who addressed the congress as a guest, noted the similarity of the ideologies of the two parties and assured the delegates that SUPR members would not have to give up their ideals.

“We speak clearly about a socialist perspective for Russia and are ready to defend this choice,” he said.

In his words, it will be a “a new socialism in the 21st century”.

Mironov said his opponents “conspicuously distort” the ideas of socialism and intimidate people with a return of stagnation and empty stores.

“We are against empty pockets of our citizens but we are also against empty stores,” he said.

In his view, the time has come to seriously analyse “the tragic and instructive” history of Soviet socialism so that new socialism does not repeat its mistakes.

“For years left-wing ideas in Russia did not develop and many new socialist ideas are interpreted perversely. Labelling socialism is counterproductive,” Mironov said.

“The actual left” are beginning to struggle for a victory in the State Duma elections slated for December 2007 and ”there will be no easy life”.

“We are already facing fierce opposition and there is a big fight ahead,” he said.

Mironov said three SUPR leaders, including its leader Vasily Shestakov, would get top positions in the Just Russia elections lists and offered to “pay the small debt” of the party.

He promised to employ only “the most capable and intelligent” SUPR functionaries “to a reasonable extent”.

“I myself is a hard worker and demand that everyone work hard,” he added, getting a compliment from one of the delegate who called him “a real man”.

“Thank you for the ‘real man’,” Mironov replied, saying the author of the compliment was not so wrong. “I have worked 18 field seasons,” Mironov said, referring to his geological prospecting work.

He expects one or several more parties to join Just Russia before the start of the election campaign. “We could join our forces with the Communist Party” if its leader Gennady Zyuganov “did not assume a destructive position”, Mironov said.

“But for rank-and-file members of the Communist Party, with whom we are ideological allies, the door of the ‘actual left’ is always open,” he said.

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