This week, Russia's high court banned the liberal Yabloko party from taking part in Russia's parliamentary elections in September. Yabloko was the only anti-war party, and pretty much everyone knew that this was coming. The party was only at 4% in the latest poll, up from 2%. (Though, how much can you really trust Russian political polls?) The story of panicky authoritarian goons banning opposition parties is an old one. We don't want to dwell on this story in this blog post, but instead would like to take a good look at the OTHER liberal Russian party, the “Party of New People”. This is a fake party, and it polls pretty well for one, hitting over 13% in a May poll, which would make it the 2nd most popular party in Russia (of course, behind United Russia, Putin's party).
An old communist technology
What do we mean by “fake party”? In Russia, they usually call these things “systemic opposition parties”. They first appeared in communist regimes that were trying to pretend to have multi-party democracies and to channel potential political opposition into controlled parties or potential opposition leaders and organizers into nice, stable jobs where the secret police could direct them. East Germany (where the practice began) had the “Christian Democratic Union of Germany” (CDU) for Christians, the “Democratic Farmers' Party of Germany” (DBD) for rural voters, and even a National Democratic Party of Germany (NDPD) for middle-class liberals and former soldiers and Nazi Party members (this weird grouping was probably the result of Marxist-Leninist ideology that saw Nazism as just an evolved form of middle-class liberalism).
This practice of fake parties was imitated in other parts of the communist world. Before 1988, communist Vietnam had two parties: the “Democratic Party of Vietnam” and the “Socialist Party of Vietnam.” North Korea still has two: the “Chondoist Chongu Party,” associated with a 19th-century Korean neo-pagan religious movement that the regime considers “revolutionary.” There is also the “Korean Social Democratic Party,” which, for a while, published an English-language journal to convince readers that North Korea is a multi-party system. They haven't been allowed to have seats in North Korea's parliament since 2019. Perhaps the boss was getting nervous. In the waning days of the USSR, the communists created the “Liberal Democratic Party of Russia” (LDPR) to divide and channel democratic opposition, though after the collapse of the USSR, it quickly became an openly neo-fascist holding pen for those too crazy for any respectable party. This party remains in the Russian parliament with 21 seats.
Gravity-defying growth
The Russian cosmetics magnate Alexei Nechayev officially founded the New People party in 2020, but many reports from Russian opposition sources say the party was at least OK'd by Yuri Kovalchuk, Putin's close friend and personal banker.
As in business, so with politics, one good indicator that corruption is at work is when a company or political party appears to defy gravity, getting regulatory approvals or avoiding investigations in ways that other entities can't. Despite being formed in March 2020, by September 2020, New People had somehow managed to organize campaigns across Russia and even win seats in four regional legislative assemblies! It had filed all the necessary paperwork, set up offices, and done campaigning in the face of the Russian police state in about six months! That's gravity-defying!
In a 2021 interview with the Irish Times, the New People leader Nechayev said there were three conditions for registering a political party in Russia: 1. Don't criticize Putin or his family 2. Avoid foreign financing, and 3. Don't do unsanctioned street protests. “We [New People] don't violate these three red lines,” he said. Nechayev went on to say that Russia is often presented, especially in the West, “as just Putin and Navalny”, but “Most people understand the world is not black and white”. Many Russians, he averred, want a moderate opposition.
How a fake party behaves
The New People party targets younger, urban voters who might be upset about rampant corruption and cronyism in Russian business, or who object to restrictions on mobile phone service or new traffic cameras. The party will officially criticize a government initiative, but then its representatives will either vote in favor of it or propose something Putin does not want, only to vote against it when the time comes. For a clear example: New People is publicly in favor of restoring direct elections for Russian city mayors and the heads of municipal districts, and argues for this, even introducing bills. However, in March 2025, when the Russian government basically abolished any chance of local self-government by abolishing thousands of municipalities, New People deputies voted in favor of the law.
New People is the only major Russian political party that has refrained from attacking the Yabloko party. This is probably not an oversight — the Kremlin wants to channel anti-war feelings in Russia into New People, where they can be controlled. The mask may have slipped a bit when Putin launched his massive invasion of Ukraine, and, based on an extant URL, the New People party posted an article named “New People Against the War” (http://newpeople.ru/News/novye-lyudi-protiv-vojny). Unfortunately, the page wasn't archived, and now it's gone.
This fake party is not just about channeling otherwise negative opinions. It can help to use fake parties to get more people at a table and make it seem legitimate. The Russian project “Election Atlas” observed that low-level politicos and officials affiliated with United Russia were being nominated to Russian 2026 electoral commissions as New People representatives. This way, on paper, it can look like an electoral commission is multi-party, when in fact it can be all United Russia.
One analyst has even speculated that New People could become the “second leg” of Putin's system and become the second-largest party in parliament (though still under Putin's control). It would be a more attractive controlled opposition than the Communist Party, which is mostly for old people who are dying off, or the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR), which is staffed by cranks and has burnt out its credibility inside and outside Russia.
Why this matters outside Russia
There are also some foreign benefits to fake parties. While the Korean Social Democratic Party probably hasn't fooled anyone for a while, opposition parties can be quite useful to dupe foreigners and set up channels for influence and intelligence gathering. Just having the controlled opposition show up to conferences overseas might be enough to scare away actual dissidents. Westerners need to re-learn some of the tactics used by communist and other authoritarian kleptocracies in their ersatz democracies, especially as these practices might be headed our way. And, if a Russian “liberal dissident” wants to come to your event or interview you, make sure you double-check which party he is affiliated with and if it is real.