Agrarian Party of Russia (APR)
Fatherland and creation, people’s power and welfare

Founded: February 26, 1993
Leader: Mikhail Lapshin
Membership: 110,000 members in 80 constituencies. Consists mainly of farmers, scientists and young people.
Media: Rossiskaya Zemlya

Address: 20 Bolshoi Golovin Pereulok, Building 1
                Moscow 107045
Telephone: +7 (095) 207 99 51; +7 (095) 207 98 95
Email: org@agroparty.ru
Website: http://www.agroparty.ru

Major Political Figures
Mikhail Lapshin, head of the Republic of Altai
Vladimir Plotnikov, Party chairman and Duma deputy
Mikhail Filvanovich, Press Secretary

Agrarian Party of Russia (APR) was created by the initiative of an All-Russian council in charge of collective farms and other forms of economy, parliamentary fraction “Agrarian union” of Supreme Council of RSFSR, Agrarian union of Russia and trade-union of workers of agro-industrial complex of Russia.

In 1992 during the third congress of an All-Russian council in charge of collective farms and other forms of economy, an organizational committee was created in order to establish the Agrarian party of Russia. On February 26, 1993 there was a constituent congress in Moscow. Mikhail Lapshin, national deputy of RSFSR, was chosen the chairman of the party. Assistants to the chairman of APR were chosen Nikolai Haritonov, Anatoli Vorontsov, Vasiliy Krylov, Anatoli Biriukov and Alexander Mikhailov.

The statutes of APR were registered by Ministry of justice of Russian Federation on April 9, 1993.

On October 17, 1993 2nd congress of APR took place, in which 100 deputies from 51 regions participated. The congress affirmed the electuary list of the party. During the elections on December 12, 1993 Agrarian Party received 7,99% of the votes, as a result the party took 4th place and received 21 deputy mandates proportionally.

On January 13, 1994 Agrarian Party of Russia was registered in State Duma amounting to 55 deputies.

APR fraction received the offices of chairmen of legislative (Vladimir Isakov) and agrarian politics (Alexander Nazarchuk) committees.

On October 27, 1994 member of board of APR, A. Nazarchuk, was appointed minister of agriculture and rested in the office until the end of 1995.

During the elections to State Duma on December 17, 1995 Agrarian Party of Russia received only 3.78% of the votes.

In August 1996 Agrarian party joined People Patriotic union of Russia.

In June 1998 chairman of APR, M. Lapshin, was chosen deputy of State Duma during elections for vacant district in Altai.

During election on December 7, 2003 APR was able to receive only 3.64% of the votes. Only two deputies, V. Plotnikov and N. Kharitonov, were able to get into State Duma.

- to protect the political, civil, economic, social and cultural rights and freedoms of farmers, of all workers of the agro-industrial complex and rural residents;

- to radically improve the rural resident's social status, achieve the growth of the rural worker's well-being, establish equitable and mutually advantageous relations between town and country and between industry and agriculture, and promote the development of agricultural production;

- to collectively work out the agrarian policy, its separate trends and the strategy and tactics of implementing this policy;

- to consolidate society for the revival of the Russian countryside, the farmer's life-style, culture and traditions;

- to take part in forming the bodies of state authority and administration, and also in implementing the party's program goals through its representatives in these bodies.

Program

The party’s Program was adopted by the tenth APR congress held on December 8, 2001.

- Tasks in the political sphere: to gain power at all levels by using constitutional methods either independently or in coalition with national patriotic and other progressive forces; to put farmers in the foreground of the country’s state and social life as an independent subject of politics, and to strengthen an equitable union of farmers, workers and the intellectuals.

- In the economic sphere the Agrarian Party of Russia sets the following top priority tasks: to adjust the market policy course towards raising the living standards of the majority of the country’s population, especially its poorest layers; to ensure state regulation of agricultural production by using the mechanisms of state order and price formation; to introduce quotas for the import of foodstuffs which are produced, or can be produced in sufficient quantities in Russia.

- In the sphere of agrarian policy, the key task for the near future is to stop the destruction of the existing production structures, the social sphere and the rural areas’ demographic potential, as well as the decline of agricultural production. Under the party program, in order to achieve these goals, it is necessary that the state should give priority to the agro-industrial complex in the system of material production, introduce easy-term credits for agricultural producers, restore large-scale agricultural production providing for the most effective concentration of capital and the highest yield on capital, and support agricultural science and education in the sphere of agriculture.

- In the sphere of land relations, the APR advocates a legislative framework which would not undermine the rights and interests of the present and future generations of farmers. Land can be owned, possessed and used by those who work it. The APR supports the development of leasing relations in land management. The turnover of agricultural lands must be carried out on the basis of legislation excluding its free purchase and sale.

In the sphere of agribusiness, the APR favours the introduction of agricultural cooperation, which used to be a massive, historically tried and tested, and economically substantiated movement of Russian farmers in their fight to protect their interests.

- Tasks in the social sphere: to restore and develop the social sphere in rural areas raising it to the level of city standards, including gas and electricity supply, telephone network, the building of roads, socio-cultural facilities and utilities, and the building of housing in the countryside with due account taken of the specific features of the traditional life-style in rural areas (a house for every family); when drafting and implementing nation-wide programmes aimed at overcoming the demographic crisis and protecting motherhood and childhood, to give special attention to state support for the rural family and create economic conditions for strengthening it.

- In the moral sphere, the APR’s major tasks are to instill genuine patriotism and the feeling of pride for the Fatherland and the nation in Russian citizens; to multiply spiritual and cultural wealth of Russia’s peoples; to create the basis and conditions for a healthy way of life and support initiatives aimed at combating alcoholism, drug-addiction and other vices dangerous for people’s life and health.

- In the sphere of youth policy, the APR relies on the creation of an active youth wing, which should form the basis for the growth of its ranks and promote its ideology among sections of the rural population which are most receptive to political influences.

In its activities, the Agrarian Party of Russia relies on a mass farmers’ movement in its multiple forms, i.e., coordinating councils of joint actions of workers of the agro-industrial complex, the Agro-Industrial Union of Russia, farmers and other agricultural producers’ associations, the trade union of workers of the agro-industrial complex and other professional unions, women, ecological, scientific and educational, cultural, patriotic, youth and other independent associations.

last updated August 2, 2005