Communist Party of the Russian Federation in the context of "State Duma"

Pravda (Russian: Правда, IPA: [ˈpravdə] , lit. 'Truth') is a Russian broadsheet newspaper, and was the official newspaper of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, when it was one of the most influential papers in the country with a circulation of 11 million. The newspaper began publication on 5 May 1912 in the Russian Empire but was already extant abroad in January 1911. It emerged as the leading government newspaper of the Soviet Union after the October Revolution. The newspaper was an organ of the Central Committee of the CPSU between 1912 and 1991.

After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Pravda was sold by the then Russian president Boris Yeltsin to a Greek business family in 1992, and the paper came under the control of their private company Pravda International. In 1996, there was an internal dispute between the owners of Pravda International and some of the Pravda journalists that led to Pravda splitting into different entities. The Communist Party of the Russian Federation (CPRF) acquired the Pravda paper, while some of the original Soviet Pravda journalists separated to form Russia's first online paper Pravda Online (now Pravda.ru), which is not connected to the Communist Party. The Pravda paper is still run by the CPRF, whereas the online Pravda.ru is privately owned and has international editions published in Russian, English, French, and Portuguese. After a legal dispute between the rival parties, the Russian court of arbitration stipulated that both entities would be allowed to continue using the Pravda name.

Presidential elections were held in Russia on 16 June 1996, with a second round being held on 3 July 1996. It resulted in a victory for the incumbent Russian president Boris Yeltsin, who ran as an independent politician. Yeltsin defeated the Communist Party of the Russian Federation challenger Gennady Zyuganov in the second round, receiving 54.4% of the vote. Yeltsin's second inauguration ceremony took place on 9 August 1996.

Yeltsin would not complete the second term for which he was elected, as he resigned on 31 December 1999, eight months before the scheduled end of his term on 9 August 2000; he was succeeded by his chosen successor, Vladimir Putin, whom he had appointed prime minister of Russia a few months earlier. This was the first presidential election to take place in post-Soviet Russia. As of 2024, this has also been the only Russian presidential election in which no candidate was able to win on the first round, and as such a runoff election was necessary.

Zhores Ivanovich Alferov (Russian: Жоре́с Ива́нович Алфёров, IPA: [ʐɐˈrɛs ɨˈvanəvʲɪtɕ ɐlˈfʲɵrəf]; Belarusian: Жарэс Іва́навіч Алфёраў; 15 March 1930 – 1 March 2019) was a Soviet and Russian physicist and academic who contributed significantly to the creation of modern heterostructure physics and electronics. He shared the 2000 Nobel Prize in Physics for the development of the semiconductor heterojunction for optoelectronics. He also became a politician in his later life, serving in the lower house of the Russian parliament, the State Duma, as a member of the Communist Party from 1995.

Gennady Andreyevich Zyuganov (Russian: Генна́дий Андре́евич Зюга́нов; born 26 June 1944) is a Russian politician who has been the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation who is a perennial candidate in the Russian presidential elections. He has also served as Member of the State Duma since 1993. He is also the Chair of the Union of Communist Parties – Communist Party of the Soviet Union (UCP-CPSU) since 2001. Zyuganov ran for President of Russia four times, most controversially in 1996, when he lost in the second round to Boris Yeltsin.