The Return of the KOMINTERN

SOVINTERN combines socialist rhetoric with Kremlin social conservatism

Dear readers and subscribers,

About a hundred left-wing organizations from seventy countries met in Moscow on the weekend of April 24-26, 2026, under Kremlin auspices to found a new pro-Putin federation.

After the network with the sovereignist right, here is the one on the left:

SOVINTERN.

Its promoter is Sergei Mironov, leader of “Just Russia,” which won 7.62% of the vote and 27 seats in the last elections and presents itself as opposition to Vladimir Putin—before being excluded from the Socialist International for supporting Russia against Ukraine.

“It is not a question of recreating the Soviet past,” Mironov said in a video message to participants. “Socialism 2.0 will integrate the best Soviet and world achievements, but within the framework of the new realities of the 21st century.”

Some Latin American delegates associated the formulation with Hugo Chávez’s 21st-century socialism.

His call to defend “social justice, sovereign development, and traditional spiritual and moral values” also tracks the program with which Putin has proclaimed himself the standard-bearer of anti-Wokism.

Putin and Mironov have known each other since the 1990s, when their paths crossed in St. Petersburg’s local politics. Just Russia or Fair Russia, depending on how it is translated, was sponsored by the Kremlin twenty years ago, when Vladislav Surkov—then deputy head of the presidential administration—assembled it as a managed social-democratic opposition.

In 2024, Mironov endorsed his patron openly:

“The country needs a strong and experienced leader, and Putin is able to solve the most complex political problems.”