lives, as a hermit deep in the forest, or in a side street, the people will put him in touch with those who have need of him. If caught, he will provide spiritual guidance to the other prisoners. Ogorodnikov is quite insistent on the importance of his starets - and the crucial role which the startsy have played in and outside penal times - in giving him guidance and help and in his spiritual development.
The Christian Democratic Union of Russia
Ogorodnikov's political development has been greatly influenced by his Christianity and Orthodoxy. When, with some of his collaborators from the 1974 seminar, he established the Christian Democratic Union of Russia (CDUR) in August 1989 they had just sixteen members. This had risen to 3,000 within a year. Despite the continued obstacles placed in the path of the emerging opposition parties, by July 1990 they had secured the election of one member of the Russian Parliament and four members of the Moscow City Council. At the time of those elections unless candidates were Communists they were still forbidden from identifying their party allegiance on the ballot paper. Therefore, each of these had to be elected as an Independent, and only allowed to describe himself as a Christian Democrat following the election. This is not the only problem which Ogorodnikov's Christian Democrats face. As recently as August 1990 they were still denied the right to be legally recognised. Without such recognition they have not been allowed to have their own premises. Operating out of small apartments and shared rooms is a major impediment - to say nothing of the pressures on the families sharing their quarters. Similarly, they are denied the right to organise an educational foundation. Ogorodnikov's vision is for a Christian Democratic Institute which will provide educational opportunities for their many supporters hungry to learn about political ideas and how a democracy is organised. Some Westerners have an unrealistically optimistic view about the transition from dead-hand Marxism to a participatory democracy. A foundation akin to Ruskin College is urgently needed. Its independence from the State and from the existing ideology-based educational institutions is a prerequisite for longterm political success. Old habits die hard, and it is not merely within the educational institutions that the party nomenclatura have dug themselves in. Ogorodnikov told a meeting at Liverpool's St Mary's Church, Edge Hill, that attempts had been made to destabilise his party through infiltration by KGB officials, who had also set up a series of 'pocket' parties. These are parties with no members but with not dissimilar names to the CDUR. The objective is to give the impression of factionalism and