The event gathered 91 Central Committee members. As for an alternative plenary session, the Communist boss shrugged it off as "provocation led by Semigin and Potapov".
"That was no plenary session at all-a mere conference Semigin and Potapov were leading. We expelled Semigin earlier, and Potapov today," said Mr. Zyuganov.
All who attended the alternative session will be expelled from the Communist Party, said Valentin Nikitin, Central Auditing Commission head. It is up to the Party Central Committee Chairman alone to convene a plenary session, he explained.
The alternative gathering determined to dismiss Gennady Zyuganov. The counter-session gathered 96 out of a total 158 Central Committee members, says Sergei Potapov.
As analysts see the burning dispute, it is rooted not so much in personal clashes as in an ideological crisis that sweeps Russia's longest-established political party.
"I wouldn't like to personify the crisis. The Communist Party is receding from the political arena together with the Old Poor generation. The New Poor no longer give any trust to the utopian idea of reviving Soviet-style socialism," Vladimir Petukhov of the VTsIOM, All-Russia Public Opinion Study Center, said to Novosti.
Many Russians are eager to have a Left political party in the country, he added with reference to VTsIOM opinion probes.
