The Socialist Democratic Party of Russia is a political party founded in Russia by Mikhail Gorbachev on November 26, 2001. It is a union of several social democratic parties, has approximately 12,000 members, but has no seats in the Russian Duma. Gorbachev resigned as party leader in May 2004 over a disagreement with party chairman Konstantin Titov who had insisted, over Gorbachev's opposition, on a deal with the pro-Kremlin United Russia Party in the previous year's general election.

Konstantin Titov, in turn, announced his resignation at the 3rd convention of the party held September 4, 2004. The convention elected the new chairman, Vladimir Kishenin, leader of the Party of Social Justice, who was favoured by Titov.

Presenting himself, Kishenin mentioned that he studied in a KGB college in 1972-1975. When asked why he was a trusted representative for Vladimir Putin during the last presidential election, Kishenin explained that this was done at the request of Vladislav Surkov, deputy director of the President's Administration.

Related Wikipedia Pages

• Politics of Russia

External Links

• translation (http://www.online-translator.com/url/tran_url.asp?lang=en&direction=re&autotranslate=on&transliterate=on&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.sdprus.ru/) of the Social Democratic Party of Russia Official Website (http://www.sdprus.ru/)
• translation (http://www.online-translator.com/url/tran_url.asp?lang=en&direction=re&autotranslate=on&transliterate=on&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.newizv.ru%2Fnews%2F%3Fid_news%3D10866) of the Novye Izvestia article (http://www.newizv.ru/news/?id_news=10866) on the 3rd convention.