Gennady Yuryevich Semigin (Russian: Геннадий Юрьевич Семигин, born March 23, 1961) is a Russian politician, the leader of socialist Patriots of Russia party.
Born March 23, 1961, in Khmelnitsky, Ukraine, Soviet Union, he studied in Riga on history faculty, and then in Moscow Institute of Jurisprudence. In the 1990s he ran a successful business. He is also a member of Russian Academy of Science.
In 1999 and in 2003 he was elected deputy of State Duma from Communist Party of the Russian Federation (CPRF), in 2003 election he was #2 in CPRF list. The following year his ambitions on party leadership led him to conflict with communist leader Gennady Zuganov. Many old communist viewed rich Semigin as an opportunist, who is not truly oppositional. They labeled him "a mole" - a slang term for infiltrating agent, and "the Red oligarch[1]". Despite this, Semigin managed to be elected chairman of “People’s Patriotic Union of Russia” an umbrella organization that united Communist party with minor opposition parties.
Semigin made several attempts to seize power from Zuganov, including organisation of separate CPRF congress. But VTsIK didn't recognize Semigin's congress and pointed that only official CPRF congress was legal. This congress voted to expel Semigin and his allies from the party.
In Duma, Semigin moved to Rodina fraction, and in the same time he founded his own party Patriots of Russia. He also organized "People's Government" - the group of leftists politicians including Sergey Glazyev, Gennady Seleznev, Gennady Gudkov, that pretended to be an "future government".