Russian television has its own version of Spitting Image. The programme with the prosaic title Kukli (dolls) is often far closer to the political mark than the pronouncements of the professional pundits in Moscow's serious newspapers.

Shortly after Boris Yeltsin had defeated the communist leader Gennady Zyuganov in the presidential election on 1996 the satirical programme made one of its more penetrating observations.

The doll representing President Yeltsin and that representing Mr Zyuganov sat facing each other. "That was close," said the Yeltsin doll. "At one stage I was very worried that you might win." The Zyuganov doll astutely replied: "Me too. At one stage I was very worried that I might win."

Losing that presidential election is probably the cleverest thing that Gennady Zyuganov has done in his political career. Even back in 1996 everyone in Russia knew that economic meltdown was on the way. The only thing open to question was the actual date of financial collapse. The short-term winner, Mr Yeltsin, would turn out to be the long-term loser, the communists reckoned and their judgment has been shown to be correct.

A defeat for Mr Yeltsin, and it is obvious that he has suffered a serious one, need not, however, turn out to be an absolute victory for the communists. And the question must be posed as to whether the members of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (KPRF) are communists at all in the true sense of the word.

This brings one to another smart statement, this time from a Canadian colleague, which was made the time of that presidential election two years ago. The field had been narrowed down to Mr Yeltsin and Mr Zyuganov and the journalist, in an off-the-cuff remark, described the campaign as a battle between "one candidate who pretends to be a democrat and another who pretends to be a communist."

The Communist Party of the Russian Federation's adherence to Marxist ideology appears to be just about as strong as Mr Yeltsin's attachment to democratic ideals. Both sides, Mr Yeltsin and Mr Zyuganov's communists, it should be noted, come originally from the same family.

In the once-mighty Communist Party of the Soviet Union (KPSS) Mr Yeltsin was one of the shishki. He was a "pine cone" which is the Russian term for a "big noise." So too were some of his associates in government. Russia's Foreign Minister, Mr Yevgeni Primakov, for example, was once head of the KGB. The new "democrats" therefore were drawn to a large extent from the higher ranks of the communist party. The new "communists" with one exception came from the ranks below the politburo, from the middle ranks of the apparatchiki whose ambitions had been frustrated due to lack of progress in the highly hierarchical system of the communist bureaucracy.

Gennady Zyuganov had already shown a tendency towards Russian nationalism rather than Marxist internationalism even before the Soviet Communist party was abolished in 1991. This tendency has strengthened in both the leader and policies of the KPRF since Mr Yeltsin's pyrrhic election victory in 1996.

To the new communists the Orthodox Church represents not the "opium of the masses" but the "soul of Russia." They view Mr Yeltsin's dissolution of the Soviet Union not as the end of communist rule but the destruction of the Russian empire.

Alliances made with ultra-nationalists have inspired journalists to describe the opposition in the Duma as the "red-brown menace." Communist demonstrations are frequented in the main by elderly Russians, the true believers who fought the Nazis in the "Great Patriotic War" and whose reward from the current regime was to have their pensions stopped. But the long beards of the priests can be spotted and the unsmiling faces of young men who feel the need to build a new empire. There are rants against Jews and freemasons and against foreigners in general and the atmosphere can at times feel more like that of a fascist rally than a communist demonstration.

But when Mr Zyuganov speaks all the tension disappears into a great miasma of boredom. The communist leader ranks as one of the most soporific speakers in the political world. As his deep bass voice churns out statistic after dreary statistic a pall of the most perfect boredom descends over the once near-frenzied crowd.

At the opposite pole to Mr Zyuganov stands Mr Viktor Ilyukhin, a lawyer who once attempted to have former president Mikhail Gorbachev brought to trial for treason. He failed. Currently, Mr Ilyukhin spends most of his time launching the most outlandish of conspiracy theories to anyone who is prepared to listen. His announcements may be crazy but at least they help keep audiences awake.

The one leading member of the KPRF who belonged to the higher echelons of the KPSU is Anatoly Lukyanov, the man who is generally believed to have organised the failed coup d'etat against President Gorbachev in 1991. In an interview with this correspondent he once claimed to be the true behind-the-scenes leader of the KPRF, the Seri Kardinal (eminence grise) behind Gennady Zyuganov.

There is little doubt that Mr Lukyanov, because of his past seniority in the KPSS, wields tremendous influence within the KPRF and this is a worry. When I last spoke to him in his office in the Duma building he exuded a hostile xenophobia which, if applied to policy in the event of the communists taking power, would put the fear of God across any western political leader.

Everything western was described in the most poisonous of terms as he pointed his finger to the advertising signs which could be seen along the rooftops on nearby Tverskaya, the former Gorky Street. One got the impression of being in the presence not of a communist of the old school but in that of a Great Russian nationalist so deeply embittered by the loss of empire that to him all things western were looked on as evil.

But there are other influential figures in the party who sail a more pragmatic course. The chairman of the Duma, Mr Gennady Seleznyov, for example, has saved President Yeltsin's skin on numerous occasions by forcing opposing groups to compromise on key votes. His opposite number in the Federation Council (upper house), Mr Yegor Stroyev, while not an actual member, has strong connections with the party and is also inclined to put common sense before dogma.

So far Mr Zyuganov, in his own very boring way, has steered more towards the Seleznyov-Stroyev line than to the choppy and bitter waters of Mr Lukyanov. He even advocates the continuation of a market economy. Should he come to power, and I should add that this is most unlikely in the short term, Mr Zyuganov will need to summon up the political acumen to forge a common policy within a party in which there are almost as many opinions as members.