The United Russia party was founded on December 1, 2001. At the congress held that day, the Unity party, which had previously competed with each other in elections at various levels, and the movements Unity and All Russia, which formed one electoral bloc, united.
The beginning of party building
The nominally new party, which was then called Unity and Fatherland - United Russia, was headed as co-chairs of the Supreme Council by the leaders of the founders' organizations Sergei Shoigu (Unity), Yuri Luzhkov (Fatherland) and Mintimer Shaimiev (All Russia). The actual leader was Alexander Bespalov, who held the posts of chairman of the central executive committee and the general council of the party.
The name of this politician is not widely known now. Alexander Bespalov comes from the "northern capital", a chemist by training. He left science back in Soviet times. He worked as an instructor and head of the organizational department of the executive committee of the Leningrad City Council. In the nineties he worked at the St. Petersburg City Hall.
Alexander Bespalov was engaged in rapid party building. One of the points of his program was to bring the number of the party up to a million people in a year. He put forward other initiatives as well. Soon, associates accused Bespalov of numerous failures and miscalculations.
As a result, already in 2003, Alexander Bespalov was sent to an "honorable retirement". Since that time, he has been in the position of Head of the Information Policy Department of OAO Gazprom. And the party was headed by Boris Gryzlov.
Further history of the party
Boris Gryzlov is called a kind, decent and decent person. His name does not appear in corruption scandals, the image of a man with a stranglehold on power is not glued to him. However, Boris Gryzlov was not a prominent leader. The dry manner of being in public, dry routine phrases did not allow him to gain popularity among the people. The same dry and not bright became under Gryzlov and the party "United Russia".
Although the party during the leadership of Boris Gryzlov, largely thanks to the administrative resource, won impressive victories in the elections to the State Duma in 2003 and 2007. In the middle and end of the 2000s, heads of the subjects of the Federation, including those elected from other parties, transferred en masse to United Russia. Thus, by 2010, only six governors were not part of United Russia, and by mid-2012, only three.
In May 2008, Boris Gryzlov was replaced as party chairman by Vladimir Putin, who at that time was the country's prime minister. At the same time, Putin himself remained non-partisan. In May 2012, Dmitry Medvedev was elected chairman of the United Russia party.
