MOSCOW, September 23. /TASS/. Russian President Vladimir Putin believes that the experience of the Soviet Union had both positive and negative sides to it.

"It is always bad to settle old scores, but it was back in the Soviet Union that scores began to be settled and all sorts of congresses that raised the themes of various dramatic pages of our history," Putin said at a meeting with the leaders of political parties that gained representations in the State Duma after September 18 elections. His remark followed in response to a statement by Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov.

Putin believes it will be up to historians to decide if that approach was correct or not.

"It goes without saying that there were positive things, and there were others that were working for the collapse of the system. It is also a question whether it was good or bad," Putin believes.

About the breakup of the Soviet Union Putin said that it was not unavoidable and various reforms, including democratic ones, could have been carried out.

Putin drew Zyuganov’s attention to the fact it was the Communist Party that was running the country at the moment, and not some other party that might be advancing the ideas of nationalism or other destructive ideas, ruinous for any state, let alone such a multi-ethnic country as Russia.