The reforms in the
Soviet Union
2 The resistance to reform combines: • The opposition of millions of "conservative" small bureaucrats whose position does not make it possible to have the overall views of a Gorbachev, and who have obviously nothing to gain from the slogan "the right man in the right place" but no alternative to put forward • The expectations of the bulk of the
MEETING in December 1988, the International Executive
Committee of the Fourth International discussed and adopted the general line of the following resolution as a first step towards a discussion for the next World
Congress. The discussion is continuing, with contributions forthcoming on the national question and foreign policy.
I General framework
1 The current upheavals in the Soviet
Union are one of the major events of the second half of the twentieth century: an unprecedented crisis in bureaucratic rule both in the Soviet Union and in the Eastern bloc countries, and in their reciprocal relations; a new expression of the policy of peaceful coexistence, which has had different effects in the dependent countries and transformed the image of the USSR. (Witness, for example, the turnaround in public opinion in the developed capitalist countries.)
2 Obviously, a major element in the crisis that the Soviet Union is experiencing is the cumulative aspect of its economic failures. But what makes it particularly profound is the regime's unprecedented crisis of legitimacy. It is not yet easy to measure the consequences of this.
3 In a climate of discontent, the current upheaval stems from a combination of growing social pressure from the new generation of the bureaucracy and intelligentsia for material, cultural — and indeed moral - well-being, with the realization of the potential danger of leaving things as they are by the top layer of the bureaucratic apparatus.
This top layer has not - and cannot have - either a coherent vision of restructuring society, or the means to employ (look at its internal divisions on this last point). For the time being it is resting on a de facto alliance between those who want an extension of the market and who consider democracy as harmful, and those who want democracy and view the market as a ne cessary evil. The latter, in the light of their previous experiences, think that it is the only non-voluntarist (nonbureaucratic way of fighting against
26 the bureaucracy. While there is not
International Viewpoint #159 • March 20, 1989 doubt that the reforms proposed (and even imposed) from above aim to maintain the essential - the (redefined) privileges of a restructured bureaucracy — we also have to understand the dynamic of the movement: 4 In the present crisis situation, the practical effects of the reforms undertaken by Gorbachev are something quite different. For the first time since the 1930s - except during the Second World War — we are seeing the beginnings of a far-reaching mobilization of the Soviet masses.
The first rumblings of this can be seen in the working class, but it is already a fully-fledged reality among the intelligentsia and among certain nationalities. Whatever the short-term outcome of the battles in the Soviet Union, a new situation has been created that rules out a return to the previous status Il What is at stake I 1 The failure of the old planning mechanisms, and particularly of istrative incentives (material and ideological), is obvious. Giving producers a material incentive therefore seems the only radical solution. For obvious social and political reasons, this material incentive is mainly seen by the official reformers in its narrowest sense: its purpose is to link "naturally" workers' income to the production actually undertaken and delivered by the
Whatever care is taken in expressing this, the logic of the reforms means that prices and wages, freed from administrative control and determined by the effects of competition, will be the means for making this link. From this point of view, the new reform cannot be distinguished from that of the 1960s. Moreover, it will remain to large extent working class, who can see that material daily life is still as (if not more) difficult, and who are worried about the threats to jobs and of work speed-ups. 3 The present project is differentiated from the reforms of the 1960s by its political dimension. The Gorbachev team has understood that, given the accumulation of obstacles, in order to win they have to both decrease the power of the conservatives in the apparatus and mobilize a certain base. From this stems the importance given at the top to glasnost, to certain historical truths, to the self-management slogan - essentially reduced to the election of managers - and the controlled "revita4 Gorbachev's foreign policy is still determined by the principle "what is good for the Kremlin (or seems to be so) is good for the world". What has changed is the scale of the preference. In a hurry to achieve immediate results, Soviet diplomacy has fixed two objectives: first, creating the conditions for a reduction in arms spending; and second, obtaining loans and technology from the West. The withdrawal from Afghanistan — with official statements going so far as to say that a good image for the Soviet Union is more effective in its deliberalization in the USSR itself are obviously positive points overall: the American administration is in a more unfavourable political position vis-à-vis Star Wars, for example.
In the other Eastern European countries it is widely believed that a Soviet intervention is today politically more difficult than ever, which is going to force the oppositions to redefine their strategy. For the time being the new policy could restore a certain credit to the reformers, but overall broaden the room for initiative from below.
In the under-developed countries, the pragmatic, businesslike approach of Soviet diplomacy, today stripped of all "socialist" formulations, makes the fragility of Soviet "aid" more evident. It is in central America now that bureaucratic cynicism manifests itself most cynically by its readiness to sacrifice all support for anti-imperialist struggles on the altar 5 The squaring of the circle, that the Gorbachev team is trying to resolve
----- pull-quotes on this page -----
USSR • DOCUMENT
March 20, 1989 • #159 Internailonal Viewpoint empirically, is to de-bureaucratize the bureaucracy and to mobilize some of the forces outside it in order to do so while retaining control over the process. To avoid playing the role of sorcerer's apprentice, as Dubcek did, Gorbachev must ensure that the Party is the main instrument for carrying out the restructuring. To achieve this the Party itself must also be restructured and stripped of its "criminal bureaucracy", the mafia. The state based on law aims simultaneously to guarantee — and limit - private initiative to protect the citizens from bureaucratic arbitrariness, but also in return to protect the bureaucrats from "uncontrolled" initiatives. 6 But in the partially chaotic situation existing in the Soviet Union, many of the liberated forces have acquired their own autonomy, and individuals of the nomenklatura or even entire institutions of the Party or the state can — temporarily or not - be thrown into turmoil. To understand the considerable political importance of such divisions does not in any way mean fostering illusions in the reformability of the system - the establishment of a socialist democracy would mean a revolution. Ill "Trotskyism" 1 A re-examination of Trotsky's role is now inevitable. This will be a lot more painful for the bureaucracy than that of the other Bolshevik leaders. Behind Trotsky there is the struggle of the Left Opposition and later of the Fourth International, which rules out the excuse that in those difficult times everybody was wrong or had capitulated. The last official line of defence therefore will be to separate the man, cleared of the most grotesque accusations, from his political activity. After having always identified Trotsky and Trotskyism, now the differentiation will
The paradox is even that after having been condemned for his opposition to
Trotsky is now being reproached for having had, in practice, the same orientation. 2 The struggle to re-establish the truth about Trotsky is therefore an important political struggle. It touches the very roots of Stalinism, and is a condition for a radical criticism of it. This fight will be undertaken by many Soviet citizens for reasons of moral integrity (rather than agreement with ideas, which are still little known for the time being). Leon Trotsky is the incarnation of the only historical link between the October Revolution and the intransigent struggle against Stalinism.
Also, many of the attacks against Trotsky will no longer emanate so much from those nostalgic for Stalinism. Rather they will come from those who cannot yet (again for tactical reasons) attack Lenin frontally, will chalthe October Revolution. Increasingly, the defence of one will only be through the defence of the other. This is why the re-examination of the Left Opposition's programme will be a necessary stage for those who want to continue to defend socialism in 3 But "Trotskyism" is not mainly the defence of a murdered man or his writings. Through our existence as an active organization we have been able to draw lessons from the history of the workers' movement, and in particular we have followed all the convulsions linked to "de-Stalinization". This is not some eternal truth that we have to reveal in the Soviet Union, but it represents a real capital. We have to get involved in the discussions currently taking place in the USSR both to learn and to contribute - the two are linked. 4 In the light of what we have learned in the past and the experiences that the Soviet workers can learn from today, we must help to find an alternative to the fake choice of botching up the old system versus full speed ahead towards developing the market (or any bizarre combination of the two. We therefore defend the following points: IV Our role 1 As the impasse of Solidarnosc in Poland has shown, the overall conception of the new society to be built that is put forward by the opposition is a much more burning question than in the capitalist countries where social production is in any case decided by the market. But there is more: the choices that must be made today, aside from their future implications, immediately affect the possibilities of social mobilization. 2 In fact, significant extension of the market in the Soviet Union would imply in practice a colossal rise in prices, work speed-ups, and the threat of unemployment, without any guarantee of a significant improvement in supplies as far as most people are concerned. The cautious experiments in this direction that have been carried out until now offend workers' idea of justice -they are often penalized for upstream production failures for which they have
Inversely, due to market conditions for which they are not responsible either, the producers of finished goods or services can earn incomes that bear no relation to the amount of work they do — in many ways this is a legalization of
DOCUMENT • USSR already existing combines and speculation. (For example, the very contradictory "success" of the first cooperatives.) The workers cannot feel concerned by such a programme.
This is why perestroika, which ceaselessly invokes democracy, introduces authoritarian reforms from above (even if the pretext given for them is the resistance of the bureaucrats lower down). Recent developments have systematically revealed more and more clearly the naivety of identifying the market with democracy. 3 The market as a "natural" cure for bureaucracy is therefore only convincing for those who do not understand the need for a mobilization of the workers - the only force capable of stripping the bureaucracy of power. Despite appearances, it is therefore an abstract answer to the real problems of the anti-bureaucratic struggle at the moment. For more long-term solutions, the Yugoslav experience proves that the market changes the characteristics of the bureaucracy, but does not get rid of it. There the market ended up by emptying self-management of its content.
In the bureaucratized workers' states that have in the main abolished the law of the market, democratic demands quickly take on a revolutionary dynamic: politics and economics are closely linked. One of the hopes of the official reformers is that the extension of market relations will dampen down and atomize conflicts. In short, in the present situation of crisis, the market is more of a life-belt than a threat to the bureaucracy. 4 This opposition to the extension of market relations as the solution to the crisis of the present system of planning should not be identified with any idealization of the Stalinist planning that led to the present waste. Nor is it a pure and simple rejection of the use of market categories and mechanisms - or even of private initiatives, particularly in retail selling and certain services. It should be argued each time in a practi5 An anti-bureaucratic and anti-market approach linked to the central themes of the present reform can be illustrated in three main areas: • Employment: The full employment produced by bureaucratic planning means neither good jobs nor unalienated, responsible and skilled work. To replace this full employment by unemployment is obviously a deterioration in the situation of the workers involved. But, contrary to the statements of the "experts", this does not mean an improvement in the overall productivity and effectiveness of the system. operas of thirty with the 27
International Viewpoint #159 • March 20, 1989
USSR • DOCUMENT workers implies: i) a judgement about the effectiveness of existing production, which would not be simply local and short term and which would explicitly take into account the direct judgement of the producers and concerned (the optimal social yield is not the sum of local efficiency measured by profit); ii) the mechanisms of reconversion which ensure another job after retraining, with control by the trade unions and democratic soviets. • Ecology: The protection of the environment - and of the future - imposes forms of social control that mobilize simultaneously the knowledge of the peasants, scientific researchers and the communities. This necessary control is as much opposed to the logic of bureaucracy as it is to that of profit. In the USSR it has an immediate impact on relations between the republics and the centre in terms of taking decisions and controlling choices. • Public services: The free health and education, cheap housing and transport provided by bureaucratic planning do not mean that services are adequate in number and quality. Their distribution is thus carried out on the basis of the privileges of certain functions and/or corruption. The privatization of services would replace (or simply parallel) these former privileges by those, legalized, of money — the minimum provided by the public services would, moreover, remain just as bad quality.
It is possible to oppose this logic: i) by demanding a national discussion on the major priorities of public investment; ii) developing the role of the soviets at different levels and the selforganization of the producers and users concerned - in the first place women who are the first to suffer from the present deplorable state of health and social services. Public control of the quality of services produced and their method of distribution will frontally clash with bureaucratism with an inappropriate and unjust narrow logic of market profitability. 6 In summary, against both the supporters of the market who deck themselves with the virtues of radicalism, and the conservatives who claim to maintain social gains, we counterpose a socialist alternative - which has still not taken hold in the USSR - combining political and economic democracy: electrification plus the power of the soviets. Glasnost 7 For the first time in decades, political activity has become a mass phenomenon in the USSR. The new conditions created by the reforms, the rapidity of their evolution, and the specificity of 28 the USSR in relation to its Eastern neighbours also means that there have been accumulated experiences and little time for reflection. This should make us prudent on many political questions, and particularly on tactical • From past experience, the anti-bureaucratic struggle combines slogans challenging certain existing institutions, for the radical democratization of others, and the creation of forms of self-organization. Joining the battle for the democratization of existing institutions does not in the least imply that one has illusions in achieving this aim. In many cases these institutions will explode, but this can be a necessary stage in consciousness raising.
The need for trade unions that defend the workers will become a burning need with the application of the reforms. The official slogans of democratization of the mass organizations and revitalization of the soviets aim to channel the "movements from below" - but they can also encourage them. The national People's Fronts are a testimony to this.
The democratization of the mass structures necessarily poses the question of a plurality of choice - particularly the plurality of parties and of their function. It would lead to demands for i) a separation of partyies) and state; ii) the democratization of the CPSU itself whose logic would be its break up; ili) the right to create other political organizations. • The relations between nationalities is obviously one of the most explosive questions. It is also one of the most complex, where revolutionary Marxist thinking has remained much too
Stalinist centralism needed a Russifiof powerful national resistances to such a process, the bureaucracy was also able to base itself on corrupt "national" transmission belts (as Brezhnev
We unconditionally support the democratic right of self-determination up to the right of separation - which does not mean that a separatist slogan is actually on the agenda or that it seems appropriate to us. It could become so if the Soviet framework evolves too slowly in relation to the dynamic of democratization of the republics. question must be analyzed in its historical and political context, and by reflecting on which slogan best encourages struggles against national and social
The present reforms are at the moment stimulating a predominant dynamic of autonomy within the Union, at least insofar as the perspectives of democratization seem credible locally and at an-all Union level.
The relations between the Soviet Re publics, as well as between the sister countries of Comecon, once again lead to a rejection of the alternatives of bureaucracy or market: the democratic forms of planned relations can rest on accepted solidarity and interdependence. They imply a transparence in relation to common choices and public control by those concerned
The reciprocal confidence between nationalities implies a critical and honest look back on history - and a renegotiation of the Warsaw Pact. The precondition is obviously the withdrawal of Warsaw Pact troops from Czech8 The struggle for socialist democracy in the USSR and Eastern Europe wil have to go through the development of revolutionary Marxist currents, giving the anti-bureaucratic struggle its full emancipatory character and assuring its political relationship to all those who in the rest of the world, are struggling against exploitation and oppression.
Thus, these currents could enrich anti-capitalist struggle by their anti-bureaucratic experience, and at the same time they could welcome from outside an international outlook, which is difficult - although indispensable -to create for oneself within the frontiers
They should also link up with their comrades in the so-called people's democracies who are carrying on the same struggle. By their anti-Great Russian position they will help to fight against reactionary nationalist tenden-