(especially Russian) working class and its aspirations. In the unanimous judgment of Soviet officials and media the strike was an expression of support from below for perestroika. But this claim is at odds with Gorbachev's own words before the mination of an implicit social contract,
10 on workers' consciousness, has finally which has had such a corrupting influence
International Viewpoint #170 • October 2, 1989
USSR
Perestroika
SQUARE totally inadmissible...
has shaken people up, especially the youth, commented A. Ev-
"This was the most difficult trial for us in the entire four years chairperson syukov, of the
Kemerovo of perestroika. We had Chernobyl. We had other difficult strike committee in trials. Nevertheless, I would single out present events as the the Kuzbass.
most serious, the most difficult."1
"Over the past few
Supreme Soviet:
and that is why we frequently express our lack of confidence in the manag-
With these changes, the miners have come to feel all the more acutely the absence of years, the development of people's political consciousness has moved ahead especially quickly."2 Two important changes have occurred in the workers' relations with the political and economic bureaucracies. On the one hand, having tested the waters in small-scale strikes, workers have gradually shed their fear of repression. The barrage of criticism which the central authorities and the press have been directing at the economic administration has also had the effect of encouraging worker protest.
On the other hand, the effect of the wage reform and other changes in the enterprises has been to undermine the traditionally collusive relations between workers and management, but so far without replacing them with economically healthy co-operation. This unilateral ter-
### DAVID SEPPO freed workers to protest collectively against miserable work and living conditions and managerial arbitrariness that they once grudgingly tolerated in return for management's "favours" 3
"This way of managing is inadmissible"
Something of the changing outlook of the miners was reflected in the following words of Yu. Boldyrev, a member of the Donetsk strike committee: "In the coal industry an especially disrespectful attitude of managers to subordinates has flourished. Rudeness and the trampling of human dignity are widespread. Just yesterday people considered this the normal "business' style in the branch. But today with the process of democratization, this way of managing is an organization to defend their interests. The unions are seen as representatives of management, and enterprise democracy, formally established by the Law on the State Enterprise, has made little headway.
The miners' strike was fundamentally a protest against bureaucratic mismanagement of the economy and the system's inherent tendency to treat the the population not as the goal of production, but as a residual factor whose needs can be ignored so long as social peace is not threatened. This has been particularly blatant in the coal industry since the 1958 decision to shift the energy balance from coal to oil and gas. This meant a decline in priority 1. Trud, July 25, 1989. 2. Sobesdnik 31, July 1989, p.10. 3. See D. Mandel, " 'Revolutionary Reform' in Soviet Factories: Changing Relations between Workers and Managers," Socialist Register 1989, London, Merlin Press, 1989. 4. Trud, August 2, 1989, p.2.
October 2, 1989 • #170 International Viewpoint for investment in coal, which in turn translated into a low level of social spending in the coal regions, since most of the investment in housing and social infrastructure depends on the ministry.
At the same time coal enterprises, like those in other extracting industries, are less able to exploit the provisions of the economic reform to obtain additional income: they make essentially one prod uct and so cannot change the profile of their production to concentrate on higher priced goods; they cannot jack up prices by claiming improvements in their product; nor could they, before the strike, exchange above-plan production for consumer goods or construction materials, since their entire output was covered by state contracts and they have no direct access to consumers.
"The region is drowning in industrial waste"
Industrial pollution is another problem. Life expectancy in Novokuznestsk and Kemerovo is ten years below the national average. The ecological situation is worst of all in the Kuzbass with its open-pit mines. "The region is drowning in indús-
" said Evsyukov. resources and scarce arable land are drawing their last breaths. The thinning taiga is being reduced to nothing under the shovels of the giant excavators and the iron heels of new industrial monsters."6
Wages and pensions in coal mining are the highest in Soviet industry. But conditions are the worst and most dangerous. Even so, wages in coalmining have risen at only half the national rate during the current five-year plan (1986- 90), for reasons mentioned above. As a result, the industry has lost 34,000 workers over the past three years? According to Boldyrev:
"The working conditions of the Donbass miners are not only not improving, they getting worse....The prestige of the miner has fallen to zero; the value of his labour has been cheapened. Wages in many mines are now lower than those on the surface and their miserly increase is eaten up almost at once by sharp jumps in the price of goods and
The miners' official workday is sixhours, but they are often at the mines more than ten hours because of time spent in travel to and from the coal-face and in changing. This time is not paid.? The miners were also not being paid the supplement for evening and night work provided for in a 1987 decree. 1° In addition, the system's inability to assure a regular supply of materials for production causes periods of idleness and loss of wages that are especially painfully felt now with the new cost-accounting regime. Finally, the effect of the higher wages paid under the wage reform has been neutralized by inflation and the deteriorating supply of consumer goods in the state sector.
Another source of dissatisfaction was the sliding schedule of holidays introduced with the trade union's blessing the workers were not asked. This typifies the ministry's approach. This is a measure that allowed an increase of output with minimal capital investment at the miners' expense, since they rarely had days off which they could spend with their fami-
Another important factor in the outbreak of the strike is the arbitrary power and corruption of the local authorities. These are not new problems, but they have become intolerable under perestroika. Many of the workers' demands could have been met by the local authorities and even, in principle, by the workers' self-management councils. But there had been no democratization on the local level and the authorities continued to consider only the wishes of their bureaucratic superiors worthy of their attention. On the other bureaucratic privilege remains "Saunas, summer vacation trips, the chance to rest in the summer - that's only for the bosses," complained one miner. A Soviet journalist reported hearing such statements, "full of anger and bitterness, innumerable times at meetings and in ordinary conversations. It had been building up for a long time and demanded expression.""! At the same time, the miners saw looming above them an inflated bureaucratic apparatus which they view as little better than an army of parasites. The wealth produced is appropriated by this bureaucracy only to seemingly disappear without a trace. When told that the strike was costing the country millions of roubles, workers angrily pointed to the huge stores of coal that could not be because of the lack of railway cars.
Crest of an unprecedented strike-wave
The depth of the miners' dissatisfaction was no secret to the authorities. In January the trade-union paper Trud published a letter from three decorated workers of Mezhdurechensk who complained bitterly of "total neglect in the resolution of social problems" and of the ministry's "anti-perestroika attitude" where the pickings are easy." But the ministry responded to all criticism with empty promises. This time around it did not
The miners' strike came on the crest of Soviet era: two million working-days lost in the first half of 1989, an average of 15,000 workers on strike each (although a significant part of these strikes involved national issues, themselves, of course, not devoid of social aspects). 12 The coal industry itself experienced twelve strikes in the first half on 1989 over many of the same issues as in July. But they yielded only partial conces-
USSR sions and promises of more to come.
The miners of the Shevyakov mine in Mezhdurechensk finally forced the issue
At the start of July, they presented a list of demands to the central committee of the coalminers' union, the city party committee and the director of the mine, giving them until July 10 to satisfy the demands or face a strike. Negotiations with management on July 4 led nowhere. The strike began with the night shift of July 10-11. By midday the four other mines of the local trust, as well as other enterprises in the town, had joined in. Around 12,000 miners in their work clothes marched along the main street and sat on the asphalt in the city square next to the party committee's offices. They elected a citywide strike committee which presented a list of 41 economic and ecological demands. 13
Priority for social needs in investment
That day, Trud published an interview with the chair of the All-Union Trade-Union Council, Shelaev, who explained the miners' union's "ultimatum" demands: the right of mine collectives to determine their regimes; a common day off on Sundays; a 40% supplement for evening and night shifts; payment for time spent in travelling to and from the coal-face; priority to social needs in centralized capital investment. But not only did this "ultimatum" not cover all the workers' demands, it gave the ministry a year to act, and then only threatened symbolic protest.
On July 12, the minister arrived from Moscow. The meeting lasted all night and into the next day, while on the central square 5,000-20,000 workers held a continuous meeting. At 3pm on July 13, the strike committee announced that 36 of the 42 demands had been met and recommended a return to work. The miners
That day the city strike committee sent an open letter to the Soviet government demanding improvement in the food sup ply to Siberia and the Far East, an end to official privileges and an immediate opening of a public discussion of a new draft constitution to be adopted by November
The letter also demanded that the leaders of the party and government themselves come to the Kuzbass. And in order to expedite their arrival, it called for a general strike in the Kuzbass. Mezhdure5. Moskovskie novostki 30, 1989, p.3 6. Sobesednik 31 1989, p.10. 7. Ibid., August 11, 1989. 10. Ibid., July 11, 1989 11. Argumenty i fakry 30, 1989, p.7. 12. Trud, 29 July, 1989. Tud, ry iz, eskaya industriya, August 3, 1989; 11
International Viewpoint #170 • October 2, 1989
USSR chensk returned to work on July 14.4
Everywhere the picture was the same. The miners occupied central squares in permanent meetings. Worker detachments maintained order. On the demand of the strike committees the sale of alcohol was stopped, liquor stores sealed and drug inspection points set up on the main roads. With a few exceptions, the miners assured the operations necessary to maintain the mines.
### Repeat of bargaining
STRIKES marathon
On July 15, in the hall of the Palace of "CONFIDENTIALLY, DON'T YU JLET HATE IT WHEN THE WORKERS OF THE WORLD UNITE?" Culture of Novokuznetsk that was overflowing with miners, the Minister and oblast' [district] first secretary repeated the volatile bargaining marathon of Mezhdurechensk. But this time they were dealing not with five mines and 12,000 workers, but 158 mines and 177,000 workers. And the bargaining was much tougher. The miners were demanding the presence of Gorbachev and Prime Minister Ryzhkov as the only guarantee they would not be deceived again.!5
These two were not about to come, but on July 16 Gorbachev informed the miners by telegram that a top level delegation, including Politburo member and central committee secretary Slyun'kov was on its way, and in view of this the miners should return to work. But the workers wanted concrete results. On July 18, the regional strike committee, stating that the talks were going well and the basic demands were being met, recommended a return to work starting with the night shift. Many heeded this call, but the next day, 64,015 workers (from 91 mines) were still out. It was only on July 21 that all workers in the
The strike in the Donbass began on the evening of the July 15 in Makeevka. Despite government assurances that the agreement covered the entire industry, the miners insisted that top government officials talk directly to them. Indeed, the strike movement in the Donbass spread out of Makeevka only on July 18. It was almost as if the agreement and return to work in the Kuzbass spurred the others to action. A regional strike committee was formed in Donetsk. In all, 110 mines struck in the Donbass with up to 90,000 miners out on one day. Besides the large number of economic demands, the Donbass miners also put forth political demands. On July 20 the strike spread to the other mining centres of the Ukraine.
The government commission arrived in Donetsk on July 20, and the protocol was signed on the July 22. That day, Gorbachev and Ryzhkov called on the miners to return to work. By the morning of July 24, 73 mines in Donetsk oblast' had ended their strike, but 50 were still out, insisting on legislative guarantees. A delegation of 12 Poopiss Deputies Frontee Donbass ae Donetsk strike committee members and out to Moscow and met with Ryzhkov on July 24 in the Kremlin. A concrete programme of action for whole industry was outlined. Ryzhkov again called on miners to end the strike. On July 25 it was decided to return to work. A majority of those still out returned, but in Donetsk they held for two more days. The strike in the Ukraine and southern Russia did not completely end until July 27.!?
In the Pechora basin in the far north, the strike began on the July 19 and was called off on July 24 only after People's Deputy V. Luzhnikov formally appraised Supreme Soviet of the miners' demands. Even so, most miners did not return until the next day when they received a photocopy of the signed accord.18 The strike in the Karaganda basin in Kazakhstan, the country's third largest coalfield, began on the night of July 19-20. Explaining the strike, a representative of the strike committee stated that the mass media were not revealing all the demands of the Kuzbass
Work resumed with the night shift of July 22-23.19
With the end of the strike, the strike committees did not disband but transformed themselves into workers' committees to monitor the execution of the More political demands given only fleeting mention
The full lists of the miners' demands were not published in the central press, and the more political demands that did not figure in the signed accords were given only a fleeting mention. The demands can roughly be divided into four categories: wages and benefits, work conditions and work regime, ecology and political power.
In the Donbass, the major demands in the first two categories, according to a list given to Western reporters by the Ukrainian Central Information Services, included: a wage supplement for evening and night shifts; full pay for travel to and from the coal-face; Sundays off; recognition of a series of diseases as work-related; retirement after twenty years of continuous underground work; additional pension benefits; three years maternity leave at average wage; full pay for idle time that is management's fault; no loss of wages for changing jobs; prohibition of punitive job transfers; allocation of profits from all-union subbotniki [voluntary worked holidays without pay] to be decided by workers' assemblies.
### Demand for enterprise autonomy
Other economic demands that went beyond the limits of the enterprise were resolution of problems of water, gas and electricity supply, a review of soap quotas, an apartment for all miners within ten years and food supplies in accordance with medical norms. Then there were the more "political" economic demands: reduction of managerial personnel; payment of wages during the strike from union funds; prohibition of the establishment of new cooperatives and the disbandment of existing medical and food co-cooperatives; and the introduction of regional economic self-financing. 20 The demand for enterprise autonomy did not appear on this list, nor does it figure among the demands presented by the central committee of the miners' union to the ministry published on June 11. At some point, however, it came to be presented officially — and possibly seen by the miners themselves — as the central demand.
Besides the general demand to repair ecological damage, some of the specific local environmental demands were the construction of a purification plant in Mezhdurechensk, and stopping the conof the Krapivinskii hydro15. Argumenty i fakry 30, 1989, p.4; Sotsialisticheskaya industriya, August 3, 1989. 16. Trud, July 19, 1989; Moskovskie novosti 30, 1989, p.3.; Argumenty i fakty 30, 1989. 17. Argumenty i fakty 30, p.7; Vesty iz SSSR 13/14, 1989, p.21; Trud, July 25 & August 2, 1989 18. Vesty iz SSSR 13/14, 1989, p.21; Trud, July 22, 1989. 19. Ibid.; Trud, July 23, 1989. 20. Manchester Guardian Weekly, July 30, 1989, p.7. 21. New York Times, July 14, 1989, p.A-3; Liberation (Paris), July 15-16, 1989, p.18; Sotisalisticheskaya industriya, August 3, 1989; Trud, July 22 & August 5, 1989.
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MARTINE
October 2, 1989 • #170 International Viewpoint electric project on the Tom' River and atomic testing in Semipalatinsk, Kazakhstan.21
Other demands attacked bureaucratic power and privilege directly. Like the demand to ban cooperatives, which flies in the face of the economic reform's basic orientation, these were treated more gingerly by official spokespeople and the press — in fact, they received little men-
The callous attitude of local officials was a major theme of meetings, where these officials were often met remarks such as "Here comes the town demands to replace enterprise and trust labour-collective councils well as local soviet, party and trade-union officials, and to hold new elections immediately, particularly to the soviets.? The miners wanted to replace them with their own leaders from the strike committees. In Chervonograd in the Western Ukraine, the workers also demanded the resignation of the first secretary of the Ukrainian Communist Party, Shcherbitsky, as well as the city party first secretary, the police chief and the head of the KGB. In addition, they called for the creation of an independent trade union, to be named "Solidarity" 24
The miners also demanded basic changes at the central level. Some of these — especially the repeal of Article 6 of the constitution that enshrines the leading role" (a euphemism for bureaucratic domination), and election of the Congress of Peoples Deputies by universal suffrage — were, in effect, calls to end bureaucratic power. The demand direct elections of the chairperson of the Supreme Soviet implicitly called Gorbachev's own legitimacy into question. The Mezhdurechensk demand to end bureaucratic privilege was repeated by all the other miners. Some workers kop'evsk took it upon themselves to inspect the apartments of local officials.25
Specter of a chain reaction of strikes
The narrow social basis of Gorbachev's perestroika strictly limited his options. Repression would have totally discredited the economic reform in the workers' eyes and played directly into the hand of the anti-perestroika elements in the apparatus. On the other hand, the depth of the miners' skepticism towards the government and of their frustration ruled out buying them off the usual way with concessions and vague promises. Yet a serious response to the miners'. raised the specter of a chain reaction of strikes across the country.
Gorbachev did not want this strike. But once it was there he was determined to make the best of a bad thing to strengthen his weak social base in the working class and further undermine his enemies in the bureaucracy. The formula was simple but ingenious: he declared the strike a popular movement in support of the economic reform. At the same time, a concerted attempt was made to direct workers' anger at local officials and especially at the ministry, who were accused of holding back the reform. Hence the repeated affirmation that the "central" and "essential" demand was enterprise autonomy, even though there is no indication that this was prominent in workers' minds at the beginning of the strike.
The emphasis on enterprise autonomy made it possible to blame the ministry and local authorities for the miners' situation. Typical was the statement of the chair of the Donetsk regional trade-union council:
"In the breakneck development of the industrial might of the Donbass, the social sphere was neglected. This is the consequence of the dictatorial and arbitrary power of the ministries and central agencies, with the connivance of the local
"Fall into line or risk losing your posts"
In reality, of course, the neglect of the social sphere is the consequence of the bureaucratic system itself, of the bureaucracy's arbitrary power over the Soviet people. This could never have occurred in a genuinely democratic system, regardless of the degree of central planning and regulation. If blame were to be honestly apportioned, certainly the topmost leaders, the party politburo and secretariat deserve the greatest part. They determine the overall structure of the economic system and set the basic policy for the ministries to carry out.
This same tactic allowed Gorbachev to exploit the strike to further weaken bureaucratic opposition to perestroika. On the background of the spreading strike, he reassured the party secretaries that the party (that is, its apparatus) was destined to remain though it would have to change its methods of domination. At the same time, by calling for a renewal of cadres from top to bottom, he sent out a warning: fall into line or risk losing your posts. He also called for special local party meetings with government and trade-union offiincluding the ouster of unresponsive offi-
A move to forestall a national strike wave, it is also an attempt to use the workers to get rid of local officials nurturing anti-perestroika sentiments or lacking
While the idea of enterprise autonomy was being promoted with the full force of the ideological apparatus, other demands that directly challenged the economic reform, in particular the closure of cooperatives, were hardly mentioned. Gorbachev did refer to it in one speech, only to dismiss it as "an easy way, but is it the
USSR
The official position demands were justified but the strike was not a good way to win them, and the government tried to mobilize public opinion to pressure the miners to return. The local authorities adopted the same position, verbally supporting the demands opposing the choice of means. In practice, however, with few exceptions, they remained passive during the strike. The trade-union organizations were also supportive of the movement, organizing free meals, transport and even legal advice. But only in extremely few cases did they lead the strike.
"Only prohibitions and threats demand that we sign"
While adopting a tolerant attitude to the miners' strike, the government took measures to dissuade other workers from following suit. One of these, as mentioned, was Gorbachev's instruction to local party committees to hold meetings with workers' representatives. The government also entered into direct negotiations with representatives of the railway workers who were threatening to strike on August 1. At the same time, it let them know that they could not expect the same indulgence as the miners. A rail worker from Chernigov oblast' wrote that he and his colleagues had been forced to sign commitments not to strike. This was after a meeting at which a government telegram about raising discipline and stopping strikes was read out. "Only prohibitions and threats demand that we sign. This sort of attitude towards us on the part of the leadership in no way fosters mutual understanding and the desire to work better. It only intensifies the existing confrontation." 29
This is the "firm hand" that many Soviet intellectuals assure is needed reform to succeed. But that is the dilemma: recent Polish experience shows that the market reform cannot be from above. That is why Jaruzelski has turned to Tadeusz Mazowiecki, a "friend of the workers" from among nosc's intellectual advisers, to be prime
The settlement was in two parts: the signed economic accord and the political accord, which, as such, was not published but was expressed in the different meas ures adopted by the authorities. The economic protocols in the different regions were similar in their basic elements, but 22. Sotsialisticheskya indystriya, July 15, 1989; Liberation, July 22-23, p.7. 23. Globe and Mail, July 26, 1989; Trud, July 16, 25 & 26, 1989; Sotisalisticheskaya industriya, August 3, 1989; Argumenty i fakty 30, 1989, p.8. 24. Manchester Guardian Weekly, July 30, 1989, p.7; Vesty iz SSSR 13/14, 1989, p.21. 25. Ibid; Trud, July 17, 1989. 26. Ibid., August 2, 1989. 27. Ibid., July 21, 1989. 28. Sobesednik 31, 1989, p.2. 13 29. Argumenty i fakty 32, 1989, p.1.
International Viewpoint #170 • October 2, 1989
USSR also responded to specific local demands.
The Kuzbass protocol published in Trud had seventeen points, though Gorbachev referred to an accord with 35 points.30 Article 1 grants full economic and juridical autonomy to the mines, in accord with the Law on the State Enterprise. Enterprises can adopt different forms of property — state, cooperative, leasing, joint stock and others. Article 2 gives enterprises the right to sell production beyond that covered by state contracts at contractual prices at home and abroad. The extent of state orders is to be reviewed accordingly.
Some directors removed Immediately after the strike
Article 3 calls for a rise in the price of coal in accordance with the real costs of its extraction, including the full cost of recultivation, and taking into account changing natural conditions. Enterprises are also given the right to apply certain correctives to performance indicators. Article 4 allows enterprises to set output norms and wage rates independently, the regional norms being only recommenda-
These four articles are the government's answer to the demands concerning wages and social investment. An increase in these is thus made dependent, to a degree at least, on increased productivity and effort on the miners' part. Under the old system, increased productivity tended to lead to a decline in wage rates and an increase in output norms and plan quotas, thus penalizing the more efficient enter-
Other articles meet the wage demands for night and evening work, payment for travel to and from the coal-face, Sundays off, pensions and retirement (a central work-related diseases and the shedding of excess managerial staff.
The more political elements of the accord were not published in the central press, though it casually mentioned increased supply of scarce consumer goods and a rise in the regional wage supplement for the Siberian workers. There was provision for new elections of trade-union committees and labour-collective councils. In some cases, mine and trust directors were removed immediately after the strike. Among the 48 points of the Donbass accord was the prohibition of cooperatives.31 The complaint of the Karaganda miners that the media had not fully reported the demands of the other
Gorbachev responded to the demands to remove local officials and hold new elections by proposing that the Supreme Soviet reverse an earlier decision to postpone local soviet elections from the fall of 14 a concession to local bureaucrats 1989 to the spring of 1990. This had been feared they would be turned out or discredited if not given more time to prepare. In the meanwhile, local party plenums with representatives of workers could also take up the question of renewing cadres. Apparently no new decisions were made regarding the democratization of the Congress of People's Deputies and the Supreme Soviet, or on discussion of a new draft constitution.32
The miners' strike challenged the widespread view among the Soviet intelligentsia of the workers as a brutish, alcoholic, declassé mass, a potentially fascistic social basis for bureaucratic reaction. According to this view, workers are not of governing; parliament and government should be staffed by "compepeople, members of the "educated
Although the movement arose and spread spontaneously - the strike committees were formed only after the strikes began — the miners displayed remarkable organization, discipline and restraint. There was virtually no violence. The strikers formed their own militias. Police reported a significant drop in crime. Everywhere the sale of alcohol was banned. In Donetsk two miners were dismissed for appearing drunk in the main square. The strike committees instructed enterprises serving essential needs not to join the strike. With few exceptions, the miners kept skeleton crews in the mines to maintain them in working order. At the Sibiringskii open-pit mine, the workers continued to ship the coal necessary to maintain the blast furnaces of the Western Siberia Metallurgical Complex. 34
High level of political
The strike also revealed a high level of political consciousness among the workers. They are certainly no bait for rightwing nationalist ideologies and bureaucratic law-and-order programmes. The strike began as a movement for economic demands, but the miners understood that the more basic issue was that of guarantees, and that the only real guarantee was power - that is, democracy.
Indeed, one cannot help but be struck by the depth of the mistrust toward bureaucratic power at all levels, including the highest. The miners brushed aside the local authorities and were not satisfied to negotiate with the minister. They ignored Gorbachev and Ryzhkov's appeals to return to work before the conclusion of negotiations. And once the agreement was reached, many still insisted that it receive legislative guarantees — the Supreme Soviet is at least a quasidemocratic body. Gorbachev had to make an embarrassing admission before the Supreme Soviet:
"In Donetsk the miners want the Supreme Soviet to be formally appraised of the documents worked out jointly with the commission. Among the people there has arisen a lack of trust, so to speak[!]...It is the same in the other coal regions
The fact that Gorbachev had to recruit Boris Yeltsin — who appealed, not in the name of the Supreme Soviet, but of the parliamentary "radicals" for the workers to return - shows that the lack of confidence in the authorities is the most serious shortage of all in the Soviet Union. The strike would have been brief and limited to the Kuzbass had the miners in the other regions believed the assurances, repeated at the highest level, that the Kuzbass accord covered the whole industry.36
Even when they decided to return to work, most miners were not convinced they had won anything real. Hence their decision not to disband the strike committees and their warning that the strike had merely been suspended, not terminated. "We are returning to work," declared the chair of the Pavlograd strike committee. "But we will wait one month. If it turns out that we have been deceived once again, then we will continue the struggle to a victorious conclusion. "37
Soviet journalists reported that, during the strike, they did not feel the presence of the party committees, ordinarily the real power in the towns, and that they were the object of many bitter words on the part of the workers. Pravda also criticized the 30. Trud, July 23 and 25, 1989; Vesty iz SSSR 12/13, 1989, p.22. 31. Argumenty i fakty 30, p.4; Trud, July 30 & August 2, 1989; Vesty iz SSSR 13/14, 1989, p.22. 32. Le Monde, July 26, 1989. 33. See "Rabochie vne politiki?" ("Workers Out of Politics?") Agitator 16, 1989, pp.45. 34. Trud, July 4, 1989; Sotsialisticheskaya industriya, August 3, 1989; Moskovskie novosti 30, 1989, p.14. 35. Trud, July 25, 1989. 36. Ibid., August 8, 1989. 37. Ibid., July 21, 1989.
October 2, 1989 • #170 International Viewpoint various local authorities who seemed to have faded into the scenery. 38
The void was filled by the strike committees. "A peculiar situation arose," commented Trud. "The strike committees, in essence, became the authority in the towns. They were occupied with questions of trade, transport, order. From morning to night people who for a long time had been unable to get help or support from any other organization came to the committees. And their members looked into each problem, asked specialists, and helped where they could with medical treatment, repairs, job placement.... We saw how the working class closes ranks and organizes itself, how it boldly defends the interests of all toilers, demands resolution of the most important problems facing the country. We saw how the strike revealed extraordinary, independent, capable and bold people, ready to serve the common cause. We saw this and we wondered: why were they not noticed before, why are indifferent, faceless people put at the head of public organizations, people who are prepared to agree with any opinion of the higher-ups? Maybe that was easier, more convenient?"*39
The overwhelmingly predominant role of working-class leaders in the strike only puts into greater relief the virtual absence from the scene of representatives of the intelligentsia, which was clearly caught unawares. This is not surprising, when even on the left-wing of the "informal" movement one sometimes meets the view of Soviet workers as a declassé element. Le Monde's Moscow correspondent wrote on July 19, eight days into the strike, that "Moscow's intellectuals are beginning to discuss vigorously: Should we go there? Should we propose mediation? Should we support it? And in what form?"*40
The basis for this chasm between the the intelligentsia is real enough: the intelligentsia in its majority supports the government's reform project, while it perceives the mass of workit. Hence the almost audible sigh of relief from journalists as they emphasized the demand for enterprise autonomy as proof that the strike was a pro-perestroika action. Since this was not a central issue until the strike, one can surmise that it was a solution offered to the miners by the government to the problem of financing their social and economic demands. They were told in effect: if you work more and more efficiently, we will henceforth let you use these extra fruits of their labour to meet your needs directly. The workers accepted the offer. But does this mean that they have been won over to Gorbachev's market reform? Only the future can definitively answer already sufficient grounds for skepticism.
fundamentally
The strike was power. In essence, the workers were asking for control over production and over their surplus product. In accordance with the logic of the market reform, and the interests promoting it, the government tried to channel these aspirations into opposition to central control and planning as such, and toward the idea of decentralized group control on the enterprise level. This directs workers away from the struggle for collective control over the conditions within which the autonomous enterprises are to function.
Profits depend heavily on natural conditions
There was a report of a strike leader on Soviet television calling for a national congress of coal miners without senior industrial officials, but this was not taken up.*! Yet, logically, enterprise autonomy makes the least sense in a resourceextracting industry where profits depend heavily on natural conditions. The Donbass coalfields are deeper and have been mined out to a significant degree, and so costs there are higher than in the Kuzbass, where the coal lies near the surface.
Everything that we know about the workers' sense of justice indicates that they unjust competition among autonomous mines in conditions where prices are set by the market. Even in Poland, where the leaders of Solidarnosc are strongly pro-market, according to a recent survey only four per cent of industrial workers agree to have wages tied to profitability, as determined by the
In any case, the agreement is not clear on this, since it calls tor increasing coal prices in relation to the real costs of extraction and re-cultivation. Also, enterprises are given some latitude in adjusting performance indicators. Does this mean that the prices for coal will be based on local costs and not on competitive market
USSR conditions? If so, this is more of the "levelling" that is being so vigorously condemned.
A major effort is underway to channel widespread feelings of exploitation working hard yet seeing no improvement in one's life — along centrifugal, groupcorporatist lines. According to the Kemerovo strike committee chair, "The residents of the Kuzbass have understood one thing: a colonial policy has been applied until now to the basin [region]: take out as much as possible, invest as little as possible."43
Wasteful nature of bureaucratic management
But this is exactly what separatists in the national republics are arguing — Moscow is exploiting us! There is probably not a single region in the Soviet Union whose inhabitants do not feel this way. Yet, an economist recently wrote that "Muscovites not only do not live better, but in many ways are worse off than the inhabitants of other cities."44
The problem is obviously not the unjust anti-popular, wasteful nature of bureaucratic manage ment, not to mention that part of the national income that is eaten by bureaucratic privilege. But it does not necessarily follow from this that regional and enterprise autonomy are the magic solutions they are made out to be. Any application of market criteria to the Donbass coalfield would lead to the ciosure of large number of mines, the displacement of tens of thousands of miners' families and the death of entire communities. Only a few years ago, British miners fought bitterly against the application of these criteria to their mines.
At a round-table discussion months before the strike, a researcher at the Institute of the National Economy of the Council of Ministers explained the mounting strike wave in the following
"With the shift to full self-financing the financial well-being of shapes up in different ways. And it often depends not so much on the collective itself as on outside economic conditions and on the branch to which the enterprise belongs. The market mechanism is oriented toward money stimuli. Whoever can raise prices on his production lives in clo-
"Workers see that their earnings do not grow in the same proportion as in branch-
38. Argumenty i fakty 30, 1989, p.4, Pravda, July 25,
1989.
39. Trud, August 3, 1989. See also Moskovskie novosti
31, 1989, p.8.
40. Le Monde, July 19, 1989.
41. Gazette (Montreal), July 21, 1989.
42. Zycie gospodarcze, August 1989.
43. Sobesednik 31, p.10. 44. V.Kuvarin, Dorogaya moy a stolis."*, Nediya 15
34, 1989, p.12.
USSR es with more favourable conditions. We observe these same processes in the coal and the ferrous metal industries. In some mines the workers stop work...until their demands are met. In this way, questions related to improvement of food and living conditions are decided...
"The rise in food prices and supply shortcomings are also contributing to the strike movement. The cooperatives cannot fill up all the holes. In fact, they ravage the state purse rather than improve the life of the population. Funds are pumped from one vessel to the other, from state to cooperative trade. Another cause is the unequal development of regions. Regions with highly developed heavy industry and weak agriculture find themselves in more difficult conditions. In conditions of selffinancing a region is sometimes not capable of feeding itself. Before, specialization was demanded, that is, basically one-sided development. Priority was given to producing the means of production. Agriculture lagged behind seriously. Workers feel that they work harder and get less.
"The prognosis for the future is not good. The negative tendencies favouring strikes — and, mainly, the strengthening of market elements in the economy remain. Strikes will therefore continue, and the situation of the working class will continue to decline. "45 "Threat of insufficient social protection"
This analysis was not challenged by the other participants. They countered instead by arguing that the old system was also unjust. Moreover, this analysis was recently confirmed by a group of prominent (and undoubtedly pro-market reform) social scientists in Pravda:
"The threat of insufficient social protection has made its appearance under the new conditions of economic management in cases of massive reduction of personnel, in the carrying out of structural changes and in the liquidation of enterprises. This has been the basis of an upsurge of social discontent, of an intensification of social, but weakening of labour, activity among the people. situation is also pregnant with a slowdown in the tempo of change."46
The pro-perestroika interpretation of the strike must also contend with the strong egalitarian sentiments of the working class. The following letter expresses some of the popular thinking about market criteria as a basis for social justice.
"Lately I have been doing a lot of thinking about the formula: 'From each according to his abilities; to each according to his labour.' [This is supposed to be a basic principle of the reform.] Does that mean that a young member of a cooperative, a football player or a rock musician should receive truckloads of money, while I, who have lived through war, cold and hunger and have worked for 44 years, should get A class of the rich and a class of the poor?
"But why talk about me and them? One factory grows rich under the new economic model by jacking up prices. A mechanic in this factory earns well, even excellently, since his wage depends upon the profits. The factory managed to have its state order lowered to cover only the more expensive goods, leaving the cheap goods to freely exchange for meat and building materials for housing. The other factory makes only inexpensive goods, though these are very much needed by the
The authorities won't let it change. And you can't exchange these goods for anything, since these are parts used only in industry. The factory is poor, and the mechanic, who does the repairs there, on exactly the same kind of machinery as his counterpart at the first factory, is also poor, without meat and housing. Equal work - different lives.
"I heard on the radio that we have 40 million poor. What will the figure be in the future? Will not our state be divided into a class of the rich and a class of the
The underlying issue of the strike -
Main Soviet coalfields power - has not been resolved. Sooner or later, the dynamic that led to this strike will lead workers to pose the question of an industry-wide meeting and organization to deal with their common problems, so that they will be entrusted neither to the ministry nor to market forces.
"Where do the millions that we earn go?"
Such a meeting would pose two questions: what centralized functions the ministry should retain; and how to democratize the ministry so it is responsible to the workers of the enterprises that belong to it and to the population as a whole.
This is perhaps the direction that workers in the Far-Eastern fishing industry (whose economic situation is not dissimilar to that of the coalminers) are taking: hundreds of collectives have demanded a special congress of their trade union to discuss the same issue that was behind the miners' strike: "Where do the millions that we earn through our hard, twelvehour workdays on the sea go? Why does the central committee of the union agree with this 'plundering' wherever you like, but not to the needs of the fishermen".48
Such a meeting would also make clear the need for co-ordination with the workers of other sectors. The inherent logic of the movement leads to the demand to democratize national planning - not to eliminate it and to leave whatever regulation remains in bureaucratic hands. From the time that commodity production first became predominant in Europe, the popular classes have fought against the "free" market and for public economic regulation to ensure social security and justice. There is no reason to believe that an independent working-class movement in the Soviet Union will do otherwise.
The key word is surely "independent". The workers' committees contain within themselves the seeds of an independent workers' organization, one that already exists on the town and regional levels in the mining areas. The miners see the functions of these committees more broadly than merely monitoring the accords. According to the head of the Kemerovo committee: "We have decided now to
Vorkuta
USSR
Donbass
Karaganda
CHINA
16
International Viewpoint #170 • October 2, 1989
Kuzbass
Cheremkhova 2
MONGOLIA hold meetings in the mines in order to think about the role played by the public organizations in the strike, to see how the trade-union committees, the labour-collective councils (we 45. "Zabastovski v SSSR: novaya sotsial'naya real'nost"," Sotsiologicheskie issledovanioya 1, 1989, p.32. 46. Pravda. July 16, 1989. 47. Sotsialisticheskaya industriya, July 2, 1989. 48. Trud, June 27, 1989.
October 2, 1989 • #170 International Viewpoint have also to think about their functions) behaved. In a word, to examine who is who and then maybe think about new elections. But the city strike committees are also not about to fully cede their authority. From August 1 they function as public organizations: monitoring the execution of the agreements and defending social rights of the worker collectives...49
The strike has forced the issue for the trade unions: either they take sides fully with the workers or they face the creation