The leaders are typical bureaucrats state capitalists, but not communists. The struggle against this model of the party was the first idea of the MP. We wanted to destroy the bureaucratic command party and organize a real communist movement.
• Has the national question been an issue inside the Marxist Platform?
It is one of the most difficult questions, because a majority of the Platform sup ports the idea of defence of unity of the
USSR by any means, even if this means a strongarm policy. My friends and myself reject this. But we have only two forces, and two types of organization. One the one hand there are the bureaucrats who are trying to save the Soviet Union through the policy of the strong hand. The
Communist Party bureaucrats in the Baltic Republics and some other republics — though not in Georgia and Armenia — think that the only way to save the socialist choice is to preserve all-Union laws through the policy of the strong hand.
They don't say "use armed force", but this
The second force is the nationalists.
This is no longer a democratic force. At one time it was, when they stood up for defence of the national rights of the small republics. But now the leaders of the nationalists in the Baltic have become semi-fascist in some aspects.
• In what way?
Because now they are trying to organize pressure on all people who support socialist ideas and on all communists and on people who are not of their nationality, be they Russian, Jewish, Ukrainian, Polish or whatever. Pressure is applied through all means: through the mass media; through employment. It is very difficult to get a job if you are not a native. Pressure is applied through the system of card distribution. Formally, rights are equal but really unequal, since informal relations play a major part in our social life.
All this makes it difficult to be a supporter of national democratic movements in the Soviet Union. When I said at the last plenum of the CC that I support the national struggles for independence most of the CC members said: "you support fas-
E AIDI IR) cist regimes in these republics", "you sup port the repression of communists"
At the December 1990 CC plenum I insisted throughout that it was necessary to give a clear and unambiguous answer on the central question: who is responsible for the crisis of the Union over the national question. I said that it was the party that until now had enjoyed full control over all the republics that was responsible. Obviously it is necessary to criticize nationalist and chauvinist positions and antidemocratic measures in every republic, but it is the CPSU that bears the main responsibility. Furthermore, even if independence brings forth reactionary regimes, bureaucratic repression against these movements can only be counterproductive and lead to civil wars.
I put forward different variants of Union, which could only be voluntary. • Does the MP have any supporters in the non-Russian republics?
Yes, but we have some difficulties. A supporter of the MP has become a second secretary of the CP in Minsk, the capital of Byelorussia. But in the Baltic Republics the majority of our supporters have contacts with the so-called Internationalist Fronts. These latter demand a strong hand policy from Gorbachev. Some members of our platform support such ideas.
We have formed an organized minority in the MP, called "Marxism 21st Century". This was set up on November 17/18 in the Academy of Social Sciences. On the second day we held a joint meeting with elements in the DP and issued a joint document. So now Marxism 21st Century is both a member of the Marxist Platform and of the Democratic Movement of Communists. We are a bridge between the two. If part of the MP goes to the UFT and part of the DP to the social democrats, that leaves us to form a real democratic com-
• You have outlined your economic programme. Do you see points of support for this programme in reality? Or is it just an idea?
First of all, a short history of our programme. A small group of young scientists was organized at the end of the 1970s when I was a post-graduate student. We discussed the problems of the bureaucratization of our economy, self-management, of the humanist essence of socialism and so on. We were aware even then of the real contradictions in our economy. We tried to arrive at some conclusions. At the end of the 1980s we looked for ways to realize these ideas. We sought with self-management organs in the Soviet Union and with the mass movements and in 1987-89 we organized schools for leaders of producers' self-management in our country. This school exists now in Moscow University. It aims to educate people in how to be a real democratic master in their enterprises.
Now, we have some positive results. There was a meeting in Tolyatti at the end of August, which brought together representatives of the workers collectives in the state enterprises, and they decided to organize a congress which took place in early December 1990.
Our group of scientists acted as consulple's enterprise. We proposed two variants. Firstly, joint ownership by two subjects, a state body, such as a city soviet and the labour collective of the enterprise. The labour collective would decide on the organization of responsibilities, production and distribution, in the context of a plan of production agreed with the state.
We also proposed a simple model of self-management relations. Self-
USSR management is more than just the power of the workers collectives. It operates in all spheres and at all times. We tried to describe this idea according to experience both in our country and elsewhere. This model also took up the question of the relations between the labour collectives and the administration where the former is the master and the latter "the worker" The second variant was for smaller enterprises, where state involvement is not essential.
These ideas have been put into practise in some enterprises. Also, a colleague has written on the problems of social self-management in spheres other than production. For example he tried to find a model for
Now he is Vice-President of the All-
Union Council of Consumers of the Soviet Union. We are also trying to put our ideas into practise in the ecological movement. These are first steps, but real steps. We are able to use our ideas in the independent movements, which are opposed to all variants of dictatorship, whether neo-Stalinist or Pinochet-style.
My wife has been working on the question of self-management in the cultural sphere, and has written some documents for the congress of Soviet film-makers. attempts are being made to put them into practise. This is another practical result. • How were the delegates to the Congress of Labour Collectives elected?
There were about 600 delegates plus 300 guests. They could claim to represent some seven to nine million workers. Virtually all republics and all major cities were represented. The difference between the delegates and guests was not very important, because the delegates were formal leaders of workers' collectives with the right accreditation. The guests didn't have the piece of paper. Most of these people were chairpersons of councils of labour collectives, and had been selected as official representatives of the collectives.
About 30% of these people were workers, 60% engineers and so on, while there were a small number of scientists, representing scientific organizations. There were also some officials. Lukyanov, the leader of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR made a speech, when he claimed that he had always been a supporter of self-management. Two days before this conference there was a conference of directors of state enterprises, where it was said that force would be used if the directors' orders were not obeyed. At the end of his 3. A neo-Stalinist organization. 4. For an account of this Congress see article by PoulFunder laten in IV 187, Nikolai Travkin is leader of 13 the Russian People's Party.
International Viewpoint #198 • January 21, 1991
USSR speech Lukyanov said that it would be a very positive step if the congress of labour collectives were to support the conclusions of the directors' congress.
It was the very big enterprises that were represented at this congress. The meeting decided to organize a union of labour collectives, to struggle for new laws on the economy, for defence of the interests of self-management for social ownership.
There are two models of privatization on offer. One sees the way as from bureaucratic to private ownership, the other from bureaucratic to common ownership. This council of labour collectives will struggle for the second option.
• What are your relations with the
Confederation of Labour?
This is complicated. Myself and leaders of the Socialist Party, and some other Marxist organizations, for example the Marxist Workers Party-Party of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat, which has real links with the workers movement and envisages the absolute realization of all Marxist ideas, including anti-bureaucratic ideas, have links with strike committees.
We worked on the first congress of strike committees which took place in Novokuznetsk in May this yeart. There was a very contradictory situation in this congress.
For example Travkin made a speech at this congress, which a lot of the delegates found wonderful. I made a speech and got the same response. The Confederation does not really exist; what there is is a council of the leaders, who have moved from a democratic position to support for Yeltsin. These leader have close relations with government officials become junior bureaucrats. But this is a problem for any mass movement in its ini-
I think that there will soon be a second congress of the Confederation at which there will be some changes, perhaps a split. I think the majority will line up behind Yeltsin and a move towards capitalism, with defence of the workers inside this context. A minority, however, will support the idea of management. The majority of the miners, for example, or the steelworkers in the Urals will support the idea of social ownership. The important thing for them is the struggle against the administration, not against social ownership. However, in the Union of Workers Collectives, there is probably a majority for our ideas. These latter can see that what we will get is bureaucratic capitalism, in which power will stay in the same hands in new forms. • Has there been any discussion of the conversion of the defence industries at the conference of workers collectives?
Yes, but it was not a major discussion. There were a large number of representa14 they mainly discussed forms of self- tives of the defence industry there, but management and the union. Also a lot of time was wasted on procedural questions.
I can only give my own opinion on the question of the defence industries.
We have a big problem. It has been decided to transform defence industries into civilian industries through simple bureaucratic means. These enterprises have very sophisticated equipment and the capacity for experimental production.
There are large institutes. Thus the proposal that they should produce simple goods is very wasteful. They should engage in scientific production. We could use this for export. The people who work in this sector can see this problem.
The people at the congress were often highly educated, with both technical and broader economic knowledge. Often they know more than the directors in the sense that the latter know how to manipulate the bureaucratic system, but not how to organize social relations in the enterprise and throughout the economy. The workers' collective leaders would exercise competent management. They can also teach others about self-management. • What are the differences between the economic programmes of Shatalin/Yeltsin and Gorbachev? And
Shatalin does not really support his own programme. He is responsible for two programmes: the one that bears his name and one issued by an Economics Institute. The latter is not well known. But it concludes that it is not possible to organize a market in 500 days. This is what it is like in the Soviet Union! The Supreme Soviet has adopted both Gorbachev's and Shatalin's programme, but without the 500 day deadline.
The question of what road to the market remains open. Yeltsin's programme represents the interests of new business people, Gorbachev's that of the bureaucracy. Some bureaucrats are moving into business, but others cannot or do not want to. Thus Gorbachev and Yeltsin represent two wings of the new "bandokratia".
But both plans are in any case impossible to carry out. The Yeltsin programme cannot work because we have very large disproportions between different spheres
In some spheres, such as the defence industry, we have the level of the West; in others, such as agriculture we are back in feudal times. Some 60% of our agricultural workers work manually. The situation in the goods and services markets is very contradictory. The price of a hotel room for foreigners can run into hundreds of dollars a day. For Soviet people it is only ten roubles. Thus one rouble equals 20
For tape recorders things are the other way round. In these circumstances, speculation is very profitable. We may recall that in the Marxist account, capitalism begins in the sphere of trade - mercantile capitalism, through speculation in the sphere of distribution. Our market can only be of this primitive kind. There will be a reduction of production in all spheres
- as can be seen in Poland. Most of our people have no prospect of becoming a real subject of market relations. We have a collectivist psychology. When we discuss the market with the miners, they say: the market is absolutely necessary for us. I say, so then you will be in competition with all other enterprises producing coal.
They reply: no, we will be friends — we will be in competition with Japan perhaps.
There will be a growth of contradictions between different social groups. Some people will see their incomes growing very rapidly, while others will experience a sharp decline. We will not get the Swedish system. Our capitalism will be like something from the start of the 19th centu-
What is possible in our country is some kind of hybrid, such as we saw in Poland during the 1980s, overseen, as in Poland, by a military regime. But this will be a weak regime, confronted by many small democratic organizations and anarchy in the social and economic spheres. There will be a real struggle between different social and political forces. What will not happen is the realization of either Gorbachev's or Yeltsin's programme. • What do you think about the food
Over past years there has been nothing in the shops, but people have had food in their freezers. Now there is not so much food in the freezers. It is not that production has dropped dramatically. There is enough food and many other goods — in our country - not too much, but enough. The problem is where has the food gone. The fact is that the whole distribution system has crumbled. It is like when a bridge has not been repaired for long enough. One day it just crumbles - there is no sudden action, no subject. The bridge is just too tired. The bureaucratic system in our country is just too tired and has collapsed without anyone actively blowing it
The whole system of transport, management and distribution does not work. In Magnitogorsk there were a hundred tons of sugar at the railway station, but no sug-
Over the years the economy has been adjusted by the endless addition of new rules. Now, centralized management is impossible; people ignore the centre's decisions. Thus it is no use issuing new regulations. Wester attempts to send aid will not help, since most of the aid will end up stacked at the station. On the other hand if direct contact were made with relevant organizations rather than the government this would be helpful. But this aid is a political game between Gorbachev and the Western governments. *