Protests snowball
USSR standstill, and thousands of workers are still living in wooden huts. These social conditions and the disastrous environmental situation is seriously affecting the health of the people living in these areas; in Kusbass, 20% of newborn children
THE steep price rises carried through by the government of
Valentin Pavlov on April 2 have considerably increased the tension in a Soviet society which is now experiencing an unprecedented rise in workers' protests and actions. From
Minsk to Kemerovo, from Vorkuta to Tbilisi, a wave of strikes and demonstrations is now putting forward demands of an explicitly political character.
POUL-FUNDER LARSEN
N APRIL 9 Gorbachev tried to regain the initiative: at a meeting of the Federation Council, where all the republics plus the are represented, he
Union leadership announced a new package of economic and political measures to stabilize the situation. It is a plan which combines authoritarian interference with political and democratic rights with a strong pro- market tendency in the economic sphere:
"What we have in mind is developing active steps towards destatization and privatization, first of all inside trade and social provisions, in the sphere of daily services, and in connection with small and middle sized industries, in order to develop entrepreneurship, de-monopolize the economy, support the small and medium businesses, speed up the formation of exchanges for goods and stocks, and facilitate the transition to a convertible rouble."2
Market prices for all goods in two years
This involves a rapid shift to market prices for all goods over the next year and a half, the immediate drawing up of schemes for large-scale privatizations and a systematic encouragement of foreign investments, through a modification of laws restricting the transfer of profits and a further de-centralization of foreign trade.
These liberal economic ideas are bound up with a call for strongly centralized control of the political system. This would include a so-called "moratorium until the end of the year on strikes, meetings and other political actions, which are destabilizing the situation in the country."3 But it is far from assured that the Kremlin leadership can mobilize the necessary support within the bureaucracy to carry through its plans - and it is almost certain that they will meet with strong opposition from the many sections of the population affected.
6 through administrative
Previous attempts at economic change measures
International Viewpoint #205 • April 29, 1991 including the aborted price rises of May 1990, the money reform of January this year, the unpopular 5% purchase tax and the recent price reform - have created and indeed hatred, towards government economic policy.
Both the supporters of Boris Yeltsin (president of the Russian Republic and Gorbachev's main opponent) and the conservatives are trying to take advantage of the situation, demanding that Gorbachev resign immediately. Yeltsin still occupies a key position, and the Russian People's Congress of April 5 granted him the right to rule Russia by decree.
Conservative forces lack credibility
The prospects for the conservatives, however, look bleak. They lack both a credible project, a leader and a minimum of credibility in the eyes of the public. The limited success of demonstrations against the price rises summoned by conservative forces bears witness to this, as does the split within the Russian Communist Party faction in the Russian People's Congress, where a sizeable group of RCP deputies formed a new group "Communists for Democracy" which stated its
Meanwhile the miners' strike has now been going on for six weeks and political demands are more and more coming to the fore in their struggle.
At the outset the strike was a reaction to social grievances in the mining regions and a protest against the failure of bureaucratic perestroika. In many ways the social and material situation in the mining districts is as bad as before the 1989 strike. Food is incredibly scarce: "bitter words (were spoken) about the extremely serious situation of the inhabitants of the coal-mining regions: the meagre ration of the miners is 21 grams of meat, 11 grams of grits and 25 grams of fats per day, one egg every three days and
The construction of houses and flats in the mining areas has come to a virtual have some kind of defect, and in Donetsk it is estimated that among the schoolchildren only one in five is in a satisfactory state of health.
After the strikes of July 1989 the miners' movement went through a downturn. In various mines many conservative officials on the management bodies and members of the Workers' Collective Councils (STKs) were ousted. The strike committees were transformed into permanent structures, often with considerable influence in their region. But the liberal tenmovement and the purely trade unionist orientation mapped out by some of its leaders did not offer a coherent perspective for action to unite the different coalfields. During 1990 there was only one major action by the miners: a one-day walkout on July 11 - a year after the 1989 strikes — which coincided with the 28th Congress of the CPSU and raised a series of political demands, including de-politicization of the enterprises, the army and the KGB, as well as a call for the resignation of the Ryzhkov
Demands for Gorbachev's resignation
In January this year, following the bloody attack by pro-centralist forces in the Lithuanian capital Vilnius, the Workers Committees in Kusbass and Donbas called for a political strike, but the call was not heeded. However the demand for action was growing in the mining regions. The miners' fury is clearly directed at the centre and expressed in demands for the resignation of Gorbachev and the dissolution of the Supreme Soviet. Not surprisingly Gorbachev and the government of Valentin Pavlov have rejected any negotiations concerning these political demands, while granting some economic concessions.
As the strike unfolds it is also becoming less evident what kind of political alternative the miners' leaders have in mind. At a press conference on April 4, Anatoly Malykhin, a leader of the Kusbass miners, stated: "From our point of view only a coalition government, trusted by the people, can lead the country out of its crisis."* 1. It is not clear whether these measures should be seen as a continuation of the plan "Main guidelines for stabilization of the economy and transition to the market" adopted by the Supreme Soviet in October 1990 (Pravda, October 18, 1990), or an entirely new anti-crisis programme.
2. Mikhail Gorbachev in his speech to the Federation Council, Izvestiya, April 10, 1991. 3. Ibid. In the aftermath of the 1989 strikes similar, but not strictly enforced, anti-strike legislation was introduced.
4. Izvestiya, April 4, 1991.
5. Ibid. April 5, 1991.
This idea of a coalition is gaining renewed popularity in all camps. Yeltsin used it in a conciliatory speech at the Russian People's Congress on March 29, leaders of "Democratic Russia" such as
Yuri Afanasyev are endorsing it, and even
Gorbachev himself has voiced similar ideas. However, given the relationship of forces in the Soviet Union today such a government could only be headed by one person - Mikhail Gorbachev - and would have to rely heavily on the centre's bureaucratic apparatus, a perspective certainly not in tune with the thrust of the miners' demands.
### Government hosts stage-managed negotiations
On April 2-3 representatives of some of the mining regions met with Pavlov's government. The miners were offered a hundred percent wage increase over the next year, linked to a rise in productivity, the right of the miners collectives to sell 5-7% of coal produced on the market without state interference plus some improvements in the social sphere.
In the end, however, this turned out to be largely a show staged by the government to prove their "good intentions". Of the 400 people present in the Kremlin's Sverdlovsk hall only 195 were representatives from the mines, and of these only 48 came from mines that were actually on strike. No wonder that leaders of the Vorkuta and Kusbass miners, who did not actually participate in the negotiations, rejected the offer, whereas some minor coalfields in the north decided to return to
So far the attitude of the official trade unions, the VKP, has been one of cautious support for the miners and clearcut criticism of the price rises. At the end of March they granted the miners 200,000 roubles and called on Gorbachev to enter into negotiations. Following the "negotiations" of April 2/3 the central trade unions slight optimism, but also demanded "the immediate preparation of a thorough restructuring of the system of wages." One VKP representative claimed that all wages should be increased by 70100% and threatened that if this did not take place there would be a demonstration against price rises in Red Square on May
However, in a recent speech to the plenary meeting of the VP, Prime Minister Pavlov ruled out any wage increases which are not linked to a proportional increase in output. He went on to attack the miners strike in his usual crude fashion: "I think it is no secret to you that in the Donetsk Basin special brigades of 200-250 people are driving around in buses, blocking the mines at work — this is not done by the miners. It is representatives of Rukh [the Ukrainian nationalists] who are calling for strikes. Also in the Kusbass mines there are a kind of strike ringleaders, but these commandos are headed by some deputies of the Supreme
Soviet of the Russian Federation and of the Oblast [district] soviet."
So far the government has refrained from threats of violence to end the strike.
It is for the time being more likely that the government will try to co-opt part of the strike movement, while wearing down the militant regions.
But given the tensions in Soviet society after the price rises it is far from certain that time is on the side of Gorbachev and Pavlov. Since the beginning of April a snowball of protests has been rolling and it could soon turn into an avalanche.
The strongest outburst came where it could have been least expected - in Minsk, the capital of Byelorussia which was formerly seen as a conservative stronghold. The protests erupted on April 4, when workers in a series of factories there went on strike and thousands assembled in the Lenin Square in the city centre. It was a protest against the price rises; as one striker explained: "I earn 200 roubles a month. I am alone with two children. How can I feed them, goods for children have become several times more expensive, and when a lunch in the factory canteen has risen to three roubles? The social protest was accompanied by political demands akin to those of the miners: the resignation of Gorbachev and the dissolution of both the all-Union and Byelorussian Supreme Soviets.
Threat of political general strike in Byelorussia
After the meeting of the Federation Council on April 9 the strikes and demonstrations resumed. An estimated 200,000 workers, including those of the largest factories in Minsk, the car factory and the tractor works, took part in actions on April 10-11, and the workers of other cities in Byelorussia, such as the miners in Soligorsk, joined in. The strikes called off when Belorussian government agreed to negotiate with the strike committees, but the threat of a political general strike on April 23, if the negotiations
Other important regions are on the brink of entering the struggle. From the Urals, one of the Soviet Union's main industrial centres, the government has received repeated warnings. On March 27, the metalworkers in Sverdlovsk held a two-hour warning stoppage in support of the miners, and several bauxite mines have been out on strike in the same area. Delegates from some of the main industries in the Urals (for example, the steelworks in Nizhniy Tagil) have participated in meetings of the Kusbass strike committees.
The backbone of industry in the Urals are the huge metallurgical works which are seriously affected by the reduction of coal deliveries from the Kusbass in partic-
USSR ular?. On April 10, at a regional meeting in Chelyabinsk, representatives of the workers in the metal industry expressed worries about the situation, but at the same time stated their sympathy for the miners' struggle. The meeting demanded that the government adopt measures to improve the social situation in the region before April 20, or face actions, including strikes.
Likewise in Siberia a number of strikes have occurred. The nickel-miners of
Norilsk in northern Siberia stopped working on March 28 and gave in on April 5 after promises from the management of a 100% wage increase. The oil workers in the Tyumen' region, the Soviet Union's main oil field, demanded at the beginning of April that the government should give them the right to dispose of 20% of their production; if not there is a risk of a "social explosion".
Liberal dream of far eastern
Symbolically, in the midst of this crisis Gorbachev left for Japan to pay the first ever-official visit by a Soviet leader to that country. Sweet dreams of far eastern economic adventures, through a link with the economies of Japan and the countries of the Pacific Rim, are a recurrent theme in liberal thinking in the Soviet Union. Some initiatives have been taken such as the setting up of an economic free zone around the port of Nahodka on the Pacific Coast; and many high hopes in Siberia are bound up with these developments. Many sober-minded observers, however, pointed out that an "economic miracle" in the far east is unlikely for now because of the disarray in the Soviet economy in general and the weak economic links between Japan and the Soviet Union in particular.
In any case, this visit comes at a time when Gorbachev's basic pro-liberal economic trajectory has been confirmed once more. The great unknown is whether he will be able to draw the necessary support behind the new emergency measures at a time when the central power structures seem to be almost paralyzed. The first and indeed most mighty opponent will be the Soviet working class exasperated by the crisis and showing in some sectors a new-found militancy, which could change the
Political scene in the monihs to 6. The central trade unions were renamed "the General Confederation of Trade Unions of the USSR" (VKP) at their 19th Congress in October 1990 in an attempt to escape the connotations of conservative stagnation linked to the old name "the All-Union Central Association of Trade Unions" (VTsSPS). 7. Pravda, April 12, 1991. 8. Izvestiya, April 5, 1991. 9. According to some figures the metal industry has suffered losses of two billion roubles during the strike. The minister for the steel processing industry has demanded that the strikes should be immediately stopped, even if this meant a Union-wide state of emergency. April 29, 1991 • #205 International Viewpoint
After the elections - the "Bulgarian
YUGOSLAVA
KOSOVO
Kukes
Shkoder
- Shengjing
Adriatic
W
OTIRANA
Durres
Elbasa
D
Joyteti Stalin
ALTHOUGH a far cry from the 99.9% of the vote it had been accustomed to receiving in previous polls, the support of around two thirds of the electorate (on a turn out of well over
90%) was sufficient to guarantee the Party of Labour of
Albania (PLA) a convincing majority in the country's March 31 parliamentary elections.
In Albania's first multiparty elections since December 1945 more than 1000 candidates from 11 parties contested the 250 seats in the new People's Assembly.
BERNARD GIBBONS
OWEVER, both the various
H
PLA satellite parties and the anti-regime Republican Party, which has not succeeded in carving out any clear profile for itself, were irrelevant to the final outcome; everybody knew that the contest for power was between the PLA — the agents of liberation from the fascist occupation in
1944, but also the brutal overseers since then of a Stalinist tyranny of almost selfparodic proportions — and the Albanian
Democratic Party (ADP).
The latter was only formed in December 1990 but is already the focus of immense hope amongst the youth and urban population of
Europe's poorest