The ambiguities of the putschists reflected the fluctuating frontiers between "market Stalinism" and state capitalism in the current period; the state apparatus is one of the essential stakes for the capitalist restoration underway. The fact that Yeltsin and the liberals in power in Moscow and Leningrad could express the uncertain orientation of the putschists and their desire to leave a door open to negotiations with supporters of the liberal market, rather than a reflec-
The coup leaders were favorable to market reforms, but at the level of the Union and controlled by a strong state, without counting too much on foreign capital, which would not throw itself into a situation of chaos. Between Rykov and Silaev, both engineers originating from the military-industrial complex, or between Pavlov and Shatalin, there is probably no difference on goals but simply on strategy.'
The tide of capitalist restoration, in all the countries where it is underway, has not for the moment the political, social or economic strength to go through to the end, except in Germany. Everywhere else, it is stagnating. Currents differentiate themselves, some advocating a national capitalism protected from foreign investments, others the most open inser-
September 16, 1991 • #212 International Viewpoint tion in the world capital market; some call for a rapid privatization at no matter what price and whoever benefits, others a slow privatization, controlled by the state. But who will control the state?
One of the difficulties of capitalist restoration is the lack of new personnel; although state capitalism appears as the logical "solution" from the point of view of the restorationist projects faced with the insufficiency of private capital, any reinforcement of the state based on the same apparatuses is, and will be, perceived as "conservative". The governmental teams who are most able to advance a restorationist project are those who originate from a rupture or a struggle against the old system, from the coming to power of explicit opponents of the Communist Party (even if they are a product of it) and of new layers of the technocratic intelligentsia as is the case, in varying degrees, in Poland, Hungary and Czechoslovakia.
Continued reticence of foreign capital
Thanks to his previous break with the CPSU and to his role against the coup, Yeltsin has gained the preconditions for a liberal market offensive, but not the conditions of its success. This offensive will without doubt benefit, as in Poland, from a provisional state of grace and increased foreign aid. But crisis and political uncertainty mean that foreign capital (and US economic support) is still reticent; the state of grace will without doubt be less long than in Poland and rendered more problematic by the breadth of the national
These exist both between the Union republics and within the Russian federation itself. The USSR as a "prison house of peoples" is no more and cannot be revived. The defeat of the coup and the offensives led against the CPSU and its instruments of repression, favorize the explosion of declarations of independence, but also of new forms of union. The consolidation of a powerful Russia and its leader, thanks to his victory over the putschists, the declarations by Yeltsin threatening to reopen the dossier on the frontiers of the separatist republics and the great number of Russians nominated to governmental posts have produced alarm in the other republics.
At the same time, the affirmation of Yeltsin's power in Russia facilitates the policies of bypassing or weakening of the centre. Several factors mitigate against the simple disappearance of the centre, in spite of a growth of direct relations between republics, including fear of a dispersion of nuclear weapons, the search, by certain nationalities, for federal protection against the oppression of their own republic, and the need for common management of a currency and of infrastruc-
This is compatible with the affirmation of the sovereignty of the republics in several domains, which, in the USSR as in Yugoslavia, will be at the heart of the negotiations and conflicts to come; in international policy, the republics want to have their own representatives in world bodies alongside the Union (as is formally the case of the Ukraine, and is also envisaged in the Yugoslav confederal projects); on the plane of the armed forces, each republic seeks the means to protect itself and the right for its conscripts to do their service where they want; finally, there is the question of the economy, that is: what degree of independent decision-making for each republic, and within that, what monetary space.
The sorcerer's apprentice and the midwife
The defeat of the coup accelerates the change and the break up of the USSR on three levels; the Union, the Party/State and the economy. While Gorbachev has been the sorcerer's apprentice of this mutation, Yeltsin will be without doubt its midwife. It was necessary without hesitation to oppose the coup, and in this respect to struggle alongside Yeltsin, but beyond this it is also necessary to say in advance what the effects would be of the application of the 500 day reform he supports and to judge him on his acts.
The development of self-organization, political pluralism and of total freedom of expression are the only guarantees of democracy in the essential decisions to come and of a real defence against future coups, from wherever they may arise. Such self-organization and such liberties should be respected in workplaces and the localities. That is why we are against the decree forbidding the workplace cells of the CP, but for the generalization of the right of organization and of political
We are for the nationalization of the property of the CP and of the official trade unions but for their redistribution under democratic control to the different political organizations, among them the CP. In the same way, we do not accept the banning of the CP, because we reject the confusion between the necessary struggle against the Party/State and its monopoly, and the forbidding expression of the ideas or limits to the right of organization for those who still adhere to Communism. It is chance that Yeltsin is perceived by the socialist and pro-self-management left in the Soviet Union as a potential danger. * 1. Ryzhkov had been Gorbachev's Prime Minister and was defeated by Yeltsin in the election for the Russian presidency. Silaev, Prime Minister of Russia, is today at the head of the federal economy. Pavlov was Prime Minister of the USSR at the moment of the attempted coup, and participated in the conspiracy. The economist Shatalin, who drew up the 500 day plan, is close to Yeltsin.
SOVIET UNION
A view from