THE MONTH since the abortive coup of August 19-21 has shed little new light on the central puzzle - its astoundingly inept organization and execution. Having announced their coup, the leaders seemed at a loss about what to do next. One popular theory is that they had been led to believe that Gorbachev would join them. Another theory points to behind the scenes maneuvering by Yeltsin's people with the putschists. In the absence of hard evidence, which may never emerge, both remain pure speculation.
DAVID SEPPO
HERE IS more clarity, however,
T about the nature of the contending forces in the coup. The Soviet and foreign press present these as
"Communist hardliners" versus "democrats".! But from the point of view of their programme, there was nothing particularly "Communist" about the putschists. And programmes aside, they did not even attempt to cloak themselves in the party mantle — the party's leadership and central apparatus themselves do not seem to have been directly involved in the coup.
This, however, did not stop Gorbachev from resigning as party leader and calling for its dissolution. Nor did it prevent Yeltsin and other republican leaders (some of whom were still party leaders when the coup occurred) from suspending its activities. This was done without any semblance of due process and in the absence of any pressing emergency.
The 15 million party members, completely disoriented by the party leadership's liberal orientation and its toadying
Gorbachev, offered no resistance, to meekly accepting the violation of their political rights. Yet this is the party that the "democrats" had been portraying as an all powerful organization, the chief threat to the freedom and well-being of the
Soviet people. Interestingly, a poll conducted in Russia found that only 19% of the respondents held the party as such responsible for the coup. 2
The goal of this anti-communist campaign, besides discrediting socialism by association, is to divert popular attention from the important questions; where is the country going, what sort of society is being built, who is benefitting from the socio-political arrangements and process presently at work, who is accumulating wealth and power?
The wait-and-see attitude adopted during the coup by the great mass of the population reveals profound doubts about how these questions are being answered in practice. Although "democratic" candidates have won some large electoral victories over the past two years (Yeltsin received 57% of the vote in Russia in June; Popov, mayor of Moscow, received 65%), there appears to be little genuine popular identification with the liberal politicians or with the political structures they head. Although the liberal press hails the coup's defeat as "popular revolution", the "real October", the evidence points to the conclusion that most people did not feel directly concerned by events, let alone participate in them.
The citizens of Suzdal, a small tourist town about 120 kilometers from Moscow, voted 70% in June for Yeltsin. But neither the people nor the local soviet displayed any overt reaction to the coup.? The city soviet could not even assemble a quorum to discuss the situation* (in October 1917, workers from this region rushed to the defence of the Moscow
100 yards from the barricades where the three men were killed continued to work throughout the coup. A doctor in a trolleybus had this to say to a journalist seated next to him: "You spent the night there [at the barricades]? Well, there are enough people squabbling over power. We are working" . The director of a Moscow factory: "Yes, I have passed through the centre and saw the tanks. Well, so what? I don't have time to waste on trifles. My suppliers haven't sent me paper in two days"?
At the giant "Red October" metallurgical plant in Volgograd, the director refused to heed the urgings of the factory's group of local soviet deputies that he declare a strike. He told them that a strike would have disastrous effects on the factory and, besides, the political benefit of such a strike to Russia was not evident. When, following the coup's defeat, the "democrats" demanded his dismissal, the workers organized a petition campaign in his defence and threatened a political strike. The threat was rescinded when a judge found that there were no grounds for criminal charges.®
It seems that it is one thing to vote for 1. I use the term "democrats" in quotation marks, because this is how the Soviet liberals label themselves. Some of them are, indeed, democrats; others are merely "market democrats". 2. Moskovskie novosti, no. 30, 1991, p. 2. 3. New York Times, September 16, 1991. 4. Trud, September 13, 1991. 5. Trud, September 14, 1991. 6. New York Times, September 17, 1991. 7. Nedelya, no. 36, 1991. 8. Komsomol'skaya pravda, September 14, 1991.
91991 HE HASANGH RES NTED FEATURE SHAKATE FO
----- photo credits and running heads -----
5
International Viewpoint #214 • October 14, 1991
USSR "democrats" and another to actually mobilize in their defence. In elections, people have tended to orientate themselves in "ideological" terms, without immediate reference to their concrete interests. Moreover, the "democratic" candidates appear as the only serious alternative to the discredited old regime. But on the level of concrete politics, when there is a real risk of oppression and loss of income, the approach has always been more down to
On this level, there is a widespread feeling that there is not much to choose from. Economic dislocation grows worse, and the future under the "democrats" holds out the prospect of further immiseration. Election results aside, in the nine and a half months of 1991 preceding the coup, of the almost 4,000 letters sent to the liberal daily Komsomol'skaya pravda, only 1,500 fully supported the "democrats". 9
At the ZIL factory, the words "order" and "chaos" kept cropping up in a journalist's conversations with workers. The trade union committee chairman of the forging shop explained: "People have been brought to despair. They waited for the great day; wages have been doubled. But who benefitted from the rise? The speculator! Women's boots cost 200 rubles, but we buy them for 1,000. Like most goods, they pass through the unclean hands of third and even fifth persons".
Roots of social adversity
"People understand", concluded journalist, "that the present social adversity is predetermined by the whole preceding bureaucratic-distributive system... But you can also hear complaints addressed to the new administration, not only Gorbachev's, but now also Yeltsin's: when will an end be put to this lawlessness [bespredel) that is very far from a civilized market?" The ZIL workers here were much more worried about the planned privatization of the factory, about which management has kept them in the dark, than about
The journalist who visited Red October, which makes 30% of the ball bearing steel in the country, described the workers' mood in the following terms: "Before striking, you think first about how no trade union and no strike committee will feed your family. You remember that no authority ever defended you. You live in a permanently defensive state; you are beaten down by everyday life and you know full well that all those making promises and calling you to the barricades will deceive you, and you will return to your "French settlement" [the workers' trict] where there is not a single public telephone and where the streets are lit only during the election campaigns"
However, the journalist failed to see that despite these conditions, the workers are 6 lized in defence of their director, whom neither passive nor apathetic; they mobithey saw as defending their enterprise during the coup, against the "democrats".
Despite all the above, and regardless of the "democrats'" social programme, the question remains: did not the Supreme and other elected bodies merit active support as democratic institutions? That is no doubt true. The reasons for the weak popular mobilization remain the key question raised by the coup. Only the future will give a definitive answer to it. Perhaps people did not take the coup, which only lasted three days, seriously. Moreover, the putschists, concerned with maintaining an air of constitutionality, did not dissolve the soviets. But it is also clear that the enthusiasm for parliamentary democracy has waned among the population in the absence of any credible political alternative with which people could
Such an alternative does not exist at present. The bureaucracy's hiding behind the red flag for almost 70 years had already done much to discredit socialism. Yet until around 1989 there was still considerable popular support for a "socialist path of development", however vaguely that was conceived. This has been largely undermined by the past two years of stagnation and absolute economic decline under a central government led by Gorbachev, the head "Communist", as well as by a massive anti-socialist propaganda
In these conditions, the workers experience with the "democrats" would make almost anyone cynical about electoral politics. Ivan Silaev (who spent almost all his adult life as a "Communist" bureaucrat), until recently Yeltsin's prime minister and now head of the union government, admitted a tew days ago that "we kept trying to prove to ourselves and the citizenry that the transition to the market is something akin to an easy, pleasant stroll. Everyone would be protected and secure, and things would only get better. But life is not like that"12 Incompetence and conscious deception
This forthright admission of incompetence and/or conscious deception did not seem to bother Silaev in the slightest. Yet it was precisely on that basis (as well as the ubiquitous propagation of the view that "there is no alternative") that the "democrats" got themselves elected.
Silaev went on to say that while the neediest, invalids, families with many children, and so on, would be supported, 100% indexation of wages to the cost of living for the bulk of the population is "unthinkable, impossible". have been a recent revelation, since less than four months earlier, at a meeting with the striking Kuzbass miners, he told them that they were "perfectly correct in putting forward such high demands". Full indexation was one of the miners' demands. It was also a central demand of the Byelorussian workers, whose was greeted with enthusiasm by "demo-
It is possible, of course, that most workers, weighed down by the burdens and insecurities of everyday life, are simply apathetic about political life. Even in April, except for Byelorussia, there was little response to the miners' call to sup port their political strike for the resignation of the central authorities. However, it response has the same explanation as the failure to mobilize against the coup; why go to the trouble and risk when there are no attractive alternatives. It is easier for coal miners to nurture the illusion that the "democrats"" market system is a real alternative for them (though a closer look at their independent union's draft collective agreement reveals a vision of the market that is a far cry from that of the liberals) since natural resources are one of the few goods produced in the Soviet Union that would be competitive on the world market (though even how the miners would really fare is open to debate).
As for the Belorussian workers, their strikes in April and May were in large part a holdover from an earlier period; the Byelorussian political structures had still seems, strike during the coup.
Orgy of presidential decrees
Even on the level of purely formal (as opposed to substantive) democracy, it is not at all evident that the "democrats" offer a clear alternative to the putschists. Yeltsin's orgy of presidential decrees following the coup left many genuine demoas in other republics, wondering. After the emergency had passed, he unilaterally suspended newspapers, took over Union ministries, institutions and enterprises, and threatened to review the borders of republics seceding from the union.
He also asserted his intention of creating a centralized administration in Russia, one that would be much more powerful than the Union centre has been over the past years, with appointed governors in every region and autonomous republic. He used the ambivalent position adopted by elected leaders of many regional soviets to purge people hostile to his policies and he sent out his many others, 14 appointed commissars to one Russian observer has noted, 9. Komsomol'skaya pravda, August 28, 1991. 10. Trud, September 14, 1991. 11. True, July 13, 1991. 12. It is worth noting in this connection that the "democrats" have not yet bothered to enact an effective recall mechanism. This was one of the demands of the miners' political strike of July 11, 1991. Trud, September 9, 1991. 13. Komsomol' skaya pravda, April 4, 1991. 14. Financial Times (London), September 24-25, 1991; Komsomol' skaya pravda, August 27, 1991.
"Everyone remembers how a year ago, while travelling across Russia, Yeltsin promised sovereignty to virtually every telephone pole: "Take as many rights as you want'. Instead, the regions of Russia found themselves under the strict control of the Russian centre. As in the French Revolution, presidential commissars are being sent out to the localities with broad powers. Elected to the Congress of People's Deputies on the old slogan of 'All Power to the Soviets', the Russian president acquired tremendous constitutional power, which was then - well before the latest crisis - supplemented by emergency powers. Yet, even these powers are being exceeded"15 Parallel to this, the executives are usurping the powers of the elected soviets in cities like Moscow and Leningrad which are headed by "democratic" mayors. 16
The reorganization of the Union government following the coup was conducted without concern for the Supreme Soviet and the constitution, let alone democratic process. These are only "transitional" arrangements, but no one knows how long the transition will last and how many irreversible changes will be introduced in the meantime. The new Presidential Council, the effective government that includes Gorbachev and the leaders of the other republics still members of the Union, has already received the popular nickname GKChP-II. "
The powerful four man Council for Management of the National Economy includes the (former) prime minister of Russia, the head of the Moscow city executive, a liberal economist and the head of an employers' association. There are no representatives of workers' organizations. Of the four, three are career (formerly Communist) bureaucrats, and only one holds an elected post, having been elected by the voters of one of Russia's several
As one liberal legislator put it: "This is a presidential putsch, a real presidential putsch. But thank God it is one without tanks"18 Of course, the Supreme Soviet that enacted the existing constitution was elected in rather less than fully democratic circumstances. But even that servile background of what is happening now, when there is not a single remaining opposition daily in Moscow (ironically,
USSR only a few months earlier, Gorbachev repeatedly cited the constitution as the reason why he could not discuss with the miners their demand that he resign).
A few days after the "democrats'" victory over the "hardline Communists" a liberal journalist wrote in Izvestiya's weekly supplement: "Yes, in Russia we need a harsh, and in many ways, authoritarian government. The President of Russia will soon have to confront that which is more dangerous than any elite junta - unemployment, the immiseration of millions of people. Destructive strikes are inevitable and explosions of violence are possible. In these circumstances, it will be necessary to do unpleasant things — to forbid, maybe even to disperse, to introduce order". 19
Advocates of authoritarian rule
This statement is not exceptional. Many "democratic" ideologues and politicians do not hide their admiration for general Pinochet and his "Chilean miracle". 20 In this, they are in full agreement with the "Communist hardliners" who also advocated authoritarian rule "for the transition". It is perhaps with this eventuality in mind that the Russian government is now creating a National Guard. Although it claims to have been saved from the coup by popular mobilization, it has rejected the idea of a volunteer citizens' militia in favour of an elite, strictly professional force. Wages in it will be set at 2,000 rubles, or about five times what an average factory worker earns. 21
As for republic-centre relations, the new arrangements do appear more equal, in the sense that the form of participation of individual republics in the Union is left up to the republics and republican laws will have precedence over those of the Union. Moreover, in the transitional "parliament", the upper chamber, in which each participating republic will have one vote, will be predominant. But it remains to be seen how workable this will be in practice.
Economic separation would be disastrous for all the republics, though much less so for Russia, which produces almost two thirds of the net output of the former USSR and controls the bulk of the natural resources and export earning production (one can, of course, legitimately ask why these should belong exclusively to Russia, 15. N. Preobrazhenskii, "The First Skirmish", Socialist Alternatives (Montreal), no. 1, 1991. 16. Komsomol' skaya pravda, June 26, 1991. 17. GKChP is the abbreviation of the deposed junta. New York Times, September 10, 1991. 18. Gazette (Montreal), September 8, 1991. 19. Nedelya, no. 25, 1991. Compare this with what Lech Walesa let slip a while ago in Warsaw: "Very often I have doubts whether evolution from the communist system is possible. [...Perhaps Poland needs] tough, strong, revolutionary methods — with fear [!]
- to reorient the economy." Wall Street Journal, September 18, 1991. 20. Le Monde Diplomatique, September 1991, p. 12. 21. Komsomol' skaya pravda, September 14, 1991.
----- photo credits and running heads -----
7
International Viewpoint #214 • October 14, 1991
USSR when they were developed jointly by all the republics).
This means that whatever formal arrangements exist, Russia will generally be able to impose its will. This is also why Yeltsin is so interested in maintaining the Union headed by Gorbachev; he hopes it will make Russian dominance less obvious and more palatable to the other repub-
The Russian leadership has somewhat retreated from the menacing gestures and noises it made following the coup. Nevertheless, its appetite for power is evident. And it is not about to abandon the policy of trying to build popular legitimacy on nationalist appeals. The appointment of Silaev, formerly Yeltsin's prime minister, to head the Union government is a clear sign of Russia's predominance in the new Union. Nor do centralizing measures within Russia itself bode well for Russia's relations with the other republics. On September 13, Yavlinskii, the liberal economist in the Council for the Management of the National Economy, presented a draft of a new economic treaty which was purposely left vague to avoid raising objections from nationalist forces in the republics. He warned, however, that Russia was quite prepared to go it alone. This amounts to a virtual ultimatum to the republics, as none of them can go it alone.?
It should also be remembered that the creation of more equal relations among republics does not necessarily mean that their citizens will enjoy increased democracy. Georgian president Gamzakhurdia's increasingly authoritarian strates that the local elites' temptation to exploit nationalist sentiment as a substitute for democracy and a popularlyorientated social and economic policy
Tightening the screws
In Russia, Yeltsin is tightening the screws on the autonomous republics. The Baltic governments have used the coup's aftermath to accelerate their purge "undesirables", that is members of the Communist Party and "non-indigenous" peoples. There is growing pressure there to deprive of their citizenship people who cannot trace their family's residence in the republic back to 1940, or at least "to economically stimulate them to go
The Lithuanian government used the coup to dissolve the local soviets of two predominantly Polish and one Russian district for six to twelve months. These elected bodies were accused of supporting the putschists.? Their real sin is their opposition to Lithuanian independence — they fear that their minority rights will not be respected. The Lithuanian government's rehabilitation of Nazi war criminals hundreds of thousands of Jews were • murdered by Lithuanians during the war)
is not a comforting signal to the authori-
If the workers, with the exception of a part of the miners, did not mobilize in support of Yeltsin, the same cannot be said of Russia's new bourgeoisie. True, the speculators continued through the coup to sell goods at prices out of the reach of ordinary citizens. But business is business. On the other hand, 1,000 hamburgers were sent over from Macdonald's to the hungry defenders of the "White House" by the private insurance company "ASKO". "ASKO" was established in the fall of 1988 and already has assets of 51 million rubles. After the coup, it donated a quarter of a million rubles to "the families of the three victims, the soldiers who defended the 'White House', the journalists and the others who showed cou-
Similarly, the private bank "Delovaya Rossiya" donated one million rubles to a fund "for the liquidation of the consequences of the coup"26 The "Atlant" bank, the "Rezerv" insurance company and a third business initiated a fund for the creation of a Russian National Guard. "Rezerv" alone gave 100,000 rubles, its owner adding that, "of course, the Supreme Soviet will decide how to use these funds"27 (considering the massive tax evasion that is commonly practiced by private businesses, these donations are hardly generous?).
The workers may have doubts, but these people obviously see Yeltsin's victory as their own. Nor do the "democrats" seem worried about accusations that they are
Over the past months, the new bourgeoisie has lost much of its earlier bashfulness. According to the paper Tochka zreniya in July 1991 there were 15,000 ruble millionaires in the Soviet Union. There is even a Young Millionaire's Club. 29 When on August 28 Yeltsin gave • the mayor of Moscow powers to freeze or cut prices, the president of Moscow's private commodities exchange (where even the guards are said to pick up an extra 100,000 rubles or so each month by putting buyers in contact with sellers) threatened a "business strike" which would see the capital's private sector move to Petersburg and other cities.
He warned that Moscow would be left "a graveyard in which Popov and Luzhkov [respectively mayor and chairman of the city's executive committee] will be governing masses of unemployed" 30 This bravado is still very far from reality, but it reflects the growing self-confidence and ambition of this rising stratum, which feels — justifiably - that it has debts to collect from the "democrats". Political potential of workers
While one should be realistic in assessing the political potential of the workers in the near future, it would be extremely hasty to conclude from the preceding analysis that the path is now wide open for the new bourgeoisie and its political representatives. Despite their bleating about a "popular revolution", the "democratic" leaders are not blind to the significance of the population's failure to mobilize in their support.
A week after the coup, liberal economist Yavlinskii (best known as author of the "500 day plan" and the "Great Bargain" though his real talent appears to lie in selling himself to whoever is in power) and Silaev, Yeltsin's former prime minister, held a press conference. Yavlinskii told the reporters that the country must use the victory to forge ahead with the transition to a market economy. But he was immediately contradicted by Silaev, who said that the Russian people were tired and that there could be no question of shock thera-
In this respect, a recent headline in the Wall Street Journal, the conservative newspaper of the US business class, is instructive: "Poland's Shaky Switch to a Free Market is a Warning for Soviets: Strikes, Recessions and Malaise Leave Many Rethinking the Road to Capitalism". And Russia is politically far from Poland. Not even the personality cult being built around him can turn Yeltsin into a Walesa.
### Nationalist sentiment
Despite the cultivation of nationalist sentiment, neither Russia, the Ukraine, Kazakhstan nor Belorussia, that is the main industrial regions, have movements legitimacy approaching that of Solidarnosc. Unlike Poland, the working class here has not been broken by political repression and long years of economic collapse and insecurity. The workers may not yet be in a their own programme, but the labour movement remains the only organized social force in society. This is a minority of the working class, but experience shows how quickly even unorganized workers can mobilize and create their own organizations.
Most workers chose not to intervene during the three day coup in August. The significance of this failure to mobilize will become clear only in the months to come. In any case, this was only an episode in what will surely be a long series of social and political struggles and upheavals, the outcome of which it would be foolhardy to predict. * 22. Gazette, September 18, 1991. 23. Komsomo l' skaya pravda, September 14, 1991. 24. Trud, September 14, 1991. 25. Trud, September 7, 1991. 26. Rabochaya tribuna, September 7, 1991. 27. Trud, September 14, 1991. 28. E. Shestakov, "Zagadochnye nevidimki", Nedelya, по. 37, 1991, р. 8. 29. Gazette, July 13, 1991. 30. Financial Times, September 13, 1991.
Soviet trade unions back Party of Labour
USSR in the bureaucracy, the position of the trade unions has become fragile, while at the same time pressure from below has mounted as living standards drop
This was clear in the miners' strikes of 1989, which in many regions by-passed the existing union structures, but it has also been evident in many recent local
AT THE end of August a declaration calling for the formation of a Russian Party of Labour (Partija Truda) was launched in
Moscow (see IV 213 for text). Among the signatories of this document were some well-known socialists - Including
Soclalist Party leader, Boris Kagarlitsky and Andrei Isayev from the Anarcho-Syndicalist current — together with leaders of the Moscow Federation of Trade Unions (FP) - Including its chairman Niko Goncher, who is also a chairman of the
Moscow City Council.
This is the first time that leaders of a mass workers organization (MFP organizes 90% of the workers in Moscow
Province, where 16 million people live) have endorsed an initiative for creating an independent political force subordinated neither to the apparatus nor to the pro-capitalist currents.
POUL-FUNDER LARSEN
HE absence of independent working class organizations is obviously the key problem as attacks on the living standards and democratic rights of workers are
The Initiative for a Party of Labour can be a first step in overcoming this problem; though it is clear that re-building an alternative needs time given the political dominance of the liberals and the lack of recent militant traditions in large parts of the Soviet working class.
The disintegration of the bureaucratic structures of the Communist Party of the
Soviet Union (CPSU) has given rise to the curious situation that there exists neither in Russia nor in most other republics any sizeable political parties. Liberals of various breeds have a power base in
Democratic Russia and the Movement for
Democratic Reform.
But while the first is a heterogeneous conglomerate of different pro-capitalist forces, the second is still only an empty shell with a series of prominent leaders at the top. But their following remains tiny and scattered, with the biggest of them, the Democratic Party, numbering at most a few tens of thousands of supporters.
However the situation of the socialist forces also leaves a lot to be desired.
None of the left-wing organizations have made a breakthrough. The Socialist
Party, the Marxist Workers Party, the
Green Party and the Confederation of
Anarcho-Syndicalists (KAS) remain comparatively small organizations with a cerinfluence in and tain some sectors regions, but in no position to challenge the liberals.
Nor have the socialist forces in the CPSU managed to win a mass following. After the coup most of them have decided to leave (see following interview with Alexander Buzgalin), while various conservative currents — and even some centrist forces, including a group around Roy Medvedev — are trying to "refound" the party.
Hopes for a real step forward
In this context of a divided and relatively weak left wing without strong backing among workers, the Party of Labour initiative can represent a real step forward. Over the past two years, there have been other, less ambitious, attempts to unite the left forces: at the founding conference of the Confederation of Labour in Kusbass in May 1990, and later the same year around the letter "On People's Self-Management" signed by leaders of several left groups. However, none of these initiatives promoted much activity.
The new and promising aspect of the Initiative for a Party of Labour - and at the same time the big unknown - is the participation of prominent leaders of the Moscow branch of the official trade unions. Before and throughout most of the perestroika years, the official trade unions have been an integral part of the
But with the decline of the apparatus and the emergence of strong and increasingly dominant pro-liberal currents withdisputes. The official unions have tried to improve their image by changing names - hence the Federation of Independent Trade Unions of Russia (FNPR) - and by pursuing an alliance with the Yeltsin camp, but this is likely to create more problems as the economic "shock therapy" draws closer. The questions remain: how strong are the progressive forces in the unions today, and will the leadership of the Moscow trade union be able to draw other groups of both leaders and rank-and-file members into the process of building the Party of Labour.
There have been several attempts at setting up independent unions outside the framework of the FNPR (and the allVKP). By far the most influential of these, due to its membership, militancy and strategic position, is the Independent Union of Miners (NG) founded in 1990. While the leadership of this union has been following Yeltsin there are also forces which stand for a more independent and militant line. Corruption scandal in miners' union
The liberal leadership of the NPG was recently shaken by a large corruption scandal involving its president, Pavel Shushpanov, who was forced to resign. This is likely to have strengthened the position of the militant layer in the union — the attitude of which will be very important for the new Party of Labour, given the vanguard position of the min-
The Party of Labour project is still in its early stages and faces immense challenges, but one can hope that the expressed by the liberal Moskovskiye Novosti ("Moscow News"), no. 37, 1991, come true: "Considering the prospects of the slight post-putsch allergy to socialist ideas should not be exaggerated
"Tomorrow when the national economy is being resuscitated, including by painful means, unemployment will rise, and living standards will sag, which will change many people's attitude towards socialist ideas and the parties promoting them.