Their cynicism is manifested by the their readiness to associate, at least for the time being, with Yeltsin and his acolytes, who are authentic Great Russian chauvin-
What we are seeing in the ex-USSR is a triangular struggle between; factions at the top of the nomenklatura; directly restorationist, that is bourgeois in the social sense of the term forces; and the labouring masses. These three forces are distinct, acting in society according to their
New putsches are possible. Yeltsin may well rapidly lose popularity, given the anti-worker and anti-popular policies he is pursuing. Behind him can be seen the sinister figure of Vladimir Shirinovsky, the Soviet Le Pen, who looks for inspiration at one and the same time to Stalin, the Tsar and Pinochet; he has the support of a wing of the army and is furiously Great Russian, xenophobic, anti-semitic and racist. His popularity should not be underex-USSR
We do not today face either a revolutionary or a pre-revolutionary situation in the ex-USSR. Without doubt, the working class is infinitely stronger than its adversaries, far stronger than in 1917 or 1927. At the same time Stalinism is, as we have always predicted, in the process of collapsing. But for it to be overthrown by a political revolution, the working class must act as an independent political force, which is not the case today.
Due to the enormous discredit thrown on the very ideas of communism, socialism or Marxism by the Stalinist dictatorship, the void created by the profound ideological/moral crisis of Soviet society is not about to be filled by the working class. This is active, but only for short-term immediate ends and in a fragmented and discontinuous way. The right wing has the political initiative. The broken thread of history
Contrary to our legitimate hopes up until 1980-81 (the first rise of Solidarnosc), the thread that leads from the revolt in the Vorkuta labour camp and the East German uprising of 1953 through the Hungarian revolution of 1956 to the "Prague Spring" and the first steps of Polish Solidarnosc has been broken. It will take time to restore it.
Does this mean that a lasting restoration of the power of the nomenklatura or a real restoration of capitalism are the most likely outcomes? Not at all. They are just as unlikely as a rapid move to political revolution.
Certainly, the Yeltsin government has taken some initial steps towards capitalist restoration. But there is a huge distance between the beginning and the end of such
For a real restoration of capitalism, an extension of the commodity economy — which remains today less developed in the ex-USSR than in the time of the New Economic Policy of the 1920s — is not enough. The big means of production and exchange must also become commodities. This requires at least $1,000bn, a sum
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which is not available in present conditions, either in the West or the ex-USSR
It is also necessary for labour power to be subjected to the laws of the "labour market". This implies 30 to 40 million unemployed and a drop in living standards of the order of 30 to 50%; this will meet with fierce resistance.
The most probable eventuality is a long period of decomposition and chaos. Our modest but real hope must be that in this period the Soviet working class will be able gradually to reconquer its class independence. The main task of the small and fragmented socialist forces is to link up with the workers and aid them to over- 27 come the obstacles to that end. *
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International Viewpoint #221 • February 3, 1992 ex-USSR
On the edge of the volcano?
THREE weeks have passed since the main republics of the Commonwealth of Independent States
(SNG - the successor to the USSR) liberalized prices.Turmoil in the economy and in social relations is growing almost by the day.
Key products (now several times more expensive) are as scarce as before the reform;
discontent among the people is growing and has in some one ministry.
However, Yeltsin could be in desperate need of effective means of repression if the despair and spontaneous protests spread and turn into organized action.
There have been several outbursts of protest and riots — with a particularly violent clash occuring in the capital of Uzbekistan Tashkent, where police attacked students protesting against the effects of the price rises on their meagre grants. Some local strikes have been reported — for example, in the capital of Kazakhstan, Alma Ata - but the most important developments so far have been in some of the mining regions.
"Pre-strike readiness"
In the Western Siberian Kusbass the miners are in "pre-strike readiness" as the contradictions between the government and the strong workers movement in the Kusbass sharpen. Yeltsin can still count on a certain "state of grace" in Kusbass, but this may soon come to an end as railway workers, teachers, health workers and even policemen are announcing strike
The situation in the Donbass region of Ukraine and southern Russia is even more regions begun taking on organized forms while the liberal reformers in power seem increasingly divided about how to go
R USSIAN leader Boris Yeltsin
had a taste of popular anger when, during his "American style" campaign tour to explain the necessity of market reforms, he visited a supermarket in the city of Engels on the Volga.
The daily Izvestiya (January 9) reported: "The customers kept him for more than an hour. On the counters were sausages at 191 roubles a kilo, marmalade at 92 roubles, sour cream at 78 roubles, and the shop tried to sell butter at 270 roubles a kilo... Who fixes such perfidious prices? 'Nobody should dictate the prices, neither the producers and enterprises, nor the traders — only supply and demand' said Yeltsin, who was himself quite shocked."
It can hardly be the level of prices that shocked Yeltsin, since the president and his team have been well aware of the consequences of freeing prices in an economy totally dominated by bureaucratic monopolies; however, the reaction of the customers may have given him a chilly presentiment of the troubles ahead. Indeed, some republican and regional authorities have already back-tracked on parts of the steepest price rises. 28 fidence in the sun pol of the conomic A recent opinion poll showed that conforward. POUL FUNDER LARSEN policies of the Yeltsin government dropped from 53% on January 2 to 42% on January 16. However, a majority of the people still maintains a wait-and-see position hoping that Yeltsin's promises will come true, so that in "half a year the first improvements will occur."
This gives the "democrats" a little room for manoeuvre, but the contradictions within the Yeltsin camp are multiplying with both vice-president Rutskoy and chair of the Russian parliament Khasbulatov openly criticizing the record of the government and (more or less explicitly), Yeltsin.
Recently Yeltsin also had to recognize a major setback for his efforts to centralize powers and create a strong repressive force. The attempt to set up a Russian "Ministry of Security and the Interior" (MBVD) was halted by a decision from the newly formed Constitutional Court of Russia, ruling this an unconstitutional
The idea had been to merge the structures of the KGB and the Ministry of the Interior (MVD) into one extraordinarily powerful body. This aroused strong reactions from many sides (including some of the "democrats") evoking fears of a new structure akin to Stalin's NKVD, which had also united all repressive forces in tense; the general social crisis of the mining regions is taking its toll and the breakdown of economic links between regions and republics accelerates this process. Some miners in the Donbass have already stopped working: "Life in the Donbass has become 8-15 times more expensive. Not only parts of the production, but whole enterprises and combines [of enterprises] have stopped. Thus on January 13, all mines in the Dzherzhinskugol combine (obedinieniya), where 20,000 miners are employed, had to stop the production of coked fuel, because of lack of wood for shoring up the galleries." (Izvestiya, Janu-
Meanwhile in the Karaganda field of northern Kazakhstan by early January the miners went on strike over the issue of wages and the sharing of incomes from coal production. According to Pravda (January 15), ten mines were on strike, and the strikes were continuing despite the intervention of president Nazarbayev and his prime minister.
In a telephone interview with /V on January 21, the Moscow leftwing Vadim Damier summed up the situation
"The mass of people are still rather passive, though certainly angry. So far in Moscow, the neo-Stalinists have been in the forefront of organized protests, while the 'official' trade unions have generally not taken major initiatives. The Russian 'official' trade unions (FNPR) are torn between a certain political loyalty to the Yeltsinites and the growing pressure from below. The left wing, for its part, has organized some demonstrations, but so far without a mass response." *