Voices from the Urals
RUSSIA workers, pensioners and so on. But even the core of the industrial working class is facing hard times as the freeing of fuel prices, which will cause an avalanche of bankruptcies, and privatization draw near. The situa-
INTRODUCTION by Poul Funder Larsen
T HE Urals region, on
the border of the European and Asian parts of the former Soviet Union, is one of the main industrial centres of Russia. In the 30s, during the first five year plans, a series of huge projects were undertaken throughout the including construction of the Magnitogorsk Metallurgical Combine (at the time the biggest steel mill in the world, still employing around 65,000 people) and the Chelyabinsk Tractor Factory.
### Forced labour
Several of these projects employed forced labour -mainly "de-kulakized" peasants - on a large scale, and many camps of the Soviet Gulag were located here. The predominance of military production was further promoted during World War Il as enterprises from the western part of the Union were transferred to the Urals, and the production in a series of the region's factories was switched over to meet military demands. Due to the alleged strategic importance of these industries, the region remained largely closed off until the end of the 1980s. Today this high concentration of enterprises belonging to the military-industrial complex presents the region with a series of special problems, made still worse by the all-out liberalization course and the draconian cuts in public spending pursued by the Yeltsin-Gaidar government.
The social infrastructure is lagging behind that of the large urban centres such as Moscow and St. Petersburg, while the region's industrial centres, such as Yekaterinburg (formerly Sverdlovsk), Chelyabinsk, Perm, Magnitogorsk and Nizhny Tagil, are among the former USSR's most polluted areas. The slashing central resources allocated to social services, health care, environmental protection, culture and so on has hit
There have been some reactions to this: recently the Chelyabinsk Regional (Oblast) Soviet threatened to suspend all payments to the central budget since the dramatic restriction in money supply resulting from the government's fiscal policy is leading to an acute shortage of cash money in the regions, meaning that many public employees cannot be paid.
Wage differentials
In the Urals, as elsewhere, the five months since the start of price reform have seen a big differentiation of working class wages and living standards.
In some enterprises, in particular those in a monopoly position or operating in highly profitable sectors, wages have more or less kept up with inflation This is true for example at the Magnitogorsk Metallurgical Combine where workers get on average 8-12,000 roubles a month, way above the average industrial wage of 2-3,000 roubles.
Meanwhile, at the other end of the scale, misery is spreading among low paid, and especially, white-collar tion is particularly critical for most of the large military enterprises as ambitious defence programmes are wound up, while much advertised reconversion schemes have made little progress.
No mass protests
So far there have been no massive outbursts of protest from the working class of the region, which is rather passive - as was seen during the 1989 miners' strikes, when there was widespread sympathy for the miners' demands but little in the way of strikes and solidarity actions.
Nonetheless, some groups of workers have been on strike over the past few months for higher wages and for better conditions for the public services, including teachers, healthworkers and bus dri-
This increase in militancy among some groups, though still in a defensive framework, could provide an opening for some of the region's Marxist groups to try to link up with the radical wing of the workers' movement.
During the 1980s a series of such groups -small socialist study circles and workers' clubs - surfaced throughout the Urals and in 1990 the most important of them came together to form Rabochii ("Worker"), a "social and politial
Below we publish three interviews with activists from Rabochii groups in Perm and Chelyabinsk. All were conducted in April in the Urals by Poul Funder Larsen. * 23 June 8, 1992• # 230 International Viewpoint
"The workers need
International Viewpoint # 230 • June 8, 1992 been taken, and what has happened with the so-called
"small privatization" of housing, shops and so on?
independent organizations" BORIS Ikhlov from the Rabochii group in Perm is a veteran of the socialist opposition and one of its most active publicists and organizers.! Educated as a physicist in Perm and Moscow, he was refused the right to conclude his dissertation because of his political activities. During the perestroika years, he was a member of the independent Union of Communists based in Perm, which later formed the backbone of the local Rabochii group. With its 1.2 million inhabitants Perm is one of the region's major industrial centres strongly feeling the impact of the crisis in the form of social problems (including malnutrition and an acute housing shortage) and a very bad ecological situation.
OULD you outline the reaction here in Perm to , the general decline in living standards over the last few months?
At the outset everything was pretty calm. But now, most of the factories are in prestrike readiness. The drivers and the polishers are preparing to go on strike.
The miners here are trying to rid themselves of the restrictions of the official trade union. One newspaper has even called for the formation of a consumers' movement against the trade sector to stop hoarding of goods. The drivers are primarily demanding the maintenance and replacement of the buses. the polishers want a wage increase so they get 5,000 roubles a month.
The same thing is happening in Chelyabinsk, Magnitogorsk and Sverdlovsk. The drivers are going into action on their own initiative.
The teachers' actions have had very little success. The doctors have carried through a one-day stoppage, but it is clear that some hospitals will be closed. Overall one must say that such strikes are only a transient form, a first step.
So far no political structures have been founded. In that sense, everything is as before, except that there is a booming trade sector.
This is spreading into the administration; for example the so-called commercial departments of the city administration are buying sugar for 6-7 roubles and selling it 24 for 60 roubles.
• What is the state of the workers' movement here? In Moscow, it is the organizations originating in the former Communist Party -conservative among them - who have set the pace of protest over past months, while the official trade unions have been very slow to react. Is that a picture one can recognize in Perm as well?
There is a relatively large, effective and aggressive group here of the Russian Communist Workers Party (RKRP).2
Earlier it seemed that collaboration with them would be possible, but they don't really have any constructive proposals. They convened a demonstration recently, but only a hundred people showed up; people are getting tired of demagogues.
As for the workers' movement in general, it is still difficult to identify genuinely political forces. There is an association of enterprise managers, in which some deputies are participating
The labour collective councils (STKs) from different factories have met a few times. Now the regional council of the (official) trade unions are organizing an employment service, but nobody trusts
The workers need independent organizations. I don't believe it is possible to reform the official trade unions in the provinces; they are not able to work.
They don't understand what politics is about; they can't take any political steps or propose constructive solutions. They can't even provide a lawyer to help a labour collective or reinstate someone in a workpla• There has been much talk about the government's grand privatization schemes; however the sparse information in the press indicates that, while official privatization has hardly started, the so-called "nomenklatura privatization", whereby people use the powerful positions they held in accumulate property, is steaming ahead. What concrete steps towards the privatization of the large state enterprises in the region have
The telephone factory, which is a monopoly enterprise, has become a form of joint-stock company; but in reality it is technically bankrupt. No one is in a hurry to privatize because no one knows what it means, and what social actor is in charge of the process. The trade unions do not know who to negotiate with when there is no leadership. We are seeing a destruction of vertical ties, which means a crash. However it is not to Yeltsin's advantage to obliterate the vertical structures, since it could lead to his own downfall.
At the moment our industry can only make a transition to a level of the market of the last century. Yeltsin wants to show the West that Russia will have a market economy, but he is not rushing to implement this inside the country.
Many political parties believe that the labour collectives should have the right to economic management of the enterprises, but this means a lot of work without real rights.
It is equally erroneous to say that the labour collectives should be given ownership rights, if this is simply a law stating that the collective is manager of something, when in reality the workers are not at all managers, have not yet reached that point.
There are today 82 million workers in this country, which means that the syndicalist idea is absolutely justified, but I think that the conditions for such a slogan have not yet matured.
If the workers at once got the right to distribute profits, the enterprises would be ruined. The profits would go straight into pockets, because people are tired of being hungry and miserable. It is necessary for new forces to emerge, but so far there are no workers' committees in any of the fac-
On housing privatization: the representatives of the regional soviet and administration are intimidating people, saying they have got to have their flats privatized. But in fact housing privatization is physically impossible to carry through. As for shops, here mafia structures are carrying out the privatization. Economic levers are replacing the levers of political power.
What is taking place is simply the taking down of the signboard "socialism" and the putting up of one saying "capitalism". Instead of the "power of the workers and peasants" we now have "privatization". And the latter is really just robbing and looting; this does not lay the foundations for a market. • As yet unemployment in Russia is not high, but enterprises are
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RUSSIA
cutting production, s en ding workers on "compulsory holidays" or preparing for layoffs. It is well-known that many of the big enterprises are only still functioning because they are riding on a wave of credits. What do you think will happen when this comes to an end and mass unemployment
They have "promised" that by the end of the year there will be hundreds of thousands of unemployed. In a way, people have been cutting off the branch they were sitting on. In the Lenin plant here, for example, 37,000 people are employed and a cut of 3,000 jobs is envisaged.
But from some workers you get an ultra-right point of view; we will sack some of the spongers and the money we get from that will go into our pockets.
Of course, it is an illusion that layoffs will solve the problems of pay for those still employed. As soon as people are out of the gates they turn into competitors for those still inside. Then they can start reducing wages using the threat of the unemployed who will fight to get a job.
If unemployment rises by one percent, we will see crime rise by several percent. This is not the West. In this country it is impossible to contain ten to 15 million • Perm is known as a very polluted city - has this triggered off an ecological movement of some kind?
Ecology was one of the main issues for our "Union of Communists", as it is now for Rabochii. We are the leaders of an ecological committee which actively supported the movement in the Maysky settlement, when 70 million roubles was allotted for putting a purification system in a plant, without any steps towards this actually being taken.
Because of our pressure, the regional soviet prohibited the building of a nuclear power station. Perm is among the ten most polluted cities in the Soviet Union and this includes radioactive pollution. There are a large number of people suffering from cancer in the region. • Finally, I would like to comment on the development of your own organization, Rabochii and the role you think it should play in this period. You have been participating in some of the preparatory meetings of the Partiya Truda (Party of Labour) initiative. How should the task of building a workers' party be approached today?
We started out as an academic group discussing what we could suggest to the workers — does soviet power exist in the enterprises? The next step was a critique of anti-worker legislation.
We considered it was impossible to solve the problems of the working class without solving those of the intelligentsia, but this was not a very constructive position.
The most consolidated group is the one in Sverdlovsk, though it has undergone a split, as has the one in Chelyabinsk after the collapse of the People's Front of the Urals.
In Perm there are now attempts to organize the Party of Labour through the regional trade unions; however, I do not believe they are really interested in setting up the party.
I cannot support the formation of the party from above. I can propagate the idea of a Party of Labour, but people are tired of parties. I think structures have to arise in the provinces and then we can negotiate with Moscow.
We need permanent reports from the centre, which I hope the Party of Labour can provide. But I think we have to start work at the regional level. Workers will not join some alien organization.
Our task is to help them organize so they can deal with politics. However neither Sotsprof not the Party of Labour have worked out constructive positions, they have just adopted slogans copied from Western models. I think we have international tasks as well; we shouldn't stick to the national level. But so far we don't really have contacts in the international workers movement — we hope to get them. * 1. See his article in Socialist Alternatives, no. 1, Montreal 1991. 2. The Russian Communist Workers Party is the main force in the conservative Trudovaya Rossiya ("Working Russia") alliance. It has a strong neo-Stalinist wing, but it also contains some more moderate (although noticeably traditionalist) elements. 3. Sotsprof (formerly "Socialist Trade Unions", now renamed "Social Trade Unions") is a federation of independent trade unions set up in 1989. At the outset some socialist forces participated in the project, but later it adapted to liberalism, entering into an alliance with private business interests. Today it acts largely as the Yeltsinite "company trade union".
RUSSIA
At the
Lenin
Plant
SERGEJ Porosjin works at the Lenin Metallurgical Plant in Perm. He is a member of the trade union committee, and also of the union "Rabochii"
H AS the privatization of
the Lenin plant been The factory has been declared a state enterprise, which means that it will remain the property of the ministry and not get privatized. But within the factory small commercial structures, where one shop gets autonomy, are appearing. The founder of these structures is the management, which means that the leasing agreements set up are not real, but ficti• Has there been a reduction in production at the plant?
The number of state orders has been reduced, but generally there are enough new orders. The question of unemployment remains theoretical, because everyone needs steel. But the salary is very small — 2,500 roubles a month. We recently had an increase of 600 roubles, but this is not a genuine indexation. Still there is no activity among the workers. • What role is played by the official trade union and council of the labour collective?
The council of the labour collective has practically ceased existing. Today the only head is the head of the shop. The factory has absolute power. The trade union does as the manager says, as its apparatchiks are linked to the management. • Have you tried to build links with the labour collectives of other enterprises?
Yes, but they do not allow us to do so. This is only for the union apparatchiks.. Now it is difficult, because these links broke down, and we have to start again. • What has happened to the old party structures in the factory?
Our former party committee is a part of the organizing committee of the Russian Communist Workers Party. They are still holding together, preserving the structures. No one has lett, and all the old cadres from 25 the Brezhnev period are still there. * June 8, 1992• # 230 International Viewpoint
Tankograd's second battle
RUSSIA DURING the Second World War the industrial city of Chelyabinsk in the southern Urals, with 1.5 million inhabitants, was dubbed Tankograd (the Tank City) as its vast tractor factory was adapted to produce the tanks crucial to the Soviet victory in the war. Today the city and its people are facing yet another tough struggle as large parts of its industry is threatened with closure. Here, Vladimir Resnits, a worker and member of the Chelyabinsk Rabochii group, gives his account of the situation in today's Chelyabinsk and of the possibilities for building an opposition among wor-
OULD you say a few words about your own background - how did you become an activist in the Rabochii group?
For more than 20 years I worked as a turner. Then, about two years ago I stopped working and decided to become a fulltime activist. For a long time, I didn't get any money for this.
I had some savings, but they also came to an end, so I started distributing workers newspapers to earn some money. Now they have started paying me. I am a member of the leadership of the Rabochii union, which is not a big organization. • Chelyabinsk is dominated by military production; what is the current state of the enterprises in this sector?
In this region around 94% of enterprises were linked to military production, though some of them were only making spoons
Now, when military production is being reduced and in some places even totally liquidated, many workers, including skilled workers, find themselves out of work. Unfortunately there is no sign that new jobs are being created for these people and reconversion of the enterprises does not look very promising.
So, large groups of people are simply being sacked. The cooperatives, which have been organized and where people used to get work, are not able to employ such a mass of people. I worked at the Tractor factory in 1988, and at that time there were 68,000 people there.
Today, only around 47,000 are left, which means that 21,000 are already gone, and recently at a conference the general director of the factory, Loschenko, disclo26 sed that by the end of this year, another International Viewpoint # 230 • June 8, 1992
20,000 jobs should go. • What is the situation regarding privatization here?
At the Congress of People's Deputies, Yeltsin said that before the end of the year (that is in the autumn, or perhaps December) everyone will get an account or a voucher for the privatization. By now, people have lost even the modest savings (of say 10-15,000) that they used to have, because all the prices have increased from between ten to 100 times. Therefore ordinary people cannot buy anything now, and the privatization is only for those who managed to collect something in the old days or those who have made a fortune recently. The millions and billions are only in the pockets of a few people and among our party matia. This scheme of accounts or vouchers means that everyone will get a certain sum, for example 7,000 roubles, to buy property. But already in the Brezhnev years I could make 7,000 a year. So what kind of money is 7,000 roubles, or even 70,000 roubles, when the prices can go up another ten times. • Are there any attempts to promote alternative models of destatization, for example in the form of collective ownership, counterposed to the projects of the Yeltsinites?
Unfortunately no really serious attempts have been made. The Tractor company is now trying to turn itself into a joint stock company with the following design: around 800 million from foreign capital, 360-400 million to the workers, that is the labor collective, and a part for the ministry, which still existed, when the project was drawn up. Now the ministry has been turned into a holding, but it is still a state structure run from above. So the workers will get only 15-20%, and there is no talk about them receiving the controlling stake. • Has the shift of power within the top echelons of the bureaucracy, from Gorbachev to Yeltsin, had any repercussions on the regional level, here in Chelyabinsk, as regards the power structures running the city and the oblast?
The head of the administration of the Chelyabinsk region (oblast) is Solovyev, the former secretary of the city committee of the CPSU.
The head of the executive committee of the region's administration is Sulin, who was in the same structures. Around these people you find many former Communists, who threw away their membership card; they didn't even shed their skins like snakes, they remained the same. Behind these people there are seemingly others operating, because for example Solovyev was supported for the post only by a small group of deputies. They wrote a letter to Yeltsin, who endorsed the appointment of this person. Someone has pushed his candidacy, or perhaps Yeltsin knew him personally, since he himself was the secretary of the Sverdlovsk regional party committee nearby. This is how it goes - the old ties remain. • During the "democratic phase" of perestroika there was a rather
People's Front Chelyabinsk. What has happened to this organization and to its
At that time the people of this front united all the organizations, which were formed here, with a few exceptions. I think that this was organized by a decree from above, because the majority were members of the party, and so was the leadership, though there were workers in this leadership. On the basis of the People's Front several societies were set up, for example a temperance society, and so were the local branches of the different parties; the social democrats, the Democratic Party and so on. Basically the People's Front disintegrated into a series of parties, and the people who founded it became the leaders of various structures. So instead of the Front you have got ten or twelve parties, which are still more or less controlled from • How do you view the political situation at the level of the enterprise? Are there any serious political forces operating in the factories?
So far it is mainly silent indignation. In some places there have been small strikes, for example, on the level of the shop or the department, not even on factory level. Now the Communists have begun to revive; there are already several parties. When they convene demonstrations more and more people attend, which is in itself significant. But they don't have much support among workers, usually it's engineers, clerks, foremen and pensioners as well. • Could you comment a little on the line pursued by the official trade unions in this region - dc you find it likely that they can somehow be reformed?
Maybe it is possible to reform the struc tures at the lowest level, for example in some shops or even enterprises. But above these there are structures which are impos-
INTERNATIENAL sible to reform. Since the price reform the trade unions have been maneuvering at the top level, making noises, but I haven't seen them protect their members in practi-
RUSSIA ce.
On the other hand the trade unions, which call themselves "free" and have MARXISTREVIEW been trying to establish themselves, are weak. I think this goes for Sotsprof; I have seen their leaders, and I don't think they will do anything for the workers. It is my impression that these trade unions, which arose outside the official structures, have practically ceased existing over the last two years, because they couldn't do anything. While those that fell under the influence of official structures are only fulfilling official decrees. • How was the union Rabochii formed in Chelyabinsk?
In 1989 the People's Front here organized a workers' group, which was basically a discussion club. I participated in this from the very beginning, when there were around 80 people, and a certain level of
Itar perestrel - what mass
URSS, Poland, Chins,
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split. They formed their Soyuz Rabochikh
(Union of Workers) on a democratic basis;
while I grouped some people around me, who didn't reject the socialist idea. In the summer then the Obedinyenii Front Trudyzayikhaya (United Front of Toilers) was set up here, also as an initiative coming from above. We went to Sverdlosk to their
Russian congress, but 80% of the people there were trade union functionaries, and only a few real workers. We had a look at it, but did not join. At that time we got in touch with the Sverdlosk Workers' Club and started debating with them. In the summer there was the miners' strike, and then in December a meeting for the organizing committee for a Konfederatsia Truda
(Confederation of Labour), where representatives of the miners in Kusbass and
Vorkuta took part. The congress of the
Confederation of Labour took place in the spring of 1990. We attended once again, and saw the same undemocratic games, games of the apparatus, being played; a situation for which we were badly prepared. However we managed to keep clear of this, and we didn't stay in the Konfederatsia Truda for long, though we were on its council of representatives.
We had consultations with the people from the other cities in the Urals and decide to set up our Union after two working sessions in the winter of 1990. From the outset groups in Sverdlosk, Chelyabinsk,
Perm and Magnitogorsk participated. At that time we were around 200 people; that is activists. Later, in the summer of 1991, some groups from the Volga region joined. Unfortunately we have lost a lot of force since then. If we look at the situation in Chelyabinsk today there are few really active workers, perhaps two dozen or so, but that is not much for a city of one and a
People have not yet learned to stand up for themselves. The workers' movement is still in an early stage. When I worked at the Tractor factory, for example, in 1988, people were ready to go into action if the economic interests of the shop or the brigade were being affected; but today even this scarcely happens. • Over the last period several projects to found a workers' party or a Party of Labour have been launched. What is your attitude to
As regards the Party of Labour, Kagarlitsky has announced an orientation to skilled, highly qualified workers. But this is hardly more than one in fifteen or one in twenty of today's working class. Of course there are such workers, with higher education, intelligent, full of initiatives, specialists in their field, and so on. But it is a minority, and if they are orienting only towards those they won't get any broad support. So as a party of the labour aristocracy, in the western sense, it could have the right to exist, but as a party of broad layers of the working class it doesn't make sense. In 20-30 years, after a generational change, such a party could take off. That is if we manage to stay clear of a total domination from the West, and if we are not turned into some kind of an appendage, producing raw materials. Still I believe it would take at least twenty years before our industry, which would indeed need that kind of worker, would really be transformed on a broad scale, and thereby create a more or less broad base for this type of • So if you think it is premature to found that type of party what kind of organization is it possible to aim at at the present time?
Today it would make more sense to form active trade unions, independent of the official structures. This is obviously very difficult, but if we managed to set up such unions, which would concretely defend people and their social rights, then it would unite a broad range of people not around a specific ideological tendency, but around basic demands. On the basis of these unions it could be possible to found real political organizations. The workers could tencians from a polowbility to control their 27 politicians from below. * June 8, 1992 #230 International Viewpoint
International Viewpoint # 230 • June 8, 1992 rently tell the difference between a bribe and a "commission" but the difference is often lost on foreigners. For instance, British MP Ken Livingstone, invited to Moscow by the Party of Labour, observed that under British law Popov would be put on trial for his activities, and that his public statements would be considered evidence of guilt. Popov took offence, and initiated a libel suit against the paper, Nezavisimaya Gazeta, which had quoted Livingstone's remarks. Soon afterwards,
The scandal then died down. A few of the circumstances should be clarified. Borovoi had personal grounds for his accusations against Popov and ViceMayor Yuri Luzhkov. A good deal earlier, Luzhkov had made a massive gift to Borovoi's RTSB. This took the form of depositing the monetary assets of the Moscow Social Security Fund, established in the autumn of 1990, not in a state or municipal bank but in the bank of the RTSB. The sum involved was more than a hundred million rubles, at that time a very large amount of money. The vice-mayor's action raised many eyebrows, since mayor's office? It's official: ten percent of the total value of the deal. IRINA GLUSHCHENKO AND
BORIS KAGARLITSKY
T HIS figure was specified in a
recent interview by Moscow mayor Gavriil Popov himself. You can't get much more official than that. Speaking to a journalist from the weekly Argumenty i Fakty, Popov explained that he was categorically opposed to "blackmail", but that he had nothing against the making of payments to officials for services rendered. The mayor agreed that this could be called bribery, but maintained that it would be more correct to describe it as the payment of "com-
Popov complained that he was always embarrassed when he did not know precisely how much he should give people in order to show his appreciation. In America, he had discovered, about 15% of the total value of a deal was considered appropriate. But in the more straitened conditions of Moscow, he thought 10% was suffi-
District attorneys in the US would, no doubt, be intrigued to learn who it was of Popov's counterparts in American local government who furnished him with this information. Unfortunately these details were missing from the interview.