Western aid as "free cheese in a mousemation. Ogorodnikov, Y. Tverdochlebov.) 3,000 members. (Leader: A Chuyev). Solotaryov, M. Globachov.) Astafyev, D. Rogoshin, A. Shamin.) THE PARTIES OF CAPITAL
The All-Russian Union of the Renewal: is the political wing of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, which has formed a union
The increasingly undisguised blackmail with similar organizations in all the other republics of the former USSR from the West reached its peak during the
About 1,700 enterprises have joined, accounting for 60% of the former
Sixth Congress of People's Deputies in
USSR's industrial production. The party as such was founded in June 1992
April, when US Treasury Secretary Nichoand puts itself forward as the "Party of the Managers". It has a massive las Brady threatened an end to all economic influence on the government. According to its vice-president V. Shumeiko:
aid if the Gaidar government, which resi-
"we need a class of owners and all those now directing production should gned briefly, was not reinstated. 12 be a part of it". Its model is Japan's Liberal Democratic Party. Its member-
During and after the People's Congress ship is unknown. (Leaders: A. Volsky, A. Vladislavlev, V. Shumeiko.)
strong criticism of Gaidar was voiced in the
Party of Economic Freedom: began its activity in May 1992 on the ini-
Supreme Soviet, circles of politically tiative of K. Dorovoy (head of the Russian Goods and Raw Materials influential intellectuals (for example, Yav-
Exchange), drawing its support from the new rich. Its founding congress is linsky and Petrakov) and the corps of enterprise managers. The wave of publicly
Russian Party of Free Labour: was founded in December 1990 as "a expressed discontent marked a stepping up party of economic liberalism" and "a party of owners of means of produc of the power battle within the Yeltsin-led tion". Its 3,500 members are mostly from the new bourgeoisie. (Leaders: V.
coalition. An attack spearheaded by the
European Liberal Democratic Party: formed in April 1990; with some
6,000 members it sees itself as the party of private property. (Leader: V.
10. Pravda, May 7, 1992.
11. Trud, August 6, 1992.
12. On the question of foreign pressure Gaidar told
The Economist of April 25: "On balance that is helpful.
It could harm us if it is overdone, if the country
14 thinks outsiders want to make economic policy for
I us".
planned for October 1992
German, I. Korovikov.)
September 28, 1992• # 235 International Viewpoint managers of state enterprises, but involving significant parts of the old ruling nomenklatura (including the military parts) put Gaidar on the defensive.
At the end of May the influential Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs. which consists primarily of managers of state enterprises and is led by former top apparatchik Arkady Volsky, founded a new political party called Renewal. A month later the new party went on to form a broader political bloc, the Civic Union. This alliance also includes vice president Alexander Rutskoy, the People's Party of Free Russia (which, rather dubiously, claims 100,000 members), Nikolai Travkin's Democratic Party of Russia (with 50,000 members) and New Generation (smena) parliamentary faction.
The Civic Union brings together industrialists (including many from the militaryindustrial complex), military leaders and high-ranking state officials, who support the Yeltsin presidency, but want a different reform strategy to Yeltsin's. They put emphasis on a strong Russian state — implying a readiness to intervene in the internal affairs of other CIS states - and an economic reform highlighting "the salvation of the nation's industry" through a slower process of liberalization under tight state control.
### Cabinet reshuffle
By early summer it was increasingly clear that Gaidar's breakneck liberalization had failed and this was reflected in the cabinet reshuffle carried out in early June. Vladimir
Shumeiko, a former enterprise manager and a close ally of Volsky, was appointed first deputy prime minister (on a level with Gaidar) and other Civic Union supporters were incorporated into the cabinet. As the proliberal weekly Kommersant put it, under the headline "A new phase of reform, the directors take power": "In fact this new phase is the long forgotten 'gradual crawling to the market on the basis of a strengthening of the fundamental branches of the economy' devised by Nikolai Ryzhkov and Valentin
Pavlov in 1990-91."13
Meanwhile the industrialists sought new partners to improve their position: on July 8 the Russian Union of Industrialists and
Entrepreneurs entered into a formal alliance with the leadership of the Russian Federation of Independent Trade Unions (FNPR).
In the framework of a so-called Assembly of Social Partnership they are now jointly publishing the mass-circulation daily Rabochaya Tribuna. 14
A further sign of the strengthening of the industrialists — and yet another danger signal to Gaidar — came in July when
Volsky issued a joint statement with one of the most prolific and influential new rich entrepreneurs, Konstantin Borovoy. The statement strongly criticized the government's privatization programme as giving too much power to the state authorities. 15
Even if this alliance — and the one between Volsky and the FNPR - is unlikely to be prolonged, given that they are defending mutually contradictory interests in the privatization process, it does underline the extent to which the alliance around the enterprise managers has seized the political initiative. This key process in Russian politics has been described by Russian socialist Nikolai Preobrazhensky: "our directors are now making their entrance into the political arena - with all their experience, connec tions and economic power; well-informed; with their new, considerable freedom to do what they want; no longer subject to party tutelage; ever more distinctly organized into their various organizations; and able to count on the support of at least a part of the work collectives. It is they — not the workers movement (except for the miners) who have the best chance to influence real policy. "16
Grand plans postponed
Consequently, the government has been backtracking on a series of major policy issues: the grand plans for a swift move towards full convertibility for the rouble have been postponed. The freeing of all energy prices — a move which would precipitate a wave of bankruptcies) — announced in the official government memorandum to the IMF in March has been slowed
The cornerstones of the first phase of the
13. Kommersant, June 8, 1992. Ryzhkov and Pavlov were prime ministers under Gorbachev.
14.In spite of the massive onslaught on working people the FNPR leadership has refrained from an open confrontation with Yeltsin to the extent of signing a so-called General Agreement with the government and employers (worked out in a tripartite commission) by late March. The FNPR now admits that the government has violated virtually every single point in the Agreement. Nevertheless it is working on a new one for 1993.
15. Interfax, July 2, 1992.
16. "The disarray of social forces and political perspectives for the workers movement" in Rubikon, St.
Petersburg, spring 1992. Translated in the Bulletin in Defense of Marxism no. 99
17. Komsomolskaya Pravda, August 3, 1992.
RUSSIA shock cure, tight monetary and fiscal control, have also been seriously weakened. Several major outlays of credit to indebted enterprises have been announced both by the government and the central bank under its new, and less monetarist, head, Viktor Geraschenko. In early August, he promised that debts of enterprises to the state worth 1.5 billion roubles would be written off, a move which caused panic among hard line economic liberals.!?
In several interviews Geraschenko has dismissed the IMF-prescribed programme as harmful to the Russian economy and criticized the voucher privatization scheme as "an unserious whim reminiscent of the paper-money game Monopoly". 18 As the winds have changed even Yeltsin has had to distance himself somewhat from the IMF gospel: "At first the IMF wanted to apply its typical, classical framework to us. But Russia is unique and the reforms are unique. For 74 years Russians didn't know private property, real entrepreneurship and a market economy. Gradually people now find themselves in the market framework, but this is not simple. My warning is: you have to realize that a few months ago I didn't feel any limits to people's confidence in the reforms and the president, but now I do". 19
The industrialists' offensive
The inherent contradictions within the
Yeltsinite bloc and the industrialists' offensive may have temporarily led to the postponement of some of the government's more atrocious plans. However, this does not mean that the Civic Union, now setting the fashion, is anti-capitalist or pro-labour.
According to Volsky: "We are not preparing to topple the government, we intend only to help it."20
The Civic Union is operating within the
Yeltsinite framework, in itself a diverse and unstable coalition. In spite of several attempts to found an organization which could play a dominant role in the coalition
(a "presidential party" of sorts), this has not happened. In the absence of a "ruling party"
Yeltsin's presidency rests on his own wide- ranging powers and personal apparatus.21
18. See, for example, Izvestiya, August 24 and September 2, 1992.
19. Izvestiya, July 15, 1992. Yeltsin also stated:
"The IMF has pushed us towards a freezing of wages without a freezing of prices. But we didn't go that far".
20. Izvestiya, August 3, 1992
21. Neither the loose Democratic Russia alliance nor
• the Russian Movement for Democratic Reform has managed to transform itself into a "strong presidential party". Recently Democratic Russia underwent a serious split; some of its founders, including Yuri
Afanayev and leaders of its St. Petersburg branch left it after criticizing the degeneration of the movement into an obedient mouthpiece for the governing 15
22. Pravda, May 7, 1992. circles.
• POPULIST AND NATIONALIST PARTIES
People's Party of Free Russia: was fonded in Agust 1991 under the name of the Democratic Party of the Communists of Russia with 7,230 members, assuming its current name two months later. Its 100,000 memis headed by the former KGB general A. Sterlikov (head of Officers for the
Awakening of Russia) and the writer Valentin Rasputin.
Fascists: there are a series of organizations such as Pamyat or Rus-
Sian National Unity with several thousand members who have formed paramilitary organizations. They have not yet reistered as a party.
(Survey compiled by Hans-Jurgen Schulz) *
International Viewpoint # 235 • September 28, 1992
RUSSIA
This includes presidential representatives in all regions of the country, as well as newly formed "security council" (already dubbed the "new politburo"). Yeltsin's formal power is thus formidable, but it is uncertain to what extent this system actually works, bers (and more than 100 deputies) represent the reform minded wing of the old nomenklatura, which has increasingly taken a populist and nationalist line. "We are a pragmatic and non-doctrinaire party" states its Gudelines. "Our aim is not the setting up of a new society... but the solution of the concrete problems posed by life". (Leaders: Vice-president A. Rutskoy, V.
Democratic Party of Russia: was formed in May 1990 with the support of already organized opposition groups - Memorial, independent trade unions, Shield (the organization defending the rights of conscripts). Its 50,000 members are mainly drawn from the technical intelligentsia, many from the arms industry (represented by N. Tolstoy). Their president N. Travkin is a former apparatchik. The party calls for a market economy and wants to restore the unity of the former USSR. The authoritarian leadership style has led to many splits among which the Russian Bourgeois Democratic Party (1,700 members, same programme) which through I. Butov leads the World Congress of Russian Folk. Another is the Liberal Democratic Union of A. Murashov and the chess champion G. Kasparov, who in April 1991 split off a quarter of the party to openly propagate Thatcherism.
Russian Christian Democratic Movement: was constituted in April 1990 and has some 20,000 members (15 deputies), some of whom collaborated with the former system. Today it demands "private property and Christian justice, competition and solidarity, private initiative and a sense of responsibility". They want to revive the traditions of Russian entrepreneurship and demand a strong Russian state with new borders. (Leader: V. Aksyutshitz, V. Polossin, I. Konstantinov.)
National Republican Party of Russia: was created in April 1990, takıng as a reterence point the thinking of the writer A. Solzhenitsyn. It wants a "Russian Union" of Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan and the "rights of Russians who live otside their historic homeland to defend temselves, if necessary with arms". They have sent volunteers to South Ossetia (now in Georgia). Their chairman, N. Lysenko, is from the Pamyat movement and promulgates "legal and constitutional authority" and " collaboration with the army and KGB". It has 5,000 members.
Liberal Democratic Party of the USSR: was formed in 1989 with the support of the party aparatus. Its chairman, V. Shirinovsky, worked for the state-sponsored peace movement and helped himself to at least DM 3m. He was a candidate in the recent presidential elections, doing quite well (with 6 million votes - 8% of the total). The party is radical natonalist. The party emblem is notable: a falcon surrounded by a picture of the "old" Russian territories - including Finland, Poland and Alaska.
Russian National Union: was founded as a movement in October 1991 by the nationalist parties and a series of patriotic associations. It is for the family and tradition and sees itself as "an open movement based on state patriotic principles" and, as a "civil and patriotic union of the Russian people" wants to see "the rebirth of Russia in its historic borders".
A controlled market economy would be introduced in a ten-year transitional period. Yeltsin should be overthrown and indicted. At its congress in June 1992 it decided to create a shadow cabinet, whose composition has not been announced. The journal Dyen is close to it. (Leaders: S. Baburin,
Russian People's Assembly: is a union of the previously mentioned nationalist parties and movements, formed in February 1992. It is also supported by the Cadets and the hristian Democrats. Its aim is a government of national unity.
The Sobor of the Russian Nation: was fonded in February 1992 as a "Movement of Russian National Resistance", with about 1,000 members. It 16 ridden as it is by conflicting interests, rival cliques and corruption.
It is clear that neither the industrialists nor the predominantly conservative People's Congress/Supreme Soviet have any intention of pursuing a line consistently to the benefit of working people. Boris Kagarlitsky's description of the People's Congress hits the nail on the head: "It is not difficult to frighten it and, under the threat of dissolution, force it to carry out any programme of the government - and the People's Congress has already once proved its incompetence, foolishness and lack of ability to withstand manipulation when it handed over the power to Yeltsin and his team."22
It is vital for the embryonic Russian workers movement to maintain its independence and not subordinate itself to any faction in the aparatus. Nikolai Preobrazhensky makes this point emphatically when speaking about the attempts of enterprise managers to link up with the workers movement: "Generally speaking this classic paternalism ('there are no conflicts between workers and bosses; they are all one big happy family') is actually being advanced to justify a bid for the leadership of the workers movement.
### Director initiated strikes
"We must not forget that in our country we have acumulated three years' experience with "director initiated" strikes, particularly strike calls and pre-strike situations: in the Donbass, Tyumen, on the railroads and in Estonia... However the majority of the factory directors — even those who are concerned about the welfare of the collective as a whole... are at the same time against the independence and self-activity of the labour collectives".23
It is a sign of the weakness of rank-and-file social organization in Russian society that mobilizations in the streets and in the workplaces have played no direct role in halting Gaidar's programme. There is no doubt about the profound frustration among broad layers of the population. This has been revealed in countless opinion polls — for example in a recent one, people were asked what were the best years for Russians this century: 27% mentioned the Brezhnev years, 20% Tarism, 8% preferred the Stalin period, 6% that of Krushchev and only 5% the current period.24 Along with this frus23. Nikolai Preobrazhensky, op. cit. 24. Izvestiya, July 6, 1992. 25. Izvestiya, July 21, 1992.
September 28, 1992• # 235 International Viewpoint tration there is also a growing distaste for the whole political scene. A by-election in mid-July in the Dimitrov Region near Moscow saw a voter turnout of less than 30%25
So far the feeling of gloom, has only rarely been transformed into action. Compared to the spring of 1991 with its protracted miners' strike there was a clear drop in the number of strikes in the first six months of 1992. From January to April there were reports of some 3,000 strikes in Russia causing the loss of more than 1 million working days. In May the number of strikes rose somewhat, primarily due to strikes
Women and the
NEP
SINCE taking office after last summer's general elections in India, the minority Congress-l government has
RUSSIA / INDIA implemented a series of economic reforms as part of its among health workers and teachers - more than 300,000 people struck in this month. 26