On top of the rubble
AS the 8th Congress of People's Deputies was drawing to its close, Sergei
Shakhrai, main parliamentary advisor to Russia's President Boris Yeltsin during the congress, told Russian television: "If we do not settle this dispute we are on the brink of a situation where revolution and chaos
International Viewpoint #244 April 1993
The growing independence of different parts of the apparatus and the breakdown of governmental structures which was already apparent in the Gorbachev era has accelerated as the reform has removed government will prevail". POUL FUNDER LARSEN — Moscow, March 17, 1993
E VEN though there is certainly
no revolution — or even major mass mobilizations - on the cards for the immediate future, it is true that the outcome of the congress represented a serious blow to attempts to streamline an efficient and centralized power structure in Russia.
Underlying all the fluctuations in the relationship of forces between the congress/parliament and the president are fundamental shifts in Russian society, which to a large extent determined the outcome of the congress.
These are, notably, the failure of Yeltsin's economic reforms - and consequently a rapid fall in his popularity - translating into a crisis for the whole neo-liberal project; the strengthening, within a "statist" consensus, of opposition forces, which, nonetheless, remain divided into a multitude of different currents; the passivity of the working class ration which may soon overshadow the fight for leadership at the weakened centre.
The defeat suffered by Yeltsin at the 7th People's Congress in December 1992, where he had to abandon his neo-liberal prime minister Yegor Gaidar, was neither unimportant nor essentially the result of machinations by forces around Ruslan Khasbulatov, Chair of the Supreme Soviet. It was first and foremost an expression of the growing resistance to the reform in society in general and in the apparatus in particular.
Gaidar's reform programme gave unilateral priority to "financial stabilization" along lines obediently mapped out in a memorandum to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in winter 1992. But the extremely ambitious targets for cutting the budget deficit, slashing inflation and moving rapidly towards convertibility for the rouble, were never met. The programme has caused a major drop in the living standards of the population as prices have risen about twice as fast as wages throughout 1992 and the start of this year. This has meant an average net drop in real wages of a third. Meanwhile, industrial production plummeted by around 20% in 1992, investments were cut by 50% and no financial stabilization whatsoever
At the end of 1992, inflation again approached 40% a month, while all dreams of rouble convertibility (originally envisaged at 80 roubles to the US$) were long forgotten with the rouble trailing at more than 500 to
However, after the 7th People's intact (in the absence of Gaidar himself and were implemented. Indeed, the Chairman of the State Committee for Property (minister for privatization) Anatoly Chubais spearheaded a stepping up of privatization to "make the transition to the market irreversible". By the end of 1992, only 10% of enterprises in Russia had been privatized - and those were overwhelmingly small enterprises in the trade and services sector. However, by late January a wave of auctions of larger enterprises was underway, including, most recently, of the huge Zhil car enterprise.
The failure of Yeltsin and his team to take any notice of the signals from the 7th People's Congress to slow down market reform united the opposition in the runup to
Growth of regionalism
But the impasse of the neo-liberal economic reform had other, possibly more serious, consequences for Yeltsin than alienating most of the People's Deputies.
controls, thus injecting further instability and inequality into relations between regions, branches and state institutions. The rift between the administrative branch (the soviets) and the executive which reached a peak at the 8th Congress, can be found at all levels.
One example among many is the dispute between Moscow's mayor Yuri Lyushkov and the Moscow city council which has been stripped of nearly all its powers. In this climate corruption is becoming a massive social phenomenon as state institutions, commercial structures and in some cases organized crime merge.
The loss of his overwhelming popularity after the failed coup of August 1991 has further weakened Yeltsin's position. He remains the single most popular politician in Russia - with vice-President Rutskoy not far behind - but for the time being polls reveal a population in their majority not prepared to endorse Yeltsin or any other leader.
Yeltsin's declining popularity is an indication of the breakdown of the liberal ideological hegemony of the past three years. Under the slogan "a return to the civilized world" (that is, capitalism) the liberal intellectuals and new entrepreneurs, in an alliance with a part of the old nomenklatura, managed to win widespread backing for their market reform.
But as the real face of the civilization on offer has become apparent and after Yeltsin's claim that things would begin to improve by autumn 1992 turned out to be hot air, the belief in the market as a miracle cure has quickly receded.
In the runup to the 8th People's Congress, Yeltsin therefore resorted to two of his old stock-in-trades: the populist calls for a referendum with highly slanted questions on the establishment of a presidential republic and the right to private ownership of land were combined with increasingly explicit threats of a coup d'etat in the form of "direct presidential rule" if the congress failed to comply with his demands.
In his own words: "It is necessary to res1. Vesti, March 12, 1993. 2. On the Gaidar reform, see International Viewpoint 235 September 28, 1992. The rouble currently trades at 700 to the dollar.
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International Viewpoint #244 April 1993 pect the constitution, but if the conservatives go to extremes in demolishing Russia, then in order to save democracy, in order to save the reforms..."
And the liberal weekly Kommersant added: "Either the 'fourth scenario' [a coup] is implemented or the mere threat of it pushes the deputies towards a compromise" 3
While Yeltsin is counting his losses the parliamentary majority - symbolized by Khasbulatov — was almost unanimously being declared the victor of the 8th People's Congress. But it was a victory that raised as many questions as it provided answers. First of all, the opposition is tremendously heterogeneous both inside and outside parliament and can hardly be said to have a common goal, let alone programme.
Beyond counteracting Yeltsin's economic reform and curtailing his powers, the congress majority behind Khasbulatov consists of deputies from some 10-11 parliamentary factions and countless parties. They span moderates (the Civic Union), die-hard nationalists (The National Salvation Front) and several kinds of neo-Stalinist organizations. The common denominator is first and foremost the call for the re-establishment of a strong state both in connection with the eco nomic reform and in foreign relations.
The words of Sergei Polozhkov, a leader of the Civic Union, describes the economic thinking: "There are two possible roads of development for Russia — either a 'Latinamericanization' with a loss of political and economic sovereignty and the omnipotence of corrupted bureaucrats, or the preservation of the industrial potential, a reasonable policy of structural investments and state control over the transition to market relations in order to bring an end to the crisis"4
In foreign relations, the congress majority is inclined towards a firm line in relations with the West, a re-orientation of Russian foreign policy towards Asia and a more interventionist approach in dealings with the "Near Abroad" (the CIS). At least on the latter point, Yeltsin has moved closer to the congress majority.
### Outspoken opposition
Developments over the past year have radicalized the opposition to Yeltsin. Moderate oppositionists such as the Civic Union's Arkady Volsky have faded somewhat and more outspoken figures such as the "patriot" Sergei Baburin have come to the forefront. Khasbulatov is a useful barometer. Originally seen as a liberal when he succeeded Yeltsin as Chair of the Supreme Soviet in 1991, until the 7th Congress he acted mainly as a buffer between Yeltsin and his most radical critics. But at the 8th People's Congress he came out against Yeltsin's whole reform project in a vehement speech calling for the ouster of Anatoly Chubais and foreign minister
However, this polarization remains a phenomenon confined to faction fights at the top levels of state and does not correspond to any growth in organized popular resistance
Inside the opposition a clear, and worrying, trend is the growing prominence of what can be termed "the new right". Increasingly broad layers of the opposition endorse chauvinist positions and it is becoming increasingly difficult to distinguish the neoStalinists from the patriots inside their so-called "red-brown" alliance. On the eve of the congress, Gennady Zhuganov, the chair of the newly-formed Russian Communist Party (itself a fusion of currents from Gorbachevites to Great Russian chauvinists) presented
"Today in Russia there are no organized forces able to resist the current rulers, propose and realize a constructive programme for a rebirth of the country and the salvation of its people. The Communist Party, uniting with the patriotic movements, can become such a force" 6 Many of the leaders of the neo-Stalinist currents are now courting the patriots in this manner, giving priority to a bloc "for Russian national salvation" over and above considerations of democratic rights in Russia and the future coexistence of nations on the territory of the former USSR.
The 8th People's Congress saw a spectacular breakthrough for the regions of the Russian Federation, which are becoming major political players at the national level. Pressure from the regions was probably the main reason for the failure of Yeltsin's referendum plan and in the coming period there will be hectic efforts from both parliament and executive to canvass support from the regions for their projects for political and economic reform.
The centrifugal forces unleashed by perestroika and the post-perestroika market reforms which during the Gorbachev years were mainly visible in the disputes between the union republics and the centre, have gained immense momentum and now threaten to tear apart the Russian Federation, which consists of 83 regions and 19 republics. The Federation treaty of March 1992 — one of Yeltsin's few political victories after August 1991 — stipulated a new division of powers between the Russian centre and the regions (which received control over land resources), but the treaty has never been enacted.
The regional and republican bureaucracies, which have been freed from administrative constraints and all-embracing control from the centre, and which are now in a favourable position to extend their powers and enrich themselves, are unlikely to surrender this new found latitude.
Any force at the centre will have to pay a high price to get regional backing for its policies. In the medium-term the centre may be forced to accept that the Russian Federation develop towards a type of "Euro-Asian" confederation.
This development has already begun: "if the federal power is weakened then the authorities in the regions, and particularly the republics, will be ready to replace Moscow's crumbling mechanisms with their own power structures, their own far smoother cooperation between the branches of power, and most importantly their own conceptions of state building, which are still missing at 3. Kommersant, March 8, 1993. 4. Rabochaya Tribuna, March 11, 1993. 5. On Russian policies towards the CIS see /V #237, October 26, 1992. 6. Pravda, March 10, 1993.
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