1. There is, to be sure, a sector of Russian private business today in which the "primitive accumulation of capital" has already been carried out. In this sector, a point in the concentration of wealth has been reached at which stability is more important than rapid enrichment. This explains the fact that some of the right-wing parties which at first gave their silent assent to a "police action" in Chechnya later came out against an escalation of the war. They need stability and order, not the chaos of an ill-prosecuted conflict.
Blood for oil are under way in the autonomous republics and regions of Russia. The power wielded by Dudaev is a small piece of mirror-glass in which our general problems are reflected. In Chechnya we see the same low level of legitimacy (three years ago Dudaev, with support from
Moscow, dissolved his own parliament).
We see the same massive disorganisation
Labour Focus on
Eastern Europe
Issue, No. 49 includes:
7 Trade Unions in Russia and
Ukraine
7 PDS Victory in the German
Elections
7 Budapest International
Conference of the Left 1994.
7 Dossier Fascism in Europe
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The old regime in Russia collapsed three years ago, without being replaced by a clear alternative. Many members of the old elite are still in power, including 61 of the top 100 richest 'honest' businessment. According to Russia specialist Freddy De Pauw, a journalist at the Flemish newspaper De Standaard, economic interests in Russia are organised through a number of lobbies, of which the oil producers and traders are particularly important. "The oil-trading companies, whose legal status is very unclear, are considerable source of revenue for the bureaucracy. Between $US18 and $US25 billion have been syphoned off, mainly into Swiss bank accounts. This lobby is active at the highest level of central power. At the same time, all kinds of local potentates want to control privatization in their' regions. This leads to all kinds of conflicts inside the bureaucracy. The mafia is also involved in the commercialisation of oil. To take one example, all the oil in the Vladivostok region of Siberia was stolen by the local bureaucracy and sold directly to the west, without passing through Moscow. "Chechnya's own oil resources are not very important, but the region is vital for the control oil resources in Azerbaidjan and Kazakhstan. A consortium of Azeri, British, Turkish, Norwegian and U.S. interests was in place to export the product of three oil fields in Azeri territorial waters in the Caspian sea. The plan was to export the oil via Turkey. But Russia blocked the deal. Moscow is determined to control oil flows in the region. And the pipleines which link the oilfields in Azerbaijan to Russian ports on the Black sea pass through Chechnya." * Freddy De Pauw was interviewed by our Brussels correspondent Alain Tondeur. The full version of this interview was published in the Belgian magazine La Gauche on 12.1.1995. La Gauche, 29 rue Plantin, 1070 Brussels, Belgium, tel. (+32) 2/523023, fax 522 6127
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