Improved working conditions, such as clean drinking water. • An end to indiscriminate layoffs, and firings for union organizing.
We have postcards, fact sheets and other materials which you can adapt for local organizing efforts.
% Disney/Haiti Justice Campaign, PO. Box 755, Fort Washington Station,
New York, NY 10001; (212) 592-3612. E-mail <bloom@soho.ios.com>.
* USA Residents and other Louisiana activists are fighting the proposed complex, which would manufacture 1.1 billion pounds of PVC plastic (better know as "vinyl") each year. They argue that Louisiana authorities would violate federal civil rights laws if they licensed the Shintech plant in a predominantly African-American community where pollution is already making people sick The outcome of this civil rights battle will set important legal precedents.
There is no reason to believe that Shintech will bring economic prosperity to the county, St. James Parish. The community already has a variety of high-tech toxic industries, yet 40% of its residents live below the poverty line.'
According to a representative of the Louisiana Chemical Association, 99% of industrial plant systems are now computer controlled so chemical plants are highly automated and the few plant operators who have jobs must have computer skills, as well as a good working knowledge of physics and chemistry.
Like most counties in Louisiana, St. James Parish have few residents with the skills necessary to work in the petrochemical industry. There are only 17 African Americans in St. James Parish who qualify as engineering technicians.?
Shintech promises 165 permanent jobs and $500,000 for job training in St. James Parish. However, neither Shintech or local officials have taken any steps to guarantee that residents of St. James Parish or even Louisiana will be hired.
Although it is typical for governments to require a percentage of local hires in exchange for tax breaks, Louisiana officials have agreed to give Shintech $130 million in tax breaks without setting any terms that directly benefit Louisiana citizens. For every permanent job offered by Shintech, Louisiana taxpayers will subsidise the corporation
THESE EXPLOITED WORKERS
MAKE ONLY 284 TO 354 AN HOUR,
OR ABOUT S* FOR EVERY DISNEY
GARMENT THEY MAKE! 22 International Viewpoint #306 December 1998 with nearly $800,000 in tax breaks."
As the world's largest user of chlorine, the PVC industry creates unique dangers that other plastics industries avoid. By its own admission Shintech would release nearly 600,000 pounds of toxic chemicals into the air per year (out of an annual total of nearly three million pounds of air pollutants). It would pour nearly eight million gallons of toxic waste water into the Mississippi River each day.*
One of the principal pollutants from Shintech would be vinyl chloride. According to the Environment Protection Agency (EPA), "vinyl chloride emissions from PVC... cause or contribute to air pollution that may reasonably be anticipated to result in an increase in mortality or an increase in serious irreversible. or incapacitating reversible illness. Vinyl chloride is a known human carcinogen which causes a rare cancer of the liver." s Shintech's Convent plant would be one of the largest PVC production operations
A recent front-page series in the Houston Chronicle detailed how the vinyl industry has manipulated vinyl chloride studies to avoid liability for worker exposure and to hide extensive and severe chemical spills into local communities. The Chronicle reported that a Shintech facility in Texas accounted for nearly half of all "fugitive" air emissions of vinyl chloride monomer in Texas from 1987-96.°
Vinyl chloride production is also inherently a source of dioxins, a highly toxic substance that can cause cancer and other illnesses in humans even at very low exposure levels.' Dioxins are a global health threat because they persist in the environment and can travel long distances. At the levels to which the general population is exposed, dioxins have been linked to immune system supMAGIC KINGDOM!!
pression, reproductive disorders, a variety of cancers, and endometriosis.
In 1994 the British firm ICI admitted that they had known since 1989 that dioxins are an unavoidable consequence of making PVC.
Dioxins created by vinyl chloride production are released by on-site incinerators, flares, boilers, waste water treatment systems and even in trace quantities in vinyl resins.°
Around the world, scientists have identified high levels of dioxin near PVC production facilities. In 1996, scientists investigating dioxin in the sediment of the Rhine River in Europe found that overall dioxin levels have declined in recent years except for the specific types traceable to vinyl chloride production." In Lake Charles, Louisiana, high levels of dioxin-like chemicals (e.g. hexachlorobenzene) have been documented in the Calcasieu Estuary outside of the PPG and Vista Chemical PVC production plants." Vinyl production in a chemical complex outside Venice, Italy has polluted the Venice lagoon with dioxin.!?
Japanese communities are reporting some of the highest dioxin levels in the world from the incineration of wastes containing PVC materials.' It is ironic that while Japanese government officials are proposing restrictions on the manufacture of PVC products to avoid increased dioxin levels, Shintech, a Japanese-owned corporation, is battling to build a PVC production complex in
U.S. communities near vinyl production plants have already been hurt. In Louisiana, two poor African-American communities, Morrisonville (once next to Dow Chemical in Plaquemine Parish) and Reveilletown (once next to Georgia Gulf also in Plaquemine Parish) were bought out and razed by the vinyl
production companies because of ground water contamination. toxic air releases. and health problems suffered by residents."
At the African-American community of Mossville, Ethylene dichloride (EDC), a suspected human carcinogen used in the production of PVC, has leaked from the Vista Chemical and PPG facilities into the ground water.'
"The worst may be yet to come," according to the Houston Chronicle. "The 200-foot zone of the Chicot Aquifer, which supplies some private water wells, is tainted with EDC... The concern is that the compound will seep into the 500-foot zone, which provides city drinking water for more than 100,000 people." is
Even if Shintech could make PVC with less than 500,000 pounds of toxic air emissions per year, the corporation would be making a product whose use and disposal create severe environmental and health problems. Recognising this, Nike recently announced that it will remove PVC entirely from its products.!" PVC products create dioxins when Notes 1. For a more detailed discussion of the chemical industry and Cancer Alley see "From Plantations to Plants: Report of the Emergency National Commission on Environmental and Economic Justice in St. James Parish, Louisiana" (draft) August 15, 1998. Soon to be available from the United Church of Christ Commission for Racial Justice, 700 Prospect Ave., Cleveland, OH 44115. Phone (216) 736-2168. 2. See "The Myth of Shintech Jobs: Selling False Hopes to Local Residents," prepared by the Louisiana Environmental Action Network, 1998. 3. Louisiana Department of Economic Development, March 24, 1997. 4. Public notice, air permit application, Shintech Corporation, Dee. 1997, and Shintech Application [to EPA] to Discharge Process Wastewater (undated). 5. FEDERAL REGISTER Vol. 63, No. 83 (April 30, 1998), pgs. 23785-23786. 6. See Jim Morris, "In Strictest Confidence. The chemical industry's secrets," Houston Chronicle. Part One: "Toxic Secrecy," June 28, 1998, pgs. 1A, 24A27A; Part Two: "High-Level Crime," June 29, 1998, pgs. 1.A, 8A, 9A; and Part Three: "Bane on the Bayou," July 26, 1998, pgs. 1A, 16A. 7. For example, see F. Kizbullin and others, "Evaluation of polychlorinated dibenzodioxins and dibenzofurans emission from vinylchloride-monomer production," Organohalogen Compounds Vol. 36 (1998), pgs. 225227. This paper shows an emission factor of 12.71 ug TEQ per tonne of VCM produced.
burned, leach toxic additives during use and are the least recyclable of all major plastics.'
Because of these and other reasons a number of organisations have called for a PVC phase-out, including the American Public Health Association' and the International Association of Fire Fighters.2 The Association of Postconsumer Plastic Recyclers has declared PVC contaminant to plastics recycling."
Numerous businesses have either eliminated or begun working towards a PVC phase-out in their products and facilities, including Nike, Volvo, Saab, Braun, Ikea, the Body Shop, JM and Svenska Bostder (two of Sweden's leading construction companies). Major construction projects such as the Sydney 2000 Olympics village are being designed to minimise the use of PVC "by selecting alternative materials where they are available, are fit for the purpose and are cost competitive." *
Even the PVC industry itself cannot be eager to see Shintech come on line. A number of PVC companies (e.g. Geon 8. Report to the Chief Inspector HMIP Authorisation AK6039 Improvement Conditions Part 8, Table 8.1 Item 2. Formation of Dioxins in Oxychlorination, The Heath, Runcorn, England: ICI, Chemicals & Polymers Ltd., Safety & Environment Department, April 27, "94. 9. See Pat Costner and others, PVC: A Primary Contributor to the U.S. Dioxin Burden; Comments submitted to the U.S. EPA Dioxin Reassessment, (Washington, D.C. Greenpeace U.S.A., February 1995). 10. Erik H.G. Evers and others, "Levels, temporal trends and risk of dioxins and related compounds in the Dutch aquatic environment," Organohalogen Compounds Vol. 28 (1996), pgs. 117-122. 11. Mark S. Curry and others [of Industrial Economics, Inc.], Contamination Extent Report and Prelimiary Injury Evaluation for the Calcasieu Estuary, prepared for the Damage Assessment Center for National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Silver Spring, MD, June 16, 1997. 2. E. Benfenati, and others, "Mass spectometric analysis of organic compounds in surface sediments frome the Venice lagoon," a paper presented to the International Symposium on Chromatography and Mass Spectrometry in Environmental analysis. St. Petersburg [Fla.], October 3-7, 1994. 13. "Toxic Waste in Japan. The burning issue," The Economist, July 25, 1998, pg. 60. 14. Jon Bowermaster, "A Town Called Morrisonville" Audubon July/August 1993, pgs. 42-51. 15. Michael D. Campbell [of Campbell and Associates, Houston, Texas]. "Report of Expert Opinions on and Oxychem) have merged, which industry analysts suggest is due to "mounting losses in the vinyls business as prices dived [sic] in 1998. Even the most cost-efficient US producers are suffering as the Asian crisis slashes Asian import demand and operating rates plummet...
"Low growth rates in the mature European economies mean that the industry's problems cannot be hidden... " 24 Some major companies are bailing out. Shell announced in April that it was seeking a buyer for its vinyl interests, and companies such as Dow are hedging their bets by producing newgeneration polyolefins which analysts say will replace PVC in various markets, including packaging, auto interiors, wiring, flooring and other flexible
In sum, the production of PVC cannot in any way be considered "desirable" development in Louisiana or anywhere else. The battle against Shintech represents not only one of the biggest environmental civil rights struggles in the nation's history, but also a watershed moment that will impact national materials and chemical policies for decades to come. Either those who want to profit from the expansion of industrial chlorine chemistry will succeed, or the U.S. environmental movement will successfully draw the line in Convent by joining Louisiana's communities on the front line of the struggle, shouting "Enough is enough!" * This article was first published as "PVC & Dioxin: Enough is Enough", Rachel's Environment and Health Weekly #616, 17 September 1998. The subject was previously treated in REHW #615. Charlie Cray is with the Greenpeace Toxics Campaign <charlie.cray@green2.greenpeace.org> and Monique Harden is an attorney with Earthjustice Legal Defense Fund [400 Magazine St., Ste. 401, New Orleans, LA 70130]. Telephone (504) 522-1394; <mharden @earthjustice.org> CONDEA Vista Company's Lake Charles Chemical Complex, Westlake, Louisiana, in the matter of Vista Chemical Company and Conoco Inc. v. Geraghty & Miller Inc.," August 26, 1997. 16. Jim Morris, "Bane on the Bayou," Houston Chronicle July 26, 1998, pgs. IA, 16A. 17. Nike PVC Phase-Out POV/Talking Points and Q and A, undated (1998). 18. See R.W. Beck, "1995 National Post-Consumer Plastics Recycling Rate Study," September 1996. (see REHW #603) 19. American Public Health Association, resolution #9607, November 1996. See REHW #363. 20. Richard Duffy, International Association of Fire Fighters, Department of Occupational Health and Safety, April 14, 1998 letter to Concord School Board. 21. Steve Toloken, "Recyclers Tag PVC as Contaminant," Plastics News, April 20, 1998 p 4. 22. For a list of PVC bans see Chlorine & PVC Restrictions and PVC-Free Policies, compiled by Greenpeace International. Available at www.greenpeace.org/toxics/frame4cp.html. Select Policy, then PVC restrictions. 23. David Richmond, Director General, Sydney 2000 Olympic Co-Ordination Authority, letter to Dr. Nicole Williams, Chief Executive of the Plastics and Chemicals Industries Association, May 15, 1998. To learn about alternatives to PVC, go to: www.greenpeaceusa.org/campaigns/toxics/pvc_dist.htm. 24. "Safety in numbers," European Chemical News, July 20-26, 1998, page 18-19.
International Viewpoint #306 December 1998 23
Revolution, counterrevolution and proletariat
From Lenin to Yeltsin
* Russia Despite the three quarters of a century that separate the October Revolution from the collapse of the Soviet system and the present regime of capitalist restoration, the two revolutions' are part of the same socio-historical époque: the soviets' seizure of power in 1917 inaugurated a social revolution; the fall of the bureaucratic regime and the restoration that has followed represent the final chapter of the counterrevolution began under Stalin in the 1920s.
In both cases, the immediately determining factor was the correlation of forces between working class and bourgeoisie. From this point of view, a comparison of the two events presents a striking paradox. On the one hand, a very small working class in an undeveloped, peasant country was able to assume the leadership of society and to leave its determining imprint on the further course of social development. On the other hand, a huge working class in an industrialised, urbanised country was incapable of influencing the course of social change, watching helplessly as hostile social forces reshaped the system in their own image.
The intervening seventy-five years were a period of co-existence and struggle of revolution and counterrevolution, a period whose complexity does not lend itself to any simple formulation. David Mandel
The Russian working class of 1917 was a relatively small minority of the population, surrounded by a sea of peasantry with whom it had not entirely broken its ties. It was a recently formed class - most of its members had grown up in the countryside in peasant families. Its general level of formal education was low. Yet, it assumed the leadership of the revolutionary democratic movement and led it to victory.
Of course, the October Revolution was more than one revolution. Among other things, it was a peasant revolution and a series of national-liberation revolutions. But it achieved victory because it was predominantly a workers revolution. The abolition of private property, the planned economy, full employment, the relatively large and growing social wage and basic economic security did not all appear at once, but they had their 24 International Viewpoint #306 December 1998 origins in the workers' revolution.
True, the working class lost political power soon after seizing it. But that was expected by the revolutionaries when they took power in October. They were convinced that they would not be able to hold onto it without the support of the victorious revolutionary proletariat of the developed countries. Bureaucratisation...
What they did not envisage was that the loss of power by the Russian workers might be followed by something other than a bourgeois restoration. (They were ultimately right, but they did not think the restoration could take 75 years to happen.) But it was - it led to the dictatorship bureaucracy, whose interests were fundamentally opposed to those of the
Trotsky called the bureaucratic dictatorship a political counterrevolution within the social revolution.? This counterrevolution had a major distorting effect on the social revolution, but it did not lead to the restoration of capitalist relations. Accordingly, Trotsky called for a political revolution to overthrow the bureaucratic dictatorship and put the USSR back on a socialist path of development. He felt that capitalist restoration would be a tremendous blow to the working class, setting Russia back decades both culturally and economically. Today it is clear that he was right.
Various interrelated factors contributed to the unexpected longevity of a system that, from an historical point of view, ultimately did prove to be only transitional. But a central factor was the strength of the initial working-class impulse that made the revolution and the resulting social weakness of the bureaucratic dictatorship that eventually emerged. Without property on which firmly to base its power and without any real legitimacy (the facade of a soviet democracy was assiduously maintained), the Soviet bureaucracy existed in permanent mortal fear of the working class. It could not survive without its totalitarian repressive apparatus — Gorbatchev's liberalisation, which was the immediate cause of the regime's collapse, amply proved that.
At the same time, fear of the workers prevented the bureaucracy from achieving the security and stability it wanted and which would have required its transformation into a new propertied class, a bourgeoisie. ...and capitalist restoration
Around 1989, after his attempts at reform had fatally undermined the system, Gorbachev, in fact, did opt for restoration. But his fear of the popular reaction prevented him from proceeding in a consistent or decisive manner. (Around this time, a team from the Central Committee apparatus visited the Kirov Factory (and probably other large
plants) to gauge the workers' probable reaction to privatization.')
Gorbachev and his Prime Minister Ryzhkov were quite open about these fears when they replied to criticism from the radical restorationist forces. The Polish experience and the rising and inc-
Of course, there was more than wishful thinking to explain their optimism. The decades were passing and, if there were few overt signs of a maturing political revolution, there were also no obvious signs of the coming restoration.
Leftist analysts of the Soviet Union, myself included.
pointed to favourable objective factors, such as the growing size of the working class, the level of urbanithe failed coup of August 1991, had the workers wanted to take power, there was no armed force prepared to stop them.
Of course, the closer one gets to concrete reality, the more the distinction between "objective" and "subjective" appears artificial. But it has its heuristic uses. It should also be clear that the various factors discussed below are intimately interrelated and in practice inseparable. International context
Trotsky linked the fate of socialism in Russia with its victory in the rest of the world. If no victorious socialist revolution occurred in the developed capitalist world, then "a bourgeois counterrevolution rather than an insurrection of the workers against the bureaucracy will be on the order of the
[But] It, in spite of the united sabo-
J. W. STALIN J.W. STALIN reasingly politicised labour unrest in the USSR showed that he really did have something to fear.
But once the regime fell (it collapsed much more than it was overthrown), the working class almost immediately ceased to have any tangible influence on the course of social change. At most, it has had a small, indirect impact on the particular means chosen and on the pace of reforms, but not on their direction. Although the Yeltsin regime's repressive capacity does not even begin to compare with that of the old regime, it, nevertheless, does not fear the workers.
Capitalist restoration, and the relative ease (from a political point of view) with which it is proceeding, took the left outside of Russia by surprise, includingt those who subscribed to Trotsky s analysis of the USSR. They expected a political revolution which would put the USSR back on a socialist path of development. Instead, the political revolution lead to capitalist restoration.
Trotsky himself had been realistic enough to allow for this scenario, despite his general revolutionary optimism. Writing in 1936, he argued that restoration would be inevitable without socialist revolution in other developed countries. But most of his followers forgot this part of his analysis.
the rebirth of civil society that had been destroyed by the bureaucratic True, the Soviet quiescent, but in Poland powerful movements arose workers were, or eventually became, the leading force. These movements fought for democracy and self-management under a socialist, not capitalist, banner. They all failed, but that was largely a consequence of direct or indirect Soviet intervention. In any case, for Western socialists it was just hard to imagine that workers, having overthrown their bureaucratic oppressors, would let capitalist bosses replace
In this article, I offer some elements of comparison of the workers situations in the period of socialist revolution and in the contemporary period of restoration in order to shed some light on the paradoxical fact of working class hegemony in 1917 and its disconcerting weakness
The comparison will deal mainly with factors affecting working-class consciousness, the "subjective" things, since, the "objective" situation. on the face of it, was much more favourable to the workers at the time of the collapse than in 1917.
To the factors mentioned above, one can add the relative homogeneity of the Soviet working class, all working for the same employer (the state), who determined their basic material and work conditions, which were relatively egalitarian, as well as the weakness of the domestic capitalist forces: during or after tage of reformists and "Communist" leaders, the proletariat of Western Europe finds the road to power, a new chapter will open in the history of the Soviet Union. The first victory of a revolution in Europe would pass like an electric shock through the Soviet masses, straighten them up, raise their spirit of independence, awaken the traditions of 1905 and 1917... Only in that way can the first workers' state be saved for the
The crisis of the bureaucratic regime at the end of the 1980s occurred in a period of major setback and weakness of the socialist and union movements across the world. Not only are there no successful socialist models (the "Communist bloc" countries were themselves stagnating bureaucratic dictatorships and/or in the process of restoring capitalism) or advancing socialist struggles for Soviet workers to emulate, but there were not even any victorious defensive battles that could inspire them, as the bourgeoisie successfully hacked away at the post-war "welfare state."
In these circumstances, the argument of the pro-capitalist forces that "the whole world has embraced the market" that capitalism alone was "normal" carried a lot of weight among workers.
Moreover, these forces were backed up by the ideological, political and financial support of the international bourgeoisie. The international labour movement, in contrast, was practically absent from the equation, except as a mainly negative factor. The small amount of aid it offered was aimed at helping Russian unions to adapt to capitalism, not fight for an alternative.
Even worse, the AFL-CIO, which had by far the strongest presence in Russia, consciously directed its "aid" at splitting the labour movement in order to develop and reinforce an actively pro-capitalist labour current.
The international situation also played a central role in the October
International Viewpoint #306 December 1998 25
* Russia Revolution. It occurred in a historical period of mounting labour strength, marked by the formation of mass unions and workers' parties in the industrialised countries. While the outbreak of war and the betrayal by most of the socialist leadership was a setback, it was not a decisive defeat. The war itself eventually became a powerful radicalising factor, contributing to the unprecedented postwar labour upsurge that swept Europe and did not completely exhaust itself until the defeat of the German October of 1923.
The October Revolution was a part of this revolutionary period, even while being its first act. Workers all over Europe came to perceive the World War as a sign of the crisis of the old bourgeois order. Socialism for an increasing number of them, far from being a discredited utopia, as it appeared to many Soviet workers at the end of the 1980s, was a real, necessary alternative.
In Russia, which had the weakest bourgeoisie among the major powers, capitalist spokespersons were reduced to PROLETARYUSZE WSZYSTKICH KRAJÖW
LACZCIE SIEI defending their system with the argument that Russian conditions were not yet ripe for socialism (implicitly conceding its viability and inevitability). All over industrial Europe, it was the bourgeoisie, not the workers, whose decisive action was paralysed by the perception of a lack of alternative.
Had the October Revolution not been part of this international revolutionary upsurge, it would have gone down in history as a second Paris Commune. The revolution almost immediately found itself locked in mortal conflict with all the major capitalist powers. These rich and powerful states had been able to put millions of men under arms and to throw them into the imperialist butchery. But they could not win a military contest 26 International Viewpoint #306 December 1998 with the infant Soviet state, that had to build up an army from nothing, whose industrial based had collapsed, and which was sealed off form the outside world by an economic an diplomatic
As the historian W. Chamberlin put it: "There was one absolutely convincing reason why the Allied powers could not fulfil the hopes of the White Russians and intervene with large numbers of troops: no reliable troops were available. It was the general opinion of leading statesmen and soldiers alike that the attempt to send large numbers of soldiers to Russia would most probably end in
Mutinies there were. But the unreliability of the armies was itself a symptom of the period. According to Chamberlin: "The statesmen [at the peace talks] in Paris were sitting on a thin crust of solid ground, beneath which volcanic forces of social upheaval were
International labour support for the Russian Revolution took mostly an indirect form — class struggle that kept their ruling class too occupied at home and insecure to intervene more forcefully in Russia. But there were also many instances of direct, conscious support for the revolution.
At the same time, the expectation that substantive international aid would soon be forthcoming played an important role in sustaining the morale of the revolutionary forces in Russia. Spirits soared at each piece of news of major labour unrest abroad.
Conversely, the realisation, reinforced by the international labour defeats at the end of 1923, that the revolutionary wave in Europe had been beaten back everywhere except in Russia, had an important demoralising effect on Soviet workers that played no small role in the victory of the political counterrevolution. "Old system" consciousness
The relationship between the exploiting and exploited classes is the central factor shaping the consciousness of the oppressed class, even if its particular content at any given moment is determined by concrete historical experience and socio-political conditions.
The Soviet Union was a sui generis, transitional system, a hybrid with elements of both capitalism and socialism, while itself being neither. It was a totalitarian dictatorship of the party-state bureaucracy based upon a nationalised, planned (or administered) economy, whose official ideology was a castrated version of socialism spiced with nationalism.
Under Brezhnev it even acquired the shameful, semi-official label of "really existing socialism". Pre-revolutionary Russia, on the other hand, was an absolute monarchy resting upon a capitalist economy with strong vestiges of feudalism. Workers in both systems were wage-labourers, with their core element employed in large-scale, mechanised factory production. Nevertheless, these were two very different social systems and, accordingly, the worker consciousness that they generated also differed in significant ways. Class independence
I will look at only one central dimension of working-class consciousness: workers' perceptions of themselves in relationship to their exploiters. Do workers see their basic socio-economic interests as linked to those of all other workers, whose interests are in fundamental opposition to those of their employer, a member of the exploiting class? Or, on the contrary, do they perceive their basic interests as linked to their enterprise and to their employer?
The issue of class independence versus subordinate collaboration with the exploiting class poses itself similarly on the level of political action.
Of course, real-life consciousness is always more complex and contradictory than these "ideal types". Nevertheless, they represent the fundamental choices before workers. The exploiters and their ideologues constantly promote among workers one or another form of dependent class collaboration. Revolutionary socialists, on the other hand, promote the ideological and organisational independence of labour from the exploiters, while not ruling out temporary, tactical co-operation from an independent organisational ideological base.
One of the most striking traits of the Russian labour movement in the years leading up the revolution (this became especially marked in the 1912-14 labour upsurge) was the strength of its attachment to a policy of "class independence" vis-à-vis the bourgeoisie, on both the enterprise and national-political levels. It was this issue, more than any other, that divided the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks. It also explains why the Bolsheviks became the predominant political force in the Russian labour movement from at least 1912 onward (with a brief pause after the February Revolution).
The Mensheviks called for an alliance with the liberal wing of the bourgeoisie and, accordingly, for workers to moderate their demands on the employers, who would otherwise be scared into
The Bolsheviks, on the other hand, rejected any political alliance with the liberals, seeing them as a fundamentally opposed to democratic revolution. They encouraged and led workers in collective actions whose demands were indistinguishably directed against the employers and the state. Workers who did not support the Bolsheviks always supported one of the other socialist parties, never a bourgeois party.®
One of the objective factors that favoured this consciousness was precisely the "feudal vestiges". Russian society still bore many traits of an estatebased system. For example, elections to the State Duma were based upon curia, defined by a mixture of estate and property criteria (and overwhelmingly favouring the propertied classes). This favoured the workers perception of themselves as fundamentally separate from the propertied classes ("census
Another factor was the political and ideological weakness of the Russian bourgeoisie, which can ultimately be traced to its economic weakness and dependence on the state. This class on the whole did not feel itself able to make concessions to the working class, especially after the experience of the 1905 revolution that convinced the bourgeoise that the labour movement was bent on social revolution, posing a mortal threat to its very existence.
The Russian bourgeoisie was a reactionary, pro-Tsarist class; its liberal elements (some even briefly gave financial support the Bolsheviks) were a very small minority with little overall influence. In the circumstances of close collaboration between management and the Tsarist police in weeding out activists and repressing workers' collective actions, economic or political, there was little room for illusions among workers about shared interests with the bour-
Pre-revolutionary Russia was a socially and politically polarised society. The intelligentsia, which historically has acted as a bridge between the classes (ultimately serving the ruling class), was virtually absent from the labour movement after the 1905 Revolution. "Them and us" in the USSR
Soviet society presented a much more complex and contradictory picture. On the one hand, the bureaucracy's monopoly of power, the overall repressive framework of social relations, did foster among workers a sense of us against them".
This coexisted with a strong element of corporatism. That element became especially pronounced under Brezhnev. When Perestroika was going sour, some workers would refer to the Brezhnev period as their "golden age".
The bureaucracy itself was organised in a hierarchy of power and privilege, each bureaucrat under the thumb of his or her own bosses. This tended to blunt the "us and them" distinction, since workers could view themselves merely as the bottom rung of a continuous ladder.
Although the bureaucracy has often been referred to as a "caste". , it was far from a closed group. Most of the last group of leaders of the Soviet Union, including Gorbachev and Yeltsin, were not children of functionaries. Conscientious workers were typically urged to study to become engineers, and from there many began careers in the administrative hierarchy. Many directors began their professional lives as workers in the same plant. Conversely, children of bureaucrats rarely became bureaucrats. They mostly chose to become professionals in privileged sectors.
But more important were the clientelist, often corrupt, relations that flourished, especially under the Brezhnev regime. This period was characterised by the loosening of the central leadership's control over the bureaucracy, the de facto decentralisation of the political and economic administration. In these conditions, the dual role of the enterprise director, the minister, or the first secretary of a territorial committee of the party, became much more pronounced They were representatives of the state in the production unit, the economic sector, or the territory they administered; but, at the same time, they were representatives, lobbyists, defenders of the employees of the enterprise or the sector, or of the inhabitants of the territory vis-a-vis the state. Under Brezhnev, it was the latter aspect that was the most pronounced, as the economy became increasingly "feudalised"
The importance of the social wage, largely administered by the enterprise (including housing, sick pay, subsidised leisure and vacations, health-care, preschool childcare and more), as well as the growing practice of distribution of scarce consumer goods through the enterprises, also reinforced corporatist attitudes among workers, who were often called upon by management to "consider the situation of the enterprise", that is, to make concessions (especially on overtime and worked holidays) to help the enterprise meet plan targets.
There was a certain amount of threat behind these appeals: to refuse entailed risks. But the workers' generally positive response was also based on a perception of their interests as linked to those of the enterprise and to management.
Of course, for this system to work, management, had to give something in return. Besides the social wage administered by the enterprise, this took the form of managerial flexibility toward workers in work schedules and the toleration of violations of discipline, as well as making sure the workers got their bonuses (a large part of the take-home wage), whether they were merited or not by the enterprise's real production results. Democratic revolution
These aspects of worker consciousness were an important element in the course of events in 1917 and in the period of Soviet collapse, which offer some striking parallels and contrasts. In the first case, the democratic revolution (overthrow of Tsarism) was soon followed by the workers' taking power in both the state and in the enterprises, a
In the second case, the democratic revolution (the collapse of the bureaucratic regime was quickly followed by the complete exclusion of workers from political and economic power in a rapid restoration of capitalism.
In February 1917, although the workers briefly followed the Mensheviks in giving administrative power to a liberal government, they nevertheless immediately formed their own, separate, class organisations, the soviets.
In their view, it was the soviets that determined policy for the liberal government to execute. In the enterprises, too, they set up independent class organisations, the factory committees, which did not hesitate to encroach on managerial power when workers were faced with the threat of mass layoffs or plant closure.
The factory committees entirely from below - they had not figured in the programme of any party, though the Bolsheviks soon embraced and led them."
There was no significant tendency for workers in their separate enterprises to seize them collectively. Factory committee conferences consistently rejected anarchist proposals for the immediate seizure of the factories by their workers. These proposals were typically silent on the issue of state power.
In fact, the Petrograd Conference of Factory Committees was the first important workers assembly to demand Soviet power, only three months after the February Revolution.
At that and ensuing conferences, the worker delegates recognised that the bourgeoisie was not interested in averting the economic crisis, that a popular government, free from bourgeois influence, was a necessary condition for averting economic collapse and mass unemployment. Workers' control could be effective only in the context of national economic regulation and planning, and that required a soviet government.
Before October, outright plant
International Viewpoint #306 December 1998 27