Perestroika and employment THE MASSIVE STRIKE by Siberian miners that started on July 10 marks a gigantic step forward for the movement for a democratic revolution in the Soviet Union. The miners have demanded not only better wages and conditions but new elections to their local soviets and union organizations, and a new Constitution by November, Leadership of the strike is reportedly in the hands of an independent workers committee.
The strike may also challenge the project of the liberal wing of the bureaucracy and their intellectual supporters. The theorists around Gorbachev view egalitarian "prejudices" and the right to work as crucial obstacles to their plans. While some Soviet newspapers are attempting to portray the strike movement as a sign of support for the official version of perestroika, the strikers have also been warned that their action may lead to an 'uncontrollable situation with unpredictable consequences*
The following article looks at the progress and impact of the Soviet bureaucracy's attempts to "ratlonalize " the use of labour, DAVID SEPPO
DAVID SEPPO down is of course easy," he said, "but is that the best path?" Such "cooperatives" often seem to be privatization wolves in social sheep's clothing.
Up until now, the workers have suffered from Gorbachev's market and productivity reforms. The miners seem, at least in one respect, to have begun to challenge them, as well as poor living standards imposed on them by long-standing economic, environmental and social mismanagement.
The reform process first began to get out of hand with the rise of movements for national-democratic rights, starting in Armenia and the Baltic republics. They were the icebreakers of independent mass organization. These movements have continued to grow and radicalize and more and more are arising. Before the outbreak of mass workers' strikes, they had already created an atmosphere of crisis.
In his report to the CC, Gorbachev cited three main tests coming up for perestroika: the CC plenum on the national question scheduled for the end of July, the elections for local and republic soviets scheduled for the spring of 1990 and the second session of the Congress of People's Deputies. In particular, defeats for the CP in the elections for the republic supreme soviets could represent a serious political challenge, since these bodies are formally sovereign.
Concession to nationaldemocratic movement
Since the elections the Lithuanian Supreme Soviet, still entirely in the hands of the CP, has made a big concession to the national-democratic movement, voting a sovereignty law similar to the one voted by the Estonian Supreme Soviet in November. In its time, the Estonian action set off a howl in the official Soviet press. Now, official spokespersons have begun to refer to the Estonian and Lithuanian laws as "interesting experiments."
It is symptomatic of the regime's retreat that in the front-page report in the July 20 Pravda of the USSR Supreme Soviet session, Gorbachev's speech, centering on the miners' strikes, was followed by a statement of M. Shakhanov recalling that in the Congress of People's Deputies he had demanded an inquiry into the suppression of the December 1986 protests in Kazakhstan against the replacement of Kazakh leader Dinmuhamed Kunaev by a Russian. At that time, the regime tried a general crackdown on "nationalist deviations." Now it has once again put a Kazakh in the top position. *