In the last few months in particular, people have recognized the total failure of the existing system in East Europe with the plunging of the countries of the old "socialist camp" into the market. • You were explaining to me just now that the most revolutionary perestroika measures have themselves had contradictory effects. In particular, the increased rights given to the workers in the workplaces
The councils could appoint or elect the managers, set wages, organize production and divide up materials. In 90% of the cases, this changed noth- the cases, this changed nothing, given the inactivity of the working class. The old managements got themselves reelected.
In the other 10% of cases, the workers really took the initiative. But the results were not always what Gorbachev expected.
Sometimes they elected managers who were "better at cheating the central administration." Since the managers had no power over the targets of the plan or the sources of supply or the ends of production, the best manager was the one that obtained the most wages.
They often rejected work on the state farms in the summer, a system that required a certain number of workers to sign up as "volunteers" in order to relieve the chronic shortage of labor in the countryside at harvest time. So, this fall, when the potato crop has reached a record level, a large part will be lost because of a labor shortage.
Finally, there has been no push for the investment envisaged in those enterprises that most need it. The habit was established long ago of asking "what's the use" before undertaking anything. • In any case, people are left with the impression i that the economic situation is going from bad to worse; that is, worse than under Brezhnev, and even under Stalin, at least in the big cities.
Those who claim that it is worse than under Stalin are indulging in demagoguery. Under Stalin, maybe you could buy vodka or caviar, but few families had a home of their own. 7
But if you compare the situation with
Anne-Marie Fanon in Leningrad at the
USSR ten years ago under Brezhnev, or even three years ago under Gorbachev, it is evident that it has gotten a lot worse. The population is suffering especially from shortages of consumer goods, which aggravates their discontent. But the problems in the system of production should not be forgotten. The overall situation is deteriorating very rapidly. • Is it necessary to resort to Western market-type solutions in order to get out of the mess?
It is certain that a turn has to be made.
In my opinion, people are not fighting first of all against the privatizations but against the bureaucracy and the existing political system. It is only after this system is destroyed that we can go on to a new phase of struggle. • Does this struggle against the system involve rejecting all that the Bolshevik revolution represents, or is it directed only against present role of the party and the state?
Everything is being DelIg ble. • Is Gorbachev going to face strong opposition from the conservatives?
Certainly; we could even envisage attempts to liquidate him physically. For some conservative forces (certain sections of the army, both on the right and left) that appears to be the only solution. Gorbachev is mixing up the cards of the traditional political system and concentrating more and more power in his person (he is president of the USSR, general secretary or the party general secretary of the party
The majority of the solutions proposed are market oriented. In the short term, I think that we will experience a transition toward the market in which two different tendencies will coexist. On the one hand, there will be a need for administrative and command measures.
On the other, market measures will be applied. If all the reforms that go in the direction of the West European or Amerirejected. The media are and so on). reinforcing this rejec- OPTAMETAH He has a great personal tion of the October influence. Within the revolution. Anti- AKL CPSU itself, the secCommunism is retary-general in fact really very 0-80 is rising above the strong in the Central Committee, USSR. even contradicting its decisions. But if
What are he ever disappeared can market are instituted immediately, they will bring chaos. The problem is what such a market involves concretely for the East European countries and for the Soviet Union in particular. • In fact, while all the economists declare themselves advocates of the market, none is able to tell us how the Soviet Union is going to get there or how to resolve the question of the coexistence of different forms of ownership. Is there going to be opposition in the coming months to this privatization policy, and from whom?
That depends on whether this policy is actually applied. Privatization is a very broad concept. A lot of things can be put under this heading — giving factories to the workers or stores to merchants or to foreign capitalists, and so on. • But what can be envisaged? Most of the economists seem to rule out selling to foreign capitalists. Nonetheless, a lot are hoping to see foreign capital come in. Before 1917, Lenin said that foreign capital could be a blessing for us because the foreign capitalists were more cultivated than the Russian ones. But I do not think that in the present state of things the Western capitalists are very eager to invest here. What is really in the works for the Baltic countries, Moscow and Leningrad is privatization of the tertiary sector, commerce, small services, and so on. I do not think there will be any great resistance to that, as long as the living conditions of the population do not suffer as a result. But if privatization brings unemployment, if one monopoly is replaced by another, there will be protests. For example, in Moscow a lot of [subsidized] popular canteens have been closed. 8 charging prices five to ten times higher. 8 They have been replaced by cooperatives charging prices five to ten times higher.
the leftinclined political tendencies saying about this?
Such tendencies are going to grow. But it is hard to say how quickly. Today, they have hardly any weight. There are left organizations, but they are very small. They exist in the trade-union movement, and can have an influence in strikes, as we have seen in the mining regions. In the coming year, we will certainly see political differentiations. Objectively, there is a place for the left, but we cannot say today who is going to fill it. The great unknown is how the working class will react. • You hear people saying that this winter, because of supply problems, we can expect riots or upsurges of protest.
I don't want to play at crystal ball gazing, but I think we can expect violent protest actions in the Soviet Union. The system of production is collapsing, the distribution system too. We are not going to get through the winter without serious supply problems. Today, there is bread in Leningrad, Moscow and the big cities. But in the countryside there are places where there is none. • What solution can the Gorbachev team find for such an eventuality?
To maintain himself in power, Gorbachev cannot do without alliances with certain new forces or fail to invite them to take part in the government. I am referring to the People's Fronts and the so-called independent deputies, to sections of the so-called democratic movement, such as Yeltsin.
That can enable him to defuse the social movement a bit. Even if social turbulence does not exist yet on a large scale, everyone knows that it is inevitafrom the front of the political scene, the divisions would appear much more clearly. We met a former Red Army officer who drew quite a worrying picture of the evolution of this institution. He told us that the most progressive officers are leaving the army to join the democratic movement, and that soon only the most conservative people will be left, and that is a real danger.
That is true to some extent, but I don't have the impression that the departures are as massive as that. Reading Red Star [the army paper] you always wonder why a military coup has not yet happened! In this paper, you can read many letters of complaint about the deterioration of the state, about the republics where there are national movements, and so on. You can see the great discontent that is afflicting the army as a whole, all layers of it. The military feel that they have been chased out of East Europe. They are experiencing housing problems, a 20% cut in wages for the present year, and above all they feel that the USSR is disintegrating. If you pose the question of whether the army can be used to stabilize the situation, you have to ask yourself in which direction it would turn. Some sections even of the state apparatus are surely aggravating national and social tensions, a bit like Chile on the eve of the 1973 putsch, in order to impress on the mass of officers and politicians the need to call on the army to restore "order." • But it seems difficult to believe that people could think of stabilizing the situation by a putsch, given where things are today, with the collapse of the economy and the fact that the population has plunged
International Viewpoint #192 • October 15, 1990
through the democratic openings.
I am not sure that this situation is completely irreversible. If people think their house is on fire, they don't resign themselves to the irreversibility of such a situation. They try to take urgent measures. I would remind you of Poland in 1981, and that happened overnight.
However, it is certain that the army cannot hope to eliminate the economic chaos. It could, on the other hand, for example, try to resolve the inter-ethnic battles. It could restore at least a superficial peace and order, a certain status quo. But if the army feels it can accomplish this, it will not do that on its own (that is not in our traditions), but through the political apparatus or some of its factions, which will be officially given responsibility for restoring order. • What is the attitude of the Soviet masses toward the West European societies? They seem to have a very ill-defined image of our countries and to know only about the very high levels of consumption (by comparison with theirs) that may exist there. They seem to be largely ignorant of the real situation of the working people. Moreover, you seem to be saying that the situation in the USSR will evolve in accordance with what happens in West Europe.
In fact, here people admire first of all the United States, then Japan, and after that West Europe. Margaret Thatcher gets a high rating, because she seems to be a great friend of Gorbachev! A lot of people declare themselves supporters of social democracy, and Sweden is often cited as a model, along with West Germany. These countries can in fact seem to represent great progress by comparison with the present Soviet situation, but no one is saying how we can match them, or whether that is possible.
In my opinion, we have entered on a revolution, the second great revolution, a little like France in 1848 or the United States at the time of the Civil War. It is hard to predict how we will come out of it. I think that we will see great mass movements, perhaps clashes, and that the working class will play the decisive role. But I don't think that this is going to develop in accordance with the ideals of the left.
After 10 or 15 years of this new course, we will in any case be living in a society that will have a lot more capitalist features than today, and the workers' movement will be much stronger and more experienced.
But we will depend a lot on what happens in the West, because economic developments are very much linked, at least in their structure. This is certainly not an optimistic vision, but you have to be clear sighted and look at what's going on around you. *
USSR
TROIKAGLASNOSTPERE STROIKAGLASNOSTPER ESTROIKAGLASNOSTPE
RESTROIKAGLASNOSTP ERESTROIKAGLASNOST PERESTROIKAGLASNOS TPERESTROIKAGLASNO STPERESTROIKAGLASN
OSTPERESTROIKAGLAS
NOSTPERESTROIKAGLA
HE MAIN publication of the Latvian People's Front, Atmoda, published the note reproduced below in its August 14 issue. Edgar Savisaar, now premier of Estonia, was formerly its finance minister and is credited with authorship of the plan for regional self-financing for Estonia within the context of perestroika. He is also the leading personality in the Estonian People's Front. It should be noted that in general the cultural unions have been the launch pads for the people's fronts in the Soviet republics. "WITH THE FIRST HUNDRED DAYS of Edgar Savisaar's stewardship over, the new Estonian [People's Front] government is beginning to be criticized from both right and left. The criticism is not coming just from the Central Committee Bureau of the Estonian Communist Party and the Committee of Estonia [fundamentalist nationalists]. The leadership of the Estonian cultural workers' union has made the following demands on the government (as strange as it may seem to demand something from one's own government):
1. Without delay, to establish a minimum income, and to adjust wages, pensions, scholarships and support accordance with it.
2. To submit the government's plan to the people for judgment, and to delay full implementation of its specific features until it gets full approval.
3. To set a maximum price for necessities and farm produce.
4. To put the question of the Estonian government's cultural policy on the Supreme Soviet agenda". * THE LATVIAN Front Itself has been showing signs of sharpening social contradictions. In an interview in the August 28 Atmoda, Uldis Augstains, leader of the Front's Political Committee, was asked about what changes he thought were necessary in the organization's program. The first program (see International Viewpoint, No. 169, September 18, 1989) placed itself in the context of the Leninist tradition. The second, adopted last October, eliminated that, but left the general references to democratization and social protection. Augstains called for new changes in the upcoming third congress of the Front: "I express my own conclusion and that of several members of the Political Committee. In accordance with the status of the state, the part of the People's Front program on demilitarization has to be entirely changed. At the same time, the entire program has to be cleared of vestiges of the Communist ideology, which remain even in the second program. For example, the Leninist national policy is very positively regarded.
It has to be said clearly and openly that Stalinism is the price for Marx's economic utopianism, for Lenin's categorical principles about class and deviation from general humanitarian values. Without violence against people such a system cannot be implemented, and we must totally distance ourselves from this ideology."
In the same issue of Atmoda, an article on the first hundred days of the Latvian People's Front government said: "The government's lack of enterprising spirit on a question as important for restoring the health of the economy as privatization is explained by the fact that immediate privatization is opposed by Communists -Marxists, whose thinking is determined by the dogma that all evils come from privatization - and nationalists — Latvianist leaders of citizens' movements, who are concerned that capital and the means of production should be Latvian or at worst in the hands of citizens of Latvia according to the 1940 criteria [that is, before incorporation into the USSR]."
Such equating of "Communists" and nationalists in a pro-capitalist economic article in the newspaper of a mass organization built as a national democratic front cannot but be a symptom of sharpening contradictions.
An editorial in the August 14 issue (signed A. Kesteris) tried to put such contradictions in perspective. "The People's Front fundamentally includes conflicting ideas and currents. By its essence, it can- 9 not be any 'smooth lake' [literally, "pond
USSR for swans"]. The main contradiction that has existed in the organization's work until today is that between the need on the one hand to lead a democratic citizen's association that is getting rid of the leeches of the bureaucratic state, and on the other, a movement for social security, which is traditionally linked to the state as the just distributor.""'
The major debate in the paper in recent months has been over the idea of some leaders to form a center party. One problem that this debate reflects is how to respond to the centrifugal forces of political differentiation - which also affect the Estonian Front - but another concern seems to be a perceived need to find a way of resisting the pressures of right-wing ideologues. REPORTING the debate on the Soviet government's economic program, Pravda noted in its September 19 issue: "HE [Shatalin, author of the 500 day program for transition to a market economy] recognized that the standard of living in the various republics was uneven. For example, in Estonia it is more than three times higher than in Tajikistan. But in the present situation, he said, "it is an unrealizable task" to give the various republics equal starting positions. A regional development fund can play a role. But the republics themselves have to strive to develop their own measures for social protection." * Gorbachev was quoted as follows in the September 18 Pravda: "IF IN the first stage centrifugal tendencies, to speak frankly, isolationist and even separatist tendencies appeared, the further we have taken and deepened the program for transition to a market economy, the more agreement has developed not only about what the market should be like but about what our union of sovereign states should be like. In any case, the work on the economic aspects of the future treaty of union has shown that in the judgement of all peoples an advance to a new level of cooperation and collaboration is essential, with an understanding of the vital importance of maintaining the Union as a multinational state, based on the principles of free will, equality and collaboration of sovereign states."
In the same issue, Pravda published a dispatch from the official Soviet press agency, TASS, which condemned the dentified coith he Moser lovis stonlan Peopl 10 "Strike Committes. These organizations have tried, unsuccessfully, to prevent Estonians from gaining their national rights by staging strikes of Russian workers. The dispatch was a reply to a protest by the press service of the Supreme Soviet of Estonia against an article published in Pravda on September 11 and in
GLASNO PANCHO other official publications. The TASS dispatch said notably:
"A big role in increasing tension, in a witch-hunt against Communists, in whipping up inter-ethnic tensions has been played by the mass media in the republic [Estonia], and in fact there has been a news blockade of the healthy forces in Estonian society.
"The Republic Council of Strike Committees considers that the open letter of the press service of the Supreme Soviet of Estonia was itself an attempt to shift the blame for the mistakes and incompetence of government circles from the perpetrator to the victim, to drive a wedge between workers of different nationalities, to reverse the tendencies toward inter-ethnic consolidation in the struggle for the the basic rights of the working people of the republic. " * THE FAILURE of Gorbachev's initial attempt to tighten the centralism of the USSR has been confirmed by the official self-criticism of the Soviet authorities for the repression in Alma Ata, Kazakhstan in December 1986 (see International Viewpoint, No. 116, March 23, 1987). The September 29 Pravda reported: "IN THE course of the investigation facts came to light about violations of socialist legality by units of the internal security forces. According to the commission's assessment, more than 1,700 people were physically harmed.
It was established that..the number of those jailed...or taken from the city was
International Viewpoint #192 • October 15, 1990 about 8,500.
"In the resolution of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Kazakh SSR, it was noted that the actions of the Kazakh youth in December 1986 in Alma Ata were not nationalistic, and in the initial stage did not have an illegal character. The direct cause of the protest by the youth was open contempt for the opinions of the population and the mass of party members in the republic by the center, which, in accordance with pre-perestroika stereotypes appointed a party worker little known in the republic as the first secretary - an underestimation of the increased selfconsciousness of the people."* AN ESTONIAN Pravda's editors apparently liked was J. Sillaste, who was presented in the September 24 issue as an expert on the problem of unemployment. In an Interview, he said the following, among other things: "ANOTHER disturbing feature appeared. The percentage of women in work in Estonia is, I fear, not only a 'record' for the Soviet Union but for the world. Now we are paying for this in the health of children and the worsening 'quality' of the working class.
"When we divided the wages of professionals in three, women could no longer remain home. They were 'driven' into social production. And so we began to constantly proclaim that employment was the greatest good for women, that the emancipation of women helped them to realize themselves in work. We deviated from human nature, which manifested itself in the rule that men are always more inclined to realize themselves in the external world and women first of all in the family. Their main goal is always their concern about those close to them, raising children who will be higher 'quality' than the preceding generations.
"Now, this does not exist, and as a result the quality of life has declined. From generation to generation, the health of children has declined. They have become weaker in body and spirit. Women are torn by a contradiction. Their hands are occupied with work, but their thoughts are at home. And they cannot do anything about that. That is their social-biological function." * THE CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY of the Federation of Independent Trade Unions of Russia (FNPR) drew the following comment in the September 21 Pravda, under the headline, "Will the Unions Defend Us?":
"THE INDEPENDENCE from the manipulation of the government and trade-union apparatus and from all parties proclaimed by them in March impressed a lot of local unions. And today, the Russian Confederation includes 94 member organizations, 74 regional unions and 19 industrial unions. It includes more than 328 thousand base organizations, embracing 54 million union members.
"It should be noted that the process of forming the FNPR proceeded without any pressure, on the bases of freedom and free will. Thus, the congress completed the formation of the biggest union in the country, which will be an integral part of the renewed of VTSCPC [the All Union Central Council of Trade Unions]. In the political arena a trade-union body has appeared that will conduct direct dialogue with the government of Russia. The forms of collaboration have changed fundamentally. They will be determined from now on by agreements between me FarA on by agreements between the FNPR council and the government of the Russian Federated Soviet Socialist Republic."
Then the commentary moved on to more delicate subjects: "The congress did not reject the 500 Day Program adopted by the Supreme Soviet of Russia, although it expressed serious concer about the vagueness of social guarantees in the transition to the market. In connection with this, the trade-union representatives expressed the view that it was essential to call a 'round table' of representatives of the unions and the government. At this 'round table,' in the view of the delegates, it was necessary to assess the whole spectrum of problems bound up with the social consequences of the transition to the market.
"First of all, the unions expect the government to work out a program for creating new jobs and defending employment, material and social guarantees for the unemployed.
"Second, the market must not lead to increased exploitation of labor, and the present workweek must be maintained.
"Thirdly, the FNPR called for the introduction of dynamic scale of wages and pensions corresponding to the contribution of each worker and compensating for inflation and increases in consumer prices.
"The independent unions insist on an immediate improvement of guaranteed annual leave. They declared that the most important social task was the supply of the consumer market as soon as possible with at least the necessities."
The sting was in the final paragraph:
"The extensive and at the same time concrete program of the Russian unions is certainly impressive by its radicalism, novelty and its concern for the pressing needs of the people. But it is still only a piece of paper. The market will show how they are going to be paid." [Our emphasis.] *
USSR
Towards market
Stalinism? FACING economic catastrophe, the path to reform of the Soviet economy is now the subject of intense political struggle (see article by Catherine Verla.on page 3). All the running in this debate seems to be coming from various pro-capitalist currents, but below the an article written on August 31, DAVID SEPPO T HE STORM of protest pro-
Evoked last May by the government's "Programme of Accelerated Transition to the Regulated Market" came from two sources. The liberals were upset that the programme was too gradual and timid. They want a bold, swift transition to capitalism and cast admiring glances at the decisive policies of restoration in Poland and Hungary.
The population at large, on the other hand, was worried by the effects of the reform, most immediately the price rises, on their living standards, and by the spectre of mass unemployment. As one commentator put it, the government was wrong to propagandize only the positive side of the market, its efficiency, while failing to prepare the people for its "extremely cruel" side. For the market, he continued, "does not encourage, but rather forces, people to work well in order to live well. It is a system that deals mercilessly with slackers... and that holds unemployment, like the sword of Damocles, over everyone's head".
But people were also angered by the secretive, undemocratic nature of a reform process that aims to fundamentally transform their society. The following are excerpts from telegrams sent by worker collectives to the Russian trade union federation in response to the May reform programme; "We demand a referendum and the publication of alternative reform conceptions". "People do not know what a regulated market economy is. There is little information. The toilers of our enterprise demand a national discussion of this question". "The immedi-
Rate publication of other, less painful, alternatives for the transition to the regulated market is 1990. necessary". . "We must put an end, once and for all, to secrecy and incomplete information in discussing questions that are vital to people* Responding to the popular reaction, the trade union leadership, while continuing to support the regime's basic reform orientation, retracted its initial endorsement of the new programme and demanded a national referendum on the issue. This idea had originally been floated by the government itself - before it became aware of the intensity of the popular opposition.
Gorbachev aide berates popular prejudice
The liberals, for their part, rejected the idea out of hand. For example, N. Petrakov, personal adviser to Gorbachev on economic issues, while recognizing the existence of deep popular "prejudices" against the market, explained that "you can't ask people their opinions about things they don't know"3 (no doubt Stalin failed to consult the peasants about collectivization out of similar considerations).
Opinion surveys show that, despite the elections and other political reforms that have occurred, three quarters of the population do not feel any increase over the past two years in their ability to influence political life. This is especially true of workers (with the partial exception perhaps of the local soviets in the coal mining regions), whom perestroika has bought no closer to the institutions of power, political or economic. Workers constitute only a few percent of the delegates elected to soviets at the various levels. 1. Pravitel' stvennyi vestnik, no. 28, 1990, p. 1. 2. Trud, June 16, 1990. 3. Moskovatie novori, no. 22, 1990, p. 4; Rabochaya 11 tribuna, April 4, 1990.
October 15, 1990 • #192 International Viewpoint surface other tendencies can be detected, as David Seppo explains in
USSR
This would not be so important if democratic workers' parties existed, with clear programmes to which elected representatives who are not workers could be held accountable. But this is not the case. Nor is there any functioning recall mecha nism.
"At the end of 1989, we were told that it would be irresponsible to shift to the market in 1990", wrote a worker from Odessa. "Now, only a few months later, we are told that the government is preparing to do just that. [...] Why do the arbitrary methods of rule continue? Will there be real soviets of toilers?".
Strong popular support for referenda is not surprising, therefore, that sup ort for relerenda is very strong amon the population. According to opinion surveys, three quarters of the population want referenda on key questions of national and republican life and feel that they are a necessary measure for further progress in democratization? • A reader of the trade union paper Trud writes: "The Supreme Soviet blocked the passage of a law on referenda and thereby pushed people away from participation in the key issues of the reform. Yet just recently, the Supreme Soviet and the government assured the people that no important matters would be decided without their agreement"6
Responding to protests against the reform programme presented in May, the trade union leadership has also demanded that measures of social protection be given priority over narrow considerations of economic efficiency in the reform' . This popular stand, which, however, has not been backed up by any noticeable action on the part of the trade unions, has also earned them the anger of the liberals. Petrakov has castigated "the populist line of unions of the stagnation period" whose "socio-political demagoguery" seriously complicates the reform process
The Supreme Soviet itself, after heated debate, endorsed the general direction of the government's programme but sent it back to be reworked, postponing any decision on prices until the September session. It instructed the government to spell out more concretely the measures to be taken in the transition to the market, to incorporate suggestions made in the parliamentary debate and to prepare estimates of the social and economic impacts of different reform alternatives.
Although it was not immediately clear whether the Supreme Soviet was responding to the liberals' objections or those voiced by the general population, Gorbachev interpreted the Supreme Soviet's decision as a mandate to move even closer to liberal positions, including large 12 opale prol the soviet nine tachel eated scale privatizations and the accelerated influence of the world capitalist economy. On the sensitive issue of prices, the government was more cautious, speaking of a differentiated approach that would retain central control over the prices of basic goods and services.
According to Vice Prime Minister L. Abalkin, the transition to the market was now going to be accomplished within a maximum of six months. This new shift in the government's programme (more an acceleration than a change of direction) was formalized in Gorbachev's agreement with Yeltsin to jointly formulate an "economic concept" of a union treaty greone here publics. of Gal chees final conversion to their cause.
One of the most striking aspects of the government's latest reform activities is its abandonment of even the pretence of democracy. Over the summer, Gorbachev has been widely using his presidential powers to issue far reaching decrees, such as the one providing for the creation of joint stock companies including full property rights for private stockholders. These decrees are presented as "temporary", pending parliament's decision.
Government aims for a fait accompli
The government cites the urgency of the situation to justify its attempt to introduce the reform behind the people's backs and to create as much of a fait accompli as possible before they realize what has really happened. Of course, the situation is indeed urgent.
But it is Gorbachev's own reforms, by his own admission, that have created the situation of urgency by seriously aggravating the crisis inherited from the Brezhnev era. If this were a responsible government, it would have to resign, as the miners demanded in their one day political strike last July (it should be noted, however, that the miners did not include Gorbachev — despite his obvious unpopularity — in their demand that the government resign).
The government also retracted its hasty proposal of a referendum. Abalkin offered the following rather curious explanation - if the government's programme received a majority vote, it would become independent of parliament in carrying out the reform. Abalkin was apparently saying that this would be undemocratic. He failed to mention what would happen in the case that the reform was rejected by a majority. Abalkin noted that there are other ways of knowing public opinion and he claimed that opinion surveys show two thirds are for a transition to the market. . Even if this is the case, the Prime Minister himself (one of the more honest of the top officials) admits that it is not a conscious choice. It merely represents the hope for a better life. He too complained that the massive
International Viewpoint #192 • October 15, 1990 pro-market propaganda has left people unprepared for its cruel sides10
•
Of course, there is almost no one in the Soviet Union today who does not recognize the need for the expansion of market relations. But the vague phrase "transition to the market" can mean anything to the Soviet people from increased decentralization and producers self-management to the full restoration of capitalism. Abalkin forgot to mention that all opinion surveys that propose concrete questions concering such matters as large scale privatization, unemployment, price rises, decline in living standards, or economic differentiation, show that public opinion is strongly opposed to these crucial elements of the government's programme.
The government also responded in a curious way to the parliament's request that it examine alternatives. It set up a "committee on alternatives" and packed it with "radical liberals" ", appointing A. Agenbegyan and N. Shemlev as chairmen (the latter is a vociferous advocate of capitalist restoration).
Not surprisingly, according to Agenbegyan, his committee could find only three alternatives: maintaining the "command-administrative system" which has shown its inefficiency over the years; "market radicalism" whose social costs are too high; and the "regulated market", which is the government's position. There was no mention of a democratic and socialist alternative. The committee agreed with the government that the third alternative was the only acceptable one. The differences with the government centered mainly on quantity and pace rather than quality; it wanted even more far reaching privatization, more encouragement to "free enterprise" and closer integration into the world market!! Programme prepared behind closed doors
In September the government, there ore, was to present the Supreme Sovie was to present the Supreme Soviet programme, prepare largely behind closed doors at a government complex in the woods outside of Moscow according to Abalkin, the secluded location was chosen to allow the policy makers and experts to avoid distractions) a programme which, furthermore, was already being partially implemented.
As one government official commented: "By the method of amendments, it is as hard to change fundamentally a well prepared document, as it is to turn a wag4. Trud, June 6, 1990. 5. Nedelya, no. 28, 1990, p.2; Trud, July 7, 1990. 6. Trud, July 26, 1990. 7. Trud, July 7, 1990. 8. Rabochaya tribuna, June 22, 1990. 9. Argumenty i fakty, no. 32, 1990, p. 2. 10. Pravitel' stvenyi vestnik, no. 34, 1990, pp. 6-7. 11. Pravitel stvennyi vestnik, no. 34, 1990, pp. 6-7. 12. Pravitel' stvennyi vestnik, no. 34, 1990, pp. 6-7.
on off a well rutted track"2.
In any case, this parliament was elected in the absence of contending parties, a free press or free and universal suffrage. But even if these had existed, the Supreme Soviet would no longer reflect the electorate's will, since the issues have changed so drastically over the past year and a half since it was elected. The liberals, who present themselves as the champions of democracy in the battle against the "partocracy", are silent on all this. For they have since been admitted into the halls of power.
As usual, the debate in parliament will not focus on the basic orientations of the reform but on the details of price rises and measures of social protection. One cannot expect real opposition within this parliament to the reform as such, except perhaps from the diehard wing of the liberals who will accept nothing less than the literal implementation of the teachings of Milton Friedman. Trade union apparatus looks for palliatives
The trade union apparatus, regardless of the liberal hostility it has provoked, has accepted that "a decline in employment and the loss of a series of social gains are inevitable" under the new system'3 . Its policy is to push for the establishment of programmes to palliate the negative social effects of the market (while the trade union apparatus accepts the eventuality of mass unemployment, its legislative proposal on employment is considerably stronger than the government's and calls for reaffirmation of the constitutional right to a job and concrete programmes to make good the commitment to full employment). Nor has it shown any real will to mobilize workers behind its positions.
The government, for its part, is ignoring the trade unions. "There is no dialogue with the trade unions", complained the council of the Russian trade union federation in August. The government has not responded to its proposal, first made in May, to hold round tables on the reform at the national, republican and local levels and it has also rejected the unions' draft law on the rights of trade unions. The Supreme Soviet too has ignored the unions' urging that it debate this matter and take appropriate legislative action 4
Gorbachev need not fear much opposition from within the party-state apparatus either. The 28th Party Congress, which was largely a Congress of the apparatus, showed the impotence of the nonetheless deep dissatisfaction that exists within the
USSR apparatus (some of its members, of course, are managing or hope to manage quite well under the reforms, and the process of transforming office into capital is already underway). As much as they loathe Gorbachev's policies, he remains their only hope and bulwark against their total liquidation "as a class" at the hands of the people. Gorbachev is in many respects a Bonapartist figure propped up by the apparatus, on the one hand, and the liberal-bourgeois-mafia alliance on the other. Both sides are casting worried glances at the masses. Foodstuffs Minister walks the plank
These masses are becoming increasingly restless, as the recent agitation over the cigarette shortage showed (this unrest forced Gorbachev to sacrifice the Chairman of the Commission for Foodstuffs and Purchases). By contrast, the miners have been unable to obtain the dismissal of the Minister of the Coal Industry.
Whatever opinion surveys may reveal about attitudes to the "transition to the market" (their methodology and results are never fully presented) there is abundant evidence that the mass of the population is not at present prepared to accept a decline in living standards, mass unemployment and much else that the "regulated market" reform threatens to bring. The degree of politicization of economic issues and the readiness to strike over them are very high in the working class.
It is therefore difficult to see how the government's reform could be implemented with any significant degree of consistency. The government lacks the legitimacy to ask for sacrifices. And the consequences of an attempt to use repression to implement the reform (for example, by outlawing strikes in practice — in theory, most strikes that occur are already illegal but the workers ignore the law) would be fatal to this government. In present Soviet circumstances, any independent labor movement, including one whose official positions might seem partially to reflect liberal positions, is a major obstacle to the government's plans, although - and one cannot stress this enough - opposition to the social consequences of the government's reform is not necessarily the same as support for a socialist programme.
Working class support for liberals declining
Despite their dominance in the mass media and increasingly in the government, there are signs that the liberals are failing in their efforts to win mass support among the working class. The popularity that they enjoyed was, in any case, always more linked to their image as "radical democrats" than to their programme of capitalist restoration (which in any case is never stated so bluntly). This is true even in the mining regions, where the liberals managed to acquire significant intluence with the leaders of the workers' committees in the months following the July 1989 strike.
However, Yurii Boldyrev, a leader of the Donetsk miners and himself close to the liberal Interregional Group of the Supreme Soviet, recently told an interviewer that the "Democratic Platform" [the liberal-social-democratic fraction in the CPSUJ, Travkin [leader of a new People's (liberal) Party] or Korotych's [liberal] magazine [Ogonek] "have no real future in the labor movement". He said that the labor movement will take its own path and he warned that some of its fel13. Trud, July 15, 1990. 14. Trud, June 6 and August 24, 1990. 15. Nedelya, no. 28, 1990, p. 2. 16. Rabochaya tribuna, August 16, 1990. In October 1917, the vast majority of the intelligentsia, including its social-democratic and populist wings, refused to a colice died one wonder a resul, they were 13 support the soviet seizure of power and to participate largely discredited in the workers' eyes.
USSR low travellers may share the fate of the Russian intelligentsia after October 191716. Teimuraz Aviliani, a former member of the Interregional Group and a leader of the Kuzbass regional strike committee during the 1989 strike, has also remarked: "I can see how they will gradually nudge us toward private property. Maybe some clever person will manage to buy up the shares of a mine. I don't envy him. Capitalism won't worm its way into the Kuzbass""
The Donbass miners, in particular, are deeply worried about unemployment. Enterprise autonomy and the freedom to sell coal abroad, which the liberal press touted as the most important gain of the 1989 strike, turned out to be a cruel joke here, where the cost of production is many times higher than in the eastern regions of the USSR. Liberals and democrats from the Arbat
It is now estimated that the shift to the market and the ending of subsidies will put 50,000 Donbass miners out of work. According to Viktor Alekseenko, former leader of the Makeevka workers' committee, "someone wants to climb to power on the backs of the workers - the liberals and democrats from the Arbat [a fashionable Moscow district]. And we will be left with closed mines"18
In Yaroslavl', where at the end of 1987 one of the first major strikes of the perestroika period took place at the giant Diesel Motor factory and where one of the first popular fronts was formed, Ogonek recently reported a growing reaction against the government's reform orientation and mounting support for the antiliberal positions of the United Front of Toilers!9
A worker at the motor factory explained: "Personally, I was a very active agitator for the Popular Front a year ago. Without my help, the leader of the Popular Front would not have been elected as a people's deputy of the USSR. I thought they wanted to improve our life...But it turns out they are aiming at the system. This is where our paths parted. I don't want our country to be divided among rich and poor". In July, the local soviet here introduced 14 rationing for a broad array of consumer goods, as a measure of social justice in a period of growing shortages and speculation20
It is very difficult to judge the extent of these views from the press (which on these issues remains only slightly less biased than under Brezhnev) and from the one sided presentation of opinion surveys based upon dubious methodology. Some enterprises, especially those that can export goods, stand to gain immediately from the reform. This will no doubt be an important source of division in the labor movement. But even where liberal influence is strong, it is often based on a fundamental misunderstanding (consciously and assiduously fostered by the liberals).
Workers who support the liberal market reform see enterprise autonomy as giving them control of their enterprise and its products. As a leader of the Vorkuta miners stated "Our main goal now is the liberation of labor, that is the right ourselves to dispose of our product"21 • And according to G. Mikhailets, chairman of the Kemerovo workers' committee: " We have to become the complete masters of our enterprises"22 . The illusions here are striking: "In other [capitalist] countries, the toilers dispose of the greater part of their product" *, claims another leader of the miners23
In fact, the liberals' (and the government's) programme of large scale privatization provides only for "self-management" by owners.
### Management to control everything
It leaves little place for producers' self-management, except in the unlikely event the workers themselves become majority stockholders, something that is specifically discouraged, for example, in Hungary24 . To cite Petrakov once again, "the council of founders or of stockholders will appoint the directors and the management and will have every thing under its control". This he actually presents as "a kind of" step towards selfmanagement25. The press has been intensively propagating the US experience, where allegedly 11 million workers own their enterprises.
In reality, these are merely employee stock ownership plans, more public relations gimmicks than anything else, aimed at creating a commitment on the part of the workers towards the enterprise. In very few cases do the workers have any say in the major decisions concerning the enterprise, including layoffs, the distribution of profits and even the sale of the enterprise 26
The trend all over Eastern Europe, and increasingly in the Soviet Union also, is strongly against producers' self-management, as interfering with the full powers of private owners and with the free movement of capital and labor.
Some workers have shown that they are
International Viewpoint #192 • October 15, 1990 prepared to mount political strikes and even to seize their factories and run them on their own in order to prevent layoffs and closures. This is what occurred at a Vilnius transport enterprise last May, when the workers found their jobs threatened by the Lithuanian republican government's reforms, as well as the effects of Moscow's oil embargo. When the republican government failed to respond to their demands to provide normal work conditions, their general assembly decided to form a workers' detachment to physically protect the enterprise and elected a workers' committee, which was mandated "to organize the full normal functioning of the enterprise, that has been undermined of late". This workers' committee replaced the "labor-collective council" , a largely formal self-management body provided by law, which had included the enterprise's director. The workers took over the factory, declaring it the property of the Lithuanian republic and concluded contacts with enterprises in Byelorussia that agreed to provide them with oil and gasoline 27
This incident, reminiscent of 1917, gives an indication of the lengths some Soviet workers will go to protect their enterprises and livelihoods. It is worth noting in this context that the government's draft laws on employment provides for unemployment payments only at the level of the minimum wage (70 rubles a month - and even that only for 26 weeks.
The average wage in industry today is more than three times as much, and miners can earn over 600 rubles a month. The trade unions' proposal is more generous - 50% of the workers' average wage for 12 months, if he or she was working 12 continuous weeks. Otherwise it is 75% of the minimum wage. The minimum wage, 70 rubles a month, is below the poverty line even for a single person without children2.
The coming months promise to be the most turbulent so far of the perestroika period. The chances are good that the present leadership will not survive them. The question is: who will replace it? The answer to that question depends very much on whether the labor movement can maintain and increase its level of mobilization and organization and on the ability of the socialists to convince them of the realism of their alternative. * 17. Rabochaya tribuna, June 8, 1990. 18. Rabochaya tribuna, August 17, 1990. 19. The United Front of Toilers was founded in the summer of 1989 with some aid from conservative elements in the party and trade union apparatuses. 20. Trud, July 26, 1990; Ogonek, P. Nikitin, "Yaroslvaskii barometr", no. 20, 1990, p. 3. 21. Rabochaya tribuna, May 1, 1990. 22. Trud, July 10, 1990. 23. Ibid. 24. Moskovskie novosti, no. 28, 1990, p.12. 25. Pravitel stvennyi vestnik, April 22, 1990, p. 3. 26. Komsomol'skaya pravda, July 27, 1990. 27. Rabochaya tribuna, August 15, 1990. 28. Trud, April 12 and July 15, 1990.
GULF CRISIS