The liberal opposition is going ever further in the direction of support for imperialism. The left forces remain marginal except in the universities, where, indeed, they were the dominant force in the 1970s. Since then they have been overtaken by the fundamentalists, although Each to the market Thatcher. GERRY FOLEY D ESPITE the fact that marketism has become the received wisdom in the Communist Parly, as well as most of the opposition, in the USSR, more and more misgivings are being expressed in the Soviet press about its actual and prospective effects. It is becoming harder to cover up the ruthless logic of the market and socio-economic relations based on competition. At the CC plenum, the first secretary of the Leningrad district organization, B. V. Gidaspov, was brutally definite.
"We have become more and more convinced that the market is possible only with the attributes that belong to it, including the exploitation of wage labor. All this terminology about a regulated socialist market is only verbal acrobatics. There are going to be poor people and there are going to be rich people. Therefore, we must clearly determine the least painful mechanisms for transition to the market - they will be painful - and most important a mechanism for protecting the population from its negative 6 effects. Of course, it would be nice if this side of the market did not affect our perInternational Viewpoint #194 • November 12, the left has been able to regain ground recently through mobilizations on anti- imperialist themes.
The fundamentalists have been embarrassed by the imperialist intervention in the Gulf. They are in a very uncomfortable position, since they have traditionally been both anti-Western and tied politically and financially to Saudi Arabia, where the Constitution is the Koran. They are unable to justify the "Western" presence in that country. They have adopted a three-point position: condemnation of the
Iraqi invasion of Kuwait; defence of Saudi Arabia; and condemnation of the
American presence. * ir own spectives and those close to us, first of all children and pensioners, which seems, unfortunately, problematic."
Gidaspov was also categorical on another basic point: "It would be wrong to start any moves to the market without adopting a Treaty of Union. It must consider drawing four clear dividing lines between the prerogatives of the center and the republics, the republics and the autonomous republics and the regions and even among the regions themselves, within the regions themselves, between the regional and district soviets, and it could even go lower."
Differences in pricing policy among the republics, which are beginning to try to exercise rights of economic sovereignty, have already created sharp conflicts. For example, the Russian republic government under Yeltsin raised food prices unilaterally. The higher Russian prices threatened to pull such products out of Ukraine, which then took protectionist measures. On October 15, the Estonian goverment raised the price of basic food products by 250 per cent. In order to prevent the trafficking that could be expected to result from the drastic differ1990 ence of its prices from those in the neighboring republics, the Estonians moved to set up a customs service on their frontiers.
Given the weakness of the "sovereign republics"" state machinery, such internal customs services create the threat of political clashes without offering any real economic protection. After all, even the heavily militarized border between the two parts of Ireland has never been made proof against smuggling.
There is no aspect of the debate over marketizing that is so contradictory as the relation of the market to the national question. In presenting the economic policy decided on by the plenum (Pravda, October 20), Gorbachev said: "The market makes it possible to unite peoples not by the dangerous force of weapons but by solid economic interest." This parallels his policy of trying to maintain the rule of nis policy or trying to maintain the rule of the bureaucracy through a stacked-deck parliamentarianism rather than totalitarianism. In this case as well, he has read his capitalist examples too superficially.
Who is strengthened by the market?
Paradoxically, while both Moscow and the national-democratic fronts agree about the market, they draw opposite conclusions about its results. The Baltic front leaders think that it will strengthen them against Moscow, that is, that they are economically stronger relative to it than they are politically, because their level of productivity is higher. What Moscow sees is that the Baltic cannot do without netrole. that the Baltic cannot do without petroleum produced in the Russian federation. Actually, the strength of the Baltic movements up until now has been political, since they have provided an example and leadership for the national movements of far more numerous and potentially powerful oppressed nationalities.
The more the Baltic front governments try to apply the policy of marketization, the more divisions and disenchantment appear, as indicated by the protests of the cultural unions in Estonia (see International Viewpoint, No. 192, October 15, 1990).
Communist party leaders in the Central Asian republics protest that the market can govern their relations with other parts of the Soviet Union when their income and productivity are a fraction of those in more developed regions. Furthermore, private property in land is an unattractive prospect in areas where land is scarce and where its value depends largely or entirely on irrigation.
At the October CC plenum, L. V. Potapov, first secretary of the Buriat Mongol Autonomous Republic Party Committee, said: "For Buryatia and many other regions of Siberia and the Far East, transition to market relations is a problem of unprecedented complexity, bordering on the danger of a social-economic earth-
THE WORST aspect, in a way, of the market orientation Gorbachov proposed to the plenum of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) in the second week of October was the pragmatic argument he used to defend it. "Worldwide experience shows the vitality and effectiveness of the market economy." The market is, thus, the best of all possible worlds for the chief of the Soviet bureaucracy, as for Margaret
THE WORST aspect, in a way, of the market orientation Gorbachov proposed to the plenum of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) in the second week of October was the pragmatic argument he used to defend it. "Worldwide experience shows the vitality and effectiveness of the market economy." The market is, thus, the best of all possible worlds for the chief of the Soviet bureaucracy, as for Margaret
quake, if special supplementary measures are not taken. For a number of reasons, Buryatia, like other regions of our coun try, lags considerably behind the average Soviet and average Russian level of development, in particular in the area of social infrastructure....Today, Buryatia, with respect to many of the most important indicators, occupies the sixtieth or seventieth place in the Russian federation. Moreover, more than half of the industrial enter industrial enterprises are unprofitable or barely profitable."
No private ownership of the land
V. Kh. Bambaev, secretary of the Kalmuk Autonomous Republic Committee, reported that practically all livestock and arable land in his republic had been leased or turned over to cooperatives, but that "the only thing that cannot be private property is land." At the same time, he said that the republic would soon go on a system of rationing for necessities and that the prevailing opinion was that in the context of sovereignty" the republic should be declared "a free enterprise zone."
The population of Kalmukia is about 322,000, of which 135,000 are Kalmuks and 138,000 Russians. The Kalmuks were one of the peoples driven from their homeland by Stalin during the second world war. Their territory borders on the Caspian Sea. Kalmukia is one of the growing number of autonomous republics within the Russian federation that have declared themselves independent.
The most important is probably the Volga Tatar republic, which has a population of 3,640,000, of which 1,736,000 are Tartars. Important sections of the Volga Tatar people (which altogether numbers about 6 million) live in other republics. The Tatars historically were the most developed of the Muslim peoples in the Russian empire, and played a leading role in the rise of nationalism among the peoples of Islamic tradition. More and more, a demand is being expressed for a greater Tataria, setting off alarm signals in the Soviet central press.
The Russian federation includes a large number of small peoples that were engulfed by the spread of the Russian empire. The justification for granting the Tatars only autonomy, when they are six times as numerous as the Estonians, was
816
USSR cipline, and therefore the bill quite rightly proposed the supremacy of all-Russian laws over the laws of the subjects of the Federation. This shows that the Russian deputies are deeply disturbed by separatist moods in localities."
The Kemerovo district (the Kuzbass) precisely is a center of the miners' movement. The attitude of the Russian parliament, if accurately reported in Pravda, raises the question about whether the aspirations expressed by a delegation of Kuzbass people's deputies that donutipc that that their lands are entirely surrounded by Russia. The concept at the formation of the USSR was that in order to enjoy the formal independence of a Union republic, it was necessary to have a sea or foreign border. This position may have been a vestige of the idea that nations were a bourgeois category and therefore they have to be able to defend themselves in the same way as a bourgeois nation state. In line with this, the expression has appeared in the Soviet press that if the Tatars want to be independent, they will have to dig into the earth or fly up into the sky.
Tactical alliances with pro-independentists
In fact, the Russian federation is a sort of half-way Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. But while the Yeltsin government is making tactical alliances with the independence-minded republics, Pravda of October 11 claimed that the Russian legislature was taking a tough line against those seeking more independence within the Russian Federation. E. Sorotkin wrote that the debate on a bill on relations among the Soviets of People's Deputies during the period of economic reform "shows that the deputies are beginning to understand that the threat to the state sovereignty of Russia comes not just from above but from below. It would be a good thing if only the autonomous republics were declaring 'sovereignty in the framework of the Russian Federation.' But even regions are now grasping for sovereignty.
"Thus, the Kemerovo regional soviet has decided to conduct its own tax policy, independent of the Union and Russia...In essence, what is going on is the tearing up of the Russian state into principalities and counties. The deputies quite correctly remarked that in these conditions there cannot even be any talk about a market. Democracy requires disvisited the Latvian front in August are now being dashed.
The August 28 issue of the main publication of the Latvian front, Atmoda, quoted the leader of the delegation, Alexander Aslamidi, as saying: "Business is the locomotive of progress. Our task as deputies is to offer secure conditions for business. Boris Yeltsin has already signed a document granting economic self-management to our district, providing for its transformation into an economic free zone. Important other steps have been taken. The package gives the district soviet almost the same powers as US states. Boris Yeltsin has agreed in principle to consider this document in the near future. In a word, we will have our own miners' republic. " (My emphasis.)
Privatization prospects sweetened
In fact, the Gorbachev regime has sweetened the prospect of privatization with various suggestions that it would open up the way for self-management. Now it seems to be feeling the need to argue specifically against self-management. Thus in Pravda of October 6, A. Nekilepov, deputy director of the Institute of International Economic and Political Research of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, writes:
"Many failures in the "launching' of market mechanisms in this stage have gradually led to the conclusion that the solution should be sought in changing the property relations. In this connection, the idea of self-managed socialism based on group forms of property has become quite widespread. For example, S. Alekseev sees the transfer of ownership of work collectives as 'the true way of solving nearly all our crucial problems.' (Sovetskaya Kul'tura, July 21, 1990)....
"Unfortunately, there is more than enough confirmation of the unworkability 7 of an economic system based on self-
USSR management (precisely of the system and not individual enterprises). The most telling example is Yugoslavia. The crisis of this system is now not being questioned in practice, and the solution is generally seen in privatization. Elements of self-management in Hungary and Poland are being energetically dismantled."
Further on, Nekilepov wrote: "The self-management system is incompatible with a real market."
Actually, at the October plenum, the Soviet minister of the metal industry, S. V. Kolpakov, cited an important perverse effect of the marketization that has already taken place on heavy industry. "In the last few years, the metal industry has fallen from second or third place as regards wage levels to seventh place. The enterprises have not been able to compete in wages with cooperatives able to to use the great bulk of their incomes for payment to labor.
Labor shortage in basic industries
"The departure of skilled workers from basic industry, where working conditions are hard, especially to the cooperatives, where for equal or lighter work they can ear two or three times more, has stripped many enterprises." The reason the enterprises could not pay as much as the cooperatives was that the latter did not have to invest. But one of the major factors in the crisis of the bureaucratic economies, alongside the ineffectiveness of investment, is that the rate of investment has declined owing to continuing low productivity and increasing pressure from the workers.
Kolpakov also cited national unrest as a factor disrupting the metal industry. This, among other things, reflects the fact, cited by some representative of the Central Asian republics, that an outsize proportion of primary industry is located in the peripheral republics, especially in Central Asia.
occasional barb in recent months, it has maintained a steady barrage against the Ukrainians. Nonetheless, the Ukrainian front's campaign of mobilization has won major new concessions. The authorities were forced to promise a referendum on confidence in the Supreme Soviet and a law allowing Ukrainian youth to do their military service in the republic. On October 23, the premier and president of the republic resigned. Le Monde's correspondent commented: "Everything indicates that the Ukraine is entering a period of intense political agitation and confrontation." Nationalists reject new Union
Treaty
One of the slogans raised in the actions in the Ukraine seems to be rejection of Gorbachev's proposed new Treaty of Union. In fact, Rukh adopted an unequivocal call for independence at its congress at the end of October. The October 25 issue of Literaturna Ukraina, a writers' weekly close to Rukh, includes an open letter from Ukrainians in Moscow urging the Ukrainian Supreme Soviet not to accept any new treaty of union but to strike for independence while the iron is hot. Curiously, the letter singles out Trotsky, of all people, as an opponent of Ukrainian independence. "We remember that Ukraine has more than once been lulled to sleep by words about federalism and sovereignty. A convinced federalist was Trotsky — the inspirer and ideologue of the destruction of Ukrainian statehood." Actually, in his last writings Trotsky argued for an independent Ukraine, and this position is not unknown in the Ukrainian movement. This passage suggests deliberate disinformation by rightist ideologues who want to discredit all socialists in the eyes of Ukrainian national democrats, and therefore decided to concentrate their fire on the revolutionary leader with the most favorable positions toward Ukrainian national aspirations. . The October plenum of the Soviet CP did not at all reflect any lessening of tensions on the national question. In fact, Pravda (October 11) printed a long ranting speech by A.K. Morkunas, identified as a kolkhoz tractor driver in Lithuania, that denounced the Sajudis government as "pro-fascist," and demanded Moscow take action against it:
"We Communists in Lithuania are disturbed by the fact that the present leader s of the republic are meeting no resistance from the organs of Soviet power and are acting in a more and more naked way, feeling that they can do what they please. On the road of building a pro-fascist authoritarian regime, Landsbergis and his henchmen have resorted to legal measures to exclude the [Communist] Party from political life, to direct repression against the Communists defending the socialist gains of the working people of the republic."
### Lithuanian government makes major error
Makunas referred to a law passed on September 25 declaring that legitimate political parties could not be directed from abroad. In a situation of sharp confrontation between Lithuania and Moscow, the Moscow loyalist party plays a provocative role. But the attempt to deal with this problem by legal and therefore implicitly repressive methods was a major error. The Lithuanian government does not have the means for this. Its only strength is its democratic example. Morkunas went on to accuse the Lithuanian government of expansionism, displaying a map including a part of Byelorussia in Lithuania. In fact, it is the neo-Stalinist government of Byelorussia, tral Asia.
A difficulty with Gorbachev's idea of using economic power to bring the rebellious territories to heel is that for this you have to have a favorable political relationship of forces. Moscow holds decisive economic cards in the confrontation with Lithuania, but its political weakness has made it impossible to play them effectively, and in fact further undermined its authority.
Certainly, the fact is that there are no signs of recentralization in the USSR, and least of all of any cooling of nationalist ardors by chilly winds of "economic reality." In fact, the national movements have continued to spread and radicalize, as shown in particular by the campaign by Ukrainian front, Rukh, to force the resignation of the Kiev government, still in the hands of the Communist Party. 8 While Pravda has reduced its attacks on the other national movements to an
At Home with the 1990 Nobel Peace Prize Recipient
CF COUFSE WE'LL TALK
APUT IT, SWEETHEART!
AS SOON AS I GET
PACK FROM OFLO
17 I.
MAMA
RUSSIA
International Viewpoint #194 • November 12, 1990
ЧЕРЕЗ УЧЕТ HOT НИзмУ! LOPY opposed by the Belorussian front, that has formally claimed Lithuanian territory. Furthermore, Gorbachev intervened to reinforce Morkunas.
"Comrade Morkunas, show me the map. It is not just drawn by hand. It is printed.... (Commotion in the hall). The first edition, they told me was done on orders from Lithuania in New York or Washington, and now is published in Kaunas [the second city of Lithuania]." A delegate from Ukraine, R. I. Savina, also denounced the "passivity" of the Soviet authorities toward the nationalist movement, and warned that "blood will flow." Blood will certainly flow if Moscow tries to break the national democratic movements by force. They have developed too much strength and dynamism for that. But they can still suffer defeats, if they make major political errors, as the recent elections in Azerbaijan have illustrated.
Banner of anti-Armenian chauvinism
The Azeri front tried to ride the bandwagon of anti-Armenian chauvinism. As a result, it found itself isolated when the confrontation came with Moscow in January. The Soviet authorities were able to largely dismantle it and prepare the way for a CP victory in the recent elections. The banner of anti-Armenian chauvinism is now firmly in the grasp of the Communist Party, and the sinister party boss of the Brezhnev era, Gaidar Aliev, got himself reelected with more than 90 per cent of the vote.
With the front in tatters, the blockade of Armenia to which it gave impetus continues and remains an open sore. Even the representative of the normalized Armenian CP, Yu. I Mkrtumian, felt compelled to deplore the fact that it was ignored at the October plenum. In the tangle of contradictions in the USSR, two things are clear. None of the major political forces in the USSR, either the CP or the national democratic movements, has a coherent economic policy or general political perspective. The market cannot long continue to be all things to all people. *
USSR