THE "LAST TRENCH" of the ruling bureaucracy's anathematization of
Trotsky has been to argue that he was really the same as Stalin. Now some official Ideologists have had to respond to right-wing ideologues using similar arguments to brand Bolshevism en bloc as an original sin from which all the horrors of Stalinism flowed.
In the discussion page of the December 5 Pravda, V. Pertilov, director of the Ul yansk section of the Lenin Central Museum, and N. Fomin, a professor at the Ul'yansk Normal School, polemicize with an article entitled "If Trotsky Had Won" by A. Cipko in the July issue of the Latvian Journal
Daugave
"Here, this author, who has become known as an intransigent critic of Marxism-Leninism, has exceeded himself. He declares that all representatives of the Leninist or Bolshevik old guard were in the same mold.""
In reply, the two Soviet historians argue "it was precisely against the Leninist old guard that Stalin and his entourage almed their main biow." They go on to cite M, N. Riutin, one of the last anti-Stalinist oppositionists in the party to the elfect that "in the 1930s entirely different people came Into the party apparatus. He (Riutin] wrote that the after the overthrow of the Stalinist dictatorship, many years would be necessary to get the party and the country out of the,,. abyss into which the great leader had brought it. Such a position was taken by 300 delegates to the Seventeenth Party Congress [1932[.. Everyone knows the tragic fate that befall almost all the congress delegates". A are beginning now to become allergic to it."
November 20, Pravda published a communiqué from the USSR Ministry of Defense Press center on "anti-army provocations in the republics." It ended with the statement: "There is no doubt about the aims of the organizers of these antiarmy actions. The answer is also clear as to whom they serve, who is hiding behind the direct participants in these actions. It is those for whom the Soviet Armed Forces, which are called to guard the security of the country and the stability of the state, are an obstacle, those whose political ambitions, whose separatist schemes they block. All necessary measures will be taken to end such actions."
This communiqué did not show any concern for the appearances of democratization. It made it quite clear that the "unity" of the state would be maintained by military force, as it was under Stalin and Brezhnev. The use of the term "separatism" as something that is selfevidently nefarious, or criminal, is revealing. According to the constitution of France, Turkey and other capitalist countries, separatism is in fact a crime; but according to the Soviet constitution it is formally an inalienable right. Counteroffensive in Ukraine In the beginning of November, the bureaucratic authorities launched a counteroffensive in Ukraine against the opposition movements, in particular the Ukrainian People's Front, Rukh, which had won important victories in the previous weeks through mass mobilizations. On November 6, an activist of the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic church [outlawed by
Stalin], Yaroslav Demidas, was arrested and disappeared. It was later learned that he was being held in an isolation cell in Kiev and had gone on hunger strike.
During the night of November 6-7, police attacked and beat up a group of students holding a picket in Kiev against the scheduled military parade. They did not succeed, however, in ending the protest. On the morning of November 7, according to Rukh activists, in an underground walkway, a man attacked a women member of the picketing group. A Rukh deputy, Stepan Khmara, came to her aid. The attacker was armed, and proved to be a police colonel, Igor Grigoriev. The official media began a campaign praising Grigoriev as an exemplary policeman and claiming that Khmara and others had assaulted him.
### "Workers" against nationalism
"Workers' protests" were organized against what were supposed to be "excesses" by "extremist and destructive forces in the parliament of the republic". Groups of workers were bussed in to the Ukrainian parliament building on November 12 to call for the impeachment of the "nationalist and anti-Communist" deputies. At the same time, 500 police demonstrated for the recall of Khmara and other members of Rukh. The demonstrations continued. On November 14, the Supreme Soviet (which still has a large CP majority) removed Khmara's parliamentary immunity and called for his arrest. He was taken prisoner on November 17. A campaign of mass actions was launched demanding his release. 7
Tensions increased in the Baltic coun-
USSR tries also after military parades were held on November 7 at the order of the central authorities in direct defiance of decisions of the republic governments. On November 9, in Jurmala, Latvia, the city committee of the Communist Party was supposed, according to a state order, to be moved out of a building it occupied. It called on Soviet troops and special police for protection. In response to this, on November 14, the Latvian parliament passed a resolution, by an 80% vote, to ban the special police and Soviet armed forces from intervening in the life of the republic, and calling on the Latvian state bodies not to offer social and material support to Soviet armed forces stationed on Latvian territoту.
Apparently in response, Marshal Dmitri Yazov threatened that if local authorities cut off Services to the bases, he would order troops to take over the water and power works.
Protesters threatened by soldiers
In the Lithuanian capital, Vilnius, on November 17, protesters at a Soviet base were threatened with firearms and beaten by soldiers. The speeches by Gorbachev and others at the November 17 USSR Supreme Soviet session were taken as direct threats by the Baltic leaders. On November 21, the Baltic heads of state responded with the following statement:
"On November 17, 1990, in the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, unconcealed threats were raised — attacks on the sovereign rights of our states and peoples, including the threat of forcible removal of the democratically elected institutions of government and suspension of the laws of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia.
"In the face of these threats, we declared that the Baltic countries are exercising their inalienable right of self-defense. The peoples, parliaments and governments of the Baltic countries will resist a new aggression, and not permit a repetition of the tragic events of 1940.
"We call on the Supreme Soviet of the USSR to stop the escalation of political threats and violent pressure on the Baltic countries, which are moving by a peaceful road toward reestablishment of their rights.
"Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia do not intend to sign the Treaty of Union, but they are ready immediately to enter into negotiations on concluding state-to-state treaties with the USSR and its republics regarding economic and other forms of collaboration."
Gorbachev has said that his proposed new Treaty of Union is the "last trench" of the defenders of the Soviet [bureaucratic] state. It is this document on which he has 8 make the banner of his crackdown. It was chosen to concentrate his fight and to the focus of his speech to the CPSU Central
L E Committee plenum, published in Pravda of December 11: "We all understand why the question of the Treaty of Union has been put before this plenum. This question has a key importance for continuing our course to perestroika, democracy and socialist renewal... From the first steps of perestroika, the party adopted as one of its basic orientations increasing the rights of the Union republics." totalitarian lead ball, like Kryuchkov's The last statement dropped another reference to the "socialist motherland" and "our fraternity". In fact, Gorbachev has tried to reduce the national rights that had become accepted under Brezhnev. One of his first moves after the April 1985 plenum, which launched perestroika, was to appoint a Russian first secretary of the party in Kazakhstan, breaking the rule that the first secretary of a republic CP should always be a native (controlled of course by a Russian second secretary).
When this move provoked an uprising of Kazakh youth, Moscow went on an anti-"nationalist" witch-hunt reminiscent of the 1950s. Then, at the end of 1988, Gorbachev launched a project of amending the constitution to make it easier for the central government to intervene in the republics. During this battle, he proclaimed that his objective was not to loosen the ties that bound the republics to the center but to strengthen them.
It has been precisely on the national question that Gorbachev has most clearly lost his ability to control the genies released by his liberalization and been forced to retreat. But he has disputed every inch, and tried desperately to maintain a firm line. Now he says that the Treaty of Union is his "last trench." In other recent speeches he has been saying that the Soviet Union is at the same stage as during the Battle of Stalingrad, when no further retreat is possible. No fundamental gains in new treaty
Actually, his new Treaty of Union fundamentally goes no further toward meeting the demands of the national movements than the special PSU plenum on the national question in July 1989.
International Viewpoint #197 • December 24, 1990
J.R. NA NONO
The central government retains supremacy over the economy. Thus, Section 2, Article 2 calls for: "Defining in common with the republics a strategy for economic growth and the creation of conditions for the development of an all-Union market; the conduct of a single financial, credit and monetary policy, based on a common currency; establishing and implementing an all-Union budget; maintaining a gold and diamond fund and using it in agreement with the republics; the implementation of all-Union programs; the creation of development funds."
At the same time, a single Soviet citizenship is maintained, which the republics have no right to qualify, and therefore no right to defend themselves against population movements engendered by decisions of central planners, or to reverse the erosion of national rights caused by what Gorbachev admits was a "unitary" state.
The republics "are the owners of the land, its minerals and the other natural resources on their territories, and also of state property, with the exception of those parts essential to exercising the competence of the USSR." But since the essential instruments of the "regulated market" are to remain in the hands of Moscow, it is far from clear what this formal ownership would amount to in practice. And the history of Moscow's relations with the republics is one of formal rights for the latter that have meant nothing in reality.
"Defense of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Soviet Union, the defining and defense of the state borders of the USSR, maintaining the state security of the USSR, organizing defense and leadership of the Armed Forces of the Soviet Union" are maintained as prerogatives of the central government.
### Union retains key prerogatives
Another prerogative of the Union is adopting and amending an all-Union con-
stitution, which will be superior to the legislation of the republics. This constitution will be enforced by a Constitutional Court empowered "to determine whether or not the laws of the USSR and the republics correspond to the Treaty of Union and the Constitution of the USSR". . The Constitutional Court of the USSR has already systematically rejected laws passed by the republic legislatures in an attempt to regain real sovereignty.
One of the main legal battlefields has been the language laws passed by the non-Russian republics. The new Treaty of Union establishes Russian as the "language of communication among different nationalities", , thus exempting Russians in the non-Russian republics from having to learn the local language.
Furthermore, the president of the Soviet Union is given the status of "guarantor of the Treaty of Union, the constitution and laws of the USSR, and commander-inchief of the Armed Forces of the Soviet Union." Thus, the four pillars of the Stalinist unitary state remain — one Soviet citizenship, an all-Union army and political police, one all-Union language and central control of the basic instruments of economic policy. And they are reinforced by a president endowed formally with full powers to defend the Union.
In view of the meager concessions offered to the non-Russian peoples by Gorbachev's new Treaty of Union, it has gotten negative reactions even in one republic where the old regime remains intact. Thus, in Pravda of November 23, the president of the Uzbek republic, I. Karimov, said: "Recently, some papers have claimed that Uzbekistan was ready today to sign the Treaty of Union without further ado....I want to clarify this question. We cannot sign the last variant that was sent to us. It does not take account of even one of our suggestions.
"It says nothing about the main question, about the parity and equality of all hon, about me party and equally on all subjects of the future federation. You get the impression that the center, for the sake of certain objectives of its own, is holding back the process. In this, they are not taking account of the fact that in the present conditions within half a year the Treaty of Union may not suit anybody. I also consider it improper that the Treaty of Union will be discussed in the Supreme Soviet of the USSR and in the Congress of People's Deputies of the USSR. The process should be reversed. It should be the subjects of the federation that work out the treaty and sign it."
Ter-Petrosian, chair of the Armenian Supreme Soviet, which is now controlled by national-democratic forces, was more indirect, but no less clear: "They maintain that law and order should be reinforced and then everything will settle into its place. That is an error. In that event, the center will run up against serious opposition from the republics, inasmuch as sovereignty is already a reality for us, and no
USSR republic is going to retreat one inch from the positions that have been won"
It is evident that the Treaty of Union is no compromise but an attack to block and roll back the national movements. And the counteroffensive of the Unionist bureaucracy in the Baltic and Ukraine is quite consistent with Gorbachev's attempt to impose it.
A new and important confrontation is shaping up between the opposition movements and the decaying bureaucracy. In this crisis situation, the policy of the Western capitalist governments is likely to become more and more important. Contrary to the alarms raised by Kryuchkov, there is no evidence that they are supporting the national democratic movements (although it is probable that they
Who gets th DAVID SEPPO
HE central daily, "Workers' Tribune", ", did publish the conference's resolution. But this was primarily as a response to the challenge made at the conference by Nikolai Travkin', leader of the Democratic Party, that he would "eat his hat" if the official press published a resolution of the conference critical of the government. The national television news programme, "Vremya", was also present, but its purpose was apparently to film V. Yarin, a "nomenklatura" metallurgical worker and a member of Gorbachev's Presidential Council?
He informed the conference that Gorbachev had entrusted him with the mission of organizing the representatives of the WCCs around himself and the Presidential Council.
The delegates' failure to respond to this proposal might explain why no news are encouraging right-wing ideologues, and not just in the national movements). On the other hand, there are a lot of signs that they are supporting Gorbachev. That is notoriously the reason for the readiness to offer aid, although the shortages in the USSR are minor in comparison with many third world countries where there are real famine dangers.
Thus, in a feature article on the Russian shortages in its December 17 issue, Newsweek quoted a German aid worker in Minsk as saying: "I've seen families worse off in Cologne".
It also cited the worry of François Jean, director of operations for a major French welfare service, Médicins Sans Frontières, that the hullabaloo over the shortages in the USSR could distract attention from the threat of famine in Sudan. *
THE problem of
"destatization" — often also referred to (with conscious ambiguity) as
"privatization" — is the subject of vigorous debate in the various Supreme
Soviets and in the press of of the conference appeared on Soviet television screens.
This conference, the first of its kind, was called in reaction to the new law "On Enterprises in the USSR," adopted by the USSR Supreme Soviet on June 4, 1990. This law effectively calls an end to the election of managerial personnel. It does not even mention the WCCs.
Its passage was explained at the time by the need to remove obstacles in the way of the democratization process and the transition to the market. However, the conference of CCs, for its part, assessed this law as anti-democratic, directed against self-management and aimed at strengthening the arbitrary power of the enterprise management and the ministries.
There were also other opinions at the conference. Some argued that the WCCs 9 had been created in state enterprises in the
December 24, 1990 • #197 International Viewpoint the Soviet Union. Yet, characteristically, under the present regime of selective glasnost (more flexible, and so much more effective, than the old censorship), the voices of the work-collective councils (WCC), the self-management organs established by the 1988 Law on the State Enterprise, are scarcely heard.
The Soviet press almost totally ignored the First All-Union Conference of Work-Collective Councils that took place in Tolyatti between 31 August and 4 September 1990.
enterprises? the Soviet Union. Yet, characteristically, under the present regime of selective glasnost (more flexible, and so much more effective, than the old censorship), the voices of the work-collective councils (WCC), the self-management organs established by the 1988 Law on the State Enterprise, are
The Soviet press almost totally ignored the First All-Union Conference of Work-Collective Councils that took place in Tolyatti between 31 August and 4 September 1990.
USSR early period of the perestroika, when the idea of privatization had not yet arisen. They had played a positive role in furthering democratization, but they now should cede their place to more "progressive" forms. Besides, it was no secret that in very many, probably most, cases the WCCs had been created on initiative from above and served as instruments of management.
Why, then, hang on to outdated forms? Besides, the new law clearly stated that enterprises are to be managed in accordance with their charters, which are established by the owners). And since, it was argued, the work collectives are about to become the owners, why raise a fuss? If the collective judges it useful to have a WCC, it can decide to keep it.
Work collectives cannot be owners
But the assumption that the work collectives will inherit the destatized enterprises was seen by the majority of delegates as far from certain. Indeed, according to the programme of the R.S.F.S.R. (Russian) government (the "500-Day Plan"4), the new owners would be private individuals and groups of individuals, but it specified that work collectives should not be more than partial owners, and certainly not majority stockholders.
And it is the owners, or their hired administrators, who will manage, the workers playing at best a limited role. As for Gorbachev's latest programme, it provides for different kinds of ownership, up to and including full foreign ownership. It makes no special provision for ownership by the work collectives nor for their role in management of the enterprises.
Some speakers blamed the 1988 law, with its broad self-management provisions, for the spread of "group egoism" - the decline of discipline and of responsibility in enterprises toward consumers (i.e. both other enterprises and individuals) - as collectives put their own income first, regardless of the means through which it is obtained.
These criticisms are not unfounded. The 1988 law and accompanying reforms removed most of the remaining elements of central control over the ministries and enterprises. These now find themselves, producers in a monopoly-dominated market, with their hands virtually untied. Exhorted by the liberal ideologues, as well as by official spokespersons, to fight for their "cost-accounting" [khozraschet] income, they act with typical market rationality - by raising prices, cutting back on output and quality, preferring foreign clients with hard currency or those able to provide scarce consumer and producers goods to traditional partners.
Nevertheless, most delegates refused to 10 attribaement as such, which they contin- attribute these phenomena to selfInternational Viewpoint #197 • December 24, ue strongly to support, but rather to the conditions in which self-management was introduced. Speakers explained that the directors had "beat a path to the Kremlin," where they complained that the election of managerial personnel by the work collectives was the cause of the growing disorder in the economy. The directors found a sympathetic ear in the Kremlin.
While the conference approved the new law's intention of expanding the economic autonomy of enterprises, it vigorously protested against the attack on self-management and on the right to elect managerial personnel. It demanded that the USSR Supreme Soviet suspend the law pending review at its next session. It also called on republican supreme soviets not to carry out the new law's provisions relating to management and self-management.
"We consider that the reduction of the rights and powers of the worker collectives of state enterprises in the execution of their self-management functions will hold back the processes of demonopolization and de-statization of state enterprises, the establishment of their collectives as owners through leasing, joint-stock forms, buyouts, or the free transfer of the enterprises to the work collectives, as well as other forms of autonomous economic management."
The conference demanded that the WCCs themselves be given the right to choose the form of property for their enterprise. In particular, in state enterprises the WCCs should have two options: either to become collective owners — without payment for the enterprise - or to leave the enterprises as state property managed by the WCCs. Management should be hired employees
In discussing the first option, some argued that the enterprises should be paid for, since they were built, not by the worker collective, but by the society as a whole and that if they were transferred free of charge, the collective would not value its new property.
However, most rejected these arguments, not least because workers simply lack the means to purchase their enterprises. As for administration, the conference was unanimous that under both options, the managers should be hired employees of the collective and work under its supervision. The conference thus expressed the workers' view of "destatization". As such, it gave a first open, organized expression to the underlying differences in the motives behind the workers' and the liberals' (including the Soviet and various republican governments') support for the market reform. The liberals, whose ultimate goal is the restoration of a "full-blooded" capitalist market (including labour and capital mar1990 kets) want to establish full private property rights in the enterprises.
They correctly see self-management and the transfer of the enterprises to the collectives as an obstacle to this goal (for example, it is implicit in the idea of ownership or management by the worker collective that the enterprise could not be sold). The workers, for their part, support the market reform and the enterprise autonomy that it would provide as creating conditions for real self-management by the collectives. They are clearly not at present prepared to give up their rights (even if they have been largely formal over the past 70 years) as owners of the economy.
There is deepening suspicion among Soviet workers and in the population as a whole that destatization in practice will mean the transformation of their enterprises into the personal property of the bureaucrats, whom they increasingly see as fused with the affairistes of the "shadow economy". This fusion is referred to in common parlance as the "mafia" ' It is this social group that is broadly seen as holding the real power in society and, to the growing alarm of the workers, it is this very same group that is being called upon by the liberal reformers to carry out the market reform.
These reformers, having abandoned their initial (in any case rather superficial) infatuation with democracy, are now trying to cut back on the democratic powers that perestroika was supposed originally to give to society and to the worker collectives.
Official retreat from self-management
Alongside the official retreat from self-management in the enterprises, a parallel retreat from democracy in the state is occurring (though both were always more formal than real). With increasing frequency, the calls for a "firm hand" are voiced by yesterday's democrats to enable the government to carry out the needed "unpopular measures". Gorbachev repeatedly requests and obtains extraordinary executive powers and now speaks darkly of the eventuality of a dictatorship. A week after the new law on the enterprise was passed, the workers of the main assembly-line of the Volga Auto Factory adopted the following resolution: "[We] are deeply angered by the fact that the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, on June 13 1990, passed a "Law on Enterprises in the USSR" ", in secret from the people, without first even publishing a draft in the press and submitting it for discussion to the work collectives.
"In essence, a gross provocation has been committed against the toilers of the country. A law affecting the interests of every work collective has been passed without any consideration of the opinions of the toilers themselves."5
Similarly, on the enterprise level, without asking the opinion of work collectives, directors are turning enterprises into joint stock companies, entering them into "concerns" and establishing banks with enterprise funds. There is no attempt even to explain the purpose of these operations to the workers, and the latter, not without basis, tend to suspect the worst. Phoney joint ventures to rob state purse
The practice, on the part of management, of creating "pocket cooperatives" and phoney joint ventures for the sale of raw materials has become widespread. Again, all this is done behind the back of the workers, who see these operations as a means of transferring state and enterprise funds into the pockets of the "mafia". Some of this concern was reflected in the resolution of the conference that declared "impermissible the transformation of ministries into concerns and their assuming the role of leasees, as well as the transformation of ministries into joint stock companies."
The conference demonstrated that "privatization" (along with growing shortages, price rises and unemployment) seems destined to become a major source of social and political confrontation in the months that come. Scattered conflicts related to this issue have already begun to occur.
In Leningrad last year, the workers of a factory making equipment for the gas industry struck when they learnt that management had squandered enterprise money in a deal with a "pocket co-operative" that failed to fulfill its contract. In Zelenograd, near Moscow, the police had to intervene last October when irate citizens and employees protested the decision of the local soviet executive - which had consulted neither the population nor the 130 employees — to sell a newly repaired food store to a co-operative. (The repairs had cost the state 460,000 rubles, twice the sale price.)
From a socialist point of view, the economic conception of the Conference of Work Collective Councils is not unambiguous. Its anarcho-syndicalist bent could serve as a basis for an eventual capitalist restoration as well as for the construction of a socialist economy based upon self-management, depending on whether the accent is on the market or on workers' power.
There are signs that the initial enthusiasm for the unfettered market is beginning to ebb among workers. The conference, for example, felt it necessary to appeal to work collectives "not to show egoistic tendencies by deciding economic questions at the expense of one's partners."
USSR
SOVIeT CAPITALISM
At the coalminers' congress in Donetsk at the end of October, concern for the fate of the branch in market conditions was repeatedly expressed, especially by the delegates from the Donbass, faced with the specter of mass unemployment. But the fact remains that the workers still have no conception of an alternative. Nor do they yet link the onslaught against self-management with the "radicalization" of the market reform.
Self-management and capitalist restoration
It is also perhaps worth recalling that Solidarity's original programme allotted an important place to self-management, and that Soviet liberals themselves initially promoted the self-management idea to prepare the ideological ground for a restoration.
Nevertheless, the conference does show that, beside the "objective" economic difficulties, a capitalist restoration in the Soviet Union faces major political obstacles.
The conference decided on the following practical measures:
"To form an Organizational Committee 1. Among the many liberal parties, Travkin's has made the most effort to court workers. He regularly appears at large worker gatherings, advertising the fact that he himself was a construction worker (in fact, a manager). His basic message, primitive anti-communism, has won him few supporters among the workers, who so far are withholding their allegiance from all political parties. Rabochaya tribuna, Sept. 9, 1990. 2. Gorbachev has since announced his intention of disbanding this largely symbolic advisory council, one of whose main functions was to buy off potential opposition to his policies. In the case of Yarin, who had been co-president of the anti-liberal United Front of Toilers, Gorbachev's success appears complete. Yarin, who has since received a spacious apartment, trips abroad to co-ordinate the actions of the WCCs and workers' committees of the enterprises of the country, giving it full authority to defend the interests of the worker collectives in the Supreme Soviet and in the government of the USSR and mandating it to organize an All-Union Congress of Work-Collective Councils and Workers' Committees in December 1990.
"To propose to the worker collectives of the enterprises to study the documents of this conference and to support its initiatives.
"To propose to the committees of the Supreme Soviet to include the Organizational Committee for Coordinating the Activities of the WCCs and Worker Committees of the country in the process of drafting a new law on the enterprise. (...)
"To propose to the Supreme Soviet of the USSR that this new draft law on enterprises, that will have taken into account the proposals of this First All-Union Conference, be submitted to an all-people's discussion(... )"In the eventuality that the Supreme Soviet of the USSR fails to adopt a law on enterprises that includes the proposed changes, the worker collectives reserve the right to take additional, more decisive actions." * and a generous salary (besides much official honour) has come around fully to Gorbachev's policies. The UFT, whose fortunes have been stagnating since its founding in the summer of 1989 — its worker support is very thin —has recently ousted Yarin. 3. The WCCs that sent delegates represented over 2 million workers. Because of the incomplete representation (due to time and organizational limitations), the meeting was called a "conference". The next gathering, in December of this year, is to be a full-fledged congress. 4. In a private conversation, one of the author's of this plan, Yavlinskii, referred to it as "the Chilean model... only from the left (!)"
11 5. Sobstvennoe mnenie (Tolyatti) no. 7, 1990. 6. Sovetskaya Rossiya, Nov. 6, 1990.
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GERMANY