Interview with Alexander Buzgalin lists were proposed for the elections to the CC: one with official leaders from
ALEXANDER BUZGALIN is a founding the regional party delegations and the second promember of the Marxist Platform in the which I don't agree with. I am not sure how to resolve this.
Furthermore, it is difficult to be a member of an organization that bears the responsibility for the Stalinist repressions and the present crisis. I am rather hoping to be thrown out, which would resolve the problem. I have not accepted any of the privileges of membership of that body. • What are the positions and debates inside the Marxist Platform?
There are perhaps three main ideas. First is that the way to socialism is through the full realization of all democratic relations in all spheres — social, political, economic and ideological. This also opens up the
December 18, 1990. c came to be on the Central AN you explain how you
Committee of the Communist Party, and how you see your role on that body? Before 1989 it would have been impossible for a person such as myself to become a member of the Central Committee. I became a member of the CPSU only in 1988, and I became a political figure only in the Spring of 1989. I was a political scientist who had written some articles on political problems, but I was not a political leader. But it became impossible for me to continue to stand outside political activity. It was "if not I, then who?"! It was a time of choice for everybody, to really be a communist or not - like Hamlet. So I decided to be and with ten of my friends decided to write a document containing some ideas on the future political and economic system as the programme of the CPSU. This document was the Marxist Platform' It was published in Moskovskaya pravda, and we got a lot of calls from people throughout the Soviet Union who supported our ideas. In the middle of April we organized a conference of supporters of the document, and that was the beginning of my political career, because I became one of the members of the Consultative Committee of the Marxist Platform.
gress of the CPSU, but I did some very interesting work in the corridors of the congress and tried to explain our ideas and the purpose of our movement.
Some people decided to support our attempt to have a speech at the congress. After some arguments it was made possible. I had ten minutes - I was applauded four times.
After the speech hundreds of delegates approached myself and my friends to discuss the Marxist Platform posed by Gorbachev. During the election discussion many people, including me, made short speeches to propose additions to this list, of people without official positions. It was decided to make It was decided to make such additions and I received the backing of the absolute majority of the delegates for a place on the CC. I am not the only member of the Marxist Platform on the CC - there are two others. But I am a "white crow" in that company - in a minority of one on all questions. Obviously I have become well known because of this. It is not the most important thing for me to be a member of the CC or even of the CPSU. I want to be a real communist and a supporter of the democratic movement. Being on the CC puts me in a very contradictory position. On the one hand it is very positive because I can make a speech in a large auditorium at every meeting, I can write an article, and have contacts with different people on a high level and can take real practical steps in support of our ideas. But on the other hand, I am responsible for all the decisions of the CC, most of perspective of communism. We believe that democracy is about more than elections and a multiparty system. There must also be basic democracy at the level of the enterprises, regions and towns. There is a need for democratic consumers' organizations - something that i or nant in the Soviet Union at is very important in the Soviet Union at the moment - and in the sphere of distribution and social relations and so on. We are for a real self-management democracy at all levels.
We are for social ownership of the economy in two forms: the first would be collective ownership and the second would be a variant of state ownership, with strong self-management at the enterprise and national level. We say yes to the market, but we see it as a way to go from the present crisis situation to a future socialist economy. This market must be under the control of mass democratic organizations in different spheres, rather than under the control of what we call the bandokratia, that is, a union between organized criminals and corrupt officials.
Now, in the Soviet Union, we have a sit-
1. Extracts from the Marxist Platform can be found in
/V 187, June 18, 1990 2. Extracts from the Democratic Platform can be found in /V 188, July 2, 1990.
YOu MEN
PERE NINT
TAUS
'I am the ghost of glasnost past, or perestroika-yet-to-come; I'm not sure which.'
11
#98 ternational Viewpoint
CPSU, and was elected onto the Central
Committee of the CPSU at last year's 28th congress. He was interviewed in Paris by
Colin Meade and Cecilia Garmendia on
USSR
USon uation where the old leaders are changing their political power over the economy into money and property. Bureaucratic leaders are becoming heads of joint enterprises with Western countries and private enterprises. There is the development of what we call "nomenklatura capitalism". Perhaps this would be accompanied by a political dictatorship on Pinochet's lines. We have said we are totally against such a variant of the market.
We accept some forms of private ownership in existing circumstances. It is necessary to legalize shadow forms of private ownership and exercise some control. We would envisage something like the NEP of Lenin's time.
In the ideological sphere we are Marxists, but we understand that Marxism is not just the small number of ideas and figures we had in the official Soviet primers.
There are also many others who were
Marxists and made contributions. Marxism must be self-critical and must be developed. Lenin was a critic of Marxism.
Marx wrote that capitalism was a society of free competition. Lenin emphasized the contradiction between free competition and monopoly in capitalism. This was a criticism and a development.
Something similar is needed now given the changes both in West and East. So we are for critical, developing Marxism and not the Stalinist version.
There are some difficulties in the Marxist Platform, which I want to explain. To do this it is necessary to look at the history of the democratic movements in the
CPSU. This arose in January 1990 with the formation of the Democratic Platform?. The absolute majority of this organization supports right social democratic ideas. A minority of the DP decided to support a socialist perspective and the ideas of real democracy. This was a component of the future Marxist Platform.
A week before and a week after the 28th
Congress of the CPSU there were two meetings of supporters of the DP. A split took place. A part has formed a Republican Party with ideas like the American
Republicans — not even social democrats. Another part has remained inside the CPSU and has taken part in the formation of the Democratic Movement of
Communists (DMC). This includes not only the DP people, but also some horizontal structures existing in Leningrad,
Moscow and other cities. There are also some small groups of delegates to the 28th
Congress, for example a group called
Young Communists/Left Initiative from
Leningrad.
The DMC was organized at a conference on November 17/18, 1990. There are two wings in this movement. The right is left social democrat. They support the main ideas of the Second International, but its programmatic announcements rather than its actions. The leftwing is close to 12 my position.
There are also differences inside the
Marxist Platform. About a half of its sup- At half of its supporters are moving to a position very close to that of the United Front of Toilers (UFT)3. Prigorin, for example, said that the most important struggle in our country is the struggle against capitalist restoration. The most important task is that of defence of socialism. I asked: was there a socialism to defend? He answered maybe yes, maybe no, but it is necessary to save all socialist measures. Irl some cases he is right, but only in some. In fact the main problem for us is the same as before. We still have the bureaucratic dictatorship, but in a new form. Our capitalism is growing from our bureaucracy and will be a bureaucratic capitalism. Thus the way now to struggle to destroy a future bureaucratic capitalism in our country is to struggle against its precondition: bureaucratic control over society and the economy.
Then there are different positions on questions of tactics. We think that one of our most important tasks is work within the mass democratic movements. The majority of these movements say that they are anti-socialist, anti-Marxist and anti-
CPSU. But if you ask them if they would support real self-management for the workers they reply: yes. If you ask them:
do you support bureaucratic capitalism or social ownership, they will support social ownership. In my view our most important task is to work inside such movements. But for many in the MP it is impossible to work in a movement that says "no to socialism"
The third difference is over relations with other socialist parties and groups in the Soviet Union. We have good contacts with the Confederation of Anarchosyndicalists (CAS), Kagarlitsky's Socialist Party, with left social democrats. On the whole social democrats in the USSR are rather like the Democratic Party in the
USA. A typical bourgeois party. But the left wing are real supporters of socialism and self-management, and play a very positive role in the mass democratic and labour movements. So we want to organize some kind of bloc of real socialist forces in the USSR.
However it is hard for the majority of the MP to support this idea. The Anarchosyndicalists say that the CPSU is an organization of criminals and the majority of the Marxist Platform say that this makes it impossible to work together. I try to explain that in some respects the CAS is right. Leaders of the CPSU have been real criminals, organizers of repressions, responsible for the deaths of millions of people. But the majority of the MP find this hard to take. They say, if the CAS think that the CPSU is full of criminals then they support the ideas of Pinochet.
• These differences in the MP suggest two very different ideas of what socialism is: If you say that to attack the CPSU equals anti-socialism then
International Viewpoint #198 • January 21, 1991 daring idea is that the dictatare the same thing. Thus these differences are actually very profound. For me, defence of socialism and criticism of the dictatorship of the CPSU are two sides of the same coin. If you are to have socialist relations, we must destroy the dictatorship of the so-called Communist Party. Our CPSU is not a real Communist Party. It is a bureaucratic construction. Its membership consists in its absolute majority of conformists, without ideas. They are in it for career reasons. It was impossible to be a scientist or an engineer if you were not a party member.
The leaders are typical bureaucrats — state capitalists, but not communists. The struggle against this model of the party was the first idea of the MP. We wanted to destroy the bureaucratic command party and organize a real communist movement.
• Has the national question been an issue inside the Marxist Platform?
It is one of the most difficult questions, because a majority of the Platform supports the idea of defence of unity of the
USSR by any means, even if this means a strongarm policy. My friends and myself reject this. But we have only two forces, and two types of organization. One the one hand there are the bureaucrats who are trying to save the Soviet Union through the policy of the strong hand. The
Communist Party bureaucrats in the Baltic Republics and some other republics - though not in Georgia and Armenia - think that the only way to save the socialist choice is to preserve all-Union laws through the policy of the strong hand.
They don't say "use armed force", but this is thought possible.
The second force is the nationalists.
This is no longer a democratic force. At one time it was, when they stood up for defence of the national rights of the small republics. But now the leaders of the nationalists in the Baltic have become semi-fascist in some aspects.
• In what way?
Because now they are trying to organize pressure on all people who support socialist ideas and on all communists and on people who are not of their nationality, be they Russian, Jewish, Ukrainian, Polish or whatever. Pressure is applied through all means: through the mass media; through employment. It is very difficult to get a job if you are not a native. Pressure is applied through the system of card distribution. Formally, rights are equal but really unequal, since informal relations play a major part in our social life.
All this makes it difficult to be a supporter of national democratic movements in the Soviet Union. When I said at the last plenum of the CC that I support the national struggles for independence most of the CC members said: "you support fas-
### CREA E AIDI
SONIRY cist regimes in these republics"; "you support the repression of communists" At the December 1990CC plenum I insisted throughout that it was necessary to give a clear and unambiguous answer on the central question: who is responsible for the crisis of the Union over the national question. I said that it was the party that until now had enjoyed full control over all the republics that was responsible. Obviously it is necessary to criticize nationalist and chauvinist positions and antidemocratic measures in every republic, but it is the CPSU that bears the main responsibility. Furthermore, even if independence brings forth reactionary regimes, bureaucratic repression against these movements can only be counterproductive and lead to civil wars. I put forward different variants of Union, which could only be voluntary. • Does the MP have any supporters in the non-Russian republics? Yes, but we have some difficulties. A supporter of the MP has become a second secretary of the CP in Minsk, the capital of Byelorussia. But in the Baltic Republics the majority of our supporters have contacts with the so-called Internationalist Fronts. These latter demand a strong hand policy from Gorbachev. Some members of our platform support such ideas. We have formed an organized minority in the MP, called "Marxism 21st Century". This was set up on November 17/18 in the Academy of Social Sciences. On the second day we held a joint meeting with elements in the DP and issued a joint document. So now Marxism 21st Century is both a member of the Marxist Platform and of the Democratic Movement of Communists. We are a bridge between the two. If part of the MP goes to the UFT and part of the DP to the social democrats, that leaves us to form a real democratic communist movement.
USSR
ND. PRESTO • You have outlined your economic programme. Do you see points of support for this programme in reality? Or is it just an idea? First of all, a short history of our programme. A small group of young scientists was organized at the end of the 1970s when I was a post-graduate student. We discussed the problems of the bureaucratization of our economy, of self-management, of the humanist essence of socialism and so on. We were aware even then of the real contradictions in our economy. We tried to arrive at some conclusions. At the end of the 1980s we looked for ways to realize these ideas. We sought contacts with self-management organs in the Soviet Union and with the mass movements and in 1987-89 we organized schools for leaders of producers' self-management in our country. This school exists now in Moscow University. It aims to educate people in how to be a real democratic master in their enterprises. Now, we have some positive results. There was a meeting in Tolyatti at the end of August, which brought together representatives of the workers collectives in the state enterprises, and they decided to organize a congress which took place in early December 1990. Our group of scientists acted as consultants for this congress. We prepared a packet of documents for the delegates setting out a model of a so-called people's enterprise. We proposed two variants. Firstly, joint ownership by two subjects, a state body, such as a city soviet and the labour collective of the enterprise. The labour collective would decide on the organization of responsibilities, production and distribution, in the context of a plan of production agreed with the state.
We also proposed a simple model of self-management relations. Self- management is more than just the power of the workers collectives. It operates in all spheres and at all times. We tried to describe this idea according to experience both in our country and elsewhere. This model also took up the question of the relations between the labour collectives and the administration where the former is the master and the latter "the worker".
The second variant was for smaller enterprises, where state involvement is not essential.
These ideas have been put into practise in some enterprises. Also, a colleague has written on the problems of social self-management in spheres other than production. For example he tried to find a model for self-management in distribution.
Now he is Vice-President of the All-
Union Council of Consumers of the
Soviet Union. We are also trying to put our ideas into practise in the ecological movement. These are first steps, but real steps. We are able to use our ideas in the independent movements, which are opposed to all variants of dictatorship, whether neo-Stalinist or Pinochet-style.
My wife has been working on the question of self-management in the cultural sphere, and has written some documents for the congress of Soviet film-makers. These documents were adopted and attempts are being made to put them into practise. This is another practical result. • How were the delegates to the Congress of Labour Collectives elected?
There were about 600 delegates plus 300 guests. They could claim to represent some seven to nine million workers. Virtually all republics and all major cities were represented. The difference between the delegates and guests was not very important, because the delegates were formal leaders of workers' collectives with the right accreditation. The guests didn't have the piece of paper. Most of these people were chairpersons of councils of labour collectives, and had been selected as official representatives of the collectives.
About 30% of these people were workers, 60% engineers and so on, while there were a small number of scientists, representing scientific organizations. There were also some officials. Lukyanov, the leader of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR made a speech, when he claimed that he had always been a supporter of self-management. Two days before this conference there was a conference of directors of state enterprises, where it was said that force would be used if the directors' orders were not obeyed. At the end of his 3. A neo-Stalinist organization. 4. For an account of this Congress see article by Poul- 13 Funder Larsen in /V 187. Nikolai Travkin is leader of the Russian People's Party.
SANTH PENS
USSR speech Lukyanov said that it would be a very positive step if the congress of labour collectives were to support the conclusions of the directors' congress.
It was the very big enterprises that were represented at this congress. The meeting decided to organize a union of labour collectives, to struggle for new laws on the economy, for defence of the interests of self-management for social ownership.
There are two models of privatization on offer. One sees the way as from bureaucratic to private ownership, the other from bureaucratic to common ownership. This council of labour collectives will struggle for the second option.
• What are your relations with the
Confederation of Labour?
This is complicated. Myself and leaders of the Socialist Party, and some other Marxist organizations, for example the Marxist Workers Party-Party of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat, which has real links with the workers movement and envisages the absolute realization of all Marxist ideas, including anti-bureaucratic ideas, have links with strike committees. We worked on the first congress of strike committees which took place in Novokuznetsk in May this year*. There was a very contradictory situation in this congress.
For example Travkin made a speech at this congress, which a lot of the delegates found wonderful. I made a speech and got the same response. The Confederation does not really exist; what there is is a council of the leaders, who have moved from a democratic position to support for Yeltsin. These leader have close relations with government officials become junior bureaucrats. But this is a problem for any mass movement in its initial stages.
I think that there will soon be a second congress of the Confederation at which there will be some changes, perhaps a split. I think the majority will line up behind Yeltsin and a move towards capitalism, with defence of the workers inside this context. A minority, however, will support the idea of enterprise self-management. The majority of the miners, for example, or the steelworkers in the Urals will support the idea of social ownership. The important thing for them is the struggle against the administration, not against social ownership. However, in the Union of Workers Collectives, there is probably a majority for our ideas. These latter can see that what we will get is bureaucratic capitalism, in which power will stay in the same hands in new forms. • Has there been any discussion of the conversion of the defence industries at the conference of workers collectives?
Yes, but it was not a major discussion. There were a large number of representa14 tives of the defence industry there, but they mainly discussed forms of self- management and the union. Also a lot of time was wasted on procedural questions.
I can only give my own opinion on the question of the defence industries.
We have a big problem. It has been decided to transform defence industries into civilian industries through simple bureaucratic means. These enterprises have very sophisticated equipment and the capacity for experimental production.
There are large institutes. Thus the proposal that they should produce simple goods is very wasteful. They should engage in scientific production. We could use this for export. The people who work in this sector can see this problem.
The people at the congress were often highly educated, with both technical and broader economic knowledge. Often they know more than the directors in the sense that the latter know how to manipulate the bureaucratic system, but not how to organize social relations in the enterprise and throughout the economy. The workers' collective leaders would exercise competent management. They can also teach others about self-management. • What are the differences between the economic programmes of Shatalin/Yeltsin and Gorbachev? And what is the plan?
Shatalin does not really support his own programme. He is responsible for two programmes: the one that bears his name and one issued by an Economics Institute. The latter is not well known. But it concludes that it is not possible to organize a market in 500 days. This is what it is like in the Soviet Union! The Supreme Soviet has adopted both Gorbachev's and Shatalin's programme, but without the 500 day deadline.
The question of what road to the market remains open. Yeltsin's programme represents the interests of new business people, Gorbachev's that of the bureaucracy. Some bureaucrats are moving into business, but others cannot or do not want to. Thus Gorbachev and Yeltsin represent two wings of the new "bandokratia"
But both plans are in any case impossible to carry out. The Yeltsin programme cannot work because we have very large disproportions between different spheres of production.
In some spheres, such as the defence industry, we have the level of the West; in others, such as agriculture we are back in feudal times. Some 60% of our agricultural workers work manually. The situation in the goods and services markets is very contradictory. The price of a hotel room for foreigners can run into hundreds of dollars a day. For Soviet people it is only ten roubles. Thus one rouble equals 20 dollars.
For tape recorders things are the other way round. In these circumstances, speculation is very profitable. We may recall that in the Marxist account, capitalism begins in the sphere of trade - mercan-
International Viewpoint #198 • January 21, 1991 tile capitalism, through speculation in the sphere of distribution. Our market can only be of this primitive kind. There will be a reduction of production in all spheres
- as can be seen in Poland. Most of our people have no prospect of becoming a real subject of market relations. We have a collectivist psychology. When we discuss the market with the miners, they say: the market is absolutely necessary for us. I say, so then you will be in competition with all other enterprises producing coal.
They reply: no, we will be friends — we will be in competition with Japan perhaps.
There will be a growth of contradictions between different social groups. Some people will see their incomes growing very rapidly, while others will experience a sharp decline. We will not get the Swedish system. Our capitalism will be like something from the start of the 19th centuту.
What is possible in our country is some kind of hybrid, such as we saw in Poland during the 1980s, overseen, as in Poland, by a military regime. But this will be a weak regime, confronted by many small democratic organizations and anarchy in the social and economic spheres. There will be a real struggle between different social and political forces. What will not happen is the realization of either Gorbachev's or Yeltsin's programme. • What do you think about the food crisis?
Over past years there has been nothing in the shops, but people have had food in their freezers. Now there is not so much food in the freezers. It is not that production has dropped dramatically. There is enough food and many other goods - in our country - not too much, but enough. The problem is where has the food gone. The fact is that the whole distribution system has crumbled. It is like when a bridge has not been repaired for long enough. One day it just crumbles — there is no sudden action, no subject. The bridge is just too tired. The bureaucratic system in our country is just too tired and has collapsed without anyone actively blowing it up.
The whole system of transport, management and distribution does not work. In Magnitogorsk there were a hundred tons of sugar at the railway station, but no sugar in the shops.
Over the years the economy has been adjusted by the endless addition of new rules. Now, centralized management is impossible; people ignore the centre's decisions. Thus it is no use issuing new regulations. Western attempts to send aid will not help, since most of the aid will end up stacked at the station. On the other hand if direct contact were made with relevant organizations rather than the goverment this would be helpful. But this aid is a political game between Gorbachev and the Western governments. *
POLAND