SOVIET UNION
This is compatible with the affirmation of the sovereignty of the republics in several domains, which, in the USSR as in Yugoslavia, will be at the heart of the negotiations and conflicts to come; in international policy, the republics want to have their own representatives in world bodies alongside the Union (as is formally the case of the Ukraine, and is also envisaged in the Yugoslav confederal projects); on the plane of the armed forces, each republic seeks the means to protect itself and the right for its conscripts to do their service where they want; finally, there is the question of the economy, that is: what degree of independent decision-making for each republic, and within that, what monetary space.
The sorcerer's apprentice and the midwife
The defeat of the coup accelerates the change and the break up of the USSR on three levels; the Union, the Party/State and the economy. While Gorbachev has been the sorcerer's apprentice of this mutation, Yeltsin will be without doubt its midwife. It was necessary without hesitation to oppose the coup, and in this respect to struggle alongside Yeltsin, but beyond this it is also necessary to say in advance what the effects would be of the application of the 500 day reform he supports and to judge him on his acts.
The development of self-organization, political pluralism and of total freedom of expression are the only guarantees of democracy in the essential decisions to come and of a real defence against future coups, from wherever they may arise. Such self-organization and such liberties should be respected in workplaces and the localities. That is why we are against the decree forbidding the workplace cells of the CP, but for the generalization of the right of organization and of political debate.
We are for the nationalization of the property of the CP and of the official trade unions but for their redistribution under democratic control to the different political organizations, among them the CP. In the same way, we do not accept the banning of the CP, because we reject the confusion between the necessary struggle against the Party/State and its monopoly, and the forbidding of the expression of the ideas or limits to the right of organization for those who still adhere to Communism. Il is not by chance that Yeltsin is perceived by the socialist and pro-self-management left in the Soviet Union as a potential danger. * 1. Ryzhkov had been Gorbachev's Prime Minister and was defeated by Yeltsin in the election for the Russian presidency. Silaev, Prime Minister of Russia, is today at the head of the federal economy. Pavlov was Prime Minister of the USSR at the moment of the attempted coup, and participated in the conspiracy. The economist Shatalin, who drew up the 500 day plan, is close to Yeltsin.
A view from the Soviet left SHORTLY after Mikhail Gorbachev resigned as General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), Poul Funder Larsen spoke to Vadim Damye, a Moscow left-wing activist, co-founder of the Green Party and leader of the eco-socialist group Green Alternative.
HE attempted coup by the "Committee for the State of Emergency" turned out to be a total failure. In most major cities in Russia, for example Leningrad, there were no troops at all, and the local — mostly liberal — soviets were firmly in control. This seems rather unusual for a coup supported by the leaderships of the army and KGB.
There are many circumstances surrounding the coup, which indicate that it was not a real coup d'état, but rather some kind of "provocation". It is indeed a strange coup which does not include the air forces and the navy; which is not actively supported by the commanders of the military districts; where there are no clear orders given to the army; where there is no substantial support from the social forces which would benefit from the coup and so on. Even the military units loyal to the junta did not take any decisive steps — they didn't try to conquer the positions of power, and the military forces, for example in Moscow, were hardly armed.
Besides it is still quite unclear who gave the orders to halt the military units marching towards the great citics. Even if one assumes that the coup leaders were absolute fools, all this sounds improbable.
In this connection the declaration by former KGB chief, Kryuchkov, in yesterday's Izvestiya (August 24) was interesting. He said that he had made no mistakes, and that there are many indications that he will soon be set free. • Could you give some additional information about the scale and political character of the resistance against the coup in Moscow? 11
During the days of the coup the mobili-
SOVIET UNION zations were not very large, and people's opinions varied a great deal. However, the majority seemed rather indifferent. There were no factories on strike in Moscow. Of course there were strikes among the miners in the provinces, but not in a really massive fashion. There were few workers around the "White House" of the Russian parliament, for example building barricades. The great majority there were young people, political activists from "Democratic Russia" and so on, but also some left-wing activists took part. • What positions did the left wing put forward during the coup? Were any of the left groups able to intervene in the situation?
Unfortunately this situation clearly