What will Clinton do? REJECTED by 62% of voters, George Bush had the dubious honour of leading his party to its greatest electoral defeat since 1932 - bringing an end to 12 years of Republican administration.
The victory of the Democratic candidate Bill Clinton, with 43% of the vote, represents a profound reaction in American society to the crisis which has struck the world's biggest economy - to the point that the very basis of the "American dream" has been shaken, precipitating a generational change unseen since the 1960s.
But in the "post-Cold War" world, it is unlikely that these hopes will be fulfilled. GUSTAVO BUSTER November 14, 1992
VER the last six months an important turn in US public opinion occurred. In June of this year, many commentators considered a Bush re-election inevitable. The victor of the Gulf War, the man who had buried communism and announced the advent of the "New World Order" - the culmination of the "end of history" proclaimed by ideologist Francis Fukuyama — seemed invincible to the point that such Democratic party powerhouses as New York Governor Mario Cuomo declined to enter the race.
Since mid-1990, the recession has revealed the extent of the tragic consequences of the "Reagan revolution" including the loss of over a million jobs and the accumulation of an $11bn debt. Bush was forced to call on the Federal Reserve last March to lower its interest rates to 4.5% - the
lowest since 1973 — which ushered in a 2% rise in household consumption. This prompted the press to announce the end of the recession, in spite of the pessimism of the population recorded in numerous polls.
The response of the Republicans to their defeat consists — in the best conservative tradition — of accusing the US people of lacking the moral values necessary to confront the challenges to come. But Clinton's rise to power began after the Los Angeles uprising.
Ross Perot, the independent candidate who appealed to individual initiative, and ridiculed the Washington technocrats, finished by campaigning on the sole theme of appealing to the economic dreams of the American people.
Bush was simply out of arguments to defend his neo-liberal policies, which involve not only the ideological defense of the non-interventionist state, but also the systematic practice of revenue transfer through the fiscal system and subsidies to the military industry and the richest 15% of the population.
Social and ethnic polarization punched a hole through the Republican bloc. The Democrats were victorious in the industrial states of the North-East and for the first time in some of the western states, the South and in California.
No clear mandate
In spite of his victory, Bill Clinton is far from having won a clear mandate for his programme. In fact, 57% of the voters voted against him. This could very well be a determining factor for the future development of the US in the short term if the recession continues to push up the unemployment rate.
The Democrats increased their standing in the Senate by one seat. They lost nine in the House of Representatives. A quarter of the newly elected Congresspeople are from the 1968 generation, and overall the congressional renewal involves many women, Blacks, Latinos and, for the first time, a native American.
For the first time in twelve years, the president's party will have a congressional majority which will be ready to go further than Clinton along the road of change. It is also noteworthy that Bernie Sanders, the self-proclaimed socialist from Vermont, was re-elected to Congress.
Clinton's economic councillor, Robert Reich, explained that the economic crisis in the United economic crisis in the United States is basically the result of structural causes such as the outdated infrastructure that was
USA built in the 1940s and 1950s as well as the lowering standard of labour, which has led to a stagnation of economic productivity in the face of Japanese and European competition. The Reaganite income transfers will be useless to the economy since much of that money lett the country. According to Reich, the objective is to renew the infrastructure by, among other things, creating a national network of communication in optic fibres and investment in "human capital", by education and health policies. The short term objectives are to raise demand. This involves an annual investment program of $200bn and a fiscal reform to encourage new investments in creating businesses. But at the same time Clinton promised to reduce the public deficit, cut military spending, restructure the White House administration and raise taxes on the highest incomes.
Clinton's economic plan has been devised by a team of 555 economists. But there are clear weaknesses in it. The federal budget, without military spending, has risen by 10% a year in recent years, and Clinton's program will see it rise even more, leading to monetary anarchy which has already caused bank reserves to rise by 20% with practically zero interest rates.
Over the next twelve months, a conflict with the Federal Reserve Board can be expected. This body will demand higher interest rates and guarantees for budgetary balances. On the other hand, Clinton's plans will not reduce unemployment which is the consequence of an unprecedented restructuring of the international economic recession. But it could also stimulate a process of re-unionization of the US working class — only 15% of the US workforce is unionized.
DEFI
To get out of the crisis, there is one solution: speed up the creation of the North American free trade zone, NAFTA, between Canada and especially Mexico -thus allowing an expansion of the domestic market, and leading to a lowering of average wages. Whatever strategy is adopted, the balance of social forces will be altered. In this sense, Clinton represents the ambiguity of the current period rather than a solution.
Over the last six months, the Bush administration was unable to take advantage of its hegemonic position in order to end conflicts or to avoid the blossoming of new areas of tension. Clinton intends to approach the post-Cold War period by giving priority to US economic interests.
This will lead to increased inter-imperialist contradictions between the US, Japan and the European Community. The effects of this development have already been seen in the problems associated with the Uruguay GATT talks and the debates over the consequences of the reduction of the US presence in Europe and the Mediterranean. Intervention in the Third World
The reduced threat of nuclear blackmail as a diplomatic argument has not, however, ended the capacity to intervene in the Third World, which is entering into a second decade of generalized poverty.
The stability of the old "socialist bloc" can no longer be counted on as the transition to capitalism has proved to be more difficult than imagined. The United States has seen its room for manoeuvre reduced, as has been shown by its aid to the former USSR compared to Germany, its response to the Yugoslav crisis, or the permanent threat of Saddam Hussein. Clinton promised to take human richts seriously in the tradition of rights seriously in the tradition of the Carter administration. There is already a marked difference in its attitude toward Haitian emigration. But in the face of the growing world disorder, the management of international affairs cannot be guaranteed through a continuation of American foreign policy. Considering its weaknesses, the US must define its defense priorities and interests and renegotiate the terms of inter-imperialist cooperation in a context of growing commercial competition.
Clinton's moral discourse may be put into practice through a re-discovery of international organizations and the notion of collective security.
But it is not possible to remain out 1 7 biggest imperialist power without
December 7, 1992
USA / BALTIC STATES proving it, especially in a chaos-ridden world. As a result, foreign policy will take up more of the new president's time than he had expected.
The biggest danger Clinton must face is the widespread hankering among the American people for a return to an idyllic past; they have voted for a return to the days of uninterrupted economic growth.
In response to these expectations, Clinton has given himself 100 days to inaugurate the "new era": the end of racial and sexuality-based discrimination in the army; for the strengthening of women's rights, notably in the area of abortion rights; the Elections r implementation of an ethics code, to bring an end to the corruption which has undermined federal institutions, including Congress; and public investment of $20bn to boost the economy.
This "Roosevelt" model of an "activist president", in a period characterized by a world recession and the weakening of American world domination, could very well propel the American people to confront head-on the new president's Bonapartist cynicism.
Clinton has opened the Pandora's box and will be unable to close it. * eflect crisis of perspectives THE elections in Lithuania ended in a decisive victory for the main opposition party, the Democratic Labour Party (LDLP) and a defeat for the nationalist Sajudis movement of Vytautas Landsbergis. The winning party is the successor to the majority of the former ruling Communist Party which, under the leadership of Algirdas Brazauskas, aligned itself with proindependence sentiment in Lithuania in the final years of the Soviet Union.
Brazauskas has promised to slow down economic reforms and improve relations with Russia, while pursuing a conciliatory line towards his defeated opponents and maintaining commitments to institutions such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
Coming after Iliescu's victory in Romania in September/October, the LDLP's success provides further evidence of the decline in enthusiasm for radical change in many countries of the former Soviet bloc. This decline reflects the crumbling of the prevailing illusion that support from the West and the adoption of Western-inspired free market programmes would provide a route to prosperity and freedom.
The following article is a shortened version of the first installment of an account by Gerry Foley of a six-week trip to the Soviet Union that first appeared in full in the November 1992 issue of the American Trotskyist monthly, Socialist Action. GERRY FOLEY
GERRY FOLEY T HE first elections in the Baltic
States since the break up of the Soviet Union had seemingly opposite results. On October 25, in Lithuania, the Democratic Party of Labour, the successor of the "national" wing of the Lithuanian Communist Party (and the model for CP successor parties in the other Baltic countries) won a smashing victory over Sajudis, the national democratic front that led Lithuania to independence.
The DPL got over 44% of the votes and will form a new government in which they will be the dominant partner. Sajudis leader Vytautas Lansbergis reportedly announced that his organization will go into opposition.
International Viewpoint # 240 • December 7, 1992
The New York Times attributed Sajudis' defeat to "factionalism" and political divisions within it. But Sajudis' fundamental problem is that its programme — privatization — is clearly benefitting the old bureaucracy, not its mass base.
In the September 20 vote in Estonia, on the other hand, a coalition of rightwing anti-Communist parties emerged as the winners.
The Isamaa (Fatherland) won 30 out of the 100 seats in the Estonian parliament. The Popular Front (Rahvarinne), which had been the principal political force in the struggle against the ruling CP, got only 12% of the vote and 15 seats. The party of the big factory managers "Safe Home" (Kindel Kodu) got 18 seats, the second largest bloc.
The winning coalition essentially consisted of small groups of intellectuals with hard "free enterprise" ideas, who display more consistency than realism.
Despite the different results, both the Estonian and Lithuanian elections reflect the same process; the erosion and breakup of the national fronts that led mass movements against Stalinist rule in a number of former Soviet republics.
In the non-Russian republics, these groups existed for years as mass political movements, defeated the local Communist parties on a national or at least regional scale and took over national or regional governments.