The Soviet Union today: What is the meaning of

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Since becoming the Soviet Union's top leader in March 1985, Mikhail Gorbachev has introduced a series of political and economic reforms aimed at pacifying the growing discontent of the Soviet working class. Gorbachev's primary concern has been to save the oppressive bureaucratic regime from a Polish Solidaritytype development inside the Soviet Union.

Gorbachev and the faction of the ruling Stalinist bureaucracy he represents understand full well that the bureaucratic mismanagement of the economy, the corruption, the chronic shortages, the censorship, and the low standard of living are generating extreme unrest among the population.

A revealing article published in the Feb. 13, 1986, issue of Pravda, the official newspaper of the ruling Communist Party, indicates the extent of this popular dissatisfaction. The article quotes a series of letters from workers and party members.

"Purge the apparatus"

Ivanov, a worker at the Azot complex in Chtchekino, writes the following:

"I am convinced that between the central committee of the party and the working class there swarms a heavy and inert 'politico-administrative' layer that is afraid of radical changes...All that these people expect from the party are their privileges."

Another worker, N. Nicolaiev, who has been a party member in Kazan since the 1940s, is even harsher in his condemnation:

"If one talks about social justice, it is impossible to close one's eyes to the fact that the leaders of the party, the soviets, the unions, the economy, and even the Communist Youth often aggravate social inequalities by using all sorts of special restaurants, stores, and hospitals.

"Given that we have socialism in our country, there should be no special privileges. Let the administrators stand in line at the ordinary stores like everybody else. Maybe that way we'd get rid of the long lines which people are fed up with...The use of the law and a strict purge of the apparatus are indispensable."

By publishing these letters, the ruling bureaucracy hopes to head off a popular outburst. It wants to show it is aware of the problems and anxious do something about them.

This goal was openly avowed by Gorbachev in a speech to a closed meeting of Soviet writers on June 19, 1986. [For a fuller account of this meeting, see article by Frank Lovell in this section.] After detailing the great ills of the Soviet economy, Gorbachev stated, "We want to do something about all this and not remain with our arms crossed in order to prevent the process of change from taking place alongside us." (Libération [France], Dec. 26, 1986)

"House-cleaning" measures In recent months, Gorbachev has loosened up censorship, released a limited number of political dissidents, and altered the form of electing party members. Through this glasnost (openness) campaign, he has hoped to enlist the support of the artistic and scientific intelligentsia, in particular, for his reform program.

These changes are certainly the most significant ones to take place in the Soviet Union since the Khrushchev era in the 1950s. But they are aimed at polishing the existing bureaucratic system in order to preserve it—not to change it.

For example, the principle of the one-party system has been stubbornly upheld. And though the KGB, the Soviet secret police, has seen some "house cleaning" of its most corrupt officials, Gorbachev in a speech to the January 1987 plenum of the party's central committee loudly praised it as an institution.

Most important, Gorbachev has opposed instituting any form of genuine workers' self-management in industry. Zhores Medvedev, a renowned Soviet dissident, stated in a recent interview published in the fall 1986 issue of Labor Focus on Eastern Europe that Gorbachev's changes "do not in any real sense amount to selfmanagement." He continued, "He [Gorbachev] talks about self-management in the context of the need to restrict ministerial interference."

The right to strike, the right to challenge the decisions of the managers, and the right to directly elect and recall the top officials in the party and the state apparatus are 'still prohibited. Under Gorbachev's glasnost, the workers can still not determine what they produce, how they produce it, and to whom their product is to go.

Allowing genuine democratic participation by the producers in elaborating and implementing the production plans would threaten the ruling bureaucracy. Gorbachev hopes to streamline the planning hierarchy, not to displace it.

Increasing labor discipline

Gorbachev and his wing of the bureaucracy want desperately to improve the economy. But because their overall goal is to preserve their privileges and monopoly on political power, they cannot allow the working class to make the fundamental decisions affecting production and distribution.

Moreover, because its foreign policy is based on "peaceful coexistence" with the major capitalist powers, the bureaucracy is an obstacle to the extension of the Russian Revolution and hence to the integration of the Soviet economy into a highly advanced worldwide socialist system.

Following the footsteps of Joseph Stalin, Gorbachev believes it is possible to "build socialism" within the boundaries of the Soviet Union alone. [See article on "peaceful coexistence" on back page of this section.] Unable and unwilling to chart a genuine working-class, internationalist path for the Soviet working class, the Soviet bureaucracy under Gorbachev must instead resort to reactionary policies in order to attempt to resolve its growing crisis.

Gorbachev's policy is to raise labor productivity by making the workers work harder and better. Various capitalist market mechanisms are being introduced that will allow enterprises to fire workers. The threat of unemployment is the classic market means to discipline the labor force and increase productivity.

The recently introduced quality-control system is a direct threat to workers' bonuses, which can make up as much as 50 percent of their income. A work stoppage in 20 workshops of the Kamaz truck factory to the east of Moscow took place in December 1986 in protest of the reduction of production bonuses.

The increasing number of work actions reported by the underground press are certain to test the limits of glasnost.

Transmission belt of imperialism Another important economic measure-one that if fully implemented could ultimately undermine the monopoly on foreign trade and the planned character of the Soviet economy—is the recent law which authorizes joint ventures with major capitalist industries. [See article by Frank Lovell for details of law.] A sign that the capitalist class in the United States is aware of the importance of this law is given by Jerry F. Hough in a Feb. 13, 1987, op-ed article in The New York Times.

Hough, a staff member at the Brookings Institution, criticizes the U.S. press for "giv[ing] too much significance to a meaningless suggestion about a secret ballot in party elections, but ignor[ing] the simultaneous publication of a law on joint ventures based on foreign investment, which could be absolutely crucial."

Leon Trotsky, a central leader of the Russian Revolution who opposed the rise of the Stalinist clique in the Bolshevik Party, explained that the Stalinist bureaucracy acts as the "transmission belt of imperialist pressures" within the Soviet workers' state. He said it was the bureaucracy which at every step undermines the gains of the Russian Revolution.

For this reason, Trotsky called for a "political revolution" in the Soviet Union. By this he meant a revolutionary struggle of the working class that would defend the nationalized state property and remove the ruling bureaucratic caste from political power, thereby instituting genuine workers' democracy.

Trotsky's words ring as true today as when they were written 50 years ago.

Today, the fight of the Soviet workers against social inequality and political oppression will have to be waged against all factions of the Stalinist bureaucracy —including the "enlightened" Gorbachev faction—if the fight is to be victorious.

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