Gorbachev faces new crisis in rise of oppressed nationalities

Scan page 12

with articles by Zbigniew Kowalewski on 'The Resurgence of the Nationalist Movement in the Ukraine,' Gerry Foley on 'Political Revolution and the National .. rehabilitations SOCIALIST ACTION DECEMBER 1988 13 The wave of regional nationalism that is rolling across the Soviet Union has reached the shores of the Baltic. The people of Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania are in the streets demanding the restoration of their national languages, their cultures, and their national identities.

In an unprecedented move, the Estonian Supreme Soviet passed a constitutional amendment requiring Estonian approval of any Soviet law applied to them. The Estonians also issued a "declaration of sovereignty," asserting Estonia's independence in all areas except defense and foreign affairs. They also want the text of the Hitler-Stalin pact of 1939 published to expose the truth about their forcible annexation by the Soviet Hitler invited Stalin to take over these three small nations as part of the deal that divided Poland and gave Hitler the green light for his war of conquest. The Baltic people were not consulted as their nations were obliterated.

Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania had been independent nations for 22 years-from 1917 to 1939. For centuries they had been ruled by Germans, Swedes or Russians.

When Stalin took over the Baltic states, he integrated their economies into the socialized property relations of the Soviet Union. Despite the bureaucratic, dictatorial way this was accomplished, there is little evidence the Baltic people preterred the rule of the former capitalists and landlords.

However, the Baltic peoples did resist when Stalin resumed the policy the Tsars had pursued in vain: to Russianize these states and turn them into provinces where Russian culture predominated, with the economies controlled in the interests of Moscow.

Thousands of Baltic people were deported to Siberia by Stalin. Thousands of Russians were sent to the Baltic states to replace them. Large factories were built, without regard to local needs, to employ the newcomers.

Minority in their own land In Estonia only 60 percent of the population is now Estonian. In Latvia the native population is a minority in its own land. Instead of the Russian settlers learning Latvian, the Latvians have to learn Russian. "For over 40 years I have watched the culture and economy of my country slowly deteriorate," said a Latvian quoted in The New York Times.

Now the Latvians have organized to fight back. They have formed the Latvian Popular Front, with a membership of over 100,000. They demand complete economic independence, the right to create their own currency, to establish independent relations with other states, and the right to control travel and immigration.

In Lithuania a new movement, "Lithuanians in Support of Perestroika," held a (continued from page 12) is their view of Trotsky? Are they familiar with any of his works?

Weissman: I agree with you that one of Trotsky's most important contributions is his critique of privilege and his understanding of what the Marxist sense of planning is—that is, democratically controlled planning at all levels, the conscious regulation of the economy in which both the planners and the plan implementers are one and the same.

Now, many of the organizations of the Soviet New Left, such as Boris Kagarlitsky's group, the Club of Socialist Initiative (which has now been formed into a Popular Front), have come out for Trotsky's rehabilitation. They don't agree with everything Trotsky wrote, but for them Trotsky is the real anti-Stalinist symbol.

For them, Trotsky was the only one with enough political courage to oppose Stalin from the very beginning until the very end. He was someone, they say, who made it his life struggle to analyze Stalinism from a Marxist point of view and to never go over to the other side of the class line, as so many of those who emigrated did.

They've read some of Trotsky's writings from the 1920s that have been available in libraries for the last 10 years to a select number of people. They know something about Trotsky's theory of permanent revolution, but they don't know any of his writings of the '30s.

S.A.: What is the attitude of these groups toward Gorbachev's market reforms?

FINLAND SOVIET Ta Riga na AVA Baltic Sea Ignalina , -44IRUAMAI Vilnius BYELORUSSIA POLAND UKRAINE Miles 150 congress in October that voiced nationalist demands, including the right to their own language and national flag. These demands are backed by the vast majority of the Lithuanians, as attested by a petition campaign that gathered 1.5 million signatures out of a population of 3.6 million.

Under Stalin, raising such demands would result in a fast trip to Siberia, or worse. But today, the political and economic crisis of the bureaucracy that gave rise to Gorbachev's glasnost policy has created a wide channel for expressing grievances against national oppression. However, the intensity of nationalist feeling expressed has taken the Kremlin by surprise.

Demonstrations of 300,000 make the unrest obvious. Local Communist Party officials have joined the Popular Front and are supporting their demands. This reflects the broad base of support this movement has, but also the unwillingness of the Kremlin to confront the nationalist movement head on, at this time.

The ongoing crisis in Soviet Armenia and the ünrest in the Ukrainé indicate that nationalism is a major threat to the stability of Gorbachev's regime. The history of the Baltic republics as recently independent nations makes the situation there particularily volatile. Communist Party leaders in the Baltic states, in most cases, have joined the nationalists, only to counsel patience.

The Kremlin has yielded to some demands, permitting the display of national flags, and tolerating the new national movements. But the bureaucrats want to keep the movement Weissman: Kagarlitsky's group feels that the market will be the only indicator of consumers' needs and the only check on the quality of goods. But the group also feels that there should be planning, but planning that is democratic. So in a sense the group is looking for a more mixed economy.

Now there's nothing wrong or anti-Marxist to have forms of a market economy in the transitional stage to socialism. But the question is, of course, who will exercise control over the economy? If these groups see the working class in the controlling role, then we have to say they're absolutely right. But I think there's some real waffling on this ‚question.

S.A.: Trotsky was not opposed in principle to the use of market forces so long as they were totally subordinate to a democratically controlled planned economy and to state's monopoly on foreign trade.

Weissman: That's right. Now I think that within the Soviet left there's such a strong reaction to the status-quo that the market is seen as a kind of panacea. But what makes these groups different from the Gorbachev leadership is that they don't want to forget the working class.

The New Left today is primarily made up of discontented intellectuals and students. Recently a few workers' organizations (workers' councils) have formed, but the informal organizations mostly consist of the radicalized intelligentsia who want a more democratic society and who are influenced by Western Marxist thinkers, especially Gramsci and 26.25 ASTIXEELELE KONSTTUTS ONIA XARE:

Question, ' and within limits they can control.

A serious limit was set when Gorbachev proposed deleting the right of a republic to secede from the Soviet federation. This right has been a basic policy since the founding of the first workers' state. Even Stalin did not remove this fundamental socialist right from his 1936 Constitution. Exercising this right, Moscow of course, would be another matter.

Deleting this right has created alarm among the Baltic people. This was intensified as they learned of other changes to be proposed at the coming Presidium of the Supreme Soviet. The Estonians hear the Supreme Soviet will tighten, rather than loosen, Moscow's control of these states.

They challenged Gorbachev by calling for an Estonian veto of Soviet laws that impact badly on Estonia. The Estonians were careful to say these measures would not be a call to secede from the Soviet Union. Their demand, they stated, was for genuine equality among Soviet republics. Popular Front spokesman Edgar Savisaar, who is also a Communist Party member, said "We want a sovereign Estonia inside the Soviet Union."

Gorbachev has responded to the Estonian challenge with a call to "talk it over." He has already said some of his proposed laws could Marcuse. So, obviously, they of confusions.

Now about the workers' councils. One of the main demands of the workers is "All power to the soviets." I have the names of two workers' organizations: One is called the Red Workers and the other is the Union of Workers Communist in Moscow.

The other thing is that if you look at the way perestroika has proceeded, it's really hit a stalemate. And the stalemate is because the party leadership under Gorbachev can't move forward on the market unless they can impose some kind of austerity or unemployment on the working class-and the working class is resisting that.

S.A.: So how is the bureaucracy going to resolve this dilemma?

Weissman: In the first place, Gorbachev has been consolidating his power. So far he has been able to outflank his opponents in the party leadership. But he's still sitting on top of a coalition and he still has to respect the interests of the other groups in relation to how far-and how fasthe can go.

I think that what the Soviet government did in Europe in early November is the key to what they're trying to do-that is, they obtained loans from Italy and West Germany. 'These were small loans, only $6 billion dollars, but they're going to use this amount to either import consumer goods or import the machinery to produce consumer goods so that they can buy off the population in the short term while they continue with their restructuring.

So far, Gorbachev has convinced many of the Western European leaders that what the West should do is help Gorbachev with his restructuring of the Soviet economy; in a be modified.

But he rejected the Estonian declaration of sovereignty as a threat to the integrity of the Soviet Union.

The people of Latvia and Lithuania are demonstrating support of Estonia, although these two republics have not issued a similar declaration of sovereignty.

There is sentiment for total independence among the Baltic people, but, even as independent states, they say, they would preserve socialized property relations, and maintain relations of equality with other Soviet republics and other workers' states.

But this development would not be acceptable to the Kremlin. Gorbachev hopes, however, by concessions that stay short of true equality among the republics, to contain the nationalist sentiments of the Baltic people.

A key factor, besides the political concessions Gorbachev is forced to grant, is the bureaucracy's inability to solve the shortages and other economic ills that are straining Soviet society to the breaking point. Scarcity of consumer goods, and the role of a privileged caste are major factors intensifying the national aspirations of the many minorities that make up the Soviet Union.

A Special Supplement or th. introduction by Nat Weinstein.

sense to have a Marshall Zbigniew Brzezinski [Jimmy Carter's former national security adviser] is in favor of this approach, as are many other liberal thinkers. It would be the most intelligent policy for the American ruling class because, by making the Soviet Union gradually more dependent on the West, they can be assured of a greater change in the Soviet system over the long term.

S.A.: The Soviet bureaucracy has just announced that it will permit foreign capitalists to have a controlling interest in joint ventures established in the Soviet Union. Prior to this they had established an upper limit of 49 percent.

Weissman: Yes, currently many significant steps are being taken in the direction of a market-based economy.

S.A.: But for the bureaucracy to overturn the property relations established by the October Revolution it would mean taking on-and ultimately crushing-the Soviet workers, who have already shown signs that they are not about to sit back and accept austerity, unemployment, and greater hardships.

Weissman: Indeed, the major obstacle to perestroika is the Soviet working class.

If you look at the Polish workers' struggle, you can see how this resistance can develop. The Polish workers, in the beginning, were in favor of the social-democratic market reforms—but as long as they didn't have to pay for them. Now they have become the most ardent opponents of price increases and unemployment. The Soviet workers will react in absolutely the same way.

6= tr.:o.s. • • f.r

Scan page 13

ACTION Zbigniew Kowalewski speaking at New York Hunter College In addition to building the Kowalewski tour, Socialist Action members in the Midwest spent time this fall organizing a regional educational conference. The event took place in Detroit on the weekend of Nov. 12-13. People came from Minneapolis; Chicago; Kansas City; Cleveland; Cincinnati; Bowling Green, Ohio; and Urbana, Ill.

The conference opened on Saturday with a talk by Carl Finamore on the political situation in Nicaragua. He was followed by

----- pull-quotes -----

Midwest Educational ducation conference