Soviet miners walkout spotlights deep roots of workers' discontent

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coal miners are serving notice to the bureaucracy: "Improve conditions and wages-or else!" Soviet On July 11, hundreds of thousands of Soviet miners staged a one-day nationwide strike to demand the resignation of Prime Minister Nikolai Ryzhkov's government. This militant action was reminiscent of the three-week strike that shut down the mines one year ago in protest against living and working conditions.

The decision to hold the July 11 nationwide strike was made at a June 15-16 congress of Soviet miners, which took place in Donetsk. The miners said they felt betrayed for the past year by the government's failure to fulfill promises of increased salaries, food supplies, and other benefits. The miners' congress also voted to discuss forming an independent miners' union at a special congress to be held Aug. 15-16 in Moscow.

The miners' anger was fueled by Prime Minister Ryzhkov's announcement on May 24 of the government's new program for a "gradual transition toward a market economy." The program's first phase called for major price increases as of July 1. The price of bread, for example, would triple. Meat, fish, oil, and milk products would double.

The miners' congress highlighted the widespread economic anxiety throughout the Soviet Union over the perestroika reforms and particularly over Ryzhkov's proposed price increases.

The miners stated in a resolution that was approved by a 308-116 vote that the Communist Party no longer protects or represents the interests of the country's workers. "We do not consider the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) our party," they stated. "Our aspiration for independence dictates our attitude toward the CPSU. Despite the fact that the party is witnessing a deep crisis, it is still seeking to hold onto its monopoly on political power.... We call for a mass exit from the party; we call on workers in other industries to sever their connections to the government."

Responding to this mass discontent, the Supreme Soviet voted June 14 to delay bread price increases till September. It realized that food riots and a generalized working-class upsurge such as the one that gave rise to Polish Solidarnosc in 1980 could have taken place.

V. Yakovlev, a miner from workuta, expressed the depth of the anti-government sentiment when he wrote in The Messenger, a miners' bulletin: "I hope the formation of an independent miners' union will be followed soon after by the formation of independent unions of metalworkers, construction workers, and others-culminating in a nationwide congress of independent unions."

Another miner, V. Utkin, wrote in the same bulletin: "How can we become stronger and more united? Only by forming an independent union. But the next step after 10 SOCIALIST ACTION this should be the formation of an independent mass workers' party."

"Shock therapy needed"

To carry through his perestroika reforms, Gorbachev knows he must increase prices and enact mass layoffs and plant closures— that is, he must institute the "shock therapy" implemented by the round-table government in Poland. that Gorbacemakers an investors insist " towaro market reforms over the past five years have prevented the Soviet Union from "turning the corner" toward economic prosperity. "You must clear the hurdle toward the genuine introduction of market relations and guarantee our right to make a profit," Western officials are telling Gorbachev.

Up until now, the capitalists have been extremely leery about investing large sums in the Soviet Union. The president of the French Banking Association explained the concerns of the Western bankers in lending money to investors in the Soviet Union: "We don't even know who we are lending money to. The state apparatus is collapsing while no new appropriate structures are emerging capable of managing the risks of credit." (Libération, March 3, 1990)

Specifically, Western bankers are calling on Gorbachev to use his newly established presidential powers to (1) abolish all government regulatory agencies, (2) create a stock market that would place most state-owned factories in the hands of stockholders, (3) establish an independent banking system, and (4) make the ruble fully convertible.

Why Gorbachev pulled back Soviet economists close to Gorbachev agree with these bankers that a rapid transition to a market economy following the Polish model must be implemented in the Soviet Union if the perestroika reforms are to bear any fruit. Earlier this year, Gorbachev himself argued that drastic measures had to be taken to resolve the deteriorating state of the economy.

But on April 23, a spokesperson of the Soviet government announced that after a meeting of Gorbachev's Council of Ministers, the idea of "employing a shock therapy for the Soviet economy was discarded in favor of a gradual transition to a market-oriented economy." (Washington Post, April 24)

What had happened? Gorbachev had simply realized that the austerity measures needed to implement this "shock therapy" would not be tolerated by the Soviet people.

The New York Times noted on May 15, for example, that Gorbachev retreated from his goal of revamping the Soviet economy because he recognized that the Soviet people were not prepared to accept unemployment and the increasing inequality of incomes. The Times article pointed out that the proAUGUST 1990 camp Geı posed "shock therapy" would result in 15 million to 20 million unemployed Soviet workers and a sharp increase in the price of basic foodstuffs following an end to government subsidies.

Newsweek magazine (April 24) fully captured Gorbachev's dilemma:

"After five years of tinkering with the economy, Gorbachev has fixed too little, too late; but more radical reforms promise inflation and unemployment-and the danger of strikes and food riots. ... Even as he tightens his grip on the government, the government loses control over the country.

"Perestroika (restructuring) hasn't worked despite constant tinkering. Last week the Soviet government unveiled the latest in a series of half-baked economic reform packages. The 'regulated market economy,' as Prime Minister Nikolai Ryzhkov defined it, will triple bread prices and otherwise add to the epic misery of the Soviet consumer, but without applying the free-market 'shock therapy' that many of Gorbachev's own advisers think is necessary....

"Now, on the eve of Gorbachev's second meeting with Bush, many in the West are worried about the Soviet leader's prospects....

"The real threat to him comes from far below, in streets, factories, and mines and on the farms. Nationalist unrest, strikes, or food Arcollection of essays in dejense of socialist democracy Edited by Carl Finamore Essays by ain Weinstein. Paul Siegel, Ralph Raph henner bigniew Kowalowski Gerry Foley, Hayden Perry.

Fund Cart Piramore riots pose a greater danger to Gorbachev than any political machinations."

Debate in upper echelons The entire debate in the upper echelons of the Soviet bureaucracy is over how fast to implement the market reforms. The dominant sectors of the bureaucracy have embarked on a course that points in the direction of the restoration of capitalism. But they fear that if they move too fast they will spark a social explosion that could topple the bureaucracy and lead in the direction of a genuine working-class political revolution.

The imperialists, too, are worried about the obstacles posed by the Soviet workers and the oppressed nationalities. That is why, when Gorbachev's rule was being challenged by the Soviet miners, the Lithuanians, and the other oppressed nationalities, Bush and the U.S. capitalists invited Gorbachev to the United States to show their support for him. (Bush went so far as to urge the new Lithuanian president to withdraw the declaration of independence issued by the Lithuanian national assembly.)

Leaders of the main Western capitalist countries, meeting at a NATO summit in early July, also pledged $14 billion in aid to the Soviet Union to help Gorbachev implement his reform program.

This Western aid will not significantly help the faltering economy, however. The Soviet economy and regime will continue to collapse. And as this happens, it is not out of the question that Gorbachev may decide to take the plunge and risk a head-on confrontation with the Soviet working class, using his power to institute presidential decrees to ram through the new reforms. His close personal adviser, Nikolai Y. Petrakov, has already publicly urged him to go this route. (New York Times, June 10, 1990)

At the recent Soviet party congress, Gorbachev indicated that he may well choose this course when he said:

"The advantages of the market economy have been proven on a world scale and the question now is only whether high social protection—which is characteristic of our socialist system, the system of the working people-can be ensured under market conditions.

"The answer is this: It is not only possible but it is precisely a regulated market economy that will make it possible to augment social wealth and raise the living standards of everyone." (Quote of the Week, People's Daily World, July 14)

Gorbachev's proposed "regulated market economy" will mean austerity, unemployment, and increased misery for millions of Soviet workers—not an increase in their living standards, as Gorbachev claims.

As the bureaucracy proceeds to implement these pro-capitalist policies, workers' resistance, as expressed in the July 11 nationwide strike by the Soviet miners, is bound to increase. If the miners follow up with their plan to form an independent union later this summer, this could set a magnificent example for all Soviet workers in the period ahead.

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