Unemployed become mercenaries

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Essays by to Walnut Publishing bigmiewakowalewski. Gerry Foley, Hayden Perry. Rm. 308, San SOCIALIST ACTION OCTOBER 1990 17 and massive unemployment.

"I know only one thing," Gorbachev counseled his advisers not long ago, "that after two weeks of such a market, people would be on the streets, and it will smash any government." (The Economist, Nov. 18, 1989)

Gorbachev, Yeltsin shake hands The recent peace pact between Gorbachev and his main rival, newly elected Russian Republic President Boris Yelstin, was heralded as a signal that Gorbachev was abandoning his cautious approach to reforms and speeding up the move toward a market economy.

This is true, but what is often overlooked is that the Soviet parliament under Gorbachev's leadership had already adopted significant proposals entirely consistent with Yeltsin's openly pro-capitalist orientation.

In August, for example, the government unveiled a plan to sell off some 400 state-owned companies. Even earlier, restrictions were lifted which had strictly limited foreign capital investment in Soviet enterprises to under 50 percent and stipulated that the managerial staff would consist exclusively of Soviet citizens.

As a result of this relaxed policy, some 100 joint ventures per month are being set up, with several thousand more in the pipeline awaiting registration. This is in sharp contrast to the small number of 200 joint ventures which were established throughout 1987 and 1988. (Christian Science Monitor, Aug. 14, 1990)

Also in August, the government proposed allowing all Soviet enterprises to sell stocks and bonds to anyone—not only to employees as the previous law stated.

So, the differences between Gorbachev and Yelstin are mainly differences of style and temponot substance.

Putting the USSR up for sale Following the 1917 Russian Revolution, all the land, mines, factories, and natural resources of the country were placed under the control of democratically elected workers' soldiers' and peasants' soviets (councils) the capitalists are more than eager to show Soviet rulers the advantages of selling off the natural and capital resources of the Soviet Union.

One outspoken capitalist economist, Paul Craig Roberts, appeared before "Mr. Gorbachev's reformers" at the Soviet Academy of Sciences. Asked to present his case for the restoration of capitalism, he argued that it is the only solution for the collapsing Soviet economy.

He writes that "nothing can be done until private property rights are established. Peasants will have to be given the land and workers and managers will have to become the owners of the factories." He neglected to acknowledge that no capitalist country had ever done this. But this didn't seem to matter; he evidently had his audience in the palm of his hands.

Roberts observed that "all of this made sense to my sophisticated Moscow audience. Still the question arose, 'What do we do with the Communist Party?' 'Give them a disproportionate share of the new ownership rights, I said, 'and make them the idle rich."

"Soviet reformers saw this as a commonsense proposition. Historically, ruling classes have had to be accommodated or overthrown. Golden parachutes for Communist Party members is an inexpensive way of obtaining an efficient private economy." (Christian Science Monitor, July 20, 1989)

Capitalist road takes a new turn The much-touted "500-Day Plan" for establishing a capitalist market economy, which was approved by the Russian Federation government in September and endorsed in principle by Gorbachev, settles an issue which has been hotly debated for several years inside top Soviet government circles.

The clear winners in this debate are those who consider the question of freely rising prices required by all genuine capitalist economies to be too socially explosive to introduce at this moment. Making them the starting point for the "market economy," critics argue, doomed the project from the start.

The following are excerpts from an article that appeared in Moscow News (Sept. 10-23, 1990). The article notes that the GDR (East German) National Army will cease to exist after Oct. 3, when East and West Germany reunite.

According to G. Stoltenbery, Federal Minister of Defense, only about 50,000 soldiers from the GDR's army will join the Bundeswehr [West German army]. About as many soldiers from the GDR will enter the "army of the unemployed," which in the last few weeks has grown in the GDR to 350,000.

As became known recently, Saudi Araof socialist democracy Edkedibyr Carll Finamore Esteban Volkov, Pierre Broué, Susan Weissman.

and Carl Finamore bia was the first to take an interest in the fate of the former GDR army officers. Mohammed Yafai, Saudi Ambassador in Bonn, declared that his country is "exceptionally" interested in German soldiers and officers. If they express a desire to strengthen the military might of the Kingdom, the diplomat was prepared to immediately forward their statements to Riyadh [Saudi Arabia's capital].

As is done in the market, the officers themselves have named their price: For 2500 DM [German Marks] a month they are prepared to go to far-off countries. "Who can live," they ask, "on the unemployment relief of 500 DM?"

Walnut Publishing's

"Gorbacheu's USSR: Is Stalinism Dead* (208 pages with photos) analyzes current events in the Soviet Union against the backdrop of the struggle for socialist democracy waged by Leon Trotsky and his supporters against Josef Stalin in the 1920s and '30s Two londet.. send :$9.95 includas s1 fiar postage and handling)

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Gorbachev's USSRI Is Stalinism Dead? Alcollection of essays in dejense