What's really behind Shevardnadze's resignation?

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Shevardnadze: "No one knows what kind this dictatorship will be..."

Eduard A. Shevardnadze's resignation from his post as Soviet Foreign Minister was accompanied by a prophesy of doom: "Dictatorship is coming. I state it with complete responsibility. No one knows of what kind this dictatorship will be, and who will come-what kind of dictator, what the regime will be like...

These words have precipitated a reaction of grave apprehension from both worlds-from that of capitalism as well as from the world ruled by the Stalinist bureaucracies. And so it should, since Shevardnadze's prediction of impending disaster for these ruling groups reflects nothing more than the reality.

What is this underlying reality?

The attempts by all of the Stalinist ruling groups which still retain their fundamental positions of power to make the shift to capitalism have achieved nothing less than calamitous results. All of these states have suffered major declines in productivity.

In Poland, which is touted as the farthest along toward capitalist restoration, the Dec. 31 New York Times reported a Czech economist as saying: "Economic output [in Poland] is down some 25 to 30 percent, meaning it is at 1975 levels. This is unacceptable." The Times reporter, Steven Greenhouse, added that "inflation was running at well above 50 percent on an annualized rate."

(To fully appreciate the significance of this statistic, account should be taken of the way percentages are figured. Thus, to recoup a decline of 25 to 30 percent would require an increase in economic output of 36 to 43 percent!)

Planned economy gutted But these bare statistics hardly reveal the real impact of this decline in terms of lowered living standards for Polish workers and the shocking explosion of unemployment, homelessness and generalized misery. We should also take note that the security of jobs, food, shelter and other basic necessities of life, from universal health care to vacations, were effectively guaranteed before the attempt to return these societies to capitalist anarchy began.

It would be the biggest mistake to underestimate the importance to these masses of the most extensive social "safety net" ever established anywhere in the world.

Shevardnadze's cry of despair struck home with such force because the ruling capitalists and bureaucrats, everywhere, know how deep-rooted is this treasured conquest of the system of planned economy.

This is especially true in the Soviet Union. This is because their revolution in 1917 was consciously carried through by the most complete self-mobilization of the masses of workers and farmers history has •Syndrome (continued from page 9)

most popular slogan of the movement. But, unlike today, it took several years before that demand gained majority support in the anti-Vietnam War movement as a whole.

The beauty of this demand is that (1) it ends the war if it is carried out—it's the simplest solution; (2) it's the only solution that respects the right to self-determination-be it the right of the Vietnamese or the Arab people; (3) it places the blame for the war where it belongs—with the U.S. government; and (4) it is the demand that most appeals to the families of soldiers and the soldiers themselves. It had the ability to rally the whole population and appealed to the sentiments of the GIs, who also wanted to come home.

All these points are applicable in today's crisis as well.

The current debates But, like in the past, new debates have arisen about what demands to raise and what tactics will best serve our cause. I'll focus on three of the current debates.

One demand being raised-and supported by the Communist Party in this country-is to have the United Nations (U.N.) mediate 10 SOCIALIST ACTION ever seen. Moreover, because it has been in existence the longest, it is most deeply embedded in the hearts of Soviet workers and farmers.

And that points to the source of the current despair of the Shevardnadzes in all these countries. It lies in the repeated failure of one scheme after another to maintain living standards, much less improve them, in the course of their march to capitalist "prosperity."

The deepening decline in living standards in these countries has so far, according to the same Times reporter mentioned above, wrecked all "seamless economic theories about the best way to jump from Marxism to market economics."

Economics of misery

How do these theories work out in real life? Let's take the "success" of restorationist economists in achieving a remarkable reduction in inflation and stabilization of the Polish zloty as a reliable currency.

This, they boast, has succeeded in "filling" the stores with goods of all kinds, from sausage to clothing. The only trouble with this shining example of market reforms is that the shelves are full and the lines of people waiting to buy are gone only because inthe Middle East crisis.

Advancing this demand would become a deadly trap for the antiwar movement. In the first place, this demand is advanced by the U.S. government. The U.N. sanctions against Iraq have been used by the U.S. warmakers to cloak their aggression in the Middle East. Where was the U.N. when the U.S. invaded Grenada and Panama? Where was the U.N. while Zionist Israel was invading its neighbors?

Basically what the U.S. is trying to accomplish is to put a U.N. sticker on the helmets of American troops-just like they did during the Korean War (1950-53), where 38,000 GIs and over 2 million Koreans were killed. If the antiwar movement focused on this demand it would amount to no more than a tail for the U.S. government and the oil corporations.

Another demand being raised that could disarm the antiwar movement is the one that focuses on negotiations. There is no question of the right of oppressed people, especially when under pressure, to negotiate with their enemy to buy time or get a better deal. But the antiwar movement in this country would lose its leverage, its independent political and social weight, if we conceded that right to the U.S. rulers, who negotiate through military intimidation.

We must ask ourselves what, if any, is the legitimate role for the U.S. in the Middle JANUARY comes have been devastated by massive wage cuts and unemployment.

The phenomenon of unemployment, moreover, was non-existent prior to embarking on the road to capitalism. Poles simply do not have the money to buy what is being sold.

This failure to maintain living standards, however, would be tolerated by the vast majority who work for a living only if they saw evidence of a better life to come. This, in fact, is the only reason that considerable support for the introduction of a marketdriven economy came into existence in the first place.

But there has been an increasingly explosive resistance of the working classes, who are deeply disappointed in the progress of the "reforms." This is because they have received only the disadvantages of capitalism without any of its benefits. They would be more patient if, at least, they could see mass infusions of capital coming into these countries from the developed capitalist world.

Without investment from abroad, where would the capital come from to finance the modernization of existing plants and equipment along with construction of new productive facilities based on up-to-date technology?

East? Trade? Buy oil at Arab set prices? What about sending aid, reparations for the deaths its weapons and dollars have caused in the hands of the Shah of Iran, in the hands of Saddam Hussein versus the Kurdish minority and the Iranian people, in the hands of Zionist police and soldiers in expelling and killing the Palestinian people whose nation has been colonized and stolen from them?

The U.S has nothing to negotiate in the Middle East that we could or should support. It has no right to take part in any Middle East Peace Conference to work out solutions to Arab issues in Arab countries. We can only justifiably demand: U.S. Hands Off the Middle East! Let the Arab people decide their own affairs free from any U.S. intervention!

Another debate that I see down the road is one over tactics, not strategy or politics like the previous points. But some tactical questions, however, are very important, and I think they will come up again.

The issue is posed: What kinds of actions should the movement engage in? Should we promote the direction of highly trained and committed people to such activities as blockades of military recruiting stations or other military installations—or direct these people to organize legal, peaceful mass action?

This debate was a major one during the Vietnam War that grew in importance as the war continued to escalate even after the maBureaucrats have, of course, shown an eagerness to transform themselves from parasitic "exploiters" into full-blooded capitalists. But they don't have that kind of money, and besides, they and the legions of entrepreneurs who have sprung up in the soil of perestroika have shown a natural propensity to pay little or nothing for the enterprises they have so far "privatized."

Fear of workers' democracy Meanwhile, foreign capitalists are unwilling to risk their money, partly because full guarantees for capitalist investment have been blocked by worker resistance and because they, like Shevardnadze, see a revolutionary explosion coming down the pike. That's what the former Soviet Foreign Secretary and capitalist restorationist really fears when he cries out in despair: "No one knows of what kind this dictatorship will be, and who will come-what kind of dictator, what the regime will be like."

One possibility has already begun to flower with Gorbachev's wrangling of Bonapartist executive powers from an ineffectual and compliant parliament in anticipation of and preparation against the coming explosions.

Parliamentary democracy only works when governments can rule with the consent of the governed. It is an axiom of history that bourgeois democracy flowers in prosperity and withers and gives way to dictatorship in periods of crisis.

But their greatest fear is an uprising that could ultimately result in the reconquest of democratic political power by the workers. Shevardnadze, along with all the world's bosses and bureaucrats, see that outcome as the worst kind of dictatorship that could possibly befall them. But we can be sure that such "democrats" will welcome the coming dictatorship of a Gorbachev when it becomes necessary to preserve their privileges and/or "privatized" (i.e., ripped-off) public property.

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jority went into opposition and the protest demonstrations got truly massive.

To me this issue is the same issue as the vision of the movement. Do we have the confidence of winning over a majority of the American people and if so how do we go about it? Or do we think that only the most committed people-those willing to sacrifice and spend time in jail—can end the war?

As you know I think that the Vietnam experience confirms the former answer. Through mass, legal, peaceful demonstrations centered around the slogan of "Bring Our Troops Home Now!" we can mobilize the vast majority—American working people and their organizations—to either stop the war before it starts or end it soon after it starts.

In summary, the stakes in the Middle East are very high. The cost in lives on both sides should the U.S. start shooting is unknown, admittedly in the tens of thousands and possibly in the hundreds of thousands. The cost in dollars is already $1.63 billion a month.

Socialist Action is optimistic that a massive movement can and will be built capable of stopping it. We urge you to join Socialist Action to work with us to build this movement, and more than that, to work for a society and a world where imperialist war will be only a horrible memory from the distant past.

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"Intifada," by Ze'ev Schiff and Ehud Ya'ari; Simon and Schuster; New York; 350 pages; $22.95.

In the long history of struggle against tyrants, the oppressed have found unique ways to confront an enemy who possesses overwhelming strength. Often they have contributed a new word to the English language.

The Irish who ostracized the hated English land agent, Captain Boycott, gave us the boycott as a means of struggle. The irregular bands of Spanish peasants who staged hitand-run raids against Napoleon's invading armies utilized the tactic of guerrilla warfare.

Now the Palestinians have given us a new word and a new method of struggle-the Intifada. With nothing more than stones and slingshots, youth in the West Bank and Gaza are defying the Israeli army of occupation. They are demonstrating that people without guns, united and determined, can frustrate powerful military power.

"Intifada" tells how this mass movement of rebellion was born, how it is run, and why the Israelis have been unable to suppress it. As Jews the two authors had access to Israel officialdom. As objective historians they present an accurate and sympathetic account of the Palestinians' struggle. Their old, male and female, town and country, religious and secular. But above all, it was sheer numbers that catapulted the riots into a full-blown uprising." It was an Intifada.

It is an uprising without arms, using the tools of civil disobedience, boycott, commercial strikes, and harassment by stonethrowing youth. It is an uprising marked by the readiness of the Palestinians to bear the weight of casualties and suffering. They endured 500 dead and 8500 wounded in the first two years of the Intifada without weakening their resolve.

Schiff and Ya'ari say, "The Intifada began, not as a national uprising to throw off the yoke of foreign domination, but as an uprising of the poor, an awesome outburst by the forgotten and the forsaken at the bottom of the social heap. It was with a sense of nothing more to lose that thousands of refugees grabbed hoes, axes, stones, and whatever came to hand to march out and proclaim they would no longer stand for being treated like the dregs of humanity."

New layer of leadership The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) did not base itself on this layer of Palestinians. The refugees in turn were less influenced by the national prospects the PLO held out. The refugees were responding to the slights and humiliations that the Israelis inflicted on them day after day: Being pulled Palestinians in the wretched refugee camps. Out of sight, out of mind, even the PLO did not include them in their political equations. The Israelis also left the refugees to fester, ignored by everyone. Consequently the government was totally unprepared when the refugees poured out of the camps. The police were overwhelmed by the sheer masses. Often they ran away. The army had to be called in, raising serious problems for the government.

IDF is ill-equipped

The Israeli Defense Force (IDF) is a powerful military machine designed to defend Israel's borders against armed attack. It also serves to suppress "terrorism" within Israel. It is not equipped to wage war on the third front, the Intifada.

Soldiers have to leave their tanks and heavy artillery behind when they patrol the streets and roads of Gaza and the West Bank. While Israeli scientists are developing the most sophisticated, computerized weapons of war, the government equips its soldiers on occupation duty with clubs.

Military policy is to chase and club stone throwers, preferably breaking the arm that threw the stone. This practice, often seen on world TV, shocks public opinion, and brutalizes the army, but fails to halt the Intifada. The young people display their bruises as badges of honor. structure and leadership, with a Unified National Command (UNC) and a network of Popular Committees in every village throughout Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem. Yasser Arafat wanted to co-opt the Intifada and make the Popular Committees subordinate to the PLO. But the young fighters did not want to wait for orders from PLO headquarters in Tunis.

The UNC has developed into a loose coalition of al Fatah, the Democratic Front, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the Palestinian Communist Party, and the new leaders of the Intifada. Each group operates much on its own, though the PLO has become a more dominant force as Intifada leaders in the territories are caught and imprisoned by the Israelis.

An increasingly important factor in the Palestinian struggle is the Islamic Resistance Movement. The Muslims were encouraged by the Israelis because they opposed the secular PLO, and they represented the older, more conservative Palestinians.

The Muslims soon moved, however, to relate to the Intifada, setting up the Islamic Resistance Movement, known by the acronym Hamas. Operating underground, Hamas generated more revolutionary zeal than the PLO. They steeled young recruits to resist the pressure of prison and torture with the added strength of religious conviction.

The Israelis have since realized they had helped nurture a more deadly force than the PLO, which only asked for a mini-state. The Islamic fundamentalists refuse to recognize Israel, and talk of a Jihad, a holy war that threatens every infidel. The government has responded with arrests and deportations, but the roots of Hamas are now deep in the Palestinian community. They are striking fear into the average Israeli as Zionists are threatened with ever more violent attacks.

Mass deportations projected

Deportation of residents of an occupied territory is against international law, and has been used sparingly by the Israelis in recent years. But three years of Intifada has convinced many settlers that deportation of all Palistinians can be the only solution. Concern over this prospect has led the United Nations to condemn this practice in the occupied territories. There is no sign the Israelis are listening. In fact, the Isracli government is using the arrival of thousands of Soviet Jews to push out the Palestinians.

Meanwhile the PLO still holds out hope for a mini-state. Many of the Intifada tactics are attempts to create an economy and government structure that is independent of Israel. But this has been very difficult. An attempted boycott of all Israeli products had to be called off as the Palestinians suffered more than the Israelis. The Palestinians still have to work for the Israelis under their terms, and under threat of mass firings.

The authors of "Intifada" see the mini-state as the solution to the Palestinian problem. They see this development from the Zionist standpoint. They do not even speak of a state, but of a Palestinian "entity," confederated with Jordan, totally demilitarized, and subject to reoccupation at any time. This would not be a state for the Palestinians but a bantustan, or reservation, that the South African Blacks and American Indians know so well.

It is a pity that Schiff and Ya'ari, who have presented such a sympathetic view of the Intifada, should leave the Palestinians such a grim prospect as a goal for all their sacrifice. The authors cannot admit that the Palestinians have been robbed of their country; that giving them a few acres of it back is not justice. Despite this serious shortcoming "Intifada" is a valuable account of this historic struggle that is so crucial to the future of the Middle East.

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Gorbachev's Is Stalinism Dead? of socialist democracy Edited by Carl Finaman

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