Western capitalists back Gorbachev against workers

Scan page 11

Boris Yeltsin and Mikhail Gorbachev-an alliance against strikers. 10 SOCIALIST ACTION JUNE 1991 As the crisis of bureaucratic rule in the USSR deepens, Western capitalist intervention in it is becoming more evident. After hailing the April 23 deal between Gorbachev and Yeltsin ("the first hopeful sign in months that radical reform can be revived"), The New York Times editors saw Gorbachev's late May appeal for massive Western aid as still more encouraging.

In an editorial on May 24, they wrote: "The fierce Soviet struggle over reform presents a precious opportunity for President Bush. As Moscow teeters on the verge of transformation, concerted Western action might be enough to tip the political balance toward the reformers."

The New York Times, which reflects the views of the U.S. foreign policy establishment, cited a series of conditions for bailing out perestroika. The first was the window dressing-"progress toward pluralism ... based on the rule of law and fundamental freedoms." Then it got down to the nittygritty-"slashing subsidies for inefficient enterprises," "quick decontrol of prices," "a convertible ruble, allowing enterprises engaged in trade to buy and sell foreign exchange at fair market value," and "private property" of factories and stores.

Capitalists back Gorbachev

One of these points, "quick decontrol of prices," touched off a snowballing workers' rebellion in April that badly frightened the Soviet rulers. The Soviet CP organ Pravda warned of the growth of "unconstitutional bodies," that is, strike committees assuming governmental functions. For the first time, there was a development toward a general strike throughout the Soviet Union.

The Gorbachev-Yeltsin accord was a desperate move to defuse this process. The New York Times editors, and thus the more enlightened section of U.S. capital at least, came out clearly behind the deal, which notably included the threat of anti-strike measures. Thus, the communiqué issued by the parties to the agreement stipulated:

"In order to stabilize the situation in the country's economy, the participants in the meeting declared their support for a special work regime in the basic industries, in the enterprises producing necessities, and in rail transport. republice will the foremental dear "It need be ing the normal working of the national economy."

It is also notable that the conditions stipulated by The New York Times included nothing about respecting the aspirations of the oppressed nationalities in the USSR. Western credits were blocked at the time of the Moscow-sponsored attempted coup d'etat in Lithuania.

In the May 24 Times, there also was an article reporting on the preparations for the summit of industrialized nations in July. It cited British officials organizing the event to the effect that the restoration of the credits frozen in January was now dependent on Gorbachev "making a breakthrough on economic transformation."

It seemed that Lithuania, which still faces all sorts of threats from Moscow, was quite forgotten, to say nothing of Armenia, where there has recently been very grave SOCIALIST ACTION intervention by Soviet forces. That is the index of the Western authorities' concern about national rights, and also of democratic rights in general, of which the former are an essential aspect.

Furthermore, the British officials said that an unblocking of these credits ("only a few billion dollars in agricultural loan guarantees and credits") was all Gorbachev could expect. "They said," the Times reported, "the summit participants and the international financial institutions they control showed little Soviet coal miners rally in Donetsk.

inclination to pledge large new amounts of aid."

Gorbachev badly needs Western credits to stave off rebellion against the effects of his economic policies. As The New York Times editorial noted, the Soviet GNP is expected to decline by a staggering 14.4 percent next year. Even larger declines in Poland, which has carried market reforms further, presage still worse to come.

Although the Western capitalist press sees Gorbachev now moving back to the path of reform (after a dalliance with neo-Stalinist reactionaries marked by the January events in Lithuania), in reality, the April workers' rebellion forced him to retreat somewhat from the economic policies the Western capitalists are urging on him.

Workers push back market reform The April 23 agreement thus pledged review of the price rises, compensation for price rises in some sensitive areas (such as children's goods and student cafeterias), and even promised cost-of-living raises and other forms of "compensation' —that is, subsidies.

The obstacle, therefore, to the marriage between Western capitalism and the bureaucracy represented by Gorbachev, which both so ardently desire, is the workers' protests against the capitalist restorationist measures that strike at their standard of living. The April rebellion and Western capitalist support for the Gorbachev-Yeltsin deal have helped to clarify what the actual lines of battle are in the Soviet Union.

In the May 3 issue of the Paris Russianlanguage weekly Russkaya Myst', the historian Aleksandr Nekrich noted:

"On April 19, in the discussion of the program for getting out of the crisis, the government's line was supported by the Union of Lease Holders and Entrepreneurs of the USSR, the Scientific-Industrial Union, the Association of Compatible Enterprises, the Association of Managers of Enterprises, Der Spiegel the Union of United Cooperatives and the Union of Small Enterprises."

One of the main demands of the miners in their first strike in 1989 was aimed against the cooperatives (which are really private businesses).

Yeltsin divides miners

Reportedly, Yeltsin has been able to convince the majority of the striking miners in the Russian republic to go back to work. That is not a surprise, since they had no alternative political leadership. This is the area also where the miners have the biggest illusions about the advantages of the market. Even there, according to reports, Yeltsin was opposed by a minority.

There is a notable lack of information in the capitalist press about the situation in the coal fields after the April 23 deal. It will take some time to get a clear picture of what is happening there.

The Don basin, the other center of the strikes, is a more complex problem than the Russian republic fields. There the miners' movement has had less illusions about privatization, because the industry is less favorably placed to compete on the international market than the Russian republic mines. It is also developing in a more political atmosphere, among other things, because of the role of the Ukrainian national democratic The German magazine Der Spiegel, in its April 22 issue, reported a "revolutionary spirit" in the Don basin. It also reported the effect of the prices rises on the local women: "The latest price rises gave many women the final push to join the miners. Women came from a window factory. They earn an average of 170 rubles a month. 'Now I have to pay 70 rubles for kid's shoes,. That's crazy.' They rail against everyone-Communists, democrats, and nationalists. 'We don't need any of them. We need lower prices."

Opposition leaders fear masses In this period, veteran dissident Vladimir Bukovsky was allowed to visit the Soviet Union. While anti-Communist, Bukovsky came from the working class. In the USSR he was a fighter, speaking out early in defense of the oppressed nationalities. Some statements also show that he has read Marxist literature and learned from it, at least about the dyamics of revolution.

What struck Bukovsky was the gap between the attitude of the leaders of the "democratic opposition" and the ranks involved in the struggles. He was quoted as follows in the April 26 issue of Russkaya Mysl' :

"I went to the Moscow City Council [controlled by the democratic opposition]. It was amusing. I got an impression like John Reed [writer of Ten Days that Shook the World, a classic account of the October Revolution]. ... They were running around from Smolny to the Winter Palace, from one palace to another in Petrograd, and everywhere there was chatter, everywhere people were tired of fruitless debates, which in general had no relationship to the events."

Further on, he said: "What I felt was that our Moscow intelligentsia and all those parliamentarians are one thing, and the deeper layers are another. The latter have become heated to a white-hot intensity. You feel the heat, that a Chernobyl-like explosion is coming. And you can't understand why our intellectuals who have become deputies, don't have contact with those layers, do not understand them, fear them. And so, having to choose between these inflamed masses and the vestiges of the regime, they cling to the regime. Indeed, it's no accident that they keep talking about some 'iron hand."' Bukovsky went on to say that from the standpoint of Western experience he could not understand why an iron hand, or an undemocratic government, was needed to carry through harsh reforms. He pointed to what Margaret Thatcher could do in a parliamentary system.

In the first place, Bukovsky's hatred of Stalinism blinded him to the the social power workers hold in the USSR. Secondly, he failed to appreciate the extent of the sacrifices being demanded of the Soviet and East European peoples in the name of market reform. Cuts of up to 30 percent in the standard of living of workers have not been achieved anywhere without the threat of social explosion.

Anti-Communists like Bukovsky are probably misled also by the fact that the more the mass struggles grow and radicalizes in the Soviet Union, the greater the rejection of the idea of socialism is shown in the opinion polls.

This paradox is very revealing. The real obstacles to the capitalist restorationist policies of the bureaucracy are growing in tandem with an ideological rejection of socialism, which is identified with the bureaucracy's system. This is a glaring and therefore volatile contradiction. The Western powers' openly intervening to buttress Gorbachev will surely help to explode it.

Scan page 12

Capitalist restorationist policies have been