[SOCIALIST ACTION OCTOBER 1991 17 York Daily News…]

Scan page 18

SOCIALIST ACTION OCTOBER 1991 17 York Daily News, saying that he agreed "with the intent but not the method of the coup."

Political differences within the CPUSA are rampant. For some time, it has been clear that West Coast CP leader Carl Bloice supported Gorbachev, while Hall looked to the past. In the Aug. 31 issue, Hall clearly opposes the present government of the USSR, while Bloice has some hope.

The official statement of the party says: "While many questions are not yet answered about the unconstitutional attempted takeover, one thing is abundantly clear: reactionary pro-capitalist forces in the Soviet Union, with the backing of the transnational corporations, are exploiting the situation.

"Developments have quickly moved to a new stage. Processes are now in motion that inflame anti-Semitism and nationalism, seriously threaten the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the dismantling of socialism, and push the country in the direction of capitalism and the wholesale plunder of the USSR."

In the same issue of the paper, however, a long article by Carl Bloice written from Moscow attacks the coup plotters and defends the Soviet CP: "While there was active collaboration [with the coup] at the top, the party as a whole did not support the attempted usurpation of power."

Bloice has some interesting things to say about the coup plotters: "For the most part ... these men could not be accurately called 'party hardliners....

"If anything marks the tenor of the conspirators it is a heavy bent on ideological and economic pragmatism. They This newspaper defines independent radical weekly.

The Guardian did not comment on the attempted coup until its Sept. 11 issue, and even then did not present an editorial position. Instead, it printed a number of commentaries from various people on the left.

Nevertheless, an overall impression of the events is conveyed, capsulized by the title of the major piece by Fred Weir, a special to The Guardian from Moscow: "Goons of August' finished off Soviet socialism:"

"Fool or not, he [coup plotter Yanayev] and his accomplices set off an explosion that ruptured the chances for an evolutionary solution," writes Weir. "Their actions will condition the future in a myriad of ways—not all of them happy.

"In seeking to save the union through conspiracy and coercion, they may have destroyed it. By slathering the banner of socialism onto a tank turret one final, pathetic time, they discredited it forever in this country [the USSR]."

Most of The Guardian writers favor Gorbachev and had illusions that he was trying to democratize the Soviet Union but preserve its "socialist" character. But now the attempted coup has dashed those hopes.

This runs and thus don't have to "believe things" in order not to "go berserk."

Note Mr. Kaku's timing? Reforms should have been made 25 years ago, that is, in 1966. The whole Stalin period is glossed over.

In the main, The Guardian reflects the views of people trained in the Stalinist school, including the Maoist variety, and as such haven't a clue as to what's happening in the USSR or China for that matter. For them, everything boils down to good or bad policies by the leaders.

GAINST THE Reflects the views of members of the organization called Solidarity.

A statement by Solidarity to be printed in the October issue of Against the Current was furnished to Socialist Action.

"Everyone, it seems, is celebrating the August events in the Soviet Union," the statement begins. And there's plenty to celebrate: the collapse of the coup; the people of Moscow and Leningrad mobiresents. It should not be forgotten that the bureaucracy as a whole placed him at the apex of its apparatus in 1985. And following the failed coup, he still plays a central role along with Yeltsin, and, increasingly, with Nazarbayev, president of Kazahkistan and an advocate of the "market economy," who cautions against too much democracy in the new government seeking to re-consolidate the rule of the bureaucracy.

The Solidarity statement mentions Gorbachev only once, giving him credit for initiating the "process of democracy," even if from above. The statement mentions only Yeltsin's penchant for rule by decree, but the same thing is true of the whole new government, including Gorbachev.

It also refer role in driving towards capitalist restoration, a curious omission given his well-known positions. It could seem from the Solidarity statement that Gorbachev is part of the "democratic movement" which will come into conflict with the drive toward capitalist restoration.

The crisis of bureaucratic mismanagement of the economy forced the (continued on next page)

Scan page 19

in the USSR should be defended against towards the restoration of capitalism