Bulletin in Defense of Marxism
1991 1991-10Read it in the scan (PDF at ETOL), page 19 →
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the independent groups and movements the FIT statement refers to. The people did this, utilizing the greater political Reflects the views of the nationalist Tendency (FIT).
A statement by the FIT leadership scheduled for the October issue was furnished to Socialist Action.
"The defeat of the coup was a genuine victory for the Soviet peoples," the statement says. "The active intervention of the masses in this situation creates important opportunities for the forces of democracy and socialism.
"At the same time, the mainstream of the top bureaucratic leadership will attempt to utilize the shock-value of the coup to justify far-reaching measures they have been unable to implement in the past. The self-discrediting of a major sector of the more conservative wing of the bureaucracy, combined with the partial collapse/partial repression of the Communist Party, creates a new balance among the contending elements within the bureaucracy.
"Those who favor an all-out restoration of capitalism will obviously be strengthened and emboldened. To the extent that 'economic reforms' are advanced at the expense of the masses, however, elements among the working class can be expected to utilize any and freedom wrested from tions, such as socialist workers' parties and effective unions, needed to organize successful defense against the counterrevolution.
"Glasnost has created important incipient groupings — socialist vanguard formations, attempts at organizing independent unions, nationalist, women's and environmental movements. These vanguard formations are now challenged to quickly find a way to win genuine mass influence."
The FIT statement is lengthy, with the whole first part reviewing the history of the USSR from a generally Trotskyist (Marxist) viewpoint, and we can agree with its general orientation towards a political revolution by the working people, and of course its opposition to the attempted coup.
But concerning key problems of what to do now, the FIT statement has serious weaknesses and confusion.
Some of these it shares with Solidarity. It is ambiguous on Gorbachev, hailing his policy of "glasnost" without differentiating between his anti-working class proposals for "glasnost" and the openings Gorbachev was forced to concede to the masses in their fight for workers democracy. "Glasnost" did no