"They will find, as their grandparents and parents did, that revolutionary working-class movements are the only reliable allies of movements for

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"...a penetrating analysis of the politics and the art of Solzhenitsyn SOCIALIST ACTION OCTOBER 1991 21 The Ukraine also became the principal victim of the Stalinist bureaucracy's regression on the national question. This led Trotsky in 1939 to write that it was necessary, most fundamentally, for the republic to recover real independence in order for the Ukrainian people to be able to reassert their right to self-determination and a national future. (See in particular, "Ukrainian Independence and Sectarian Muddleheads," "Writings of Leon Trotsky, 1939-40," New York, Pathtinder, 1973).

Ukrainians' fight bureaucracy Armed struggle for Ukrainian independence spread eastward in the Ukraine after the post-World War II annexation of the western part of the country, which had been under Polish rule and where the nationalist movement had not been so effectively suppressed. These fighters were led to make a distinction between the Stalinist bureaucracy and nationalized ownership and to adopt the goal of building a classless society.

The largest single category of political prisoners in Stalin's gulag were Ukrainian fighters for national rights. They were a major force in the concentration camp revolts that followed Stalin's death, and were later able to ...Trotsky (continued from page 11) in the chain of capitalism. The present Soviet Union does not stand above the world level of economy, but is only trying to catch up to the capitalist countries. If Marx called that society which was to be formed upon the basis of a socialization of the productive forces of the most advanced capitalism of its epoch the lowest stage of communism, then this designation obviously does not apply to the Soviet Union, which is still today considerably poorer in technique, culture and the good things of life than the capitalist countries. It would be truer, therefore, to name the present Soviet regime in all its contradictoriness, not a socialist regime, but a preparatory regime transitional from capitalism to socialism. ... The strength and stability of regimes are determined in the long run by the relative productivity of their labor." (Page 47.)

What a strong indictment of the Soviet system today! Soviet goods are inferior to those made in the capitalist countries. Few "good things in life" exist for the Soviet working people, who wait in long lines for bread and live in one-room apartments. No wonder most Soviet working people reject the "socialism" of Stalin and have illusions in the capitalist West.

"Socialism," Trotsky explained (page 61), "is a structure of planned production to the end of the best satisfaction of human needs; otherwise it does not deserve the name of socialism."

Political revolution and soviet democracy The bureaucracy, Trotsky explained, has no independent program or perspective. It is a petty-bourgeois layer that sits atop the toiling masses who made the October Revolution. It is a transmission belt for the bourgeois ideology inside radical opposition to the Stalinist bureaucracy remains unbroken.

This tradition may have helped shape the radically antibureaucratic formulations in the speech of Ivan Drach, the chair of Rukh, to the organization's second congress in November 1990.

"In the so-called 'regulated socialist market' programs," Drach said, "the government has camouflaged a still crueler exploitation of the working people. There is only one innovation. Today everyone is gong to be forced by 'economic conditions' to grab their miserable ration away from their neighbors."

Drach described exactly the beauties of capitalism for the bureaucracy. He went on to say, "We are making every effort to prevent the reform of national ownerlegislative process of converting the party-state-feudal socialists into the first social-capitalists, industrialists and bankers has already started."

Drach saw the Ukrainian national-democratic movement as closely linked to the movement of the working people: "The perestroika government is seeking only to maintain itself in the saddle and put a bridle back on the working people. "After all that, in 1989, a real perestroika started, which came as a surprise to the authorities, although not to the democratic forces-the emergence on the political arena of such a mighty force as the working class. The miners' strikes, which were highly organized and determined, really shook the party-state power.

The victorious workers' Thus, for those material reasons, Gorbachev and the other bureaucrats have turned to the "market economy."

Change is a life-or-death question. The question is: what type of change? Capitalism or socialism? For the privileged caste, the answer is simple: institute a market economy in which they become the new owners, managers or functionaries of what was formerly state property. But that would be a social, economic, and political disaster for the working class. The alternative perspective for the toiling masses is building genuine socialism.

"It is not a question of substituting one ruling clique for another," wrote Trotsky (pages 289-90), "but of changing the very methods of administering the economy and guiding the culture of the country. Bureaucratic autocracy must give place to Soviet democracy. A restoration of the right of criticism, and a genuine freedom of elections, are necessary conditions for the further development of the country. New from Walnut Publishers: Politics and Art They will find, as their grandparents and parents did, that revolutionary working-class movements are the only reliable allies of movements for national freedom.

Already the rise of the mass national movements in the Soviet Union has put the question of ending national oppression and achieving democratic collaboration of nations to the fore again, as it was in the period of the Russian Revolution and the wave of revolutions that followed it.

This is hardly something that the capitalist rulers wanted. They have too many problems of their own with oppressed nationalities in their own countries or under their domination elsewhere.

For example, Bush had no hesitation, during his visit to the Soviet Union last summer in fundamentally adopting Gorbachev's line against the national movements-forcing Drach to denounce him.

It is a safe bet that the Soviet peoples' pursuit of their national aspirations will cause more and more problems for Washington's dreamed of "new order," as well as for Stalin's heirs.

This assumes a revival of freedom of Soviet parties, beginning with the party of Bolsheviks, and a resuIrection of the trade unions.

"The bringing of democracy into industry means a radical revision of plans in the interests of the toilers. Free discussion of economic problems will decrease the overhead expense of bureaucratic mistakes and zigzags. Expensive playthings—palaces of the Soviets, new theaters, show-off subways—will be crowded out in favor of workers' dwellings. 'Bourgeois norms of distribution' will be confined within the limits of strict necessity, and, in step with the growth of social wealth, will give way to socialist equality.

"Ranks [in the army] will be immediately abolished. The tinsel of decorations will go into the melting pot. The youth will receive the opportunity to breathe freely, criticize, make mistakes, and grow up. Science and art will be freed of their chains. And, finally, foreign policy will return to the traditions of revolutionary internationalism."

What worker in the Soviet Union would not hail such a program? The antibureaucratic democratic revolution unfolding in the Soviet Union today opens the door to working people engaging in real politics for the first time in decades. It's a crucial necessity for the Soviet working people to destroy the caste and successfully complete a political revolution where state property is defended and the new regime joins the battle for world socialism.

The workers of the Soviet Union don't yet have their new Bolshevik Party. They will create it as they fight back against attempts to rollback their social gains and restore capitalism.

Trotsky's book, "The Revolution Betrayed," and his other works are invaluable tools for Marxists

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