Why Romanian coal miners are rebelling against 'market' reforms

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Romanian miners march on the National Salvation Parliament in Bucharest on Sept. 26.

Demonstrations in the Romanian capital of Bucharest at the end of September by thousands of furious coal miners from the Jiu valley highlighted the volatility of the countries where Stalinism is collapsing.

At the same time, they pointed up the basic dynamics at work. Only a year ago, the miners staged violent demonstrations in support of the National Salvation Front government, which had offered them a number of material concessions and promised to raise the living standard of the workers.

The government that was able to take power on the shoulders of the mass rebellion against the Causescu dictatorship in December 1989-January 1990 pledged expressly not to follow the example of the Polish regime, whose capitalist restorationist program had already resulted in a disastrous drop in living standards and mounting unemployment. The new rulers announced that they could not throw out of work any of the heroic Romanians who had risked their lives fighting Causescu's security forces in the streets.

In June 1990, Jiu miners attacked demonstrators in Bucharest who were opposing the National Salvation Front government under anti-Communist slogans. The workers clearly thought that the demonstrators, identified with the revived rightist parties—the Liberal Party and the Peasant Party-wanted to impose an anti-working class program.

Ironically, most of the anti-Communist demonstrators were students, organized by the new independent student organizations, which had initially been totally subservient to the National Salvation Front but had undergone a radicalization against the government.

Increasing alienation from gor't This was part of a growing alienation of more and more of the population from the government, who saw it as a continuation of the Communist Party regime, despite strenuous attempts by its leaders to steal the thunder of the anti-Communist demonstrators. One of the principal theoreticians of the Front, Silviu Brucan, even plunged into an anti-Communist demonstration to raise the call for outlawing the Communist Party.

Despite a widespread uneasiness that the hated bureaucrats were still running things behind the scenes, the anti-government parties, with their pro-capitalist programs, failed to gain momentum. In the first general elections in May 1990, they got only a small percent of the vote, while the NSF won an overwhelming majority.

The largest opposition party was the party of the Hungarian minority, which got about 7 percent of the vote. The Hungarians were oppressed under Causescu, and it was not long before Romanian chauvinist attacks on them resumed, with more and more complicity from the National Salvation Front.

After its victory in the May 1990 elections on a program of defending the gains of the workers, the Front moved to implement the program of its pro-capitalist opponents. In October 1990, the NSF premier Petre Roman announced that market prices would be introduced within a year. Shortly before, the minister of the economy, Eugen Dijmarescu, had come out for dumping the factory managements elected by the workers in the wake of the uprising against Ceausescu.

April Fool's Agreement

In the middle of March 1991, the government signed an agreement with the EEC, and on April 1 (April Fools' Day), a new round of price increases was to go into effect. At this point, the Front began to crack under the pressure of working-class opposition.

The unions held a demonstration of 15,000 people demanding cancellation of the price rises and other market reforms. President Iliescu called for delaying the price rises. But, under the pressure of the international financial organizations, the government, headed by Petre Roman, resisted.

Opposition between Iliescu and Roman came into the open. Some splits occurred in the NSF. In August, the government introduced a new law on privatizations and drew up a list of 30 state firms to be auctioned off.

The Gross National Product has fallen already by 10 percent and industrial production by 20 percent, with inflation soaring over 100 percent and expected to reach 130 percent by the end of this year. Unemployment is officially predicted to go over a million by the end of the year. In particular, inflation has wiped out the wage gains that the miners made during the first phase of the new government.

This is the development that led to the Jiu valley miners' rebellion at the end of September. Once again it took a very violent form. Among other things, the miners commandeered two trains to take them to Bucharest. During clashes with the repressive forces, five people were reported killed and 130 wounded. But this time the rebellion was against the "neoCommunist" government, which had come to be seen as anti-working class. And this time the students demonstrated alongside the miners.

The miners got expressions of support from some rightwing forces, such as the National Peasants' Party, presumably because they thought that any stick was good enough to beat a dog with—namely, the "neo-Communist" government-but capitalist restoration was also taking a beating. In fact, a representative of the World Bank, who was in Bucharest for negotiations with the government, got roughed up in the demonstrations. The international financial institution's proposed $300 million loan was put on hold.

The ineffable Silviu Brucan was quoted in the New York Times of Oct. 3 as saying that the miners had spoiled everything: "Everything was going forward before the miners' riot. The most obnoxious effect will be that the West will turn its back on Romania."

Down with communism?

The governor of the Romanian National Bank, Mugur Isarescu, said of the miners that "they were shouting 'Down with Communism, ' but all their demands were Communist-style demands."

The miners' demands were for a lowering of the prices of necessities, adjustment of wages to meet the higher cost of living, rehiring of 4000 miners laid off in the previous months, and participation of a miners' delegation in the negotiations for the formation of a new government. The miners also showed what they thought of the beauties of the market by attacking the new private shops in Bucharest that sell goods they cannot afford to buy.

Petre Roman claimed that the miners were seeking "the dissolution of all democratic institutions in this country. Romania has broken with Communism for too short a time for the old structures and mentalities to disappear."

The Jiu miners have a powerful tradition of rebellion. They mounted the only serious challenge to the Causescu dictatorship before the December 1989 uprising. They have now drawn a line against the anti-working class, pro-market policies of his successors. But the miners are only the vanguard of a working class that has gone a long way to reorganizing itself. It has built mass trade-union organizations that have carried out important strikes.

And in the semi-insurrectional conditions of Causescu's overthrow, they went through a major experience of self-management in the factories, which virtually