Is another coup on the horizon in the former Soviet Union?

Scan page 20

"Restoration of the USSR was among the principal demands of the demonstrations on Feb. 9 and 20 SOCIALIST ACTION MARCH 1992 The old-line Stalinists are on the march again in the former USSR. They are trying to exploit the mass desperation caused by the capitalist restoration, as well as appeal to reactionary Great Russian chauvinism.

Pravda, the organ of those bureaucrats who are most dependent on the Communist Party structures and ideology, had spoken softly after the failure of the August coup. Since the January price rises, however, it has assumed an increasingly strident tone in denouncing both the Yeltsin government and the West.

The denunciations of the Western powers, in particular the United States, are new. Up until now, in fact, Pravda has generally used statements by U.S. and other Western authorities to support its pleas for "moderation" and "stability." In particular, the Stalinist paper has cited the opposition of the United States and its allies to "separatism," that is, to the breakup of the multinational state built by Stalinism.

Now it is raising an alarm about the possibility that the United States may take advantage of the multiplication of jurisdictions to intervene directly in the Soviet crisis.

"I would not be surprised," Yury Glukhov wrote in the Feb. 24 issue of Pravda, "if in the near future there were talk about international military support for an 'independent Crimea,' or an independent Kurile islands, Kaliningrad, Chechenia, Tatarstan, or what have you."

The breakdown of Soviet power is, of course, offering opportunities for imperialism. But up until now, the imperialist powers have taken a cautious line. They've done nothing to upset their cozy relations with the various factions of Stalinism, even if the explosion of national aspirations in the non-Russian republics forced them, belatedly, to make some adjustments.

Thus, the resumption of talk about the capitalist foreign devil does not seem to represent any desire to assume a less supine posture toward imperialism, but rather serves the local political needs of Stalinism. For example, a sudden shrill evocation of the imperialist threat by the former KGB boss, Kryuchkov, was part of the introductory music for the August coup, toward which the Western imperialist powers took a very understanding attitude.

Singing old tunes

The nationalist fanfare of the neo-Stalinists is clearly directed essentially against the peoples of the former Soviet Union who have rebelled against the Stalinist prison house of nations.

One Pravda bard, decrying the sad demise of the USSR, even recounted that while waiting for a late local train to Moscow, he saw a group of girls singing the Hymn to the Soviet Union, Stalin's replacement for the "Internationale." He then quoted the verse most hated by the oppressed peoples: "Great Russia welded together an indivisible union of free republics." He took up the refrain, he said, with his voice breaking with emotion.

In a long article in the Feb. 22 Pravda, beginning on the front page, Valerii Smirov, the director of of Eksinter, a cooperative [that is, a capitalist enterprise], tried to strike up some even older tunes. He wrote:

"In the division of the country, the regime's [Yeltsin's] best ally, are those international forces that see the destruction of a strong Russia as a gain, the elimination of a powerful strategic rival. In fact, the new rulers have given life to what up until has been the unrealized dream of all Russia's enemies from Genghis Khan to Hitler by transforming a great state into a new section of the Third World, into a source of raw materials for the 'civilized countries,' which are intervening like judges in her [Russia's] internal affairs....

"The history of Russia has never before known such an inimical government. It can only be compared with the betrayal of the Rus [the name of the ancient Russian state] by the boyars of the Time of Confusion [in the 17th century], who were ready to accept any division of the country and ready to take any sort of foreign support in the struggle for power."

Smirnov tried to turn the principle of breaking up Stalin's empire on its head, arguing that the Soviet republics were actually artificial divisions of Russia. "How can you talk about the breakup of Stalin's empire," he wrote, "when the autonomous authorities and 'sovereign republics' were actually the fruit of the political games of the 'father of the peoples' and his cronies and heirs. They had nothing in common with age-old states. ... Rejecting Stalinism means in the first instance liquidating hundreds of fictitious borders imposed on one country."

Furthermore, he used the argument that if any people has the right to self-determination, then all do. He went on to argue that the Russian settlers in the non-Russian republics have the right to obstruct the reconquest of national independence for these countries.

"How can you talk of the right of self-determination," said Smirnov, "if not one of the 'self-determining' republics has recognized the right to self-determination within it? What sort of irreversibility can you talk about when ... with the separation of the Baltics from the country— despite the fact that for 50 years and for 200 years before that they were incorporated into Russia—we were thrown back to the time of the Brest-Litovsk Treaty?"

Smirnov went on to say: "The division of Russia into autonomous authorities is as fictitious as that of the USSR. ... Those who are pushing the country to accept the 'new realities,' in fact are pushing us back to the 15th century, if not before [that is, before the formation of the Great Russiar state]."

Smirnov's conclusion was that "the first step to overcoming the present crisis is to overcome the consequences of the coup of August 1991 and restore the territorial integrity of the country."

Chauvinist "left" demonstrations Restoration of the USSR was among the principal demands also of the big neo-Stalinist demonstrations on Feb. 9 and Feb. 23 in Moscow. The first was organized by a common front of several neo-Stalinist organizations—the Russian Communist Workers' Party, the United Front of Toilers, Working Class Moscow/Working Class Russia, Lenin and the Fatherland, and a group of deputies of the now defunct Congress of People's Deputies of the USSR.

On the basis of the Russian independent press, the Russian language Paris weekly Russkaya Mysl' listed the following among the slogans of the demonstration: "Citizens of the USSR, fight for the territorial integrity of the Union!" "Out with the Zionist occupation of the mass media!" "Citizens of the USSR, fight for a united armed forces of the USSR!" "Say no to the reprivatization and the pulling apart of the Soviet army!" "Yeltsin's return to capitalism is a bloody crime against the people!" "Out with the liquidators of the USSR!" "The fatherland is in danger!" "[Put] Gorbie and Co. on trial for the breakup of the USSR!"

The falseness of the demagogy linking Stalinist-style Great Russian chauvinism with seemingly left slogans opposed to Yeltsin's procapitalist economic policies was highlighted by the fact that the first speaker at the rally was Colonel Viktor Alksnis, the leader of a group of chauvinist officers known as the "Black Colonels."

Alksnis has declared openly that he supports the capitalist restorationist policies but thinks that they can only be carried out by a "strong government." He backed off from the August military coup, but had argued in the preceding period for the imposition of "emergency rule."

The colonel argued that the present regime is illegal, since "no one has repealed the Union Treaty of 1922 or the constitution of the USSR ... and on March 17, 1991, the entire Soviet people spoke out for one Union of Soviet Socialist Republics." Furthermore, "more than 450 members of the Congress of People's Deputies of the USSR have signed a petition for calling a special assembly of that body."

Thus, the neo-Stalinists are trying to use past elections, when the structures of the totalitarian regime remained essentially intact in most of the USSR, as a basis for reclaiming political power.

Obviously, a demonstration that denounced the reform goverments so strongly, appealed to the military, and raised a slogan for a new government based on alternative sources of authority, was a serious threat to the Yeltsin regime-to say nothing of the governments of former republics of the USSR that have declared their independence.

An "entrepreneur" speaks out However, bluffing is a tactic typical of Stalinists, and it is likely that their objectives still may be more modest than their rhetoric. After all, their differences with (continued on page 18)

----- pull-quotes -----

big neo-Stalinist Feb. 23 in Moscow."