Stalinist demonstrations in ex-USSR fall short of the mark

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The neo-Stalinist counteroffensive that began with a Nov. 7, 1991, demonstration in Moscow-and continued with rallies on Feb. 9 and Feb. 23 in the former Soviet capital—seems to have fallen well short of its mark.

The meeting of deputies of the dissolved Congress of People's Deputies of the USSR on March 17, and the rally called to support it and to demand the restoration of the USSR, failed to mount a sufficient challenge to the governments now in power in the former USSR.

Among other things, only about 200 Soviet people's deputies attended the symbolic session instead of the 1000 expected. Apparently, most are still afraid to commit themselves to the neo-Stalinist campaign.

However, the neo-Stalinist danger has by no means disappeared. Its strength doesn't lie in popular support but in the surviving repressive forces, primarily the army. The Stalinists' appeals have, in fact, been focused mainly on the officer corps.

In terms of popular support, which is almost non-existent, all the neo-Stalinists need is a veneer of political cover for launching a new coup attempt. That means bringing out enough people behind their banners in protests against the Yeltsin government and showing that the masses are prepared at least to tolerate the neo-Stalinists taking political power.

"Soviet patriotism"

The neo-Stalinist demonstrations raised slogans against the Yeltsin government's privatization and marketization policies. This represents a turn on the part of the neo-Stalinists since the January price increases. Before that, their leaders, such as the chiefs of the August coup, the now silent Pravda, and figures such as Colone Alksnis, the "black colonel," stressed their support for the economic reforms.

Alksnis has said he differs with the reformers only in that he thinks a "strong government" is needed to carry out the reforms. Another one of the neo-Stalinist leaders, Yeltsin's vice president, Rutskoi, has said that he just thinks the price raises should be delayed until October.

Despite the turn of the neo-Stalinists to left-sounding slogans, the principal focus of all their demonstrations has been "Soviet patriotism," the demand to restore the old Soviet state. That is, they have all been "Soviet" (actually Great Russian) chauvinist demonstrations.

Thus, the first and second of the 15 resolutions passed by the rump March 17 assembly of former deputies of the Congress of People's Deputies of the USSR had to do with restoring the old Soviet state institutions. They began and ended with that question.

Resolution No. 15 was on supporting the results of the March 17, 1991, referendum on maintaining the USSR. At that time, when the totalitarian rule of the Andy Hernandez/Newsweek by lie when Yeltsin was the outsider, he sought the support of the working people with promises he would defend their immediate economic and trade-union interests. In power, he undertook an accelerated version of Gorbachev's policies.

The neo-Stalinist demonstrations, moreover, have to be seen as a threat to the rights of expression and organization that have been gained by the masses, as well as to the self-determination of the peoples of the former Soviet Union. If they grow (and that remains doubtful), such threats will become more acute, and thus they could in fact reinforce the Yeltsin government rather than mobilizing an effective opposition to its capitalist restorationist policies.

In order to mobilize and fight effectively against the Stalinist bureaucracy and the policy of restoring capitalism that all sections of it fundamentally support, the working people in the former Soviet Union need a new socialist alternative not discredited by association with any faction of Stalinism.