Masses' Patience Wearing Thin in Ex-ussr

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introduction to the beauties of the "free such crowds, too, there are always a few conditions were in the seven "post-Stal- amount, but in most places the only the Baltics to Moscow there are crowds inist" countries I visited in September grocery stores are big and you have to pushing and shoving desperately. You and October-six republics of the former stand in line for at least 40 minutes.

These lines are not calm affairs. They over the shoulders of other people. The Ukraine, Byelorussia and Russia), as are seething masses of hundreds of peo- telephone lines are so overcrowded that ple, weaving in and out as individuals you have to spend hours continually A visceral rejection of everything come back to places that have been redialing to call another city, or often associated with "socialism" is still gen- saved for them, or as they try to bribe within the same city. eral. But no one is hopeful about the their way forward, Waves of frustration are focused on undernourished or inadequately dressed. people condemning the Bolshevik revo- the clerks, who have developed an Although drabber than in the West, they lution and everything it represented, and imperviousness, or even a vengefulness, do not at all resemble the masses in in the next breath say that their country if not actual hostility to the public. In Third World cities. ionstration in Moscow. ral chauvinists.

le second largest bloc. y, both the Estonian and Lithuaons reflect the same process, the d breakup of the national fronts ass movements against Stalinist lumber of republics of the extalitarian fronts break up . anti-Stalinist front in Russia locratic Russia, is experiencing a icess, but it is not so well develuse the Russian front was never a ement on a national scale, and it held a parliamentary or electoral Withough it is Yeltsin's principal Ipporter, it does not control him, of the same process can be seen ainian and Byelorussian national sectively Rukh and Adradzhenie, e remained minority movements break the continuity of Stalinist I countries. lovements, however, still have a fying focus: Opposition to Stalnments still in power. They are ng on campaigns to force referget new elections. r, the fact that the old party bossen over an important part of the f the national fronts means that ' old program of all-inclusive national independence is no ficient for mobilizing opposition of the bureaucracy. ral, the anti-totalitarian fronts, past years have dominated the ainst the rule of the bureaucracy, reaking up, like the system that organized to fight. ression of all dissent under the n determined the all-inclusive position to it-fronts of all disnited on the basis of a general program. The fundamental task EMBER 1992 It was striking how similar the basic USSR (Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia, well as Poland.

market reforms. It is common to hear is now sinking into the situation of the third world, where there will be a tiny minority of rich and a great majority suffering total impoverishment.

Everyone expects things to get worse, and many talk about the possibility of social explosions in the winter or early spring.

The present situation obviously cannot last. It has all the hallmarks of a galloping crisis, including wild inflation and extreme distortions in the relationship of prices.

In most places, two economies exist side by side—a hard-currency (or dollar) and one in the local currency. The two economies are like two different worlds, one developed and the other underdeveloped. Cottee and tea exist in one, but not in the other. In one you have a nice choice of sweaters for $150 dollars each; in the other it is hard to even find socks.

What can be found in the department stores is largely Western imports, priced lower than in the West, but still quite high for the local people. They remark, "You don't see any of our stuff anymore."

Taxi drivers at international airports in Russia and Ukraine demand-and get $20. the averaze monthlv waze of workers. (The result of such fabulous earnings is that arriving foreigners are beset with a frenzied pack of petty enterpreneurs ready to run rough-shod over anyone who gets in their way, a quick market.")

Bread and milk still cost a minimal inebriates who get fights going.

Everywhere in the ex-USSR-from can't look at any item for sale except However, the crowds do not look ple or invalids. But you significant marginal popu homeless in American ( striking is not so much | tortions caused by sh corrupt economic bosses.

While the shortages cor ly overcome, there mus better way to organize ‹ was shortsighted not to priority to develop mass 1 cities and develop reliab tions grids.

The arbitrariness of the ed an attitude that maximi even when there were not ages. For example, a working-class woman in of the bitteress she felt b forced to stand in line 241 in winter weather, ti allowance of foreign curre could visit a relative in l Bolsheviks want to hun destroy your human dignil In some places, the d improved. Growth of sm represented by a prolifer around railway stations, sell only a few items, or who sell books at many t of the bookstores, or by nated by traveling Azerbaijanis.

Working people are di for the moment intimida unemployment. But this of accepting the perspecti tion, the right of bosses for the sake of "profitabili In Poland, where priv: earlier, the illusions in ti faded more than in the ex In the latest wave of workers were much less the needs of any potenti are turning to militant uni have built an altemative '80—to the pro-goverr This is a union that star gram of Solidamos befo over by procapitalist elem Poland set the exampl movements against Stali showing workers in the future,

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"Despite the rejection of the concept of a disciplined programmatic party because of the reaction against the Communist Party and everything associated with it, the need for such party is becoming more acute." a dynamic political life. Now the democratization has lost its momentum, and there is a problem of direction.

In the first place, it has become clear that a democratic press cannot develop and become consolidated in a spontaneous way, or be assured by a free market.

Difficulty establishing press It is notable that none of the fronts have been able to develop a press of their own that could deepen and consolidate their political influence over society.

The Ukrainian front, Rukh, seeks to lead a society of over 50 million people. In the Ukrainian capital of Kiev, the only paper that more or less directly represents it, Narodna Hazeta is only a monthly, and the Rukh leaders acknowledge that they are not happy with it.

In the case of Lithuania, two editorial teams, one after the other, ran away with papers started by Sajudis. The first, the daily Respublika has turned into a sensational muck-raking journal, with no political principles. The second, the weekly Atgimimis, was taken over by a small group of intellectuals.

In Estonia, the front was never able to develop a newspaper of its own. From the outset, the development of a free press has been obstructed and distorted by an inflow of emigré money. The Estonians are a tiny nationality, about a million people, with a relatively large diaspora. (About 100,000 people fled the country during World War II).

Thus, the emigration has had a much more visible effect in Estonia than in the other post-Soviet countries. Estonia's most prestigeous daily, Postimees, is firmly controlled by the rightwing. Most of the financing for the election campaign that ended Sept. 20 came from abroad.

The Latvian front (Latvias Tautas Frontas-LTF) had the most substantial and lively paper of any of the national-democratic organizations, the weekly Atmoda. This newspaper, however, was stolen by its editor and turned into a commercial paper. The Latvian front had to begin a new series of Atmoda on a much more modest scale.

The first issue of the new Atmoda that I read when I arrived in Latvia in late September consisted mainly of a long article by the president of the Latvian People's Front, Romualdas Razukas.

It lamented the growing abyss between a small section of the population that was enriching itself as a result of privatization and the great majority that was becoming impoverished. Razukas wrote that the incumbent government, supposedly made up of supporters of the front, actually represented the "liberal nomenklatura," and that the front considered itself in opposition to the government.

Fronts and parties in Latvia I discovered that most of the deputies elected to the Latvian Supreme Soviet under the front's auspices had happily gone their own way once in the legislature, and they fell into representing the general interests of the bureaucracy.

Half the delegation of the harder-line nationalist group, the Latvian Independence Movement (Latvias Neatkaribas KustibaLNKK), an historic rival of the front, went There are beggars, mostly elderly peothe same way. For the upcoming elections, the LTF and the LNKK are in a bloc, and the latter seems to be the dominant partner.

The major difference in the past was that the LNKK rejected the legitimacy of the local Supreme Soviet and called for restoration of the pre-1940 Latvian republic, based on those who lived in it at the time and their descendents. That is, it denied citizenship rights to most of the Russian-speaking people, who make up about half or more of the population today.

The LTF, on the other hand, had always appealed to the Russian-speakers, as well as Latvians, on the basis of its democratic program—and it succeeded in winning over a large number of them. But today the LTF has adopted the line of the LNKK.

What program? No program?

The LTF leader Razukas is one of the most lucid of the Baltic Front leaders. He understands that the front form is outdated. His answer to this problem is that the LTF has to transform itself into a party.

In order to combine the party form with the breadth of the front, he thinks that the new party should be a "centrist" one. But what he means by this seems to be that the party should not have any definite program controlling deputies LTF.

At the same time, he said that the Social Democratic party had no programmatic differences with the Latvian Democratic Party of Labor, which models itself after its electorally-successful Lithuanian counterpart. The question was purely one of "people." The DPL was made up of former or present bureaucrats, while the Social Democratic party membership were "new people."

Differentiations in Lithuania In Lithuania, I heard a similar story, curiously enough, from the office manager of the League of Liberals, an ideologically right-wing organization whose headquarters was plastered with Bush-Quayle election posters.

Of course, he thought there was certainly an ideological difference between his group and the local Democratic Party of Labor, since the stock in trade of the League of Liberals is its consistent "free market orientation." But the Liberal leader said that the actual base of his organization was the same as that of the Lithuanian Democratic Party of Labor, that is, "intellectuals and entrepreneurs."

The difference supposedly was that the