Part 1

1. Perspectives for the Former Stalinist States

The International Background

1. 1991 marked a turning point in world history. With the collapse of the August coup, counter-revolution took an enormous leap forward within the Soviet Union, resulting in the break up of the USSR and the formation of bourgeois governments in all its former republics. This enormously accelerated the process of capitalist restoration already underway in eastern Europe. At differing speeds, capitalist economic relations are making headway in all the former Stalinist states. This is also true, although at a more modest pace, in the few remaining Stalinist states such as China, Vietnam and Cuba.

2. The collapse of Stalinism has a decisive bearing on world perspectives. World relations have been transformed by these events, just as the outcome of the Second World War determined the character of world relations for more than four decades. Throughout that period, class conflict and the conflict between nations took place against the background of the equilibrium established between two powerful antagonistic blocs – Imperialism and Stalinism. Despite the explosive upheavals of this period, world relations assumed a relatively settled and stable pattern.

3. The destruction of Stalinism as a powerful bloc against Imperialism has shaken the ties which held the imperialist powers together for 40 years, overriding their mutual rivalries. We have entered a more disturbed period in world history, marked by sharper inter-imperialist rivalries and a deepening capitalist crisis. This is not the place to deal with perspectives for the world economy, which are dealt with in the new World Perspectives document, however, it is clear that an explosive realignment in world relations is taking place.

4. The downfall of Stalinism presented Imperialism with an enormous ideological victory. The capitalist “market” economy appears triumphant over “socialism” and the planned economy. This in itself has had an enormous international impact, disorientating for the working class generally, and demoralising for some of the advanced layers, especially where Stalinism exercised a certain attraction in the past. Every Communist Party has been convulsed by a deep internal crisis. The vast majority are collapsing into the Second International or voting themselves out of existence.

5. The victory for Imperialism is not solely on the ideological plane. The collapse of the Stalinist planned economies opens new areas of the world to capitalist exploitation. But while world capitalism has been strengthened in the short term, this process has obvious limits. Among the major powers there is a scramble for influence over the emerging bourgeois states of eastern Europe and the former USSR. German capitalism is attempting to transform eastern Europe into its own sphere of influence. It accounts for 80 per cent of foreign investment in Czechoslovakia and 40 per cent in Poland. But this is preparing new conflicts with Germany’s west European rivals and inevitably in the future with Russia. Reflecting the new order of alliances and counter-alliances, foreign investment in Hungary is dominated by Germany’s rivals, principally the USA.

6. At the same time the victory of bourgeois regimes in eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union places new strains upon world capitalism. The upheavals in the former Stalinist states have unleashed powerful destabilising forces into the world situation. The chaos of economic collapse, ethnic conflict and civil war, threatens to spill over and affect central Europe and parts of the Middle East and Asia. Already west European states are bracing themselves for a flood of refugees from the war zones of the former Yugoslav federation. A million refugees have been displaced by the conflicts in Bosnia and Croatia, the biggest exodus in Europe since the Second World War.

7. Alongside faltering economic growth for world capitalism, these events have exposed new strains between the major capitalist powers. A recent Pentagon report reflects the alarm of US Imperialism over these developments. The document warns of Germany and Japan becoming nuclear powers, in response to the upheavals in the former USSR, and a proliferation of new nuclear-armed states in the region. It adds that US Imperialism’s “new priority”, after the cold war, is “to prevent the emergence of potential rivals in any region of the world”. Within western Europe, the juggernaut of European Union is slowing as hesitation and open divisions surface among the European bourgeois. The conflict in Yugoslavia exposed growing splits among EC states, such as the refusal of Greece to recognise Macedonia and Britain’s resistance to sending an EC military force to Croatia.

8. The experience of German capitalism illustrates the contradictory effects of the collapse of Stalinism. Of all the imperialist powers, Germany has gained the most from these events, but it also risks the greatest loss. While extending its economic base, re-unification has also precipitated an enormous crisis in German society. The costs of re-unification have grossly outstripped the original estimates of the German ruling class, placing an enormous strain upon the German state. Germany has incorporated into its foundations all the contradictions of developing processes in eastern Europe – an unresolved social crisis in the old east, and growing resistance from the working class to the rising costs of re-establishing capitalism there. The recent strike movement, the biggest since 1948, signals the end of the post war social ‘consensus’ and the beginning of an explosive new period in German history.

A Lifeline From the West?

9. If viable capitalist economies could be established in the former Stalinist states, leading to a significant expansion of world trade, this would raise the theoretical possibility of a new world capitalist upswing. But this scenario is extremely unlikely. Increasingly, it is the negative effects of the collapse of Stalinism which occupy the strategists of world capitalism, as they calculate the costs of war, mass migration, and instability spreading into areas once cut off by the iron curtain.

10. Several factors militate against a new upswing based on capitalist restoration in these societies. Firstly, the economies of eastern Europe and the former USSR are extremely weak and impoverished, and are likely to remain so on the basis of capitalism. Secondly, there are the limits of world capitalism itself. Events are confirming our prognosis that the imperialist countries aren’t prepared to provide the vast sums of investment required to develop these economies. The $24 billion aid package for the former USSR, announced by the G7 in April 1992, is puny in comparison with what is needed and contains hardly any new money. The Pentagon spends this amount every 29 days to defend US imperialism!

11. Estimates on how much needs to be invested to modernise the economies of the former USSR to west European standards, range from $76 billion to $167 billion a year. In conditions of slow world economic growth, it is utopian to think that the imperialist bourgeoisie would invest such amounts in countries where capitalism is far from securely established.

12. The Marshall Plan to rebuild west European capitalism in the post-1945 period took place under entirely different international conditions. US capitalism emerged from the war in an enormously strengthened position compared to its capitalist rivals and was able to intervene decisively to help the weakened west European regimes defeat the post war revolutionary wave. Capitalism in these states, although devastated by war, still existed. They did not therefore, face the task of re-establishing from nothing the financial, legal and managerial framework necessary for a capitalist economy to develop.

13. Today, while still the pre-eminent capitalist power, the USA is being challenged by world markets and at home by ascendant Japan and also by the EC. The continuing failure to reach an agreement at the GATT talks indicates the ferocious struggle developing as a result of the sharp slowdown in world economic growth. An agreement at GATT, which is still the most likely outcome, can increasingly be undermined in practice by the development of a disguised trade war. Marshall aid was a response to the strengthened position of the Soviet Union and the fear that capitalism could be overthrown in western Europe. Paradoxically, with Stalinism no longer a threat, Imperialism is less likely to intervene with decisive economic aid.

Effects Upon the Working Class

14. The coming to power of bourgeois restorationist regimes across eastern Europe and the territory of the old USSR is a huge step backwards for these societies. Barbaric gangster-capitalism is creeping into the void created by the collapse of the planned economy. Clearly, the overthrow of the nationalised planned economy, despite its bureaucratic distortions, is a big defeat for the working class in these states and internationally.

15. However, this defeat cannot be compared with the victory of fascism in the 1930s, which physically liquidated the organisations of the proletariat and prepared the way for a new imperialist war. In the current situation there has been a strengthening of the working class in a number of decisive capitalist countries, such as Germany and Japan. For the proletariat in the former Stalinist states, the liquidation of the planned economy represents a terrible historical defeat, with catastrophic social effects. However, even in these states, despite enormous political confusion, the working class has not been crushed as under fascism. The paradox of the developing counter-revolution in these states is that, until now, it has accompanied and partly rested upon, the first stirrings of independent proletarian organisation.

16. These events have created enormous ideological confusion within the working class and its organisations internationally, especially among the reformist leaders. For a whole period the development of the planned economies, despite Stalinism, could be contrasted to capitalism’s record, especially in the ex-colonial world. Now the argument against capitalism must be conducted once again from the pages of Das Kapital, rather than in the “language of iron and steel” and the achievements of the planned economy. The collapse of Stalinism as a force within the international labour movement has had a two-fold effect. In the short-term it has disorientated large sections, for whom the Stalinist planned economies were a point of reference. The apparent strengthening of Imperialism is a blow to the confidence of the proletariat in the ex-colonial countries especially. In the long-term however, the collapse of Stalinism as an organised political force is a factor of great revolutionary significance.

17. For decades, basking in the afterglow of the Russian revolution and later the struggle against fascism, the Stalinists maintained a strong position both organisationally and ideologically, within the international workers’ movement. Only the Trotskyists, the genuine Marxists, challenged them from the standpoint of defending the real ideals of October, workers’ democracy and internationalism. For decades Trotskyism was isolated as the Stalinists maintained their position. The collapse of Stalinism has removed a massive obstacle to the development of genuine Marxist ideas among the proletariat. This is especially the case among the new generation of youth.

18. Nowhere has the proletariat been more disorientated than in the former Stalinist states themselves. But while there is still tremendous confusion and uncertainty, the masses’ experience of barbaric capitalism violently challenges their illusions. At the present time the lack of an alternative, and the scale of the economic collapse, has partly cut across the development of widespread struggles. But implicit in this unfolding process, at a certain stage, are explosive movements and great shifts in consciousness, especially if a revolutionary leadership can be created. Marxism therefore faces an historic challenge in preparing its forces theoretically and practically for the inevitable battles ahead.

19. Events in the former Stalinist states have posed major new theoretical questions for Marxism. The processes involved are unprecedented in human history. Since 1989 we have had to reappraise our analysis of the world situation, especially in regard to these events, just as in the 1940s the Marxists were forced to analyse an entirely new historical situation. Theoretically, Marxism has been tremendously enriched by the lessons of the mass movements against Stalinism, their diversion into the channels of capitalist restoration, and the peculiar problems this has thrown up. The task now is to apply these lessons in the struggle to build the forces of Marxism in the ex-Stalinist states and elsewhere. This document is a contribution to this task, generalising the experience of the recent period and on that basis developing our perspectives for the future.

The Collapse of Stalinism in the USSR

20. On the basis of the social relations created by the October, despite the subsequent distortion of Stalinism, enormous economic progress was made in the USSR. Formerly backward Russia was raised, by means of the planned economy, to the level of a mighty industrial power within the space of two generations. But the regime in the Soviet Union represented an enormous contradiction. The concentration of power in the hands of a new privileged elite, resting on the backs of the working class, meant that economic development was carried through at an enormous human and material cost.

21. A planned economy requires the active participation of the mass of the working population to implement, check and regulate the plan. In the absence of this democratic involvement the massive growth of bureaucracy increasingly came into conflict with the needs of the planned economy. For a period the Stalinist bureaucracy was able to develop the productive forces, despite the waste, corruption and mismanagement that are endemic in bureaucratic rule. But increasingly, especially with the more complex requirements of a modern economy, their continued rule cancelled out the great advantages of the planned economy. From the late 1970’s the Soviet economy and the economies of eastern Europe experienced stagnation and even decline. Whereas the Soviet Union achieved an average annual growth rate of 6.5 per cent between 1961-65 and 7.8 per cent between 1986-89. The collapse of the plan meant that in 1991, Soviet GDP plummeted by 17 per cent. Without the check of workers’ democracy or even trade unions as in the capitalist democracies, the bureaucracy’s industrial policy was increasingly pursued without regard to the colossal environmental damage it was causing. The pollution of air and water has produced disaster zones which are too hazardous for people to live in. The Aral Sea in central Asia, which has been eroded by cotton production, is a monument to the destruction caused by untrammelled bureaucratic rule.

22. From the 1970’s, the development of new technology widened the economic gap between the Stalinist states and the advanced capitalist countries. While there was no shortage of scientific innovation, and while new technique was applied in certain concentrated sectors, particularly of military production, the ossified bureaucratic methods of Stalinism were incompatible with the application of new science and technique throughout the economy as a whole. Enterprises struggling to meet their targets resisted the introduction of new technology because of the disruption this caused to production during the installation of equipment, retraining of workers etc. In this way, as the tasks of economic development became more complex, the bureaucratic system faced increasing paralysis and inertia. This explains the backwardness of most branches of the economy, the emphasis on heavy industry which is highly labour intensive, and the reliance on technique which has long been discarded in the West.

23. The joint Study of the Soviet Economy by the World Bank and IMF (February 1991) explains this, albeit from a capitalist standpoint:

“The incentives for enterprise managers to innovate, increase efficiency or improve the quality of their output were inadequate or even perverse. This stemmed in large part from the overriding emphasis in the plan on gross production targets. Innovation and the search for lower-cost techniques generally involve some short-term disruption to output, as new machinery is installed, employees are retrained and different work practices are tested and developed. But the planning system, which motivated higher production primarily by imposing increasingly ambitious targets, could not afford to allow temporarily lower output from one enterprise to jeopardize the inputs to others. Moreover, the typical regards to innovation and efficiency in a market economy – lower prices, higher market-share, increased profits – were generally of little or no interest to a Soviet enterprise for which prices were typically set on a cost-plus basis, particularly if they came at the expense of missing the annual production target (to which all bonuses were tied). Even if improved techniques were successful in raising output within a year, the payoff to the enterprise would be extremely limited, since its target for the subsequent year would simply be raised accordingly (the so-called ratchet effect).”

24. In this way the interaction and self-interest of the different levels and sectors of the bureaucracy combined to block the attempts of the top leadership to raise productivity even when incentives were offered. During the 1980’s the Stalinist planned economy began to break apart. The arbitrary targets and directions from central ministries became increasingly irrelevant. Managers of individual enterprises were forced to bypass the plan in order to obtain vital raw materials and labour to maintain production. Massive hoarding of stocks, raw materials and labour took place as separate enterprises struggled to survive. Relations between different sectors of the economy were increasingly settled through a crazy system of barter agreements rather than organised in a planned and harmonious fashion. Given the complex multi-national character of the Soviet economy, the developing struggle between rival national bureaucracies further undermined the plan. Only the intervention of the working class to free the planned economy from these bureaucratic constraints and establish a democratic plan of production, could have prevented this disintegration of the planned economy.

The Political Revolution

25. Political revolution exploded throughout eastern Europe in the late 1980s. The mass movements which toppled the dictatorships in East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Romania and the movement of nationalities in the USSR, showed the enormous power of the proletariat when it begins to move into action. The corrupt Stalinist regimes were suspended in air, unable to use their formidable armouries. Never in history has a revolutionary movement spread so rapidly from one country to another. In the sweep of revolution from one capital to another across eastern Europe, we see an anticipation of the future world socialist revolution. However, this process did not develop in the same way as the 1956 revolution in Hungary or with the same consciousness which existed in Czechoslovakia in 1968 or Poland in 1980. Our tendency had predicted the political revolution, but it developed in a way which we had not anticipated.

26. In Hungary in 1956, the working class had grown up under capitalism, experienced fascism and imperialist war, and its advanced layers had a vision of the socialist society they wanted. By the 1980s, decades of Stalinist dictatorship had had a corrosive effect upon the consciousness of the masses. The long post war upswing of world capitalism (1950-1973), followed, after a period of slumps and stagflation, by the boom of the 1980’s, at a time of economic regression in the USSR and eastern Europe, also had a decisive effect on the outlook of the working class. In conditions of dictatorship, these processes developed beneath the surface in society. Given the impasse of Stalinism, all layers of society were affected. Above all, this was the case with the old Stalinist bureaucracy.

27. Demoralised by continuing economic failure, and terrified of an uprising of the proletariat, one layer of the bureaucracy after another swung over to a pro-capitalist position. They saw this as the only way to safeguard their power and privileges. Although capitalism has outlived any historically progressive role, compared to the economic chaos of decaying Stalinism, it appeared to both the majority of the bureaucracy and, in the absence of any clear alternative, to large sections of the working class as the only way to escape the economic impasse. This combination of factors led to the derailing of the political revolution and the triumph, at least for a time, of pro-capitalist reaction.

28. The victory of counter-revolution, in the form of bourgeois restoration, was not an automatic or inevitable process. Revolution is the entrance of the masses into the political arena. Every revolution is marked by great confusion. Different ideas are taken up by the masses and tested out in struggle, in an attempt to find a way forward. In the revolutionary upheavals of 1989, while illusions in capitalism had a much wider basis in society than before, pro-capitalist groupings and ideas were just one element of the movement, mainly based on the intellectuals and sections of the bureaucracy. To begin with, they were not the decisive element. In East Germany, Romania, and Czechoslovakia for example, there was significant opposition to bourgeois restoration at the outset.

29. However, in the absence of a conscious and organised revolutionary alternative, with the old Stalinist order collapsing, a political vacuum developed. In this situation, the masses could see no viable alternative to Stalinism, other than the ‘market’. Just as each victory of the mass movement against dictatorship fuelled the revolution in neighbouring Stalinist states, each shift towards pro-capitalist reaction reinforced the idea that this represented the only practical way forward. In this way, illusions in capitalism became the expression, in a distorted form, of the masses’ burning hatred of Stalinism.

30. Even where the mass movements began without looking towards capitalism, as in East Germany, a combination of the above factors provided a basis for counter-revolution to develop. Again, this was not a foregone conclusion. If the Stalinists had attempted to crush the revolution as they had planned to, before retreating on the night of October 9^th 1989, this could have ignited an insurrectionary movement of the proletariat. In this situation, the movement could have gone much further, with the working class smashing the bureaucratic state. While not immediately removing all illusions in the West, this would have raised much more clearly the question of completing the political revolution.

31. This counter-revolution did not simply develop in the past few years. From its very beginning Stalinism represented counter-revolution, even though for nearly 70 years it based itself on the planned economy. In the Transitional Programme Trotsky explained how “the apparatus of the workers’ state underwent a complete degeneration” and became “more and more a weapon for the sabotage of the country’s economy… The political prognosis has an alternative character: either the bureaucracy, becoming more and more the organ of the world bourgeoisie in the workers’ state, will overthrow the new forms of property and plunge the country back to capitalism; or the working class will crush the bureaucracy and open the way to socialism.”

32. This perspective of Trotsky was cut across by the outcome of the Second World War. The USSR’s victory, coupled with its enormous economic progress, and the delay of revolution in the advanced capitalist countries, strengthened the Stalinist bureaucracy during the 1950’s and 1960’s. During this period support for a return to capitalism was minimal. But on the basis of faltering economic growth from the 1970’s onwards, and especially when in the 1980’s stagnation and actual regression set in, pro-capitalist tendencies began to develop within the Stalinist bureaucracies, notably at first in China, Hungary and then the USSR.

33. Gorbachev’s rise to power in 1985 was a critical turning point in the history of Stalinism. Although Gorbachev himself subsequently converted to the idea of capitalist restoration, this was not his original intention. Driven by fear that economic stagnation was preparing the way for revolutionary upheaval, Gorbachev sought to pull the system of bureaucratic rule back from the abyss. His regime began to implement the most far-reaching reforms in the history of Soviet Stalinism, in order to prevent a revolutionary explosion from below. However, as has happened more than once in history, this partial liberalisation from above opened the floodgates of popular revolt.

34. The late 1980’s saw, for the first time since the early 1930’s, an open split and public struggle between different wings of the bureaucracy. At certain periods he leant on the developing pro-capitalist wing of the bureaucracy to counter the influence of the most conservative layer, while later resting on the support of the Stalinist old guard against the pro-capitalist wing. But Gorbachev’s attempts to stimulate the economy by offering greater incentives to management and greater decentralisation, far from improving matters, actually accelerated the break up of the planned economy. The failure of reform, and the slide into economic chaos, reinforced the idea that there was no way out under the old system. With the immediate threat of repression lifted, the masses began to press forward their demands, producing further alarm in the ranks of the bureaucracy. Because of this, pro-capitalist tendencies gained ground within the bureaucracy, to the point where even prior to Gorbachev’s downfall, these had become the clear majority.

35. Trotsky raised the perspective that Stalinism would inevitably be overthrown, either by the political revolution of the working class or by a capitalist counter-revolution. In reality the movement against Stalinism took the form of a confluence of both. Prior to the revolutionary explosion in East Germany in October 1989, the Marxists still expected that the proletariat, once it went into action, would resist capitalist restoration and move towards the establishment of workers’ democracies. Indeed before this, there had been a discussion as to whether, in the Stalinist states, a Marxist party was necessary in advance for the political revolution to succeed. The Marxists had considered the possibility that a revolutionary party could be forged by the working class in the course of the political revolution.

36. However, life is richer than the most brilliant of theories. As Lenin explained, in dealing with how counter-revolution could develop in the USSR, “History knows all sorts of metamorphoses”. The revolutionary upheavals in the Stalinist states, which posed the political revolution, took an unseen turn. Marxism was forced to reappraise its position in the light of the actual course of events. This correction was made rapidly, especially as our interventions in these mass movements clarified the situation. While the Marxists had already recognised in discussions in 1988-89, that capitalist restoration was no longer excluded in these societies, what was unexpected was the speed with which the political revolution was derailed. Also unexpected was the fact that the first steps of the counter-revolution did not encounter significant resistance from the proletariat.

37. A critical factor, explaining the suddenness of the shift to counter-revolution, is the capitulation f the old bureaucracy, its scramble to join the ranks of the capitalist “opposition”. Stalinist resistance crumbled amid the first shockwaves of the revolution. In general, instead of attempting to hold out by resorting to repression, these regimes dropped like rotten fruit. Where repression was attempted in Romania, far from subduing the proletariat, this provoked an insurrectionary movement which would have split the old state apparatus, had the generals not decided to turn on Ceausescu.

38. In all these states, former bureaucrats predominate amongst the emerging capitalists and bourgeois political parties. The speed with which these elements deserted to the pro-capitalist camp, under the pressure of the revolutionary upheavals, was determined by the bourgeois degeneration of the bureaucracies during the preceding period, especially the 1980’s. The role of the Soviet bureaucracy under Gorbachev, was a further decisive element in this process internationally. Their announcement that they would not intervene in eastern Europe to save the old regimes, emboldened both the masses and the pro-bourgeois wing of the bureaucracy. For the remaining Stalinist elements within the different bureaucracies, this was a further demoralising blow.

39. When Trotsky raised the prospect of bourgeois counter-revolution in the Soviet Union, he argued this could only succeed by crushing the resistance of the working class. Today however, the proletariat’s attachment to the planned economy has been eroded by decades of Stalinist rule. The working class is emerging from dictatorship in a dispersed state, requiring time and experience for its own independent organisations, self-confidence, and political ideas to develop. Among the working class there are illusions in the “market”, in bourgeois democracy, and the belief that this is the only alternative to Stalinism. This explains how the counter-revolution has until now, been able to proceed in a “democratic” form, without encountering mass resistance from the working class.

40. Each advance of the counter-revolution has, so far, based itself upon these illusions. As these illusions break down, so the forces of reaction will meet greater resistance from the proletariat and will require greater force in order to consolidate the counter-revolution. The present “democratic” phase will break down, giving way to explosive battles at a certain stage, as workers’ expectations are not fulfilled. The masses are already tiring of the excuses of the bourgeois politician, that all society’s problems are the fault of the “communists”. However, this process will inevitably be protracted, by the disorientation of the proletariat which is the legacy of Stalinism, and the need for a revolutionary alternative which only genuine Marxism can provide.

[Continue…]

The Class Character of the Regimes in the Former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe

41. This process led to the formation of peculiar hybrid states, in which counter-revolutionary governments moving to establish capitalism, rested on the economic foundations inherited from the workers’ state. This is not the first time in history that hybrid or transitional forms of society have emerged. Under such conditions it is not always possible to apply a fixed social category: capitalist state or workers’ state. The regime of the Sandinistas in Nicaragua (1979-90) was a hybrid of a different type. A new state was created by the victory of the guerrillas over the old dictatorship, which had every possibility of moving in the direction of proletarian bonapartism and breaking the power of the capitalists. But under the influence of their Soviet advisers, the Sandinista leaders refused to complete the revolution, and for a decade the new state coexisted uneasily with an economy dominated by the capitalist class. Such a situation, however, cannot exist indefinitely and eventually, in the case of Nicaragua, the capitalists were able to re-establish their control over the state apparatus.

42. In eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union we have seen a similar process develop in the opposite direction. Following the defeat of the political revolution, for the reasons explained above, bourgeois governments came to power, resting upon wholly state-owned economies. While there are variations, with this process acquiring a more rapid tempo in some countries than in others, these are all transitional regimes, moving in the direction of capitalism, but where capitalist economic relations are still far from firmly established.

43. Immediately after the victory of pro-restorationist regimes in eastern Europe, we characterised these as bourgeois regimes in the process of formation. Of course, in a rapidly changing situation the forces of revolution and counter-revolution do not mark time. It is therefore necessary to make a more precise definition, taking account of how this process has developed. Because of the weakness of the subjective factor and the disorientation of the proletariat, we have seen a further strengthening of the counter-revolution. This is especially the case since the collapse of Stalinism in the former USSR, which gave a further impetus to reaction throughout eastern Europe. While economically, the shift to capitalist relations is encountering enormous difficulties, a decisive transformation has taken place within the state apparatus in all these societies. The commanding sections of the armed forces, civil service, and management of state industry, have shifted over to a bourgeois standpoint. In these societies the foundations of a bourgeois state have been established.

44. As Trotsky explained:

“If… a bourgeois party were to overthrow the ruling Soviet caste, it would find no small number of ready servants among the present bureaucrats, administrators, technicians, directors, party secretaries and privileged upper circles in general. A purgation of the state apparatus would, of course, be necessary in this case too. But a bourgeois restoration would probably have to clean out fewer people than a revolutionary party.” (Revolution Betrayed, Social Relation s in the Soviet Union, page 253)

45. This process has taken place in all the former Stalinist states. The scale of actual purges of the old state officials varies, but in most countries it has been minimal. In Czechoslovakia, within a year of the collapse of the Stalinist regime, 30,000 political officers had left the army. Most of these were demoralised ex-Stalinists who resigned or retired, rather than being dismissed. 50,000 of the Soviet Army’s former political officers were removed after the defeat of the August coup, though more than half were re-employed in other positions. In the former East Germany, a more thorough purge took place as West German capitalism installed its own officials in key positions in the state. In general though, rather than a physical purge, we have seen a shift in allegiance and class outlook within the state apparatus. The mass of the old functionaries, generals and police chiefs have gone over to a pro-bourgeois position. Moves in most of these countries to establish smaller, professional armies, abolishing conscription, are intended to underpin this transformation. In Hungary, where unlike most of eastern Europe no mass movement developed against the old regime, nevertheless the regime and its state apparatus went over, almost en bloc, to capitalist restoration.

46. Therefore these are bourgeois states which have not yet succeeded in establishing viable capitalist economies. The degree to which capitalism has made inroads into these economies varies from state to state. In some, particularly Poland, Hungary and the Baltic States, the private sector already accounts for a significant proportion of GDP (30 per cent in Poland in 1991, according to the World Bank). I others, the bourgeois regimes have barely begun to dismantle state ownership. But even if decisive sections of the economy remain in the state sector, this does not exclude the predominance of capitalist relations. In Portugal, after the 1974 revolution, 70 per cent of the economy was nationalised, nevertheless it remained a bourgeois state. Given the weakness of the nascent bourgeois class, a large nationalised sector is likely to remain. Unlike under Stalinism in the past, these industries will not be integrated into a plan, and will function as individual “state capitalist” concerns, like the existing nationalised industries in the capitalist countries.

47. This is the case in many underdeveloped capitalist countries, where the state is forced to step in and run certain branches of industry. This is done on a capitalist basis, and serves the interests of developing a capitalist economy. Lenin explained, in 1921, that:

“state capitalism in a society where power belongs to capital, and state capitalism in a proletarian state are two different concepts. In a capitalist state, state capitalism means that it is recognised by the state and controlled by it for the benefit of the bourgeoisie, and to the detriment of the proletariat.” (Report on the Tactics of the R.C.P., Collected Works vol. 32, page 491.)

48. It is clear from the above that Lenin’s concept of state capitalism is not to be confused with the mistaken theory of state capitalism which argues that the Stalinist planned economies were just a variant of capitalism.

49. While capitalist relations are not consolidated in these societies, nevertheless the task facing the proletariat has now fundamentally changed. The advances of the counter-revolution mean that a political revolution is no longer in itself sufficient to bring the proletariat to power. The political revolution was posed in the past as a ‘supplementary’ revolution to clear out the bureaucracy and establish workers’ democracy, on the basis of the planned economy. The destruction of the planned economy, with the development of a bourgeois state and increasingly bourgeois property, poses the need for a new social revolution in these societies, which would overthrow the bourgeois state, reverse the denationalisation of major companies and draw up a democratic plan of production. This can only be accomplished by the proletariat armed with the programme of Marxism.

Capitalism and Economic Crisis

50. Marxists completely reject the idea that capitalism is capable of playing a progressive role in these societies, by developing the productive forces. On the contrary, the return to capitalist relations is wreaking a trail of economic destruction across eastern Europe and the former USSR. In eastern Europe as a whole, GDP declined by 15 per cent in 1991. Poland’s GDP has slumped by 30 per cent since 1989. Unemployment in Poland now stands at 12 per cent and is forecast to reach 18 per cent since 1989. Unemployment in Poland now stands at 12 per cent and is forecast to reach 18 per cent by the end of 1992. Even in Hungary and Czechoslovakia, with stronger economies, GDP has fallen by 15 per cent and 25 per cent respectively during the last two years.

51. The prospects for economic development in the former Stalinist states are tied inextricably to the perspectives for world capitalism. If a new period of capitalist upswing, on the lines of 1950-73 was in prospect, then it would be entirely possible for at least some of these states to overcome their problems and establish viable capitalist economies. However, this is an extremely unlikely perspective. Against a background of deepening international capitalist crisis, these fledgling capitalist states face a desperate future as weak, semi-colonial economies.

52. The new bourgeoisie is drawn primarily from the ranks of the old bureaucracy and the mafia of former black marketeers. These are the only sections in a position to profit from the plundering of state assets. The former mayor of Moscow, Gavriil Popov, for example, is now the fifth richest man in Russia. Far from developing productive forces, this emerging capitalist class plays a completely parasitic role. In Poland, 87 of every 100 new businesses are trading companies which do not themselves produce anything. Likewise, most foreign investments and acquisitions have not led to any real development or increased production. For many, the aim is simply to establish an outlet within the national market for part-assembled imports to be finished by cheap local labour.

53. These societies do, of course, offer a reservoir of cheap skilled labour for world capitalism. Wage levels in Poland are now, according to the Economist (21.9.91), half the level in Mexico at current exchange rates, while wage levels in Bulgaria have actually fallen behind India! But despite this, foreign investment has been negligible. In the case of Poland, less than $1 billion has been invested since 1989. Even Hungary, which has attracted more foreign investment than any other country in eastern Europe, has only received $2.5 billion. A supply of cheap labour is not enough for the capitalists. They will only invest if they can make profits and if there is a market for their goods either in these societies or in an expanding world market. These low wage economies offer an extremely limited market for capitalism. In Czechoslovakia, for example, consumption fell by 23 per cent last year, as the government’s savage monetarist policies took effect.

54. In addition to the limits of the domestic market in these states, the capitalists face a problem of excess industrial capacity in the West and the likelihood, at best, of low growth in the world economy. All these factors limit the scope for major investment in Russia and eastern Europe. Alongside economic factors, there are important political factors which act as a disincentive to foreign investment, namely the extreme instability of these regimes, and the fear that this transition can be reversed. There is growing popular resentment towards foreign capital making off with the “family silver”. This is also connected with historical factors such as Czechoslovakia’s domination by Germany and Austria in the past. This pressure prompted the government in Czechoslovakia to make an appeal for “non-German investment”.

55. This is not to say that further foreign investment is excluded. Especially in more developed sectors, in Hungary, the Czech lands, the Baltics, parts of Russia, there will be a certain degree of investment. But in general, the character of this investment will be ‘colonial’, with the aim of exploiting cheap labour in order to export back to the western market. The acquisitions of Hungarian electrical producer Tungsram by General Electric, and Skoda cars in Czechoslovakia by Volkswagen, are typical of this kind of investment.

56. As the biggest investment project in eastern Europe, the example of Skoda is instructive. Skoda sales last year (1991) fell to 30,000 against a target of 123,000. Production has been cut from 930 to670 cars a day and 1,800 production workers have been sacked. While VW have not announced any plans to introduce new technology, their first act was to close all Skoda’s export contracts. While in future it can’t be excluded that VW may modernise its Czech plants and even shift some production from Germany, the aim of this takeover was clearly predatory – to transfer Skoda’s market share to VW with a minimum of new investment.

57. Therefore, even with certain pockets of foreign investment developing, especially in the most technologically advanced sectors of the economy, this will not have a decisive effect on the economy as a whole. In the former Stalinist economies, production is concentrated in outdated, technically obsolete branches of industry, where no private investment is seriously in prospect. The limited foreign investment of the last period is miniscule in comparison to the sums needed to modernise and re-equip industry. While private capital has generally been reluctant to intervene, western governments and their agencies have been forced to offer certain concessions in the form of aid and loans to prevent further destabilisation threatening Imperialism’s worldwide interests. However, these sums in no way meet the requirements of fledgling capitalism in eastern Europe and the former USSR.

58. Consequently, even according to the most optimistic assessments of western economists, these countries face years of deep recession. The World Bank predicts that output per head in eastern Europe will not return to its pre-1989 levels until 1996 or later. According to the Institute for International Economics in Washington, to catch up with average incomes in the EC in the next ten years, the six countries of eastern Europe (including the former Yugoslavia) would require $420 billion a year of investment. Nothing like this sum is being offered by world capitalism.

The Fast Track

59. Realisation of the enormity of the tasks confronting nascent capitalism has already divided these regimes and their imperialist advisors. The “fast track” school argue that a “big bang” is necessary to break up the old structures as quickly as possible in order to lay the basis for capitalism. If the state continues to play an economic role and the nationalised industries are not privatised then, they argue, there is the continuing danger that the restoration process can be reversed. Their opponents argue that the “big bang” itself threatens the restoration process by plunging the economy into chaos. This runs the risk, sooner or later, of provoking mass opposition to capitalism.

60. At this stage the protagonists of the “fast track” school clearly have the upper hand. This school rejects Keynesianism and state intervention and espouses rapid privatisation of state enterprises and the freeing of trade. Various schemes have been unveiled for sweeping privatisation of the economy. It has become clear, however, that this approach is already encountering massive problems.

61. Firstly there is the sheer scale of the privatisation which has been proposed. As the Economist survey on eastern Europe explained (September 21^st 1991):

“The biggest privatisation effort in history has been Chile’s disposal of 470 enterprises, producing 24% of the country’s value-added and employing 5% of its workers, between 1973 and 1989. Even this was accomplished only because many of the firms were simply handed back to previous owners… By comparison, Hungary has about 2,300 state-owned firms, Poland 7,500, Czechoslovakia 4,800, Bulgaria 5,000 and Romania 40,000.”

62. Secondly, there is the evident reluctance of foreign capital to invest. Again, according to the Economist survey:

“Undoubtedly sales to foreigners will continue. But many of the most promising firms, those with a recognised brand name such as Skoda, the Czech car maker sold to Volkswagen, have already been snapped up. Even wild optimists expect only 15-20 firms a year to be sold to foreign investors.”

63. Given this, where is the capital to come from to finance these grandiose privatisation plans? In Poland, the entire stock of personal savings is equivalent to less than 10 per cent of the estimated value of Polish industry. The only sections of society who have been able to but up newly privatised companies, and these have mainly been in the small business sector to date, are the ex-bureaucrats and black marketeers. This is producing a political backlash, as workers see these crooks profiting from the privatisation process.

Privatisation Vouchers

64. In order to quickly circumvent these barriers to rapid privatisation, and to overcome the resistance of the working class, many of these bourgeois regimes have opted for voucher schemes, either sold cheaply or given free to every citizen. In return for vouchers, each citizen is promised a certain number of shares in the future, creating the impression of shared ownership and a form of ‘popular capitalism’. In Czechoslovakia over 8 million people, assured that a US $35 stake now will be worth US $4,150 in two years’ time, have bought the vouchers.

65. But despite the apparent success of the Czechoslovak scheme, with workers taking out insurance against the hard times ahead, these voucher schemes are deeply flawed. Most of the industries in these societies are simply not viable without massive investment and modernisation. According to the most optimistic assessments, 20 per cent of companies in Czechoslovakia will go bankrupt this year (1992) and only 35 per cent are likely to survive the next 5 years. Again, as the Economist survey pointed out:

“Many east European firms are also “value subtractors” – that is, at world prices the value of the resources they consume is worth more than what they produce… According to one recent study, 20-25% of manufacturing industries in Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary could be value subtractors.”

66. The Achilles’ heel of all the proposed voucher schemes is that they only signal a transfer of ownership. They do not create any new wealth for investment in new technology. The revenue from vouchers, if there is any, goes to the government not the companies concerned. It does not therefore directly generate any new investment, which is the main barrier to economic development in these states.

67. At this stage, given the confusion within the working class and its organisations, these schemes can delay and complicate the task of mobilising mass resistance to privatisation. Sections of the workers’ movement have advocated participation in the schemes, arguing that at least this will enable workers to exercise some influence over the privatisation process. Partly as a reaction to bureaucratic control under Stalinism, the idea of employee shareholding schemes, and the confused concept of ‘self-management’ has support among leftward moving workers. But experience will demonstrate that this is a trap for the proletariat, an attempt to neutralise its opposition to the plundering of state assets. The Russian government, for example, are proposing to give workers in large enterprises 25 per cent of the shares. But as elsewhere, these will be non-voting shares, with real control passing to the banks, investment funds and big shareholders. When the inevitable bankruptcies and redundancies take place, these employee-held shares will be show to be worthless.

68. All the current attempts to provide a cushion against popular resistance to privatisation could turn into their opposite. Mass opposition could develop, not just as a result of redundancies and closures. The funds which are to administer the new vouchers or shares are extremely shaky. When the wild promises of big dividends fail to materialise, this itself could provoke a movement. Also the issue of foreign ownership and control is highly controversial in these societies. In Poland, 20 funds have been established to manage the shares created by the new scheme. While nominally run by Polish directors, these funds, which will control 25 per cent of total industrial output and 12 per cent of industrial employment, are to be manages by western companies and banks. This idea is already inflaming mass opposition.

69. If, as is entirely possible, one or a number of the funds crash, swallowing the life savings of tens of thousands of workers, this in itself could provoke a social crisis. In Czechoslovakia, there has been blatant criminal involvement in the newly established Investment Privatisation Funds (IPFs). Government advisers warn that only 30-60 of these funds are themselves likely to survive the next two years. They have already raised the scenario of re-nationalisation to prevent mass closures and strikes.

The Japanese Road?

70. Why then, have the fledgling capitalist class embarked upon this course? Partly because they are under the sway of the prevailing Reagan-Thatcher ideology of the bourgeois in the West. But a further decisive factor is the need to create a new capitalist class as quickly as possible and thereby create a social base for these unstable bourgeois regimes. At this stage, in so much as a bourgeois class actually exists in these societies, it is little more than the ‘shopocracy’ of small businessmen and traders which Engels described in Prussia during the 1840s. Rapid privatisation, despite all its obvious drawbacks, also reflects the desire of the ex-bureaucrats and black marketeers to legitimise the source of their wealth and income, in the form of capitalist property relations.

72. Even from a bourgeois standpoint, it is hard to conceive of a worse approach to re-establishing capitalism on a viable basis. It completely ignores the experiences of Japan in the post war period, or South Korea in the 1960’s and 1970’s where the state played the decisive role in developing these capitalist economies. The state developed the necessary infrastructure, where private capital refused to invest, and directed investment into key sectors of the economy. Both these economies also developed on the basis of protectionism, the opposite of what is now taking place under the bourgeois regimes of eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. While trade between the old Comecon partners has collapsed, for some east European countries there has been a marked growth in trade with the West. Czechoslovakia increased its exports to the OECD by 39.2 per cent in 1991 while Hungary achieved a 20;8 per cent export rise, and Bulgaria 30.2 per cent (Financial Times11.5.92). The EC new accounts for 54 per cent of Polish exports and 48 per cent of imports. But on the basis of the abandonment of all trade and exchange controls, this will mainly benefit western companies with vastly higher productivity, at the expense of domestic industry.

72. Even if the nascent bourgeois were to abandon this approach and adopt the methods of Japanese capitalism in the period after the Second World War, this would not solve their problems. In Japan, and later South Korea, these policies succeeded within the framework of the prolonged upswing of world capitalism. This is the decisive difference with today’s situation.

[Continue…]

Prospects for Russian Capitalism

73. In the short term, the idea that capitalist Russia will emerge as a new economic giant is utopian. Despite its mineral wealth, Russia will be economically dominated by world imperialism. On the basis of present market exchange rates, Russia’s annualised GNP in the first quarter of 1992 was smaller than Belgium’s. Therefore, capitalist Russia is likely to develop as a dependent economy, closer in character to semi-developed Brazil than an advanced capitalist country such as Japan or Germany. In Russia, however, society will be overwhelmingly industrialised, without the large rural population and feudal relations which in part, still exist in Brazil today. Militarily, a capitalist Russia would still be a mighty power, especially in its own spheres of influence.

74. Russia will face enormous disadvantages both because of its low productivity and also because of the tendency for the price of raw materials, on which it will be heavily reliant, to fall against the price of manufactured goods. Even its massive oil reserves do not assure its economic future. Russia already faces the loss of its former markets, as Ukraine and other republics and the countries of eastern Europe turn towards the Middle East for oil supplies. In addition they are encountering enormous production problems because of outdated technology and a collapsing infrastructure. Whereas Soviet oil output was nearly 570 million tonnes four years ago, Moscow economists are predicting that this could halve by the mid-1990’s. They warn that on present trends Russia could stop being an oil exporter.

75. Without huge foreign investment the introduction of new technology, on the scale needed, is impossible. There can be a combined and uneven development with islands of high-tech industry, mostly foreign dominated, surrounded by a sea of industrial backwardness. In addition to economic factors, flowing from the limitations of world capitalism, there are important political factors precluding modernisation on the scale required. A huge proletariat is concentrated in heavy industry and other sectors which face rationalisation or closure. A regime of workers’ democracy would have to confront the problem of modernisation of production, though this would be accomplished democratically, with the full involvement of the workforce.

76. Carried out under the blind play of market forces, this would mean a social catastrophe. The modernisation and reduction of heavy industry accomplished by the bourgeois in the USA, and western Europe, during the 1980’s took place in conditions of boom. Even then, this wholesale destruction of productive forces provoked massive social upheavals, such as the British miners’ strike and the US steel strike. These problems are dwarfed by the task confronting nascent capitalism in Russia.

77. Russia and the other regimes to emerge from the USSR are experiencing an unprecedented economic collapse aggravated by the break up of the Union and the resulting disintegration of the mutual economic relations. Far from arresting the economic decline, savage pro-capitalist policies have aggravated the situation. In Russia during January, the first month of Yeltsin’s “shock therapy”, coal output fell by 10 per cent, oil output by 12 per cent and steel production fell by 27 per cent. Yeltsin’s deputy Prime Minister, Yegor Gaidar, predicts an overall fall in production of 12 per cent in 1992.

78. As the Marxists warned, far from leading to Western living standards, the switch to capitalism is inflicting the conditions of the ex-colonial world upon the masses. Since January 1992 there has been a 40 per cent fall in living standards. 90 per cent of the population of Moscow have been driven below the poverty line by Yeltsin’s price rises. This catastrophe has resulted in Moscow street traders selling meat from slaughtered dogs and cats.

79. Capitalism is emerging amid an orgy of criminality, speculation and gangsterism. In Murmansk, the mafia, working through former bureaucrats, has acquired most of the newly privatised shops, allowing it to create artificial shortages and thereby rig prices. The senior police officer claimed that “the city has practically been bought by the Azerbaijanis”. As elsewhere, organised crime is dominated by gangs from the southern republics of the Caucasus and Central Asia. This undoubtedly introduces a further complicating factor, as workers’ hostility to the speculators assumes a racial form and provides a breeding ground for Great Russian chauvinism. The recent Moscow taxi drivers’ strike, as well as opposing price rises, demanded the expulsion of people from the Caucasus from the city.

National Disintegration

80. The disintegration of the former Soviet Union raises a nightmare scenario for world capitalism. The uncontrollable separatist tendencies which have been unleashed threaten to destabilise bordering countries and world relations as a whole. From an economic, military and even ecological point of view, these developments have alarmed Imperialism. West European capitalism fears a potential flood of refugees fleeing economic collapse and civil war in parts of the former USSR and the Balkans.

81. Wrangling over the division of the Soviet nuclear arsenal has raised the possibility of some of the central Asian republics retaining their nuclear capability, and the possibility of the sale of nuclear weapons and technology to other countries. For these reasons, initially, the imperialists backed Gorbachev in his attempt to hold together a looser union structure. When this failed they supported the formation of the CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States), as an attempt to arrest the tendencies towards complete economic and national separation. From its inception, however, the CIS began to break apart.

82. These developments demonstrate that capitalism is incapable of playing a progressive role. The shift towards capitalism has resulted in the resurrection of countless small and economically unviable nation states. Lenin and Trotsky explained that, from the late nineteenth century onwards, capitalism faced two fundamental obstacles to the development of the productive forces: the private ownership of the means of production and the narrow limits of the nation state. Both these barriers were partially overcome, although in a distorted form, under Stalinism, at least inside the borders of the USSR. The failure of Stalinism, given Imperialism’s continued domination of the world economy, is the final answer to the Stalinist theory of “socialism in one country”.

83. In the early 1920s, on the basis of Lenin’s policy towards the different nationalities, the Soviet Union grouped together the oppressed nations of Tsarist Russia in a voluntary federation. This was an enormously progressive historical achievement, even despite the subsequent crimes of Stalinism in the field of the national question. But although the basis for solving the national question was laid in the October Revolution, this could only ultimately be resolved by the victory of socialism internationally. Even then national divisions will not automatically disappear. This will require the conscious intervention of the working class of all nationalities to develop an internationalist policy.

84. The exhaustion of the Russian revolution and the resulting victory of the Stalinist bureaucracy ensured the survival of the national question within Soviet society. The authoritarian rule of the bureaucracy inevitably came into collision with the national aspirations and cultural demands of the peoples and nations of the USSR. For an entire historical period the national question seemed to be held in check by a combination of rapid development of the productive forces on one hand and repression on the other. The period of Stalinism’s decay and disintegration, however, unleashed powerful and uncontrollable centrifugal forces in the Soviet Union.

85. With a strong independent workers’ movement and a revolutionary leadership sensitive to their national demands, the movement of the nationalities of the Soviet Union could have developed towards the political revolution and the re-creation of a genuinely free and voluntary federation of workers’ democracies. Such a leadership, while standing for the maximum integration of the economies of the USSR, and explaining the advantages of federation, would have implacably defended the right of all republics to self determination.

86. The diversion of the political revolution onto the road of counter-revolution has given a savage twist to the national question. Among the non-Russian masses, hatred of Stalinism inevitably acquired a national colouration. The desire to be free from the Great Russian bureaucracy’s domination, without a lead from the working class, led to the growth on national independence movements increasingly dominated by bourgeois counter-revolutionaries including many last minute defectors from Stalinism.

Today the situation is more complicated even than under Tsarism because, despite Stalinism, the very development of the USSR created new nations out of tribal societies. The national question is further complicated by the monstrous crimes of Stalinism. The bureaucracy cynically played the divide and rule card, mimicking the bourgeois in the imperialist countries. Whole populations were transported from their home territories and ethnic Russians were settled in the cities of other republics.

88. On a capitalist basis, Russia and the other republics of the CIS face “Indianisation” – with inevitable outbreaks of national, ethnic and religious conflict. There is not a single uncontested border in the territory of the old Soviet Union. Eastern Europe will not be far behind this process as events in the old Yugoslavia demonstrate. The Mad House of Europe, to which Trotsky referred in the 1930s, has been rebuilt on the ashes of Stalinism. National conflicts are looming in Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria. There are disputes between Poland and Lithuania over borders and the rights of Poles living around Vilnius. Every reactionary movement in Germany raises the question of the “lost” territories in the east. The continuing weakness of workers’ organisations and the moves towards restoration have strengthened nationalism and led to a resurfacing of old prejudices. Jews, Gypsies, and other minorities once again face the horror of pogroms.

89. The formation of the CIS failed to arrest this process. In reality the CIS is no more than an agreement to meet and disagree about a series of contentious issues. All the members of the CIS are forming their own national armed forces, some to fight wars against fellow CIS members, as in the case of Azerbaijan and Armenia. A conflict is rapidly developing in Trans-Dneistr where the ethnically mixed population is opposed to the Romanisation of Moldova. At its May summit, only 6 of the 11 CIS heads of state bothered to attend. While a defence agreement has been reached between Russia and most of the central Asian republics, who need Russia to counterbalance the new Afghan regime and China, this agreement is unlikely to be joined by all the CIS republics.

90. With a ferocious trade war developing between its members, the CIS does not even function as an effective trading bloc. Conditions of virtual economic siege exist between some republics, such as Russia and Ukraine, Azerbaijan and Armenia, Russia and Estonia, Turkmenistan and Ukraine. Not surprisingly, Gorbachev has likened the atmosphere in the former USSR to a lunatic asylum. The nascent bourgeois understand that these developments are enormously aggravating the economic crisis, but the process has acquired an uncontrollable momentum. It is hard to imagine worse conditions in which to re-establish capitalism.

91. The old USSR was economically organised as a single unit. The shattering of these ties has dislocated economic life in all the former republics. In Moscow, for example, the ambulance service is breaking down from a shortage of spare parts. Supplies of tyres from Armenia, electrical wiring from Azerbaijan and headlights from Lithuania no longer arrive.

92. This break up reflects the final shattering of the old Soviet bureaucracy on national lines. A frantic struggle is taking place between the rival national groupings to secure for themselves the most advantageous position in the new capitalist order. Outside Russia, the new bourgeois governments are attempting to maintain their position by basing themselves on the nationalist sentiments of the non-Russian masses, determined to be free of Russian domination. Each of these unstable bourgeois regimes invariable tries to divert the mounting anger of the population against other nationalities or local minorities.

93. At the same time these regimes are attempting to play off the imperialist countries against Russia in the struggle for markets, investment and new sources of raw materials. Increasingly, the Russian regime will emerge in an imperialist role towards the weaker former Soviet republics, using its enormous economic weight to dominate them. While the Great Russian bureaucracy dominated the old USSR, Russia actually subsidised most of the other republics, mainly with cheap raw materials. To a lesser extent, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Kirghizia were also net subsidisers of the other republics. Russia’s decision to charge world prices for its oil and gas exports has already dealt a crippling blow to most of the other republics.

94. The southern republics are increasingly looking to Turkey, and to a lesser extent Iran, to develop economic links. Turkmenistan, for example, has agreed a deal with Iran for the import of crude oil, as has Ukraine. Turkey, Pakistan and Iran have revived their regional trading bloc (ECO), which has drawn in Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. The Turkish bourgeois are exploiting the common Turkic language in most of the southern republics to establish a role in the region.

95. At the same time the threat of social upheavals in the southern republics has ominous implications for neighbouring states. Full-scale war between Azerbaijan and Armenia would inevitably have repercussions inside Turkey, which already faces a growing rebellion from its Kurdish population. Iran would also be affected because of its ten million-strong Azeri minority. The US secretary of state Baker’s visit to the central Asian republics was an attempt to counter Iran’s increasing approaches into the region. Though not immediately posed, US imperialism fears the growth of “radical” Islamic fundamentalist regimes coming to power in the future. The victory of Islamic reaction in Afghanistan and the possible break up of the country along ethnic lines, is a further destabilising force in the region.

96. At this stage, however, most of the central Asian republics look to Turkish capitalism, rather than its Islamicised neighbours. The main reason for this is the pro-capitalist position of the central Asian regimes and the fact that popular illusions in the marker are much greater than the growth of support for Islam at this stage. Turkey is seen as a bridge to the West and the EC. The more secular character of the Turkish state has a greater appeal to the masses, especially the women who stand to lose most in a society dominated by Islamic fundamentalism.

Ukraine

97. The secession of Ukraine delivered the final blow to the USSR and now threatens the survival of the CIS. With 18 per cent of the population of the former Soviet Union, Ukraine has a powerful industrial base which accounted for 17.2 per cent of the total Soviet industrial output. The nascent Ukrainian bourgeois have aspirations to become a European power and are increasingly pulling away from their former ties with Russia, turning to the West for support. The decision to launch a separate Ukrainian currency and the developing trade war with Russia shattered hopes for a new form of economic union. Now Ukraine has struck a deal with Iran for imports of oil and has to reduce its dependency on Russia. Kravchuk has raised the idea of a regional economic bloc with Poland, Hungary and Czechoslovakia as a step towards greater integration with the EC.

98. However, the ferocious trade war with Russia is exacting a massive toll on Ukraine’s economy. Despite his comfortable victory in the presidential election in December 1991, Kravchuk’s position, like all the post-Soviet rulers, is precarious. Plummeting living standards following January’s price rises, have provoked enormous dissatisfaction. To head off opposition to his economic policies, Kravchuk is banging the drum of Ukrainian nationalism and leaning on his former opponents in the nationalist movement. But this is an extremely dangerous position, especially because of the 12 million ethnic Russians living in Ukraine. In Ukraine’s referendum a majority of the ethnic Russians voted for independence. A big factor in this was the belief that the Soviet Union was bankrupt, and that independence would lead to an improvement in Ukraine’s economic position. As these workers feel the brunt of redundancies, closures and collapsing living standards. Kravchuk risks inflaming nationalism among the Russian minority.

99. Without a powerful proletarian movement to cut across these developments, the shift to capitalism has set the two most important republics of the former Soviet Union on a collision course. This conflict is developing with an explosive logic of its own. While all-out war between them is unlikely because of the existence of nuclear weapons in both countries, and the catastrophic human and economic cost of even a conventional war, increasing economic and territorial disputes and even military skirmishes could not be ruled out. In some respects there are parallels with the position of India and Pakistan, where an uneasy armed truce, with recurring border skirmishes, has existed since the 1971 war.

100. Kravchuk’s decision to establish a separate Ukrainian army, wrecked attempts to preserve a unified CIS military structure. Russia has recently responded by announcing the formation of a Russian army which will comprise the bulk of the old Soviet forces. A chaotic scramble has developed between Russia and Ukraine for control of decisive military units, such as the Black Sea Fleet. The Ukrainian regime has succeeded in wooing important sections of the officer caste, sanctioned there, including many ethnic Russian officers who see a more secure economic future for themselves in Ukraine. Of 17,000 former CIS officers serving in the Kiev military district, 13,000 agreed to join the new Ukrainain army.

101. The dispute over Crimea is symptomatic of these increasing tensions. To exert pressure on Ukraine, the Russian regime has questioned the status of the Crimean peninsular which has ceded to Ukraine in 1954, and where ethnic Russians are in a majority. The Crimean population is tiring of being used as a bargaining counter between the two republics, and support for a referendum on independence is growing. Nationalists in Russia, however, are undoubtedly attempting to manipulate this. This is being fiercely resisted by the Kravchuk government, especially because of the military importance of Crimea as the base of the Black Sea Fleet. The Ukrainian regime is now raising the idea of retaining Sevastopol as a Ukrainian controlled enclave, if Crimea secedes from Ukraine.

102. On a capitalist basis, therefore, the tendencies towards national disintegration have clearly not played themselves out. Further disintegration, beyond the formation of fifteen separate republics is possible, paralysing economic life and raising the spectre of a hundred Yugoslavias. Even within Russia, separatist movements are gaining momentum, for example, in Chechen-Ingushetia, Tatarstan and Udmurtia. An attempt by the latter two regions, with their major oil reserves, to break away, would deal an enormous blow to the Russian economy and clearly the Russian regime would not take this lying down.

103. These events illustrate the complexity of the national question in the modern epoch. This is not just the case in the former Stalinist states, but in the ex-colonial countries and increasingly in the advanced capitalist countries. The proletariat will not be able to take power without a correct programme and great skill and sensitivity in approaching the national question. In the former USSR, while the danger of national and ethnic divisions poses an enormous problem for the workers’ movement, the national question also enormously aggravates the problems of emerging capitalism. Movements which begin around national demands can under certain conditions acquire a revolutionary, class character. Therefore in appraising these movements, it is necessary to determine their main direction, and separate out what is progressive and what is reactionary within them. In the conflict in Trans-Dneistr, for example, there are elements of a proletarian movement, of workers’ militias involving different ethnic groups, against the Moldovan regime and perceived Romanian domination. How far this will develop in the direction of an independent proletarian movement depends upon the subjective factor and whether a Marxist leadership can be created.

104. The task of building workers’ organisations in the former USSR is inextricably linked to the development of the national question in all its different forms. When the working class moves forward in struggle, the national question will tend to recede as the class strives for unity. Whereas setbacks, defeats and demoralisation will generally act to strengthen national divisions. The task of Marxism is to fight to overcome these divisions with the programme of workers’ democracy and international socialism. This is based upon unity in struggle of workers of all nationalities; opposition to all forms of national oppression; and a steadfast defence of the right of nations to self-determination.

The Armed Forces

105. The army is a mirror of society, and developments within the former Soviet armed forces reflect the twin processes of economic collapse and national disintegration. The military high command represented the last element of the old Soviet state to hold out against the centrifugal forces in society. At a military conference in January 1992, 71 per cent of the 5,000 officers present voted for the restoration of the borders of the old Soviet Union. This did not reflect a desire to return to the old system based on the planned economy, but a desire to restore their former power and status. The vast majority of senior officers have moved over to a pro-capitalist position.

106. This was already underway before last August’s coup. The crushing victory of US forces over Iraq, with their ‘smart bombs’ and other hi-tech weaponry, accelerated this process. Like every other section of the old bureaucracy they are intent on preserving their privileges and status, which they conclude is only possible on the basis of bourgeois property relations. The shift has been especially sharp among the officer caste because of their humiliation after the retreats from eastern Europe and Afghanistan. Conscious of the colossal weakening of their position relative to US imperialism, they have drawn the conclusion that capitalism represents the only way to rebuild their position.

107. This does not just signify a shift in ideological outlook. The former Red Army has been plunged into a situation of near anarchy with its own infrastructure breaking down under the impact of the economic crisis. 300,000 soldiers are living in temporary accommodation, many in tent cities and disused railway carriages. In Baikonur there was a mutiny by troops at a former Soviet space centre over abysmal living conditions and ill treatment by officers. 35,000 roubles were stolen and three soldiers were killed. Faced with this collapse, sections of the officer caste have attempted to overcome their problems, like every other section of the former bureaucracy, by turning to the ‘market’ – selling military equipment, medicines and even food. One Moscow company, run by serving naval officers, has already sold 15 submarines belonging to the Black Sea Fleet. In Poland, huge amounts of military equipment have been systematically siphoned off and sold by the CIS forces stationed there. Hundreds of officers serving in Poland have enlisted on private business courses.

108. This process, and the undermining of morale within the armed forces explains why they weren’t able to intervene to prevent the break up of the USSR. Despite constant warnings of a new coup attempt from the high command, they have so far been restrained on one hand by fear of the reaction of the masses, with the example of the failed coup still fresh in their minds, and on the other hand because of the explosive force of the national question and its effects within the army itself. To re-establish the old borders would involve the army in countless military conflicts in the republics, leading to splits along ethnic lines within the army. In particular, Ukraine’s declaration of independence and its decision to form a separate armed forces, changes the whole equation. Ukraine’s size and 55 million population, and the fact that a significant section of the army would have gone over to its defence, meant that an attempt to force it back into a union with Russia would have posed a full scale war.

109. This explains the shift by the military high command and the decision to form a Russian army. This does not mean that intervention against former Soviet republics is excluded. On the contrary, the Russian state has replaced the old central bureaucracy as the decisive power in the region. Military intervention cannot be excluded where the decisive economic and political interests of the nascent Russian bourgeois are threatened. A survey in February 1992 showed that 57 per cent of army officers believe armed conflict is possible between Russia and other republics.

110. They will attempt to camouflage their imperialist aims behind a defence of the 25 million Russians living in the other republics. Not for nothing did Yeltsin offer Russian citizenship for ethnic Russians. It is impossible for the vast majority to return, especially now with the collapse of the Russian economy. But, the fact that these Russian communities occupy areas of key economic importance in the breakaway republics will undoubtedly be exploited by the emerging Russian capitalists. Yeltsin’s vice-president, Alexander Rutskoi, has already warned the Baltic republics over their treatment of the Russian minority. In this way, the position of the Russian minority will be used to justify economic and even military sanctions by Russia.

111. While still nominally a unified CIS force, the army was withdrawn from Nagorno-Karabakh in March 1992, despite the protests of the Armenian regime. The Russian officer caste sought to extricate themselves from the developing war between Armenia and Azerbaijan which they feared could bog them down in a new Afghanistan. However, where significant Russian minorities are involved, as for example in Moldova, it is a different question. At this stage, rather than open military involvement by Russia, Cossack volunteers have moved in to support the Russian and Ukrainian minority there. But Yeltsin’s announcement that all former CIS forces, including the troops in Moldova, are now under Russian control is an indication that if necessary, the Russian regime will intervene directly to protect its interests. In this case, while acting ostensibly to defend the Russian minority, the aim of military intervention would be to secure Russian control of the enclave of Trans-Dneistr, the industrial power-house of Moldova.

[Continue…]

Bonapartism and the working class in Russia and Eastern Europe

Bonapartism

112. Under conditions of economic disintegration and growing national and ethnic tensions, a new military coup in Russia is possible. Rather than the sclerotic “old guard” associated with the Stalinist past, who launched last August’s coup attempt, a new coup is likely to be spearheaded by younger, pro-bourgeois officers, draped in the flag of Russian nationalism. However, despite the enormous confusion that exists within the proletariat, the generals are not confident of the success of such a venture. A powerful factor restraining moves to open military rule is the fear of the masses’ reaction, after decades of Stalinist dictatorship. Democratic demands were to the fore in all the mass movements against Stalinism. Despite growing dissatisfaction with the fruits of “democracy”, an attempt to crush these tenuous rights could provoke a new movement of the proletariat.

113. At the same time, in conditions of continuing crisis, even without open intervention by the armed forces, the new bourgeois regimes will be forced to resort to more openly bonapartist and repressive measures. These regimes have taken a variety of forms in the different former Soviet republics. In Georgia, the “democrat” Shevardnadze” has been “elected” by the military council which overthrew Gamsakhurdia. In central Asia, barely disguised dictatorships continue to rule. Even where elections have been held, and parliamentary institutions established, a thinly veiled form of bonapartism exists. Yeltsin, for example, is concentrating enormous power in his own hands as Russian President, Prime Minister, and most significantly, Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces, assuming direct control of the “armed bodies of men”. Similarly in Ukraine, Kravchuk has introduced a presidential system modelled on the system of the Russian Tsars, giving himself enormous control o ver parliament and local councils.

114. Therefore, as in eastern Europe, these are regimes of semi-parliamentary bonapartism. Behind the trappings of parliamentary democracy, increasing power is concentrated in the hands of the ‘leader’, who balances between the contending class forces in society. Trotsky explained this phenomenon, in the period before Hitler came to power in Germany:

“As soon as the struggle of the two social strata – the haves and the have-nots – reaches its highest tension, the conditions are established for the domination of bureaucracy, police, soldiery. The government becomes ‘independent’ of society.” (The Only Road, 1932)

115. The increasingly bonapartist character of Yeltsin’s regime, was evident during the sessions of the Congress of Peoples’ Deputies in April 1992. The opposition to Yeltsin, based primarily on the former hard-line Stalinists were in a majority, but did not use it to block Yeltsin. Most of Yeltsin’s demands for greater powers were granted. Much as they denounced the policies of the government, this opposition had no alternative to offer. The bonapartist German chancellor Schleicher once said, “First comes me, then comes my horse, then comes Parliament”. Yeltsin’s contempt for the ‘sovereign’ Russian Congress was shown by his failure even to attend after the first day.

116. By their very nature, the current regimes are extremely weak and unstable. This flows from the weakness of the nascent bourgeois class, its tenuous roots in the national economy, and the massive social crisis inherited from rotting Stalinism. Since December 1991 Gorbachev, Gamsakhurdia (Georgia), and Saavisar (Estonia) have all been driven from office. At the time of writing Nabiyev (Tadjikistan) clings on by his fingernails, while Mutalibov (Azerbaijan) has been overthrown twice!

117. Even the Russian regime is inherently unstable as the conflict between Yeltsin and his deputy, General Rutskoi shows. Rutskoi combines attacks on the government’s economic policy with strident Russian nationalism. He called for the resignation of the Russian cabinet, after January’s massive price rises, complaining that these policies would “push millions of hungry and impoverished people onto the streets”. At the same time Rutskoi said, “we have to restore the true face of Russia… We have to revive the glory of the Russian army.” In an attempt to silence Rutskoi, Yeltsin has banished him to the ‘Siberia’ of the agricultural ministry.

118. The Stalinist regimes of proletarian bonapartism, because they developed the productive forces, acquired a certain stability during the post war period. In contrast, there will be no stability on the basis of fledgling capitalism. All the instability of Stalinism in decay has been built into the new bourgeois regimes. Whether open military-bonapartist regimes or weak “democratic” regimes which contain strong bonapartist elements, these will be regimes of crisis.

Perspectives for a Future Coup

119. Despite continuing economic chaos, weak regimes of semi-parliamentary bonapartism could stay in power because of the lack of any immediate alternative, either in the form of a revolutionary offensive of the working class or a decisive swing to bonapartist reaction. We have seen this in Poland where a series of weak coalition governments, drawn from the former Solidarity leadership have ruled since 1989, despite a catastrophic economic collapse. However, particularly if the nascent bourgeois felt threatened by a movement of the proletariat, a military coup could again be placed on the agenda.

120. This is possible in Poland in the coming period, where there is growing impatience with the fiasco of a deadlocked Sejm (parliament). Walesa has used the crisis in the Sejm to strengthen his own position, advocating a Gaullist presidential system. Over the heads of president Walesa has forged an alliance with the ex-Stalinist, now firmly pro-bourgeois, officer caste. By proposing new powers, including control of the armed forces and secret police, and the power to use the army in times of “serious internal conflict”, Walesa is testing the ground for a possible presidential coup, on the lines of Fujimori’s coup in Peru.

121. In Russia and the other republics, military coups are possible on a national basis. But what is ruled out is a coup on the basis of re-establishing the old borders of the Soviet Union. This is because of the break up of the old Soviet state apparatus and the creastion of at least fifteen, separate and increasingly hostile bourgeois states. Of course, after consolidating its rule with Russia, a new military regime could attempt to extend its control into parts of the former USSR. This, however, would only be possible through military conquest, probably basing itself on the support of the Russian minority.

122. As we explained in the IS Majority statement:

“A new military bonapartist regime in Russia or the Union, rather than attempting to re-establish central control and planning, is far more likely to be a pro-bourgeois regime, with the aim of forcing through the transition to capitalism”. (Revolution and Counter-Revolution in the Soviet Union, para. 64).

123. While a move towards a new proletarian bonapartist regime is a theoretical possibility in the future, it is virtually excluded in present conditions. Even if a section of the military favoured a return to Stalinism, and there is no evidence of this, reconstructing the old system would be like trying to put an omelette back into the egg. The old bureaucracy has disintegrated. The new bourgeois regimes are dependent economically and ideologically on Imperialism. Under these conditions, by far the most likely scenario in the event of a successful coup, is a regime of bourgeois bonapartism.

124. Such a regime could even display some of the trappings of Stalinism. There could be a crackdown on sections of the mafia, price controls, attempts to secure supplies, and state control in key sectors in order to stabilise the economy. This would not however signal a return to Stalinist rule. Even Zhirinovsky, the neo-fascist demagogue, argues for the retention of collective farms and large state enterprises.

125. Against the background of a dramatically different world situation, of a catastrophic slump for capitalism, a shift back in the opposite direction is possible. Fearful of a movement of the working class, these regimes could be compelled to take anti-capitalist measures. It is impossible today to say how far this process would go. It is not excluded under certain conditions, as in some ex-colonial countries in the past, that a section of the bourgeois state, leaning for support on the masses, could be driven by the crisis to eliminate capitalism and establish a workers’ state in a distorted Stalinist form. But while this is a theoretical possibility, it is clearly not an immediate prospect. Even then, a proletarian bonapartist regime would not acquire the stability of Stalinism in the post war period.

The Working Class Movement in Russia and Eastern Europe

126. The barbaric conditions of nascent capitalism are preparing enormous social explosions in these societies. Profound disillusionment already exists with the immediate results of pro-capitalist policies. A recent poll (May 1992) revealed that only one in six Russians believe the new government is any good at economic management. Less than one in ten were satisfied with the current situation and a mere 4 per cent thought street protests and strikes unlikely in the next twelve months. Reflecting the growing anger, a series of strikes have broken out in the last few months such as the stoppages of oil and port workers, taxi drivers and more recently teachers and doctors. At one point in May, strikes were reported in 35 regions of Russia.

127. As we predicted, within months of their victory over the coup, support for the “democrats” is crumbling. Yeltsin, still the most popular leader, has seen public approval fall from 43% in April to 32% in My. Inevitably, serious splits have emerged in their ranks. Mayor Sobchak of St Petersburg has criticised the Russian government, warning that a “social explosion cannot be prevented” without a change in policies. However, even with disillusionment in the “democrats” and their bourgeois measures rising, this does not mean that illusions in capitalism have evaporated. Here again we see the extremely complex processes at work. Much of the present hardships are still blamed on Stalinism. The fact that striking port workers in Novorossisk, and miners in Vorkuta, have demanded their payment in dollars, indicates that workers still do not see an alternative to capitalism. This is compounded by the absence of a workers’ party which could provide an organised expression for the dissatisfaction which is building up. In this situation there can be outbursts of anger which do not necessarily develop beyond the proletariat’s current confused outlook.

128. The starting point from which to understand the developing workers’ movement in these societies, is a recognition of the effects of decades of Stalinist dictatorship. Not only has the proletariat been disorientated by Stalinism and then by the shock effects of capitalist restoration, it either completely lacks basic class organisations, or these are in a weak and chaotic state. While the first shoots of independent trade unions developed in the closing phase of Stalinist rule, there has not been an immediate movement to develop mass workers’ organisations. However, this can change rapidly in conditions of a big movement of the working class.

129. Marxists do not ignore the present low and confused consciousness of the proletariat. But, because of the legacy of Stalinism, there is an explosive contradiction between the latent power of the proletariat in these societies, and the present weakness of their political and trade union organisations. In the Soviet Union, Stalinism created the largest proletariat in the world. In 1988, 73 per cent of Soviet industrial workers were in factories employing more than 1,000. This compares with 25.8 per cent in the United States (1985). Once these workers are forced into action, organisation and consciousness can develop rapidly.

130. Dictatorship acts as an enormous brake on consciousness, but it does not take society back to its starting point., We reject the arguments of pseudo-Marxists who claim that the consciousness of the Russian proletariat has been thrown back to the level of last century. Even today the traditions of October remain alive within at least a section of the working class. These ideas can develop a mass base again in the future, as a result of the cruel experience of capitalist restoration. The working class will become conscious of its role and tasks through the combination of events, experience and the development of the subjective factor by the forces of Marxism.

131. The Russian government has been forced to take account of these realities. It has so far avoided a social explosion against its savage “reforms” by a combined policy of concessions and repression. Moscow bus drivers won a 200 per cent pay increase, but at the same time their strike was banned and their leaders fined for striking. The government have granted big wage concessions, especially to powerful sections like the miners. Wages have been more than tripled in some cases, as partial compensation for the huge price rises. In bonapartist fashion the government has leant on one section of the population and then another. But the deep slump in production and the scale of the price rises has stunned large sections of the proletariat. Reflecting the prevailing mood, that there is no alternative to these measures, most families braced themselves for the price rises, hoarding enormous quantities of essential supplies beforehand.

Changes in Consciousness

132. Through harsh experience the masses’ illusions in capitalism will be burnt out. But, due to the weakness of the subjective factor, this will be a complicated and protracted process. Events in Poland, however, where the shift towards capitalism began at an earlier stage, demonstrate that the mood of the working class is beginning to change. The strike wave at the beginning of 1992 showed a definite change among large sections of the Polish proletariat. Through a series of bitter struggles, involving hunger strikes and factory occupations, sections of the working class have begun to challenge the pro-capitalist policies of the government. A feature of all these struggles is an increasing preparedness to defend state ownership.

133. Even a year ago, a majority of Polish workers accepted the general idea of privatisation, while invariably opposing privatisation of their own workplace. Now, for the first time, opinion polls show that a majority of the population oppose further privatisation of big companies in general. Only 18 per cent now think privatisation is good for the economy. In 1990 only 45 per cent of the population felt that strikes were a justified form of struggle, whereas today 71 per cent think so. Clearly, a more combative outlook is taking shape, although in the absence of a revolutionary leadership, there is still enormous confusion. The growth of the trade union Solidarity 80, which combines a militant syndicalist programme with nationalism, shows the radicalisation which is taking place but also the confused form it can take without a conscious Marxist leadership. Another indication of this is the growing support among workers for the extreme right, nationalist KPN, which combines calls for a “strong hand” with “left” demagogy.

134. Poland also indicates the shifts that can take place among the middle layers of society. While sections of the proletariat, either through struggle or the threat of it, have wrested concessions from the employers, groups like the teachers, doctors and other public servants have been squeezed hardest by the slump. The schools in Poland have been rocked by strikes, with the formation of organisations like the Union of Starving Teachers. There have even been demonstrations by pupils and teachers against compulsory religious education, reflecting the growing unpopularity of the church, especially among the young.

135. In Russia too, teachers and medics recently came out on strike, winning a 270 per cent pay increase. Paradoxically, these layers, like the students, have been the most pro-capitalist in outlook in the past. In an opinion poll in Russia conducted in February 1992, while 23 per cent of unqualified workers believed Yeltsin’s policies were “capable of taking the country out of crisis”, 42 per cent of students and 41 per cent of technical intelligentsia agreed. Likewise, when asked whether private ownership could lead the country out of crisis, 38 per cent of unqualified workers and 45 per cent of skilled workers agreed, compared to 60 per cent of students and academics. The squeezing of these layers, with the collapse of funding for public services is undermining one of the principal bases of support for the current regimes.

The Old Official Unions and Communist Parties

136. In a number of these countries we have seen a certain movement behind the old official unions. They have the advantage of property, resources and a presence in the factories. OPZZ has developed in this way in Poland, offering greater resistance to the government than official Solidarity, which has attempted to smother workers’ opposition. Even Solidarity however, is being forced to change its position, as its call for a two-hour general strike against the government in January 1992 shows. There are increasing pressures within Solidarity, from its factory committees and a layer of its own bureaucracy, to break with the government. In Hungary, MSZOSZ led by ex-Stalinists has also grown and now organises the decisive sections of the industrial workers, in mining, settl and transport. It called the first general strike against the Antall government last December. It is possible in the former Soviet Union too, that the old official unions can develop in this way. Under the pressure of the workers, the Moscow leaders of the official unions, who claim a membership of six million, declared a general strike against the price rises in January.

137. But the situation in the ex-Stalinist states. In Czechoslovakia the old official union federation collapsed with the old regime. The new union federation inherited its assets and property, but has had major difficulties in recruiting in many industries. While they claim over 5 million members, union organisation hardly exists in many areas. The situation in most of the ex-Stalinist countries at the present time is that the bulk of the working class remains unorganised. In some countries it’s possible that new trade union formations could arise in the course of struggle.

138. Sections of the old Stalinist bureaucracies are also trying to establish a base for themselves within the working class. In the past the Communist Parties in the Stalinist states were not genuine workers’ parties, but an instrument of the ruling bureaucracies. Since the collapse of the old regimes, some of these organisations have continued in existence, retaining the support of former worker members and lower bureaucrats. In some cases new “Communist” formations have either split or been established from the remnants of the old parties, as is the case with Workers’ Russia.

139. The clearest case of a former Stalinist party retaining a strong position within the working class is in the Czech lands of Bohemia and Moravia. The Czech Communist Party (KSCM), is still one of the biggest workers’ parties in Europe, with 300,000 members. Its ability to mobilise active support is shown by the 50,000 turnout to its May Day demonstration in Prague. In parts of “Red Bohemia”, the party still polls 25-30 per cent. Among an important layer of industrialised workers, the party is seen as the only defence against the attacks of the bourgeois. This is despite the muddled bourgeois reformist programme of the party leadership, who criticise the government’s policies, but nevertheless fully accept the rationale of the switch to the market. Fundamentally, these leaders are no different from the right wing reformists in the West. An example of this is the party’s decision to establish a “Communist” privatisation fund to participate in the government’s privatisation programme. Their closeness to the social democratic leaders in the West is revealed in the comments of the Second International, on the KSCM’s application join. The leadership were told that they could affiliate, but first they must expel the Marxists!

140. In Poland too, the ex-Stalinist Democratic Left Alliance have gained in support as a result of the government’s austerity measures. Again, far from hankering for a return to Stalinism, these leaders model themselves on the reformist leaders in the West and hope to carve out a niche for themselves within the emerging capitalist society. Their rottenness was shown, when in June 1992, they gave their support to the monetarist government of Pawlak. In Russia, while the Communist Party is still officially banned, a n umber of groupings, led by former Stalinist officials, have appeared. Again these leaders, while opposing the policies of Yeltsin, do not stand for the planned economy. In many instances they espouse the worst Russian chauvinist ideas, advocating links with “patriotic forces”. However, it is still possible for these organisations to attract a layer of genuine workers, attempting to rediscover the ideas of Lenin and October.

141. In attempting to orientate to the advanced sections of the working class, Marxists must take account of the moods of different layers. A section can be drawn to the old parties, or split-offs, and in these cased the forces of Marxism can orientate their work towards them. But at the same time, other sections of the proletariat are repelled by these parties and their association with the old regimes. In these circumstances it is possible for new working class political formations to develop, particularly in the midst of mass struggles. In the former Soviet Union, for example, it is possible that the demand for a new workers’ party will meet with growing support. Marxists therefore have to work flexibly, during certain periods calling for the creation of independent trade union or political organisations, and in others calling for the adoption of the programme of socialism and workers’ democracy by the existing workers’ organisations.

142. The political disorientation of the proletariat is especially reflected in the leading circles of the current workers’ organisations, including the new formations which have developed. Different variants of reformism have arisen, for instance offering a more “social” road to capitalism. Under the impact of events, mass left reformist and centrist currents can develop. However, given the acute nature of the national question in all these societies, nationalism will inevitably also feature in the development of the workers’ organisations, and the formulation of their political programmes.

143. The chaos and instability of emerging capitalism is preparing explosive movements and sharp changes of consciousness even though the first reaction has been stunned horror from large sections of the proletariat. The moods of different layers of the proletariat, and especially the youth, can change rapidly under these conditions. International events can have a decisive effect, particularly with the proletariat in the West beginning to assert its role, as has happened in Germany.

144, While it is not yet clearly expressed, there is a growing, hatred towards ascendant capitalism. Without a lead, this can even result in terroristic moods developing among the proletariat and the youth. We have seen this in Poland with a wave of attacks such as the grenade attack on a private health clinic and the fire bombing of Kodak’s Warsaw offices. These moods are inevitably reflected in the proletariat too, when it moves into action. At a privatised factory in Gdynia, workers threatened to use explosives to destroy the factory if the riot police attempted to break their occupation. Compounding the problems of nascent capitalism, firearms are widely available in these societies. This is especially so since the breakdown of discipline in the former Red Army led to illicit arms sales throughout eastern Europe and the old Soviet Union.

145. Nascent capitalism in these societies has inherited the unfinished political revolution from Stalinism. They can attempt to foist ex-colonial living conditions on the masses, but despite the present weaknesses of its organisations, the proletariat is immeasurably stronger than the proletariat of the ex-colonial world. The current revulsion towards the labels “Marxism” and “Socialism”, because of the crimes of Stalinism, can give way to an equally violent rejection of capitalism and “the market” in the future. Enormous opportunities open for Marxism in the next period if we draw all the necessary conclusions from these processes and orientate our forces correctly.

---

Part 2

Chronology of the August 1991 Soviet Coup

Monday 19^th August

07:00

TASS announces that Gennady Yanayev, vice-president, has taken over “due to Gorbachev’s inability to perform his duties for health reasons”.

Moscow Radio reports: “A fatal danger is hanging over the Soviet Union, the country has become ungovernable”.

Tanks start up 50km south of Moscow.

08:15

TASS announces that a State of Emergency has been imposed in some areas of the Soviet Union for six months “to avert society’s slide towards a national catastrophe.”

All power is transferred to an 8-man State Committee for the State of Emergency in the USSR.

09:00

Tokyo – NIKKEI average plummets by 1,357 points.

11:00

Yeltsin’s spokesperson says they believe a coup is in progress.

11:30

A column of armoured personnel carriers moves to the Kremlin.

12:30

Yeltsin issues a statement from his HQ in the Russian Parliament (White House) denouncing the coup and calling for a general strike.

The Emergency Committee announces a clampdown on the press and the banning of demonstrations. It says it will take all powers to prevent fratricide and civil war”.

14:00

12 tanks arrive outside the White House. A larger column is on its way to the Kremlin.

14:08

Demonstrators waving the Russian flag block tanks arriving at the Kremlin.

14:15

Yeltsin climbs onto a tank and shouts to supporters: “Wherever my appeal for a strike is heard, people back it.”

He says Gorbachev is detained in his holiday hone in the Crimea.

15:00

Tanks surround the TASS offices. The FTSE 100 share index falls by 125.3 points.

16:00

A senior Soviet military official says the armed forces will “carry out the will of the new legal government”.

17:00

Yanayev declares at a press conference that Gorbachev is “resting”. He says: “Over these years he has got very tired and needs some time to get his health back.

Yanayev says the Committee is committed to continuing the reforms.

18:00

Buses are dragged across the streets by demonstrators and barricades are set up to stop the tanks reaching the White House. Demonstrators argue with the troops.

18:15

Yeltsin orders all KGB and army units supporting Yanayev to stand down. He declares that he is assuming control of all Soviet institutions on Russian soil. Yanayev orders a State of Emergency in Moscow.

18:30

Ukrainian leader, Kravchuk, calls for calm and urges workers not to follow Yeltsin’s strike call.

Troops occupy the telephone exchange in Lithuania. Landsbergis proclaims “passive resistance”.

22:00

Russian miners begin walking out of work

23:30

10 tanks of the elite Taman Division go to the White House to defend it from the coup leaders.

Tuesday 20^th August

03:00

News of the first casualty: a minibus driver is killed by troops in Riga. A strike is declared in Latvia.

06:00

Moscow is calm. The new military commander of Moscow says there is no need for a curfew.

10:00

Half of the Siberian Kuzbass mines (26) stop work. The Tyumen oilfield workers declare their support against the coup but they say they won’t strike for fear of provoking civil war.

5 out of the 13 Vorkuta mines are on strike – the others “are nearly paralyzed by absenteeism.” Miners strike in Ukraine and Byelorussia.

14:00

A crowd of over 200,000 defies the ban and gathers outside the White House.

Tens of thousands gather in Leningrad (estimated 100,000). Over 20 Leningrad factories have stopped work.

50,000 demonstrate in Kishinev, capital of Moldova, and barricades are set up blocking all entrances to the city.

15:30

Yeltsin speaks to the crowd: “We will hold out here as long as we have to, to remove this junta from power and bring it to justice”.

Messages of support are read out from the industrial centres of Sverdlovsk, Chelyabinsk, Kemerovo and Khabarovsk.

16:00

Shevardnaze appears and speaks to the crowd.

16:30

Rumours in Moscow that Gorbachev may be flown in within the next 24 hours.

19:00

Tens of thousands rally in the capital of Moldova. Its president declares the Emergency Committee’s actions to be “illegal and illegitimate.”

Ukrainian deputies vote that the Emergency Committee’s actions are illegal and illegitimate also.

Estonian foreign minister says they will declare independence. Over 400,000 Estonian workers stage a 2-hour general strike.

Many enterprises and most public transport in Tallinn stop work.

Thousands gather in Moscow against the threat of a tank assault.

20:00

Reports come through that two of the Emergency Committee members are ill. Yazov is said to have resigned due to an unspecified illness. Pavlov is reported to be suffering from high blood pressure and he is confined to bed.

24:00

Yeltsin’s aide appeals to the KGB chief for no bloodshed. Kryuchkov replies: “You can sleep soundly”.

Estonia declares independence.

Soviet soldiers occupy radio and TV stations in Lithuanian towns.

A human chain, ten thick, surrounds the White House.

Wednesday 21^st August

01:30

Tanks attempt to breach the White House blockades. Protesters swarm over them. Petrol bombs are thrown. Two tanks are set alight.

Tank commanders fire into the air. Three die in crush.

05:40

Soviet paratroopers seize Estonian TV.

13:50

Paratroopers seize Moscow Echo, an independent radio station.

14:25

Yeltsin says that KGB chief, Kryuchkov, offered him the chance to see Gorbachev. He refused. Rumours increase of KGB and army defections to Yeltsin.

15:16

Yeltsin tells the Russian Parliament that the 8-man Committee are attempting to flee Moscow. Crowds cheer outside.

16:20

TASS reports the Soviet Ministry of Defence has ordered all troops to withdraw from Moscow.

16:54

A Russian Parliament member says two aircraft with hard-line leaders have left for the Crimea.

17:02

Tanks and armoured cars start to leave Moscow.

18:01

TASS reports all press restrictions of the “former” Emergency Committee have been lifted.

18:24

The Chair of the Soviet Defence Committee announces that the Emergency Committee has been disbanded and Yazov and Kryuchkov are flying to Crimea to meet Gorbachev: “The Committee no longer exists. The members are on their way down to apologise to Gorbachev or whatever they have to do.”

19:58

The Latvian Parliament declares independence.

20:28

TASS reports that a criminal investigation into the Emergency Committee has been opened.

---

Part 3

The Reality of the August 1991 Coup

1. Despite the decision of the leadership of the former Minority to split away, we circulated and are now replying to their document The Truth About The Coup. This reply should be read in conjunction with other material, especially the IS Majority document Revolution and Counter-revolution in the Soviet Union written in September 1991. Discussion on these issues can only help raise the level of understanding throughout the International.

2. Unfortunately, even from the standpoint of generating genuine controversy, as a contribution to this discussion in our ranks, the long awaited document of the former Minority was a disappointment. From a purely factual standpoint, as we will demonstrate, their document has no claim to the title The Truth About The Coup. Nor does it present any real analysis of the situation in the former USSR. Far from developing serious political ideas, or even reaffirming the “fundamental” ideas of Marxism in this field, the document adopts the shallow, almost trivial approach of a student debating society. Not surprisingly, one of our Czech comrades complained “this document isn’t about the Soviet Union, it’s about the Majority”! The idea that discussion is a goal in itself, not connected to working out perspectives and a course of action, is the hallmark of sectarianism, not a serious Marxist tendency.

3. Their document, dated 3^rd January 1992, finally arrived at the International centre on 17^th January – almost five months after the coup. It only confirms that the leaders of the former Minority are falling further and further behind events and retreating into a time warp. Despite the advantage of four and a half months to ponder the situation – an epoch in Soviet politics – the most important political developments of that period are not even touched upon. There is no mention of the break up of the Union and the formation of the Commonwealth of Independent States (December 9^th). Similarly, there is no mention of Gorbachev’s departure (December 25^th) or the political watershed of Ukraine’s independence (December 1^st).

4. In fact, in 24 pages there is not a single mention of the national question. This is an incredible feat. Following the coup, we saw declarations of independence in all fifteen former Soviet republics; developing war between Armenia and Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh; civil war in Georgia; and most significantly, the growing conflict between Russia and Ukraine. It is impossible to understand events in the former Soviet Union without taking account of the explosive national antagonisms that exist. The authors might respond that this document confines itself to the question of the coup. But the disintegration of the central bureaucracy’s hold on the republics was decisive both in provoking and undermining the coup. The tendency to ignore the national question became evident in all the discussions with the former Minority. For them, whether in Scotland, Ukraine or the Baltics, the national question was always relegated to “another discussion”.

Conditional Perspectives

5. Before dealing with the specific arguments raised in their document it is necessary to deal with the question of perspectives. Despite the now ritual accusations of “Mandelism”, “eclecticism” and “empiricism” levelled against us, their document itself says very little about perspectives. Our criticisms of the Mandelists were not primarily because of their mistaken perspectives or ‘conditionality’ but of mistakes in questions of theory, for example over the class character of eastern Europe after the Second World War; illusions in Tito and Mao; methods of entrism; guerillaism; the role of students etc.

6. In a rapidly changing situation, for which there are no historic parallels, our perspectives of necessity have to ve relatively conditional, especially in regard to the short-term. This approach is anathema to the former Minority whose document states:

“Hiding behind the alleged ‘complexities’ of the present world situation (what situation is not complex?), and co-called ‘conditional perspectives’ (what perspective is not conditional?), they put forward a number of different scenarios in every situation, without clearly stating which perspective they defend.” (The Truth About the Coup, page 1).

7. This is a vulgar misrepresentation of our position. We are not neutral on such questions. We have to decide which way we think events will develop in order to be able to react correctly. Unlike the ex-Minority, however, we believe that when dealing with ‘complex’ situations ( and some situations are more complex than others), it is necessary to look at all the possible variants at the same time explaining which is the most likely.

8. Trotsky was reproached by the opposition in the American SWP for predicting an attempt by Stalin to ‘Sovietise’ Finland, as a consequence of the Soviet invasion of 1940. This perspective did not materialise, and in reply Trotsky pointed out:

“A prognosis is not a promissory note which can be cashed on a given date. Prognosis outlines only the definite trends of the development. But along with these trends a different order of forces and tendencies operate, which at a certain moment begin to predominate. All those who seek exact predictions of concrete events should consult the astrologists. Marxist prognosis aids only in orientation. I made reservations several times as to the conditionality of my prognosis as one of several possible variants.” (In Defence of Marxism: Balance Sheet of the Finnish Events, page 218).

9. Trotsky was prepared to take this heresy even further, arguing that in some particularly volatile situations, it is not even possible to determine which variant is the most likely:

“Every historical prognosis inevitably contains a conditional element. The shorter the period over which this prognosis extends, the greater is this element. In general, it is impossible to establish a prognosis with which the future leaders of the proletariat would, in the future, no longer have need of analysing the situation. A prognosis has not an importance of command but rather of orientation. One can and one must make reservations on the point up to which it is conditional. In certain situations, one can furnish a number of variants of the future, delimiting them with reflection. One can, finally, in a turbulent atmosphere, completely abandon the prognosis for the time being and confine oneself to giving the advice: Wait and see! But all this must be done clearly, openly, honestly.” (Leon Trotsky On China: The Chinese Question After the Sixth Congress, page 373).

10. The disagreements over method and the approach to perspectives reflect the fact that we have entered a more ‘turbulent atmosphere’ internationally, especially in the former Stalinist states. As much as the former Minority object (what situation is not turbulent?) this can demand, on occasion, a more conditional approach towards perspectives. Above all, the role of perspectives is to guide orientation, strategy and tactics. Given that we are no longer merely commentators but are attempting to intervene in these events, our forces need to be clear as to what is the most likely development of events. This requires not merely a general historical perspective or the simple repetition of past conclusions, but thorough discussion of the immediate and short term perspectives, which as Trotsky pointed out inevitably have a greater element of conditionality. This in turn requires a recognition of the complexities in the situation so that our perspective is able to guide our activity as accurately as possible. A refusal to adjust to this more demanding approach to perspectives, in favour of simplistic and sweeping predictions, had become the hallmark of the former Minority.

The Origins of Our Differences

11. The passage from one historical period to another is inevitably reflected within the revolutionary movement itself. Crises and even splits are possible if revolutionaries tempered in an earlier period of struggle are unable to fully absorb the changes taking place and the consequences that flow from them. This law of history explains the breakaway of the former Minority. While their false approach and method became abundantly clear during and after Yanayev’s coup, important differences emerged at a much earlier stage, especially in regard to events in the then Stalinist states.

12. Given that the processes in the former Stalinist countries are without parallel in history, it is not surprising that differences over analysis and perspectives should emerge within the leadership. These are not always differences between EG and AW on the one side, and the future representatives of the Majority on the other. Such differences can be clarified by discussion and tested by the subsequent course of events. However, during this period a pattern began to emerge. Each decisive turn of events found the future leaders of the Minority lagging behind. Rather than acknowledging the new features in the situation, their approach amounted to the mere repetition of old and outmoded formulas.

13. In his 1917 “Letters on Tactics” Lenin explained that “Marxism requires of us a strictly exact and objectively verifiable analysis of the relations of classes and of the concrete features to each historical situation… Our theory is not a dogma, but a guide to action, Marx and Engels always said, rightly ridiculing the mere memorising and repetition of “formulas”, that at best are only capable of marking out general tasks, which are necessarily modifiable by the concrete economic and political conditions of each particular period of the historical process… Bolshevik slogans and ideas on the whole have been confirmed by history; but concretely things have worked out differently; they are more original, more peculiar; more variegated than anyone could have expected. To ignore or overlook this fact would mean taking after those “old Bolsheviks” who more than once already have played so regrettable a role in the history of our Party by reiterating formulas senselessly learned by rote instead of studying the specific features of the new and living reality” (original emphasis). Here Lenin sums up the source of the Minority’s mistakes.

14. The root of their mistakes lies in their failure to appreciate the full extent of the collapse of Stalinism. To summarise their position, they accord the remnants of the old bureaucracy a resilience and social weight that it no longer possesses. In effect, they have illusions that the old bureaucracy can defend the planned economy and thereby continue to play a certain historically progressive role. Refusing to recognise the complexities of this situation, invariably EG and AW underestimated the degree of confusion within the proletariat and the extent of illusions in capitalism. The following summary of the contentious issues, shows how this trend reflected itself at each stage in the process.

Labour Productivity

15. In 1988, in the lead off on Stalinism at the World School, AW said the following:

“Even in the field of labour productivity, which after all is the mainspring of economic progress, astounding progress has been made by the Soviet Union. At the time of the revolution, labour productivity was not much higher than in India at the present time. And while it is not possible to give completely accurate figures, it is clear that the Soviet Union has overtaken the United Kingdom in productivity, and possibly even has overtaken, or caught up with West Germany. It’s close at least.” He added, “they’ll undoubtedly be the first nation to get a man on Mars”. (our emphasis)

16. In reality, in the mid-1970’s, according to a survey by West German economists, Soviet productivity and the main imperialist nations narrowed. One 1985 Soviet estimate was that between 1950 and the early 1980s Soviet productivity had increased from 30% to nearly 6o% of the US average. But from the mid-1970s the rate of increase in productivity declined in each successive Five Year Plan. Between 1966-70 it grew by 32%, 1971-75 34%, 1976-80 17%, 1981-84 13%. Although the amount of constant capital per worker increased by 146% between 1970-84 the average level of productivity rose only by 76%. This gap with Imperialism widened rather than narrowing in the course of the 1980’s. Even Pravda in 1985 stated that the goal of the new Gorbachev leadership was to attain the “highest level of labour productivity in the world”. If the Soviet Union had “overtaken, or caught up with West Germany” then surely the Soviet bureaucracy would have proclaimed this to the entire world.

17. The completely misleading impression given by AW had to be corrected by BL in his reply to the discussion, provoking a protest from AW. Furthermore in the 1988 World Perspectives document AW and EG implied that only the USA had higher labour productivity than the USSR. Precisely because labour productivity is the “mainspring of economic development” this mistake was very significant. The fundamental argument against the Stalinists’ old idea of building “Socialism in one country” was that the imperialist countries dominated the world economy through their higher productivity of labour. Until capitalism was overthrown in the main imperialist centres the threat of counter-revolution in the workers’ states, whether they be healthy or deformed, could not be removed. This prospect was removed after 1945 when, for a period, Stalinism was strengthened. But the combination during the 1980s of the economic impasse of most of the Stalinist regimes and the capitalist boom brought restoration back onto the agenda. The ex-Minority however, had an entirely exaggerated idea of the economic position of the Soviet Union relative to Imperialism, right up to the August coup.

Afghanistan

18. The seeds of the future disagreement were also seen in the discussion over Afghanistan. Gorbachev’s agreement to withdraw Soviet troops was a strong signal that at least a section of the Soviet bureaucracy were prepared to make far-reaching concessions to Imperialism. Alongside the development of an increasingly open, pro-capitalist wing inside the Soviet bureaucracy this agreement marked a significant new stage.

19. In February 1989 a dispute broke out over the meaning of this agreement and the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan. AW disagreed so strongly with a centre-page article in the British paper, that he intervened to stop the same article appearing in the Spanish paper. No-one else in the IS knew of this censorship at the time. AW and EG console themselves that the perspective of an imminent guerrilla victory over the Najibullah regime, advanced in the article, did not materialise at that time. Then, a critical factor was the stupidity of the Pakistani generals in backing the most extreme fundamentalist group Hezbi-Islami at the expense of the other Mujahedin groups who actually commanded greater support inside Afghanistan. The endless splits and wrangling this produced within the rebel alliance prevented a co-ordinated guerrilla offensive against the regime.

20. But three years later the counter-revolution finally prevailed. In April 1992 the Najibullah regime collapsed as a result of an internal coup. Rapidly the former state machine split and lined up on ethnic lines with rival Mujahedin groups. Afghanistan has been plunged backwards as outright reaction takes over. Any hope of a development of society has vanished as the country further breaks up into tribal fiefdoms. But as in the case of the former USSR and the Balkans this threatens to destabilise the whole region.

21. Prior to the Mujahedin victory, the Pakistani military shifted from Hezbi-Islami to back the more ‘moderate’ fundamentalist groups. More critically Yeltsin’s government cut fuel and food supplies to the Kabul regime. But the changes in the international situation since the USSR’s break-up, or since Moscow’s 1990 acceptance of German re-unification, were not the only cause of the Mujahedin’s counter-revolutionary victory. While clearly these changes have had an effect, they represent a continuation, albeit in a more powerful form, of tendencies within the Moscow bureaucracy which were already developing in the late 1980s. These tendencies towards even greater compromises with Imperialism, and the strengthening of the pro-capitalist wing within the Soviet bureaucracy, led to the deal with Imperialism over Afghanistan.

22. The main point of the debate in 1989 was not the question whether or not the Mujahedin would win a rapid military victory. The question was: Would Afghanistan develop as a Stalinist state, or was the stage set for a victory for capitalism and landlordism? This in turn was intimately linked to an even more decisive issue: Why did Soviet forces withdraw from Afghanistan? Was this decision taken from a position of strength or weakness on the part of the Soviet bureaucracy? What did it show about the direction the Soviet bureaucracy was travelling in?

23. In the 1988 World Perspectives document, AW and EG wrote the following to explain the Afghanistan agreement:

“In realist, however, Gorbachev has completely outmanoeuvred both Washington and Islamabad. Far from being an expression of weakness, his offer of a Russian withdrawal was a reflection of the confidence felt by the Kremlin that the situation was now more or less under control…

“After nearly a decade of reform, notably in the field of education and women’s rights, the Kabul regime now has a firmer basis. Despite the war, there has been a certain development of the productive forces and the introduction of modern amenities, especially in the main urban areas. A new generation of youth has grown up and been educated and trained under the new system, both in Kabul and in the USSR, where they have seen with their own eyes the benefits which a nationalised and planned economy has brought to neighbouring Soviet Central Asia, where Tashkent, Samarkand and Dushanbe are now modern industrial cities. This new generation will not easily give up the ground which has been won or tolerate a return to barbarism under feudal Islamic reaction.

“These are the factors which permitted Gorbachev, in agreement with the Kabul government, to offer ‘peace talks’ and the withdrawal of Russian troops. In a skilful display of diplomatic manoeuvring, he even initially offered the setting up of a ‘government of national reconciliation’, with the participation of members of the opposition. Modestly, he even suggested that the Stalinists might accept being in a minority. They would only insist upon hanging on to three portfolios – Ministry of the Interior, Defence and Foreign Affairs – the army and the police!”

Later they continue: “This will not mean the end of the guerrilla war, of course. That can splutter on for years. The Kabul government can live with that, now that it has established itself firmly in power.

“With astounding insolence, Washington has offered not to supply the guerrillas if Moscow agrees to supply Kabul! This ‘offer’ has naturally been turned down. The Russians know it would never be kept anyway. Both sides will find ways and means of supplying their side with arms and money. But Russia has a clear advantage of having troops stationed in Central Asia, just over the border. If there ever was a serious danger of the guerrillas coming to power – and this is highly unlikely – the Russian tanks would just roll in again to stop it happening.

“The continuation of the war devours a considerable part of the country’s resources. This is an unavoidable overhead. But once having established a regime based on a nationalised planned economy, the productive forces will begin to develop. Even under a bureaucratic regime, starting out from an extremely low level of economic development, Afghanistan can make considerable progress. The Stalinist bureaucracy can play a relatively progressive role for a decade or two, before the same contradictions begin to appear which we now see in Russia, eastern Europe and now, to an increasing extent, in China.” (World Perspectives 1988, pages 59-60, our emphasis).

24. This section, and indeed the entire document, was agreed, with amendments, at the 1988 World Congress. But it soon became clear that this was a complete misreading of the situation. It wholly underestimated the depths of the crisis facing the Soviet bureaucracy – not in Afghanistan – but at home! This was the main factor behind their decision to withdraw. Far from “a reflection of confidence”, Gorbachev was increasingly desperate to reach agreement with Imperialism over arms control, to free resources to tackle the growing economic crisis. The Soviet presence in Afghanistan was an obstacle to such an agreement which Gorbachev was determined to remove, no matter what the consequences for the Najibullah regime. We are assured that in the event of a guerrilla victory, the “Russian tanks would just roll in again”. Yet twelve months later, the Soviet bureaucracy were forced to accept the collapse of their satellite regimes in Eastern Europe – regimes of far greater strategic importance to the Kremlin than the Kabul regime. This process took place despite the large numbers of Soviet troops stationed in these countries. It is one thing to make a mistake when faced with an entirely new situation. It is another thing, in the light of subsequent events, to refuse to recognise and correct this mistake and apply the lessons of this to subsequent developments. To this day, it seems, the leaders of the ex-Minority stand by the incorrect assessment they put forward in the 1988 World Perspectives document.

Poland

25. After the first (Mazowiecki) Solidarity government came to power in August 1989, EG insisted on the perspective that Solidarity would not last more than six months in office and then there would be civil war. He argued that Polish workers would never tolerate such a government based on draconian cuts in living standards. In his opinion, events were rapidly heading for a new explosion along the lines of 1980. Other comrades, including some who had recently visited Poland, took issue with EG’s assessment. They argued that a much more drawn out perspective was likely, because of the confused consciousness of the proletariat and the absence of a clear alternative from any section of the workers’ organisations. Furthermore, they argues that the government’s policies had precipitated a devastating economic collapse which could stun the proletariat for a period. On this basis, it was possible that the Solidarity government, in one form or another, could survive for a much longer period.

26. No-one disputed that the policies of the government would inevitably provoke pierce opposition from the working class. Nor was there any dispute that the new government would be an extremely unstable one, and that Solidarity would be faced with growing splits. The disagreement with EG was over his refusal to accept that, in the concrete conditions that existed, the movement would develop in a much more confused and complicated way than in 1980.

German Reunification

27. The Soviet bureaucracy’s decision to accede to the capitalist reunification of Germany marked a decisive new stage in the collapse of the post 1945 world balance of power. Faced with a wave of revolutions throughout Eastern Europe; growing internal political, economic and national tensions, and desperate for a deal with Imperialism, the Russian bureaucracy began to give up the strategic gains it had made during the Second World War in return for the promises of limited financial aid from the German bourgeoisie. This historic retreat gave a further impetus to counter-revolution in the whole of Eastern Europe, by lessening the possibility of intervention by the Soviet bureaucracy. This dramatic weakening of Moscow’s grip pushed the Eastern European states further into the orbit of Imperialism, especially German imperialism.

28. The mass movement in East Germany began around demands for democratic rights and an end to bureaucratic privilege, with no large scale desire for either emigration, unification, or the market economy. Clearly, these were the first stages of a political revolution. Socialist slogans were common during this period, and by the beginning of November 1989 the Stalinist state machine was suspended in mid-air. In this situation the political revolution could have been completed very quickly and painlessly. As in the early stages of most revolutions, the working class was not conscious of the power which it had. From the beginning the church-influenced liberals, accidentally pushed into leading the mass movement, sought to avoid revolution. They rapidly established “roundtables” to discuss with and try to come to a deal with the “reform” wing of the bureaucracy.

29. This absence of the socialist alternative, of a leadership seeking to carry through the programme of the political revolution allowed the combination of the privileged bureaucracy trying to remain in power, and the lure of high West German living standards to prepare the way for capitalist counter-revolution, in the shape of capitalist re-unification. The unmasking of huge privileges (including access to expensive Western goods) which the bureaucracy tops enjoyed, and the development of a widespread belief that only the West could provide the assistance which the East German economy required, further undermined support for the continuation of a separate East German state.

30. In the autumn of 1989 the bulk of the German capitalists themselves had not initially regarded reunification as an immediate possibility. Kohl’s position shifted when it became clear a continuation of political instability in East Germany and development of huge migration to the West would inevitably destabilise West German capitalism. Furthermore, unification presented a historic opportunity for the German capitalists to extend their influence further into Eastern Europe.

31. Initially the Marxists regarded capitalist reunification as an unlikely perspective in the short term. During 1989, it was felt that the immediate threat of counter-revolution in the GDR was likely to have a Stalinist rather than a capitalist character. This view was expressed in the MIR article written in November 1989, which has been held up by the ex-Minority as an example of how the Majority also made mistakes in analysing these processes. The whole tendency, including the comrades who now constitute the Majority, did make a mistake on the question of German reunification. It was not clear how the combination of the absence of the programme of the political revolution, the impasse and demoralisation of bug parts of the ruling bureaucracy and workers’ increasing demands for both the removal of the bureaucracy and higher living standards, would provide a mass basis for capitalist counter-revolution. At the time when the MIR article was written there was still enormous opposition to reunification on a capitalist basis. As the article explained, “According to recent opinion polls, 70% of East Germans are against it (reunification). Kohl was booed in Berlin by workers from both East and West”.

32. However the situation rapidly and fundamentally changed. Within six months of the revolution beginning the GDR had a pro-capitalist government which was negotiating entry into the FRG. This government had won a landslide victory in the March 1990 Volkskammer election on the basis of speedy reunification providing rapid increases in living standards and the removal of the old elite. While the MIR article did raise the prospect of capitalist restoration and reunification taking place, this was seen as likely over a longer period, should the political revolution fail to be completed:

“unification could be carried through by counter-revolution in the GDR, resulting in the re-establishment of capitalism. Such a perspective has not been posed so far. The overwhelming majority of the masses in the GDR, for the reasons explained, would fight to prevent any attempt at capitalist restoration at this stage…

“However, developments in Poland and Hungary are a warning to the working class of the GDR, should the political revolution not be carried through. The continued strangulation of the economy by the bureaucracy will turn current stagnation into retrogression. Under such conditions, and given the strength of the West German economy, illusions in capitalism could begin to develop, particularly if the working class suffers serious defeats.” (MIR Winter 1990)

33. This process was far more condensed than we anticipated. As this became clear – especially from the reports of comrades in East Germany – we rapidly corrected our position, early in 1990. This correction also had to take account of the changed situation in the USSR. Gorbachev’s acceptance of reunification and a Soviet military withdrawal represented a decisive change in the position since the Second World War. As we have already explained, this reflected the changing balance of forces and growing internal crisis for the Soviet bureaucracy.

34. Mistakes, especially in relation to timing are partly inevitable given that the tendency is dealing with unprecedented phenomena. Provided mistakes are recognised and corrected, serious damage can be avoided. However, in the course of our discussions on East Germany, EG raised completely unrealistic perspectives, which no-one else accepted, of a Soviet military invasion of Western Europe. At the November 1989 European meeting EG said in regard to German re-unification:

“Germany would partially look towards the East under those conditions, to replace Britain and France in the domination of Eastern Europe… Bur in any case that’s not the perspective immediately. Russia would not tolerate it. Gorbachev would be overthrown. They didn’t wage a Second World War and have a powerful position right in the heart of Europe in order to hand it back to the German capitalists. And therefore Gorbachev would be overthrown, the Red Army would move into Eastern Europe and into Germany using the argument of revanchism. And it’s not absolutely excluded, under those conditions, even of a war. Because they wouldn’t stop at the borders of East Germany, but would move into the West in desperation. Because an uncontrolled bureaucracy under conditions of crisis – a military regime which would be established under those conditions – could try to solve its problems in that way.” (our emphasis.)

35. Again, EG completely underestimated the crisis facing the Soviet bureaucracy and its inability to maintain its former grip over Eastern Europe. This perspective was yet another example of a completely mechanical approach. In the past, we had discussed that a military regime in the US, under certain conditions might be prepared to risk world war to crush Stalinism. However, EG was applying this idea mechanically to a completely different situation. As capitalist re-unification proceeded during 1990, not only was this perspective rapidly buried without trace, but no attempt was ever made by EG to explain this mistake.

Romania

36. On Romania, the same features appear in the position taken by AW and EG. They under-estimated the degree to which the old bureaucracy would shift to a pro-capitalist position in an attempt to get out of the blind alley created by Stalinism. The National Salvation Front, of former Stalinists, was held to be fundamentally different to the other governments in Eastern Europe, brought to power after the collapse of Stalinism. They believed that the December 1989 revolution, the only violent overthrow in Eastern Europe, and the mobilisations of the miners and other workers in June 1990, were sufficient in and of themselves to prevent capitalist restoration. AW argued that the Front was forced to lean on the working class in order to defend its privileges – implying that this forced them to defend the nationalised, planned economy. Therefore, despite verbal support for market reforms, the Front would not seriously set about introducing them. In mid-1990 AW wrote:

“At first sight, the dismay of the bourgeois at the Front’s victory seems hard to understand. After all, the NSF’s programme also stands for capitalism, albeit with a “gradual transition”, hedged around with conditions to “protect the workers”, and leaving certain key sectors, such as transport and defence industries, in state hands.

“Very soon after the elections, the NSF government appointed a ‘Minister for Privatisation’, one Adrian Severin, who advocates rapid devaluation and a convertible lei in 18 months, the privatisation of small and medium enterprises, and the break-up of big state-owned industries, even at the cost of inflation and unemployment.

“However, the suspicious attitude of the bourgeois towards the NSF is not an accident. They understand that in politics, what is important is not only what is said, but also who says it and for what purpose. That a section of the NSF leaders wants to go back to capitalism is beyond doubt. But the NSF, unlike the National Liberals and the National Peasant Party, is forces to lean on the working class. And the attitude of the Romanian workers to privatisation is clear to everyone.” (MIR August 1990, our emphasis).

37. As in Poland, AW and EG played down the confused consciousness of the Romanian working class. However, in the absence of a revolutionary leadership, and given the direction the movement against Stalinism had taken elsewhere, enormous confusion and a similar development of illusions in capitalism was inevitable. Significantly, AW’s original article did not even refer to this problem. LW as editor, inserted the following statement with AW’s agreement…

“The struggle between revolution and counter-revolution may well be complicated and protracted, because of the weakness of the subjective factor”.

38. Romania was the only area of this work where AW was directly involved, and this mistaken approach inevitably affected the work. Because he did not sufficiently appreciate these problems, almost all those he recruited in Romania, actually had illusions in capitalism, and naturally did not stay in our ranks long. Today, despite clear evidence that the situation has precisely become “complicated and protracted”, AW persists with his earlier simplistic black and white picture of the processes involved. Indeed he virtually rules out the existence of illusions in capitalism among the Romanian workers. In The Truth About The Coup we are told…

“The comparison with Romania is entirely false. There it was a case of a movement of the working class, pursuing the classical methods of the proletariat. It was a movement similar to Hungary in 1956. There was no question of going back to capitalism. The movement of the Romanian workers, up to and including the recent miners march on Bucharest were clearly directed against privatisation.” (page 9, our emphasis).

39. Of course the uprising against Ceausescu was a movement of the proletariat. In that, there is an analogy with Hungary in 1956. But there are critical differences with the movement in 1956, which unfolded under entirely different historical conditions. Presented in this one-sided way, ignoring the disorientating effects on workers’ consciousness of four decades of Stalinist dictatorship and the illusions in capitalism that have developed, the comparison with Hungary is completely misleading. If it is a simple question of a movement as in Hungary, employing the classical methods of the proletariat, how do AW and EG explain that the regime which emanated from this movement became one of bourgeois restoration?

40. Certainly the revolution made its mark on the consciousness of the masses. Opinion polls held in late 1991 and early 1992 show that the support for privatisation is lower among the Romanian population than anywhere else in Eastern Europe. But events did not stand still after June 1990. Rapidly Romania, like other former Stalinist states, suffered an economic depression as both central planning and trade with other Stalinist states collapsed. The fact is that, notwithstanding the December 1989 uprising and the June 1990 suppression of the pro-capitalists, Romania had a counter-revolutionary government moving towards restoration.

41. Increasingly, disputes within the leadership surfaced as our work developed in the former Stalinist states, giving us a clearer picture of the situation in these countries. These interventions presented enormous challenges. The work developed under difficult conditions, given the defeat of the political revolution. In this situation, our perspectives required modification. New methods of work and a new terminology had to be improvised in order to take our ideas to the advanced workers and youth. These concrete political problems revealed more clearly than anything else the divergence of method and approach within the leadership. In the past, when we had no comrades in these countries, a mistaken position would have been serious enough. But now when analysis and perspectives are not just for the preparation of cadres in the capitalist world, but precisely a guide to action in these countries, such mistakes could be catastrophic. There is no clearer example of this than the position taken by the Minority towards Yanayev’s coup.

Did the Minority Predict the Coup?

42. The Truth About The Coup opens with a condemnation of “dishonesty” and “systematic distortions” in political debate. But there are precisely the methods the authors themselves resort to. A number of myths are constructed in the document and therefore it is necessary to give an account of the discussions within the leading bodies of the International during and before the coup. On page 1 the document states that “The coup took these comrades (the Majority) completely by surprise. On page 2 we are told that “The perspective of the IS Majority and its supporters in the USSR was that the coup was off the agenda“. On page 6: the IS Majority “first argued that a coup was impossible in the USSR”! Yet Majority supporters wrote articles in the British paper which warned of the danger of a coup. The document has an answer for this: “The quotes from the British paper are a smokescreen” (page 2)! How is it possible to discuss seriously on this level? Apparently, the majority wrote these articles warning of a coup as a smokescreen for its real position, that a coup was “impossible”! By this argument, EG’s monopoly on predictions of a coup is established. Although it is impossible to find a single article written by him or AW to this effect. Then, as evidence that the Majority opposed EG’s perspective, we are told “one of the Majority supporters who is working in the USSR bluntly accused EG of committing an unpardonable error by predicting a coup. This statement was not repudiated or corrected by any of the IS Majority who were present.” (page 2).

43. The reason this comrade’s statement was not corrected, let alone repudiated, was because he never said it. The incident is pure invention. In reality, what the comrade took issue with was not whether there would be a coup, but EG’s insistence that this coup would “out-Hitler Hitler and out-Stalin Stalin”. This idea – a return to the mass terror of the past, with upwards of 20 million dead (during a period when Stalinism was still developing the productive forces at a rapid rate) – bears no correlation to the situation today. The document itself scotches the myth that EG alone had predicted a coup. On page 2 it states that:

“throughout this period there was repeated speculation both in the Soviet and Western media about unrest in the armed forces and the dangers of a coup. From a Marxist point of view this was obvious, and no special prescience was necessary to predict it.“

44. In fact, as they know full well, there was general agreement on the likelihood of a coup at the December 1990 International meeting. During January and February 1991, the Soviet Marxists were on a general state of alert, making the necessary contingency plans in case of a coup. In February the IS decided, with AW and EG fully involved, to cancel a trip by another IS member to the Soviet Union because of the feeling that a coup could be imminent! On August 5^th, just two weeks before the coup, the Soviet Marxists (who apparently believed a coup “was off the agenda”) organised a public meeting on The Chilean Variant – What Is It? For this meeting they translated into Russian the video of Pinochet’s coup produced for our Chilean campaign. This was in response to the growing clamour for a pro-bourgeois coup, modelled on Pinochet’s regime, from sections of the military. This answers the preposterous claim that EG alone had predicted a coup.

Lenin’s Scrupulous Attitude to Quotations

45. The document’s dishonest method is shown in a string of bogus quotations. Again, the authors seem to believe that by crying ‘foul’ first they can get away with anything. On page 1 they tell us:

“Not for nothing did Marx and Lenin insist on quoting at length from the writings of their opponents, so as to avoid any possible accusations of distortions or inaccuracy.”

46. Yet on page 6, in a reference to the IS Majority statement, they say:

“as an additional insurance policy, in their document they added “even if the coup had succeeded it would have collapsed within a few weeks and months”.

47. This quotation cannot be found anywhere in the Majority document. The use of ‘original’ quotations, attributed to the Majority, with no reference to the page or paragraph number, is unfortunately not an isolated example in their document.

48. Far from arguing that if the coup had succeeded it would have collapsed within a few weeks or months, the Majority statement actually says:

“In fact, it is almost ruled out that the coup, had it consolidated itself, could have taken society back to the repression of the Brezhnev era. There has been a transformation in the outlook of the working class since the 1960s and 1970s when fear of the regime, at a time when the economy was still advancing, held the workers in a state of inertia. Even with brutal repression the bureaucracy would not be able to instil the same fear in the minds of the masses. Because of this, and their inability to overcome the catastrophic economic crisis, this would have been a weak and unstable regime.” (Revolution and Counter-revolution in the Soviet Union, para. 30).

Critical Support?

49. Today the ex-Minority howl about the “disgraceful lie” of the IS Majority, that their position leaned towards critical support for the coup. They assure their readers “The possibility was never even hinted at by EG and AW” (page 12). This is not true, as is clear from their document. On page 16 they put forward the following perspective for the coup:

“If, as was entirely possible, the regime had been compelled to carry out a policy based on re-centralisation and a planned economy accompanied by terror, that also would have given a certain impetus to the productive forces for a period of time” (our emphasis).

50. This perspective – for the re-establishment of the old Stalinist regime based on the planned economy – is a central theme of their document. Their arguments overwhelmingly point to this as the most likely outcome, if the coup had succeeded. If this was the case, what attitude should Marxists have taken towards the regime? AW, in December 1990, replying to a discussion which was dominated by the question of a coup, argued the following:

“Let us be clear, even if there is a struggle between rival wings of the bureaucracy, one wing openly pro-capitalist and another wing – for their own purposes – trying to defend the basis of the nationalised economy, it would be a fundamental mistake to think that we’d be neutral in that situation, even if you had a situation where sections of workers were supporting the other wing.”

He continued, “Trotsky said that in principle, you couldn’t rule out in advance the possibility of a united front, a very temporary and partial united front, between the Trotskyists and the Stalinist bureaucracy, if it came to an open civil war and an attempt to restore capitalism in the USSR.” (AW addressing the International meeting, London, December 1990).

51. But as we pointed out in the IS Majority statement:

“there is a fundamental difference in the situation today as compared to when Trotsky was alive. Such is the complete degeneration of the bureaucracy, the collapse of their confidence in the old system of central planning, that capitalism is seen as the only way forward by all significant sections of the bureaucracy in today’s situation.” (Revolution and Counter-revolution in the Soviet Union, para. 47).

52. Because of this decisive change in an abstract and timeless fashion, the general question of critical support was completely misleading. Yet again we see how the leaders of the ex-Minority merely repeat old formulae which no longer apply.

53. The only reason that they are able to deny even “hinting” at critical support for the coup is because it collapsed so quickly. At the time, they refused to take a position openly in the tendency. From the day of the coup, August 19^th, until August 23^rd, EG and AW resisted the holding of an IS meeting. On just one occasion AW broke his silence – on Monday 19^th August in a telephone conversation with German IEC member AB. During this conversation, AW argued that there was a good chance that the coup would succeed in stabilising itself. AB referred to AW’s position at the December 1990 meeting, on the question of “critical support”. She asked if he thought this was such a case. He replied that if the coup consolidated itself, it would be forced to lean on the planned economy and then Marxists would have to give the regime critical support. He added that at this stage it was too soon to say. Marxists would have to distance themselves from both camps, because there was nothing in the coup leaders’ programme that indicated support for the planned economy.

54. What are we to make of this sudden attack of conditionality? Of course it was not possible to predict with absolute certainty the outcome of the conflict. The victory or defeat of the coup depended on many factors that would be determined by the struggle itself – above all the resistivity of the proletariat. But there was no room for conditionality in relation to what position we should take – for or against the coup. This is what AW’s position amounted to. The coup had banned demonstrations, strikes and political organisations, and if it succeeded would, according to their own document, introduce a reign of terror! In the face of this clear danger, their position was a recipe for paralysis or worse. What advice would Minority supporters have given to the advanced Soviet workers: Wait and see? If the regime defends the planned economy, we’ll ‘critically’ support it! If not, we’ve all gone to prison for nothing!

55. Again we see the familiar mistakes in their approach. They completely misjudged the reaction of the working class to the coup, but they also failed to recognise the decisive change that had taken place within the ranks of the old bureaucracy – that this caste of officials and functionaries no longer possesses the same social reserves and no longer plays the same role it played in the past. In evaluating the coup, the programme of its leaders, or even their intentions, were not the decisive factor. As we know, the Emergency Committee had a pro-bourgeois programme which supported “private enterprise” and a “mixed” economy. But even if they had wanted to, the bureaucracy have shown themselves completely incapable of defending the planned economy. As we saw in Romania, the ex-Stalinist leaders of the Front waged a ferocious struggle against the openly pro-bourgeois parties, only then to dress themselves in the robes of the bourgeois counter-revolution.

Silence During the Coup

56. During the coup there was a deathly silence from the Minority leadership. On the first morning, Monday 19^th August, JT asked AW if he would agree to an IS meeting that day, to discuss the situation. AW declined, saying there was “no rush”. They complain in the document that “the work of our comrades in the USSR has never been discussed seriously, at the level of the IEC or even the IS” (page 19). And yet AW avoided such discussion on the very day of the coup, when the entire world was looking to events in the Soviet Union. On Wednesday 21^st August, as the coup disintegrated, the British EC met to discuss its special broadsheet. EG and RS of the Minority were asked if they had any disagreements with the contents of the broadsheet or any general comments to make. They both said they had no disagreements with the written material but as they had not had time to prepare for the meeting they did not want to comment.

57. On Friday 23^rd August the IS met. The meeting began with a 40 minute wrangle because EG and AW did not want a discussion on the coup. Again they had not prepared! When the discussion finally took place, they raised no objections to BL drafting a statement on the coup on behalf of the whole IS, implying that they had no real differences with the position of the Majority. Why this extraordinary loss of voice? Even their preoccupation with factional activity doesn’t explain it. Clearly, in the swirl of events the leaders of the Minority completely lost their bearings. Had they been confident of their political position, they would have lost no time in mounting a vigorous faction offensive on this issue.

58. Evidently EG and AW had expected the coup to succeed. Again this is not only clear from the discussion with AB, but from their document, which cannot produce one argument for the coup’s collapse other than the subjective deficiencies of its leaders. EG was so convinced that the coup would succeed that in conversation, he dismissed the first TV reports of the coup’s collapse on Wednesday 21^st August as “lies” and “bourgeois propaganda”. Wrong footed by the failure of the coup, they immediately attempted to cover their tracks on the question of critical support. Why go to the wall raising the possibility of critical support for a dead coup? From this point on they shifted from one argument to another in an attempt to justify their position.

59. First, they argued that the working class did not participate in the movement against the coup. Then they were forced to concede that workers took part but they did not act independently. The struggle, we were told, was between two equally counter-revolutionary camps. They prevaricated for months over the question: What concretely should the Marxists have done during the coup? AW advocated a call for “Soviets” (at the Italian Conference, November 1991) while EG said we should have built “separate barricades” (at the IEC, November 1991). At last, with the appearance of their document, they recognise that Marxists should have supported the general strike (page 20). However, just when it appears some progress has been made, the document goes on to say:

“The problem for the Majority comrades however, is not whether we, or they, supported Yeltsin’s general strike, but the simple fact that the masses did not support it. And this for the very good reason that they did not trust Yeltsin any more than Yanayev or, for that matter, Gorbachev. And in that, the workers showed an absolutely correct class instinct.” (page 20, our emphasis).

60. It is hard to imagine a worse tangle of contradictions: They would advocate support for the general strike, but workers would be showing an absolutely correct class instinct to ignore them!

The End of Theory?

61. Their interpretation of the August events sarcastically dismisses the accounts of the “eyewitnesses” – their former comrades who actually took part in these events. Instead they sift selectively through the bourgeois press and even stockbrokers’ reports for quotation, often no more than comment or opinion, to support their claim that the participation of the working class was minimal. Incredibly, they call as a key witness, none other than Francis Fukuyama, who is introduced as “not an ordinary bourgeois journalist, but one of the strategists of capital… This is the sober voice of a serious representative of the bourgeoisie” (page 7). This ‘sober’ bourgeois is author of The End of History and The Last Man which declares that all human society has converged in liberal democracy, and consequently ideological struggle and history itself have ended! This one example speaks volumes of the ‘theoreticians’ of the former Minority.

62. Supported by these assorted bourgeois sceptics, the document dismisses the general strike as “a total flop” based on the fact that “the big majority of workers took no part” (page 3). This completely ignores the conditions under which the movement developed. One of the first acts of the Emergency Committee was the seizure of the press, radio and television stations. An atmosphere of fear, chaos and confusion reigned. Small ‘details’ like the problems of organisation and communication in such a situation are not even considered. These difficulties were amplified in a country the size of the Soviet Union which even their document recognises is “an extremely large geographical area”.

63. Most important of all, they ignore the absence of any mass workers’ organisations – not even bureaucratised reformist trade unions as in the capitalist world. Independent trade union groups are still at an embryonic stage in the former Soviet Union. In many instances the bureaucrats of the official unions took a pro-coup position and attempted to sabotage any organised resistance. Apart from the mining industry where a network of strike committees had already been established in the course of the 1989 and 1991 strikes, developments inevitably took a confused and chaotic form. Under such conditions, those sections which first began to organise strikes or joined mass walkouts displayed a tremendous audacity and flair for improvisation. Poland and Romania illustrated how movements can develop even where the proletariat has not previously been organised. As we explained, had the coup lasted longer, these spontaneous movements would undoubtedly have gathered momentum.

The Truth About the General Strike

64. Although at no stage does it tell us how many “spivs, speculators and nascent bourgeois” joined the movement, the document repeatedly demands facts and figures to prove that workers moved against the coup. Thorough first hand accounts were given at the November 1991 IEC meeting by two comrades from the Soviet Union. The comrades’ contributions can be found in the appendix. But even the reports in the capitalist press, which evidently the authors place greater trust in, answer completely their claim that “the participation of workers in both strikes and demonstrations against the coup was clearly minimal” (page 3). It is worth examining their allegations in detail. They write:

“Despite claims of the editors, ‘from Kuzbass in the south to Vorkuta in the north’, there were virtually no strikes. No strikes in the Ukraine, the most important centre of industry, where the problems of the workers are exacerbated by national problems. No strikes in Byelorussia, where a big movement had earlier taken place. Half the miners refused to come out, as did all the oil workers and railwaymen. Little or no response in Moscow. Nothing in the Baltics, the Caucasus or Central Asia.” (page 4).

65. Throughout Russia, they claim, there were virtually no strikes. Yet in addition to at least half the miners in Vorkuta and the Kuzbass; there were strikes in Sverdlovsk and other Urals industrial centres such as Chelyabinsk; Khabarovsk and Vladivostok in the far east; Krasnodar in the south; as well as in Leningrad and Moscow. In Vladivostok the Pacific fishing fleet, the larges in the Soviet Union joined the strike. In Leningrad, even according to the London Guardian (22.8.91) “20 factories supported the strike”. In Moscow, despite the claim of little or no response, but and trolley bus drivers drove their vehicles into the city centre for use as roadblocks against the tanks. In many factories, no formal strike call was issued but workers simply left work to join the demonstrations. Even according to Eduard Shevardnadze in the Observer (1.9.91) “A meeting was called at the Likhachev car factory. Later I learned that every day the workers delegated several thousand men to the defence of the White House”.

“No Strikes in the Ukraine”…

66. Again no evidence is produced to back up this assertion. We know from the Soviet Marxists that a section of the workforce at the Kiev Arsenal came out on strike and, most significantly, up to half the pits in the Donbass coalfield. The ex-Minority again completely ignore the national consciousness of the Ukrainian masses, apart from a passing reference to workers’ “national problems” (!), the only reference in the entire document to the national question. But this was the decisive factor, explaining why the movement against the coup took a different form in the Ukraine. After his initial hesitation, Kravchuk came out against the coup, announcing that the orders of the junta were null and void in Ukraine. At the same time he appealed for calm, against demonstrations and for unite behind the Ukrainian government. Reflecting the unease that existed, Kravchuk was forced to add that “if a state of emergency was declared in Ukraine, the people would have the right to defend themselves.” (London Independent 22.8.91). A revolutionary organization in Ukraine would have explained that this course was potentially disastrous. United action with Russian workers was necessary to defeat the coup otherwise, in the event of its victory, Ukrainian workers would be next.

67. In the absence of such an alternative, the mass of workers looked to the Kravchuk government. Even so, the nationalists of Rukh issued a call for “a republic-wide strike” (London Guardian 21.8.91) and gave leaflets to Ukrainian police and KGB units appealing to them to “Make a choice! Stand on the side of the working people. Defend our mothers, fathers, wives and children from putschites.” (London Independent 22.8.91). According to the same report “Thousands of jubilant Ukrainians flooded into October Revolution Square in central Kiev last evening to celebrate the failure of the coup.”

68. Because they take no account of the national question their comments on the Ukraine betray astonishing ignorance. The document actually states:

“Thus, when the president of the Ukrainian parliament, Leonid Kravchuk took an ambiguous relation to the coup, the Reuters correspondent noted that ‘Mr Kravchuk was reflecting the opinion on the streets of Kiev, where Ukrainian journalists reported that many people expressed support for the coup'”. (page 5)

69. Leaving aside the dubious opinion of the Reuters correspondent, this report is dated 20.8.91, in other words it is commenting on the events on Monday 19^th – the first day of the coup. As elsewhere in the document, time stands still. No account is taken of the changes in mood from day to day and even from hour to hour. If Kravchuk’s opinion reflected the opinions of many (how many?) Ukrainians who supported the coup, why was he compelled to declare Ukrainian independence within three days? Kravchuk was forced to shift his position, basing himself on the groundswell of nationalist sentiment that erupted during and after the coup. This was the only way to save his regime. If the mood in Kiev was for the coup – for military rule from Moscow – why did over 90% of Ukraine’s population subsequently vote to break from the Soviet Union? Or was the vote for independence an expression of disappointment that the coup had failed?

“Nothing in the Baltics”…

70. Here again, according to their document, nothing happened and yet the London Guardian (22.8.91) reports:

“Before the coup’s collapse, more than 400,000 Estonian workers staged a two-hour general strike. Many enterprises and most public transport in Tallinn stopped work.” The same article reports “The Latvians declared a strike early yesterday. This followed the republic’s first death of the week, on Monday night. Soviet forces shot dead a driver and wounded his companion”.

71. The authors’ blind spot for the national question, not to mention 400,000 strikers in Estonia (out of a total population of 1.6 million) has again landed them on the wrong side of reality. The situation in the Baltics, like Ukraine, was different to Russia because of mass support for independence. Of course, the mood is very different among the Russian, Ukrainian and other minorities in these states, who now face growing discrimination. During the coup both Estonia and Latvia issued declarations of independence. The general mood of workers was that it was necessary to support these governments who in words were opposed to the coup and continued rule from Moscow. Those strikes that took place, given these factors, took place in support of pro-bourgeois, nationalist governments, not against them. Meanwhile, the cowardly role of these leaders during the coup is shown by the plans of all three Baltic governments to establish governments-in-exile, leaving the workers to their fate. Only the rapid disintegration of the coup saved them from discrediting themselves in the eyes of the masses.

The Miners…

72. The claim that half the miners refused to come out, as did all the oil workers, is deliberately misleading. The following quotations from the bourgeois press show how selective their document is in order to put the most negative interpretation on events. The Financial Times (21.8.91) tells us “in Kemerovo, the administrative capital of the critical Kuzbass field, a spokeswoman for the strike committee claimed 26 pits had already responded to the strike call yesterday (Tuesday).” Their document quotes Reuters’ correspondent (22.8.91) who informs us that “In the Vorkuta coalfield of Siberia, only five of the mines were to respond positively to Yeltsin”. Yet the London Times (21.8.91( reports that “At least five of the th13 Vorkuta mines were reported to be on strike, others nearly paralysed by absenteeism.”

73. As for the “refusal” of the oil workers, the London Financial Times (22.8.91) reports “Oil workers in the huge Tyumen field declare their support but say they will not strike for fear of provoking a civil war.” The hesitation among the oil workers, was not out of sympathy or even indifference to the coup, as the document would have us believe. Other sections too undoubtedly held back, watching developments and weighing up the consequences, while clearly opposing the coup. The miners waged a bitter two-month strike in the Spring for Gorbachev’s removal, a strike which ended with few real concessions. The document does not even consider the implications of this. In the absence of a clear class appeal, a certain degree of confusion was inevitable given Yeltsin’s call for Gorbachev’s reinstatement.

74. Incredibly for Marxists, the leaders of the former Minority seem to imply (on page 9) that because many of the Soviet miners’ leaders are currently pro-capitalist, their actions against the August coup were automatically counter-revolutionary. As we have explained many times during recent years, the consciousness of the working class in the former Stalinist countries is confused. Often progressive and reactionary ideas are mixed up. The task for Marxists is to separate out what is progressive from what is reactionary and try to develop workers’ class consciousness. The miners leaders’ support for Yeltsin’s policies is reactionary, but this does not mean we support the suppression of the miners’ first steps towards independent organisation. Marxists have to fight both in defence of democratic rights and against illusions in capitalism.

75. In the absence of any real workers’ organisations or clearly defined leadership, a confused and chaotic development of the movement was inevitable. But even on the basis of the reports in the bourgeois press, anyone whose mind is not closed in advance can see the dynamic of the movement. The heavy battalions of the Soviet working class began to move in the course of August 19^th to 21^st last year. What cut across this movement was not the “refusal” of the working class to struggle, but the ignominious collapse of the coup.

“A Mass Movement of Revolutionary Workers”?

76. Unable to answer the real arguments of the Majority, their document resorts to crude distortions. Where did we allege a “mass movement of revolutionary workers”? (The Truth About the Coup?, page 7). Unlike the Minority, we made a sober and balanced appraisal of these events. In the IS Majority statement we said:

“Without blinding ourselves to the complexities and even difficulties in the situation, we must also recognise the positive features of the coup’s downfall. Above all, the coup attempt was smashed by the beginnings of movement of the working class and the youth – the biggest movement since 1917. Faced with a determined movement on the streets, the army and the KGB – already riven with internal divisions – were paralysed” (Revolution and Counter-Revolution in the Soviet Union, para. 17).

77. From all our material at the time, it is clear that we took account of the confused consciousness of the proletariat, but also warned against a one-sided approach. This is precisely the mistake the former Minority make. Their document equates “confusion” with “indifference” (headline on page 5). It then adds that “a quite widespread mood of support for or at least acceptance of the coup is not seriously in doubt” (page 5).

78. In this way the authors tell us that “confusion” really means “indifference”, which is the same as “widespread support for or at least acceptance of the coup”. For them, the obvious has been missed – a lack of clarity over how to fight does not mean workers lack the will to fight. This false approach leads the authors to draw ever more pessimistic conclusions. The end results of which is the monstrous idea that workers’ consciousness has been thrown back to the level of 1883, when Plekhanov founded the first Russian Marxist tendency, the Emancipation of Labour Group, in exile!

“A Potential Movement”?

79. As we explained at the time, Yaneyev and co. miscalculated that Gorbachev’s enormous unpopularity would, in itself, ensure the success of the coup. Very quickly after the initial stunned reaction, workers’ attitudes hardened when it became clear who had taken control – the “old guard” former Stalinists who were the most despised and hated section of the ruling elite. Workers feared a return to Stalinist repression and the destruction of their partial democratic rights. At the same time the vast majority of workers simply did not believe that the junta was capable of delivering on its promises of wage concessions and action to improve the economic situation. Of all the sections of the old elite they had least confidence in Yanayev and the “old guard”. This point is completely missed by the former Minority who argue that dissatisfaction with the economic crisis automatically ensured support for the coup. An opinion poll by MAI East Europe Ltd. conducted in Moscow during and after the coup proves the opposite. On Tuesday 20^th August, the second day of the coup, 57% said they believed the economic situation would get worse, 15.8% said it would improve, and 11% said the coup would make no difference.

80. In the Majority statement Revolution and Counter-Revolution in the Soviet Union we said:

“Had the Emergency committee attempted to hold on for longer, and especially if it had succeeded in getting a section of the state apparatus to open fire on the demonstrators, they would have undoubtedly faced a growing general strike movement and a possible armed uprising as in Romania.” (para. 18)

81. This idea is ridiculed in the ex-Minority’s document which objects:

“The tanks and guns of the Red Army were defeated not by a real movement, but by a potential movement.” (page 9).

Obviously believing they are onto a good thing, the formulations “potential movement” and “potential general strike” are repeated again and again throughout the document (pages 6, 8, 10, 12 and 14). Evidently they have forgotten that this would not be the first time in history a ruling class or grouping have been forced to retreat for fear of provoking, or to defuse a movement of the working class. In Chile in June 1973, the bulk of the army refused to support a premature coup only, three months later in September 1973, to carry out a successful coup when the conditions were ready.

82. According to the document the IS Majority were the “only people in the world” who believed that, if the coup had attempted to dig in for longer, it risked igniting a Romanian situation. Yet even bourgeois observers raised this possibility. The East Europe Editor of the London Independent (22.8.91) said “the military in Moscow and Leningrad this week held back from a Ceausescu-style slaughter. But that was partly because even they understood the implications of further bloodshed… As Ceausescu’s execution proved, the use of uncontrolled violence does not necessarily lead to victory – it merely means that the defeat will be bloodier, when it comes.”

83. That this idea should meet with derision serves to underline the ex-Minority’s completely undialectical approach. Revolution and counter-revolution are marked by abrupt changes and lightning swings of mood among the masses. Yet there is not even a glimpse of the process in their analysis. The document never makes any distinction between the first day of the coup, and the stunned reaction this produced, with the second and third days in which the demonstrations and strikes gained momentum.

84. In the ex-Minority’s version of events, time itself is frozen. While they are forced to admit that different moods existed among different layers of the proletariat – they never attempt to answer in which way these moods changed in the course of events. Even in revolutions it is usually only a minority of workers who actively participate in the concrete actions, although they have the support of the mass. In August, which layer demonstrated the most determination and preparedness to struggle and consequently had the greatest effect on the vacillating layers in the middle? The riddle which is never answered in their document is: In which direction was the movement developing?

85. Our material at the time reflected this process. The British paper (30.8.91) said “when the Soviet workers awoke to find the hardliners in power and Gorbachev under house arrest there was a hesitant response. But as youth began to protest, the working class stirred. The call for a general strike began to get a response.” Even bourgeois journalists remarked on this process. The Times (21.8.91) reported “So far, there has been a mixed response from Russian factories. That is partly a matter of organisational delay; strike committees are being formed and meetings held.”

86. Our task is to identify the most important features of such a movement and work out how it is likely to develop. In China in 1989 we supported and put forward a programme for the movement in Tiananman Square even though it was initially almost exclusively students. The workers only began to join the struggle in the closing stages prior to the massacre. Our perspective, that if the movement of the youth continued, it would get an increasing echo from the proletariat, was borne out. The movement in China developed more clearly towards the political revolution, but many of the complicating factors which have subsequently developed in all the Stalinist states were less to the fore at that stage.

Comparisons With Eastern Europe

87. The idea that significant sections of the proletariat began to move against the coup violates the mechanical schema of the former Minority. How could a movement of the working class, they argue, result in an immediate victory for the bourgeois counter-revolutionaries around Yeltsin? We explained this in the IS Majority statement that:

“Therefore as in eastern Europe we had important elements of a revolutionary struggle by the working class while the general direction of events, given the absence of a revolutionary leadership, is clearly counter-revolutionary. These processes were telescoped into a much shorter time span in the Soviet Union.” (Revolution and Counter-Revolution in the Soviet Union, para. 23)

88. Their document rejects the comparison with eastern Europe as an “astounding proposition” (page 12). However, apart from stating the obvious, that the movements in eastern Europe “did not take place in the same way in every country” (page 12), nowhere do they present any serious analysis of these movements of show in what respects they differ fundamentally from events in the USSR.

Poland

89. Even the brief reference in the document confuses the process that took place throughout eastern Europe during 1989-1990 with the Polish movement of 1980. The document states that “in Poland we had a movement of ten million workers, a general strike and the setting up of Soviets” (page 12). Though this is not stated, this is clearly a reference to the movement in 1980, which developed under entirely different conditions. At that stage there was a recession in the West, far fewer illusions in capitalism, and a more conscious desire among the proletariat – which even leaders like Walesa were forced to pay lip service to – for workers’ control of the nationalised economy.

90. Under these conditions the political revolution against Stalinism developed in a much more ‘classical’ form in the sense that a period of dual power existed in Poland and a powerful proletarian organisation was created. One of the most noticeable features of the way in which the revolution unfolded in the late 1980s and early 1990s was the proletariat’s failure to rapidly create new organisations. Even with the creation of Solidarity we saw an anticipation of some of the complications which subsequently developed. During 1981 a struggle developed within Solidarity between the Church-influenced current around Walesa, which tended towards capitalism, and an opposition striving in a very confused way towards the idea of workers’ management and control. Due to the reformist ideas of the Solidarity leadership, and their attempts to reach a compromise with the bureaucracy, the movement was defeated, though at that stage counter-revolution took a Stalinist, not a capitalist form.

91. By 1989 a different order of forces had come into play. The effects of economic regression under Stalinism, at a time of capitalist boom, compounded by the accumulated effect of decades of Stalinist dictatorship on the consciousness of the working class, enormously complicated the process. In Poland, the defeat of 1981 itself, was a further complicating factor in workers’ minds. By this time, large sections of the bureaucracy had moved over to a pro-capitalist position ad they looked for a way out of the impasse. This is the background to the swift development of the capitalist counter-revolution. Is there then, a fundamental difference in the direction in which events have unfolded between eastern Europe and the Soviet Union? Characteristically, the ex-Minority’s document asserts this without even an attempt at explanation.

East Germany

92. In East Germany the 1989 mass movement began around demands for democratic rights and against the privileges of the bureaucracy. The ‘Internationale’ was sung on the early demonstrations and there were no widespread calls for either the market or unification. The demands were, in practice, those of the political revolution.

93. Within a matter of weeks the mass of the East German population was participating in demonstrations. But as in many revolutions, leadership at first fell into the hands of the accidental, petit-bourgeois elements. These liberal reformist, church influenced, “leaders” of the movement were able to prevent it developing a class character and moving to complete the political revolution. This combination of their fear of revolution, and desire for negotiated agreement with the bureaucracy’s reform wing, prepared the way for the diversion of the East German revolution onto the road of capitalist reunification.

94. Every revolution develops through different stages. The change in the international situation, widespread illusions in Gorbachev, the comparison between the relatively free 1989 elections in the USSR and the rigged local elections in the GDR, all prepared the ground for the rapid development of the protest movement. The spark was provided by the attempts to reach the West via Poland and Hungary. Once the weekly protest demonstrations began they rapidly gained strength. But the opposition leaders’ failure to challenge the bureaucracy at the time of the one million-strong November 4^th mass demonstration, prepared the way for the revolution’s diversion.

95. The collapse of the old regime and the granting of some democratic rights, including the right to travel, marked the end of the first stage of the revolution. Without the programme of the political revolution however it was not clear how the GDR could be developed or how the old elite could be removed. The exposure of the luxurious life of the nominally “socialist” elite undermined support for the creation of a new, democratic GDR. Many workers were shocked at the difference between both living standards and the workplaces in West Germany and in the GDR. Large sections drew the conclusion that the East German economy needed help from outside and increasingly saw re-unification as the way out. In addition, the attempts of the old Stalinist bureaucracy to recover their old position, in December 1989 and especially in January 1990, strengthened support for re-unification as the quickest way to remove the old bureaucracy, raise living standards and secure democratic rights. In this way support for capitalist counter-revolution arose because national unification was seen as the fastest possible solution to the problems the working class faced.

96. Part of this process was the intervention of German imperialism to secure re-unification. As the revolution unfolded a debate took place with the German ruling class over what to do. A section called for a strategy towards re-unification from the beginning but the majority of the German capitalists swung over as they witnessed the collapse of the old GDR and the increasing flood of East Germans moving to the FRG. Fearful of possible destabilisation and also seeing the chance of strengthening their position as the major European capitalist power, they moved to take over the GDR as quickly as possible. But the German ruling class was only able to do this by basing itself on pro-capitalist nationalist illusions which the majority of the GDR population had at that time.

Czechoslovakia

97. In Czechoslovakia, we pointed out that the intervention of the working class in the general strike of November 27^th 1989, was the decisive factor which brought down the Jakes regime. 6,000 strike committees were formed throughout industry during this period. Again the movement developed around demands for free elections, an end to one-party rule, and with a fierce hatred of the bureaucracy and its privileges. These were enormously progressive features of the movement from the standpoint of Marxism. With a significant Trotskyist tendency, not even a mass force, it would have been possible to make rapid gains in this situation and establish an important pole of attraction for the future. However, given the absence of a Marxist leadership and the other complicating factors in the situation, the movement was hijacked by the pro-capitalist elements within the bureaucracy in alliance with the former dissidents.

98. The critical difference with events in the former USSR, according to the ex-Minority, is that in eastern Europe there was an independent movement of the working class. Again, no reference is made to what actually took place. In Czechoslovakia, the first and only sections to engage in all-out strike action were the students and actors – “petit bourgeois riff raff” according to EG’s definition. A significant section of the students already had illusions in capitalism. They called the general strike and went to the factories to build for it. The general strike itself was limited to two-hours by Havel and the leaders of the Civic Forum. In fact, most workers had already agreed to make this up through unpaid overtime. At that time a similar attitude towards strikes existed in East Germany – where almost no strikes took place at the height of the mass movement – and other countries. The ‘Polish example’ horrified most workers who equated strike action with economic collapse. This attitude partly flowed from workers’ perception that the industries belonged to them. Is the degree of participation in strike action then, the main criteria in assessing such movements?

99. Presumably for the ex-Minority, the general strike called by Havel and the students was more progressive an independent than Yeltsin’s. Yet we know that the leaders of the newly-formed trade unions in Czechoslovakia called for “preparations for work in a market economy” in their founding charter. Until the fall of the old regime, the workers’ central strike committee had its head office in the Economic Forecasting Institute of Vaclav Klaus – now the monetarist Finance Minister. These realities reflect the confused consciousness of workers emerging from decades of Stalinist darkness. We pointed out at the time that the interests of the working class would inevitably come into collision with these pro=bourgeois leaders. Where is the fundamental difference between this “independent workers’ movement” and the Russian miners who at this stage have a pro-capitalist leadership?

The Immediate Victory of the Counter-revolution

100. According to the ex-Minority:

“The (Majority) document ties itself in knots trying to resolve the evident contradiction between an allegedly revolutionary movement of the working class which had produced counter-revolutionary results (page 10).

101. But this is precisely what we saw throughout eastern Europe. The mass movement in Czechoslovakia led almost immediately to the pro-bourgeois government of Havel and Klaus. In East Germany, because of unique factors, it resulted in capitalist restoration actually being carried through by Kohl and the German bourgeoisie. Likewise in Romania, although the process took a somewhat different form, we have seen a decisive shift to pro-capitalist reaction.

102. The former Minority seem to have forgotten that revolution and counter-revolution are opposite sides of the same historical process. The “evident contradiction” which they can not come to terms with is precisely the dialectic of this process. Trotsky explained this when he wrote the attempted monarchist coup of General Sanjurjo in 1932. Because of the weakness of the subjective factor, this movement resulted in victory, not for the proletariat, but for the republican bourgeoisie.

“Only if the Spanish workers were strong enough to take power themselves could their intervention in a decisive struggle against the monarchists not have given momentary aid to the enemy, the republican bourgeoisie. In August 1917, the Bolsheviks were much stronger than the Spanish Communists were in August 1932. But even the Bolsheviks could not possibly have won power by themselves in the struggle against Kornilov. Thanks to the victory of the workers over the Kornilovists, Kerensky’s government lasted another two months. Let us recall once again that battalions of Bolshevik sailors guarded Kerensky’s Winter Palace against Kornilov.

“The Spanish proletariat has shown itself to be strong enough to overcome the revolt of the generals, but too weak to take power. Under such conditions, the heroic struggle of the workers could not help but strengthen – even if only temporarily – the republican government. Only harebrains who substitute rubber-stamp epithets for analysis are capable of denying this.” (The Spanish Revolution: The Spanish Kornilovists and the Spanish Stalinists, page 183).

103. A similar process can be seen in the events in the Soviet Union. Trotsky’s comparison with Kornilov is instructive. When we drew an analogy between workers’ opposition to Yanayev’s coup and the movement against Kornilov this was ridiculed by the Minority. But just as the Bolshevik sailors guarded Kerensky’s Winter Palace, armed workers, youth and Afghan veterans guarded Yeltsin’s parliament. The Bolsheviks had no illusions in Kerensky’s commitment to ‘democracy’, and that he would inevitably attempt new intrigues against the working class. But Kerensky, like Yeltsin, was compelled to resist the putsch because the latter was a threat, not just to the working class, but to his own position. For this reason, without sowing any illusions in Kerensky, Lenin and Trotsky advised workers “use Kerensky as a gun-rest. Afterwards we will settle with Kerensky”. The critical difference in August 1991 was the absence of a revolutionary leadership and the confused consciousness of the proletariat.

The Minority’s One-Sided Analysis

104. In an extremely complex situation like that in eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, the task of Marxists is to follow attentively all the stages of the process, separate the progressive from the reactionary features and on this basis work out a course of action. This approach has enables us to correctly appraise these movements at each stage. Because they abandon this approach for an entirely one-sided view of the processes involved, the former Minority end up bracketing together all the forces which opposed the coup under the sweeping heading ‘Yeltsinites’. They then conclude that any workers that accidentally strayed into the “Yeltsin movement” were “acting, not as an independent class force, but under the banners of pro-capitalist restoration” (page 14).

105. Clearly the dominant feature in August was the counter-revolutionary victory of bourgeois restorationist regimes in the former USSR. Because of the weakness of the subjective factor and illusions in the market, workers’ resistance to the attempt to impose a new military dictatorship was derailed behind Yeltsin and the “democrats”. Where is the fundamental difference between this and the process in eastern Europe, where again the dominant feature was the triumph bourgeois restorationist regimes? The ex-Minority evidently do not see where their one-sided and mechanical and mechanical approach is leading them. To be consistent they would have to revise altogether their previous position on the movements against Stalinism in eastern Europe. In every case, by the reasoning they apply to the August coup, they would have to conclude that there is “nothing whatsoever progressive” (page 14) in these developments.

106. Unable to see the contradictions in their own position, they lecture us:

“Having been taken completely off guard by events the comrades pushed themselves into a position which meant advocating a de facto bloc with Yeltsin, and the mixing up of revolution with counter-revolution. It is difficult to imagine a more serious mistake for a revolutionary to commit than that.” (page 2).

107. It is clear from all our material written at the time – nor four and a half months later – that we never for one moment his our implacable opposition to the programme of Yeltsin and the “democrats”. Neither did we evade stating clearly and openly that the outcome represented an enormous strengthening of the bourgeois counter-revolution. However, it is another thing to do as the ex-Minority and dismiss the positive features – the beginnings of a movement of the working class; the beginnings of organisation in the factories; the first steps to organise armed defence – and the effects that this had on the consciousness of the proletariat.

108. This position would have completely cut us off from the best workers and youth in the Soviet Union. Their document insists that the workers who took part in the movement did so under the leadership of the Yeltsin wing of the bourgeois counter-revolution. But what did the support for Yeltsin in August signify? The overriding question was the need to defeat the coup. It is simplistic and misleading to argue that this was an endorsement by the mass of workers and youth of Yeltsin’s pro-capitalist programme. Even those workers with illusions in the market, and they are numerous, would bitterly oppose the actual measures, price rises and sackings, put forward by Yeltsin. As we have explained before, the current illusions in capitalism are a complex phenomenon. It is not just a question of the desire for economic improvements. Support for, or illusions in the market, are also a reaction to decades of Stalinist tyranny. Fearful of a return to authoritarian rule, many believe that the market is synonymous with ‘democracy’. There is a difference between the minority, mostly of the petit-bourgeois and privileges sections, who enthusiastically support a return to capitalism, and a much bigger layer whose ‘support’ consists of the fact that they do not at this stage see any alternative.

109. The ex-Minority take no account of the conflicting interests that emerged from the very beginning within the movement against the coup. The workers and youth in Moscow who set up ‘anti-tank squads’ did so independently of Yeltsin, as did the Leningrad workers who formed armed defence squads. Incidentally, there is no basis for the claim that the young Afghan veteran killed on August 20^th was a “middle class intellectual” (page 5). The bureaucrats, students and petit bourgeois were able to avoid conscription during the Afghan war.

110. The pro-bourgeois “democrats” did their utmost to prevent the formation of these armed groups for obvious reasons. In the solidly proletarian Tyshinsky region of Moscow, for example, workers formed self-defence squads and appealed to the White House for arms. They got no response from the deputies barricaded inside the Russian parliament, and so independently decided to block all the approach roads into Moscow. These workers never took a decision to strike, like many others they just came out. The “democrats” began to backtrack on the strike call almost immediately. On Tuesday 20^th August, Yeltsin withdrew the call for the general strike. Sobchak did the same in Leningrad, after reaching an agreement with the commander of the garrison. Those workers who continued to “come out” or were preparing for action up until the coup collapsed on Wednesday 21^st, did so independently of Yeltsin and co. If not for the rapid collapse of the coup, this movement would have increasingly developed, with workers’ own demands and initiatives coming to the fore.

111. Rather than us confusing revolution with counter-revolution, it was the ex-Minority who completely failed to recognise the immediate counter-revolutionary threat that the coup represented. Their document argues:

“In the same way, we say that the Soviet workers are very realistic when they see that with Yanayev or Yeltsin “it is the same thing.” It is entirely false to say the working class are obliged to take sides “in defence of democratic rights”, for the simple reason that the victory of Yeltsin in no sense, shape or form, represents a defence of those rights. Quite the contrary. From the very beginning Yeltsin has acted to restrict democratic rights and move towards government by decree.” (page 18).

112. This argument contains clear ultra-left dangers, with serious implications not just for the movement in the former Stalinist states but also in the capitalist countries. Of course, now and before the coup, Yeltsin has attempted to assume greater dictatorial powers. His pro-capitalist programme and savage attacks on living standards inevitably brings his regime into conflict with the limited democratic rights of the working class. However, it would have been entirely wrong to place the future threat from Yeltsin on the same level as the actual accomplishment of this task by the coup. Workers understood, even if the former Minority could not, that the coup represented the immediate return to military=police rule and the crushing of the limited democratic rights of the proletariat. In this situation Yeltsin and the “democrats” were forced – out of fear for their own survival – to lean on the working class to defeat the coup.

113. The Minority document argues that:

“If it does not serve to lead to increased living standards and social advancement, ‘democracy’ becomes an empty legalistic concept for the mass of the population” (page 17)

As is often the case, the Minority employ a partial truth in an abstract, timeless fashion which only serves to evade the real issue.

114. Marxists do not regard the struggle for democratic rights as a secondary “legalistic” question. The right to organise, strike, demonstrate etc. are essential for the development of, and clarification of ideas within, a mass workers’ movement. Marxists have never rejected the struggle for democratic rights. Such an approach would have been disastrous, for example, in Greece and Spain under the dictatorships. On the contrary, we have always placed ourselves in the forefront of such struggles, at the same time explaining that these rights can only be guaranteed on the basis of the working class taking power. This is the only way to win the movement to Marxism.

115. Characteristically, when faced with a concrete political problem requiring a clear position, the document takes refuge behind generalities and truisms which, while we would not disagree with them, don’t actually tell us much:

“Marxists would have no alternative, but to adopt a position analogous to the one taken by Trotsky i.e. a position of implacable class independence.” (page 18).

116. Of course we take an independent class position, but what does this mean concretely in the situation that existed last August? They have already told us that the defeat of the coup by Yeltsin “in no sense, shape or form represented a defence of those (democratic) rights.” In fact, “Quite the contrary” (page 18). Then does it matter who triumphs? Despite their furious protestations, the logic of their position, behind abstract calls for “an independent class position”, is precisely a position of passive neutrality.

Repeating the KPD’s Mistakes in the Kapp Putsch

117. The dangers of such abstractions were clearly shown in the ultra-left position that the KPD leaders initially had towards the 1920 Kapp Putsch in Germany. Kapp attempted to overthrow the Social Democrat-led coalition government and crush democratic rights. The SPD had dominated the German government since the November 1918 revolution. It had been instrumental in derailing the revolution and bloodily attacking the revolutionary sections of the working class. Faced with the Putsch the Social Democratic trade union leaders called for a general strike. But, reacting to the SPD’s leaders counter-revolutionary role, the KPD leaders opposed the general strike.

1118. They declared that this struggle was “between two counter-revolutionary wings… The revolutionary proletariat will not lift a finger for the government that murdered Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht. It will not raise a finger for the democratic republic, which is only a mask for the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie”. The attacks on the SPD leaders’ role were absolutely valid. Indeed after the Putsch’s collapse the SPD leaders once again supported the bloody suppression of the armed workers’ groups that had fought Kapp.

119. But what should the advanced workers have done in that concrete situation? The KPD leaders’ abstract position threatened to completely isolate the Communists from the movement and the radicalisation brought about by the Putsch. Faced with a massive general strike and the participation of many KPD members in the movement against the Putsch, the KPD leaders rapidly changed their position and supported the strike although with a confused programme. At least many KPD leaders learnt from their mistakes. Unfortunately the same cannot be said about the authors of the Minority document. In fact the ex-Minority should count themselves lucky that the August coup collapsed before a massive strike movement developed because if it had, the weakness of their abstract position would have been exposed even more clearly.

[Continue…]

Why Did the Coup Fail?

120. Not only do they blot out the movement of the working class against the coup, the ex-Minority confidently asserts that the coup had a mass base of support. This prompts the obvious question: Why then did it fail? In order to explain away this contradiction the authors are forced to abandon any pretence of Marxist analysis. Their whole case rests on the subjective deficiencies of the conspirators. Regardless of the objective conditions, they argue the junta could have overcome its problems if only it had acted with greater determination and ruthlessness:

“The coup collapsed because it was a botched and premature attempt, which did not succeed in attracting the support of decisive sections within the state apparatus itself. It was not overthrown in struggle. It simply collapsed from its own internal contradictions and weakness.” (Truth About the Coup, page 7, our emphasis.)

121. Why did it “not succeed in attracting the support of decisive sections within the state apparatus itself”? No reasons are given for this. For Marxists it is wholly unacceptable to say that the coup failed due to “its own internal contradictions and weakness” without explaining what caused this. Though their document makes no reference to this, the reasons lie in the huge splits which opened up within the armed forces. These in turn, reflected the processes taking place in society.

121. Far from having a base of support in society, the Emergency Committee could not even find points of support within the state apparatus. Several key sections went over to Yeltsin at an early stage. These defections partly reflected the pro-bourgeois standpoint of this layer of officers. Again, this was not the only element in the process. The generals also feared that the lower ranks would become infected by the mood of growing mass defiance. The mobilisations in Leningrad and Moscow were decisive in this respect. This view was confirmed by the Russian television documentary Foros which reported on the splits within the army during the coup, but also concluded “that without the steadfast resistance shown in Moscow and Leningrad, the coup would have succeeded”.

123. Rather than seeking the social origins of these internal divisions within the state apparatus, the ex-minority attempt to explain the coup’s defeat by a combination of purely technical and military factors:

“The complete lack of any preparation was the main reason why Western intelligence, which had previously warned of the risk of a coup, was taken by surprise. Unfortunately for the plotters who represented only one wing of the bureaucracy, it was not only Western intelligence which was caught off guard, but also decisive sections of the top bureaucrats in the army and KGB, who were not informed of the coup until after it had started. This does explain why they at first adopted a wait and see attitude, and when they realised the attempt was premature and ill prepared, finally came out against it. It was this fact, and not any non-existent workers’ revolutionary movement (real or ‘potential’) which caused the rapid collapse of the coup. (The Truth About the Coup, page 8).

124. What we are being told here, in a very roundabout way, is that the coup failed because it didn’t succeed! There is nothing extraordinary in the fact that the conspirators kept their plans hidden from the CIA. The head of the KGB and the Defence Minister sat in the Emergency Committee which in the past would itself have been enough to guarantee success. We are told that top army and KGB bureaucrats were “caught off guard” and yet the document has already told us that throughout the summer “the whole of Moscow was buzzing” with rumours of a coup (page 2). In fact several military exercises had been staged in the preceding year in preparation for a coup. Even if it were true that decisive sections were taken by surprise by the coup, does this automatically “explain why they at first adopted a wait and see attitude”? Surely the normal procedure would be to obey orders. This admission in itself indicates that these were not normal times at all and that the Soviet state machine was in the throes of an unprecedented crisis. Even if we accept that, taken completely by surprise, these sections decided to “wait and see”, why – if it was clear that no mass opposition was developing and the general strike was a “total flop” – did they “finally come out against” the coup?

125. Under examination, their entire argument falls to pieces. Even on these technical and military questions the document is wrong. The junta’s failure to arrest Yeltsin was not an oversight. They had carefully laid plans but were unable to find troops to implement them. A detailed report compiled by the Russian parliament, of the attempted assault on Tuesday night (20^th August), carried in the London Times (27.8.91), reveals this:

“The operation was neither poorly planned nor disorganised. It was intended as a ruthless assault that would, if necessary, destroy the first two floors of the parliament building, regardless of casualties, and take prisoner of kill 12 key figures, including Mr. Yeltsin. The miscalculation was not strictly military but human: the troops would not fight.

“the first fatality is recorded at 00.32: “the young man run over by an armoured personnel carrier”. At 00.45, it notes, the purpose of the tanks was then to surround the parliament building not to storm it. The chronicle goes on:

“01.00: an armoured column is trapped in a tunnel by two barricades of buses and refuse lorries.

“01.30: Hantemir and Taman divisions (crack troops stationed outside Moscow) withdrawn, considered unreliable. Only Spetsnaz and KGB forces remain in Moscow.

“01.42: armoured personnel carrier on fire by barricade on inner ring road; several injured.

“02.00: column tries to get out of tunnel but pelted with stones and bottles. Two APCs explode. One person crushed; another shot by machinegun. Shooting heard in several areas of Moscow; flares seen.

“02.45: tugs and three barges (loyal to Yeltsin) block river in front of Russian parliament.”

This report also makes clear the critical role played by the working class in repelling the attack.

The Subjective Factor

126. In an attempt to give their argument a pseudo-Marxist validity, the document states:

“The laws of revolution and counter-revolution are basically the same. You can have the most favourable objective conditions, the widest social base, but if you do not act with absolute determination and audacity, you will go down in defeat. The coup in Moscow was not defeated by the “lack of a social base”, but by the subjective factor, the pathetic failure of the coup leaders to deal with t he opposition in a ruthless and implacable manner.” (The Truth About the Coup, page 7).

127. Of course the subjective factor is decisive in a revolutionary situation and there are similarities with respect to counter-revolution. But there are important differences. To argue that the laws which govern them are “basically the same” is false. The tasks of the socialist revolution are infinitely more difficult, demanding the conscious participation of the proletariat under the leadership of a revolutionary party to sweep away the old state apparatus. The counter-revolution enjoys innumerable advantages, if the political conditions exist for its success. It can utilise the existing state apparatus – all the forces of the old order. It bases itself not on the conscious will of the masses to struggle for a new society, but on demoralisation, passivity, and a loss of hope in any alternative.

128. Their approach to this question is entirely unmaterialistic, as if the subjective factor existed in a vacuum sealed off from the processes taking place in society. After all, Marx and Engels were outstanding revolutionaries, with no shortage of determination and audacity, but they never led a successful revolution – for the obvious reason – that the objective conditions for this did not exist. The comparison with the Bolsheviks in 1917 is absurd, for the very reason the document points out: The Bolsheviks had “a colossal social base“. No-one disputes that the coup was bungled and that many of its leading personnel were drunk. But the question must be asked: Why was this the case? As Trotsky commented, in respect to Kornilov’s coup,

“… the question remains: Why was a patriotic enterprise entered into and surrounded, for the most part, by drunkards, spendthrifts and traitors? Is it not because every historic task mobilises the cadres that are adequate to it?” (History of the Russian Revolution, page 731. Our emphasis.)

129. Even the “serious bourgeois” Fukuyama, quoted in the document, shows that he has understood more than the ex-Minority when he says “the coup plotters could have succeeded in the short term had they been more competent and determined, as was the Deng regime in Tiananmen Square… But the plotters were afflicted with a lack of belief in themselves and their cause.” (The Truth About the Coup, page 7, our emphasis.)

130. The demoralisation of the junta reflected the fat these were the dying remnants of a parasitic caste which is no longer capable of utilising the potential of the planned economy. EG himself made this point in 1990, commenting on the collapse of the east European regimes:

“You hear echoes everywhere: why didn’t they do – this is what the bureaucrats say in Russia, East Germany, Romania, everywhere – why didn’t they solve it like they did in China, and fire on the crowd? That would have taught them a lesson. Like they taught them in China. They’ve forgotten that in China the bureaucracy still preserves a relatively progressive role in developing the productive forces. A role they’ve lost completely.” (EG at IEC meeting, February 1990)

Jaruzelski

131. Likewise the comparison with Jaruzelski’s coup in December 1981, is false. By ignoring the decisive changes that have taken place since then, in Poland and internationally, their comparison with Jaruzelski reduces itself to one of personal or technical considerations: determination against incompetence. This may pass for “raising the theoretical level” in their ranks, but it is worthless for workers and youth who want to acquire a Marxist understanding of events.

132. Jaruzelski’s coup and last August’s attempt are separated by an epoch. First, the Polish coup took place after 16 months of dual power. In 1980 Jaruzelski rejected pleas to stage a coup because the time was not ripe but in December 1981, after the Solidarity leadership’s failure to complete the political revolution, a counter-revolution was much more likely to succeed. When Jaruzelski acted to crush the Polish workers’ movement, he acted on behalf of a ruling caste which still had a certain belief in itself and its ability to rule on the basis of a planned economy. The international outlook was entirely different at that time. World capitalism, far from appearing an attractive alternative, was in the depths of recession. The economic slowdown in Poland’s neighbouring Stalinist regimes was only just beginning to slow. In addition, a powerful state apparatus still existed in the Soviet Union under Brezhnev, which had no intention of allowing the Stalinist regime in Poland to fall. Nevertheless the fact that, in carrying out this counter-revolution Jaruzelski had, for the first time in a Stalinist state, to sweep aside the civilian party leadership and install a military regime was a significant sign of the way in which the bureaucracy was beginning to decay.

133. Not only does their document ignore the fundamental differences in the situation, thay also take no account of what actually happened within the Jaruzelski regime after the coup. They state:

“Jarozelski (sic) in Poland held out for seven years. There is no reason why such a regime in the USSR could not have lasted for five, seven or ten years.” (page 16).

134. This ignores the enormous shift which took place within the Jaruzelski regime after the 1981 coup. Huge splits opened within the bureaucracy because of their inability to overcome the catastrophic economic crisis or completely crush Solidarity, unlike the situation after Hungary 1956 or Czechoslovakia 1968. Contrary to the impression their document gives, the regime began to decentralise and introduce limited ‘market reforms’ from as early as 1983. When these partial steps did not arrest the economic collapse, Jaruzelski and the dominant section of the Polish bureaucracy, blindly and empirically as always, shifted to a pro-capitalist position. Reflecting the utter demoralisation of yesterday’s ruling Stalinist elite, Jaruzelski said in last year’s Polish election campaign “our greatest mistake was to keep the party’s monopoly on power, defend nationalised industry and the class struggle (sic)”.

135. Initially when they set up the round-table talks in 1988, the old ruling clique hoped to preside over the transition themselves, drawing in the Solidarity leaders as junior partners to provide the regime with a wider social base. In this way they hoped to introduce capitalism at a more controlled pace. The regime had been convinced of the need to involve the Solidarity leadership after the failure of its 1987 referendum over price increases and austerity measures. This attempt to harness Solidarity as a junior partner, despite the willingness of the Solidarity leaders, proved impossible as the hostility of the masses towards the bureaucracy, emboldened by the splits in the regime and the mass movements throughout eastern Europe, threatened to explode. Eventually Jaruzelski and the “political wing” of the old bureaucracy were forced out. General Kiszcsak’s attempt to form a government in July 1989 was abandoned for fear of provoking a new explosion from the working class – a potential movement. The Stalinists were thus squeezed out of the process they themselves had initiated. This rupture, under the pressure of the masses, undoubtedly accelerated the process of bourgeois restoration. All this is a closed book to the ex-Minority who completely fail to see that this process started under the Stalinist bureaucracy and why this happened.

A Stalinist Coup?

136. While the authors of the ex-Minority document do not exclude a pro-bourgeois coup, the entire weight of their argument point towards a swing back to Stalinism as the most likely perspective. While they concede that in August “the programme of the coup was not to defend the nationalised planned economy, but to move towards a market economy” (The Truth About the Coup, page 11). They then argue:

“What would have happened, for example, if Yanayev and co had seized power? Is it a foregone conclusion that they would have carried out their stated aims of moving towards a ‘market economy’ albeit at a more gradual pace? For the IS Majority faction this is a simple question to answer: “In today’s situation”, “objectively” …yes. But that does not exhaust the question.” (ibid., pages 15-16).

“A Yanayev regime would have been faced with an economic boycott from the West. Not even the limited amount of food aid which has been given to stake off the threat of hunger this winter, would have been forthcoming. Faced with the risk of social disturbances, the regime would have been compelled to resort to drastic measures of re-centralisation.”

They conclude that “If, as was entirely possible, the regime had been compelled to carry out a policy based on re-centralisation and a planned economy accompanied by terror, that also would have given a certain impetus to the productive forces for a period of time. Incidentally, that is precisely what happened in China after the Tiananmen Square massacre, which explains why, for a time, the Chinese regime has succeeded in maintaining itself.” (ibid. page 16. Our emphasis).

137. Clearly the ex-Minority have not studied developments in China. Despite the limited purge of the “liberal” wing of the Chinese bureaucracy after the massacre, and a partial re-centralisation of the economy – for a temporary period – the regime quickly shifted back to a pro-capitalist direction, far from re-centralising, are proceeding even more rapidly with a programme of bourgeois ‘economic reform’. In 1991 the state sector only accounted for 45.6 per cent of Chinese industrial output, compared to more than 80 per cent in 1980. Especially in the richer southern coastal provinces of China which enjoy a wide degree of autonomy and are closely integrated with Hong Kong, a significant capitalist class has developed. A similar process is taking place in Vietnam and is even beginning Cuba.

138. The example of China, therefore, contradicts rather than supports the perspective put forward by the ex-Minority. They assume that “a Yanayev regime would have been faced with an economic boycott from the West”. Yet this did not happen after the Tiananmen massacre. Despite token protests from Bush and imperialism, only relatively minor sanctions were imposed against China. In reality, the West have continued to do a brisk business with the Chinese regime, as the USA’s $13 billion trade deficit with China indicates. In fact the ex-Minority completely contradict themselves when, on page 6, they state that “Bush did not think that the coup stood no chance of success, nor did Major, Kohl and Mitterand, who hastened to offer to do business with the new men in the Kremlin“!

139. The destruction of the old Stalinist bureaucracy and the transformation of some sections into a new bourgeois class, means that a bourgeois coup is a much more likely perspective. While still theoretically possible in the future, under conditions of a deep crisis for world capitalism, an attempt to re-introduce a bureaucratically run planned economy on the model of Stalinism is virtually excluded under present conditions. Oblivious to the changes in the situation, the ex-Minority continue to cling to this perspective, harking back to the apparent certainties of an era that has passed from history. This mistaken perspective, above all, lies behind their mistakes during and after last August’s coup.

140. This shows what can happen to any tendency which fails to study the concrete situation and correct an outdated and invalidated perspective. Their refusal to learn from this, even after great events have proven them to be wrong, means they will be unable to intervene seriously in the coming struggles. Their breakaway grouping will be condemned to a sterile existence on the fringes of the international workers’ movement. Above all, this is true in relation to the former Stalinist states. In no other arena of world politics have the ex-Minority been shown to be so out of step. It is no accident that all the comrades in these countries supported the position of the Majority.

141. Now the faction struggle is behind us, with the leaders of the Minority unprepared to stay and argue their case in the ranks of the International. The intensive discussions of the last period, which inevitably carried a heavy cost for our practical work, have nevertheless served to enormously strengthen the International theoretically. On the basis of the method, approach and perspectives defended by the Majority in that struggle, Marxism must turn towards the great opportunities that exist in the former Stalinist states and in the capitalist world, to build the Party of World Revolution.