Soviet masses Wakening the Revolution from above? himself. Mass turn-out in Kaunas for first legal Lithuanian Independence Day. branch to the racist regime in South Africa and capitalist governments in But by far the most historically sig- South America. There has been something to delight almost everyone in the exciting surge of events in the Soviet Union since Mikhail Gor-
Peoples' changes that USSR helped highlight the place. Here Deputies in the extent of the have taken mittee decreed a blankct rchabilitation of all the 'hundreds of thousands' of under Stalin. Leon Trotsky, co-leader those unjustly executed or imprisoned of the October Revolution and first leader of the Red Army, remains the only prominent victim of Stalin's ter- Much of the party bureaucracy, in- cluding Gorbachev, still use Trotsky ror not yet to have been rehabilitated. nificant and deep-going change bas been the policy of glasnost, the lifting sion cstablished in decades of dic- tatorial control by the Kremlin bureaucracy since the rise to power of Josef Stalin in the mid 1920s While Gorbachev and his co-thinkers see this as a means of strengthening their hand against stubborn elements of the of the chill climate of fear and repres bachev took over as party leader For those who believe Soviet workers' problems would be solved if they only had a parliamentary system like those in the west, there have heen the first parliamentary elections since For capitalist idcologues com-
balance sheet draws a of four years since Mikhail Gorbachev took the helm JOHN LISTER whenever they wish to oppose certain lines of policy. However there have been large meetings calling for his rangements for the publication of Trotsky's major works in the Soviet The lifting of political taboos, the rehahiliation as a leader of the Revolu- fion crocuted on Stalin's orders. Ar- as a convenient demon-figure union are already in hand. cal life: it is a huge gamble for them to Already, almost every political bureaucratic old guard, they have taken steps which have allowed the Soviet working class back into politi- issue - from the desirability or other- wise of a multi-party state, to the ex- Istence in the USSR of a massive layer of chronic poor, the extent of mitted to the values of the free market. there are the proposals for perestroika, the restructuring of the Soviet cconomy on market principles, together with the prospect of substan- tial openings for outside investment and massively increased wester and For the White House, Margaret Thatcher and the NATO cold warriors there have been Gorbachev'sdramatic Japanese trade with the LISSR.
at the Kremlin. Page 13 repudiation of so many past crimer of relaxation of censorship and restric- nons on meetings, and the explicit the bureaucracy would in themselves have had dramatic enough effect: but on top of this has come the general election for the Congress of Penple's criticism of the armed forces - has been opened up for debate, at first in side the Communist Party. It seems hureaucratic privileges, and even relatively exclusive academic and in- ly by sections of workers in and out- tellectual circles, hut now increasing- SOCIALIST OUTLOOK no 15 Mav 1989 troop reductions, with the prospect of military concessions and unilateral more to come, as sell as a sharp tum towards a conciliationist forcign policy - boding ill for the struggling regimes of Nicaragua, Angola and Mozambique, hut offering an olive
favour of the free association of socialist repablics, and in favoor of political revolution against the Great Russian chauvinists within the USSR rather than its break-up. We are socialists, not nationalists, hul as ferent strands of Gorbachev's policy? Are we obliged to accept of reject propriate to distinguish those aspects which we can support from those profound contradictions because ir is socialists we are champions of the op- How are marxists to assess the dif- them all as a job lot, or is it more ap which we oppose? The reality is that Gorbachev's strategy embodies Strands of policy pressed against the oppressors. Z cial Communist Party and non- candidates from at least half of of the bureaucracy to rig the slates in the traditional way. response - with packed. animated election meetings and debates, and the marvellous spectacle of old guard machine Deputies, opening up unproco- dented opportunities for unoffi- party candidates (provided only they obtained endorsement as a selection meeting of at least 500 people). The resultant con- Lest, despite efforts of a section produced a far from traditional bureaucrats, who had manipu- lated themselves into unop- posed candidacies, finding
making a revolutionary break from the leader of a reformist wing of a riling bureaucracy whose history and im- to the days of Stalin and the exter- mination in the late 1920r and 1930s hureaucracy has become even Larger. Soviet society than it was in the mid 1930s when the exiled Leon Trotsky - as a result of a detailed economic, political and social analysix of the an attempt to escape from a contradic- tory situntion through a process of relenns and within the present glohal Gorbachev has emerged as the plantation in Soviel society runs hack even more solidly entrenched in of the old Bolshoviks. of class forces opposition to many aspects of his Pandora's box of complex demands relarms, but the broad consensus of ments to get out of hand, he could face serious opposition at Politburo and central state machinery could find im- acceptance around glasnost is much the demand for separation from the Central Committee level, and pay a heavy political price for opening a and emotional energy which the Gorbachev has faced bureaucratic Federation. On the other hand if Gor- bachev is seen to allow such move- possible to contain. damental to the political development of one of the world's most powerful, most educated, but until now most repressed working classes than any of ges carried out under Gorbachev. Now that Soviet workers and intellectuals bave scented fresh air, begun to think for themselves and to icar the real facts of history, it is hard to see how they can again be beaten down. The salutary example of Poland's Solidar- nosc - legalised again after seven years of repression failed to destroy it These changes are far more fun- the other economic or political chan- themselves ousted by voters crossing their names off the bal-
degenerated fom of the workers state No devil ever yet voluntarily cut off ment leads obviously to the road of revolution." (Revolution Betrayed, A very different approach is repro- sented by Mikhail Gorbachev today. Though recognising the need for deep going changes in the economy USSR - argued that only a working class political revolution could sweep it away and allow the workers once more to take control of what had be- established in the Octoher revolution: his own claws: The Soviet buresucracy will not give up its posi tions without a fight. The develop: come under Stalin a horribly glasnost and perestroika - many of are visible hints of national arrogance sents a political weakness of the left, movements have drawn in the support of a large proportion of the working bureaucracy. Even if they were calling fronting the Stalinist tradition of Great which are focussed in Moscow - there since in many cases the nationalist class, and have focussed on legitimate sues here they suffer oppression more tenuous when it comes to con- sian nationalities. Even in the newly- towards such movements. This repre- towards the noo-Slav and non-Rus- emerging left currents supporting grievances on language and other is- from the centralised Moscow Russian chauvinism, especially ments has been anathema to the old volvers as soon as they hear the word ferent demands - among them the bachev faces a real dilemma. On the - should underline the scale of irre- versible political development that is now beginning to take place in the Each of there democratic develop- guard of Brezhnevite bureaucrats, who reach instinctively for their re- dissent. And in the case of the resur- gent struggles of nationalist move- ments within the USSR with their dif Armenians, the Baltic states, the Geor- gians, and the Ukrainians - Gor- Anathema to old workers and intellectuals themselves *Now that fresh air, begun to think for scented Soviet have
tial isolation of the October Revolu- tion. with the failure of post-war revolutionary struggles elsewliere in society as a whole, Gorhachev's starling point ts: 10 bureaucracy, and tn renegotiate a new form ofaccomodation with capitalism The international dimension to the problem of bureaucracy in the USSR SOCIALIST OUTLOOK no 15 May 1989 has always been vital. It was the ini on a global scale rather than to strug dimension is vital International gle for a socialist solution. reshape rather than pressed Soviet nationalities for their or its demands: in general we are in sary, to wage and win the argument question should be to stand uncondi- right to independence. However this for separation, the task before marxists is to take the side of the oppressed against separatism. The general line defended by marxists on the national right to national self-delemination - up to and, if necessary, including the does not commit marxists in advance to uncritical support for any given nationalist movement, its programme against the bureaucracy, and, if neces rionally behind the struggle of the op fional rights (as recently with the tanks bureaucracy in the party and armed republics, creating an even sharper nationalist elements who could press one hand, a resort to traditional and poison gas used against demonstrators in Georgia) could nost, strengthening precisely the worst, most conservative layers of the forces. Worse, it could further stoke up the anger and frustration in these confrontation with Moscow, and lend- ing strength to the more extreme methods of police and military repres sion to contain mass demands for na- destroy important elements of glas can again be and to learn history, it is hard to see how they facts of the real down" beaten Page 14
ME N J UPP nationalism of tive is no longer even given token mention, while stead socialism Gorbachev and as a glohal objec- defeating 1918-23, which determined many of Europe, hut especially in Germany in the early developments and limited the options of the Bolshevik leaders: "At all events, under all conceivable cir- cumstances, If the German revolution man revolution did not come, the im- (Lenin, March 1919) When the Ger- does not come, we are doomed'.
'Gorbymania' parties of objectives, that 'Euro' communist socialist the media." struggle or abandoned embraced Page 15 "it is no Europe, having long so widely promoted in coincidence western themselves ago any class have the Gorbachev policy: continuity or a break from the past? draft the famous 21 Theses, designed politics of social democracy. As we know from bitter experience, the fact that Gorbachev and his team see a cate any leftward shift of the socialist parties: it confirms the continued, Kremlin ideologists, and their shared acceptance with the social democrats of the continued indefinite existence flict. Gorbachev has taken an even less Lowards the Nicaraguan revolution, tie assistance and thus jeopardising the very future of the Sandinista ravaged by an economic blockade, dinista leaders are now forced to plunder empty currency reserves to calation of the revolutionary struggles American country, which would upset the USA. Instead Moscow has been courting the major capitalist powers of South America, husily signing trade and other deals with Brazil, Uruguay and Argentina, with scant regard to the struggles of the warkers' movement in There is unmistakeable evidence of the same type of policy shift in another spocifically to exclude parties from af- filiation if they had not previously broken systematically from the convergence between communism and social democracy does not indi- class collaborationist line of the of capitalism as the framework for fu- The global line of class collahora- tion predictably finds its sharpest ex- pression in areas of sharpest class con- supportive line than Brezhnev withholding all but the most tokenis- regime whose economy has heen US-backed contri sahotage and by last year's hurricane. Desperate San- buy oil from Venezuela Soviet pres sure is also clearly opposed to any cs- in El Salvador or any other central ture policies and devclopments. collaboration Global class these countnes. coexistence and Brezhnev's efforts at "detente'; such policies have always been seen by Stalin and his successors Gorbachev's recent grovelling visit to laboration and alliances with capitalist governments, irrespective of the needs and struggles of the working class. In this respect it is no coincidence that Europe, themselves having long ago the Gorbymania' so widely promoted from that. Now, as Mr Gorbachev has start of the first world war. Lenin led mutist) Interational, went so farasto from Khruschev's talk of 'peaceful Britain, exchanging compliments with parties of wester abandoned any class struggle or Indeed. Gorbachev's key forign gradual coming together of the com acerbated by Stalin will be very com Of course, it was not Stalin but ing the betrayal of the social the minority split in the Second Inter- rather than any break from Stalinism, as counterposed to support for inde- pendent revolutionary struggles. Thaicher and invitations with the Queen, is part and parcel of a well- wor Kremlin strategy of seeking col- socialist objectives, have embraced Shakhnazarov now talks openly of a munist and social democratic partics: 'The great split which began during plicated to overcome. Stalin's slogan was that the social democrats had betrayed us. He saw everything as treachery, and great tragedy came said, we must meet cach other.' (The Lenin who took the Icad in denounc- democrats after the spcial democratic parties of Europe had each sided with their 'own" national capitalists at the national, and after the October revolu- tion and formation of the Third (Com- revolutionary history, a continuity advisor Dr Georgy the first world war and which was ex- Guardian, April 8, 1989) "Eurocommunist': economy, and to ternal capitalist reflects precisely of the market open it up fores- Gorbachev's this conserva- seck ways in in- foreign policy tive, counter- SOCIALIST OUTLOOK no 15 May 1989 perialist powers were able to focus fiances with 'democratic" sections of sate for the fearfully primitive state of huge military resources on waging tervention in their elforts to unscat the Bolsheviks - eventually leaving the economy devastated, agriculture in cadres terribly over-stretched in the tasks of running a war-tor cconomy. location that the bureaucracy first gained its foothold as the ad- ministrators and policemen regulating queues and shortages, the technical bitrators between the interests and In this context of deprivation, set- hacks and fatigue, Stalin emerged as the focus of political conservatism, resting on the political dilution of the Communist Party, the nationalism of the peasantry and the narrow horizons vocating an abandonment of any am- bition towards extending the revolu- tion, while looking instead to get on with the task of building "socialism in This policy was soon transformed the imperialist bourgeoisic: and by 1939 this had collapsed into the noforinus Stalin-Hitler pact. All this meant oulright opposition to proletarian revolution which might jeopardise the diplomatic and military deals struck by the Kremlin. It served manent isolation, and thus permanent economic backwardness, cut off from the more advanced technologies of the capitalist countries. This isolation was barely broken in the post-wur period with the extension of Soviet control over much of Easter Europe: cven wholesale looting of in- dustrial plant from East Germany and Soviet technology. To this day one of the most modem Soviet brick works - the Butovo plant near Moscow - has Gorbachev's modem-day гояропяс to these decades of failure of building "ancialism in one country" is not to abandon the constricting and self- protracted and damaging wars of in- chaos, and the Communist Party I was from this early isolation and dis- managers of enterprises, and the ar- of the career administrators, and ad- in the 1930s into a line of secking al- to entrench the USSR in a state of per- Czechoslovakia did little to compen only just been "modemised" to the Socialism on the back level of wester plants in the 1920s. demands of peasants and workers.
sufficient to feed the population, roubles a year in laxes as a result of sales all contributed to the burgeoning while factories could not turn out enough consumer goods to satisfy Continuing heavy defence spend- ing. the costs of the Armenian earthquake, and the loss of 16 billion Gorbachev's restriction on alcohol deficit, which in tum is resulting in the of inflation. It is fair to say that even if they were to result in socialist revolution, none of this list of struggles and causes put at risk by the new Soviet policy could in itself represent the key break in the isolation of the USSR. But, as we have vanced countries of wester Europe. The fact is that Moscow's systematic opposition to revolutionary solutions, seen, the line is cqually craven in rela- tion to workers' struggles in the ad- and consistent pursuit of class col- m any "Cuban road since Castro was politics on a global entrench its isola- tion, and to set back or restrict the options of those in struggle. Ruled out by Gorbachev's From the carly days laborationist scale serves to stance would be for third world revolutionaries, P. PL Not only have Moscow envoys been involved in secret diplomacy with the don't emphasise the noed to enhance the armed struggle' (The Guardian; garet Thatcher in Gorbachev's recent apartheid regime, but Soviet pressure isbeing publicly applied to the African National Congress to soft-pedal their traditional line of armed struggle. The head of the Soviet Foreign Ministry's Africa department recently insisted that South Africa should not be talked to 'using the language of threats and banging one's fist on the table. We Downing Street talks - but leaves the black masses of South Africa high and Mozambique now receives more aid USSR, while Angola's recent default dry in their struggle against racist op pression. Similar pressures for conces- global hot spot" - Southern Africa. March 18, 1989), Such a line will cer- tainly have gone down well with Mar- sions to the apartheid regime have clearly been applied by Moscow to the Namibian SWAPO liberation forces. from western countries than the a ...pressures concessions regime have clearly been Moscow to applied by apartheid liberation Namibian SWAPO forces. to the the for
its official El exchange rate. tion a mere 25 percent of polatnes interview with Newsweek magazine economists admit to an inflation rate of 5 to 7 percent a year, but it could he as high as 10 percent - while the state bank pays out only 3 percent interest Economists estimate the real value of the rouble at around 40p compared to Meanwhile the main symptom of this crisis is not nang prices but a grow- ing shortage of consumer goods as too many roubles chase too few com- moditics: mismanagement and in- competence have ensured that in the produced ever complete the jnumey from fieldto domestickitchen: the rest visor, Abel Agenbegyan, in a recent admitted that The most pressing ing capacity and the supply of goods. Out of 200 groups of products Inday. 90 percent of them are in short supp ly. Two or three years ago there were some shortages - good meat, good SOCIALIST OUTLOOK no 15 May 1989 world's leading potato-producing nu- Gorbacher's key cconomic ad probiem is the gap between purchas foorwear, some other things. Castro's 'Cuban road - now blocked off. on workers' ly undermined by his foreign policy. policy when he told West Geran Chancellor Kohl last October that Moscow had firmly decided to set out along the road of active conomic in- The harsh Fact is that, despite four revolutionary rhetoric, the Soviet economic crisis is still getting worse ly 1 rouble = fL) budget deficit proved wildly over-optimistic:currentfigures suggest it is at least 160 billion, and possibly higher. A January 1989 goverment report showed that while the economy grew by 4.4 percent last year (taster than before), exports fell hy two percent and imports rose by 6.5 percent, halving the trade surplus A staggering 30 billion roubles worth of food bas been imported in the last three year as farms fail to produce nal efforts at reform are simultaneous Gorbachev himself linked his foreign policy to his domestic economic brave-sounding rather than better. Last autumn's es- timates of a 36 billion rouhle (official- Worsening economic teraction with the world outside. able to Ican upon military sid from USSR aR a counterweight to Since the isola- tion of the USSR is in itself part of the material basisupon bureaucracy has al- Gorbachev's inter- the LIS blockade. support seems a factor in increased regime to negotiate a compromise Meanwhile in the middle cast, ing the position of Yasser Arafar, who position to UN resolutions 242 and some form of Palestinian 'mini-state' as a solution. Soviet efforts have also of the Philippines can expect no Soviet meted out by the armed fores. Instead tions for Aquino. In south east Asia, Soviet pressure is almost certainiy a factor in the Vietnamese décision to withdraw its troops from Kampuchea, the none-too-tender mercies of Pol with imperialist protoction just over global conflict with imperialism was Sovict pressure on the various factions has with Kremlin support now aban- zionist state of Israel, and dropped the demand for the right of return of over 1948. Arafat now looks instead to been focussed on opening diplomatic relations with the feudal Saudi on payments to Moscow for military In the far east, the Communist Party leaving the unfortunate inhabitants to Pot's Khmer Rouge forces massed continued Soviet occupation of Af- doned the PLO's long-standing op- 338, accepted the legality of the Soviet efforts to force the MPLA with imperialist-backed UNITA quer- moral or material support as they bal- le on against continued repression Moscow is offering to build power sta- the border in Thailand. And while the ghanistan was politically and militari- ly indefensible, the urge to defuse clearly one of the factors in the of the Palestinc Liberation Organisa- tion has played a key role in bolster- I million Palestinians expelled in withdrawal of Soviet troops. Arahian regime undermined reform are efforts at policy." "Gorba- internal foreign chev's by his Page 16
N NUP PLE USSR', food supply: ship produces no less than 30 percent of the this is why Garbachev member for agriculture) most state and collective farms were bankrupt called for a new policy of encouraging peasants: to take 50-year leases on land which they would be able to fan on their of the main resourcer The 3 percent of farm Tand in private owner (himself a Former Central Committee nine years ago, and demand has increased". (March 13, large, maybe they weren't the best the counter is purchased at once. It's Agenbegyan spells out a series of refrigerators, TV sets, washing deter- gent, cosmetics were all available. Mayhe the assortments were not very quality, but when you came to a store you would see such products. Now the shops are just empty. Anything put on not because production has decreased, but because the amount of money that people have has increased sharply, and policies to reduce the budget deficit in production of housing for sale, and in- creasing production of cars, videos, and audio equipment through joint cluding a progressive income tax,
profits." the USSR if attracted to they enjoy relatively labour and guaranteed Pare 17 cheap repatriate ...firms will only be access to are rights to Selling some of the potatoes that made it to market. cent, with rumours that some holdings tensification of the class struggle is on coop revenue - up from a 5 percent those sectors which fail. Onc clue came in the boast from Mr Gostev that the USSR would shed a million surplus jobs in 1988. However he did promise that in 1989 investment in the consumer sector would grow 2.3 Even more musical to the cars of the wester business community were announcements by Mr Gostev of a fur- thier relaxation of restrictions on foreign firms' investments in the USSR. The maximum stake is to be may be 100 percent foreign-owned, effectively opening up sections of the cess to relatively cheap labour and are guaranteed rights to repatriate profits: the resultant potential for a further in- unnistakeable. A sign of this was the experience of the private cooperatives which Gorhachey at first encouraged to provide various good and services. In a short period of time 77,000 such coops had sprung up, employing 1.5 million workers: but when they began making large profits, the government was forced to step in and impose price controls and sharply increased taxes Gorbachev's problem on the economic front is that he is seeking to achieve a hybrid of a market system while keeping most of the central planning apparatus - the bureaucracy - intact, and allowing little if any real docision-making to fall into the con- Im! of the workers at the point of producbor The planning process has sidiaries. Such firms will only be at tracted to the USSR if they enjoy ac- and a centrally-planned economy increased from 49 percent to 80 per Soviet economy to foreign sub maximum to a flat rate 35 percent. times faster than heavy industry businesses were on the brink of being Banks would soon begin publishing was told by Finance Minister Boris Gostev that a number of unprofitable owned businesses were running up lists of hank rupt firms, which might be production would be slashed from 86 percent in 1988 to only 25 percent in the open market. However the state planning departments continue 1o managers will be able to adjust their production to meet anticipated levels of demand - or what will happen to eliminated'. Some 24,000 state- handed over lo private cooperatives. The state purchase of industrial 1989, with the remainder to he sold on decide the allocation of investment resources: it is not yet clear how huge losses, admitted Mr Gostev: Plenary sessions on socialism and democracy, the economics of Horvat (Yuogslav economist), Ernest Mandel, Tony Benn, socialism, international relations, and the future of Europe. Also Speakers include Otto Latsis (deputy editor of Kommunist, Ev- geny Ambartsumov (Soviet economist), Olga Ivanova (Soviet feminist), Peter Glotz (German SPD), Steffi Engert (German Greens), Luciana Castellina (Italian Communist Party), Branko a large number of workshops, including the national question in Eastern europe, women's emancipation, models of planning and Gus Fagan, 30 Bridge St, Oxford OX2 OBA Tel 0685 723207 St Cross Bulding, Oxford University Oxford Gorbachev and the European Left of the Supreme Soviet 610 per day, £15 per weekend (unwaged; t5 per day) The industrial picture land', reaping increased prices for their produce. tcher a two-day session is no brighter. Last Oc- Socialist Conference 3/4 June Wlodzimierz Brus and many others. SOCIALIST OUTLOOK no 15 Mav 1989 For further information contact: ventures with foreign fins. But he sidies and let prices rise in order to for the people so their standard of living does not decline..." However the real prospect that rising prices revised in 1990, with retail prices were in 1985. The sume incompetent, also advocates a sharp increase in prices, especially of agricultural Prices on meal, dairy products and bread may have to douhle. We are ready to do that, with compensation would quickly reduce the living stand- ardsof workers and provoke major un- rest has already hrought one postpone- ment of the deregulation of prices. Agricultural prices are now to be However the problems of supply are no nearer solution now than they distrusted bureaucracy that has failed for over half a century is still in charge produce:" We need to reduce food sub- make agricultural products profitable. Incompetent bureaucracy the Yugoslav crisis. deregulated in 1992. Registration:
m = SUPPLE March unveiled a new round of for decades been encrusted with the routinist and incompetent practices of generations of party careerists: yel to replace this with a free market while the present management structures remain unchanged could produce Gorbachev's team will be further alarmed at the evidence of shambolic failure of liberalisation measures car- ried out to much western ballyhoo by the Chinese bureaucracy. Amid runaway growth of inflation, the money supply, consumer spending and industrial growth, while produc- tion of grain and cotton and provision of transport and power have lagged behind, the Beijing bureaucrats in Un 'commercial' to 30 million factories on basis could involve up ancies!" Chinese redund- "To put
puhlicly within the Communist Party. demands for quality and a greater the relaxation of decades of rigid press has produced a rapid transformation of the frozen and stagnant society of the Brezhnev years Political debates socialist discussion clubs and circles have sprung into life, and national minorities have gained the courage to degree of independenco from the SOCIALIST OUTLOOK no 15 May 1989 tively) free elections xince 1917, and the opening of a political dialogue reaching increasingly into layers of the working class that Gorbachev s contribution can be seen an most un- Like the kiss of Prince Charming for Scoping Beauty and her transfixed cout, Gorbachev's policy of glasnost, censorship and political repression and differentiations have opened voice and act on their pent-up sumes a revival of freedom of beginning with the rection of trade unions. The bringing of democracy into industry means a exts of the toilers. Free discussion of cconomic problems will decrease the overhad expense of bureaucratic mistakes and zigzags. Expensive playthings - palaces of the Soviets, new theatres, show off subways - will be crowded out in favour of workers" tribution" will be confined within the limits of strict necessity, and in step with the growth of social wealth, will *And finally, foreign policy will retum to the traditions of revolution- (Revolution Betrayed, pp 288-290) It is in this context the restoration of the right of criticism, the first (rela- party of the Bolsheviks, and a resur- radical revision of plans in the inter- dwellings. "Bourgcois noms of dir- New political give way to socialist equality awakening ambiguously positive. ary internationalism. Soviet parties, Sparse display on the meat counter. changing the economic foundations of society, of replacing certain forms of Bureaucratic autocracy must give tion of the right of criticism, and necessary conditions for the further revolution which the bureaucracy 1s: *E is not a question of substituting one ruling clique for another, but of ministering the economy and guiding culture of the country- power in their own hands if they are to Trotsky's classic analysis of the working class. He stressed that: "The changing the very methods of ad- place to Soviet democracy: A restora- genuine freedom of elections, are concessions. They have no reason to trust the same failed figures: Soviet forces driving towards political revolution placed great emphasis on the insues of the workplace and the cial, like the October revalution of 1917. It is not a question this time of development of the country. This as is proposed means to accept that the same bureaucracy which reduced the necessary for the workers before economic growth can provide a workers must organise to take the preparing agrinst itself will not be so- Soviet economy to its present parious state should now be trusted to manage tating series of changes, continuing to workers. The old argument is being trotted out that a period of austerity is guaranteed right to a job, and adequate sities including housing and consumer goods: these arguments are grimly But the Soviet working class has en- dured over sixty years of relative austerity at the hands of the same hureaucracy, which now asks formore To accept perestroika in the way it the introduction of a potentially devas- take decisions on behalf of the supplies of reasonably priced neces familiarto workers in westem Europe. property with other fomns... solve their problems. we argue for a system of democratic workers' contral and management of enterprises and of whole industrics through factory councils, and local Party chiefs are seriously reluctant to workers, who comprise a large section Of course marxists are not opposed to any moderisation or restrocturing of the Soviet economy: on the con- trary, this is essential if the needs of the working class are to be met. The model we would put forward however is neither the present bureaucratic market with its disregard of social need and usefulness and exclusive focus on cash-flow and profitability: centralised planning, based on the production process, of the urban workers, to follow on waves of redundancies from the cancellation of the first two months of 1989, hitting rural industries (which have expanded to 30 million redundancies! So grave is the crisis that Beijing last autumn had to postpone by two years its price trols over the cconomy: the major dustrialised China, Soviet Communist be seen as reducing the living stand- ards of key sectors of industrial of the party's rank and file: the last thing they want is to create conditions for a direct confrontation with a Solidarosc-style radicalised, inde- centralised planning, nor the free austerity measures, including sharpin- creases in food prices for 200 million major capital projects. There is a sharp polarisation of the Chinese masses be- tween prosperous "haves' and a large dustrial growth rates were halved in since 1978 to employ 80 million workers). To put Chinese factories on a commercial' basis could involve up reforms and reimpose centralised con growth industry of the bureaucratical- Far more than in more rural, less in- layer of downtrodden "have nots'. In Modernisation - under ly mismanaged mess is corruption. workers' control pendent trade union movement. and national soviets. the hands of austerity at over sixty class has the same endured years of working bureau- cracy." relative Soviet ...the Page 18
E LE P P deadening, centralised hand of Great Russian bureaucracy. Most recently, the general election for the Congress Soviet voters their first ever chance lo of People's Deputies gave 150 million
special ations of other bureau- CP but establish- ment, not populist for Yeltsin's denunci- shops and cratic privileges is not a vote against the least the notorious Moscow party ...a vote against the Page 19 'mafia'... freedom of soviet parties, of an end to tions about Trotsky and the struggle of doesnot define the potential that could The path of Trotskyist revolution is