Organising the SOCIALIST OUTLOOK spoke to Soviet Soviet union workers in a
workers' committees of Vorkuta were in towns" "During the strike the the Donbass, the Kusbass and effect the only power in the Page 19 chunk of the mine's profit. They do commillees in in Halmeriu pit they have to work in On the other hand there are some ganised distribution of goods, and set up workers' militias under their own control to keep order. They closed down shops selling alcobol and if they found speculators bringing it in they stopped them and smashed the and workers! committees but there is a big struggle paratas. For example in Karaganda committee supported the Committee For a Socialist Party, but members of if had to try and hide for fear of repression from the local state authorities. In the meat are partly in control through the means of leasing - they have leased the mines but we don't support this because the Ministry still takes large nothing to assist the mine, but still Vorkuta they are demanding changes in working conditions. For example almost vertical shafts hanging on to a ladder with one hand und digging coal with another. In such conditions it is inevitable that ocw strikes will break out. They are demanding that In SOTSPROF there are many political currents. For example, some of the intellectuals, journalists, and writers are members of the Consitu- tional Democratic Party - the Cadets. members of the Social Democratic between them and the local state up- mines on the other hand, manage- shafts be closed down where condi- Do you see the need for a socialist union linked to or committed to a Why did you call it SOTSPROF? Idarnose, must face political Donbass are tions we particularly bad. demand a lot of money. bottles there and then. Prokopievsk, there miners" the socialist party? the workers' their identity Now in In the Soviet workers, like So only power in the towns, They or- today I managed to get hold of During the strike the workers' No, all workers were or are mem- mine still are, I don't consider myself an active member - I don't even Not directly, but we suffer a blackout of information. There Is total silence about our existence - When workers ask the union leaders about us, they say we're just a bunch of intellectuals with no connections Worker's Tribune, the paper of the official union movement, published 3 days ago, which has a big article about us. Everything that is written there is a lie - they say that our leaders are working to destroy the economy and create chans. It's in- evitable that we will take court action committees of the Donbass, the Kus- bass and Vorkuta were in effect the are not interested in the needs of the memhership. It is impossible in prac- Amongst the rank and file, yes. leaders, practically automatically from our wage packet nothing written in the newspapers. Only Are there any divisions in the om- Do the workers' committees that over management? Do they have yourselves from these workers? miners' strike have any powers Are SOTSPROF members vic- You see no danger of isolating workers movement. timised by official unions? have been formed since the fice to refon the leadership. clal unions? Any allies of know where my card is. against the newspaper. subs party workers who they found The Icaners of the afficial unions are hut against a brick wall. workers' control? speaking tour in Britain raising funds for the trade union activist Oleg Voronin during his not activists SOTSPROF? themscives in the amongst none, SOTSPROF campaign. that SOCIALIST OUTLOOK no 23, April 1990 SOTSPROF came into existence because in the USSR there are no real trade unions. The official unions are simply part of the state structure and cannot defend their members" in- rebelhions continuc to take place in the Soviet Union, trade unions are necessary to So, 18 months ago three activists from the democratio mavement, an gineer, Lev: Volovick, and a worker in a footwear factory. Valerie pendent federation of socialist trade unions - SOTSPROF for short. They count and official stamp from thie Under the constitition you don't have to register with the state to form a trade union, just with a lugher trade uninn organisation. So once the co- ordinating committee had announced itself as a trade union organisation, it was then ahle to legalise other inde- pendent trade unions around the country. For the first 3-4 months this was formed, and now we have about 30 organisations and about 60.000 members. The basic growth took place during the miners" strikes last summer. Our activists were involved, helping the miners to formulate demands in all the major regions. SOTSPROF organisations sprang up after the strike in all the key coal- We tried to do something inside the unions before SOTSPROF was set up, hut we found that if workers chose new leaders they rapidily became corrupted, or went over to the official leadership - or academic. Sergei Kramov, an en- Karalya came together to for a co- ordinating committee for an inde- managed to get their own bank ac- defend the interests of the workers. Why was it Impossible to reform the official bureaucratic struc- SOTSPROF terests, Because workers" What are the origins of Thats how SOTSPROF? was all it did. tures? simply Felds stale.
competition between the sectors in agriculture - oue private and the other tanners will have to come together to several years till things could stand on their own two feet. There will be collective, We've seen that the private market their goods, in other words to We are against the economic policy of the govemment because they are attempting in bring in a capitalist market which will simply maintain the positions of the ruling groups. We think that the Liberal op- crisis. What is SOTSPROP'S at- Perestroika seems in terminal titude to Gorbacher and the form some sort of collectives. government? region and at the level of the republic. tion should not go to the state but at a state level, but the state apparatus Plans should be fonnulated at the level of the firm, at the level of the should enter a real exchange between owned The plathi choud believed firms which are collectively should be cut to a minimum; at the of the state there should remain strong moment it is chormous In the Hands And within any plan part of produc not from above as happens at present. SUPPLEMENT workers! movement. They have no association but neither they nor other activists in SOTSPROF see themsel- ves as being a political part of the links between their political organis- taion and the workers' movement. SOTSPROF, working inside it, along with it. We think in that party we most clearly and most exactly express Only the new Socialist Party sces it- In the article in Workers Trihune 1 like In Britain or to what extent a To what extent does SOTSPROF want to build a union movement political movement like Solidar- Indivisibly linked the interests of the workers.
position in the government wants the Tween Gorbachev and them is the speed al which they should be moving. We don't want to he just no opposition, we want to be a real left elemants. We fully suppon them but same thing. The only difference be- pendent unions and workers' move. The movements in Eastem Europe are at the moment general democratic movements including different social always understand that in these move- In Eastero Europe democratic for- ces are based on the intelligentsia. What relationships should inde- ments have to them? wing altemative. disorganised self powers lo regulate such a markel. In puticular the state should have. con- trol of an investment fund, to avoid that all these measures only work together as a munagement, collective ownership of and complex - that is workers" pmduction. stress the problems of of market. was talking about, there is one part I agree with. The trade union experts say that to build a hig independent trade union is inevitahly to take up a political struggle like Solidamose Up to that point 1 agree with him - but then he draws the conclusion that this SOTSPROF exists not just in the fully, in the near future, in Uzbekistan Russian republic but also in Byelo Russia, Ukraine, Kazakstan and hope- the national question, the rights of self-determination and to building What is SOTSPROF s attitude to is why we shouldn't he doing it, organisations in the different republics?
ments there is a process of differentia- tion between the new rich clements We are taking part, but the Central Electoral Commission has fused to register SOTSPROF candidates, and we are at the moment conducting a court care against it Nonetheless many SOTSPROF candidates lave been nominated for the elections in their work collectives, in their lac- tell us how it's being organised and WIll SOTSPROF be contesting the coming elections, and if so can tou didates with the People's Front or Are you running common can- what are the key issues? and the working class. them don't want to he broken up democratic planning from below, in Irduced together. Also in this scheme we include that there should be small private enterprises in agriculture and in some spheres of distribution and Sovkhozes being broken up. Some of anyway. The greater part of these enterprises will not remain as they hut those Kolkhozes and Sovkhozes which make a large protit hecause they operale on the basis of Marx's conceptions of differential What about agriculture? Even in agriculture foresee all the We relate totally positively to the pendence of nations. In other words - though were conducting negotia- tions there with mainly Russian- question of national self-determine- tion. We are fully in favour of maxi- mum political and economic inde- we are in favour of a real confedera- tion of nations within the USSR. But Baltic states they want complele secession then they should have the right to do so. We have good links with the workers in the Baltic. states, expecially Lithuania, but we don't invite them to join SOTSPROF hecause we fully support their right to national independence, on condition speaking workers. independence "We are fully of nations. In political and in favour of other words favour of a economic maximum we are in
Not in Russia as a whole but in Moscow and Leningrad. A united Peoples Front in Russia no longer ex- iste. It's in a state of decline and degeneration. It's reached its poak and now is falling away. People's Front candidates in Moscow have came from SOTSPROF. I's a similar simation in Irkutsk, where I'm taking formed a bloc called Demncratic Rus- Some of the ideas for their platform part in a bloc of left denmatic for- sia and are standing on that platterm. SOCIALIST OUTLOOK no 23, April 1990 having a common platform? land rent will continue. Some of the Sovkhoz and Kolkhon, admittedly a and these institutions we would not get rid of altogether, by selling them few, have high lahour productivity want to get rid of. The rest we must of to those who want the land. The law we need for this reminds me of Abraham Lincoln's Homestead Act. And part of this plan would noed a powerful agrarian bank concered The state would be able to regulate agriculture through the Agricultural Bank. They could freeze prices for with giving credit to farmers. that they secure equal rights for all nationalities within the Baltic states - Russians, Poles, Jews, Lithuanians or are for a real synthesis of these things. not a middle way but a way which is for democratic planning from below, whether Russians, Ukranians, Byelo Our policy is against the command economy which has existed and still exists in the Soviet Union and against the unfettered capitalist market. We neither one thing or the other, We call How do you see the relationship be- tween the market and the plan? confederation of nations within the USSR" Page 20 real
IN DEPTH Sandinistas prepare for new round of struggle