Lithuania needs solidarity, not Bush's sanctions
It was Leon Trotsky - parodying the defeatist line of the Communist Party - who ironically commented on the French class struggle in the mid-1930s that if the workers did not resist, the police would not have the job of beating them up. No doubt Mikhail Gorbachev sighs In similar terms that If the
Lithuanian government and masses did not demand their national rights, there would be no need to impose an economic blockade on them.
leverage over tiny Lithuania, whose annual oil bill alone amounts to some $700 million - far more than its total $200m a year hard currency earnings. Simply by removing the previous massive (50 percent) subsidies on supplies and forcing the Lithuanians to pay the world market price for their fuel and energy, Moscow leaders could quickly force the rebellious regime in Vilnius into crisis. The cuts in have been followed in quick-fire succession limitations gas, electricity, chemicals, components and raw materials.
Of course some of these measures also rebound on the
Soviet economy:
weakened integration two of the economies
Is a two-way process and Lithuanian oil refineries and industries play a role in Soviet production.
But Gorbachev's calculation is thal a short sharp squeeze should suffice to force a substantial retreat the nationalist government. while avoiding the more traditional heavy-handed repressive tactics of Stalin, Khruschav and
Brezhnev.
This gamble is based on a shrewd estimate the limited commitment of the US and European imperialist governments to become embroiled in the confrontation between Gorbachev and Lithuania so long as violence and a Tienanmen solution is avoided; and this has been reinforced by statements from an unenthusiastic White House staff. As one told
Newsweek magazine: "We are talking somewhere above 'deeply concerned' but well below cancellation of the summit. We're talking relatively small potatoes* looking no further than cosmetic gestures to placate right wing hawks", arguing "We're not going to breach Soviet airspace or challenge their control of Lithuanian ports and borders. That's a ridiculous idea". It seems certain that President Bush shares
Gorbachev's wish that the Lithuanians should give in quickly and quietly; the US strategists see the advantage in letting super-power diplomacy resume with Gorbachev still in charge, and the chance of further concessions.
change if the confrontation in Lithuania escalates into violence or
Of course the Soviet bureaucracy has immense economic
CAN YOU
STILL BREATHE?
CAN YOU
STALL BREATHE?
Even as Gorbachev's sanctions took hold, the White House was
Whatever the White House may plan at present could well and implement economic sanctions against the USSR consequences of any sanctions imposed by Washington.
sidise Lithuania.
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STILL BREATHE?
CAN YOU
STILL BREATHE 9
JUST BABELY
VERY 6005
I DONT MANT
FUS TO BE
VIOLENT.
punity to cock a snook at Kremlin control.
Lithuania.
becomes protracted. George Bush may yet cave in to right wing more draconian measures,
Socialists would oppose such sanctions: the type of solidarity we call for with the Lithuanian people is working class solidarity, In opposition to the restorationists and imperialists that Gorbachev is so keen to appease. And we would hold Gorbachev responsible for the
Exactly how much the Lithuanian leaders expected capitalist governments to rush to their aid is not clear. What is clear is that while for political reasons Bush (and Thatcher) will not, the Scandinavian powers dare not run the risk of antagonising the Soviet bureaucracy - and in any event are in no economic position to sub-
It is also clear that Gorbachev's motives have nothing to do with fears of a restoration of capitalism In Lithuania: the far- reaching he economic reforms preparing to force through in the Soviet Union using his new Presidential powers run at least as far in the direction capitalism the proposals of the Lithuanian leaders. Gorbachev himself expected
1o propose privatisation of up to 75 percent of industry and breachexisting controis ing on foreign trade to open the door to 100 percent foreignowned ventures.
driving
The pressures
Gorbachev trom arise precisely these sweeping perestroika plans for reforms: if he is to impose policies that will inevitably unemploymass generate ment (likely to rise from 2m to 10m or more) and price increases of anything from 40-
50 percent to as much as 200-300 percent, he has to impose a rigid authority on the Soviet working class. He cannot do this if reballious national minorities and breakaway republics are allowed with im-
He also knows that he must draw the line at Lithuania's unilateral declaration of independence it he is to prevent a rush for the door by other republics. Even if he were to take refuge in a 'special case formula to get the Lithuanians off his back (taking up suggestions that as territories annexed under Stalin in 1940, the Baltic
States should now be allowed special rights to secede), more and more republics - from Azerbaijan, through Georgia to the Ukraine - are looking towards the possibility of secession and independence.
and would be strengthened in their resolve by a retreat over
Key among the reactionary forces pushing Gorbachev into a hard line are the top layers of the military establishment. They point to the strategic importance of the Baltic coast, but have been par-
ticularly outraged by the blows to the armed forces struck by the
Lithuanian rejection of conscription. They now claim that in some republics less than 50 percent of draftees called up are reporting for military service. Gorbachev knows that the one prop he cannot dispense with in his balancing act at the top is the support of the armed forces. He may yet need them to help contain the anger of the workers.
self-determination for the Lithuanian people - up to and including the right to secede: the massive popular support for these policies has been shown In the recent elections. We support calls for international working class solidarity, for solidarity among the socialist and working class organisations springing up in the Soviet Union, and for the most coordinated possible struggle by the peoples of the Baltic states alongside other national minorities in the fight for the most basic democratic right - to determine their own future. We do this in the context of opposing any restoration of capitalism, and rejecting utopian nationalist schemas of sell-sufficiency ('capitalism in a single country'?). New economic and trading relations must be negotiated with the Soviet Union on the basis of equal and sovereign nations.
We must reject the cynical
Lithuanians in order to preserve Gorbachev: not only are the imperialists supporting him (as the laader most likely to make further concessions at the expense of the working class), but even the
'socialist' case for defending Gorbachev as the embodiment of glasnost has been thrown into question by his attempts to crush the
Lithuanian national movement.
and call for the withdrawal of Soviet troops and the resumption of normal supplies of goods while longer-term trade relations are negotiated. In the long run, and especially after the momentous changes which Gorbachev himself has helped trigger throughout Eastern
Europe and the USSR, the Soviet Union cannot hope to preserve its
"unity" by brute force, whether this be economic or military: and any
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