Gorbachev - 'Brezhnevism'?
movement within the Soviet working class in the present expect the rise of a similar Solidarnosc - 'we cannot situation'
Such differences must at least parily derive from genuine problems in our chinking about the USSR. The events unfolding there genuinely surprise us, don't fit reatly into our established calegories for pigcon-holing the behaviour of the Soviet government. We lend to fall into superlicial, descriptive approaches: on the one hand. Gorbachev should be praised for doing Xion Monday, but he should be denounced for Y on Tuesday: who knows what he will do on Wednesday! We haven't pencirated to say that this is because of deep differences of analysis and prograrome in relation to the Soviet Union: Yer this same programmatic tradition on the TISSR differ sharply there are differences within this or that tendency on this THE LEFT is still very fur from achieving a consensus on the Gorbaches leadership. It would be casy and half-true cannot be the whole story: tendencies which share the on their appreciation of what is happening there. Indeed, SOCIALIST OUTLOOK: no d November/December 1907 question
cconomy on the Polish cconmy afinitely weaker than lietwcen town and country lar groater than in most of Western Eurupe north of the Mediterranean: by a fierce printuctive powrt of the Soviet economy a less than that of Technologically the picture is almost as grim, in terms ol Social relations within the LSSR ar markel by a gap The explosive crisis in Poland burst workeness anil backwardness of the USSR: its cultural inducnce negative and the actractive pull of the Soviet that of the west. In terms of sheer quanitative weight. the hollowness of talk abour the LiSse being an advanced forth in 1980 dramatically exposing che fundamental intluenre in Poland was nom existent, is idcological This collapse of Beezbriev & foreign strategy exposed dir Japan and only about a filth that of the OFCD countries living standards i is worse still. the star wars prineer socialist soviery TS S policies of the Brezhney cra and the present policies, PERHAPS ONE of the main roots of our intellectual puzzle: there seems to be a dramatic break berween the anxieties about Sovict events derives from the following opinions to reach a higher understanding, grasping the happening then in Eastern Europe, we will haver a model bencath the surface of events to the inner logic of the If this is the state of our thunking then there is only one solution: an open, discussion in which we use a clash of process in the Sovie Union is a whole and grasping is contradiction. If we look back at the debate which the trotskyist movement had in the late 1940s ovcr what was Continuity or discontinuity? Int how we should proceed. Gorbachev tendency:
many ways a great advance on whar fad existed betore in that vast ocean of Russian cural backwardness There is scarcely masked by the bland official ideological rode. expressed themselves in the luxuriant grower of chauvin- istic, mystical, authoritarian and obscurantist ideologies as well as in the crudest fascinations for the latest fails and It is possible to view this Soviet world of the 1980sas in and in large part illegal strugele for sauce gonds and services, by corruption. drunkenness, harsh relations There are still backward welfare sorcices ourside the mam cities, an only semi-predictable legal system and a brully primitive, authoritarian political style in relations between the regime and individual citizens = worse, of And all these leasons, between the seses with great strains placed upon women. gadgets of our capitalist culture-industries. course, for crited clements. rect model for any socialist socicry. It may need reforms. especially economic reforms to generate greater cconomie • the idea that the DISSk had for the first time in its history achieved a decisive and irreversible degree of security through its strategic arsenal and its relations will • the idea that the USSK was an advanced socialist society requiring only minor adjustments and quantitat- • the idea that the existing socio-cconomic mechanism and the corresponding political mechanism was the cor- especially in Soviet domestic puities, yet there has heen no political upheaval. Is there a genuine break with the past, There is a clear break with the Brezhnev berilage if wr ive improvements in order to progress uninterrupterily define that heritage in terms of three key iccas: towaris communism. or is it all cosmetic?
on the imagination of working people in the advanced USS& is admired by progressive movements trach more is not only not adranced socialism: it is nor even a secure: organic relationship with Eastern Europe, or exer a puil for its foreign policy posture than as a model of an advanced social order. Ti remains in world terms a backward, primitive state in iransition to socialism, still issue later. The point is that Soviet society's present form basis for the Soviet state's efforts into the 1990s. leave capitalist countries. And even in the third world Inday, the no doubt thal very many Russians do view Soviet life in this way. It is also the case that this catalogue of problems world — and it is by no means the case that thr lite of Soviet worker» 1s. in a qualitative sense, worsc" than that of workers in the west — we will return to trus importint alone the next century; it cannot secure a genuinels is not the same as the problems faced in the capitalis cion of cach others vital interests, and co-operation in The first idea came crashing down while Brezhner was still in office. He had presided over the achievement of L'S attack, and this will continue to give the Sovier Union a protection is only one aspect of the political sccurity of a state. The real core of Brezhnevite security policy was the chip with the USA through arms control, mutual recogni- serious active policy towards China, Western Europe, Japan or the third world: everything was subordinated to strategic parity with the OSA - Sovict ICBMs could guaranter an overwhelming second strike in the wake of a measure of military security into the 1990s, Bur military political goal of achieving a stable, co-operative relation- In this drive. the Brezhney leadership ignored any dynamism, but such reforms would improve the perfor- mance of the cxisting incchanism, not scrap it managing regional wars and revolutions.
SOCIALIST OUTLOOK no 1 November/December 1987 Stalinism or Trotskyism, bureaucratic rule or working TROTSKY'S GREAI contribution to the Marxis theory of the transition to socialism was his insistence that it is possible to have a proletarian in which is very far trom being paradise on caril. Such is aral has been the situation in which the Brezhnev generation of Teaders had been committed all their adult lives. Perestroika involves a real attempt to remodel the entire svstem as it was established over the last fifty years since the Stalin period. Tr is a real break in continuity with the orhodoxy of Stalinism. Trisa All this led a group within the Soviet leadership to challenge the idcas of the Brezhnev period, an idea, ro break which we have not been adequately prepared for- isolated within a far stronger capitalist world system. class power? the Soviet bloc, possibly even by military means, throughi into sumething like a new encirclement in the 1980s. This: was a mood close to panic within the Kremlin: a belief that by the USA and Washington was laying seige to a mimber URSk's irreversible escape from external thrcat had turned was a terrible shock to the Soviet leadership. By 1983 there Washington was hell-bent on a course of trying to destroy was exposed: Western Furope. Japan and China all seemed to be swinging into a new anti-Soviet alliance led What had been hailed by the Brezhney leadership as the the drive for a strategic political deal with Washington, 1o a craving for recognition and acceptance by Washington. Th 1979, Washington opcnect its jaws and sank its teeth into Brozhnevis dithering hand of superpower friendship. Suddenly the political impotence of the Breshney strategy of Soviet allies in the third world. 28
éausing grear anger. All this is true. But the point we are making is a differenr one: namcly that the Soviet working class has fell inself to be much better off and far more influential in every sphere of life chan any other social class in the Soviet L nion, Quantiratively they are far worse off than employed industrial workors in Germany or France; are far more secure and their influence on pubhe policy is far greater. qualitatively their lives I $ S R the tA Yet many who claim to subscribe to Tronsky's proletarian character of the Soviet state. Some give an idealist versions it's to do suit the continuing ideological roots of the Soviet state in the October revolution: others -- statisation of the means of production — which ibcoretical legacy find it hard to delend or even explain the say it simply means a formal characterstic of the conomy involves nu real benefit for the workers excepr full employ-
problem lies scwhere, in the replacemen of Trotsky's They are concerned only with mcans, oblivious of ends, they are timid, narrow-minded. obsessed with starus pesty privileges, with increasing their own power and Iration, indeed every desk worker in the LSAR Detrigs to Trocky's concept of burcuacracy in the ESSK was notbing to do with work prospers or the psychologesn FOR SOME COMRADES no douli, what we have said above seers nocenturedit the idea that the Soviel Matr is dominated by a bureaucracy: Tdon't consider thativer we have said in the slighnes negates che dea that the TISSR is government by a political caste of burcaucrats: The ury German imperialis thences whose thought bas been a staple diet in the academie system of che advanced burciucracy is the administrative modern corganisations and tie hureaucons aresomply the desk workers in the bierarchy: On this view of burcaucracy, everybody in enterprise nimumistration, in loval and central gocernment adminis- unetly different Icone Weberk bourpeois sociology: It had characteristics of desk workors Is was a ref-selecting caste. like the officer paste in the Prussian army. And it opcrated in the sphere of politics; it isa lorm of polibed rule whose central meaning is the political expropriation of the To short, the suppression of democracy abd its replacement by an authoritaran lore of state. Conception of bureaucracy by that of Weber A political caste of bureaucrats dominates the Sovict state. capitalis corld for decades. system lot tuitmosp consumption rsouces the burcaucratic class Weber the working people. Ultra-reactionaries like the late Leonard Schapiro are Closer to the mark when they wror that the working class is themon privileged class in the USSR and that the reason: for so lew strikes has been less to do with the police than ir right in their polemic with Trotsky when they wrot that they would accopt his analysis if events demonstrated two What about the atrocious behaviour of the KGB in arresting and imprisoning dissidents foreno more than Usolely. but all of this demonstrates that the USSR has been a very authontarian and intolerant spur given 1o trating certain kinds of dissent very brutally. But it But how can one say that the working class is the most: privileget class when you look at the privileges of the with the complete irislartion of every need fout want!) without any mediation of money. Bur what about plant ment, and even that, they often argue, is tore a by- printuct of chronic labour shortages deriving from over- with the sense of securny and well being among key groups of industrial workers. The Shachtmanites also got trends: an end to the terror and a reversal of the growing inequalities between managers and workers, In the 1950%, both thesc trends appeared and developed, they continued perfeccly legitimate political activity? And whar abour.che psychiatric hospitals and the appalling conditions in places like Vladimir prison or the Mordovian camps" doesn't mean the Ossk is a terrorist statc as it was in large degree under Stalin. As Tronky argued, you can have Бигсацсгасу? But which bureaucrats the top party and government otticials Their privileges arc indeed chor- mous = one is tempted to say they live in communism. investment than a consequence of the nature of the stare. so ile so up to the last years of Brezhnev. brutally authoritarian proletarsan states.
gramane. Trinvolves what might be called the Soviet road THEkt Is No great mystery about the Corbacher poi Gorbachev: for liberal burcaucratic rule and against the state burcanerals mimages. what about the Soviet equivalent of what we icachers, academi? These groups in general (leaving iside the political chicts amongst them) carn very little montan'a skilled worker — some of then considerably . or what abou would cill "professionale,
29 Second there is the development of market relations to Hungariar communist. In other words a swing to. Hungary ür Poland. But it is likely to expand conside- go so far as a capitalist-type of lalwur market plus significant unemploymeni: nor will it be allowed to and inequalities in the rapiralist sostem. Bur it will be a •Soviet Liberalism", We can summarise the main cle- wa NE rement: ending nationalised property rolations commodity production and various co operative forms of property. The actual scope of such changes is extremely arow m comparion. say. with the GOR, never mind median the stare serror of the cconomy. This will go much further down che road of decentralisis cconomic decision-making to the market and enterprises than the Kosygin reforms of the 1960s and it will be combmed with an element of enterprise self-management. But it will nor penerate anything approaching the social differentiation mentsas lellows. As lar as the ceonomy is concerned there in some spheres and replacing them with both perty rably, especially in agriculture. Finhermore they now their living: there is no renticr made to make the industrial workers in a real sense better off and mote secure than surrounding social groups. This idealism: it is product of the mormous poweriof the working Does the mean that Soviet indownial workers were barrenness and boredom of the lives of many. Then is greater democratic control among Sovier workers. The class, no bourgeoise of private property owners. Where in the capitalist world could vou hid plant managers carning. Ind under Khrushehes and Brezhuey great efforts were does siot need to be explained in terms of socialise bappy anil contended, withour grievances or problems? No. The Soviet workers are discontented abour many The indices of alcobolism tell a terrible story of the evidence of yearning for a freer society and for much huge and corrupt privileges of the policial elite have been oni His per cont more than skilled workers in the plant! aspects of their lives and in many ways deeply frustrated. class within the Soviet socio-cconomic sustem. SOCIALIST OUTLOOK n0:4 November/December 198/
principles: this is partly the result of picking up the writings of radical marketisers within the Soviet intelligensia wiose views are. not reflected in the party leadership and partly the resul of an inability to distinguish form From content Thus if people have to pay a lee for certain graules of social service this is nor egalitarian but it isalso not Tharcherism for the short of cash: their position is the reversc of that of worker Tis the field of social policy, the intelligensia and managers will be significant painers. sections of the privileged will be tion, hitherto the pootest section of at any rare the Russian There is a lot of nonsense being talked in the Wret about sunple reason that Soviet workers are not, on the whole substantial losers, On the other hand the peasant pupula = qualitative shock to the cconomic and social syston: wurking class, thar: were previously Gorlarties adopong *Thatcherite' population, will very likely gain.
Getting such things has to be via tie mediation cither of politics, or via the blark market and brites. But there is no The problem for British workers is that there is a vast don't Happen to have enough money to buy them The problem for Soviet workers is that they have plenty of cash hut can't use it to acquire goods and services they wanl doubt about it: Gorbachey: likc the Dubcekites in Grechoslovakia, is combating levelling cgalitarianism" array of goods and services in froud of their noses but they as it's calleil. here.
Brezhnev in the Kremlin — Washington's turn to cold war po SOCIALISTOUTOOK nut November/Decembe= 1997 Sorter polite tell antinor to be controlled to a penal veste if rupie are ery far from the popelological type of Weber* of them are rathet ascetic types- puritans in lact Others of course are rather given to losury but in any case. this is risks: when things gorwrong the party leadershp is is respmsile, whether its a shoragral tomatoes or a rise in the price of culie. Let them turn to caterprise managements. to the local sosmes Along with this there must be the devclopment of che great liberal idens of brriton and the fights of the individual. equality before the Low anilso on. Ofcourse driosis populr in wide ordes openily amongt As the rule change an the 271h parts congress made clear, the Communist Parry is to longer to beseen as the an appendage of die party. Insicad the state B to le munterstood us a contentional, legal -cue to which the party tell is subordinated. I will bord dimmed doen party — for the first time since 1050 the post-Stalin tremil to greatly cologe the party anil espectly to enlarge is working dam component was reversed in the 27th parro But tbe key point is that shese is no question of I will Be the represe 0f The poople: but it will be the sole representative: ratter like a Lockean oligarchs of a trules tonal polincians rachat Trunks ale/s baresucas, These burcaucrats: Miey are very tough, energctic topes with o formidable capacio for political struggle. Nor Are thes recestily obsessed with consumption privinges: many etc, thereby frecing the parry leadership fiom responsibil- core of all state institutions with the state itsch Is Manh Workers who. antir intellerass can't get the infurmr sovereign parliament in 18th century Britis. De hort tion the want frot soucces apar from the mass mecha. undermining the party's leading role Brezhnev's international strategy its for people's daily problem. milately always s0om congress chample. polinical ideas, via a demonstration, a public petition, an Gorbacher wouli like to reverse this: greatly iricrease: regional party exccutive. then up to oblast and finally to che cental committec. That had created an enormous political communiration upwards us well as downwards This is nor to say that such vertical commumication was out. But what the old system absolutely did not allow was lion communiculing acme socicty to their colleagues The profount worry in the leadership converns hostility can fire: Gorbachev did it to thousands of them in the ugro mal and not simply cosmetie changes in the political syse. The olit political system did email a Jor of vertical (This is something that bourgeon theorists simply cannot grasp beraise they cannot conceive of vertical political communication firing possible except vi cumpelive and the operations of autonomous" pressure pure — of course there was a lot of noise and static but ar both ends people can become very skilled at screening that workers in one plant or ireflectuals in one local organin that's what he micans when bon upwards to the Moscow centre. He wants to end the wards first to the plam party exccutive, then to the wright of political deload on the central political autho- tilies and one which always presented hoge pocential from the working class, The lower level burcaucrans you complex in the autumn of 1985. He sudderily presented hem with ewo weeks notice, and off they had urgo! He Can lie verv santi-burcaucratie", But he can't fire the It is important to realise that perestroika involves very he savs that withont democracy we cannot breath, Bur he situation where the workers with an economie or social or aiso wants to create some harriers to vertical communca political problem tomatically take that problem up- between the smallest political unit and the Morrow centre open conflict in the local soviet or party orgamsation. for horizontal pohrical communications harental communication working chase! 30
THERE IS VERY great political hostility in the tactics of the Gorbacher leadership within the Soviet political elite and Surveys of working disc opinion indieute strong support for glamost but deep suspicion of the lusic programme of - there is still a smung wal-and-sce-it-he-can-puli it-oft anitade despite left-wing of the Gorbartevite reform movernent, giving small, but important and protected Black Hundred of Solidarnose-type mosement within the bovict working revival offhe international Communist movement scems also a wide degree of hostility to his programniasic aims. The reform minded intelligensia is only half critcial support to the Gorbachev group against its ene- tes withun the party chic. And their is the growth of a Solzhenitzn-type of Purren socking popular base against It would be a big mistake to expect the rise of a class, in the present situation In the first place. the authority of the CPS is infinitcly greater amongst Soviet the Polish Ct — hasever been in Prland. Furthermore as a result of this bit, the less eventian Brezhnevis, fir less than Khrushcher's, There is an cmerg mobilised behind Gorbachev's rive workers than that ofthe PZPR What does the future hold? the relor and the jows". strong sympathy. perestroika.
ment when there are evidently so many potential levers for Thirdle, it is very possible that the bulk We the Soviet workers are hardly likcly to Ice] the need to cake the enormous risks nf creating such an autonomous move- sahotaging the reform within the CPst isell licies in the late 1970s exposed the political impotence of
31 ссопоте and social chunges or cron go along with them bourgeois wulil dream it doing. The time when 4 decade of experiener thar the bope and the vision box forces an the Case — ont vm the cidor of Gorborhesisne working casewuuld be prepared to retam houtral on the in exchange for what they considered a real and substan- tial measure of political fredour — what bappened 1n Czechoslovakin in 1968, lor rNample The working class thronghout the world has shown itselt orctand ner again to be propared to pay an astonishingly fitti economie Solidaroscope ot morement could appear on the agenda would be in the subcogueit historied plone sher for working das and their milian lsders in the party have helped their Goerek Gorbacher, to victory, have pur ber Luth in him and then base haters leve thronghor 10.a tea tope of corrupt, nowa sche society awas with dollars and Swis ban wroun and Against this backumund two questone tomain: does pisible nest step for the development of the production over Brezhness will de boskse of the Sover hotel couls sellasa genuine force! It the answer is -vos" supporting is leaders today, unconchoralls apposinas. enemies in the burcaucracy and prepoomy to trascend Scondk: Poset demeary — a formal structure al Boctor line when we consider anching to do with lar more than any Gorbachevism represent, in digorted form. the one them our comrudes in the Moscow socialist clubs are right: we should be the let wing of thr Gosharevies entrolly the only possible kes to svantee critcalls supporting political currente in the workers" lowank sochis in the Look and mother words the incally oblivious of the disgusting inegars and t prec ter gicater polical treedom — justicue of daily social fif Gorbacherism tomorros polirical platisin hune to aslim stares! • nonher hene mur there as lar as the analusis of the Sovict system is concerned. They are committed to a type of muthoritara ste, though a very different onc from the This brings us finally to the pes ronception of the rclationship berween the Sovir some and the world. The new leadership hoe in one sense choroughly rejected the Beheimal Fon Sense outer does not at alf incon a turd misde and withoot tartal concadictions in solacon Irom dower@squals conomy Autarky is our, There ica decrnation to paropan on the world maker anil Jents prosures openis appear wirh the Sover system. tempers to dochp conomic. technological idcolo mous shield that lus errectin the Soviet population from Chinade as Tris poisedia disimoral comedictionscotche Soviet stute can be rosicolonis on the plane of the mornacional cless struggle onk-through the vatory of sonialion in some of the advanced capitalist countnes. Thus tustorwall, there as be a dialectical molution: on the one hand the Soviet stare amus indeed operate within the existing relationships of states md cosmics in the world: ver tm the other hand the sochili sarkers and muellecteds of the Sovin Union must Be politically vegansing their links with the international swillie force to neerthrow this No such didermal conceptum seen in slightest degree to muriyate the new Sovad leadership. More than der in the past their horizons seem to de bounded be chor own purely sate shiplomatir interests, Their interest in a deed socion a hoe coumors. Ther are completels iepudaring the noton thar the Essa ron develop donne giral and cultral musdes strong cough to woosth as one tate among others in and word wahan the cmor SOCIALIST OUTLOOK I November/December: 198/ capitalise dommation of the world. thr capiralist worle
LAPOURANDIRELAND LARO URAN
and how the leadership of the TUC sabotaged that struggle and, in with the conference, Ireland: the cause of labour, which sixty-seven the end, sided with the sectarians. Here, GEOFF BELL gives the first detailed account of these events which we publish to coincide British trade union waged a brave struggle against sectarianism remarkable episodes in Irish labour history: a story of how one The 1920 carpenters" dispute in Belfast is one of the most Shipyard workers leaving Harland and Wolff's yard ar Queen's Island - Loyalist workers established o catholics out vigilance committee to keep
be made is for the organised workers to Carpenters, with some at their Bellast members Their of independence. That issue had been linked that the British goverment in rofusing to allow Ireland the form of government chosen by tie Irish people, and in assisting Poland in her arcack nn the Rumian republic. is betraying all che principles for which our na- tion fought (in the first world war), and that the most effective way in which procest can refuse to manufacture or transport mini- Two Bellast branches of the carpenters voted fourteen to lio to "strongly protest" - SOCIALS OUTIOOK It NombarDecamber 1997 By the end of it che loyalist mobs had driven women from their place of work The vast Among those victimised in the shipyards were several bundred members ol the Cabiher-makers and Joiners, The leaders of thr rarpenters" union. ax the ASCCI wis had only recently been It crouble May executive meeting had passod a troll- tion on Ireland, then in the trues of the wat with Britsh Intervention against the Russian resolution derlanng, viced deir disapproval of this motinn. One 1,000 catholic question of employment discrimination in the north of Treland. majority were never allowed to retur years on is trying to raise within the trade union movement the bons of war for Ireland or Polod 10,000 catholiu men and Sogety revolution with the SOCIALIST CUTIOOK Amalgamated known. ing ollered you our help, you are yourselves we tell you that we And these are not mere words I hace words 1p was initiated by a group called the Belfast Protes tant Association in one of the smaller Belfast shipyards. A few days after Carson's incite- micht its members produced revolvers ut a shipyard meeting and declared their inton- proved a very elastic term Those anached were but just supporters of Sinn Fein but every known casholic, trade anion militanes and socalists. The vindent sectanlanise sonn SPEAKING AT the annual July 12 orange ral- ly in 1920, Edward Carson, loner cabinet member and by then the undisputed leader of Ireland's loyalists: made a speech which traordinars. Addmaing his supporters in Belfast he said, 'We must procaim today clearly that, come what may, we it Ulster will tolerate no Sinn Fein — no Sinn Poin We tell you (the governmicor) rhis — thar if hav- will take the matter into our own hands.. ton of driving from their workplace every spread to other shipyards and workplaces. 'Sinn Feiner? they could find. "Sinn Feiner by even his iiflammatory srandards was ex organisation, go Sinn. Fein mucthods .. The artion followed quickly. unable to protect us withour action? traurdinary.