LEBED recently said that his powers are enough for the moment. This brutal soldier and Great Russian chauvinist, supported by Rodionoy, will surely reinforce his position within the government and state apparatus to ensure that ne suceeds Yeltsin.
However the same swoop that pulled in Lebed also brought in previously expelled free marketeers like Anatoly =-sas exc se iberai economisi Vic• -r Se E a Pone Minister. SEL7 ie Ries This i ret rarentators to t.d.e Jee apoCaens represent a cheir ie ce rase of General Lebed: but iher should not simply look to the power struggles around the throne. If the economic situation deteriorates quickly, Yeltsin himself may need to rely on the Lebed-Rodionov axis and its base in the armec torces.
All the main political expressions of the bureaucracy from the ultra-liberal Yabloco, through to the Yeltsin blac General Lebed, Zyuganov and the CPRF-led alliance, are based on ruptures over wno is going to get the spols and whose corporate and sectoral interests are being promoted in the scramble to accumulate private property.
The whole bureaucracy is intent on restoring capitalism although there are deep and often bitter divisions about how to do so. This has led to tanks on the streets on more than one occasion For over six years the vast bureaucratic apparatus of the state and party has been dividing politically and disintegrating into corporate power structures and gangs. Now a profound economic crisis is reaching the limits of social stability.
A primary cause of the paralysis of the bureaucratic project however is fear of the working class, as Trotsky explained so well in The Revolution Betrayed (1936). Unfortunately the working class, faced with economic and political catastrophe, still has no independent political expression or coherent alternative policy. Although its social weight, economic power and growing militancy is self evident in the main it is still tied to the various wings of the The genuinely socialist hure ucracy left organised in currents like the Democratic Left remains a small and marginal force.
The traditional corporate dependency of workers on their enterprise managers for work, housing and all kinds of necessities has helped mobilise many workers behind the CPRF. Today this is breaking down representing a growing independence of the working class. A lot of people voted against all the candidates in the first round. In the second round Yeltsin managed to win majorities in many cities within the industrial belt of the Urals where Zyuganov was strong. The Vorkuta miners did not believe in any of the ephemeral promises and went on strike during the voting. These contraditions and divisions within the working class can only be overcome by struggle.
Here lies the importance of the strike waves over back pay and the anger at Yeltsin's failure to fulfil his promises. The tasks todav are to convince the
Socialist Outlook 106 • August 1996