NOT MANY Muscovites cheered in the New Year in Red Square this year - a last desperate dash around the state shops was more the order of the day.
Citizens of the ex-USSR are now feeling the first effects of the disintegration of the union and the mad rush towards And those efas opposed to Yeltsin's rhetoric - have not been long in coming.
After the defeat of the August coup-the last fling of the union much doubt as to the short term future of the Soviet state. And any lingering doubts as to whether Gorbachev might Preserve kind of revamped, federal union were swept away with the massive vote for independence in the Ukraine. No union could surIt was also the death blow to Gorbachev's authority, already weakened in the aftermath of the coup. With Gorby and the central state gone, Yeltsin could get down to business - -Orane make a desperate attempt to stop the union collapsing into chaos.
But the task he has set himself is near impossible, and he has hardly made a promising start The legacy of six decades of is a melting pot of stalinism nationalities who have been dented the nent to seir acres mination; and a near-bankrupt economy, with none of the capital necessary for the marketisaon plans that the Russia resident has announce The first of his problems - the explosion of the 'prison house of nations' - means that the new Commonwealth of Republics, feted as the replacement for the union, will not live long.
It is difficult to see how even the richest of the republics could get by without some form of economic co-operation with others, but the political agree ments are already crumbling.
The victory of thestrugglefor national self determination arising out of the defeat of the coup was an enormous step forward, but nonetheless carried dangers with it.
The potential for destruction arising out of national conflict between and within the repubnes is almost namess th one of largest armies and the world. And the signs of any potential for ment are hardly encouraging. with Georgia, Ukraine's seizure of the Black Feet and Armenia and Azerbaijan on the brink of war.
As for the economy, attacks on workers' living standards are nothing new though thes are worse than their predecessors.
The only real surprise has been Boris Yeltsin's methods. Most of his supporters expected him to get a Ping me openie ad opposite way around. As one commented said, it's rather like giving a pationt the anaesthetic after the operation.
Workers are certainly being O RELES? hit hard by the price increases. and worse is to come. But is Tensin actual gonna any closer to his aim, a market economy? No, not much. The reality is that very little will change in the economies of the old Soviet bloc until the big bastions of industry start to go into private ownership.
This appening nywhere. In the ex-USSR, thei haven't even tried. But even in Poland or Hungary, where they have been trying for years, they haven't sold more than a few factories.
no-one has been prepared to invest any significant sums of capital into eastern Europe (east Germany is the exception to the rule).
There are two main reasonsfirst, most of the Western economies are in crisis themsel ves and are investing any capital they can lay their hands on at home; second, they have no (or even get their money in the east.
These are the kind of immense problems that Yeltsin faces - and tactical skill doesn't seem to be his greatest asset.But if we can say that his chances of success aren't good, what is the There is a big danger that the death of another. It is not difficult to predict that war and poverty will lead to a scarch for radical solutions among the hundreds of millions of citizens of the republics.
And it's pretty clear that the discredited' name of socialism will not be the first option that Álready some of Yeltsin's allies are canvassing authoritarian solution', while castern Germany employed youth are queuing up to hear the grotesque speeches of the proponents of the Fourth Reich. Defenceless immigrants without a real voice in society have always been an easy scapegoat.
But the only real answer is not an easy one. It is one that can only be built on the basis of a rebuilding of the self-confidence of the working class, through their own experience of living standards.
It is through this that workers will build up their own move ment, spurred on perhaps by the small bastions of workens organisations like the Soviet miners.
It is the reassertion of the class struggle that will allow the working class in the republics -a massive social force - to develop their own organisations and their class consciousness. And this is where the left have a role to play, even in a as gloomy as that in the republics today.
Preparing for that task now, putting forward a working class solution to the soviet crisis, 1% essential ground work for the fuThe small groups of socialists in the republics have a thankless task - but they are the best insurance for the years to COme