than 60 million people in poverty, the deterioration of the health service and a • The regime's loss of any political legitimacy, with the development of a broad (oppressed • A deep ideological and moral crisis in the bureaucracy, which went out of control.
Ill-conceived
Gorbachev's defeat was the defeat of economic perestroika. Ill-conceived from the start, changing direction frequently, combining increasingly contradictory aims, perestroika ended up dismantling the old 'command economy without substituting anything coherent for it. After one or two For the Soviet people, this meant an accelerating decline in their standard of living. As a result, Gorbachev lost any Gorbachev's foreign policy was based around stopping the arms race at any price and geting technological and financial aid from the West to stop the whole edifice from crumbling.
This translated into reactionar regional agreements", affecting both the Cuban and Central American revolutions and the South African and Arab liberation struggles.
But closing one's eyes to the positive changes that took place in the USSR would be These changes can be summed up as of lemocratic freedoms enjoyed by the masses.
They were certainly limited, partial democranc nents wren were nor contstitutionally guaranteed. They were which increased in Gorbachev's latter days.
But they were real rights: a larger number of parties, political groups, and independent workers' organisations developed. Uncensored publications appeared. Public demonstrations were were held which gave voters a choige The putschists of August 1991 wanted' to severely limit, panet es segers. They amed op eif. cally to withdraw the right to strike and suppress independent workers' orsanisatons This is why they had to be opposed by any means available. And it's why the coup's defeat was welcome.
The workers of the ex-Ussk now need to conduct a struggle on two fronts: to defend and extend democratic rights; and To abandon either of these would be to sacrifice the fundamental interests of the working class.
There is no chance of developing or winning. the pontcar revoradon ir tre USSR without the working class regaining us orsamsatonsr autonouuy and class political independence. It is impossible to realise these aims without a ong period of developing struggles and the emergence of a new vanguard.
Without real democratic freedoms, this would take much longer, be much more difficult, and have much less chance of success. Gorbacher was overthrown by a wing of the bureaucracy led by bons relsin, who represents a wing of the top nomenklatura. Due to his past and his Yeltsin is a man of the apparatus. If one thing distinguishes him from Gorbachev, it is authoritarian and so more dangerous By contrast with Gorbachev, who still vaguely supports socialism, Yeltsin openly supports the restoration of But when judging politicians, what they think is not coush. ihe most in portant thing is to look at what they do in practice and the social interests they represent.
From this standpoint, Yeltsin and his allies in the liquidation of the USSR in favour of the Confederation of Inde endent States' represent a fraction of the nomenklatura. This is quite distinct from the bourgeois forces as such (the nouveaux millionaires), even if the two do intersect.
The classic case is that of the Presidents of Kazakhstan and the Ukraine, who with Yeltsin betrayed' Gorbachev class is infinitely stronger than its op1917 or 1927.
But, for Stalinism to be overthrown by a revolution, the working class has to act as an independent social force. This is not happening.
Stalinism discredited the very idea of As a result the vacuum created by the deep lacoosical and morat crisis Soviet society is not about to be filled by The worker are acting, but around immorate, snort torm awe, ia was mented way. Right wing forces have the hat one could have had up until 1980Does this mean that a restabilisation ol nomen orSoGORO capitalism are more likely? It means nothink or the kina. Iney are just ar improbable as a breakthrough for the politicas revolution.
Yeltsin's pro-bourgeois government tion. But there is an enormous distance berween the bezuins ana the eno For there to be a real restoration of capitalsm, an extension or the marker economy which is much less widespread today than it was under the NEP - is not enough. The major means of production and exchange would also have to become commodities.
That means at least a thousand billion dollars, which is currently as impossible a sum in the West as in the USSR itself. The labour force would have to submit to the laws of the 'labour market'.
That means tens of millions of unemployed and a drop in the standard of living of 30 to 50 per cent. That would meet with strong resistance.
So the most likely outcome is a long period of decomposition and chaos. But here is a modest but real hope that during this period the Soviet working class will slowly reconquer its class independence.
The main task of the small socialist forces consists of linking up with this process to aid the workers in overcoming the obstacles.
No. 15 Feb. 1, 1992 Page 7
is Livingstone trying to split the hard left? Under threat? Jeremy Corbyn MP Holding hands with anyone but cl