Perestroika and the Soviet People Rose Press, £9.95p. Reviewed by Paul Clarke Discussion of the momentous changes in the ex-Soviet Union in the press and on TV revolves around the changes at the top, and the dramatic moments of coups and mini-wars. David Mandel's book starts the other way around. What are the effects of the debacle of perestroika on the Soviet people? How has their political thinking progressed? What organisations are they building?
The author's assessment of these things is based on his wide travels in the ex-USSR and discussions with hundreds of labour movement activists and other workers. is the attacks on the working class through the move towards marketisation. His essays detail the 'mafiaisation' of the economy, the push for power of the pro-market iberals. the real character of the diferent poitical partes. ano above ail te process made towards the creation of an inde. pendent cour movemen.
To be sure, this progress is slow and halting. The one major inde pendent union which has beon buit is the Independent Miners Union (IMU), which now has about 60,000 members. Two chapters of the book are devoted to the 1990 miners strike and the March- April 1991 strike wave.
The leaders who took power in the diferent republics after the August 1990 coup are pro-capitalist market-liberais, almost wthout excepbon. But the consciousness of the workers about the meaning of marketieation and the move towards capitalism is contradictory and conMandel ilustrates this in dotai by reference to the programmes and discussions of the miners. Often they support marketisation, while at the same time expressing oppostion to price rises and capitaisml Every political idea in the spectrum can be found among those who support the market.
In addition to his overview of the boitical transformahons, and his detail about the labour movement, Mandel goes into depth about the suucan in te raciones, and the post Son of women under perestroika.
To mace ant assassment of the situation in the ex-USSR it is not enough to adopt general sloganising positions: you have to know about the real stuation on the ground, the forces in motion and the abrupt chanNo. 16 ges in consciousness which ato oc cuma. Wand Manoel nas maios de invaluable contribution to the raw materials for a sanous anaisis of the ex-USSR.
His conclusions are sober; there is no sugestion here of any rapid victory of a democratic socialist alter. native. But he provides ample evidence of the determination, the inventiveness and corage of the new labour movement. And in that, a lot the long-term outcome of the crisis.
# your local bookshop doesn? from Freedom Press, , Angel Aley, Feb. 15, 1992
- Marxism