THE COMMUNISTS have come out on top in the first meaningful free elections in Russia.
The victory is more than fust a continuation of election results across the ex-COMECON states. Russia is the home of 1917.
The result makes late capitalism's and gloom of those on the left who are abandoning 1917 to the unreconstructed Stalinists.
The Communist Party of the Russian Federation mainly won because their election programme was popularly beHerco to be against Bons Telsin s market reforms. It was irrelevant to the workers and agricultural proletariat that the Communists' programme was for a more gradualist introduction of But we should not go overboard. The vote was not in favour of 1917 or socialism as such. It shows opposition to the anarchy of the market. It is not simply the Russian working class resuming their forward march.
The East has not gone red but reacThere are also other reasons for the victory which are mostly specific to Russia and are not so positive.
Ordinary people wanted a return to order against the growing social fragmentation produced by the new frontier-style capitalism. The Brezhnerdisgruntled and the politically aghast.
Also some voted for the Communists because their lives depend on the Russian military and industrial complex. The fragile position of the Russian military was demonstrated by the near meltdown of Russian nuclear subs when the gas bill was not paid. It is also snown oy the ponaco-minary staicmate in Chechenya-a war which the Communist Party has been publicly And the vote also showed that Russia is becoming increasingly fragmented. Moscow and St Petersburg were the heartlands of the vote for capital-against the regions.
It is possible for capital to coberently organise itself in the cities of the west where its representatives can improvise Moscow and St Petersburg were the heartlands of the vote for Copitol-ogoinst the regions the supposed future benefits of a mar*teet catile dese areas reforme But outside these areas reforms mean that wages are not paid and pensions are worthless. There may now be food in the shops but most people have no moncy to oug it. i docs not take d genius to make the link between the land privatisation and the shortage of Another significant reason for the victory is the nationalist Communist bourgeoisie and its foreign allies. This Is Important for Kussian peopic wnc have been encircled by hostile powers for most of the twentieth century.
in the election Yeltsin walked into the oldest Russian bear trap of them all-allowing the Communist Party to portray him as a westerner against the Motherland.
Bolshevik leadership of the nation was for a workers' and peasants' republie but was also against capitulation to the West and its emissaries from Nicholas il to Komilov. In the same way Stalin slandered Trotsky as an agent of imperialism. Now the Communists are against a true agent of imperialismAll of this poses real problems for imperialism. Yeltsin first appealed in a nation-wide broadcast for people not to vote for the Communists. He then argued after the vote that it would not make any difference.
This is behaviour of a sick man with a severely ocatco pontical pronic. inc effect of the Communist victory has been to push the bulk of reformers towards temporarily slowing down the pace of marketisation and promoting some populist adjustment. They are adYabcing Lass stratery to peel oll part of the Communist vote to gain 51 per cent necaca in ine prestocatial ciccion in the summer.
A new reform programme is being prepared for the election which will talk the language of the people while also preparing for a carnival of reaction if the Communist Party is defeated. It is then that those without the stomach for the fight will be pushed aside by an An authoritarian candidate is also a real possibility. Populist General Led. bed believes that the Pinochet alternaNevertheless the working class of Russia, the first workers' state in the political history does not disthrow aside their historic organisations To lose a welfare state is one terrible prospect out to lose control of a whoic state is something of quite a different historical order.
Yeltsin may have finished with 1917 but 1917 has not yet finished with him. The election results of December 17 1995 have created a situation which revolutionary Marxists can and must exploit The battle for Russia is now
Socialist Outlook 95 • January 25 1996. g