Behind Putin's sinister turn to Russian nationalism …
"Reforms" aim to carve up the spoils of privatisation
Russian socialist Boris Kagarlitsky was in London for a conference in October, and spoke on the latest situation to Sheila Malone and Nicolas Kapracos.
What do you think the Putin government represents?
In the previous period under Yeltsin, the main goal of the ruling elite was to privatise government property and divide it among themselves. In order to do this they needed, both ideologically and institutionally, a liberal permissive regime. But it was not just that they hid the real value of the enterprises which were privatised at about 1% of their real value.
It was also about denying the real value of the Soviet experience and the society which had existed - by saying everything which was build in the Soviet period, politically, materially and morally has no value; the real values are in the West, so so we shouldn't care about losing everything we have in Russia.
Now the Russian post communist capitalism has reached a new stage - everything is already stolen and basically divided between the oligarchs. The main problem now is not stealing or taking something away from the people, but preserving this stolen property.
So the regime had to move from a liberal, westernised stage in its development to a conservative nationalist stage of development.
In the West some say there is a conflict between Putin and the oligarchs. But actually there is no conflict between Putin and the oligarchy as a collective, but only between Putin and individual oligarchs.
In the Russian oligarchy relations are very personal. So once the president was replaced, so were some oligarchs, because their economic power was very much a function of their political power.
So there is a struggle now of some people in the Putin administration, and by Putin himself to replace particular oligarchs. So for example, they now want Beresovsky to have less influence, and Guzinsky, head of the biggest media holding will be forced to resign.
At the same time, there are new people coming in, like the banker Vladimir Kogin, who is part of Putin's St Petersburg entourage. (Yeltsin was from Moscow). But the structures of the oligarchy will remain the same, just a change of names at the top. Their property structures will not be undermined, nothing will be confiscated, no power taken away from their institutions
You need a real police state to protect the interests of the new elites, to protect their property and the hierarchies which emerged out of the previous stage. There will be increased daily policing of Russians; the powers of the police over an average citizen will increase dramatically. At the same time, the capacity to resist the state or the employers legally will decrease.
Then you need nationalism and a sense of national unity. You have to establish certain rules and solidarities within society to keep it together. When you steal everything from the population so that 4% end up with more than 80% of the wealth, something is needed to pull the population together to prevent it rebelling.
Nationalism is sometimes presented demagogically as anti-Western. But in practice it's not. Although some Russian leaders make noises, on every important issue they do whatever pleases Washington.
But the real essence of Russian nationalism is their racist attitude towards national minorities. Because to consolidate nationalism you have to consolidate it against someone and something - mainly national minorities inside Russia.
Putin has made three things very clear:
Firstly, not only will privatisations not be reversed but oligarchy capitalism will be perpetuated.
Secondly, the new wave of liberal reform is going to start with the team of reformers around German Grev and Andrei Leonov, his closest advisors.
Maybe the pensioners and some poor people are going to get a little more money, but the state subsidies are going to be taken away. Housing is going to be commercialised. The pension system is also going to be restructured to be based on individual insurance. Heating, gas and electricity will be completely marketised.
At the moment for example the state owns the biggest stake in the Russian electricity monopoly. They will sell off the most profitable bits of the company, mainly to foreigners, which will probably mean that electricity will be diverted to other countries.
Anatoly Chubais, head of the electricity company, a key person in the first wave of reforms has said, "There will be no electricity for those who don't want to pay, no heat for those who cannot pay." So if you cannot pay for fuel you will freeze or starve to death next winter.
So we have these 3 elements of legislation now passing through the Duma - the Administrative Code, the Tax Code and the Labour Code. This is a systematic political attack on working people.
Let's start with the Administrative Code which allows the police to do almost everything they want. So for example, you cannot walk on the streets without having a passport. This is an attack on guest workers and immigrant workers, but also limits the capacity to move around the country for Russian people as well, because you have to register with the local police. So you have to work where you live.
People won't stop moving to get jobs, but they will be turned into illegal immigrants inside their own country. This means that they will not go on strike, nor fight against their employers, because if you have a quarrel with your employer, he just calls in the police who will immediately arrest you.
Secondly, the infamous new Tax Code, already in place, means that from January 1 there will be no progressive taxation in Russia, just a flat rate of 13% for everyone. Existing taxation hasn't been all that progressive - it has hit the middle class rather than the rich. Today a person on $500 a month will pay 3 times more proportionately than the person on $100. But the person on $10,000 will pay the same as those on $500.
So they claim the new rate will help the middle class However, the middle class is usually paid in black cash anyway
Actually what the changes do is to create enormous tax breaks of 17% for the rich. And even if these people reveal only a small percentage of their income to the state, nevertheless on this percentage the tax advantage is incredible. And at the same time business taxes are being lowered.
All this means poor people have to pay a bigger share of state taxes and income.
This anti-working class orientation of the legislation culminates in the new Labour Code. This de facto abolishes the 8 hour day and reintroduces a 12 hour day. So it's the first time in modern history that there is a retreat from the gains of 80 years ago.
And they make us feel happier because they say the introduction will be gradual. So if you're in a company that still has an 8 hour day, when your contract expires, the employers can introduce a 12 hour day.
In a country with high unemployment and weak unions and a lot of people working illegally, there is no way for people to resist legally, because you will be sacked. The Code gives employers almost total freedom to hire and fire.
It almost abolishes the presence of the unions at the shop floor level, but it doesn't touch the powers of the trade union bureaucracy at the top. Here everything stays as it used to be, because the trade union bureaucracy at the top is no danger for the elite: on the contrary they co-operate quite closely. The attack is basically on the grassroots, on the basic structures of the unions
How have the working class resisted especially as regards privatisation?
The labour movement is in decline because it was badly defeated in 1993. In 1998 there was a sort of revival with the so called rail war, when people started blocking the railways. Then Primakov was elected - a left of centre government and people went back home, expecting him to deliver.
The situation did improve a bit. He managed to put pressure on the enterprises to minimise wage delays from an average of 4-6 months to 2-3 months.
Also under Primakov the price of oil rose to $18-$20 a barrel. He also forced the oil companies to bring more of their dollar income into Russia. This influx of money allowed the government to solve money problems simultaneously - to pay wages and keep fighting the war in Chechnya. So the Russian elite now felt strengthened, and didn't need him any more. This was one of the reasons why he was sacked in 1999.
But the labour movement had been demobilised because it expected him to deliver - and the demobilisation lasted long after he went. So the hopes invested in the labour movement by many on the left in 1998 proved to be wrong.
But now in the last months we see a new tide approaching. People are starting to organise at a grassroots level on a cross-sectional basis.
The new Labour Code is a very good challenge for the trade union movement. Then the development of alternative union Zashita as a new phenomenon. It is still very small, no more than 30,000 members. But it is growing quickly, tripling its size in the last 3 years.
Zashita has discovered a strategic role for itself in the movement, to be a vanguard union - not in the old Communist sense that you are the vanguard with the best ideology, but basically you begin the struggle, you engage in the battle on a very important issue, and you provoke the other unions, bigger and probably less radical to follow.
The government wanted to pass the Labour Code in the Spring, but have had to delay it at least twice, because of growing resistance. There been cases where people won particular strikes, and court cases, and the famous one where people won against McDonalds. People tried to unionise at McDonalds and everyone was sacked immediately. But then they went to court, and surprisingly they won against McDonalds.
This is important symbolically: people can point to these victories to show that the movement can achieve results. And finally December 1, the Day of Action against the Labour Code, will be an important challenge. On December 7 the Duma will vote on the Code.
The alternative unions are organising all sorts of events including strikes, pickets, sit-ins, demonstrations. And it looks like a lot of people from the official unions will join in, including whole branches, although the official structures have not backed the event so far but instead pretend it does not exist. So it is very important in terms of showing the new, emerging unity from below.
I think some of the "liberal" press will give at least moral support to the action because there is such a clear attack on the most basic achievements of working people and the Code also undermines basic human rights.
The war in Chechnya has been called "Putin's war". Can you talk about its origins, the reasons why it is continuing, and the likely outcome?
The casualties are much higher now even than in December 1999, during the storming of Grozny. The Russian army is in real trouble - their causalities are increasing while the Chechen losses are negligible.
Russian troops control the fortifications and checkpoints, but when they try to move a column with supplies on the roads they risk ambush. Then they retaliate, but not against guerrilla targets, but civilians. So now the villages wanted the guerrillas to come to their villages because it is safer. This also means people are joining the guerrillas.
Now in Chechnya it's much safer, especially for a male, to be a guerrilla than a civilian. You have a gun, and the military will treat you with some care, and there are people around you to protect you. So the guerrillas are increasing their power.
On the Russian side they are afraid the army will not survive the winter - they do not have enough clothes and ammunition; the roads are not safe, and the skies are not clear enough for aircraft.
Secondly, they are afraid of a massive Chechen uprising in the spring. Not because the guerrillas are popular, but because the Russian army is even less so.
The war was started in order to consolidate a nationalist ideology. Russia needed the war to consolidate against "the enemy", as "one fighting nation". It was very much linked to racism, a new understanding of the Russian state, i.e. not of all citizens, but of ethnic Russians, and religiously of Orthodox Russians. And one of the justifications for the war is the fight against Islam.
The war was also necessary to create the conditions for Putin to be elected, even through electoral fraud. There was massive electoral fraud reported in the Russian press but ignored by Western sources.
In that sense, the war was a double success for Putin, because a new state identity was established and Putin was elected. The nationalist hysteria was a success because many people sided with the government on a nationalist, racist basis.
This very much undermined the left. It also completely destroyed the nationalist opposition, because the government itself is nationalist.
The problem, however, is that the war is lost. So all the political aims were achieved, but the war militarily is a complete disaster. Now they don't need the war any more and they are seriously thinking how to end it.
The military too want to end it, even those who have made money, because their deals with the guerrillas are unstable and can be reversed if the balance of forces changes.
It is a very medieval situation, like the 30 Years War, when people fought each other and then made deals, but still kept fighting. The military now feel that they are getting weaker and there is strong pressure to end the war.
However, the government cannot stop the war without acknowledging one of two things. Either it must acknowledge military defeat or that the war had nothing to do with their officially proclaimed aims.
Can they find a solution, as in the first war, by negotiation this time?
They can, but this time negotiation will be seen as a defeat. They started this second war with the slogan that negotiations had failed, that we can't negotiate with the Chechens.
Then there is the question of what sort of settlement the Chechens would accept Nothing less than the withdrawal of the troops and some kind of compensation will do, because Grozny was destroyed. But the Russian state is not really interested in serious compensation.
However, even if the Chechens are gaining militarily, it does not mean they have the recipe to win politically, because an independent Chechnya is a very dubious concept.
Firstly, there is a big question as to whether it is viable economically, socially and culturally. Secondly, it is not certain that this has the support of the majority of the population. It is one thing wanting the troops out, but another wanting a fully independent state. Chechen independence was not very strongly supported under the Dudayev republic, and even less under Maskhadov.
I think there is a dead end for both sides. On the one hand, the Russians cannot win the war but they cannot keep the Chechens under their control. On the other hand, the pro-independence forces do not have the political base in Chechnya itself to run their country if the troops are withdrawn.
I think they will be some kind of compromise with the Chechen warlords, who will run the Chechen republic but some kind of Russian protectorate status.
The problem is: what will be the political price? Half a million Russians have already gone through the Chechen war. These people will come home and will say, why did we fight there for two years, losing so many people and killing so many people? What was the purpose?
And they're told, well, we made a deal. So then there will be an enormous political bill presented to the Russian government, including from the military, where those who are not corrupt will challenge those who are.
Might an Islamic regime be possible?
The Chechens are deeply divided between those who want some kind of Islamic regime and the rest. There are three divisions actually. The Wahubi Islamic faction wants a Saudi-style Islamic state with Sharia law.
Then there are the traditionalists who interpret Islam differently and support the clan system, the clan elite and common law of the Chechen tribes.
The third group is the secular Chechens, mostly from the north..
Under Dudayev, the first period of de facto independence, the country was run by the northerners, who tried to have some kind of political power base in the south, amongst the traditionalists there - a compromise between the traditionalist clans and the northern elites, the modernisers. But it failed.
The modernisers tried some concessions, for example, Dudayev's famous decree prohibiting girls from attending school after the age of 11.
However, at the same time, Dudayev did everything possible to prevent his decree being carried out. They never enforced it in the north, so people just ignored it. They also introduced private schools for girls anyway, which had public support and funding. Then under Maskhadov - who is a very good military man, but no politician, things started to retreat even further.
The Wahubis now moved in, complicating things even further because they were against both the secularists and the traditionalists. They gained influence because they were anti-elitist, anti-traditionalists.
So for example Balayev, who was a famous guerrilla leader who was originally more associated with a left wing approach, moved towards the Wahabis and finally joined them. He moved away from his original clear internationalist positions - for a multicultural, secular state and equal rights.
He had issued a famous statement saying we should do everything to prevent Russians leaving Chechnya, because they are also Chechen citizens and have the same right to this land. But in 1997 he moved to the Wahubi side.
This demonstrates the weakness of the left. The Wahubi was the only available ideological alternative to the struggles between the secular and the elites.
Do women fight with the guerrillas?
Yes, a lot. But more in the first war. In the second war, less, because it is much harder physically to survive, especially if you are in the core guerrilla contingent - not the fighting, but the winter and the hardships of daily life. The increasing influence of the Wahubis and the traditionalists also makes things more difficult for women.
Originally, Maskhadov clearly tried to gain a power base among women, presenting himself as someone who could defend their rights against Islamicisation. He was elected first and foremost with the votes of women.
To gain the votes, he used a specific oriental voting technology. Men were not allowed to enter the polling stations together with women. So women voted first, and only after the women had voted were the men allowed in.
This was not to do with Islamic discrimination against women: on the contrary, if women had gone to vote with their husband, brother etc, there would have been a moral pressure on them to vote the same way. But this way, they went separately and voted independently, deciding for themselves.
Maskhadov is a progressive nationalist, Maskhadov and Dudayev were very much within the Soviet tradition, former officers, generals. And they wanted to keep the same rules for women as they had under the Soviet period.
But now Maskhadov is facing the growing influence of both the Wahabis and the traditionalists. So to combat the Wahabis, the traditionalists will probably make some compromise with the secularists against the Wahabis. Because the secularists did less to undermine the clan structure than the Wahabis do.
But the Russian government is now trying to do a deal with the secularists. They see the Wahubis as the main danger. And if you want to achieve some stability, all 3 sides must be involved in the compromise in the long run. But the main victims of this compromise may be women. Because even as regards the secularists, women may be the issue on which it is easiest to make concessions.