-Caveat Lector-
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Mon, 13 Sep 1999 22:14:00 EDT
Subject: Russia: The New Turn
RUSSIA'S NEW TURN - by Steve Myers - 8th September 1999
For weeks the western media has been full of stories about massive Russian
corruption scandals. Republican Jim Leach, head of the US Congress committee
investigating allegations of Russian money laundering says the loot totals
more than $100 billion - "the greatest social robbery in human history".
Yeltsin’s own family is implicated in the charges. Some of the western and
Russian mass media are ominously focusing on just a few Russian Jewish
oligarchs. Whatever, a re-birth of the cold-war has begun where Russians are
again being characterised by the west’s media as somehow less than human.
Throughout the 1990s the US wanted, and still wants, to turn Russia, home of
the richest natural resources in the world, into massive semi-colonies,
preferably broken up east and west and also south around the energy-rich
Caspian basin. The IMF encouraged the rapid privatisation approach which
caused the near industrial extinction of Russia - and the deep pauperisation
of its population - whilst being the major benefactor in the buying and
selling of industry; and of gold, gas, oil and mineral exports. A good
example of western super-exploitation is the wages paid by GAP-clothing
outsource factories to Chinese immigrant workers near Vladivostok - eleven
US-cents an-hour (!)
But the western capitalist dream of being able to super-exploit the country
without destabilising it, is now proving a spectacular failure in the wake of
the August 1998 economic collapse. With unemployment and huge wage arrears
pauperising much of the population, the mass workers struggles of the last 18
months, and some key smaller ones, demonstrate that workers’ patience is at
an end. Simultaneously they do not know where to go. Ordinary Russians are
aware now of the massive con-trick performed on them by the west. The NATO
bombing of Yugoslavia has re-enforced this. 85% of Russians prefer the old
‘Stalinist’ system to what they have now - and healthier anti-capitalist
and anti-IMF/Yeltsin feelings have never been higher.
In what could be called "Russia’s new turn", the Russian elites and
oligarchs, have now ditched pro-IMF Yeltsin, and are scheming to mutate the
healthier feelings of the impoverished Russian masses - towards
ultra-nationalism and anti-Americanism. They rightly fear a new October 1917.
However there is no mass party to lead this, and the oligarchs appear to be
succeeding. Antisemitic attacks are up this summer - and such feelings are
running very deep now. The fight for a genuine workers and/or revolutionary
party is still in embryo, and the mass Communist Party actively supports the
defence of Russian capital and a strong state, and spreads ultra-nationalist
patriotic ideas daily.
For the western bourgeoisie, anxious to divert blame from themselves as the
‘greatest robbers’, yesterday’s democrats and good reformers are today
proclaimed mafiosi and thieves. Meanwhile, the Russian oligarchs are trying
to build a mass nationalist power base to throw off the western yoke and
become the unchallenged arch-exploiters of the region themselves. They are
determined that their capitalist Russia will not become a semi-colony - "we
will exploit our own".
Enter the new Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. It is clear he had the power to
force Yeltsin to appoint him PM, and demand Yeltsin’s backing for the
Presidency next summer. As former leader of the FSB (successor to the KGB),
he still controls this, the one institution that has not lost much power over
the last decade. Indeed a reorganisation of security forces has put even
greater surveillance powers in Putin’s hands. Putin is no revolving-door
Prime Minister. He represents the intelligence services, combined with much
of the defence industry and military leadership. These bureaucrats and elites
want the prestige of the old Soviet Union back - but only as a capitalist
state.
Similarly, the sections of the Russian bourgeoisie who have abandoned Yeltsin
for the new Luzhkov-Primakov Fatherland All-Russia party (FAR) also need a
powerful state to stand up to the west. However, they all recognise the need
for western investment and technology - and so are unable to take on the IMF
as a whole. One oft-talked of option is to win continental western Europe
(Euroland) from such close ties to the USA. They do not need to try hard. The
Russian elite also need (and have already begun) to cultivate a powerful ally
in the form of China. Indeed, Communist leader Zyuganov, has often talked of
a Russia that is geographically central to a powerful capitalist Eurasia
super-bloc to challenge US global hegemony.
Meanwhile the US will continue with its key global strategy of stopping
either Europe and/or Asia uniting as a super-imperialist bloc to challenge US
global hegemony. To keep opposition forces fighting each other, it is obvious
that stoking up nationalism and wars in the Caspian, Caucasian and Central
Asia region is of key importance to US global needs, geographically and
economically. Just glance at a map! However, US actions could backfire,
especially as they seem to be driving Russia, China and central Asian
countries closer together, with the US understood to be giving a nod and a
wink to Saudi Arabian/Kuwaiti funding of large, well-armed Islamic guerrilla
units in Dagestan.
Before the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia, the CIS federation (ex-USSR area) had
been reduced to Russia and Kazakhstan. Indeed, the US had sponsored the
building of an anti-Russian alliance in the southern region, GUUAM,
consisting of Georgia, Ukraine, Uzbekhistan, Azerbaijan and Moldova. Since
the war ended, when the new Russian turn began, Byelorussia, Kirghizstan and
Tadzhikstan have rejoined the CIS, and now Uzbekhistan the Ukraine and
Moldova are in serious discussions about rejoining too. GUUAM has been
smashed up and temporarily US policy is in tatters, with much back-biting
behind the scenes in Washington. Meanwhile, US advice to their own
businessmen and ‘investment’ in the region has reversed - and many are
pulling out or lessening risks.
Primakov/Luzhkov and/or Putin in power would honour their promises to slow
the pace of fast-track privatisation or emulate the Chinese ‘slow’ road to
capitalist restoration. Of course these are not progressive forces at all,
but pro-capitalists who will enforce Yeltsin’s draconian new anti--labour
laws even as they claim to talk tough to the IMF. But with the Russian
economic crisis deepening as the restoration process fails, there is no
chance that the ‘slow’ road can succeed in restoring profits, reviving
industry, attracting investment, etc..
One thing is certain - the middle ground is lost. Whoever is in power next
year will continue to fan the flames of ultra-nationalism as an alternative
to workers solidarity and class struggle. Civil war is on the agenda as
Russia once again becomes the key to the international situation. For us
outside of Russia, practical international solidarity with the progressive
wings of the Russian workers movement is now of the most burning necessity.
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