solidarity with Russian workers

[Vladimir Bilenkin <azarov@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Zeynep,

Thanks for your truly internationalist and business-like response. Let
me try to sort things out and answer each of your points in the same order.

>I can get you a declaration and messages of solidarity from Turkey. I can
>contact many other organisations, unions, whatever.

Just do it! A comrade from Seattle IWW asks me where should they send
these declarations.  I do not represent any party or organization who
would collect and disseminate these declarations.  I wrote my appeal
partly in hope that some national or international labor organization
would recognize the urgent need to act and take the initiative in its
own hands. Whether it happens or not, any manifestation of
international solidarity with Russian workers will be invalueable.
Where to send them?  First of all, to their enemies: Russian embassies
and consulates, the Kremlin and Russian government, central newspapers
in Moscow and ITAR-TASS agency.  Next: they should be posted on the
Net, especially on the IGC.APC.ORG labr.cis conference with which some
labor activists in Moscow have a link.  The hardest of all is to get
the message of solidarity through to Russian workers.  I have a few
addresses of some small-print papers (1,000-30,000 copies) circulated
among workers throughout the country.  These are communist organs.
Labor press, to my knowledge, is completely in the hands of union
bosses who support the regime.  This is all I can say so far in this
respect. But I'll be working on getting more channels of communication.

>But I think we can and should do a lot more.

>First, news is of outmost importance. I can arrange news out of Russia
to >be spread here. Do try to write. I'll get it published. Provide us
with >contact persons, organisations that may help get news out of
Russia. Both >the western and Turkish media is very very biased, and
subtly censored. I >think it illuminates the seriousness of the situation.

Yes, we should. But first, let me make it clear that I am not in
Russia.  I am stuck in US and even cannot go over there this summer
which I usually do. Recently I've been having problems with getting
mail from Moscow.  So I am not in a much better situation in this
respect than you.  But even in Russia the true info is hard to get.
This is one of the peculiar problems we face in Russia today.
Practically all means of information, at least on the national level,
are in the hands the bosses.  Even the "oppositional" media is
controlled by the Soviet-style bureaucracy. To get a more or less true
picture one has to fish for info in the radical small-print press.
I'll send you shortly some addresses. Keep in mind that by  most part
the materials are in Russian. Also I am going to post on the Net
whatever I know about Russian labor movement and the Left.

>As for your declaration, let's write the declaration ourselves and collect
>signatures for it. This works better than asking everyone to write
their >own.

>I am a member of an international trade-union rights organisation. I
can >get
>your news to many other countries, whatever that helps. (not much really).
>Anyway, if there is a strike going on somewhere, I can ask for urgent
>action from unions in Turkey and other places.


We can do this, of course, but as I said I do not represent anybody and
I do not have any connections. How do see the actual process of
collecting signatures? Can your organization take it on itself?
Anyway, we can write a draft. Do you have suggestions?  Can my appeal
serve as a basis for it?


>Let's think of any action we could take. Believe
>me, it is possible to arrange many things.

>It is only a few hours from here to Russia. We watch the struggle of the
>Russian working class very closely.

>I'm very serious, let's think of more concrete ways.

Perhaps, we should begin by setting up some sort of info center and a
discussion group. We also need to get a clear picture of already
existing info and communication resources; to get in touch with
Buketov's group (Russain Labor Review, KAS-KOR), for instance. We need
to established links with genuinely grass-roots groups and
organizations of the working class, perhaps, with the prospect of
forming the Correspondence Societies type of a framework.  There is no
more urgent task now than to break up the international isolation  of
the Soviet proletariat who is, virtually, terra incognita both within
and without the country.

>Please provide a clearer and more detailed picture of how you
interpret the
>way things are going there.

I will post some of my reflections on this tomorrow on list.marxism.
If you have access to marxist2 list archive you can find my comments
(in april) on yours and Hugh's exchange with some of my views on the
situation in general.
Below, I attach an article by a Russian worker-intellectual which I
have recently translated (and posted in marxism2 without any feedback
whatsoever). In my view, it is a remarkable document both as an acute
analysis of the the current situation and a reflection of the mind-set
of the advanced sections of Russian working class.  I agree virtually
with everything he says.

I'll be in touch with you soon.

Comradely,

Vladimir Bilenkin

The
author is a worker-intellectual from Tatarstan, an autonomous republic
with one of the highest concentration of heavy industry in the
country.
The article was
written in the summer of 95 as a contribution to the debate among the
radical communist organizations on the issue of participation in the
coming elections to the burgeois parliament (Duma). These organizations
boycotted the first elections in 1993 held after Eltsyn's October coup.
They form the so-called Russian Communist Union.  Eventually, two of
these parties formed an electorial block and received 4.6% of the
ballots, i.e. a few points short of 5% needed to get seats in Duma.

Here is the article. My translation fails to convey the splendid
plebeian style of this organic intellectual. (I also have some problems
with English articles).





                _On the Question of Participation in Elections_

        One could cite many passages from the classical works of Marxism
and to "solve"  this problem.  However we need to reflect on the
situation once again.

        Every time when appeals to participate in elections are raised
and even when they are accompanied by most radical programs, some very
revolutionary comrades who for many years ruined our cause by their
petty extremism and laud phrases as well as those who have moved to the
well-groomed social-democratic positions loudly accuse those who want to
participate in elections in betraying the working class and in
attempting to slow down the labor movement.  The same
super-revolutionaries demonstrate their super-realism by warning us that
the bourgeois parliament will concede nothing to the working class.  The
banalities known to every high-school kid are announced as Marxist
revelations.

        These so-called comrades cannot understand that their empty
battle cries and the actions of the "red brigades" only turn the workers
away from revolution by their incompetence and petty-bourgeois
tendencies.  The experience of the working-class movements in the West
and many other relevant developments have clearly demonstrated the
nature of these "leaders'" revolutionism.  We need to know this
experience and to learn from it.  This experience tells us that these
"comrades" do not serve the working class but only wish to get power for
themselves or serve the same small bourgeoisie who does not want to lose
its privileges and tries to get rid of its competitor--the big
bourgeoisie.

        These super revolutionaries do not want to know--because of
their objectives--that in order to establish a real power of the workers
under the present conditions it is necessary:
        -first, to clearly understand the goals and the methods of
achieving them in all concrete details;
        -secondly, to create a qualitatively different and more
inclusive
organization of working people.
As to the concrete ways of coming to power, they will depend mostly on
the strength and the actions of the bourgeoisie itself.  It is not the
leaders who lead us to a revolution (though the roles of the organizers
is very big), it is the bourgeoisie itself who forces the workers to act.

        But do we have the aforementioned conditions?
        1. Does the majority of the workers understand what kind of
socialism they are going to build in the present conditions and after
the well-known historical experience? The super-revolutionaries answer
in the affirmative since they continue to stick to the notions dating
back to the first years after the revolution, and the world has not
changed for them since then.  But life is more complex than that, and
the workers are looking for the solutions to those problems that were
not solved during the 70 years of the Soviet regime (e.g. the problem of
the bureaucratization of the apparatus).  Yet our theoreticians either
ignore these questions or are not very sure of their own answers, and
their answers do not satisfy the workers at all.

        Therefore there is no reason for the workers to rush with
revolution.  They do not want at all to suffer losses just to hand over
power to petty extremists.  It is true that under the circumstances a
poorly organized rebellion is possible, and in the absence of the
conditions I have mentioned it will give power to the same nomenklatura
and petty "leaders."

        2. Is there a required level of workers' organization so that
they can establish their power with the minimum of losses?  There is no
such organization.  And those existing "communist" parties are divided
and mostly just denounce one another.  Some demonstrate their
revolutionism, others--their realism.

        True, the bourgeoisie itself openly provokes the working people
to revolutionary actions by blatantly looting the people's property and
by violating the elementary rights of common people.  But the very same
bourgeoisie takes its measures as well.  It takes good notice of the
experience of the Western bosses.  It has learned to discourage, to
disorient, to disorganize the workers.  Do we have a good
counter-propaganda, irrefutable strategies, realistic plans, etc.?
Given the unification of all left forces it would be possible to develop
all that.  But unity is what we do not have.  I.e. all the objective
factors are here.  It is the subjective factor that is lacking.  The
majority does not have an understanding what kind of workers' power is
possible today and exactly what concrete forms it could take under the
existing conditions.  Which party can boast today that it has a real
dialogue with the working class on these issues and that they will soon
reach an agreement on them?

        And finally, let's say the revolution has taken place and the
workers' leaders have occupied the positions of power.  The first
problem that will have to be solved the next day is the formation of new
legislative and executive organs.  It is obvious that in this situation
the "gentlemen" and the bureaucrats will quickly become red again, will
prove their "revolutionary past," and will again become the heads of all
offices because in the heads of the workers there remains the same old
understanding of how the workers' power is organized.  Yet, by itself
revolution does not solve all the problems that come after it.  Do the
workers have sufficient knowledge or any experience in self-organizing
needed in order to prevent such outcome?  After all, the workers will
have to realize in practice not some absolute idea but to use the
accumulated experience.  What if a new civil war is provoked between
different interpreters of socialism?  Precisely because of this it is
absolutely necessary in our conditions to use bourgeois democracy for
"rehearsal," to participate in elections in order to clarify political
positions and to organize around the most radical programs.  After all,
one has to think of informing the majority about one's goals.  To create
today an organization encompassing the majority is possible only by
taking into serious consideration the existing conditions.  A
well-organized majority can take power in its hands and to prevent
bloodshed.  Don't we no longer believe in the power of the people and
the working class in general?  Only under this conditions the working
class will be able to find answers how to prevent the bureaucratization
and embourgeoisement of power.
        The super-revolutionary solicitors of the immediate armed
uprising in the absence of real conditions for it are just trying to get
the leaders' seats for themselves and to teach socialism to workers.
But this stage has already passed and will not repeat.  Consciously or
not, the very "revolutionary" comrades would like to use a poorly
organized riot and the political illiteracy of the workers for grabbing
power for themselves since they believe that no one is more intelligent
than they are.
        The same intentions drive another part of the "communists" to
participate in elections just to get ministerial posts.  The workers
cannot accept either of these extremes.  No doubt, we have to be ready
for any turn of events, and organizers are absolutely necessary.
However, the elections to the bourgeois parliament is the most suitable
moment for elucidating programs, developing independent grass-roots
activism, educating organizers, and most of all, creating a necessary
organization.  Modern bourgeois democracy is not the bourgeoisie's gift
to the people.  It is first and foremost the result of the working
class' struggles.  It is necessary to squeeze out of this democracy all
that is possible.


                                A. Gubaidullin,
                                a member of the Workers' Union of Tatarstan















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