[PEN-L:9463] Analysis of recent Russian protests (1/2)

[Michael Eisenscher <meisenscher@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

>(Part 2 to follow)
>
>>1  RUSSIA: Protest Day Heralds More Active Measures
>>2  RUSSIA: Zyuganov Defends Party Program
>>
>>Moscow Sovetskaya Rossiya in Russian, 3 Apr 97 p1
>>
>>[Article by Konstantin Molchanov: "Containing Their
>>Wrath. On 27 March an Event Took Place That Was
>>Unprecedented in Its Scale and Significance"]
>>
>>[FBIS Translated Excerpt] The next morning, 28 March,
>>the authorities and television pretended that nothing
>>special had happened, or, at any rate, nothing that was
>>worthy of their attention, evaluation, or conclusions. The
>>Kremlin and the White House set about their current tasks,
>>and television hurried to switch to other topics -- in
>>particular, to the subject of Belarus. Newspaper reports
>>were also more than modest, as if it were a question of some
>>routine, banal event.]
>>However, on 27 March 1997 an event took place in Russia
>>that was unprecedented in its scale and significance, and
>>possibly heralded the beginning of a new phase in the
>>Russian working people's struggle for their rights against
>>the antipeople regime.
>>The all-Russia protest action that swept through the
>>country last Thursday has no counterpart in post-Soviet
>>history, let alone in Soviet history, and is comparable only
>>with the all-Russia political strike of October 1905, which,
>>as is well known, was the prologue to the subsequent
>>revolutionary events in Russia. [passage omitted]
>>In spring 1997 we are witnessing an obvious weakening
>>of the position of the ruling regime in the face of the
>>growing national protest . Today it is not parliament, the
>>opposition factions, parties, and movements, or the
>>individual political leaders aspiring to the presidency that
>>represent the main threat to the regime, but the despairing
>>masses -- the only real force in Russia.
>>The events of 27 March showed that it is pretty easy to
>>organize the people on a nationwide scale, that the
>>necessary mechanisms for this exist, and work faultlessly.
>>Try to imagine such a demonstration in support of the
>>government and the president! To organize such a
>>demonstration is impossible in principle today; the people
>>would not turn out, and you would not find any organizers
>>for it outside the Sadovoye Koltso Beltway [central Moscow].
>>But something else also became clear 27 March: People
>>actually do not want an "Albanian scenario," they do not
>>want disorder, they still hope for a peaceful solution to
>>their basic problems . In this sense our people are far more
>>civilized and democratic than the Russian authorities, who
>>have repeatedly resolved their own problems with the aid of
>>force. Participants in the all-Russia protest action
>>expressed their demands entirely peacefully and with
>>dignity. There was not a single excess -- not because the
>>police guarded law and order so well, and not because the
>>authorities managed by their preventive measures, as some
>>people interpret, to "reduce tension," "to hold [people] in
>>check," and "to prevent emotions from spilling over," and so
>>forth, on which grounds such people talk almost of yet
>>another "victory" for Yeltsin. There were no excesses
>>primarily because the people themselves did not want them
>>and did not commit them (and if they had wanted them, no one
>>could have restrained them). The action was conceived and
>>prepared as a peaceful action from the very first, and was
>>carried out as such, as a last warning to the authorities, a
>>demonstration of the unity and solidarity of the masses. For
>>this thanks should have been offered to people the next
>>morning; humble respects should have been paid to them; but
>>the Kremlin pretended that nothing special had happened the
>>day before, thereby yet again showing disrespect for the
>>people and ingratitude for their long patience.
>>What was the overall outcome? In assessing this, let
>>us start first of all with the premise that the 27 March
>>protest was not the people's "final, decisive" battle with
>>the antipeople regime. Rather, it was a show of strength, a
>>flexing of muscles, and a clear and impressive warning of
>>intentions. Today three main political forces operate on the
>>political stage -- the authorities, the people, and the
>>opposition. The action of 27 March 1997 showed that none of
>>these forces is yet capable of changing anything
>>fundamentally in the prevailing situation in the country .
>>Assessing the results of the first all-Russia political
>>strike in 1905, Lenin said that the revolution was not yet
>>capable of dealing the decisive blow to the autocracy, but
>>that the autocracy was also no longer capable of resisting
>>the revolution openly. He called this situation "a balance
>>of power between the classes." Something like this is
>>happening in Russia today too.
>>The president and the government are not capable of
>>resisting nationwide protest, but nor are they capable of
>>overcoming the financial and economic crisis. They can only
>>simulate some kind of activity in this direction and patch
>>holes; but they are not capable of resolving the problem
>>fundamentally while remaining within their chosen course.
>>They will go on issuing pay to people as and when it becomes
>>possible, in dribs and drabs, as they have been doing up to
>>now. But it is more than likely that they will not exert
>>themselves too hard to do so, as they did before 27 March,
>>and that there will be a repeat of the situation of last
>>July, before the elections, when there was virtually
>>televised monitoring of the payment of wages, but after the
>>elections this troublesome task was immediately abandoned.
>>The government's next surge of activity on the pay front
>>should now be expected a week before the May Day
>>demonstration, and if the "danger is averted" again, it will
>>then rest content and take it easy right through till
>>November.
>>The people are also for the time being powerless to
>>change their position for the better immediately, even with
>>the aid of such a powerful mass action. This time they only
>>declared their demands. This was a protest without pressure
>>on the authorities; but they never do anything unless
>>pressure is put on them. After 27 March the people will face
>>the blunt question: What next? Should they resign
>>themselves to pathetic handouts and be done with it? Should
>>they continue to present their polite demands to the
>>authorities, while fearing to really offend, alarm, or
>>insult them? Or switch to fundamentally new methods of
>>fighting for their rights? The answer to these questions
>>will evolve of its own accord over the next few months. If
>>the pay situation really is rectified (but how?), that is
>>one thing; if the situation deteriorates still further --
>>the people will simply no longer have a choice.
>>Finally, let us speak of the role of the opposition.
>>The events of 27 March showed that it is not yet ready to
>>exploit such actions in order to achieve its cardinal
>>political task -- a change of government. Yet again its
>>colossal lack of coordination, its inability to put up a
>>united front against the common foe, was demonstrated --
>>everyone joined the ranks of the masses from his own side
>>and paraded some sort of ambitions of his own; some people,
>>such as Lebed, looked simply ridiculous in the process. No
>>one -- including, unfortunately, the People's Patriotic
>>Union of Russia -- managed to take full advantage of the
>>platform of the all-Russia strike and the unique
>>possibilities that it afforded. The political opposition's
>>role proved more than modest -- it attended, rather than
>>participated in, let alone leading, the event. But after
>>all, this was not some celebratory May Day demonstration,
>>when flowers, smiles, and high spirits are sufficient; this
>>was a protest action, which is a different political "genre"
>>altogether. If you cannot exploit such actions, what else,
>>what further opportunities, do you expect?
>>I am not saying that it was necessary to have called on
>>the people to besiege the Kremlin. Nor that this action
>>alone might have achieved some kind of global result, if the
>>opposition had not missed the opportunity. But if you summon
>>people and they come, point out to them the end goal and
>>explain the ways of achieving this goal and the stages on
>>the way to achieving it, including the practical sense of a
>>stage like the current action. Otherwise there will
>>inevitably be disappointment that people came out and
>>marched all over Russia, but essentially achieved nothing.
>>And could have achieved nothing. Because the specific goal
>>they were aiming for was not spelled out, because the sort
>>of demands that could have been insisted on until a
>>victorious conclusion on this very occasion were not put
>>forward.
>>But imagine that such an action had taken place under
>>Soviet rule in about 1990 or 1991. How would the democratic
>>opposition, the press, the West have taken advantage of it,
>>how they would have blown up everything out of proportion,
>>doubtless calling the event nothing less than a revolution
>>and not allowing the people off the streets until they had
>>obtained the necessary resignations and freedoms, or even
>>power itself. However, why tax our imaginations trying to
>>imagine something that did not happen and could not have
>>happened (pay was paid on time in those days). Let us rather
>>tax our memories. In August 1991 only a few thousand
>>Muscovites marched on the White House. The rest of Russia
>>was calm and quiet. And this was presented to the whole
>>world as "the expression of the will of the people," who
>>were allegedly thirsting "to overthrow the totalitarian
>>regime," something that was in fact accomplished by a small
>>group of politicians allegedly carrying out "the will of the
>>people."
>>As for the effectiveness of our action, everything at
>>the moment remains where it was: the authorities in power,
>>the opposition in opposition, and the people, as before,
>>without their wages. A balance of power or a balance of
>>powerlessness?
>>And yet: Does the absence of a visible result from the
>>protest of 27 March 1997 mean that the actions undertaken
>>that day were in vain, that they did not prove their worth?
>>No, it does not; this was basically the first demonstration
>>on this scale, the first attempt to switch from local,
>>passive forms of protest to mass protest, to more active
>>forms of protest. Protest is rapidly gaining momentum in
>>society, and on 27 March millions of people all over Russia
>>received a fine opportunity to come together with their
>>"comrades in misfortune," to mix, to express their views
>>frankly, to share with one other their most pressing
>>concerns, and to compare interpretations of what is going on
>>in the country and attitudes to the authorities and to the
>>policy they are carrying out -- and to the opposition and
>>its leaders too, incidentally. In conditions in which social
>>organizations have been abolished in enterprises, in which
>>people have been effectively deprived of the possibility of
>>gathering together as a collective to discuss their
>>problems, and many have actually lost their jobs and become
>>isolated, even one day of such contact is worth much. This
>>is genuine political education for the masses; this is the
>>school of solidarity and struggle; and for this reason 27
>>March will not have been in vain for Russia.
>>
>>RUSSIA: Zyuganov Defends Party Program
>>
>>Moscow Sovetskaya Rossiya in Russian, 25 Mar 97 p 2
>>
>>[Article by Gennadiy Zyuganov, chairman of the Central
>>Committee and Program Commission of the CPRF: "A Banner
>>Raised High: How We Should Work on the Party Program"]
>>
>>[FBIS Translated Text] The regular, Fourth Congress of
>>the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (CPRF)
>>assembles in April of this year. Its agenda includes the
>>question of making amendments and supplements to the Party
>>Program. During the pre-congress report and election
>>campaign, this issue has drawn the fixed attention of
>>Communists. Along with numerous proposals to refine the
>>program, the Central Committee is also receiving questions:
>>What makes it necessary to modify the existing program?
>>Life does not stand still, and a political party must
>>be constantly measuring its activities against the changing
>>situation. That is an axiom; it is clear by itself. But it
>>is also clear that by no means can every change in the
>>situation serve as the cause to modify party programs, for
>>documents of this rank deal with problems on a very general,
>>strategic, and long-run level. As for more particular and
>>short-run problems tied to the ongoing situation, they are
>>classified as tactical and become the subject of
>>resolutions, election platforms, and party documents of the
>>type that are constructed within the framework of general
>>program principles.
>>The introduction of changes in the program is usually
>>mandated by very special factors. There can be several such
>>factors:
>>1. All or a majority of the party goals reflected in
>>the program have been achieved.
>>2. The program goals have changed: Some of them have
>>been recognized as mistaken, others as untimely, new goals
>>have been added, and so forth.
>>3. The conditions of party activity have changed
>>fundamentally and, accordingly, the necessity has arisen to
>>change the entire system of forms and methods of work. (For
>>example, the party has ceased to be a ruling party and has
>>gone into principled opposition. This is exactly what the
>>CPRF had to experience, and that is one of the reasons we
>>adopted a new program two years ago.)
>>4. The nature of the party itself and its social base
>>have changed, the party has become the expression of the
>>interests of different classes and social groups.
>>5. There have been changes in the party's world view
>>system and its fundamental political, theoretical, and moral
>>assessments of its past, present, and prospects for the
>>future; in other words, the ideological foundation of all
>>its activity has changed significantly.
>>6. None of the above has changed, but in the existing
>>program things are treated so poorly and inappropriately
>>that a significant editorial reworking of the text is
>>required.
>>Each person who proposes specific amendments to the
>>program is obliged, in my opinion, to point clearly to one
>>or several of the enumerated factors. Only after taking a
>>painstaking "inventory" of the entire content of the
>>existing party program based on the framework I have
>>outlined is it possible to make the highly important
>>decision to modify particular provisions of the program. And
>>so, self-critically assessing the results of the work of the
>>
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