The 96th anniversary of the October Revolution

One of the most famous events in history the October revolution is something many socialists look towards for inspiration but while we celebrate its anniversary we should also be wary and look to learn the lessons of why it ultimately did not lead to full communism. The Soviet Union still matters. Though it passed into history in August 1991, the Soviet Union casts a distinct shadow. Indeed it is impossible to understand contemporary capitalism - that is, capitalism in the 20th and 21st centuries - unless you understand the USSR. The welfare state, Keynesianism, the mixed economy, state regulation, the promotion of bourgeois democracy as a universal elixir - all were, in their various ways, a response to the Soviet Union. Not merely the Soviet Union as a superpower with its 15 constituent republics, 10 time zones and Moscow capital. But crucially the manner of its birth. The October 25 1917 Bolshevik uprising shook the word (November 7, according to our Gregorian calendar). Since then capitalism has been managing its historic decline. The policy of forced collectivisation and rapid industrialisation post 1917 and the affect it had on those who had survived the First World War lead to some very tough conditions on the ground. I do think the end of the soviets and the workers councils was a huge factor in the counter revolution which took place post 1917. I am reminded that democracy is key to any revolution and for socialism we need democracy the removal of the soviets as bodies of workers who were subject to recall and no special privileges was a big blow to the revolution. When power was transferred from the soviets to the centralised party structure of the communist party which lead to a move to the right and a lack of democracy ensued. What about Trotsky? Was the Soviet Union a degenerate workers’ state in the 1930s? Surely not. The last shreds of democracy had long been discarded, trade unions operated as a transmission belt for the regime, living standards were being mercilessly forced down, police spying was ubiquitous and the purges were in full swing. Millions were to perish. Add to that the ignominious collapse in 1991 and Trotsky’s theory is surely impossible to sustain. Of course, Trotsky lacked the mass of reliable information we can now access. Moreover, he was assassinated in 1940. There is no reason to believe, however, that he would have stuck to what he called a “provisional” designation had he lived. Indeed Trotsky declared he open to the idea that the Soviet Union could evolve towards an altogether new kind of exploitative social formation. Nevertheless, there are all manner of epigones who, speaking in his name, dogmatically insist that the USSR was a workers’ state right up till 1991 (some even bizarrely argue that it was a workers’ state under Yeltsin). Displaying complete theoretical bankruptcy, they equate a workers’ state or/and socialism with nationalisation. A position which owes everything to clause-four Fabianism Centralisation of the means of production in a few hands of a party is not socialism and is nothing near workers control. For full workers control we need workers participation in democracy if a party instructs what is to be done from the top down this is not democratic or desirable in any shape or form. The soviets and the workers councils were the most democratic form of o organisation and I do think we have to look back at their role in the early days of the Russian revolution for their usefulness today and going forward. When Stalin smashed the soviets and centralised power in his own hands and with the party this was the beginning of the end for the revolution in my opinion. We must not allow for power to be held in such few hands. I do think workers should remain in control and a party has its own interests in keeping power so I’m not convinced a party is necessary to maintain power. An organisation is key but a centralised party with hierarchical structures and a party who is looking to create a society in its own image I am not sure is the way to go in future.

How Stalinism distorts Marxism

Stalinism as an ideology is a dieing set of ideas but for decades it distorted the true ideas of Marx Engels and Lenin too. I thought I’d give some examples and explained perhaps why the Stalinists looked to distort the real ideas of Marxism over the years. Stalinism basically the safe guarding of the bureaucracy the elite in the labour movement quite often was something born out of Stalins ideas in the Soviet Union. Those who like to draw the conclusion that Lenin’s ideas were carried on to their natural conclusion by Stalin are completely incorrect in many ways. Stalin was a brutal dictator and abused Marxism to fit in with his own agenda unlike Stalin Lenin was a big supporter of debate and discussion rather than persecution and murdering your opponents who seem to be a threat to your leadership. Lenin debated with them, fiercely demanding high standards of evidence and principle in his opponent’s arguments, always calling people to task for unclear, illogical, factually weak positions. He brought the best out in people, who on their own were fatally flawed. He even threatened to resign several times in order to make his points. Lenin was a master of Marxism at the global level, European wide level, national, regional and city by city level. One of Lenin's most powerful accomplishments was his ability to translate Marxism to the individual and personal level and then return to broad general points, not just "What is to be done" but what is to be done by you and I right now. In the late 1920s and early 1930s, Stalin, in leadership by himself, with his cynical tendency unchecked, then gutted Marxism's emphasis on carefully considered revolutionary action. Stalin's disastrous political line equating the Social Democrats as an equal danger to the fascists was a prejudiced course of action reflecting his cynicism about the Social Democrats rather than a careful examination of them. Stalin did not abandon this ill-conceived perspective until after it was too late to stop Hitler. As Lenin might have put it, the "What is to be done?" was replaced by "Left Wing Communism an Infantile Disorder." Stalin replaced Marxian dialectics with a mechanistic version that emphasized the "inevitability" of socialism in place of Karl Marx's stark choice for revolutionaries in "The Communist Manifesto," "a fight that each time ended, either in the revolutionary re-constitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes" (CW Marx Engel’s V 6 pp.482). For Marx the possibility of terrible defeat was so real that all prejudice and intellectual short cuts had to be abandoned because each serious choice in a crisis that revolutionaries make on the "ground they have been given" can lead to advance or "the common ruin of the contending classes." Stalin's disastrous line equating Social Democracy as an equal enemy to the workers movement as Fascism was so clearly prejudiced and filled with intellectual short cuts that it can only be explained, at least in part, by the same character flaws that Lenin wanted Stalin removed as Secretary General of the Communist Party for in 1922. All revolutionaries have to accept "the ground they have been given" such as the militarized imperialism and ferocious racism in Germany in 1932, but Marxists have no excuse to abandon careful analysis for cynical prejudice. We have no excuse now nor should we excuse Stalin. Stalinism doesn’t see Marxism as a guide to action more an excuse to batter your opponents with. Using revolutionary language doesn’t make you a revolutionary its in your actions that your judged and Stalin and Stalinists today do not apply genuine Marxism only a bastardised version of it with rigid dogma out dated and used to sure up their own positions in the labour movement and the unions. Stalinism also subscribes to the stagiest theory that we must have a period of growth under capitalism first and deal with a socialist revolution at some undefined point in the future in essence this point never comes as its all about Suring up your own positions and fearing the working class Justas much if not more than the capitalist class. This was the case in the Soviet Union where great purges and mass killings took place to put down workers revolts to quash dissent. This is not socialism and has nothing in common with Marxism we follow today. Its brutal dictatorship looking to up hold its own privileged positions. Thankfully Stalinism is all but dead today in the labour movement mass communist parties around the world are dieing if they haven’t already. In their place we must fight to build new workers party true and democratic with a right to free speech and critical thinking without the fear of reprisal.

Could socialism really work in the 21st century?

I was having a good debate the other day with a member at a local debating society I go to we were discussing the economic crisis and the mess we are in and I put forward my ideas of another world is possible a world run by the many for the many we got on to all topics such as what does taxing the rich really mean, who indeed are the rich are they those on 100 grand a year or is there far fewer of them. We all agreed that the working class’s pay far too much tax that was music to my socialist ears. But we got on to human nature an my friends idea that socialism could never work as people are naturally greedy and human nature would mean we all want more. I countered this by saying under a democratic socialist system there would be no need for crime, povety or greed as there would be enough to go around for us all to live comfortably. My friend said this will never happen as we always want more than our neighbour. This is the entrenched ideology of capitalism bourgeois ideas to want us to want more and more this is unnatural in my eyes. No one, of course, can give a blueprint of how socialism is going to work. But we can as Marxists work out which direction we are travelling in and the likely outcomes of such movements. "It's a nice idea but it will never happen" is one of the most common responses to the suggestion that it is in our interests to work towards building a socialist society. The assumption is that socialism will rely upon everybody being altruistic, sacrificing their own interests for those of others. But socialism would actually involve the majority of people recognising their common interests. People are too greedy This is a common objection to socialism, and suggests that, in socialism, some people would take more than their share of goods. Images are conjured up of people walking out of supermarkets carrying stockpiles of food—after all, isn't that what everyone would do if all goods were freely available? It may be what people would do in today's capitalist society, where what we need appears to be scarce because it is rationed by the payment of the wage. But if food were given away free in socialism, there would be no need to take more than you need. Because food will have been produced to satisfy society's needs, not for profit, it will be available on that basis. The current world food supply (let alone the potential supply) is enough to feed the global population Indeed, there is the potential to meet the broader range of human needs, in an environmentally sustainable way, if socialism were established. Once the insecurity of our current society is left behind, it would simply become pointless to take more than you needed. Who would do the dirty work? This is a common objection to the proposal that all work be contributed on a voluntary basis. Some people point to certain kinds of work that people might seek to avoid—such as cleaning out sewers, or mining. A more extreme form of the argument suggests that everyone would spend the whole day in bed if they were not forced to work. Humans throughout history have sought fulfillment through their work. If they have not enjoyed their work, it has not been through dislike of work in general but due to the particular purpose and conditions of the work that they have been forced to undertake. Work under socialism has the potential to be entirely different to capitalist employment. The most important reason for this is that unpleasant work could be organised far more efficiently than under capitalism and that all work would be organised so as to be as pleasant as possible. The purpose of work would be entirely different. Under capitalism, much of the work done is the work required by capitalism in order to perpetuate its own existence. In socialism, the only work that would need to be done would be that for directly meeting human needs. Indeed, interesting and pleasant work is itself a human need. And work that isn't in itself interesting and pleasant must be minimised or abolished. If a household gets a washing machine, you never hear the family members who used to do the laundry by hand complain that this "puts them out of work". But strangely enough, if a similar development occurs on a broader social scale it is seen as a serious problem—"unemployment"—which can only be solved by inventing more jobs for people to do. The fact is that most jobs under capitalism are either completely or partially unnecessary. Many of those that are necessary are performed by stressed people working long hours while others suffer poverty. In a sane society, the elimination of all these absurd jobs (not only those that produce or market ridiculous and unnecessary commodities, but the far larger number directly or indirectly involved in promoting and protecting the whole capitalist system) would reduce necessary tasks to such a trivial level that they could easily be taken care of voluntarily and cooperatively, eliminating the need for the whole apparatus of economic incentives and state enforcement. That economists now believe that in 20 years time, total world demand for all commodities could be met by 2% of the global population—and this in capitalist society!—suggests necessary work in socialist society could be so organised as to enable individuals to contribute no more than a few hours a week to the good of society. Waste, destruction and exploitation are the ultimate outcomes of the market economy and production for profit. The market develops and ‘regulates’ the economy through booms and slumps, with an inevitable tendency towards overproduction and overcapacity. As society moves towards socialism goods and services become directly produced to meet needs, not indirectly for a market based on an exchange to realise profit. At the early stage of socialism there will, of course, still be elements of capitalism left. Money will have to be used for a time but, unlike before, the material and human resources are there for a rapid advance towards a society – or more correctly, a world – based on the socialist principle: ‘From each according to his or her ability, to each according to their needs’. Many reasons are given for the fall of the planned if highly bureaucratic economy of the Soviet Union but It was not central planning as such that brought Stalinism to its knees. It was the absence of democracy, elected bodies and accountability, the prerequisites for a planned economy. The more the economies developed, the more acute became the crisis. In response, the bureaucracies themselves started to introduce ‘market-reforms’ which, in turn, accelerated the process of crisis and disintegration. Leon Trotsky was the first to explain how the ulcer of bureaucratism and totalitarianism worsens "the more the economy runs into the problem of quality, which slips out of the hands of a bureaucracy like a shadow. The Soviet products are as though branded with the grey label of indifference. Under a nationalised economy, quality demands a democracy of producers and consumers, freedom of criticism and initiative – conditions incompatible with a totalitarian regime of fear, lies and flattery". "Behind the question of quality stands a more complicated and grandiose problem which may be comprised in the concept of independent, technical and cultural creation. No new values can be created where a free conflict of ideas is impossible... Soviet democracy is not the demand of an abstract policy, still less an abstract moral. It has become a life-and-death need". (Revolution Betrayed, p247) At the centre of the struggle conducted by Trotsky and the Left Opposition was the restoration of workers’ democracy based on elected representatives subject to the right of recall and with officials’ wages brought down to the level of an average worker. The aim was "the gradual involvement of the entire working population without exception in the work of state administration and the systematic struggle for equality". Workers’ or socialist democracy was a condition for the development towards socialism. A planned economy requires the active participation of the mass of the working class to implement, check, regulate and make changes to the plan. In the absence of this democratic involvement the bureaucracy inevitably becomes an absolute fetter on further progress. The process of stagnation and decline that started to set in during the 1970s reflected the unsolvable contradictions between the nationalised economy and bureaucratic dictatorship. A socialist economy would for the first time give people, as producers and users, the chance to control every step of production, take initiatives and experiment without being strangled by profit-driven competition. This, together with research and testing, would make possible an economy based on equality and in harmony with nature. Why would people produce poor quality goods when they are producing to meet their own (and others) needs? Is the revolution we are talking about at all likely? Appearances would suggest not. The odds seem to be stacked against it. Indeed, when we put forward the idea, most people can scarcely believe we are serious. But most revolutions have been preceded by periods when most people were scoffing at the idea that things could ever change. There was a time when the idea of a capitalist society would have been dismissed as a hopeless utopian dream. To a peasant living in feudal society, the idea of radical change would appear as hopeless as it may appear to you now. To them, feudalism would have appeared as eternal and unchanging and unchangeable as capitalism appears to us now. In Europe, when capitalism was relatively young, the idea of workers working an eight hour day with a weekend would have appeared hopelessly utopian. In the past in countries where everybody now has a vote, there was a time when the idea was scorned and violently opposed. So we're not too surprised that people find it difficult to take our ideas on board. of course. Yet, despite the many discouraging trends in the world, there are some encouraging signs, not least of which is the widespread disillusionment with previous false alternatives. Fewer and fewer people are bothering to vote in elections, for example, correctly realising that it will have little effect on their everyday lives at this stage even TUSC is facing difficulties due to this widespread apathy. We have the ability to change things if we act together. The power to transform society lies in the hands of those who create everything—the working class. This is the source of our power, should we eventually use it. The power not to make a few reforms, but to change the whole system, to make a social revolution.

20 years on from the fall of the soviet union, Claire Doyle of the CWI takes a look back at events

Clare Doyle, International Secretariat of the CWI

This week-end marks the 20th anniversary of the attempted military coup in the Soviet Union. It took place at a time of economic, social and political turmoil within, and outside the USSR. Aimed at preventing the break-up of the Soviet Union, its failure actually led to a dramatic speeding up of that very process. This attempted political counter-revolution by old-time Stalinists led on directly to the victory of the capitalist counter-revolution, the disintegration of the USSR and the rapid rise of a new class of super-rich capitalist oligarchs.

Clare Doyle looks at the dramatic events of 19 to 21 August 1991 and what followed.



Barricades next to the "Supreme Soviet" during the coup

In the early hours of 19 August, 1991, tanks and armoured cars began to move from the outskirts of Moscow towards the Kremlin. An announcement was made by the news agency TASS that Michail Gorbachev, secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and president of the state, was no longer able to carry out his duties "for health reasons". He had been replaced by his deputy, Gennady Yanayev, a representative of the ’Old Guard’ within the ruling ’communist’ party.

A statement was broadcast that banned all gatherings of three or more people as well as all social and sporting events. A ’State Committee for an Emergency Situation’ (GKChP) was supposedly in charge with a general, a police chief and a minister of defence amongst them. Their stated aim was to "save the Soviet Union from fratricide and civil war".

All normal radio and TV programmes were suspended. No news was given. The only thing shown on television, repeated throughout the day, was the ballet, Swan Lake – a familiar tactic of the Stalin era for blotting out awkward news.

At five o’clock, the coup ’leaders’ held a press conference with Yanayev in the centre repeating rehearsed phrases and with hands shaking! Already the putschists were aware of the mounting opposition to their plans. The control over the army and special forces that they thought they could rely on was not guaranteed.

Mass defiance
Far from cowering in their homes, however, hundreds, then thousands of people made their way to the buildings that housed the elected authorities - in Moscow the White House, home of the Russian Federation’s parliament, and in Leningrad, the Marinsky Palace where the local council was based. Barricades were erected from whatever was available - overturned buses in Moscow, cement-mixers from building sites in Leningrad. Weapons were stock-piled inside the buildings in case armed confrontation was necessary. The people who turned out to defy the putschists were determined not to see the clock of history turned back, the old Stalinist regime re-imposed and all promise of democratic change erased.

Boris Yeltsin, elected president of the Russian Federation, had been pushing for ‘reforms’ which would clear the path for the re-introduction of capitalism. They would mean misery for workers but in true Bonapartist fashion, he would lean on workers at this time of crisis. Hypocritically he borrowed from the workers’ movement the idea of a general strike to use as a battering ram with which to defeat the ’putsch’. Workers anyway, across the Soviet Union, were already walking out of their workplaces in readiness for a fight.



In Moscow, soldiers were already defecting. Later whole divisions would come over. Yeltsin famously stood on a tank amidst the crowds that had assembled at the White House to voice total defiance of the GKChP and rally the forces. Hundreds of thousands made their way to the Russian parliament building (– the same building that just two years later, Yeltsin himself was to bombard with tanks! (See Yeltsin obituary on this site).

Anatoly Sobchak, Mayor of Leningrad, called for a mass demonstration in Winter Palace Square for the next morning, 20th August. Up to half a million people made their way to this historic site to learn how the coup leaders could be defeated. One day later the GKChP was falling out and falling apart.

Some saw the attempt at a coup by this layer as a necessary and ’progressive’ step to prevent the break-up of the Soviet Union and to halt the process of privatisation and a return to capitalism. Some still do. The Russian Communist Party under the long-time Stalinist, Gennady Zyuganov, is holding a commemoration of the event. They say none of the problems of today in Russia would exist if the coup had succeeded!

It was very rapidly becoming clear at the time that Yanayev and Co. did not have a chance of succeeding. They would not prove capable of holding on by force to a centrally planned state-owned economy already in crisis. The bloated, 20 million strong bureaucracy sat like a gigantic parasite on the back of the workers’ state. When stagnation beset the economy, those they had held in submission for generations began to move against them.



Workers in the USSR, at the end of the 1980s had seen their economy slowing down to a snail’s pace compared with the past. Many had welcomed the ’perestroika’ and ’glasnost’ introduced by Gorbachev in an attempt to breathe new life into the bureaucratically overburdened planned economy. They had begun to taste at least some elements of change. There were new consultative committees in the workplaces where grievances could be aired. Management could be challenged. There had been elections of new leaderships in the republics and a campaign vigorously promoted by Yeltsin, for parties other than the ruling ’communist’ party to be able to organise and stand in elections.

The position of the CWI members in the USSR in August 1991 was to actively oppose the coup but to give no truck to the policies of Yeltsin and co. who clearly wanted to push ahead with wholesale privatisation and wipe out all elements of a state-owned planned economy. Independent action by the working class – strikes and a struggle for a workers’ government - would have been the best way to defeat both the coup and the pro-capitalists and to take society forward. But there was no force or party with any weight in society advocating this.

As the CWI document ’Revolution and Counter-revolution in the Soviet Union’ put it (para 53):

„During the coup therefore, the Marxists in the USSR called for support for the general strike, not on the programme of Yeltsin (for the return of Gorbachev and the continuation of the market reforms), but to defeat the coup with a revolutionary programme for workers’ democracy. We explained that the limited democratic rights of the last period could only be safeguarded by the working class taking power. We called for the building of democratic workers’ committees, arming of the workers and an appeal to the rank and file soldiers.”



Doomed to defeat
The ’emergency council’ had the idea of protecting the planned economy from the onslaught of the privatisers but, without democracy from below, it had become unviable to maintain it. Their statement spoke of the need to ’protect all forms of property’. But they clearly did not want to see the end of state ownership of industry and finance for fear of the consequences for themselves and the system that had sustained them until now. They saw Yeltsin, Gaidar and Co, even Gorbachev, as a threat to the old way of doing things. The putschists thought they could defeat this layer simply by using the only instruments at their disposal - the forces of the state. And these crumbled in their hands! Their ’take-over’ did not even last three days.

They had not learned from the experience of Jaruzelski in Poland who in 1981 had moved against Solidarnosc and imposed military rule but had failed in his attempt to re-establish the old Stalinist regime. He had found it impossible to save the planned economy by force and abandoned the attempt.

The coup leaders had put Gorbachev under house arrest at his Summer retreat on the Black Sea. Within three days he was in Moscow. The president of the Soviet Union arrived in the capital, beholden to the president of the Russian Federation. Nominally he remained head of state. In fact, he never recovered his full power and status. By the end of 1991 (25 December) he was making a televised speech resigning as president of an almost non-existent entity. This would then be seen as the final ratification of the end of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.



19 August

What was the background?
The disintegration of the Soviet Union was already in process before the attempted coup. It ran parallel with the growth of major economic problems. An agreement known as the Byelavezha Accords or ’New Union Treaty’, establishing a looser federation of states, was to be signed on 20 August. The coup leaders could see their power base disappearing. The ‘shock therapy’ wing of the bureaucracy who wanted to take the fast-track route to the restoration of capitalism, was gaining the upper hand. Gorbachev was floundering – not sure how to proceed. His popularity had plummeted to 14% in the polls.

He had promoted reforms to try to prevent an explosion from below and to retain the state-owned planned economy intact. This was the structure that had for decades provided his own caste in society with its income and privilege. Already during the miners’ strikes of 1989 he had reinstated the use of anti-strike laws. He was putting the lid back on reforms. What was the alternative?

Boris Yeltsin had already been elected president of the Russian Federation, against the wishes of the hardliners, and was eroding the powers of Gorbachev and the Union. Yeltsin most forcefully represented the growing layer within the state bureaucracy who wanted to proceed more and more rapidly with the ’transition to the market ’ - to the restoration of capitalism in the Soviet Union. He was popular amongst workers, including miners in Vorkuta, in the Kuzbas and in the Donbas. They had been engaged in major strike struggles to get a better return on the heavy expenditure of their Labour and had demonstrated their anger against the privileges of the bureaucracy. Yeltsin, who like to be seen as a man of the people, had supported them for his own reasons as they pushed local representatives out of office and attacked their perks and privileges sometimes literally – blocking the path of their limousines, opening up their boots full of luxury items!

The stranglehold of the Stalinist bureaucracy on society had by this time been loosened; it was split and divided on how to proceed. There was a ferment amongst the intellectuals and the middle layers in society who looked towards capitalism in Europe and elsewhere. Unlike today, world capitalism was still going ahead and apparently offering opportunities for personal and cultural advancement – an escape from the nightmare under Stalinism.

The 100 million or so working class of the vast USSR - stretching across eleven time zones – was wracked with shortages of all the basic necessities of life - bread, meat, eggs, soap, toilet paper! There was no sugar, in the shops to preserve what fruit and berries could be foraged from the countryside. Mushroom-picking became a frantic exercise in survival rather than the traditional leisurely late Summer pastime.

The conditions were developing for the working class of the Soviet Union to move to throw off the vast, parasitic bureaucracy from its back and take control, through elected committees, of the state-owned, centrally planned economy and society as a whole. This had long ago, at the time of the rise of Stalin and his gang, been the programme of Trotsky, the co-leader with Lenin of the Russian revolution of October 1917. This is what led Stalin, who had crushed all those who had argued for the spread of the revolution and workers’ democracy, to send his agents to physically annihilate him.

In the long dark decades up to the 1980s, the economy of the Soviet Union had advanced dramatically, on the basis of state ownership and a plan. This was even without the ’oxygen’, as Trotsky called it, of workers’ democracy that could keep the vast state-owned system functioning healthily. Now that it was stagnating, only workers’ control and management, through totally democratic elected committees making all the planning decisions could enable it the planned economy to survive. This would have meant also fighting to establish a genuine workers’ government to clear out all that was rotten under Stalinism.



19 August 1991

No political force
What was needed was a political force that had the clear aim of carrying through a political revolution, of the working class taking over the reins of power and spreading the idea of genuine socialism internationally.

There was no such force. All opposition had been brutally suppressed, from the annihilation of the heroic Left Opposition in the ’20s, the purge trials and mass executions of the ’30s through decades of police state dictatorship; it had not been possible for such a force to develop. Now it was too late.

If, as today, capitalism was in a major crisis and held no attraction in terms of an alternative way forward, things could have been different. In the crisis in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, brought on by stagnation and political paralysis, some may have found their way towards the ideas of Trotsky - of a way out on the basis of a struggle for workers’ democracy. But this was not what happened.



22 August 1991: the end of the putsch

USSR
If the trigger for the Yanayev gang’s attempt to take power was the imminent dissolution of the USSR, the very words ‘Union of Soviet Socialist Republics’ had long been a misnomer. Set up in 1922, following the victorious workers’ and peasants’ revolution in Russia, it was originally a voluntary federation of states in which Tsarism, landlordism and capitalism had been overthrown. These states were on their way to establishing socialism. The soviets, at the very beginning, were the seats of real, totally democratic, power.

With Stalin’s rise to power and the crushing of all workers’ and democratic rights, the move towards genuine socialism, with an internationalist approach, was halted. Stalin and his vast state machine then held the nationalities of the Soviet Union together with a rod of iron. Whole nations were punished for representing a threat to his rule, most dramatically in the case of the Crimean Tatars and Chechens, killed in vast numbers and removed en bloc from their homelands.

In the 1980s, as the economic situation across the USSR began to deteriorate and the bureaucracy lost its raison d’etre of presiding over a growing economy, the desire to break free from Moscow domination developed in a number of republics. Neither decentralisation nor centralisation under bureaucratic centralist control could ‘deliver the goods’, satisfy the needs of the workers and poor. In the Baltics and elsewhere nationalist movements grew in strength and came out in open revolt against the centre.

Gorbachev, who now lays great stress on peace and non-intervention, had ordered troops in to hold the line, in fact to crush the movements for independence. This had failed. Lithuania, after the bloody events in Vilnius in January 1991, had simply broken away from Moscow domination.



23 August 1991

In August, as soon as it was clear that the putschists were defeated and Yeltsin had the upper hand, a whole series of Republics declared themselves independent – Estonia on the second day of the attempted coup and Latvia on the third, as the Emergency Committee itself was already collapsing. In September, Moldova, Tajikistan, Armenia and Turkmenistan declared independence. By November only four remained nominally in the Soviet Union.

Independence was being declared in the name of democracy but was being decided by a tiny handful of gangsters at the top of society - in their own interests and without the slightest reference to the wishes of the majority. In fact, it was the same cliques in power in the republics under the old regime – as heads of the Communist Parties - who transformed themselves into national, generally pro-capitalist, powers in the newly reborn states. Their aim was to get their hands on the loot that was to be had through the privatisation process. Witness Nazarbayev in Kazakhstan and Shevardnaze in Georgia.

In the opinion of a Swedish economist who advised the Russian and Ukrainian governments in the early ‘90s on how to make the transition to capitalism most of the newly formed states, “are corrupt states that have as their purpose to allow the elites to enrich themselves through corruption”. He says this now; the CWI said it then!

Lukashenko in Byelorussia, has retained far more of the old state ownership but also tightened the old Stalinist methods of repression, including brutal beatings and imprisonment of journalists and oppositionists.

Back in 1991, on 8 December, the heads of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus created the Commonwealth of Independent States which broadened out to include most ex-republics of the USSR. At the same meeting the 1922 union treaty, established under Lenin and the Bolsheviks, was annulled.

On 24 December, the Russian Federation announced it would take the place of the USSR at the United Nations, including a seat on the Security Council. On 25th of that month, after Gorbachev’s formal resignation, the red hammer and sickle was lowered from the Kremlin and replaced by the Russian tricolour.

Parties and prospects
In Russia, the present day leaders and the people who preceded them in power, including Yeltsin, were all part of the CPSU apparatus. Suddenly, after the collapse of the coup, they became god-fearing anti-communists but used all their connections in the party and state apparatus to enrich themselves in the orgy of privatisation that swept the country.

The Communist Party itself was banned by the victors of the coup around Yeltsin. Later it reappeared with a new name - the Communist Party of the Russian Federation. It still had the same Stalinist leadership with no word of criticism of the old dictatorship, yet accepting capitalism as an established fact.

In today’s conditions, a new party needs to be built to give a real voice and representation to workers and young people and linking up with the task of building democratically controlled trade unions independent of the state and the bosses.



Putin and Medvedyev’s ruling party – United Russia – is the political face of Russian oligarch-ridden capitalism today. It looks set to win again at the next elections through rigging and fraudulent practices as usual. It has been described by Gorbachev recently as “authoritarian” and a “worse version of the Communist Party”. He has made it known that he favours Medvedyev for president rather than see Putin standing for a third term, but he has still praised Putin for “bringing Russia out of the chaos of the Boris Yeltsin years”.

At a press conference on 18 August this year, the last man to preside over the USSR said he regretted not resigning in April 1991 and setting up a “democratic party of reform” to rival the Communist Party which was blocking the transition to capitalism. He imagines that the catastrophic collapse in the economy that followed the failed coup and the avalanche of privatisation coup could have been avoided. (It is this that the Chinese Communist Party also is desperate to avoid. It is torn between reform and repression as it tries to ride the tiger of a transition to full-blooded capitalism.)

The English Guardian of 17 August this year carries a graphic representation of what happened to the ex-soviet republics in the years immediately after the break-up of the Soviet Union and the collapse of the planned economies. Moldova’s GDP and that of Tajikistan shrank by more than 60%. That of Georgia, Ukraine, Kirgizstan, Azerbaijan and Russia itself fell by 50% and more. The second largest of the ‘new states’ – Ukraine – has never recovered a positive growth rate. In the past 20 years its average has been minus 1.4%.

Only five of the 15 newly formed states saw a growth in their population; most declined - Russia by 7 million people. Life expectancy plummeted due to poverty, insecurity and the concomitant drug and alcohol abuse. None of the five new states in Central Asia has held a genuinely free and fair election and only one in the Caucasus - Georgia. Even in that country, only two of the eleven elections it has held in the past 20 years, were deemed came into the free and fair category!

So much for capitalist democracy and progress! Many amongst the older generation of the USSR have come to regret the transition to the market; few see what the alternative could have been and can be now. With the world economy spiraling into the depths of depression, Russia will be dragged down again, in spite of its oil riches. (The price of oil is anyway falling.)

Effects and lessons

The collapse of Stalinism and the Soviet Union allowed the capitalists and their defenders to conduct a sustained ideological campaign against socialism which still has a baleful effect on the outlook of workers and young people, even those who enter struggle against the bosses and their system. For twenty years they have been told that there is no alternative to capitalism - not only by capitalist politicians but by leaders of organisations which they and their forbears painfully constructed – the trade unions and most of what once were workers’ parties. Now the task of building new powerful workers’ organisations to combat capitalism in its death throes is urgent.

All the lessons of history have to be learned and re-learned. That includes the inspirational histories of revolutionary movements but also the educational history of counter-revolutions.


Only by understanding processes, the clash of economic and social forces, can a new generation prepare for the disturbed period that lies ahead. The creation of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was a magnificent feat, not possible without the insights and leadership of Lenin and Trotsky. Its degeneration under Stalin and his successors and its final destruction twenty years ago are deserving of study, if only to confirm the validity of Trotsky’s ideas. He foresaw in horrible detail how the capitalist counter-revolution would develop in the Soviet Union if workers were unable to carry through a successful political revolution.

A new era opens up in which the nightmares of Stalinism and its aftermath can become a thing of the past and in which successful revolutions are back on the agenda!

What effect could a collapse or shrinking of the EU have ?

We hear it all the time. the collapse of the Soviet Union and the stalinist states and the falling of the berlin wall was the defeat and the last nail in the coffin for socialism . Despite this not agreeing with how we see socialism did have a major impact on the working class and contiousness around the EU.

WIth the invention of the EU and teh common market with us being up to 25 member states now and one of the biggest if not the biggest threat to the European Union on the horizon could a similar thing occur to capitalist ideas.

Well we'd like to hope so. With the possible defaulting of Greece likely to be the fire starter for this burning flame which will start to lick at the rich nations Germany, France and the Uk no doubt this will make the ruling class tremble with fear that their system may be on the brink.

I do not ultimatly think the EU will break up totally i do think it will have to shrink to survive though. I think there are two sets of countries, The stronger ones like Germany, France and the UK but there are several nations which havent been stable for some time such as Portugal, Spain, Ireland and Greece.

This is the biggest worry if Greece defaults and i do ultimatly think it will even with this new austerity package forced on them it will not be able to keep up the repayment on the debt.

So i feel Greece will have to leave the EU to stablalise itself and allow itself to control its inflation and defalation of their own currency.

But would a break up or a partial break up lead to a defeat for the contiousness of the ruling class. I would suggest not as such powerful capitalist nations are still there and still growing like China and the US to some extent.

We as socialists oppose the EU as we do not feel it is democratic at all with it being run in teh interests of the capitalists and teh ruling class that they represent.

Capitalism will find anyway of surviving in a way that is its greatest feature to survivie even if that be at the expense of the working class they do not mind that.

Thi is what we are seeing now the taking back of all the gains we have made over the last 75 years to refinance their system to go again.

One of the most worrying parts for me is that when the working class has been crushed and any workers contiousness has been destroyed and this has happened before then the capitalists can play workers of different nations off against eachother. This is how dictators and world wars come about. But i wont go there but just to say one of the ways capitlaists have got themselves out of a hole is by the building and creation of something. As we all know wars cost money but can also make money. The destruction of towns and cities will all need rebuilding so what a coincidence that would be that there is money to be made there.

This is a extreme example but a example all the same of the lengths the ruling class will go to protect their system.

After the second world war there was a huge growth in GDP due to us rebuilding much of our country. This did not ultimatly serve in the workers benifit but the money makers, the boss's as per usual.

Ok the working class may have recieved concessions at the time such as the NHS but these are only given out as and when the c apitalists can afford them and are worthwhile and can be profited from.

So a interesting time is upon us many factors at play but i'd sadly never underestimate how far the ruling class will go to protect its system.

The workers contiousness which was battered down after the fall of the soviet union that people like Margret Thatcher made out socialism was dead and a workers state cannot be achieved had a desired affect. But as we feel the pinch of austerity measures many workers will be wondering does it have to be like this ?

They will be lead to the writings of such great thinkers and socialists like Karl Marx and Leon Trotsky and feel inspired by their ideas.

From this we hope to gain a new generation of revolutionary thinkers which c an lead the prolitariat forward and beyond.

Chernobyl 25 years on a case against nuclear power

I thought i'd share this e xcellent article posted on the CWI's website at www.socialistworld.net
a excellent article explaining the myths and lies around the Chernobyl disaster and the reality of life since then.

Scientists estimate nuclear fall-out caused over 200,000 deaths

Rob Jones, Moscow

It is now 25 years since the catastrophe at the Chernobyl nuclear station.

In the immediate aftermath and under pressure of public opinion, many countries tended to wind down their atomic energy programmes. Now, however, with oil at a high price, big business is attempting to resurrect nuclear power, arguing, that in fact the consequences of the Chernobyl disaster were not so serious after all.

George Monbiot (Guardian, 5 April 2011), a former anti-nuclear energy advocate has also now come out in favour of the nuclear lobby. He argues that there is no serious scientific evidence backing up claims of high fatality levels and even argues that the high deaths rates in the region around Chernobyl are as much due to the collapse of the Soviet Union. He criticises one study to back up his claim saying that "it made no attempt to correlate exposure to radiation with the incidence of disease".

Yet such studies have been made. A report written by Russian scientists and published by Greenpeace in 2006, gave many examples, backed by scientific references. For example, they compare different regions of Belarus, the country most affected by the Chernobylfall-out. It has seen a 40% increase in cancer rates in the period from 1990 to 2000. The highest increase (52%) was seen in the Gomel region which was the most affected by the fallout and the lowest (32-33%) in Brest and Mogilev - the least affected. This report can be read in detail here.

The Russian scientists who were involved in compiling this report, who had to overcome serious political obstacles from the Russia nuclear lobby to uncover the truth, estimate that in the years up to 2006, 200,000 people died as a result of Chernobyl. Many others suffer from other illnesses.

We reprint below an article from socialistworld.net pulished on the 20th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. Svetlana, one of the authors, who at the time was a vibrant and energetic activist defending the rights of Chernobyl victims, sadly later died of cancer, barely reaching the age of 20 years.



First published 24 April 2006:

Ukraine: The rewriting of Chernobyl’s history
Corruption and despair – Interviews with accident victims
Rob Jones and Svetlana, CWI CIS
On the 26 April, 1986, the fourth block of the Chernobyl nuclear power station exploded, throwing 50 million curies of radioactive isotopes into the atmosphere. This is 500 times more than was released when the American army dropped an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima, towards the end of WW2. In the year, following the Chernobyl catastrophe, over 200,000 people from the Ukraine, alone, were effected by the explosion (in the former USSR the figure was near 700,000). Around 3.5 million people were left living in regions with high radiation levels. Even today’s Ukraine Ministry of Health recognises that up to 80% of those people suffer some effects and require more medical treatment than would normally be the case. In the Ukraine, 643,000 children live in the affected areas, 5,500 of whom are registered invalids.

In a recent excellent article on Chernobyl, by Jon Dale and Peter Dickenson, posted on socialistworld.net, the authors explain how, as part of the new “Is atomic energy safe?” debate, there is a clear attempt being made by advocates of nuclear power to downscale the deaths and illnesses caused by the Chernobyl disaster, 20 years ago. A report by the International Atomic Energy Agency, in conjunction with the World Bank, and UN bodies (‘Chernobyl: The true scale of the accident’) claims, “A total of up to four thousand people could eventually die of radiation exposure from the Chernobyl nuclear power plant accident”.

“As of mid-2005, however, fewer than 50 deaths have been directly attributed to radiation from the disaster, almost all being highly exposed rescue workers, many of whom died within months of the accident”.

Outlandish claims
An even more outlandish claim is made by Patrick Moore, co-founder of Greenpeace, and now an advocate of nuclear power. He claims that only 56 deaths could be directly attributed to Chernobyl, and most of these, he claims, were people who died during the accident. He compares this figure to the over one million deaths in Africa, over the past twenty years, by people wielding machetes in various wars!

All the agencies working in the three countries directly affected by Chernobyl (Belarus, the Ukraine and Russia), however, report a completely different picture. Unlike the IAEA report, which was compiled mainly by people outside of the CIS and with close connections to the nuclear industry, another report ‘Consequences on Human Health of the Chernobyl Disaster’ was compiled using the evidence and input of dozens of health professionals working in the region. This report is backed by the research conducted by the Russian Academy of Science and which is published by Greenpeace. According to their information, over 200,000 people have died as a result of the Chernobyl catastrophe. What is immediately striking, when comparing the two reports, is that the IAEA only examines a very few illnesses and always attempts to put doubt on links between the illness and the accident. The Greenpeace report has a very thorough analysis of all the possible illnesses, backed by statistical analysis of, for example, relative illness rates between areas affected by the fallout and other areas. It is absolutely clear that the consequences of the Chernobyl disaster were horrendous and will continue to be so for decades.

The connivance of UN institutions with the cover up that is clearly being conducted by the nuclear industry is a scandal. However, there is another scandal that will probably never get much public airing in the mainstream media – that is, the pitifully low level of assistance given to the Chernobyl victims.

It is difficult to find information of funds given as humanitarian aid since the catastrophe. According to President Lukashenko of Belarus, over 200 million dollars was received by Belarus in the 15 years following the accident. If this figure is correct, it probably means that not much less than a billion dollars, in all, was granted for humanitarian aid. This is in addition to a further billion given to the Ukrainian government in technical assistance to aid the closure of the remaining power blocks at Chernobyl.

Precious little of this money, however, reached the victims, the vast majority of whom are victims of the worst forms of exploitation in the new capitalist countries that arose from the collapse of the USSR - a collapse clearly hastened by the Chernobyl catastrophe.

Victims Anna and Rustam talk to CWI
Rob Jones, from the CWI in the CIS, and Svetlana, a youth rights activist in one of the areas affected by the disaster, both recently visited Chernobyl victims in a hospital. They spoke to Anna and Rustam.

“I was a child at the time of the explosion. Now the next generation of children is going to school. Many, like my kids, are in and out of hospital. My sister’s child is permanently bald. My husband can’t get work. Yet the government is doing all it can to wipe the memory of Chernobyl from the consciousness of the Ukrainian people. But a huge bitterness remains in the minds of those affected.

“For the majority of Chernobyltsi [victims of Chernobyl] the word ‘work’ sounds great, but not many of has a job. For anyone living in one of the affected areas, a potential employer has to fill in a pack of official forms. He has to take on extra obligations to pay for sick pay and has to accept that the employee is likely to be ill more often than normal. Of course, in our new market economy, employers are not interested in taking on such people, particularly when there are so many ‘healthy’ people without work.

“And this is just the start! In this situation, people hide the fact that they are Chernobyltsi; better to be sick at work than be an unemployed Chernobyltsi. Because you can’t live on the pittance the state gives you. At least today wages and pensions are growing but the payment given to Chernobyltsi is staying the same. They say we have free places in the kinder garden for the kids. That’s true, but we then have to pay for any basic equipment they use. My niece is smart, she speaks English very well and wants to go to college – but that costs 5,000 dollars. Where will my sister find that money? The government is trying to forget about us, we just cause them embarrassment and further problems. For the new Ukrainian elite, just as in other capitalist countries, people are just lumps of meat and if they can’t make a profit out of us, they aren’t interested.

“And we are lucky; we live in one of the bigger towns. Those who live in the villages don’t see a kopeck. Many are just petrified what will happen tomorrow.

If you are a Chernobyltsi, it’s even difficult to get a driving license. All the children evacuated from the zone underwent compulsory psychological testing, and although maybe nothing was found, it is still recorded on your health record and the mere mention of a test is interpreted as a diagnosis [To get a driving license in the Ukraine and Russia, you need to pass a psychological test].

“From the government’s point of view this is great. Not only is this another means of extracting bribes, but it is a convenient let out for the government if we start to protest – ‘You know, we sympathise but these people have psychological difficulties!’ they say.

“Even worse, is the way that invalidity categories are misused [Category 1 invalidity is the most serious form of invalidity, usually experienced by those directly involved in the Chernobyl accident or living nearby]. If you have the money it’s very easy to buy this category now, and many do because as a result you are supposed to get free housing etc. And yet those of us who did suffer are left struggling. They have been promising me a flat for years. Maybe next year, they now say. But who knows? One of my mates was a welder working on the roof of Chernobyl at the time of the explosion. Eventually he got a flat but he only lived there for 6 months, he ended up in hospital having part of his stomach [and] part of a lung removed. Now he is unemployed, living on one kidney – but as he has ‘been cured’ [so] he has had his invalidity removed!

“And yet everywhere you go, you see people pulling strings. Just the other day I was in the compensation office. I met a bloke and asked him where he had been at the time of the accident. When he said ‘Chernobyl’, I suspected him. Only those actually involved [in the accident] know that the station [which exploded] and local residents [directly effected] were in Pripyat. He probably hadn’t even heard of the place. And yet we are facing these humiliations everyday.

“We lost everything”
“Even today, when I close my eyes, I can see the helicopters flying over the plant. My parents had gone to work and we children were playing in the yard. You can imagine what we felt when we heard many would not be coming home. It was over a day later when we were rounded up, told to get our passports and a change of clothes. They put us in a bus and drove us out. In one day we lost everything – our parents, friends, childhood and home. Some people who, whether it was sensible or not, managed to get back to the town some days later to collect their things, reported that all the homes had been stripped bare by someone. Now the authorities are arranging tourist trips by Westerners but they still refuse to allow us back for fear we will ask where our stuff has gone.

“Anyone left living in the ‘clean zone’ can only get by robbing and, even worse, killing. The Chernobyl ‘pension’ is miserly, and hasn’t been increased since 1996! Even the scandalously low ‘normal’ pension has increased ten times since then. People just don’t have enough to live. No-one can even think of going to the cinema, theatre. There’s not enough money for food and even less for medicines.

The Ukrainian government is cynically refusing to implement even its own laws. For example, according to the law on the provision of social support to victims of the Chernobyl accident, at least Category One invalids should get an annual trip to a sanatorium. But, in reality, they only allocate 30 dollars a person, when the absolute minimum cost of even a bad sanatorium is about 230 dollars. And there’s another example. According to that law, Category Three invalids should get a subsidy for medicines annually equivalent to five times the minimum wage. But the minimum wage in the Ukraine is only 70 dollars a month – and the price of medicines goes up and up. It is things such, as these, that have contributed to the deaths of the 60,000 Ukrainian victims of Chernobyl in the past ten years.

“There are over 50,000 families in the housing queue. Our new president [Viktor Yuschenko] doesn’t think this is a problem. He has already demonstrated that if there is no money to pay back the wage arrears of those in work, employers only have to pay the current wage. And a large part of the debt problems were accumulated during his time as premier. But at least wages are wages. The Ukraine is far from generous with the compensation it pays to the Chernobyltsi. It pays three dollars a month! It didn’t even come up with enough money to solve the consequences of the latest accident at Chernobyl [There was another accident in 2004]. The government then only came up with 2.5 billion grivna [Ukraine currency] - 16% of what was needed. And there’s an irony – until recently, there were still three blocks working at Chernobyl but they still rationed our electricity!

“Rulers live on such problems”
“To me, a person far removed from politics, it seems that our rulers live on such problems. They have profited by millions from the catastrophe. They have got used to travelling the world to seek aid. But they are not doing so to help the people. They haven’t got enough for themselves yet. And so far, holding out the begging bowl has been profitable for them. The person responsible for organising the distribution of the first humanitarian aid is now living comfortably in the US. On other occasions, we have seen truckloads of equipment arrive in the city only to be taken back out through the back door by the authorities. Some opposition politicians claim that the politicians and their hangers on have robbed the people of 12 billion dollars in such a way – but, who knows, maybe they are afraid to give the real figure. But what is worse, they don’t work themselves and don’t give us work.

“And nothing has changed since the ‘Orange revolution’ [2004-2005 mass street protests that saw the coming to power of the pro-Western Yushenko government]. There were many chernobyltsi amongst the protesters. We just lived in hope something would change. But even in the little time that has since passed they haven’t even bothered to look at our problems. If we couldn’t influence things before, we have even less success now. The first sign was when Yushenko published his ‘10 steps to meet the people’ programme… at the same time this new ‘peoples’ president’ kicked the health ministry out of its building to house his new secretariat. Not that the health bureaucrats are any better. Then in turn took over a children’s clinic that has treated over 55,000 young patients in the past ten years. Despite the promises to hand over the former secretariat’s building for a TB clinic, this, of course, has not happened.

“The country is in shock. Even the most stable and determined people are left staggering. Nobody believed that this new ‘boss’ would treat us so callously. But this will always be, as long as we learn not to be a nation begging from others but build our own economy, our own lives.

“Uranium a merciless enemy”
“Now they are talking of the Ukraine earning money from treating other people’s nuclear waste. But uranium is a merciless enemy. It has no heart, no eyes. Don’t believe anyone who tells you it is not frightening. The Chernobyl catastrophe is not only thousands of destroyed lives but thousands of kilometres of destroyed, infertile land. It is thousands of young sheep dying from leukaemia. It is the child’s cries of pain at night and people grown old from suffering. Uranium is a monster. But our rotten Ukrainian capitalism looks on it as a means of getting rich.”

After the interviews, as Svetlana left the office of the ‘Chernobyltsi’, she caught her breath. People are down, they’re pessimistic. You can see on the faces of the passers by the problems weighing them down. You can see the difficulties they have with their health. This is the cost of life in the new capitalism.

But, as Svetlana says, it could all be so different….

The Chernobyl nightmare – a crime under Stalinism and compounded under the ‘new capitalism’ – is, for CWI supporters, a spur to fight for real change in Ukraine and throughout the CIS, for a genuine socialist society.