Stalinism: Its Origin and Future. Andy Blunden 1993
With the smashing of the Union, politics and social development now takes place on the bases of the economic, social, political, historical, ethnic, military and geographical characteristics of the Republics. The legacy of the Czarist Empire and 70 years of the USSR impresses certain common parameters upon the development of these countries, and economically many of the Republics remain bound together by many economic and social ties. Nevertheless, it is absolutely essential in order to grasp the dynamics of the ex-USSR, to comprehend each Republic in its concrete, particular characteristics.
What has taken place in Moscow mainly since 1989 is qualitatively different, more intense and far-reaching than what has taken place both in the outer-reaches of the Russian Federation and in the other republics which formerly composed the USSR, let alone outside of the USSR.
The USSR was composed of:
The nine Republics which formed the CIS were the three Slav Republics, Armenia, Kazakhstan, and the four Central Asian Republics. In population terms Russia (137m) is 4/7, and the Slav republics Ukraine (50m) and Byelorussia (10m) compose one quarter. Kazakhstan (15m) and Uzbekhistan (15m) are the largest of the rest while the others have a population of 13m between them. Excluded were the three Baltic States and Moldavia where national sentiments point towards Europe, and Georgia and Azerbaijan which have a history of resisting Russian domination. Azerbaijan and Georgia had second thoughts about boycotting the Federation, however, after suffering badly in military conflicts following the break-up of the Union.
Ethnic Russians, who tend to form the majority of the organised working class wherever they are found, form substantial minorities or majorities in the Republics. Russians also live in the Republics as a result of the presence of military and naval bases and the Crimea was a “retirement village.” To the west, Russians are 48% in Latvia, 40% in Estonia and in Lithuania Russians and Poles together make up 20% of the population, and Russians make up 36% of the population of Moldavia. Many of these Russians are military personnel stationed in the region since the end of the War. Kazakhstan is 60% Russian and Kirghizstan 25% Russian, mainly as a result of the development of mining and other extractive industries by the USSR, particularly during the Khrushchev period. Altogether ethnic Russians make up 52% of the 262 million people of the Union. Within the Russian Federation ethnic Russians are 83% of the population of 137 million, which is home to 86 different nationalities. Outside of the Russian Federation they are on average 19%.
Before the August 1991 coup, the responsibility for nearly all the extraction, manufacturing, transport and distribution of raw materials and goods fell directly to government ministries based in Moscow, which centralised production in every field.
From Moscow, the Gosplan (State Planning Committee) and the central ministries determined what, how much and when each factory had to produce. Gossnab (State Committee for Supplies of Technical Material) assigned the supplies to do so, while Goskomtsen (the Price State Committee) determined the corresponding price of the product, and other bodies of the central apparatus took charge of the distribution.
Today there are no such organising bodies, either in Moscow or anywhere else. The movement of goods and services which used to take place in only one country, the USSR, is now the export and import among independent states. Not only are there no planning bodies across the ex-USSR, neither are there effective joint trade bodies nor transnational capitalist companies capable of organising trade.
Consider that Byelorussia produces only 22% of the metals it consumes, that Latvia produces only 13% of the fuel it consumes, that most republics import from half to two-thirds of the machinery they use and about a quarter of food products. 60% of the economies of Byelorussia and the Baltic States is in trade with other Republics. 70% of all the different types of machine tools made in the USSR could be obtained from one producer and no other. For instance, the only manufacturer of cigarette filters is in Kazakhstan. The Central Asian Republics are virtually one-crop economies. And this trade has been suddenly cut off.
In 1989, the “inter-republican exchange” in relation to the GDP in each republic was 60% for Ukraine and Kazakhstan, 95% for the Baltic countries, etc. Russia was the most self-sufficient republic, with “only” 30%.
What has been the effect of the sudden rupturing of this planned exchange? For example, the large steel factory of Ulramash in Ekaterinberg (formally Sverdlov), stopped production because the Rustavki factory from Georgia did not send them the materials. The Republic of Kirghizstan did not fulfil the plan of supply of vegetables and food reserves to the inhabitants of Irkutsk (Siberia, Russia) and in response Irkutsk reduced the supply of wood to Kirghizstan, thus bringing about serious problems in its mines and building sites. This process is being repeated all over the ex-USSR.
In 1992, Russia supplied only 15% of the oil it normally supplied to the Ukraine, and the Ukraine only 14% of the steel it normally supplied to Russia. Furthermore, the energy Russia supplied to the other Republics, it supplied at well below world prices. The Republics now have to buy their gas and oil at world prices.
Unlike the COMECON countries, the Republics of the USSR were part of a single, bureaucratically centralised and integrated economy and in most cases have not enjoyed economic or political independence in living memory. Most republics are capable of being independent in agriculture, but due to the disruption of all other aspects of social life, this capability is little more than potential.
This process of the shattering of international trade has no precedent in history.
The Soviet bureaucracy was based in Moscow. The political and social struggle that was necessary to break it up was consequently centred in Moscow and the major cities of Western Russia. These regions were also the centres of the main social forces that broke up the CPSU.
Despite the disintegrative effects of nationalism which is more powerful in the outer regions, it was not nationalism which broke up the USSR. It was the requirement to smash the state and its economic, political, juridical and bureaucratic extensions, in order to create the pre-conditions for capitalist development which motivated the break-up of the USSR at its centre. This process has been largely successful, but nothing has been constructed to put in its place.
In the main, while the power of the bureaucracy was smashed in Moscow and St. Petersburg, in the Republics, the Stalinists have to some considerable extent been able to adapt themselves to the changes in Moscow and maintained their positions of authority as the Republics changed over to the new relationships.
In the Central Asian Republics, the bureaucracy simply converted itself to Islam, and carried on as before. In the Baltic Republics, the nationalists enjoyed a short honeymoon, and in the Ukraine, for instance, former First Secretary Leonid Kravchuk regained the Presidency.
While it is true that the most important factor in the USSR is the destiny of the Russian working class and its struggle with the restorationist government of Yeltsin, it is important to recognise that the other Republics, both collectively and individually, manifest different phenomena.
Further, it is helpful in understanding the dynamics of the forces in Russia, to see how the same forces have disposed themselves in the different concrete situations in each Republic. In a sense, the Republics demonstrate different possible prognoses for Russia.
Yeltsin’s counter-revolution based itself in Russia and expelled the CPSU from government. In Russia, therefore, the CPSU has reconstituted itself into opposition parties. These opposition parties still wield influence in government and bureaucratic circles of course, especially in the outer regions.
Inevitably the fate of the Russian Federation cannot be discussed without considering the likelihood of the Federation suffering further disintegration. All the main political forces in Moscow support the retention of the Russian Federation as a unitary state. There are some factors favouring disintegration however.
The 86 nationalities: most of the ethnic minorities of the Federation have little hope of achieving any measure of independence. The mountain people of the Caucasus on the Georgian border will doubtless continue their age-old warfare against the Russians to the North and the Georgians and Abkhazians to the South, and will prove a thorn in the side of whomever governs Moscow. [At the time of writing, Russian troops are fighting it out with the Chechin in Grozny]. The Karelians on the Finnish border (whose Republic was also a later annexation) and the Islamic peoples on the Persian border also pose a threat.
Republican bases against the Centre: the ability to rule in Moscow to an extent depends on success in holding bases of support in the Regions. The Regional bureaucracies are still in the main a part of the old apparatus and retain social, political and economic links with each other. Both sides of the struggle for power in Moscow have toyed with moving Russian to a more federal type of constitution in which power would rest in part upon a Federation Council. From the point of view of those struggling for control of the Moscow bureaucracy, this is a dangerous manoeuvre. If too much power is vested in the regional bureaucratic bases, sections of the regional bureaucracy may see advantage in pushing for greater autonomy. In combination with the stronger national movements, such as in the South, this could threaten disintegration.
Imperialism: while none of the regions currently offer very lucrative prospects for imperialist investment, this may change. Many offer potentially lucrative extractive industries. The poverty and underdevelopment of the regions leaves them vulnerable to take-over by Western capitalist enterprises, in much the same way that US firms cut out domains for themselves in Latin America. Imperialist forces for their part may encourage autonomy as a means of strengthening their control in a region. During Gorbachev’s days, imperialism saw its advantage in retaining the infrastructure of the USSR and the possible smooth transition to capitalism á là China. That is past history now.
The Workers movement: the single most important cohesive factor in Russia is the workers’ movement. However, there is strong anti-centralist sentiment among the Russian workers. As part of the struggle to gain control of the trade unions, local governments and enterprises, workers may see advantage in demanding more and more autonomy.
The forces of cohesion are powerful however, and it is likely that the pragmatic advantage of reintegration as opposed to fragmentation will prove to be the dominant force within the workers’ movement.
Economic ties: the economic chaos described above must exert a pressure in the direction of re-integration of the regional economies. That is, unless war intervenes to shatter the connections even further. Even then, the moves by Georgia and Azerbaijan back to the CIS shows how bad experiences with solving problems through war can act as a deterrent to secession.
The military: The Czars ruled their Empire by brute force, as did Stalin. The Russian military machine is in very poor shape, but in relation to any potential threats within the Federation or on its borders and unless Western imperialism intervenes, the Russian army is a powerful instrument in the hands of whoever rules Moscow. In August 1993, all but the Baltics, Moldavia and Turkmenistan agreed to common defence and foreign policies. Tajikistan has invited Russian border guards to police the Tajikistan-Afghan border, and Azerbaijan and Georgia saw the advantage in seeking Russian assistance as a result of military defeats.
The flashpoint however is the Ukraine.
In November 1991, the Ukraine announced that it would create not just a ‘militia’, but its own armed forces of 450,000 people, claimed jurisdiction over the one million Soviet troops on its territory and the nuclear-armed Black Sea Fleet and declared that they would not hand over control of the nuclear missiles on their territory to the Central Command, or at least not until their value as bargaining chips was utilised. Eventually, in January 1994, the nuclear arsenal was traded for $1,000m in compensation, to be paid partly in fuel for the Chernobyl nuclear reactor – itself a symbol of the decrepit and dangerous condition of the Ukrainian economy.
The independence referendum in December 1991 gave a huge majority, apparently including support from the large Russian population. Ukraine is massively dependent on trade with Russia. 90% of its energy comes from Russia for example, now available at a price many times what applied previously. Russia’s gas exports to Europe are piped through the Ukraine, and as the Ukraine proves unable to pay its bills, the pipeline itself is in danger of becoming a hostage. For its part, the Ukraine has been Russia’s main supplier of grain.
The local currency has become worthless, with senseless border checks to endure every time people visit their relatives in Russia. Under Leonid Kravchuk, the Ukraine has tried harder than other Republics to keep the old planned system going, and has been less affected by “market romanticism.” But even the mail system doesn’t work, organised crime is rampant, there are a growing number of paramilitary groups being organised and there are all sorts of smuggling rackets going on.
The central pillars of the Ukrainian economy are the miners in the East, mostly ethnic Russians, and the farmers in the West, mostly ethnic Ukrainians. The Baltic and Black Sea naval bases are important sources of trade and manufacturing demand, and there is the Russian “retirement village” in the Crimea.
In March/April 1994, elections were held as a result of the demand of the Donetsk miners. Voters in the Eastern regions also voted in plebiscites calling for an independent Eastern Ukraine with closer links with Russia. The election returned a bloc of 60 which included Stalinists and pro-Russian parties, a bloc of 30 which included Ukrainian nationalists and pro-capitalists, and 109 independents with a variety of positions across this spectrum. Meanwhile, hostilities between Ukraine and Russia over possession of the Crimea and the Navy, and between ethnic Russians and Ukrainians within the Ukraine intensified.
In the July 1994 presidential election, Kravchuk lost power to the pro-Russian Kuchma.
The presence of large numbers of military personnel, military hardware and nuclear reactors in a region suffering desperate economic and inter-ethnic problems points to a dire future.
Tiny Byelorussia, with a mostly-rural population of 10 million straddled between Moscow and the Ukraine, and devastated by the Chernobyl disaster, has resisted with difficulty the pressure to privatise its economy. In January 1994, the pro-market President Stanislav Shushkevich was removed from office by the Byelorussian Parliament and replaced by a member of the Byelorussian Communist Party who advocated a slower pace of privatisation.
In a general election in July 1994, the pro-Russian Lukashenko won government. Thus, the two Slav Republics, after a brief taste of “independence,” with no prospect whatsoever of integration into Europe, have oriented themselves back towards Russia.
Population 5 million. Georgians (Orthodox Christians and Muslims) make up 2/3 of population, the rest being from the many Sunni-Muslim peoples of the region, and the Gregorian-Christian Armenians. There is virtually no Russian minority in Georgia.
In April 1989, the leadership of the Georgian Party was purged after Soviet Interior Ministry forces had broken up a demonstration of 8,000 in Tbilisi, killing 19 people. Security forces beat people to death with spades after a religious leader had led prayers for non-violence. There were allegations that the over-reaction was a deliberate provocation by “conservatives.”
In November 1990, the Georgian government resigned and parliament elected the long-standing, ardent Georgian nationalist Zviad Gamasakhurdia president. Gamasakhurdia advocated independence from the USSR after a five-year transition period.
In a referendum on March 31 1991, Georgians voted by 99% for independence on the basis of the 1918 Act of Independence of the Mensheviks during the Civil War. The Armenian and Azeri minorities evidently supported independence. The northern Ossetians and Abkhazian minorities wanted to stay in the USSR, but boycotted the referendum. There were also separatist sentiments among the Ajars in the West.
A state of emergency was declared in the Georgian Autonomous region of South Ossetia, threatened by Georgian nationalists, and Soviet troops were sent in to protect the Ossetians. The Ossetians wanted to form an independent republic with their northern cousins in Northern Ossetia, which is part of the Russian Federation, but the Ossetians would prefer to be part of the Russian Federation, rather than be left to the mercy of Georgian nationalism. Soviet troops stationed in South Ossetia were replaced every couple of months “because you just can’t stand the mood of vengeance and cruelty prevailing here for a long time” in the words of a Soviet soldier. The Ossetians were not supportive of Yeltsin, not because they were “communists,” but because they doubted whether they would receive the same degree of military support and protection as was provided by the former regime.
Within Georgia, a right-wing opposition to Gamasakhurdia was being built. The opposition was made up of Tenghiz Kitovani’s National Guard, Dhzaba Ioselania’s Mkhedrioni (The Horsemen), and the militia of Merab Kostava. These forces were no more sympathetic to the independence claims of the Ossetians and other mountain communities either side of the Russian-Georgian border than Gamasakhurdia had been.
In September 1991, opposition forces seized Government House.
Following the failure of the Moscow Coup, Gamasakhurdia and the opposition competed for Yeltsin’s support. The opposition feared however that if Yeltsin were to move too decisively against Gamasakhurdia, this would polarise Georgian nationalism behind Gamasakhurdia.
In January 1992, after two weeks of bitter fighting, Gamaskurdia’s forces retook Government House, built to withstand a nuclear attack, with 1,200 loyal troops. But many of his officials soon defected, criticising Gamaskhurdia’s ‘authoritarian’ style. Gamaskhurdia was supported mainly by rural and working class Georgians, while the opposition leant more on the urban intellectuals.
After 16 days Gamaskhurdia fled Georgia, and a military Council was set up as a provisional government until elections held in October. Kitovani and Iosiani stated that their preferred option was a constitutional monarchy under Prince Jorge Bagration, a Spanish citizen, and that they were admirers of Gen. Franco. Eduard Shevadnardze, formerly Gorbachev’s Foreign Minister and the most prominent figure in the old regime to support Yeltsin, returned to his native Georgia, to head the Council, and ‘help establish democracy’.
At elections held in October, Shevadnardze was elected Speaker of Parliament, effectively President. In some regions of the country the election was boycotted, and in others it could not be held due to fighting between the Georgians and local nationalists.
Late in 1991, an alliance emerged between the national leaders of the Caucasian Mountain Peoples, whose territories straddle between the Russian Federation and Georgia. This alliance was led by former Soviet Air Force General Johar Dudayev, who was elected President of the Chechin Autonomous Region in December 1991, and declared the republic independent of the Russian Federation, expelled the Russian garrison and rallied the other mountain communities with him. He also gave active military support to Abkhazian rebels across the border in Georgia.
Gen. Dudayev threatened that ‘the whole Caucasus would ignite if Yeltsin attempted to oppose the independence of his republic’, which he claimed was defended by an irregular force of 300,000. Russian troops left Chechnya to avoid clashes, but Yeltsin could afford to grant the Chechins independence without risking the unravelling of the whole Federation. Meanwhile, arms traders and the mafia did a roaring trade in the mountain regions. [In December 1994, Yeltsin moved on the Chechins and opened full scale warfare in the Caucasus].
In October 1992, Ioseliani gave an ultimatum to the 100,000 Russian troops stationed in Abkhazia to leave within ten days, but this did not prevent the Abkhazians from arming themselves and opening up a struggle for their independence from Georgia.
Pro-Russians, especially in the intelligentsia, formed an opposition to Dudayev, in favour of remaining in the Russian Federation. Although only 18% of the population of the Georgian region of Abkhazia, the Abkhazians have joined up with Armenians, Russians and Greeks (together 50%) to oppose the Georgians. The Abkhazians turned to the mountain people for support because they felt that they could not rely on support from Moscow, but the alliance of these disparate and small communities is riven by many dormant internal conflicts.
In July 1993, Shevadnardze set up his office in the Abkhazian city of Sukhumi, threatened by Abkhazian approaching forces, and appealed for help from the leaders of the Western countries to put down the rebellion.
In September, the Georgian forces were routed by the mountain people and Abkhazia liberated. The retreating Georgian army was then attacked in the rear by Gamaskhurdia’s forces who landed in the South, but Gamaskhurdia committed suicide after his forces were defeated.
In March 1994, the Georgian Parliament voted the join the CIS and seek the benefits of a UN peace-keeping force and a military pact with Russia, as the government’s ability to exercise control over its own military became less and less secure. The storming of the Parliamentary building by 200 policemen angry at the appointment of a new boss, highlighted the instability of Shevadnardze’s government.
Azerbaijan has been racked by civil war since the anti-Armenian pogrom in February 1988 and the emergence of the Azerbaijani Popular Front in 1989, which organised strikes and launched pogroms against Russians and Armenians. The Red Army intervened to protect Russian nationals and did not leave until March 1992. In May 1991, the Armenian enclave of Nagorno-Kharabakh declared itself independent in the face of growing threats from the Azeris, and declared that the laws of the USSR applied within the new Republic. The Azeri government duly launched a war to crush the rebellion. and in the wake of the failed Moscow coup, Azerbaijan declared itself independent of the USSR and refused to join the C.I.S.
In June 1992, Abulfaz Elchibey was elected President. Elchibey was a “Pan-Turkish” academic who had been jailed as a dissident in the 1970s. His regime was marked by widespread corruption, alienation of national minorities, and Elchibey personally won a reputation for drunkenness.
The war with Armenia over the enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh which has a mainly Armenian population proved disastrous for Azerbaijan, which despite its numerical superiority was given a whipping by the Armenians. This humiliation in turn triggered bitter armed recriminations among the Azeris.
A rebellion was led by Geidar Aliyev who had been First Secretary of the Republic’s Communist Party. As troops marched on Baku, Elchibey fled by helicopter to the Azeri enclave of Nakhichevan on the Iranian/Turkish border, cut off from the rest of Azerbaijan by Armenia. While Turkey and Iran still recognised Elchibey as the only legitimate leader, Elchibey received a stunning 97.5% vote of no confidence in a popular referendum, and Aliyev’s government eventually received reluctant international recognition.
With 20 million ethnic Azeris across the Iranian border threatening to ignite the age-old hostility between the Christian Armenians and Turkey and Iran who have persecuted their own Armenian minorities for centuries, there were plenty of people anxious to see the Azeri-Armenian conflict sorted out as soon as possible. Aliyev, a former member of the Politburo of the CPSU, moved to re-establish friendly relationships with Moscow to put an end to the fighting.
Azerbaijan is one of the smallest of the Republics, but is the main supplier of meat to Russia.
The Christian Armenians, divided by national borders between Turkey, the USSR and Iran, have maintained a dogged struggle for their national rights over countless generations. Enjoyment of their “own” autonomous Republic within the USSR was no comfort and the demand for Armenian independence from the USSR was ever-present. As conflict escalated in the late 1980s, Soviet troops intervened against the Azerbaijan nationalists but saved their real brutality for the Armenians in the enclave of Nagorno-Kharabakh when they declared themselves independent of Azerbaijan and part of Armenia in 1988. Anti-Armenian progroms in Azerbaijan, Tajikistan and Uzbekhistan in February 1990 spurred the Armenians to arm themselves.
Despite their hostility to captivity within the USSR, the Armenians saw clearly the dangers inherent in the nationalist movements in the neighbouring Muslim-populated Republics, and when Azerbaijan declared itself independent in the wake of the Moscow coup and refused to join the CIS, the Armenians linked their fight for Armenian independence with support for the CIS.
Having achieved something resembling a real Armenian homeland for the first time, it is difficult to see a way forward for little Armenia. Surrounded by hostile neighbours Turkey, Azerbaijan and Iran, the relatively well-educated, but predominantly rural Armenians have no basis for an independent nation.
Nursultan Nazarvayev, President of Kazakhstan, represents the classic case of a Stalinist adapting him/herself to the new regime. After avoiding taking sides during the Moscow Coup, once the outcome was clear Nazarvayev resigned from the CP, ordered the Party’s dissolution and in September, the Kazakhstan CP changed its name to the Kazakhstan Socialist Party and continued to wield power. Nazarvayev made concessions to nationalist sentiments and demands for more political freedom, closed down the Semipalatinsk nuclear plant which had already poisoned a whole section of the population. He later confirmed himself as President in an election in which he was the sole candidate.
Kazakhstan has a population of 16m of which only 6m are Kazakhs. Many of the younger generation of Kazakhs do not now speak the local language. The 10m Slavs have arrived as a result of exile or as part of the industrialisation of the area and construction of large collective farms during the Khrushchev era. The Kazakhs were driven off the land and most now reside in the cities. The land question looms large for the Kazakhs and there are tensions between Russians and Kazakhs. So far Kazakhstan has avoided the ethnic strife which has affected other parts of the region however.
The Conference which set up the CIS was convened in the Kazakh capital of Alma-Ata and Kazakhstan has been the most loyal supporter of the Alliance. Nazarvayev has committed Kazakhstan to removal of its nuclear weapons and supports the defence treaty with the other CIS states. Kazakhstan is relatively resource-rich and industrially fairly developed. Although its territory is vast it is fairly urbanised. The French oil company Elf has been invited in to develop Kazakhstan’s vast oil reserves and there is a plan to pipe oil to Russia and to the Persian Gulf.
Kazakhstan is the only region east of the Urals where there has been a development of the independent workers’ movement.
Tajikistan, the tiny Central Asian Republic on the Afghan border, capital Dushanbe, population of 5.2m. While ruled for 20 years by the Gorbachev-type Stalinist Rakhmon Nabiyev, many ethnic Tajiks strongly sympathise with their fellow Muslims across the border in Afghanistan. In February 1990, army snipers shot 27 demonstrators among a crowd calling for the resignation of the President and independence from the USSR.
Following the failure of the Moscow Coup, the Tajikistan CP sacked its “hard line” General Secretary, but this was very much a sacrificial offering. Four weeks after the failure of the Moscow Coup, on the anniversary of the birth of Mohammed, the Tajik Communist Party held its Congress, changed its name to the Tajik Socialist Party, and “interim President” Kadriddin Aslonov stood on the steps of the statue of Lenin in the central square of Dushanbe and signed a decree banning the Communist Party and declaring the Republic independent. At dawn on the following day, the statue of Lenin was hauled down by crowds shouting “Allah is Great!”
Later, Rakhmon Nabiyev, won election as President of Tajikistan against pro-capitalist “democratic” opponents. The religious leaders did not contest the election. The ruling former group is not based simply on ideology, but has strong links with clans in the North (Leninabad) and South (Kulyab) of the country.
Although the Arabic script was repressed by Stalin in 1927, along with the Tajik literary tradition, the official religious bodies had made an accommodation in the old regime. Chief cadi Akbar Turanjon-Zoda however had remained “clean” of involvement with the regime and enjoyed popularity among the Tajik masses. Mosques were springing up everywhere – 128 in October 1991 compared with 17 in 1988.
Initially, the anti-Stalinist forces, both “liberal democratic” and nationalist, attempted to form a united front against the Stalinists. In pursuit of this united front, the religious parties all proclaimed secularism, but the various formulations of “a republic in keeping with Islamic law” left concern that their secularism was skin-deep.
The Islamic regime in Iran courted good relations with the Tajiks. At first truck loads of copies of the Koran, later truckloads of automatic weapons across the border from Afghanistan. Conflict with the Islamic fundamentalists escalated and in February 1990, anti-Russian and pro-Islamic unrest spilled over into neighbouring Samarkand in Uzbekhistan.
After six weeks of bloody ethnic conflict in April/May 1992, military leaders brokered a coalition between moderate nationalists elements and the “reformed Stalinist” government of Rakhmon Nabiyev against the Islamic fundamentalists. But six weeks later the coalition broke down and the Stalinists re-established control. In late 1993, Russian border guards were called in by the government, supported by the Russian Air Force to repel mujihadeen attacking across the Afghani border.
As in the other Central Asian Republics, more and more Russian nationals are leaving the country.
Uzbekhistan: most populous of the Central Asian Republics, capital Tashkent, has borders with Kazakhstan, Kirghizstan, Turkmenistan and Tajikistan and a short border with Afghanistan.
In June 1989, thousands of troops were sent in to Uzbekhistan to quell pogroms by the Uzbekhs against the Turkish minority. The 160,000 Turks in Uzbekhistan had been deported to Central Asia from Georgia by Stalin in 1944. Now unemployed as a result of mechanisation of the cotton farms, the Turks want only to return to their homeland.
During the days of uncertainty during the Moscow Coup, the Uzbekhistan press published all the communiqués of the “plotters,” and President Islam Karimov took care to make no public statements at all. A few weeks later Karimov declared Uzbekhistan independent and banned all radio broadcasts from Russia. He then changed the name of the Uzbek Communist Party to the People’s Democratic Party. 250 people demonstrating in favour of Yeltsin were later arrested and most opposition parties went underground. Forced by external events down the road of capitalist restoration, Karimov remains a Brezhnev-era Stalinist.
The Uzbek economy is totally dependent on cotton exports, and the overuse of fertiliser over decades is threatening to destroy this resource, as well as being responsible for the highest infant mortality rate in the ex-USSR. Living conditions and the level of cultural development is very backward. The danger of a fundamentalist upsurge overthrowing the Stalinist regime and bringing with it a huge leap back to a previous century is forcing many opposition forces to seek to reform the Stalinist regime, rather than overthrow it, under conditions in which Islamic fundamentalism is likely to be more effective in arousing popular passions against the regime.
A year after the Moscow Coup there were already more than 1,000 mosques in Uzbekhistan, although only 5 per cent of Uzbek Muslims could read the Arabic script.
Kirghizstan: small Central Asian republic on the mountainous far-western border of China. President Askar Akayev is a Gorbachev-style “market socialist” and has enjoyed open support from the Grand Mufti of Tashkent, religious leader of all the Muslims in the Central Asian Republics. There is little enthusiasm for economic transformation however. The break-up of the Union which forced the Republics to set up their own currencies soon led to runaway inflation in Kirghizstan, despite its substantial gold mining industry. Overall production fell 25 per cent in the year following independence. Kirghizstan has a useless sugar plant for refining Cuban sugar which was no longer arriving but now exports electricity to China. Altogether it is not resource-rich.
In July 1990, there was a sudden outbreak of fighting between Kirghiz and Uzbeks in the Och Valley in which hundreds were killed. Ethnic tensions continue to fester under the surface. Islam had never had a strong hold in Kirghizstan, and a year after the Moscow Coup, there was still very low attendance at the one Mosque in Bishkek.
The 800,000 Russians constitute 25% of the population, but 200,000 have left the Republic in the last few years as the local people have taken control of their country. Many young Kirghiz people however can hardly speak the local language and the government is trying to persuade the more educated Russians to stay and assist in the development of the country. Nevertheless, seeing the rise of fundamentalism in the neighbouring Republics, the government and many of the Russian immigrants see Islamic fundamentalism as a real threat.
Turkmenistan: spread along the Persian border between the Caspian Sea and Afghanistan, sparsely populated, relies on the steady flow of income from its natural gas pipeline to Russia. The old-style Stalinist government has reluctantly adapted to the new economic regime forced upon by the change in Moscow.
In July 1993, the Russian government cancelled large denomination rouble notes, and this led to the Central Asian states becoming swamped with old currency. In October 1993, Russia offered to set up a “rouble zone”, but in exchange Republics joining the rouble zone had to surrender their gold reserves, and thereby their national independence. Tajikistan opted to go with the rouble, but each of the other Central Asian Republics, with encouragement from the IMF, refused and launched their own currencies and themselves into independence and monetary chaos.
Kirghizstan has very little in the way of natural resources and it is difficult to see how it can survive as an independent state with its own currency, geographically almost totally isolated from the rest of the world. The other Central Asian Republics at least have natural resources for sale.
The ethnic-Rumanian Moldavia (Moldova) is the poorest and most underdeveloped of the Republics of the former USSR. In March 1994, elections led to a win for candidates favouring continued independence, and opposed to unification with Rumania. The presence of large numbers of former Soviet military personnel is a significant factor in the predominantly rural statelet.
70 years of Stalinist rule in the territory of the former USSR has bequeathed the peoples of the region a political caste trained in the Stalin school. However, with the collapse of the centralised bureaucratic machine and the Soviet state, these officials express a variety of political and social forces from one extreme to the other.
Moscow remains the centre of the struggle which will determine the main lines of future development in the region. The Russian Federation, and its Moscow-centred dominant Russian people, is likely to remain substantially intact even if somewhat frayed around the edges. The Russian Federation is far and away the predominant factor in the future course of the region both in the long and short term.
The greater portion of the old ruling caste has joined with the mafia, wheeler-dealer entrepreneurs and better-off farmers to make up the new bourgeoisie of the region. This new bourgeoisie is engaged in primitive accumulation of a sort and a kind of parasitic compradorism (i.e. acting as local agents of imperialist firms). Others will find their place in the workers’ movement.
Inevitably, the working class of the region will find itself with a substantial legacy of Stalinist leadership. The history of Stalinism reviewed in this work shows a kaleidoscope of the political practices and methods which this social stratum will draw upon in their leadership of the working class.
However, Stalinism has been the only school of politics available to a generation. Some who formerly held positions within the apparatus will make an important contribution in the future. The Left, which has an analysis of Stalinism and is consciously seeking to break from its legacy, is a small minority. So also is that layer of workers who have come into politics for the first time during the period since politics began to open up in 1988, and who have rejected and fought against Stalinism throughout.
This Left, which is untainted by Stalinism, is still relatively marginalised by the “professional appparatchiks” let loose by the collapse of the CPSU. The relative success of the process of renovating the former Soviet trade unions demonstrates that the rebuilding of the workers’ movement in the ex-USSR will in large measure involve the reorientation of former Stalinists.
Looked at from the West, it seems surprising that the collapse of the CPSU has left a workers’ movement with a relatively marginalised Left and an opportunist right-wing bureaucracy which is in many ways commensurate with the current situation in the West.
There are of course huge differences in the political landscape as well, particularly the intensity with which workers are affected by the poisoning of the socialist ideal by Stalinism. Nevertheless, one cannot but be struck by how rapidly the politics of the workers movement has shown itself to be a world problem, which cannot be solved within just one country or region.
The experience of Stalinist rule will contribute a body of knowledge and new political ideas to the workers movement, but it certainly has not generated in the ex-USSR a whole class which has already “overcome Stalinism,” “gone beyond Stalinism” or such like.
The ex-Soviet working class now has to re-learn how to fight capitalism, and it may be some time before the world can really benefit from a political development based on a transcendence of Stalinism by the Russian workers.
In the meantime, few would disagree that the Russian and other workers of the region face a very difficult future, with the centralised economy of the USSR smashed irrevocably and as yet no sign of anything capable of replacing it.
I believe that the struggle to renovate the former Soviet trade unions is a correct perspective. The trade unions remain one of the few gains to be left after the collapse of the USSR in a condition from which it can be restored to life. What an irony that these unions were nothing but instruments for the disciplining of labour under the former regime! – and yet they do constitute a “gain” which needs to be preserved and made into an effective instrument of the working class. To turn away from the “reformed unions” would inevitably accentuate the fragmentation of a working class which above all needs to regain its unity in struggle. There must be a real effort however to draw in those workers who have put their energies into building “new” unions.
Similarly, every residual gain from the old regime which is not yet entirely extinguished should be defended. The breaking up of industrial enterprises must be opposed, the sell-off of social services must be opposed, all penalties applied to state-enterprises to force them to privatise or cut wages must be opposed, all possibilities to extend or preserve the protection of the aged, children, those in need of health care, etc must be defended, all elements of the exploitation of women that are imported from the West must be opposed, without any illusions about the position of women in the former regime.
It may not be rational or feasible to oppose capitalist investment where there is no alternative means of developing the economy. The state monopoly on foreign trade is something of the distant past. The tasks of the working class in relation to capitalist employers are not a lot different in the former USSR than they are in an old capitalist country.
The workers of the ex-USSR will inevitably become part of the world economy, and they have nothing to gain by resisting that process. This does not take away from the imperative to resist every attempt to take advantage of the desperate economic plight of workers in the region or attack the conditions which workers rightly expect to enjoy.
Further, the Soviet trade unions need to make connections with the trade unions of the West, even where this means making a connection with the conservative, pro-capitalist leaders of the trade unions in the West. We should support and encourage all such contacts and links.
Workers in the capitalist world have had a different experience of Stalinism over the past 70 years, and an experience of no lesser significance than that of those who have lived under its rule. On the contrary, the Russian workers particularly need to study the history of Stalinism in the capitalist world.
The situation of the women’s movement in Eastern Europe after 1989 is described by Barbara Einhorn:
“There are considerable intra-country differences. Tradition, religion, recent history and current concerns give the situation and potential of women’s movements varying nuances in each case. In the former GDR, proximity to West Germany meant more familiarity with the concepts and arguments of Western feminism than was possible in most of the other countries bar Yugoslavia. Nor was the environment quite so inimical to the growth of feminist ideas – indeed in the 1980s the Protestant Church in the GDR offered physical as well as ideological space for feminist groups. Furthermore, an unbroken tradition of social democratic and socialist feminism, symbolised in the person of Klara Zetkin, offered the advantage of continuity. Such opposition to feminism as there was, based itself upon Marxist orthodoxy rather than religious doctrine or national tradition. In the present, the five new Federal states have perhaps the most politically effective as well as most explicitly feminist movement of any. Yet it seems that unification has had a hand in slowing, if only temporarily, the initial enormous impetus of the UFV.
“Czechoslovakia may boast a plethora of women’s groups, many of whom identify with the thriving pre-Second World War bourgeois feminist movement. Yet these groups are individually tiny and together disparate, united only by a commitment to the family as the basis for social stability and to the centrality of women’s maternal role within it. Jirina Siklova’s Centre for Gender Studies, indeed the project of gender studies itself, is very much a minority voice in a hostile or at least unreceptive environment.
“In Hungary, the weight of semifeudal peasant tradition and Catholicism together help to fuel the virulent anti-feminism against which the Hungarian Feminist Network struggles almost alone except for small groups of professional and businesswomen. Yet the Network’s energy, together with their success in gaining international support, are cause for optimism in estimating their chances of survival. And perhaps in the mid- to long-term, speculates Hungarian sociologist Julia Szalai, women’s experiences in the informal networks of the past, their adept ability to juggle and improvise using scarce resources, will stand them in good stead for creating the autonomous grassroots organisations of a future civil society.
“In Poland, conversely, sociologist Renata Siemienska has pointed to a primary identification with the family and the nation as a factor, alongside state socialist oppression, which mitigates against the emergence of intermediate social movements. And at least in the short term, while women are fully occupied mediating for the family the shock waves of the transition, their organisational efforts will tend to be minimal and to remain invisible, ironically not unlike their domestic labour under state socialism. In the former Soviet Union, dire material conditions affecting food availability and health care, combine with patriarchal and nationalist ideology to discourage the mass of women from organising themselves.
“The conservative and powerful influence of the Catholic Church in Poland has had the ironic effect of uniting disparate and mutually suspicious women’s groups in the struggle to defend women’s reproductive rights, whereas the outward catalyst activating women in the case of the former.”[254]
The USA has placed an embargo on trade with Cuba since 1962. Since then, Cuba was totally reliant on trade, carried out on favorable terms, with the Soviet Union. In 1991, this trade was suddenly and almost totally cut off. In its determination to take revenge on its tiny independent neighbour, the US has since escalated the embargo – denying ports and airports to ships and planes en route to Cuba and denying the right of companies trading with Cuba to trade in the US. Since the fall of the USSR, this embargo has left the country of only 11 million people, unable to trade within its region, almost totally isolated economically.
In July 1992, Castro was interviewed for The Guardian by the former Sandinista Tomas Borge:
On the collapse of the USSR:
“What took place in the Soviet Union was an incredible act of self-destruction. It is undeniable that the responsibility for that self-destruction lies with the leaders of that country. Now, some destroyed it consciously and some unconsciously. I can’t say that Gorbachev played a conscious part in the destruction of the Soviet Union because I have no doubt that Gorbachev’s aim was to struggle to perfect socialism. Imperialism would never have been able to break up the Soviet Union if the Soviets themselves hadn’t self-destructed.”
On Stalin:
“I believe that Stalin committed very big errors, but also had very big successes.
“... Stalin committed enormous abuses of power. It seems to me that the attempt to socialise the land in a very brief historical period and through violence was very costly, in economic and human terms. ... it was a flagrant violation of principles to seek peace with Hitler at all costs to buy time.
“We have never negotiated a single principle to buy time, nor for any kind of practical advantage. ...
“Lastly, Stalin’s character, his terrible mistrust of everything, led him to commit other serious errors: one of them was to fall into the trap of the Germans’ intrigues and carry out a terrible, bloody purge of the armed forces and practically decapitate the Soviet army on the eve of the War.”
“[Stalin’s merits were] having established the unity of the Soviet Union, consolidating what Lenin had initiated, the unity of the party. He gave a boost to the international revolutionary movement. The industrialisation of the Soviet Union was one of Stalin’s big successes.
“A great merit of Stalin’s – or of the collective that was with Stalin – was the programme of transferring the strategic industries to Siberia and the depths of the Soviet Union.”
On the immediate perspectives of the Cuban government:
“...we are working with 50 per cent of the fuel imports that we used to have and we are working with 40 per cent or less of the imports the country used to receive.
“... Production of all non-essentials [must] fall, ... practically paralyse our social development programmes, our building programmes for housing, for childcare centres, for special schools, for technical schools, for university facilities.
“We left prioritised programmes in full development: those related, for example, to biotechnology, to the pharmaceutical industry, to medical equipment, to the tourism programme, and to the food programme, which occupies first place. The scientific programmes also continued in full development.
“So for us the essential question is not just survival, but also to develop, despite the hardships.”
By mid-1993, austerity measures were cutting deeply into the lives of all Cubans. Industry was operating at only 40 per cent of capacity. The sugar crop, which accounted for 65% of foreign earnings in 1992, was down 40% to a 30-year low in 1993. Output had shrunk 50% since ending of trade with the USSR. In 1989, Cuba had $8b hard currency to buy imports. In 1992, it had $1.7b.
Cuba-watchers began to report signs of a crisis within Cuba and signs of differences within the Cuban Communist Party. According to Lynn Geldof “pragmatists” were represented by CC member Carlos Aldana and “hardliners” by CC Secretary Ramon Machado Ventura.
Havana University academic, Osvaldo Cardenas was quoted:
“Economics defines the limits of politics. You can have a highly centralised system because politically it is easier to control, but economically it’s a disaster and you eventually have to pay the price. You must introduce mechanisms of dynamism, devolved management, decentralisation – which supposes also the democratisation of socialist society.”
A New Economic Policy introduced by Castro in 1993 now offered foreign investors majority control in joint ventures, legalised possession of US dollars and allowed visits by Cubans living in the US (bringing dollars with them).
In August 1994, as the flow of refugees crossing the Straits of Florida to escape the siege reached record levels, the Clinton administration threatened to step up the economic blockade of Cuba by blocking the estimated $400m p.a. sent home by Cubans living in the US.
In September 1994 the peasant markets were restored. A week later, in an interview with the Venezuelan El Nacional, Castro offered to step aside as part of a settlement with the US which would lift the embargo.
He said: “I am offering my head in return for the independence of Cuba, for the Revolution and for socialism” and welcomed an offer by ex-President Jimmy Carter to act as a mediator.
While most Communist Parties in the world were retreating from Socialism, ageing and declining in membership, the Communist Party which had had up until a few years ago, the distinction of being the only Moscow-line CP never to have written the “Parliamentary Road to Socialism” into its program – the SACP – was growing, and growing by way of a massive of influx of militant, young, poor, black workers.
Since being formally legalised in December 1991, the SACP membership had grown to over 40,000, more than at any time in its history.
F W de Klerk’s program of dismantling of aparthied brought the release of the future President Nelson Mandela and the imminent prospect of an elected ANC government, amid unprecedented economic and social crises with some 7 million unemployed.
The most powerful sections of the South African bourgeoisie were pushing for a compromise with the leaders of the black majority which would head-off the otherwise inevitable social revolution. To this end they were facilitating the stratification of the black working class, granting improved wages and conditions to a minority of organised, skilled workers, throwing masses of unskilled workers into abject poverty and openly meeting with leaders of the ANC and the South African Communist Party to discuss a future “social contract” or “Accord” along the lines of the ALP government or the Callaghan/Wilson government in Britain.
Caught in this vice, the SACP faced an enormous crisis, with the prospect of the mass of young militants splitting from the older leadership. The vision of a peaceful end to aparthied at the end of the long, long road of the black working class to Freedom was sufficiently enticing to allow the SACP leadership to contain this pressure up till the election of the ANC government in 1994. This government included on one hand the Finance Minister of the former National Party government retaining his control of the “purse strings,” and on the other, the late Joe Slovo, leader of the SACP taking the portfolio of Housing. The policy of the Communist Party is the Reconstruction Pact, whose declared aim is to tackle the economic crisis while increasing the social power of the organised working class.
The tasks before the Party in the last days of aparthied were presented in the Central Committee Discussion paper for SACP Conference, May 1993.
The crisis of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) began in March 1986 with the crisis and overthrow of the dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos which had ruled the Philippines since 1965.
In 1968, the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) was founded by youth leaders of the old Soviet-line Communist Party (PKP), led by the student, Jose Maria Sison. The CPP adopted the Maoist strategy and tactics of “protracted people’s war,” in opposition to the “old Party,” by then moribund and without influence among the peasantry or working class.
At this time, the Philippines was characterised by the CPP and by economists in general as being a rural-based economy with the majority of people living and working as peasants on small plots of land. However, the 1960s was the beginning of a period of export-oriented industrialisation in the Philippines. At the time it was the fastest growing economy in Asia, second only to Japan.
Small manufacturing industry was developing in the urban centres, and in the rural areas agribusiness was taking hold, buying up the land of peasants and employing them as agricultural workers.
From the beginning the CPP grew rapidly, recruiting largely in the rural areas. In 1971, an armed wing of the CPP was formed, the New People's Army (NPA). Martial law was declared by President Marcos in 1972, but the influence of the CPP grew throughout the 1970s, with strong organisations in the peasantry, the trade unions, the church, students, professionals, the women's movement and new social movements which emerged. It was a well-organised party, operating underground and with branches in most provinces.
The National Democratic Front (NDF) was formed, an underground umbrella organisation for the CPP, the NPA and all the National Democratic movements corresponding to the sectoral work among peasants, workers, women, students etc.
The organisational structure of the NDF was very sophisticated, its membership was very large, and its influence was very widespread. The trade union federation, the KMU, for instance, had more than half a million members by 1986.
The strategy of the CPP of “protracted warfare” was modelled on the strategy of the Chinese Communist Party 1934-1949. This strategy meant recruiting workers and students in the cities and sending them out to the countryside to fight with the NPA and build support among the rural population.
This strategical line was reaffirmed in the March 1994 statement of the CPP and explained as follows:
‘Armed struggle is the principal form of revolutionary struggle in the Philippines today and until political power is seized nationwide. The legal form of struggle is secondary even as these are important and indispensable. The revolutionary armed struggle, like the legal forms of struggle, runs along the revolutionary class line of the united front. The united front is principally for promoting the armed struggle and secondarily the legal struggle. And there can be no revolutionary united front without the class leadership of the proletariat through its advance detachment.
‘In building the people’s army in the countryside under the current social circumstances, the Party is performing the proletarian revolutionary duty of wielding the most effective weapon for overthrowing the enemy and seizing political power. After all, the central task of any revolutionary party is the seizure of political power. The genuine proletarian party does not shirk the responsibility of waging armed revolution where and when conditions permit.
‘There is revolutionary class logic in pursuing and carrying out the strategic line of encircling the cities from the countryside and accumulating strength over an extended period, until it is possible to seize the cities in a nationwide offensive. The protracted people’s war allows the working class and its party to forge the worker-peasant alliance as the foundation of the united front and victory; and to build the organs of democratic power even as the enemy is still entrenched in the cities.
‘The majority of our people are peasants. They are the main force of the new-democratic revolution, while the proletariat is the leading force. The agrarian revolution is the main content of the democratic revolution. This must be accomplished. Otherwise the proletariat and the Party cannot gain the mass support of the peasantry and base the strengthening of the people’s army and the advance of the protracted people’s war on this support.
‘Revolution is the mass undertaking for the seizure of political power and for the radical transformation of the society by the revolutionary class. The revolutionary forces of the society in the Philippines have no choice but to wage a revolution that decisively puts an end to oppression and exploitation by foreign monopoly capitalism, domestic feudalism and bureaucrat capitalism and proceeds to socialist revolution.
‘So long as the objective of the Party and the NPA is to carry out the new-democratic and socialist stages of the Philippines revolution, there is no other way but to pursue the people’s war. The Philippine revolution differs fundamentally from liberation movements seeking decolonisation through negotiated neo-colonial compromise. It also differs from those seeking more bourgeois democracy against despotism through popular urban uprisings. Certainly it differs from the coups d’etat engineered by Soviet social-imperialism in Ethiopia, Afghanistan and other countries.
‘As a result of people’s war, there is now dual political power in the Philippines. The reactionary state is still entrenched in the cities. But Red political power has arisen and will continue to grow until it displaces and overthrows the reactionary state all over the country. Only upon nationwide seizure of political power is the new-democratic revolution basically completed and the proletariat acquires the ground and opportunity for commencing the socialist revolution.
‘Without the people’s army, the people have nothing. This was true of China when Comrade Mao said it. This is still true of the Philippines. Without the people’s army, there would be no Red organs of political power, no revolutionary mass organisations and no effective land reform campaign and other campaigns for the revolutionary armed struggle as a powerful coordinate, even the legal democratic mass movement would weaken.
‘Were the people’s army to be liquidated or made completely passive by capitulation, prolonged ceasefire or a truce, the Party and the revolutionary mass organisations would become as marginal, inconsequential and vulnerable to reactionary manipulation or suppression as the puny pseudo-progressive and reformist groups all clamouring for peace under the terms of the ruling system. The long-time Lavaite revisionists, the Gorbachevites, the bourgeois populists, liberals, Christian social-democrats and Trotskyites have not grown any larger nor any more powerful by their line of thinking and activity. In fact, they are no more than special agents of the principal reactionaries in opposing the revolutionary forces.
‘After being frustrated with their line of combining urban insurrectionism and military adventurism, the incorrigible “Left” opportunists have become blatantly counter-revolutionary Rightists and joined up with anti-communist petit-bourgeois groups along the line of liquidationism, reformism and pacifism. Some of them still speak of uprisings in the vague future, while others have plunged into private business or have openly become psy-war and intelligence agents of the enemy. As the results of the rectification movement comes into full play in advancing the revolution, these scoundrels will further expose their degenerate counter-revolutionary character.
‘The NPA is the main mass organisation of the Party. It is the instrument of the Party for waging the principal form of revolutionary struggle and for integrating the armed struggle with land reform and the building of the revolutionary mass base (organs of political power and the mass organisations). It is the type of mass organisation that now has the highest concentration of Party members.
‘The NPA is principally a fighting force. At the same time, it is a force for propaganda, mass organising and production. Without painstaking mass work, it cannot win the participation and support of the people in the armed struggle. The notion that the NPA is solely a military force or the purely military viewpoint is anathema to the theory and practice of people’s war. However, to deny the necessity of having a military force is wrong in view of the necessity of smashing military and bureaucratic machinery of the state. The theory of spontaneous masses, which exaggerates the importance of sweeping mass campaigns (or street activism) without painstaking mass work and solid mass organising is detrimental to the armed revolution.
‘Only by building the people’s army and carrying out the people’s war in stages is it possible to seize, keep and consolidate political power and carry out social revolution.’[255]
Thus, the strategy of “protracted war” was based fundamentally on the thesis that, like pre-War China, the Philippines was a “semi-feudal” country, requiring a “new-democratic” revolution, which meant the subordination of the struggle of the working class to the needs of the national bourgeoisie and peasantry in their struggle against a feudal ruling class and for national liberation.
In justifying the characterisation of the Philippines as “semi-feudal” in 1994, the above-quoted manifesto goes so far as to argue that the poor urban masses of Manila and the other urban centres are effectively peasantry, their urban existence being merely “the result of the inability of the domestic economy to employ them.” “Merely” meaning that according to this view, the people are feudal even though the economy is capitalist.
The orientation of the CPP towards armed confrontation with the regime in the countryside led to a completely mistaken and disastrous policy in relation to the crisis which culminated in a massive popular rising in Manila, the downfall of the 31-year dictatorship of Marcos in 1986 and the installation of the liberal-democrat Cory Aquino as President.
This error was the more crushing in its impact on the struggle of the Philippine working class given that it was the National Democratic Front, led by the CPP, which had laid the basis for the “EDSA” revolution of 1986.
The CPP adopted a policy of boycotting the election, continuing their work in the countryside as if nothing was happening in the city. The error was not simply that Cory Aquino was “no better than Marcos” and that workers should not support her election (the CPP itself was banned of course), but that the fall of Marcos was impossible – that the US would support Marcos to the end!
The CPP had rebuffed repeated attempts by their allies to support a joint ticket in the elections. The CPP’s refusal to participate in such a united front took the form of a refusal to agree upon a slogan characterising the relationship between Marcos and the US. The CPP held that Marcos was nothing more or less than the agent of the US in the Philippines, and consequently could not be removed by means of an election.
This mistaken orientation was not adopted without a significant crisis within the ranks of the CPP however. The internal crisis at this time re-activated a debate which had surfaced in a previous election in 1978. In 1978, the CPP’s Manila-Rizal branch, the urban party branch in the region around the capital city Manila, led by Felimon Lagman, insisted on participating in Congressional elections through an alliance with the anti-Marcos bourgeoisie. The leadership of the Manila-Rizal Branch was disciplined and sent to the countryside.
The anti-dictatorship movement had grown continuously since the assassination of the anti-Marcos bourgeois politician Senator Benigno Aquino in 1983. Mass demonstrations, factory strikes and transport strikes grew in strength. The armed forces became increasingly factionalised. By 1986, the Marcos dictatorship was at crisis point. Pressure on Marcos both from within the Philippine ruling class and from the United States forced Marcos to call an early election.
The wife of the assassinated Senator Benigno Aquino, Cory Aquino, was put forward as a candidate by the anti-dictatorship forces. Under the direction of the CPP, the NDF launched a boycott campaign, arguing that the elections would not be free and fair, and that the US would continue to back Marcos.
Marcos did declare victory after the elections after massive cheating in the vote counting, but more than two million people gathered at EDSA, a central boulevard in Manila, demanding Marcos respect the genuine result of the election and resign, and preventing tanks from moving against a section of the military which had broken from Marcos. Marcos was forced by this mass uprising to flee to US protection in Hawaii. Cory Aquino was swept to power.
In May 1986, the Central Committee of the CPP issued a statement Party Conducts Assessment, Says Boycott was Wrong. [256]
In the immediate wake of the fall of Marcos there was a ceasefire in which the NDF was able to set up local offices and operate legally. Following the assassination of a KMU leader, the NDF withdrew from the ceasefire negotiations and resumed their former “protracted war” orientation, rejecting the legal opportunities. After this, the CPP, the NPA and the NDF movements gradually lost members.
In 1987, the Cory Aquino administration launched the Total War Policy against the “communist insurgency” which took its toll. However, there were many other factors in the decline of the CPP, and it was in analysing this crisis that the debate within the leadership of the CPP developed into a split.
The events of May/June 1989 in Tien An Men Square sharpened issues within the split. The KMU leadership responded initially by issuing a declaration in support of the repression of the students, but was later forced to retract.
In 1992, Party Chairman Sison released a document to Party cadre titled Reaffirm Our Basic Principles and Rectify the Errors. This document analysed the Party's successes and failures since 1968. This “self-criticism” analysed errors as deviations from the Maoist principles which continued to underlie the Party line. As in 1968, it characterised the Philippines as a semi-colonial and semi-feudal, and the military strategy of Protracted People's War as correct. It claimed that an erroneous line of quick military victory and insurrectionism was the main reason for the party's decline in the past decade. It sought to identify critics of the line as the scapegoats responsible for the deviations and the consequent decline, and called for a rectification movement to reaffirm the basic principles of the party and denounce those responsible for the “deviations.”
The document was adopted at the 10th Plenum of the Party Central Committee, which in fact lacked a quorum. The CPP has never held a Congress since its formation, all policy being determined by the self-appointing Central Committee.
By July 1993, the Manila-Rizal Committee had declared its autonomy from the central leadership of the CPP. Their criticisms of the Sison leadership revolved around bureaucracy of the Party which prevented any real political debate, its characterisation of the Philippines as semi-colonial, semi-feudal, its adherence to the strategy of “protracted people’s war” and the practice of the underground dictating policy and tactics to the legal movements. They rejected the Reaffirm documents and are known as “Rejectionists,” in contrast to the Sison-led “Reaffirmists.”
There is another broad category of people who are also known as “Rejectionist.” These include former members of the Central Committee and other party committees and many leaders of the National Democratic movements who resigned from the Party for similar reasons to the Manila-Rizal Committee, but have different perspectives.
Although many of the conclusions of the “Rejectionists” correspond closely to a Trotskyist criticism of the line of the Communist Party of the Philippines, none of the rejectionists even mention the name of Trotsky. The writings of Lenin are frequently drawn upon as a theoretical foundation however. Generally speaking the debate takes place formally within the framework of Maoist orthodoxy – that Sison has misinterpreted or wrongly applied the lessons of the Chinese Revolution; one phase of the Chinese Revolution is counterposed against another to argue against the mechanical transposition of theoretical positions from one circumstance to another. It must be said however that the theoretical re-evaluation which is taking place is extremely deep-going and comprehensive. Inasmuch as this re-evaluation is not simply a theoretical issue, but a collective process which needs must involve all those who have been trained in the Maoist CPP, it is probably unavoidable that the discussion should be framed in this way.
The splits have cut from top to bottom of the Party, the NPA, the NDF and all the legal organisations such as the trade union movement, the peasants movement and so on. Whenever there is a political rally in the Philippines, there are now usually at least three.
I have included in the Appendix the Declaration of Autonomy of the Manila-Rizal Regional Committee of the CPP, which reflects the founding position of probably the most important grouping of Rejectionists.
The situation remains fluid, with the new groupings drawing up programs and new organisational documents. The realignment continues, both among former CPP groupings and more widely, but the CPP (Sison-ist) is today a greatly reduced force in influence and numbers compared to two years ago. None of the groups which have broken from the CPP have decisively established themselves and the CPP has held on to substantial bases, not only in the countryside where it predominates, but also among the urban population.
Apart from the groupings which are attempting to work towards a reformulation of a socialist revolutionary perspective, there are also strong currents of social-democracy which have expanded their influence in the situation created by the split in the CPP. There does also exist an “urban terrorist” tendency, though its significance is exaggerated by the Sison-ists. The opposition trade union groupings are attempting to establish a united front with the TUCP, which is in turn close to the government.
Relationships are very complex and fluid. While the Stalinists accuse the opposition of having capitulated to the government (the Philippines Labour Minister is openly courting the new trade union groupings as a part of his own political ambitions), the CPP has a long-established practice of doing deals with employers in exchange for financial support for the NPA.
So far as I can see, no-one has yet worked out a counter-strategy to the NPA in terms of cementing an alliance between the peasantry and the working class. Although the ranks of the rejectionists include plenty of former leaders of the NPA, hardened in military struggle, it is difficult to see how genuine communist work can be carried out in the countryside while the NPA and the Philippine Defence Forces are fighting each other. Both would regard a non-Sison-ist communist as a deadly enemy and act accordingly.
Unless the rejectionist forces can form an effective united front with each other and either win such support as to thoroughly marginalise the Sison-ists, or negotiate a united front with them (which seems unlikely given the Maoist practice of labelling political opponents as enemy agents), there is a danger of the realisation of Trotsky’s ‘hypothesis’ for China in 1932: the Stalinists entering the cities at the head of a peasant army and confronting the working class and its leaders as their enemies.
The development which has taken place within the CPP was generated from within the Party. It seems unlikely that intervention by an opposition grouping outside the CPP could have facilitated such a split. It was the crisis generated by conflict between the revolutionary struggle of the working class and the mistaken orientation of the party which forced a significant section of the party to embark upon a criticism of the political line of their party. Once committed to that course the opposition went in search of political theories adequate to their needs. The Australian DSP, which has a long record of participation in the Philippines solidarity movement, played a role once the split had taken place, in facilitating contact between the opposition and a wider spectrum of political thought and action.
The CPNZ followed the Chinese line in the Sino-Soviet split, but later sided with the Albanians against China, until 1989 ....
The CPNZ is currently the largest of the political formations to the left of the Parliamentary parties in New Zealand. It produces a fortnightly paper in a magazine format oriented to the workers’ movement. It does not participate in the Alliance.
In the interview below with Bill Deller, Peter Hughes and Barry Lee, Chairperson and Secretary of the Communist Party of New Zealand, explain the evolution of the CPNZ from Stalinism to the “state capitalism” position. This transition took place through a process of internal discussion which did not generate any significant split in their ranks.
The party was formed in 1921 and became a member of the 3rd International with support of the Soviet Union. It broke with the Soviet Union in the '60s, generally it seemed to be Chinese aligned, but it was largely based on the experiences of our party and I think it was some of the working class leaders in the party who saw a contradiction between the position the CPSU was taking and our own party's position.
Things like the CPSU attitude towards social democracy and the Labor Party being a two class party. The question of peaceful transition to socialism and things like that.
We weren't very close to the Chinese until the controversy on the three world theory developed, and the position taken, particularly by Vic Wolford, who wasn't Chairman of our party at that stage but was definitely the ideological leader. His position was that we had to take our time and measure the question of the three world theory up against our own experiences and our own practice, rather than do what most, at least a lot of parties did, which was jump on one or the other side. You'd either support the Albanians or the Chinese and the outcome of that was that the Chinese tried to force the issue and aided and supported by your Communist party of Australia Marxist Leninist (CPA-ML), which actually helped to galvanise our party's opposition to it.
We were becoming increasingly uncomfortable with the position the Chinese were taking, they had Prime Minister Muldoon over there and they praised New Zealand as a peace-loving country and praised ANZUS as anti-imperialist or a peaceful thing. So we broke with the Chinese rather suddenly, we didn't realise then that we'd actually been rejecting Maoism for many years. We had struggled over things like the cities and countryside which we'd rejected, the parallel party concept which the CPA-ML followed by going underground , we got caught up in that, and that had been rejected. There were quite a number of positions which we realised were the basic tenets of Maoism which we had actually rejected in practise.
That put us in the position of being very close to the Albanians, and we did think the Albanians were on the right track, they seemed to be saying the right things.
Then in 1989, around that period we became concerned about firstly the non-class approach of the Albanians, they were talking about 'the people'. And looking at their history you could see why, because there wasn't a working class in Albania. They weren't a working class party, it was a party based on peasantry and intellectuals.
So we went through that critical analysis of Albania and Albania fell apart shortly after, basically for these reasons, the party had been a dictatorship. Despite the fact that we've been there, I've been there myself three times and things looked like they were pretty good, although they were quite backward in many things. What we've found since is that they were saying one thing and doing another.
Following on from that we decided we'd have to go right back to the basics of the dictatorship of the proletariat and the relationship of the party to the class, what is socialism. It was really that when we started to look into, particularly Stalin's Problems of Leninism we found there were great contradictions in what Stalin was saying. So we started to become more focussed on the question of Stalinism. We went through a long period of reading Marx, Engels, Lenin and some of Stalin's stuff, debating it through the party and coming to the position here, in seeing that in actual fact the working class lost it very early in the Soviet Union. Largely because the working class was a minority in a very backward country, and then they had the external pressures on them and the party of necessity became the ruling force.
Lenin said this was an unfortunate necessity, but that then became the bureaucracy which took over and so it became the dictatorship of the bureaucracy. One very important lesson we've learned out of all this is that the dictatorship of the proletariat doesn't mean the dictatorship of the party, that it's actually got to be the class that rules and the party only plays its role then.
Theory of State Capitalism
[We arrived at the position where we characterised the USSR as state capitalist]. We were well into it actually, before we realised that the [Australian] ISO trend existed. We'd heard of the [British] Socialist Workers Party (SWP) and we received some of their material. As you'll see, we've used quite a bit of their stuff. But it certainly didn't depend on that. We probably hold largely similar views and overall we've probably got a difference in our interpretation of Trotsky's position. It wasn't a position we came to by following them, but it was actually a hell of a help to us because they've put together a lot of material that we could then draw on.
Clearly [we categorise the former Soviet Union, China, Cuba, Albania] as capitalist regimes and in the Soviet Union's case the revolution was lost very early in the piece.
[We would defend these regimes against imperialism] as much as any nations working class are worthy of defence if they're fighting against imperialism, but if you're talking about this modern day thesis [that many Trotskyist groups] have, that we must defend the Soviet Union today or until last year or something, because at least it was a deformed workers state. We think it's a lot of crap. We're totally convinced of that because it just doesn't fit the puzzle.
We came to the conclusion that the facts don't fit the picture, before we got in touch with the ISO and before we were aware of their ideological position on this.
We were a long way down the track in understanding the relationship of the party to the class. Those fundamental things that really bridged the gap over state capitalism or deformed workers state.
The Labour Party
Social democracy represents the main gain of the working class. Social democracy is the greatest influence in the working class and it holds back their revolutionary horizons, while they are looking for reforms and crumbs from the table, the capitalists come along and steal the cake.
There may arise or there may be some elements on the so-called left, who are worth working with, although some of the so-called left are extremely reactionary forces who really want to impose their own rule on the working class rather than let the working class become their own rulers.
The lefts are under enormous pressure in the Labor Party and the Alliance but we will work with these groups and encourage them to take part in the struggles. At the moment we're out to build a campaign against the threat to the dole and we're trying to encourage these people to join in.
It's quite interesting the range of people involved in [the campaign against the sale of state housing]. When I became chairperson of the group, a lot of people involved seemed to be apolitical. Once they started coming around, many of them had deep roots in the Labor Party, the Alliance, some of them were even National Party supporters. But because we took a very non-sectarian approach to all these people, particularly around the basic issues of what was needed just to stay alive, what's under attack, how we fight the enemy, who is the enemy because of what they do, we built a terrific group, you know a 73 and a 77 year old women running in and occupying houses, and a wide range of other people involved as well.
It's had a lot of lessons for us, it's been a tremendous learning curve for the Communist Party in this sort of struggle. It's been a long time since we've had a bit of a mass movement on the ground, around a specific issue and reached such a high profile nationally.
It raises all the political issues, I mean why are they under attack, why is the bastion of state housing being carved up for profit? You've got to answer that question for people to go forward. And they're learning a hell of a lot, we've had big problems within the struggle with some of the so-called left tendencies, you know they come in with their super militant approach to things, “they should have occupied the houses, putting hundreds of people into them.” This was three years ago they were saying this. People hadn't even learned about the petition stage, you know they want to do all this and talk to politicians and get their arguments. We've had a lot of problems like that, again we've learned a lot and the real winners are going to be the working class.
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The analysis that the CPNZ made of Stalinism is presented in the Declaration of their National Conference in September 1993.