8 THE DEATH OF RUSSIA

The real reasons for the Gorbachev `reforms' were not (as some naively hoped) to transform the Stalinist system into a more efficient worker-controlled socialist (market) system - but rather to enable the corrupt and criminal bureaucratic elite to cling onto power.

The Stalinist elite felt it neccessary to dress up their system with `democratic' trappings, in order to share the blame for the continuing crisis with `democrats' - as the ultra-reactionary (military-expansionist) option had been closed of by the debacle in Afghanistan (and continuing rumblings of discontent in Poland).

But the continuing crisis (as a result of ruling elite control pol/econ centralisation as a method to defend/entrench privileges increasingly fed an increasing crisis in the legitimacy of the whole system. There grew up inertial illusions (encouraged and instigated by a section of the bureaucratic elite) in western capitalism amongst the masses in general - on the basis that `Everything we've been told is a lie, so capitalism must be great (and the west will help us)'.

Sections of the bureaucracy (old and new) led by Yeltsin (elected president of the R.S.F.S.R.) saw that this (`westernization') was a way to retain (and actually increase) power (via privitisations etc) and secure a (temporary) popular power base, helping them to take control (some no doubt sincerely believed this, only becoming cynical when the resultant near-total economic collapse divorced them from the workers and they had the chance to enrich themselves) from the old style Stalinists.

At this stage (pre-August 1991 coup) there were 3 principle tendencies fighting for power/control:

The old style Stalinists (economic centre & political right) - Old bureaucrats. sensed that all talk of market relations damaged their legitimacy and threatened their old-style graft and privileges.

The new pro-western compradors (economic right & political centre-left, insofar as they needed temporarily, the workers) - Some old & new bureaucrats who may have genuinely believed the west cared about Russia's fate and some who cynically saw this as a chance to hold onto power (with popular - albeit temporary - support from the masses)) The former eventually became impotent/defected/cynical themselves later on. `Market relations' for these meant a way to rip of the economy (at the expense of reconstruction) in order to enrich their emergent monopoly capitalist class.

The new laborists (economic left & political left/far left) - Unions/new left groupings fighting (by orthodox laborist methods) primarily to prevent decline in workers' living standards, entrench/extend democratic freedoms and (here and there)`workers' control'. Lacked both (conceptions of) a clear socialist hegemonic framework and a military political strategy/framework to accomplish & execute such a program. They were by far the worst organised of the 3, with the worst/foggiest conception of what they were fighting for.

At this stage the pro-compradorist capitalists needed democracy to struggle against the (decomposing centre) Stalinists - and the assistance of the masses (albeit temporarily) in this struggle. Hence Yeltsins' demagoguery in first denouncing Gorbachev for not raising bread prices by enough and then opposing them completely when the masses took to the streets in protest.

The workers for their part supported Yeltsin and co as they defended (albeit temporarily) the independence of the working class organs from the Stalinists - though of course they (Yeltsin and co) would inevitably clamp down on the workers once their power was consolidated against the threat of Stalinist institutional clampdown. Hence the enormous confusion (much of it deliberate) concerning left/right designations - Russian politics & power relations, especially prior to Yeltsins' October 1993 semi-fascist coup victory, are very complex/complicated (probably surpassed only by the Chinese).

The August 1991 coup should not therefore be regarded be regarded simplistically as a rightwing coup. But rather as an attempt by a decomposing Stalinist centre to try to clamp down on both rightwing compradors and leftist workers (the only element that had any potential to take Soviet pol/econ forward). Because Stalinist corruption was an absolute break on further development (the extremely unlikely), victory & consolidation of the (discredited) coup plotters would have led to a military fascist dictatorship by another route.

Yeltsins' victory (over August 1991 coup plotters) therefore represented both a victory for and the consolidation (against Stalinists) of (power for) western (resource/finance imperialists) backed compradorism and semi-legalised (as opposed to simply covert) gangsterdom - and workers' political autonomy over a (totalitarian) decomposing/rightward drifting centre. But of course with (pro-) western compradorism in control of the pol/econ agenda - free to implement fully (and take the blame for, rather than passing it onto the Stalinists as before) their asset-stripping investment sapping policies. Eg. the privitisations enriching the mafias (of various descriptions) impoverishing the workers and cannibalising (through speculative profiteering, capital flight, opening the country to imports of consumer goods from the west who in turn prevented exports to the west - all doing nothing to increase productive civil capital investment) the capital base of the country; leading (exacerbated by the break up of the USSR) to near complete industrial meltdown.

This led to rising anger amongst workers and the rapid popular marginalisation of the compradorist elite. And the rise of a bureaucratic socialist `Peronist' type left - led by the opportunist vice president General Alexander Rutskoi (Yeltsins' own deputy), Parliament, and sections of the industrial bureaucracy being ruined by the compradors/resource & finance imperialist cabal. The masses were understandably suspicious of this bunch of old crooks, but the new crooks (compradors) now represented the greater danger. And following orthodox (conventional laborist) patterns of struggle, it would have been possible for the historic gravity/balance of forces to have shifted in favor of the working classes by agreeing to (temporarily) join forces with them (whilst maintaining the autonomy of their organisations) in the struggle against the compradors (Yeltsin & co).

Of course the workers would have got nowhere by abandoning their own autonomy/interests as inevitably the old crooks would try to reconsolidate their power on leading to fascism by another route (eg. by playing the nat.sec.state card over Serbia etc to resecure control over the pol/econ agenda). Wether the workers could have gone in for the kill however is another matter. The only genuine possibility would have been if sheer institutional momentum carried them all the way to the final victory. To a certain extent this had been partially achieved in Poland - where (contrary to bourgeois expectations) the reconstituted state-industrial sector led economic revival in '92. - Generalisation of this process in the Eastern bloc (Russia was all important) combined with democracy/federalism and political/international expansion of this tendancy may (conceivably, extremely remotely) have offered a way forward - Though it doesn't anymore. Though it should be further noted that the potential for sabotage, by both the Stalinists and the west seeking (probably in alliance with the Stalinists) to undermine this process, would have been extremely formidable.

In many respects there are dialectical parallels with WW2 - in terms of a predatory external stimulus (resource/finance imperialism) forcing the (remnants of) the bureaucratic socialist state to fight to survive and lean on the workers for support to fight.

But in WW2 there was a predatory advance on Russia by an individual collapsing capitalist state (Germany). When Russia resisted/advanced its' bureaucracy had room to develop reform/reconstruct itself because - (FDR/USA led) global capitalism could still reform itself (led of neccessity by a SINGLE state - USA, reformed internally, in response to H.P. longs' movement) could still reform itself in response to such a radical shock to the capitalist system.- maintaining, all importantly, hegemony for capitalism (and the USA in particular).

Not threatening to become a hegemonic power (but with an expanding capitalism - meaning the USSR could expand without threatening capitalist hegemony - triggering reaction in the capitalist states in turn justifying a nat.sec.state reconsolidation/clampdown by the elite in the USSR) was a precondition for further development of the USSR - no justification for a core-elite clampdown on the grounds of `national security'.

Today however, the regime of Yeltsin and co represents a predatory advance on Russia by the global capital markets - speculation/resource imperialism with now no single state capable of reforming itself by itself (as FDR did in response to H.P. Longs' movement).

The trigger cause of this attack was the internal collapse of Stalinism (and politically the prior exhaustion of the ultra-reactionary option with the Afghanistan debacle) and its' consequent re-integration into a decomposing global capital market economy (meaning the old bureaucracy had to adopt semi-democratic & radical mobilisation of the masses - which could have led them to lose control over the agenda - merely in order to save their skins from the compradors).

Whilst dynamic (reformist) capitalist hegemony is neccessary (for Stalinism to survive) to give the Stalinist economies room to develop (WITHOUT threatening capitalist hegemony - triggering reaction in the dominant capitalist power, in turn triggering reaction in the core-radical states), Stalinism is also neccessary to (global capitalist development) encourage the furthest development of this (reformist) process on a global scale.

And as no single (contempory) capitalist state can take the hegemonic lead, the system, it follows, cannot be reformed on a global scale; so therefore neither was/is there scope for reform of the Stalinist system.

To clarify, the factors making this Peronist-type form of struggle (almost uniquely) at least partially viable were:

Yeltsin had no legitimacy/popular support, once revealed as essentially a puppet of resource & finance imperialism.

Russia was still a strong state (enough to be) easily able (militarily) to stand up to compradorism and imperialism - unlike other semi-colonial states.

(Partly following on from 2) The national (old) crooks (led by Rutskoi) were uniquely (compared with Latin America) willing to stand up to imperialism (as now it had turned into an immediate struggle for their very survival) and to mobilise the masses against compradorism, recognising that only the workers could break Yeltsin (they themselves were being ruined/downwardly mobile).

The single decisive factor enabling Yeltsin to have a chance of survival was the enormous disabling confusion of the masses who (understandably) hated the old crooks (as well as the new crooks) for reducing them to penury over several decades. They were therefore very slow to get moving (a `plague on both your houses' mentality ruled) and so they were largely divided/confused as to what to do.

Also Yeltsin (pre- October '93 coup) had still some (waning) credibility as a democrat (defending or whom had once defended workers' autonomy) - which made the masses even more reluctant to ally themselves (temporarily) with the old crooks (against the new crooks). A relative credibility which died only with Yeltsins' murder of the parliament - by which time it was too late.

Rutskoi and parliament lost because they launched a premature insurrection (after siege lifted) before the bulk of the masses had been decisively won over to their side. They should have sat on their butts, made their case, gathered their forces and either waited until Yeltsin had done something stupid (launch a rash military adventure - although rather unlikely) or they themselves were strong enough (with the bulk of the army rank and file won over or at least neutralised) to overthrow the regime.

Though it is highly probable that (on the regimes' orders) the police were withdrawn from the siege as a calculated measure, knowing that the anti-coup (pro-parliament) resistance was likely then to (under its' own momentum - after an artificial victory) slide into a premature assault on power before the broad masses had been won over. This would certainly have been a much smarter move on Yeltsins' part than to wait for the movement to really gather sufficient forces so that they really could lift the siege whatever (increasingly unreliable) forces Yeltsin tried to deploy - and actually be in a genuine position to overthrow Yeltsin and co. The whole scam was almost certainly prepared prior to the August-October '93 crisis.

The victory of Yeltsins' coup represented a consolidation of the pol/econ position of the imperialist compradors/mafia and a grave defeat (contrary to the assessment of some Marxists eg. `Militant') for the Russian working class.

As to the (deliberately) over-hyped political significance of (revanchist) fascists in the then (pre-coup) Russian Peronist nationalist bloc. They were of little significance pre- October 1993 as a victory over Yeltsins' coup (which could only have been gained by workers' mass intervention) would have led to a massive strengthening of the position of the Russian working classes - Which would have meant that the historic gravity of fascism - dependant on workers' demoralisation (even if some revanchist fascists had taken part on the winning side) would consequently have been much weaker.

This isn't so bizarre when considering that the NF supported the miners' strike in Britain 1984. Or that Lenin acknowledged the theoretical possibility that revanchist monarchists might vote with the Bolsheviks to dissolve the Kerensky regime - even if the Bolsheviks controlled events; and either have to disperse freely afterwards or be crushed by the new power.

Conversely defeat for the Russian Peronists, led to a rightwing hegemonic realignment in the composition of the nationalist bloc (paralleling in telescoped and exaggerated form the degeneration of Arab nationalism from a semi-socialist Peronist type movement - albeit with morbid anti-Jewish characteristics - to outright fundamentalist fascism - as a consequence of a series of defeats by imperialism and the demoralisation of the working class) as workers consequently lost confidence in their own strength/became demoralised in the face of a now strengthened & reconsolidated enemy. Consequently the fascists' gravity within the nationalist bloc increased (despite some of them taking part on the losing side), to become no longer a morbid but incidental factor, but the dominant factor in the/any such bloc.

As demonstrated by the rise of Zhirinovsky (a superb guide to the impact of the coup on the Russian working class), Yeltsins' murderous war on Chechnya (bankrolled by the EU & Britain, aiding the consolidation of a nuclear armed mafia regime - in exchange for corporate profits) and the Communist party's treasonous cosying up to the fascistic & militaristic forces waging this war.

But, after the defeat by Chechnya, there was nowhere else for national fascist expansionism to go - except as mafia compradorism.

Chechnya merely exhausted the remaining strength of Russian national fascism, leaving nowt but fascist compradorism.

As to the Q, `WHY were the Russian masses not set in (generalised classical fascist) motion, as in Germany in the 30's?'

As the defeat of core radicalism (consolidated by Yeltsins' coup) already represented a crushing national/institutional defeat of the Russian state; Russia's hollowed out institutions were/are both incapable of sustaining such a continuous (popular/institutional) expansionist momentum, nor consequantly does her compradorist ruling mafia need to resort to such adventures to retain control of the pol/econ agenda - Such as German capitalism did in the 30's.

Instead the Russian state is geared ever increasingly towards ministry of interior forces, designed to serve the specific purpose of the ruling mafia - keeping the civil populace down and ultimately securing hegemony over the old unwieldy, unpaid, unfed & unreliable army. Which, as Russia is now a conquered power (by global finance), exists as an armed force without a clearly defined purpose (eg such as safegaurding the borders or fascist expansionism). Especially after the defeat by Chehcnya.

This war at first glance, appears to have been unsuccessful (for Yeltsin/ruling mafia etc). But its effective purpose was/has been to stabilise the regime, EITHER through continuous foreign adventure (which be cut dead by defeat), OR through exemplary defeat, which by further breaking the strength of the army and therefore its capacity to effectively threaten the compradorist mafia, actually strengthened the hand of the regime. So that the regime universally hated by civilian and soldier alike, is propped up by sheer inertia.

It is just concievable that the collapse of the mafia/ comprador regime due to the global econ implosion or internally, may enable the rise of a pol/econ based on import substitution, for a period. The civil reconstruction of society orchestrated by a radical bonaprtist figure leading on civil society for support against both the mafia and the military industrial complex. General Alexander Lebed is the most obvious candidate for such a role.

But outright collapse leading to mass migration westwards, friction with the west (eventually responding as one with fascistic terror), leading in turn to warlordist revanchism a la Genghis Khan is likely to gain its own momentum before such a reconstructionist policy can be consolidated.

Furthermore, for Russia to actually begin to recover while capitalism goes down the toilet would be a truly unforgivable outrage for the western military plutocrats. Who to cut down such an outrageous embarressment (including divert their own domestic discontent), will resort to all sorts of provocations to drag Russia down into the abyss with it. Most particularly over Serbia. Whose regime has undeniably committed appalling atrocities.

But it will be equally clear to Russia (and would be intended to be) that such adventures are about western expansionism (& bugger all to do with humanitarianism, looking at the USA's `backyard'). This will either drag the Russian govt into the pit, or lead to its deposition by military industrial complex, leading to the collapse of Russia & the apocalyptic scenario outlined above (there is a threat of war gathering its own momentum in the region & the Russian mafia compradors being eclipsed by warlordism via popular intervention over Kosovo/ Serbia in any case).

(We have already examined how Russia must link up with the west European revolution in Chapter 1 Vol I)

The 2nd Chechen War 27/11/99

Russia's bombing (ostensibly in retaliation for Russia's offensive in Dagestan/ Chechnya) is consistent with both strategy of tension (to strengthen the hand of the nat sec state) and an IRA type retaliatory response (though the Chechens have denied all invlovement, and have no history of such atrocities; certainly not President Aslan Maskhadov and even the fundamentalist civilian hostage taker Shamil Basayev has a record of claiming all his actions).

But as the latter proved even more conveniant for the British nat sec state, such would be consistent with a more sophisticated model of strategy of tension anyway; designed to bind Russia to a 2nd Chechen war (which otherwise Russians would NOT swallow) as a foreign diversion AND to deliberately (further) destroy the army as a potential power base against Yeltsin (by bogging it down in a festering campaign).

If the bombing WAS carried out by the nat sec state, then while it was initially sufficent to bind Russia into the war, it is doubtful that it can be replayed ad infinitum (unto the abyss) when things go wrong (eg the obvious stench of the plot would likely lead to Lebed deposing regime with popular support); so the 2nd Chechen war is most likely to exhaust Russian army UNTIL THE GLOBAL ECON IMPLOSION; rather than lead to collapse of the mafia regime immediately (with either a Lebed type taking power or the total implosion of Russia) UNTIL then.

8th January 2000

It should further be noted that the LACK of any follow up to the bombing, when with the bombardment of Chechnya there be a MUCH reater impetus to such IRA type action, seems almost certainly to point away from the idea that this was an IRA type response from the Chechens & WAS a strategy of tension action.

(see also potential, albeit highly unlikely, for western expansionism into Russia outlined in Chapter 1 in `DANGER UXB' vis `core imperial backing for Chechnya?')

31 December 1999

The displacement of Yeltsin by Vladimir Putin does not of course change by one iota the fundamentals of the Q.

And ONLY a military political movement willing & capable of mobilising sufficient force to crush the compradors (eg a Lebed/ [possibly]Victor Anpilov & Co/ western revolutionary alliance) is capable of breaking compradorism/ warlordism. Even should Putin fail to be elected & the Communist party wins; without (mobilising) ACTIVE support from the army (& wider Euro revs/ civil society), it be same shit different packet. In Russia, the mafia barons must be crushed by a strong military political centre mobilising the masses from above (refer back to`The Battle for Russia' in Chapter 1).

Accounting for past errors

The reason why I made the error of discounting completely the potential of import substitution (while mentioning it in an earlier version of S.O. F.) bears similarity to my error over N. Ireland in assuming that the paramilitaries would detonate the conflagaration in N. Ireland rather than the politicians.

I made the error of asssuming Russia would inevitably be sucked into the abyss immediately - rather than dragged into it by western military plutocracy, which can be the case.

I made this error because:

Russia CANNOT hold out by itself against global military plutocracy, when the global econ implosion destabilises the west, insuring that it CANNOT tolerate Russian stability/ progress as an indictment of it.

The formerly independant Russian state HAS collapsed under Yeltsin (especially since the 1993 coup).

Geo proximity with the west, WILL very likely cause Russia to be dragged into the mire BEFORE a Lebed type figure can enable a temporary reconstructionist centre of gravity to be established - BEFORE dragged down by western expansionism/ provocation as outlined.

Recognising the above devastating factors, I made the error of giving no further thought to the potential of import substitution