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The Collapse of Stalinism

Part two

120. Not only do they blot out the movement of the working class against the coup, the ex-Minority confidently asserts that the coup had a mass base of support. This prompts the obvious question: Why then did it fail? In order to explain away this contradiction the authors are forced to abandon any pretence of Marxist analysis. Their whole case rests on the subjective deficiencies of the conspirators. Regardless of the objective conditions, they argue the junta could have overcome its problems if only it had acted with greater determination and ruthlessness:

"The coup collapsed because it was a botched and premature attempt, which did not succeed in attracting the support of decisive sections within the state apparatus itself. It was not overthrown in struggle. It simply collapsed from its own internal contradictions and weakness." (Truth About the Coup, page 7, our emphasis.)

 

121. Why did it "not succeed in attracting the support of decisive sections within the state apparatus itself"? No reasons are given for this. For Marxists it is wholly unacceptable to say that the coup failed due to "its own internal contradictions and weakness" without explaining what caused this. Though their document makes no reference to this, the reasons lie in the huge splits which opened up within the armed forces. These in turn, reflected the processes taking place in society.

121. Far from having a base of support in society, the Emergency Committee could not even find points of support within the state apparatus. Several key sections went over to Yeltsin at an early stage. These defections partly reflected the pro-bourgeois standpoint of this layer of officers. Again, this was not the only element in the process. The generals also feared that the lower ranks would become infected by the mood of growing mass defiance. The mobilisations in Leningrad and Moscow were decisive in this respect. This view was confirmed by the Russian television documentary Foros which reported on the splits within the army during the coup, but also concluded "that without the steadfast resistance shown in Moscow and Leningrad, the coup would have succeeded".

123. Rather than seeking the social origins of these internal divisions within the state apparatus, the ex-minority attempt to explain the coup's defeat by a combination of purely technical and military factors:

"The complete lack of any preparation was the main reason why Western intelligence, which had previously warned of the risk of a coup, was taken by surprise. Unfortunately for the plotters who represented only one wing of the bureaucracy, it was not only Western intelligence which was caught off guard, but also decisive sections of the top bureaucrats in the army and KGB, who were not informed of the coup until after it had started. This does explain why they at first adopted a wait and see attitude, and when they realised the attempt was premature and ill prepared, finally came out against it. It was this fact, and not any non-existent workers' revolutionary movement (real or 'potential') which caused the rapid collapse of the coup. (The Truth About the Coup, page 8).

 

124. What we are being told here, in a very roundabout way, is that the coup failed because it didn't succeed! There is nothing extraordinary in the fact that the conspirators kept their plans hidden from the CIA. The head of the KGB and the Defence Minister sat in the Emergency Committee which in the past would itself have been enough to guarantee success. We are told that top army and KGB bureaucrats were "caught off guard" and yet the document has already told us that throughout the summer "the whole of Moscow was buzzing" with rumours of a coup (page 2). In fact several military exercises had been staged in the preceding year in preparation for a coup. Even if it were true that decisive sections were taken by surprise by the coup, does this automatically "explain why they at first adopted a wait and see attitude"? Surely the normal procedure would be to obey orders. This admission in itself indicates that these were not normal times at all and that the Soviet state machine was in the throes of an unprecedented crisis. Even if we accept that, taken completely by surprise, these sections decided to "wait and see", why - if it was clear that no mass opposition was developing and the general strike was a "total flop" - did they "finally come out against" the coup?

125. Under examination, their entire argument falls to pieces. Even on these technical and military questions the document is wrong. The junta's failure to arrest Yeltsin was not an oversight. They had carefully laid plans but were unable to find troops to implement them. A detailed report compiled by the Russian parliament, of the attempted assault on Tuesday night (20^th August), carried in the London Times (27.8.91), reveals this:

"The operation was neither poorly planned nor disorganised. It was intended as a ruthless assault that would, if necessary, destroy the first two floors of the parliament building, regardless of casualties, and take prisoner of kill 12 key figures, including Mr. Yeltsin. The miscalculation was not strictly military but human: the troops would not fight.

"the first fatality is recorded at 00.32: "the young man run over by an armoured personnel carrier". At 00.45, it notes, the purpose of the tanks was then to surround the parliament building not to storm it. The chronicle goes on:

"01.00: an armoured column is trapped in a tunnel by two barricades of buses and refuse lorries.

"01.30: Hantemir and Taman divisions (crack troops stationed outside Moscow) withdrawn, considered unreliable. Only Spetsnaz and KGB forces remain in Moscow.

"01.42: armoured personnel carrier on fire by barricade on inner ring road; several injured.

"02.00: column tries to get out of tunnel but pelted with stones and bottles. Two APCs explode. One person crushed; another shot by machinegun. Shooting heard in several areas of Moscow; flares seen.

"02.45: tugs and three barges (loyal to Yeltsin) block river in front of Russian parliament."

 

This report also makes clear the critical role played by the working class in repelling the attack.

126. In an attempt to give their argument a pseudo-Marxist validity, the document states:

"The laws of revolution and counter-revolution are basically the same. You can have the most favourable objective conditions, the widest social base, but if you do not act with absolute determination and audacity, you will go down in defeat. The coup in Moscow was not defeated by the "lack of a social base", but by the subjective factor, the pathetic failure of the coup leaders to deal with t he opposition in a ruthless and implacable manner." (The Truth About the Coup, page 7).

 

127. Of course the subjective factor is decisive in a revolutionary situation and there are similarities with respect to counter-revolution. But there are important differences. To argue that the laws which govern them are "basically the same" is false. The tasks of the socialist revolution are infinitely more difficult, demanding the conscious participation of the proletariat under the leadership of a revolutionary party to sweep away the old state apparatus. The counter-revolution enjoys innumerable advantages, if the political conditions exist for its success. It can utilise the existing state apparatus - all the forces of the old order. It bases itself not on the conscious will of the masses to struggle for a new society, but on demoralisation, passivity, and a loss of hope in any alternative.

128. Their approach to this question is entirely unmaterialistic, as if the subjective factor existed in a vacuum sealed off from the processes taking place in society. After all, Marx and Engels were outstanding revolutionaries, with no shortage of determination and audacity, but they never led a successful revolution - for the obvious reason - that the objective conditions for this did not exist. The comparison with the Bolsheviks in 1917 is absurd, for the very reason the document points out: The Bolsheviks had "a colossal social base". No-one disputes that the coup was bungled and that many of its leading personnel were drunk. But the question must be asked: Why was this the case? As Trotsky commented, in respect to Kornilov's coup,

"... the question remains: Why was a patriotic enterprise entered into and surrounded, for the most part, by drunkards, spendthrifts and traitors? Is it not because every historic task mobilises the cadres that are adequate to it?" (History of the Russian Revolution, page 731. Our emphasis.)

 

129. Even the "serious bourgeois" Fukuyama, quoted in the document, shows that he has understood more than the ex-Minority when he says "the coup plotters could have succeeded in the short term had they been more competent and determined, as was the Deng regime in Tiananmen Square... But the plotters were afflicted with a lack of belief in themselves and their cause." (The Truth About the Coup, page 7, our emphasis.)

130. The demoralisation of the junta reflected the fat these were the dying remnants of a parasitic caste which is no longer capable of utilising the potential of the planned economy. EG himself made this point in 1990, commenting on the collapse of the east European regimes:

"You hear echoes everywhere: why didn't they do - this is what the bureaucrats say in Russia, East Germany, Romania, everywhere - why didn't they solve it like they did in China, and fire on the crowd? That would have taught them a lesson. Like they taught them in China. They've forgotten that in China the bureaucracy still preserves a relatively progressive role in developing the productive forces. A role they've lost completely." (EG at IEC meeting, February 1990)

 

Jaruzelski

131. Likewise the comparison with Jaruzelski's coup in December 1981, is false. By ignoring the decisive changes that have taken place since then, in Poland and internationally, their comparison with Jaruzelski reduces itself to one of personal or technical considerations: determination against incompetence. This may pass for "raising the theoretical level" in their ranks, but it is worthless for workers and youth who want to acquire a Marxist understanding of events.

132. Jaruzelski's coup and last August's attempt are separated by an epoch. First, the Polish coup took place after 16 months of dual power. In 1980 Jaruzelski rejected pleas to stage a coup because the time was not ripe but in December 1981, after the Solidarity leadership's failure to complete the political revolution, a counter-revolution was much more likely to succeed. When Jaruzelski acted to crush the Polish workers' movement, he acted on behalf of a ruling caste which still had a certain belief in itself and its ability to rule on the basis of a planned economy. The international outlook was entirely different at that time. World capitalism, far from appearing an attractive alternative, was in the depths of recession. The economic slowdown in Poland's neighbouring Stalinist regimes was only just beginning to slow. In addition, a powerful state apparatus still existed in the Soviet Union under Brezhnev, which had no intention of allowing the Stalinist regime in Poland to fall. Nevertheless the fact that, in carrying out this counter-revolution Jaruzelski had, for the first time in a Stalinist state, to sweep aside the civilian party leadership and install a military regime was a significant sign of the way in which the bureaucracy was beginning to decay.

133. Not only does their document ignore the fundamental differences in the situation, thay also take no account of what actually happened within the Jaruzelski regime after the coup. They state:

"Jarozelski (sic) in Poland held out for seven years. There is no reason why such a regime in the USSR could not have lasted for five, seven or ten years." (page 16).

 

134. This ignores the enormous shift which took place within the Jaruzelski regime after the 1981 coup. Huge splits opened within the bureaucracy because of their inability to overcome the catastrophic economic crisis or completely crush Solidarity, unlike the situation after Hungary 1956 or Czechoslovakia 1968. Contrary to the impression their document gives, the regime began to decentralise and introduce limited 'market reforms' from as early as 1983. When these partial steps did not arrest the economic collapse, Jaruzelski and the dominant section of the Polish bureaucracy, blindly and empirically as always, shifted to a pro-capitalist position. Reflecting the utter demoralisation of yesterday's ruling Stalinist elite, Jaruzelski said in last year's Polish election campaign "our greatest mistake was to keep the party's monopoly on power, defend nationalised industry and the class struggle (sic)".

135. Initially when they set up the round-table talks in 1988, the old ruling clique hoped to preside over the transition themselves, drawing in the Solidarity leaders as junior partners to provide the regime with a wider social base. In this way they hoped to introduce capitalism at a more controlled pace. The regime had been convinced of the need to involve the Solidarity leadership after the failure of its 1987 referendum over price increases and austerity measures. This attempt to harness Solidarity as a junior partner, despite the willingness of the Solidarity leaders, proved impossible as the hostility of the masses towards the bureaucracy, emboldened by the splits in the regime and the mass movements throughout eastern Europe, threatened to explode. Eventually Jaruzelski and the "political wing" of the old bureaucracy were forced out. General Kiszcsak's attempt to form a government in July 1989 was abandoned for fear of provoking a new explosion from the working class - a potential movement. The Stalinists were thus squeezed out of the process they themselves had initiated. This rupture, under the pressure of the masses, undoubtedly accelerated the process of bourgeois restoration. All this is a closed book to the ex-Minority who completely fail to see that this process started under the Stalinist bureaucracy and why this happened.

136. While the authors of the ex-Minority document do not exclude a pro-bourgeois coup, the entire weight of their argument point towards a swing back to Stalinism as the most likely perspective. While they concede that in August "the programme of the coup was not to defend the nationalised planned economy, but to move towards a market economy" (The Truth About the Coup, page 11). They then argue:

"What would have happened, for example, if Yanayev and co had seized power? Is it a foregone conclusion that they would have carried out their stated aims of moving towards a 'market economy' albeit at a more gradual pace? For the IS Majority faction this is a simple question to answer: "In today's situation", "objectively" ...yes. But that does not exhaust the question." (ibid., pages 15-16).

"A Yanayev regime would have been faced with an economic boycott from the West. Not even the limited amount of food aid which has been given to stake off the threat of hunger this winter, would have been forthcoming. Faced with the risk of social disturbances, the regime would have been compelled to resort to drastic measures of re-centralisation."

They conclude that "If, as was entirely possible, the regime had been compelled to carry out a policy based on re-centralisation and a planned economy accompanied by terror, that also would have given a certain impetus to the productive forces for a period of time. Incidentally, that is precisely what happened in China after the Tiananmen Square massacre, which explains why, for a time, the Chinese regime has succeeded in maintaining itself." (ibid. page 16. Our emphasis).

 

137. Clearly the ex-Minority have not studied developments in China. Despite the limited purge of the "liberal" wing of the Chinese bureaucracy after the massacre, and a partial re-centralisation of the economy - for a temporary period - the regime quickly shifted back to a pro-capitalist direction, far from re-centralising, are proceeding even more rapidly with a programme of bourgeois 'economic reform'. In 1991 the state sector only accounted for 45.6 per cent of Chinese industrial output, compared to more than 80 per cent in 1980. Especially in the richer southern coastal provinces of China which enjoy a wide degree of autonomy and are closely integrated with Hong Kong, a significant capitalist class has developed. A similar process is taking place in Vietnam and is even beginning Cuba.

138. The example of China, therefore, contradicts rather than supports the perspective put forward by the ex-Minority. They assume that "a Yanayev regime would have been faced with an economic boycott from the West". Yet this did not happen after the Tiananmen massacre. Despite token protests from Bush and imperialism, only relatively minor sanctions were imposed against China. In reality, the West have continued to do a brisk business with the Chinese regime, as the USA's $13 billion trade deficit with China indicates. In fact the ex-Minority completely contradict themselves when, on page 6, they state that "Bush did not think that the coup stood no chance of success, nor did Major, Kohl and Mitterand, who hastened to offer to do business with the new men in the Kremlin"!

139. The destruction of the old Stalinist bureaucracy and the transformation of some sections into a new bourgeois class, means that a bourgeois coup is a much more likely perspective. While still theoretically possible in the future, under conditions of a deep crisis for world capitalism, an attempt to re-introduce a bureaucratically run planned economy on the model of Stalinism is virtually excluded under present conditions. Oblivious to the changes in the situation, the ex-Minority continue to cling to this perspective, harking back to the apparent certainties of an era that has passed from history. This mistaken perspective, above all, lies behind their mistakes during and after last August's coup.

140. This shows what can happen to any tendency which fails to study the concrete situation and correct an outdated and invalidated perspective. Their refusal to learn from this, even after great events have proven them to be wrong, means they will be unable to intervene seriously in the coming struggles. Their breakaway grouping will be condemned to a sterile existence on the fringes of the international workers' movement. Above all, this is true in relation to the former Stalinist states. In no other arena of world politics have the ex-Minority been shown to be so out of step. It is no accident that all the comrades in these countries supported the position of the Majority.

141. Now the faction struggle is behind us, with the leaders of the Minority unprepared to stay and argue their case in the ranks of the International. The intensive discussions of the last period, which inevitably carried a heavy cost for our practical work, have nevertheless served to enormously strengthen the International theoretically. On the basis of the method, approach and perspectives defended by the Majority in that struggle, Marxism must turn towards the great opportunities that exist in the former Stalinist states and in the capitalist world, to build the Party of World Revolution.

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