Following in the footsteps of Mikhail Gorbachev, his predecessor, Boris Yeltsin has embarked on a foreign affairs adventure, visiting Japan in order to negotiate credits and loans for Russia.
It would be an act of supreme international working-class solidarity if the trade unions of Japan were to demonstrate against him in a show of solidarity and sympathy with the working-class movement in Russia.
Such an act of solidarity at a time like this would help the Russian working class in its struggle to overcome the fascist terror Yeltsin has unloosed.
It should be remembered that after the Nazis took power in Germany, their foreign missions were under constant attack by anti-fascist and working-class organizations. Wherever Hitler's foreign minister went, he always encountered the wrath of anti-fascists. The lessons of that era should not be lost upon working-class organizations everywhere.
Yeltsin's visit to Japan is as much a threadbare maneuver to divert public attention in Russia away from the struggle at home as it is an attempt to obtain loans and credits.
For its part, the Japanese imperialist government is likely to raise once more, formally or informally, the issue of the Kurile Islands and demand their return to Japan, just as it did during Gorbachev's visit.
It is of course not proper or diplomatic in bourgeois circles to raise an issue such as the Kurile Islands in economic negotiations. But because the Japanese capitalist press is likely to raise it in a vociferous manner, it is bound to come up.
It was none other than Yeltsin who earlier did his utmost to undermine Gorbachev's effort to negotiate with the Japanese government. Yeltsin fanned the flames of Russian chauvinism on the question of returning the Kurile Islands to Japan.
He led the chorus in the Russian press to be adamant and not surrender "our Russian brethren" in the Kurile Islands to the Japanese. Such jingoistic drivel is common in capitalist countries. Under these circumstances, it was quite impossible for Gorbachev to negotiate on behalf of his regime. It was no wonder he came home empty-handed.
Now Yeltsin will use his crushing of the Russian opposition to demonstrate the stability of his regime to the imperialist government of Japan. Outrageous as it may seem, such measures are often demanded by imperialist governments in loan negotiations as collateral-security. It was something Gorbachev could not yet offer the Japanese imperialist government.
In these negotiations, Yeltsin has the formal blessing of the Clinton administration. But the latter will not be happy if the negotiations between Yeltsin and the Japanese government go beyond loan arrangements that have been openly agreed upon. However, secret agreements are common in such negotiations.
Gorbachev's effort to deal with the Japanese faltered mainly because of the instability of his regime, and the uncertainty which might follow were it to collapse. Now Yeltsin is in Japan, and the stability of his regime is also in question. His crushing of the Russian opposition by force and violence is not an indication of stability in the country.
The measures Yeltsin has taken in the struggle to strengthen and retain his regime have a fascist character. He has resorted to illegal arrests, imprisonment of hundreds, the suspension of the progressive press, and the banning of progressive, working class and communist organizations.
While at present he is able to retain his hold on the state apparatus, that is not the same as enjoying political support among the masses. The brutal manner in which he crushed the parliamentary opposition and the revolutionary workers engaged in that struggle is something that cannot but inspire the working-class movement with hatred, and is bound to culminate in open political opposition.
It should also be remembered that the decisive working-class forces — the tens of millions of workers and collective peasantry — as well as large masses from intermediate strata of the population, were not involved in this struggle. The basic reserves of the working class remain intact.
So far as the military is concerned, only the elite units of a special military detachment opened fire against the parliament and the workers.
While the measures Yeltsin has taken are of a fascist character, they are not on the scale of the Hitlerite-Mussolini-Franco type of fascism. In each of those situations, the struggle was conducted more or less openly as an effort to destroy the power of the working class and its organizations. It involved mass struggle. Each of the contending classes was fully involved in the struggle. Each struggle ended in the annihilation of working-class, progressive and democratic organizations.
This has not happened under the Yeltsin regime, nor is it likely to — unless certain other factors come into play.
The Yeltsin-parliament struggle was of course a serious one. From this Marxists must deduce that it is at bottom a class struggle. The nature of every class struggle is bound up inextricably with economic objectives.
What is the economic objective of the Yeltsin regime?
It has been stated most openly and clearly by Yeltsin's prime minister, Yegor Gaidar. He made it clear that the objective was to go ahead, in an accelerated pace, with the economic reforms.
And what is basically involved in these economic reforms? Is it a reform of the socialist system of production? No, of course not. The word "reform" is a misnomer. It is the introduction of capitalism.
Starting piecemeal at first, the plan is to go "full steam ahead" after the destruction of the progressive, left and communist forces. The issue, ever since Gorbachev came in (and even earlier), has been which direction the Soviet economy should take: back to capitalism, or forward to socialist construction.
Gorbachev maintained, especially in his first few years, that he was proposing the introduction of certain bourgeois reforms in order to strengthen the socialist system. Only gradually did it become obvious that he was moving — or being dragged along — into transforming the socialist economy into a capitalist one.
Because of Gorbachev's supposedly slow pace, the Yeltsin forces pushed to move faster to capitalism, taking advantage of the disarray in the economy caused by the bourgeois "reforms." Eventually, they pushed Gorbachev aside, with the support of the imperialist bourgeoisie.
Gorbachev was being discredited by left, progressive forces as well as by the right wing, headed by Yeltsin. Thus, the ground was cut from under him completely.
By this time it should be abundantly clear that Yeltsin is for the installation of a full-scale capitalist system. One would think that now, having at least temporarily defeated his opposition, he could move quickly to carry out the objectives of his political program and dismantle the socialized sector of the Russian economy.
If that were an easy task he might have done it even if his political opposition remained legally in charge.
But he has not been able to do so. Not just because of political interference from the left, progressive, communist and democratic forces, but because economically it is not a viable objective.
The Russian bourgeoisie, and certainly the imperialist bourgeoisie, are for dismantling the economy, breaking it up into small units so as to make it possible to sell, resell or buy different parts of it. But over the years, since Gorbachev and Yeltsin have been in authority, that has not been a practical solution. It is like trying to break up a tremendous ocean liner into small boats and sell them at a profit. It can't be done.
The tremendous industrial infrastructure — the huge oil, steel, auto, aviation, mining and space industries, for example — can't be split up and sold profitably. And no one but the biggest imperialists could even think of buying them whole.
The inability of the Gorbachev and Yeltsin administrations to institute the capitalist system as a whole differs fundamentally from the process that is apparently going on in China.
In China, the introduction of capitalist zones is basically an industrialization process. It is the building up of the technological and economic infrastructure, especially in the coastal cities.
True, agriculture has been decollectivized. But, in the main, there is as yet no dismantling of China's socialized technological infrastructure. The proletariat and the peasantry in China at this stage of development are being brought by the millions into industry.
In Russia, on the contrary, furthering the transformation to capitalism must mean huge layoffs.
The problem for Yeltsin is how to get the support of the workers when his dismantling process will result in tremendous layoffs — "downsizing," as it is termed in the U.S.
The Yeltsin regime will continue to temporize for that very reason. This certainly will not find favor with the imperialists or the home bourgeoisie. From here on, Yeltsin has to calculate the political disadvantages of continuing with the process of dismantling socialized industry and provoking the masses to struggle. He can ill afford this, in view of the suppression of their organizations.
The working-class organizations must orient themselves in an independent working-class direction — of course including the peasants. The policy of coalescing with bourgeoisie democracy has exhausted itself historically. There is no point in holding on to the coattails of the Rutskoi/Khasbulatov coalition. They have demonstrated an incapacity to mobilize the masses under their own banner. The road is therefore clear for militant, proletarian initiatives. A united front of communist organizations ought to be a prerequisite for organizing a massive working-class struggle to overthrow the Yeltsin regime.
Last updated: 15 January 2018