Date: Tue, 20 May 1997 00:41:58 -0400
From: Vladimir Bilenkin <achekhov-AT-unity.ncsu.edu>
To: marxism-general-AT-jefferson.village.Virginia.EDU
Subject: M-G: Russian "Left" Speaks forced comments) 


Hugh Rodwell wrote:
> 
> Vladimir writes:
> 
> >I'm forwarding a piece from JRL which I find a remarkable
> >illustration of the marasmatic state of the so-called
> >Russian "Left."  I don't think any commentaries needed.
> >The defenders of the "future of left-wing ideas in Russia"
> >speak for themselves just fine.
> 
> Unfortunately, commentaries *are* needed. Please give us some of your ideas
> on this to start the ball rolling!

> 
> PS I was struck by the puffed-up cheek of the title -- April Theses!!


Well, I was not. Megalomania and political parasitism on Russia's 
revolutionary past are spread among the "left."  As to the content
of this missive, I don't see much in it to debate. Are we interested 
in arguing what is better, the nationalist "left"  or
westernized liberal-democratic one, Zuiganov or Buzgalin, Kagarlitsky
et al?  Are we interested in discussing the left or in building
revolutionary organization from within the proletariat?  Anyway,
here is come brief comments on these document. 

[The following document, which is aimed at providing a basis for new
alignments and regroupments on the Russian left, was first circulated
during April at the Fourth Congress of the Communist Party of the
Russian Federation. Initial signatories include Igor Malyarov, first
secretary of the Russian Komsomol; Anatoly Baranov, deputy chief
editor of the newspaper Pravda-5; and writer Boris Kagarlitsky.]

I don't know the political persona of Baranov, but the coming
together of the other two signatories is significant. Malyarov, a
corrupt, opportunistic "eternal youth," is a typical Komsomol leader 
(see Trotsky for characterization) who boasts to have 17,000 members 
in his organization and, which is more important,
the financial support from the former Komsomol nomenclatura who  
control banking industry. Now, Kagarlitsky has neither.
His Labor Party is a sham, existing only on paper, his financial
support is the Brecht Forum honoraria. But K. is an educated
marxist and has connections and established reputation in the west
which M. doesn't. Why do they come together now?  Because the left as
it has existed before can no longer control the rising wave of spontaneous 
struggles from below.  Because their opportunism, left, 
right, and center, has been unmasked in front of the masses whose
demands and *actions* rapidly become more radical and militant.
Actually, Zuiganov's open collaboration with the regime is becoming 
embarrassing even for some of his bourgeois-nationalist allies.
The worst fears of the "civilized opposition" and the regime
is that the radicalization of the masses will either give
birth to a genuine revolutionary organization or/and revitalize
the existing radical communist organizations.  But isn't the Left's
raison d'etre is exactly to prevent such possibility?  
Now let us look closer at this new rescue attempt, the language and 
ideas of these "theses." 


   <<The politics of the Russian opposition are now a strange mix of
toughly-worded declarations and of behind-the-scenes attempts to find
a compromise with the authorities. The left majority in the State
Duma voted to confirm Chernomyrdin as head of the government, and
also voted for the budget. But nationalist-statist rhetoric and
criticism of the personnel policy of the authorities cannot
substitute for principled politics. Nor can struggles over symbolic
issues take the place of real actions aimed at defending the rights
of workers. It is worth recalling that for the left movement the
struggle for workers' rights, and not the defence of the state
bureaucracy, has always been central.>>


Notice the opportunistic style, i.e. deliberately vague, 
avoiding clear definitions and political lines of demarcation.
What is the "left movement"? The "left majority" in the Duma is
CPRF, i.e. "communists."  But the authors are obviously not 
comfortable with this word.  To call CPRF a "communist" party would 
not only put them in the same camp with the regime's propaganda but 
also make it more difficult to smuggle in the reformist nature of
their politics: the "struggle for workers' rights." What they accuse
CPRF of is not of betraying the communist cause but of failing even
to play the laborist role within the framework of bourgeois 
political structure.


    <<The government finds it advantageous to deal with an opposition
that calls for a return to the past, with an opposition that cannot
win elections. Nostalgia for Soviet times is in itself natural and
understandable, but it cannot amount to a constructive program. The
victory by the left in the 1995 State Duma elections could have
provided a historic chance to make the shift from criticism to
concrete work, to show in practice what the essence of an alternative
economic policy amounted to. But such activity would have put the
Duma in constant confrontation with the government, and placed it at
risk of early dissolution. The leaders of the Duma majority are more
afraid of such a dissolution than of the discontent of their
electors.>>

Another ideological sleigh of hand, and a very sloppy at that!  
No doubt that the Zyuganovites
feel quite comfortable with the status quo.  But precisely because
of this they cannot be “nostalgic.” The CPRF Program explicitly
calls for the formation of a capitalist state and presents a 
general conception of its stabilization (a number of leading
figures in the party are capitalists). It is understandable that 
Yeltsyn’s propaganda describes CPRF as nostalgic lunatics who 
once in power would restore the Soviet past.  But why would our “left”
authors play this Yeltsyn’s (and the international capital’s) tune?


   <<The modernisation promised by liberal ideologues and government
propagandists has not taken place in Russia. Not only are we still
behind the West in technological terms, but we are now lagging
further and further behind in the areas of education, health and
social welfare. The blame for this lies entirely with the present-day
elites, which have totally subordinated the country's development to
their own enrichment. But in condemning the present order, the left
must not call for a return to the past. It must look forward, to a
society where a higher level of social justice is based not on
bureaucratic distribution but on the democratic organisation of
power; on a high level of technological development; and on the
efficient functioning of socially-owned means of production.>>

Again, notice the language.  “Liberal ideologues,” “elites,”
“social justice,” “democratic organization of power,” “socially-
owned means of production.” This is the language of western 
liberal left at best.  These avowed “marxists” and “communists” 
have managed not to mention words “class” and “capitalism” even
once in the entire document!  And to what past they don’t 
workers to return?  To the past of “bureaucratic distribution”
or that of nationalized property and all the fundamental conquests
of 1917 that it entailed? This is a rhetorical question to 
ask.  For all three authors are themselves a part of the 
bureaucracy.  Kagarlitsky, for instance, is an official advisor
to the pro-capitalist, “blue” Federation of Labor who 
collaborates with the regime and owners to suppress labor
militancy.

Look, what they are calling for:


    <<The weakness of parliament is the result of the partial and
largely fictitious nature of the democratisation in Russia. As in the
early years of the century, it is up to the left to raise the banner
of democratic change, using the Duma as a forum for direct and open
attacks on the autocracy, etc, etc.>>

Isn’t it clear now that these “April” theses were, in fact,
written in “February”!  The double plagiarizers have stolen
the title from Lenin and the content from Miluikov!!  Nice 
interlocutors the flaming trotskyist Bob Malecki has found 
himself for a dialogue!  What makes then this document so
remarkable is that it demonstrates *beyond any doubt* the 
essential class affinities between the crack forces of the
Soviet counter-revolution and its “left” maiden.  
As Gorbachev in 1989 had raised the slogans of 1789, so now
in 1997 the “left” raises those of February of 1917.  Yet, we
cannot give both even the status of a historical farce, 
the residual dignity of a political travesty that solidified 
the progressive gains of the past in Marx’s time. Counter-revolutions,
regressive slips of history have something of the insubstantiality
or irreality of the Christian devil that marks all the actors of 
current Russian politics and turns them into the shadowy swindlers of
anti-history.   

Having announced bourgeois democracy as their *real* objective,
the “left” raises the issue of nationalism (rather than question
of nationalities)

  <<To nationalism, we have to counterpose our traditional values of
the solidarity of working people whatever their nationality. The
forces of the left are capable of putting an end to ethnic conflicts
and to the division of society along national and religious lines. It
is alarming when the leaders of the Communist Party remove the slogan
"Proletarians of all Lands, Unite!" from their banners on the grounds
that it is no longer relevant.>>

It sounds as rather trivial and indisputable declaration of
proletarian internationalism. But is it?  Notice that this
fundamental revolutionary principle is affirmed not as a 
vehicle of class struggle leading to a world revolution but
as instrumental for preventing ethnic and religious conflicts
in the FSU!

I could go on with this muddleheaded piece of opportunistic
drivel but I value my time and yours. When Marx read the Gotha
Program and felt the rat, he produced one of the most important 
documents of socialist thought.  But the muddleheadedness of 
Gotha was on a different order of reality.  It stemmed from
the real difficulty for labor movement to assimilate the 
radically new conceptions of scientific socialism while under the 
hegemony of bourgeois ideology.  But no "criticism" is possible
in respect of the ideological products, like the "New April
Theses."  They are "beneath all criticism" since the conditions
in Russia are "below the level of history." 

What Marx himself would be able to leave us if instead of 
Lassalle's "iron law of wages" he had to ponder Kagarlitsky's:

<<If the politicians lack the competence to work under
unfavourable conditions, the politicians must be changed. Then we
will be able to change the conditions>>?!

No, the problem is not that we don't have our marxes and lenins
but that we don't have our lassalles and plekhanovs.

Vladimir


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