File spoon-archives/marxism-general.archive/marxism-general_1998/marxism-general.9805, message 121


Date: Thu, 07 May 1998 13:51:19 +0000
From: vladimir bilenkin <achekhov-AT-unity.ncsu.edu>
Subject: M-G: From the Samara Strike Committee


Comrades:

Below is my translation of the documents on the struggle in
Samar which we received yesterday from the leaders of the
Strike Committee Grigory Isayev and Victor Kotel'nikov in
response to our collective letter of solidarity.  I just
want to say a few words on the background of this struggle.

Samara (Kuibyshev in the USSR) has a population of 1 million
people and a long revolutionary tradition.  It has a large
concentartion of heavy industry which, as elsewhere in
Russia, has been devastated by capitalist restoration.  ZIM
(Zavod imeni Maslennikova) presently has 5,000 workers who
have not been paid their wages for a year.  ZIM is a
military-industrial plant which still belongs to the state.
As most of such enterprises, ZIM has been left without state
orders and subject to plunder by its administration and the
authorities of all levels whose usual tactics comes to the
following.  First, an enterprise is stripped of all its
assets.  Its real estate and all kind of facilities are
rented out for a nominal price to the relatives or friends
of the administartion.  If the workers of an enterprise have
some shares they are compelled to sell them to the front
people of the administration or/and outside gangsters, since
they are not paid their wages and starve.  Then they drive
the enterprise to bancrupcy, the state puts it to auction,
and the local gang buys it for small change.  With the
workers now out, they are free to do with the enterprise,
often unique and having priceless equipment, whaever they
want.  Often they would just sell it to a private bank and
settle on a nice piece of real estate in Switzerland or
Florida.  And behind they leave hundreds of thousands of
Russian workers to starvation, lumpenization, and death.

Why it was ZIM, among so many enterprises in similar
predicament, to have risen in organized action?  I believe
it was because of the long revolutionary tradition of the
Samara proletariat and because of the small group of the
revolutionary workers led by Isayev and Kotel'nikov who can
be called some of the few professional revolutionaries in
contemporary Russia.  I know that Isayev was arrested in
1981 for organizing a strike and was given a 6-year prison
term for that.  Together with Kotel'nikov, he leads a local
Party of the Proletarian Revolution based on some sort of
vernacular Marxist tradition, transmitted, I believe, by
Kotel'nikov's father, the now deceased founder of the group.
According to the Party statues, its members from the
intelligentsia have only the right of consultative vote.

The protest began on Feb 3 when the ZiM workers blocked the
central avenue of the city.  They sent then a delegation to
the near-by meeting of the so-called Trilateral
Commission--the bosses, the city administartion, and the
"yellow" official unions--which was discussing the terms of
a new "production" agreement.  They found cold reception
there.  The following two months they continued to block the
avenue every day.  They also threw from the factory their
director and its coterie who are now under criminal
investigation for the embezzlement of the plant's assets.
To obstruct the investigation, the "gang" inside the plant
burnt the down the bookkeeping office.  The police twice
arrested the leaders of the strike but every time they were
released under the workers' pressure.  Among other actions,
the workers took the vice-directors and the plant's union
boss hostages.  Isayev writes that now they are working on
organizing a city-wide meeting to overthrow the regional
governor.  He also mentions that the Committee badly needs a
RIZOGRAPH A-4 monochrome (apparently, some sort of printing
device) whic is sold in Samara for $3,300.  They don't have
such money and are looking for a cheaper price.

They also ask to disseminate their email address
(stachkom-AT-transit.samara.ru) as wide as possiblea, and they
ask for email addresses of papers, radio, and TV stations
where they could send info about their struggle. They are
also asking for the addresses of the servers where they
could display the web page of their Committee free.  That's
all so far.

_______________


Some Documents of the Samara Strike Committee


A Resolution of the  Workers' Meeting of ZIM Plant (Samara)

We, the workers of ZIM, declare that our bosses and authorities deceived
us so many times and with such impudency that we no longer believe
anybody and anything.  We therefore declare to all that from now on
we won't let anybody to touch our ZIM before we don't get paid our
back wages.  No to bancrupcies, no to joint-stock companies, and no
to outside managers!  That's all!  Now we are the masters of the palnt!
First, pay us our back wages--then we can talk.  Hands off ZIM!
________________________

To the Workers of the Ball-Bearing Plant #4:

Good for you! 

We, the workers of ZIM, support your strike with all our
heart.  As a token of our solidarity with you, we will
blocade the Novo-Savovaya Street (apparently a major
throughfare of the city--VB).  Follow us!  Together we'll
overcome!  (the Strike Committee of ZIM)
_________________________

We Need to Make a Decisive Step!

We need to convene an extraordinary conference of ZIM
workers because of the following problem.  We know that
Letyagin, our new general manager has taken a number of
energetic measures to solve the crisis.  But these measures
have not been successful because they were sabotaged by the
entire gang of thieves inside the factory as well as outside
it.  They include the hacks of the former director (who
burned the accounting office) and the gigantic thievish gang
of creditors, bureaucrats, authorities and other "friends of
the people" talk about their love to us while doing
everything in order to finish off the factory azs soon as
possible.  In this, all these hyenas are united!  Because
the death of ZIL means enrichment to them--and death to us!

It's clear that Letyagin cannot save the factory on his own.
This gang of predators will sooner break his neck rather
than let the plant out their paws.  This is why the strike
committee thinks that under such circumstances we can can
win only by joining together the efforts of Letyagin and the
collective action of 5,000 angry, hungry, pauperized workers
of ZIM.  And we are erady for this.  We have nothing to
lose!

ZIM is a state enterprise, i.e. we have the right to put our
demands before any state representative, including the
President, if we firmly wish so.  This is what we want to
discuss at the conference.

We'll invite to it all whom we find necessary to (some names
of their enemies are mentioned here).  And we'll call them
to account for their actions.  Let them only try not to come
and to deceive us again.  5,000 ZIM workers make five
proletarian regiments.  We'll get out lawful money from
them, we'll get them!

We shall win if unite together the great power of our
collective with the intelligence and knowledge of our new
director and those managers and technical personel who are
honest, bold and believe in ZIM!  We can get what we need
only by force!
___________________________________

PROCLAMATION

The criminal regime has brought  Russia to the unheard-of shame and 
humiliation and thas thrown her people to poverty and misery.  This
regime must be overthrown!

For long decades we lived as serfs of the feudal CPSU.  Now,
new exploiters-- democrats have thrown us into the new,
bourgeois slavery.  It was the gang of communists and
democrats who has brought Russia to the brink of
catastrophe.  It can be prevented only by a revolutionary
organized working class.  There is no any other social force
that can do this!

This is why we, workers, are taking today all power and
responsibility for the fate of our society.  The
mafioso-type, festering administration of Yeltsin has to be
dissolved immediately and unconditionally.  All power will
be transfered into the hands of revolutionary strike
committees which will be fully accountable to workers'
meetings and conferences.  This will become the main law of
life!

Any power--unless it is strictly controlled by the organized
masses--instantenuously degenerates and produces new mean
exlploiters no matter how beautifully masked.

All to the Square of Glory!
Down with the Communists and Democrats!
Down with Parlaiments and Presidents!
Long Live the Power of Workers!
Long Live Revolution!

Signed:
The Strike Committee of ZIM
The Strike Committee of the City of Samara
_______________________________________

To the Police

Do not spill workers' blood.  It is easy to make a mistake
today.  The authorities have many times used you as a
boggy-man to protect themselves.  Until now you served as a
buffer between the two exploiting classes: the old feudals
of CPSU and the new predatory bourgeoisie who wear the masks
of communists and democrats.  E.g., the communists still
manage to lead some sections of desperate pensioners,
invalids, and veterans right under your batons.

But today the very working class itself has run out of
patience and does not believe anybody and anything.  We are
not the pitiful crowds with red flags but tens of millions
of people.  We'll sweep away the old and the new oppressors!
We'll do this by any means and establish our own proletarian
power which will indeed express the interests of the people.

This is why we're telling you: do not stand on our way!
Instead, help workers detachments in their struggle with
crime, banditism, and the mafia.  We'll squash this scum!

Police, workers are not armed.  Think twice to avoid making
a terrible mistake and becoming criminals .  You will not be
forgiven.  Remember whose sons and brothers you are and whom
you must serve.  You can become either heroes or criminals.
Become heroes!

The Strike Committee of ZIM
The Strike Committee of Samara
____________________________________

Resolution of  the Meeting of ZIM workers 
3 February 1998

Brothers journalists!  

You can see by yourselves what is going on.  It is the
bosses and the authorities who compel us to take extreme
actions.  We have a big request to you.  We know that it
will not be easy for you because you have your own bosses
and your bread is not sweet either.  And yet, please, try to
tell only truth about our struggle, only truth and nothing
more!  We shake your hands, we rely on you.  You have great
power in your hands!
_________________________________

To Workers and Workers' Organizations od All Countries!

We send our ardent proletarian salut to all of you who expressed
support to the workers of Samara and myself personally in our
revolutionary struggle against Russian bourgeoisie.  Your support,
your solidarity has helped and continues to help us to stand firm
against authorities and exploiters.

We shall not retreat, we'll go to the end--to the victory of a new 
proletarian revolution.

We shake your hands and wish you firmness and courage in your
struggle.

Long Live the Power of Workers!
Long Live the Dictatorship of the Proletariat!

The Strike Committee of Samara,

The Chaiman of the Committee Grigory Isayev
"stachkom" <stachkom-AT-transit.samara.ru>
Tel. 35-32-62



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