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 --- from list marxism-general-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
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