FOURTH INTERNATIONAL The Soviet Union after 19 August 1991
1 - The attempted coup of 19 August confirmed the end of perestroika as a viable political option for the ruling nomenklatura in the USSR. The bankruptcy of perestroika had been evident for more than a year and the pro-capitalist tendencies had already taken the offensive. The failure of the coup unleashed an important progress of the struggle of the oppressed nations of the USSR against the union imposed on them. It also showed the possibility of a victorious mobilization against an attempt to impose a dictatorship. But on the other hand the dynamic towards capitalist restoration has been strengthened, and could only be effectively halted by a victory of the working class. Finally, the international consequences of the putsch and its political outcome have again confirmed the position of US imperialism as the sole super-power. It has not failed to profit from this, notably in pressurizing the Kremlin to associate itself with the US attacks against Cuba and liberation struggles in different parts of the world
The August 19 putsch was an attempt by the "conservative" neo-stalinist wing of the bureaucracy to maintain its control over the central organs of State power and to preserve the institutions threatened by the current upheavals (the new union treaty). The leaders of the putsch had already tried to obtain the same result in Parliament where their efforts had failed.
The circumstances of the putsch remain in part obscure. We can assume that the putschists were counting on Gorbachev's growing unpopularity and on the alleged consensus in favour of a "strong man" amongst the Soviet masses, as well as on the discipline of the army and the KGB to support them. These assumptions turned out to be false. In spite of Gorbachev's unpopularity, a sector of the popular masses viewed his elimination as a step towards a tyrannic dictatorship which the people did not want at any price. As a result, the masses in the main centres mobilized against the coup. At the same time, the army and the KGB were much more divided than anticipated. The most
28 International Marxist Review technically advanced sector of the Moscow garrison, and the Air Force in particular, did not support the putschists. They even threatened to intervene against them. Under these conditions, the putsch collapsed like a house of cards. Its social base was too narrow for it to have any chance of success whatsoever.
The putsch was totally reactionary. Its goal was to install a more authoritarian regime, to suppress democratic the liberties that the people enjoyed de facto or de jure. The putschists wanted to suspend the right to strike and form independent political organizations, including working class organizations. They tried to reestablish control over all the media. Its goal was neither to halt the privatizations or the collaboration with imperialism.
It was necessary to oppose the putsch 100%. It was necessary to participate in popular demonstrations, to try to expand and organize them. It was necessary to organize all possible networks of anti-putchist resistance. 2 — In the absence of a significant political force representing the immediate interests of the labouring masses, the victory of the opponents of the coup was channelled towards, and confiscated by, the Yeltsin tendency, the militant pro-capitalist current and the "liberal" wing of the bureaucracy. In practice, the failure of the coup resulted in a shift in power within the bureaucracy away from not only away from the "conservatives" but also from the "centre" that is grouped around Gorbachev.
This shift in no way signifies the consolidation of popular power or of any institutionalized democracy. This does not exist today any more than it did before the putsch. The reactionary character of the Yeltsin current must be denounced. It does not only involve a clearly pro-capitalist orientation. It also implies a clearly authoritarian and plebiscitary tendency — the move toward a presidential regime and the strengthening of executive bodies at the expense of elected soviets are clear manifestations of this. The relative popularity of Yeltsin is due to his conflicts with the apparatus from which he came, his break with the CPSU, his demagogic promises that are highly contradictory in their socio-economic aspects, as well as his support for the sovereignty of the republics including that of Russia. But on the these counts, Yeltsin's popularity will surely be eroded by the test of power and his authoritarian tendencies are sure to grow stronger. 3 — The most striking action of Yeltsin after the defeat of the putsch was the suspension of the activities of the CPSU and the dissolution of its central structures. The party had long since ceased to be the Bolshevik Party - it
Soviet Union after 19 August 1991 29 was literally liquidated by Stalin in the purges of the 1930s — or even to be a party as such. The CPSU had been transformed into a party-state, i.e. an apparatus of power whose top levels enjoyed enormous material privileges. If it did retain a certain social basis, this was due less to any identification among its members with communism or socialism than to reasons of protection and individual or group promotion. Among the millions of party members we can find the whole spectrum of political opinion, from Thatcherism to genuine Marxism.
This apparatus had lost its legitimacy in the eyes of the people long ago. The blows recently dealt to it evoked only approval or left people indifferent. It was an instrument for the defence of the power and privileges of the bureaucracy. We are however opposed to the dissolution of the Communist Party and the suspension of its press, which is a violation of democratic rights. True, the measures taken against the CPSU reflect the hatred which is felt by large sections of the masses for this party because of its history. We support measures taken to deprive this party of its monopoly of the state apparatus, media etc. But despite the fact that the party represents the bureaucracy, it has the right to organize like any other party, and to publish its own journals. We are for the political defeat of this party, but this is a defeat which must be inflicted by the masses in open political struggle if democratic rights are to be preserved.
One must, nevertheless, nuance the view of the effective and total dismantling of the apparatus of the CPSU. In reality, it is mainly the central party apparatus of the Union that has been hit, together with the dismantling of the Union itself, of which the apparatus was the main base. At the level of certain republics, and even in many Russian cities and localities, the apparatus continues, in the main, to exercise its prerogatives. 4 — The dissolution of the Union and its transformation into a very loose confederation is the most radical change that occurred in August 1991. This is a legitimate reaction against an oppressive centre and the consequences of the force the national question has acquired as the cumulative result of a serious of phenomena since the 1920s: Great-Russian chauvinism, numerous manifestations of national oppression, socio-economic inequalities (though less striking than under Tsarism), large-scale repressions against certain nationalities, the tendency, especially strong since the Brezhnev period, for national bureaucracies to emerge in the republics finding support in nationalism and even encouraging it, the very deep ideological and moral crisis that favours the rise of nationalism (in certain places, fundamentalism).
30 International Marxist Review
But the dissolution of the Union raises serious problems, especially in the context of the deep economic crisis in which it has occurred. The Soviet Union was not merely a structure of domination, of force and national oppression. It was an economically integrated unity with regional specialization of production and its distribution on the basis of a territorial division of labour. Of course, bureaucratic hyper-centralism, by depriving the concerned communities of any power, was the source of enormous waste and growing economic inefficiency. But the transition to a priority production for republican needs and even to a quasi-autarchy would require an enormous reconversion process and bring about a sharp decline in revenue and employment. Besides, such a transition is impossible in the short or medium term.
The same is true of any attempt to reorient the economies of the main republics toward the world market. Many the goods in these republics that found consumers under the 'union regime and under the monopoly of foreign trade, would not st all be competitive on the world market. Such a shift wold mean the closure of tens of thousands of enterprises with all the ensuing social consequences.
In these conditions, even the most decisive supporters of the market economy and radical privatization in Yeltsin's current opt in favour of an economic Union with constraining structures. The definition of a currency for the economic union is one of the crucial elements for its emergence. But the issue of a currency entails the problem of the scope and limits of republican sovereignty, particularly in the area of relations with private or state capitalist lenders. But if the interdependence among republics is great, the free exchange of goods among them is no longer guaranteed either in the area of currency or finance. The collapse of the ruble becomes an obstacle to the regulation of exchange on this basis. The use of barter is expanding as a response to the collapse of central distribution. But its limits will be reached very quickly. The principle of a common currency in itself, combined with the maintenance of a division of labour within the territory of the old Union, except perhaps for some republics, implies the necessity of a central bank, of financing a budget of the confederation, of a common financial, even trade, policy. There will be, therefore, strong tensions within the economic union that is being born, especially if the Russian Federation tries to predominate in it. A period of prolonged instability has therefore opened, accompanied by all kinds of measures of constraint and regulation. The situation will remain a far cry from real "independence" and economic "liberalism" in the republics. The acceleration of the dismantling of the Union and the liberal-market
Soviet Union after 19 August 1991 31 offensive shift the problems of capitalist restoration to the republics and will accentuate the inequalities among them. 5 — Revolutionary Marxists defend the right of peoples to self-determination up to and including the right to a separate state, even though they do not necessarily put forward that demand themselves. The dissolution of the USSR as a federation is being accompanied by restorationist processes which entail negative consequences for all its peoples. But the two do not necessarily go together and one does cannot successfully oppose capitalist restoration by defending a forced union. One must oppose all coercion, be it military or economic, that aims at maintaining a union of peoples that do not want such a union, and who are today demanding independence — a nonnegotiable right which we support.
In the concrete conditions of the USSR, the transition from the Union to one or several forms of confederation is the only way of arriving tomorrow at * new truly democratic union between republics that enjoy strictly equal aghts. Such a union will have to be freely negotiated.
The right of a people to self-determination is a key democratic right. but it -oes not supersede other rights such as the freedom of association, the right :: vote, freedom of the press and especially trade-union freedoms and the şht to strike. It is necessary to fight every attempt by reactionary nationalist enderships to restrict these liberties, and to turn against their own national -inorities in the aftermath of their accession to power. What is happening day in Georgia, Azerbaijan, Lithuania, Moldavia and elsewhere illustrates
....
While making the necessary distinction between the nationalism of the appressed and the nationalism of the oppressors, we remain attached to the •șirit of genuine internationalism, that of solidarity among workers against :. forms of oppression regardless of race, nationality or ethnicity. We :?pose any logic of an "ethnically pure" state and the exploitation of legitimate national sentiments to promote reactionary ideologies. 6 — The August crisis should be placed in the context of a rapid and continuous deterioration of the economic situation in the USSR. This deterioration will not stop because the Yeltsin faction takes power — quite the contrary.
It is explained fundamentally by the fact that the "command economy", which had a tendency towards stagnation, is falling apart — and that no economic system with any coherence is replacing it. In these conditions the negative effects of the growing malfunction of the "command economy"
32 International Marxist Review combines with the negative effects of the start of a speculative and uncontrolled — if not openly "mafia-ized" — market economy.
The greater autonomy of the republics and enterprises has blocked their ongoing supplies, reducing production in the absence of a real production goods market. Production has fallen by 5-10 per cent per quarter over the last year. The powerlessness of the state in managing this hybrid combination in a coherent fashion, heightened by the tendency of the republics to limit or block their payments to the Union budget, have brought about an enormous deficit in public finances which has fed a process of galloping inflation. This had to lead to a growing deficit in the balance of payments. despite the liquidation of some of the big gold reserves held by the USSR, it is likely to soon find itself unable to pay its foreign debt.
Imperialism therefore has an interest in giving aid and loans to the Gorbachev-Yeltsin regime more than to the previous "Gorbachev" regime. But there is no question of a "Marshall Plan" that would make a real relaunching of the Soviet economy possible. Aid will be measured out with an eyedropper. In particular it will take the form of loans to the USSR in order to buy food and basic provisions from the eastern European countries, with a triple goal — aid to Moscow, support for the east European economies, and protection of the West European markets.
This aid will also take the form of joint ventures, through which international capital will try to get hold of some juicy morsels of Soviet industry. A priority goal will be to step-up oil and gas production, thus reducing the dependence of the imperialist countries on the OPEC countries. But it will above all be used to step-up political and socio-political pressure and blackmail — for example the conditions for joining the IMF — with the aim of imposing the burden of privatization on to the working masses and to encourage the emergence of a traditional bourgeois class in the USSR. 7 - One of the key questions posed by the 19 August putsch, and its immediate consequences is to explain why popular reaction was so limited. The bulk of the population did in fact maintain a "wait and see" attitude. There were of course popular mobilizations against the putsch. Yeltsin's call for a general strike had a certain echo among the miners, but very few or almost none of the big workplaces in Moscow or Leningrad took strike action. In the provincial industrial centres popular mobilizations were almost zero. The smallness of popular mobilizations can be explained by several factors. On the one hand, a big section of the masses remains de-politicized as a result
Soviet Union after 19 August 1991 33 of decades of dictatorship and atomization. On the other hand, the extreme weakness of the opposition parties and organizations (except in a few peripheral republics) means that there were no instruments — even embryonic ones — to organize the fightback. There is not yet any self-organization of the masses.
But the most important fact is that the popular masses are concerned above all by their immediate problems: lack of basic good; a fall in buying power caused by galloping inflation; threats to their jobs; attacks on social security. There is great skepticism about the capacity of any of the main political forces present to bring real and rapid solutions to these problems.
In a general fashion there indeed seems to be a difference between voting for the "liberal democrats" and the desire to mobilize in practice to defend them. In the elections people tend to orient themselves in ideological terms without immediate reference to their practical interests. but at the level of practical politics, when there is a risk of repression or loss of income or jobs, the approach is always much more down to earth. At this level there is a very widespread feeling of lack of real choice.
However the defeat of the putschists can reinforce the feeling within sections of the masses that it is possible to resist authoritarian measures. 8 — The manner in which the August putsch took place has accelerated the trends towards disintegration of the degenerated worker state, and the restoration of capitalism. But the determining indices of these processes are not at the ideological or symbolic level. They are in the domain of the status of property, of the fundamental economic mechanisms, in the real nature of foreign trade, in the transformation of the functions of the decisive centres of political power — above all of the repressive apparatuses (army, state police) — by reconversion and replacement.
But we are only at the beginning of these processes: the restorationist forces are on the offensive on the state and governmental terrains, with the aim of transforming socio-economic structures. But this is where the obstacles are the greatest. While there is undoubtedly a project of capitalist restoration this has not yet taken place. The Soviet economy does not yet function, far from it, according to the laws and development and the internal logic of the capitalist mode of production. For that to be the case, the public sector itself would have to obey capitalist criteria, which would mean, notably, in the current conditions, substantial bankruptcies and thus mass redundancies.
Moreover, there is no class of industrialist/entrepreneurs capable of operating in the least efficiently on the of the profit motive. The nouveaux riches
who are swarming in the Soviet Union — there are a hundred thousand rouble millionaires — whether they come from sections of the nomenklatura or from the mafia — are orientated towards speculation and rapid gain. Even among the collective farmers there is little enthusiasm for the collective farm.
In addition the privatization of big industry necessitates a contribution of at least the equivalent of a thousand billion dollars. The capital is not available for this, either in the Soviet Union or internationally — particularly in the current climate of lack of credit in the international capitalist economy. It would take a long time to amass it. Finally, and above all, the social costs of privatizing big industry would be so high — 30-40 million unemployed, 60-
70 million impoverished - that broader and broader popular reactions,
The most representative economists and advisers of the Yeltsin current are making more and more statements that protecting the whole of the population against the effects of a "shock therapy" of the 500-day plan type, is prac-
This deep social instability is moreover one of the reasons why internation-
9 — Popular resistance remains one of the major obstacles to the restoration of capitalism. But popular resistance, the possibility of even explosive protest movements, do not necessarily coincide with a general tendency towards self-organization, and even less with a project of a society which would be an alternative both to the bureaucratic dictatorship and to the restoration of capitalism. Such a tendency and such a project are today cruelly missing. It will take a long time before they will emerge again.
Under these circumstances, none of the three fundamentally different solutions of the crisis of decomposition of Soviet society can be realized even in the medium-term time-scale: neither a lasting restoration of a neo-Stalinist type regime; nor the final restoration of capitalism; nor the establishment of predominates today must inevitably pass through a prolonged and chaotic decomposition of the system, during which several types of upheaval remain
This implies concretely that there are three types of interest: 1) those of that fraction of the nomenklatura which is still ready to defend its power and privileges distinct from the new bourgeoisie and the proletariat; 2) those of the new bourgeoisie to which has rallied another growing fraction of the nomenklatura and which is supported by a large sector of the intelligentsia
34 International Marxist Review tically impossible in the USSR.
real democratic workers' possible.
indeed real social explosions would inevitably take place.
al capital is not prepared to invest massively in the USSR.
power. The orientation towards capitalism which
and the "new middle classes"; 3) those of the proletariat and of a part of the tolling peasantry, which has aspirations close to those of the workers.
The bureaucrats defend their interest pragmatically and choose their camp in function of the local, regional and all-Union relationship of forces. In the new bourgeoisie, the orientation and interests of different fractions are often contradictory, especially those of the new bourgeois originating from the nomenklatura, and those representing processes of "primitive accumulation"
of private capital. The working class is also traversed by socio-professional
The neo-Stalinist wing of the bureaucracy is not yet decisively defeated, and that it is still capable of reacting politically. One can already notice in
Russia, and especially in the poorest Republics, attempts by fractions of the bureaucracy to revive nationalism in the anti-liberal sense. New putsches and similar initiatives are still possible: neo-Stalinist initiatives, but also, to be sure, attempts to establish a dictatorship to impose the market with an iron
10 — During this whole period, socialist forces have to conduct a combined
— for the defense, broadening and the institutionalization of democratic freedoms, including total liberty of political organization and expression,
— for the defense of national rights, including those of minorities inside the respective republics, and against all restraint of the exercise of these
— against the privatization of large-scale industry, the banks, the social and cultural services, for guaranteed full employment, a minimum income guaranteed to all, and equal access for all to goods satisfying basic needs.
The economic and social collapse, long-term unemployment and even famine, cannot be overcome outside of a vigorous defense of social property, but also an opening of the world market to Soviet products without the hypocritical tariffs and embargoes which the imperialists continue to impose. This implies the abolition of the COCOM controls and other imperialist sanctions.
— for the reduction of military spending, the abolition of the privileges of the military hierarchy, the dissolution of the repressive forces, against the regimentation of the youth, for measures of unilateral nuclear disarmament,
11 - For such a struggle progressively to unfold and to lead in the long-run
In le re c1ie ly in at le le hand struggle:
rights.
divisions, not to speak of national divisions.
especially in the workplace and in the armed forces.
as the best contribution to world nuclear disarmament.
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Soviet Union after 19 August 1991 35
36 International Marxist Review to a rebirth of the political class-consciousness of the toilers, the conquest of an authentic political-organizational autonomy by these masses, and their necessary political class independence, is indispensable.
To further these objectives, all efforts already underway to regroup the very weak and dispersed social forces, without any sectarianism or exclusion, on a pluralist basis, reflecting the broadest democracy, should be encouraged and critically supported. This applies to the Workers Party in process of constitution.
Inside such regroupments, Marxists will defend their own programmatic and political positions without reticence, while loyally respecting the unity of action at the basis of the agreement leading to these formations and the freedom of all other currents. These regroupments can only serve their purpose if internal democracy is fully respected, if they are oriented towards supporting all struggles of the toilers for their immediate interests and towards practically intervening in that sense, if they refuse to restrict the unfettered development of the mass movement for any reason of Realpolitik, whether an electoralist one or that of "economic performance."
Given the tendency towards internationalization of the class struggle, which is reflected in the constant intervention of imperialism in the current debates and struggles in the ex-USSR, Soviet Marxists must defend theoretically and practically the idea of building simultaneously a national and worldwide organization. The effort to build an organization of the FI in the USSR coincides for us with the effort towards larger regroupments.
The class relationship of forces on a world scale has further deteriorated, in favour of capital and at the expense of labour. Only a few countries do not share this general trend. However in the long run the revival of mass workers struggles, be it without clear political consciousness, in the ex-USSR and several Eastern European countries, somewhat mitigates this balance-sheet.
Likewise, the collapse of Stalinism opens in the long run a larger space for the recomposition of the mass movement and the organized labour movement. It is, for the time being, impossible to predict at what rhythm and in which geographical areas this will mainly occur.
But that recomposition will not be the automatic result of successive waves of struggle. It will need the affirmation by the masses of a socialist project, of a global counter-model of society and of political class independence, leading up to a goal of the conquest of political power, distinct from bourgeois democracy and from bureaucratic dictatorship. This change can only be realized in the long run.
12 — The collapse of the central power of the CPSU and the disintegration of the USSR have strengthened the trend for the October revolution to be no longer a historical point of reference for large masses in the USSR, in Eastern
Europe, in the imperialist countries and in several semi-industrialized Third
World countries. The same trend can be noted in a large part of the vanguard
This negative balance-sheet is strengthened by a large-scale ideological offensive of the international bourgeoisie, which cynically identifies the crimes of Stalinism, products of counter-revolution, with the conquests of the
All this results from historical mystifications and falsifications parallel to those committed by the Stalinists. But the fact that the masses for the time being perceive history in this mystified way becomes in turn a factor which
We shall not give in to that pressure. We shall continue to defend the legitimacy of the October revolution. We shall continue to claim its heritage in a
Thanks to the October revolution, Russia has been able to free itself from barbarian structures which especially oppressed the peasantry. It has been able to transform itself in the timespan of a single generation from a back-
*ard semi-industrialized country into the second industrial power of the
The October revolution was not a putsch. It was the result of one of the broadest and most radical mass movements in history. Its socio-economic
:onquests, even when partially dismantled and more and more deprived of heir initial contents by bureaucratic degeneration, have allowed decades of uninterrupted economic growth and, starting with 1952, of a period of uninterrupted increase in the masses' standard of living, be it on a more modest scale. These conquests - essentially the nationalization of the large means of production and of exchange, economic planning and the state monopoly of foreign trade — have remained real conquests, in spite of the bureaucratic dictatorship, but conquests more and more intertwined with economic and ecological waste and monstrous crimes of the bureaucracy.
As Trotsky foresaw, however, the positive effects of the conquests of October were increasingly undermined by the bureaucratization, especially, when it became imperative to pass from extensive to intensive industrialization, from the priority given to quantity to a priority accorded to quality, from the creation of an industrial infrastructure to the satisfaction of the masses' conf revolution.
critical way.
*orld.
and extreme left in most of the countries.
influences the real course of history.
Soviet Union after 19 August 1991 37
38 International Marxist Review sumer needs. The bureaucracy proved itself unable to realize these transformations. It became gradually an absolute brake on the further development of the USSR.
For that reason, combined with extensive information about the relative rise of the standard of living of the proletariat in the imperialist countries during the long post-war boom, the Soviet masses gradually stopped considering what remains of the conquests of October as real conquests.
This does not apply, however, to the most important social gain which derives from these conquests — decades of full employment. The Soviet peoples still value this gain highly, and even instinctively identify it with an economic system different from that based on private property. They will see that in spite of the evident degradation of the social gains in the USSR during the last fifteen years, capitalist restoration would not lead to the improvement of these gains, but to their destruction. 13 — The Trotskyist analysis of the USSR insisted on the transitional - temporary- nature of the regime created by the political expropriation of the Soviet proletariat of the bloody counter-revolution completed by Stalinism during the 1930s. This analysis insisted on the fact that like the Thermidor and the Bonapartism which emerged after the French Revolution it was not a social counter-revolution implying a return-to the Ancien Regime. It emphasized the over-determination of the USSR by the development of the class struggle internationally, denouncing the theory of achieving "socialism in one country" or in a single camp as a reactionary utopia.
While strongly denouncing the repressive, anti-working class, antidemocratic, chauvinist, anti-feminist aspects of bureaucratic dictatorship the Trotskyist interpretation stated that the maintaining of nationalized property and central planning, even though bureaucratism made possible economic development and an important social gain - full employment - that would be put in danger by any restoration of capitalism. While seeing in the bureaucracy a maelstrom of restorationist tendencies, it noted that for a historical period that could last a long time, the bureaucratic caste could defend its power and enormous material privileges against both the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. It asserted that, on the historical level, there is no coherent way other than the restoration of capitalism or socialist anti-bureaucratic revolution. All these conceptions have turned out to be generally adequate for understanding the nature and the development of the USSR. They imply correctly the need to fight resolutely against tendencies to privatization and capitalist restoration in the interests of the masses, as well as fighting against bureau-
Soviet Union after 19 August 1991 39 cratic despotism, a conclusion that the supporters of other conceptions on the f nature of the USSR have, much more difficult in defending coherently as the priority. 14 — But this hardly means that today we can be content to say "We were right". It is undeniable that we had not foreseen the development of events in the USSR as they turned out in 1991, It is therefore appropriate at the same time to start further thinking to bring up to date our theory of transitional societies and building socialism.
a) We were slow in recognizing the "qualitative jump" in the crisis of the system in the USSR represented by the stowdown in economic growth and all the social consequences which flowed from this. This leap undoubtedly took place towards the end of the 1970s b) In the same way, we seriously underestimated the long term effects on the class consciousness of the Soviet proletariat of the bureaucratic dictatorship, of the atomization of the proletariat and of the very deep ideologicalmoral crisis which would flow from this, and how all this would affect the dynamic when a rupture with the bureaucratic system occurred c) We were also late, although it is true not so much, in recognizing the political repercussions of the generalized crisis of credibility of socialism for a good section of the world proletariat, above all that of the Eastern European countries and the USSR. With hindsight, we can place this "qualitative leap" at the moment of the coup d'etat by Jaruzelski, that is to say from 1982 on. Added to this were the combined effects of the Kampuchea disaster and military intervention in Afghanistan.
From this point, a political orientation of the masses in Eastern Europe and the USSR similar to that in Hungary in 1956, Czechoslovakia in 1968 or Poland in 1980-81 became very improbable,. The decomposition of the dictatorship was to become accompanied by a rejection of a system identified with socialism and the illusory search for solutions associated with the capitalist market.. This turn took place in a broader context of retreat of the world revolution: no other revolutionary victory since that of Nicaragua in 1979; no long general strike in any imperialist country during the 1980s. 15 — Moreover, political and theoretical work deepening our analysis of the historical balance sheet of the USSR and defining our tasks in necessary, It must cover the following points:
a) The institutionalization of political power during the transitional period that is to say the ways of combining bodies of direct democracy, of represen-
tative democracy, bodies ensuring equality between the sexes, the nationalib) The practical content of the third "model" of economic development, counterposed to both state despotism (common economy) and to the despotism of the market and money: the model of democracy of the producers and consumers, including the feminist and national dimensions; a more precise definition of the forms of socialist planning at different territorial levels, and taking into account ecological imperatives; a precision of the forms and limits of the use of market mechanisms; a discussion on combining different property forms; a discussion on the consumption needs of the masses, the c)An overall reflection on the contradictory dynamic of the national question in the USSR and in central Europe, and the elaboration of coherent programmatic responses towards the double needs of the emancipation of nations and nationalities, and the overcoming of the confining framework of the d) A dimension of the internationalist dimension of this strategy.
This elaboration will necessarily be experimental, It will be strongly marked by the successive conclusion arrived at by the workers and socialist of the USSR themselves, particularly in discussing with Marxists from the
In fact, one of the reasons for the insufficiencies of our theoretical elaboration in the past decades is that since the 1940s, our thinking has been cut off from any political practice in the USSR itself. This gap has now been overcome. In the same way, the restart of movement by sections of the Soviet proletariat (several million strikers) constitutes the main positive effect of the decomposition of the bureaucratic dictatorship, independently of the theoret-
Building a unified organization of the social vanguard in USSR and internationally, which for us is inseparable from building the Fourth International,
40 International Marxist Review ties, etc.
nation-state.
rest of the world.
ical confusion existing.
means to guarantee increasing equality.
takes on a special meaning for us because of this.