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The truth about the coup

Minority document

Para 26 states that: "The failure of the coup within just 56 hours, show that the conditions did not exist at that stage for the imposition of a new open military dictatorship. The working class of Russia and the republics are not sufficiently disillusioned with "democracy" to tolerate a return to the iron heel." And the IS majority add that: "Events quickly confirmed that the old guard behind the coup lacked any social reserves or support." (para 27).

The argument that the coup lacked "any social reserves of support" is entirely false and is contradicted, not only by numerous reports in the bourgeois press (already quotes), but also by the reports written by the comrades themselves. It is not necessary that this support should actively be manifested, it was sufficient that the great majority should remain passive. And this, despite the frantic, attempts of the comrades to prove the opposite, was precisely what occurred.

Now, in order to try to demonstrate something different, these comrades resort to a new argument, that the coup was allegedly doomed, because the Soviet workers were "not sufficiently disillusioned with 'democracy' (sic) to tolerate a return to the iron heel."

And later we read: "For the majority of workers it raised the prospect of a return to the repressions of the Brezhnev era. It was to defend the fragile shoots of democratic rights, and not at all to defend Gorbachev that the workers fought." (para 29).

First of all it should be noted that the majority of workers did not lift a finger to resist the coup. And for very good reasons. For the working class "democracy" is not an abstract question. If it does not serve to lead to increased living standards and social advancement, "democracy" becomes an empty legalistic concept for the mass of the population.

In the 1930s in Spain, the fascists had a very simple slogan which they used to great effect: "Que te da de comer la Republica?" ("What does the Republic give you to eat?"). Behind the "democratic" façade of the Republic, the landlords and capitalists continued to suck the blood of the workers and peasants, aided and abetted by an army of liberal "democratic" politicians and their willing servants in the Socialist and "Communist" parties.

Does that mean to say that Marxists were indifferent in the struggle to defend the democratic rights, far from it. Trotsky pointed out many times that the workers were obligated to defend democratic rights, even "fragile" ones, like the ones that exist in Russia, - but they must defend them with their own class methods, completely independent of the "democratic" Republican bourgeois.

Trotsky explained that the only way to preserve democratic rights was to fight for the transfer of power to the working class. To advocate any other line of action was to deceive the workers and lead them to a bloody defeat. The prior conditions for an independent class policy was an implacable criticism of the "democratic" bourgeois politicians and their reformist and Stalinist agents in the workers' movement.

What was the reaction of the Republicans, reformists and Stalinists to this? To accuse the Trotskyists in Spain of advocating a policy of "passive neutrality", which, objectively assisted the forces of fascist reaction. This is how, Trotsky answered this slander: "That we allegedly sabotage the loyalist movement. I believe that I have expressed it in many interviews and articles: the only way possible to assure victory in Spain is to say to the peasants: 'The Spanish soil is your soil'; to say to the workers: 'The Spanish factories are your factories'. That is the only possibility to assure victory. Stalin, in order not to frighten the French bourgeoisie, has become the guardian of private property in Spain. The Spanish peasant is not very interested in precise definitions. For him Franco and Caballero are is the same thing because the peasant is very realistic." (The Spanish Revolution p. 251-2 - our emphasis)

In the same way, we say that the Soviet workers are very realistic when they see that with Yanayev or with Yeltsin "it is the same thing." It is entirely false to say the working class are obliged to take sides "in defence of democratic rights", for the simple reason that the victory of Yeltsin in no sense, shape or form represents a defence of those rights. Quite the contrary. From the very beginning Yeltsin has acted to restrict democratic rights and move towards government by decree.

Does that mean that we are indifferent to the defence of even "fragile" democratic rights? That we are advocating "passivity" and "neutrality"? Exactly the same accusation was made against Trotsky. In the Dewey commission, the Stalinist agent Beales attempted to trick Trotsky on this issue: "Beals: Then you don't think that it is of great importance which side wins the war in Spain? It does not make a great deal of difference which side wins the war?"

And Trotsky answered this dirty provocation in the only way a Marxist could, by stressing the independent movement of the proletariat. "Trotsky: No, the workers must win the war, it is necessary the workers win. But I assure you that by the policy of the Comintern and Stalin you have the surest way of losing the resolution." (Ibid p. 252)

In the Soviet Union, faced with the conflict between two rival wings of the bureaucracy, both standing for a return to capitalism, the Marxist would have no alternative, but to adopt a position analogous to the one taken by Trotsky ie a position of implacable class independence. Whoever interprets this as a position of "passivity" and "neutrality" shows only that they understand nothing of the most elementary ideas of Leninism.

In the USSR at the present time, it is 100 times more necessary to insist upon the idea of total class independence even than at the time when Trotsky was writing. The throwing back of consciousness after decade of Stalinist totalitarian rule has led to colossal confusion. The Soviet workers are struggling to develop an independent movement, independent both of the Stalinist bureaucracy and of the nascent bourgeoisie of the "reformist" and "democratic" movement. The slightest concessions in this sense would be disastrous for the movement, which is still at its early beginnings.

What is the basic task of the Trotskyists in the USSR at this stage? It is summed up in Lenin's celebrated phrase: patiently explain, a phrase which no doubt would be considered by some comrades today as a dangerous display of "passivity" and "quietism". Nevertheless, Lenin considered this to be the most appropriate slogan for the Bolsheviks, not in the early "circle phase", but precisely in the early months of the Russian Revolution, after February.

In the months since the coup, and even before, the majority comrades have laid heavy stress on "intervening in the movement". Active intervention is, of course, very necessary. But we have to maintain a sense of proportion, and clearly understand what kind of intervention is appropriate for each stage. That depends, partly on the objective situation, and partly on our own forces.

At present in the Soviet Union we have, unfortunately, only small forces. The figure given at the IEC in June was of six comrades, though there are probably more now. In stating this, we intend no criticism of those responsible for the work, which has taken place under difficult conditions. But it is necessary to consider the tactics of the Marxists in the light of our actual possibilities, not in the abstract. "You cannot shout louder than the strength of your own throat" whether in Britain, the Soviet Union, or anywhere else. Terrible mistakes follow from a tendency to exaggerate our forces in relation to the working class as a whole.

In the Soviet Union there are 150 million workers. That puts the forces we are presently working with in proportion. Given the scale of the movement, a certain amount of frustration and impatience is inevitable. But as we have observed in relation to the Scottish Turn and Walton, impatience and frustration are notoriously bad counsellors for revolutionaries.

The desire to see a revolutionary movement where none exists (as yet) can flow from the best motives in the world. Nevertheless, we must see the working class as it is, not as we would like it to be, if we are not to make fundamental errors, which can do untold damage to our work, both now and in the future.

We are repeatedly asked by supporters of the IS majority faction: Well, what would you have done? Would you have supported Yeltsin's general strike? Would you have gone to the barricades? and so on and so forth.

By asking these questions, the intention is presumably to cause embarrassment, by allegedly showing what we would ask the Soviet workers to "do nothing". All of which sounds very like the argument the Stalinists tried to use against the Trotskyists in Spain, China, or more recently, in Algeria, Vietnam, Palestine and so on. We had no problem answering those questions, nor do we in response to these. They cause us no embarrassment, unless it be the embarrassment at the thought that educated comrades could ask questions worthy of a nursery school child.

Firstly, let us understand that a group of six comrades in a situation such as this cannot aspire to lead the masses. As a matter of fact, it cannot even aspire to reach them. If you spent all your waking hours running from barricade to barricade (which we sincerely trust the comrades did not do), you would not succeed in making any imprint whatsoever on the movement, and would only succeed in exhausting our comrades. With small forces, we can only aspire to reach a minority of the best workers and youth. Our first duty is to educate them in the ideas, tactics and methods of Marxism.

To what extent has this been done? It is hard to give an answer to this, because the work of our comrades in the USSR has never been discussed seriously, at the level either of the IEC or even the IS.

From what is known, the comrades hold some positions which do not seem to be correct, for example, they are implacably opposed to the privatisation of small shops or businesses. Yet they now say that the big majority of the Soviet workers have illusions in the market "to some degree or other". This needs to be looked at.

The comrades have done some sterling work, but when we were told last June that six comrades had produced 100,000 leaflets, this suggests that there is a danger that we are, indeed, "trying to shout louder than the strength of our own throats." In the interests of successful work in the future, this also needs to be looked at, particularly when the first duty of a group of Marxists in a situation like last August was to get out quickly some kind of printed statement (no matter how primitive) explaining the need for an independent policy, which apparently we did not do.

Would we have supported action involving strikes and demonstrations? Of course, we would. But first we would try for mass meetings to debate the issues and elect a committee to direct the struggle. The Marxists would intervene in these mass meetings to the degree of our forces permitted and defend an independent class policy, attacking both Yanayev and Yeltsin, Popov and Sobchak. We would try to get our comrades elected to the committees and try influence them to take a genuinely revolutionary class policy. If, as is most likely, we were reduced to a tiny minority, we would continue to argue our case to those prepared to listen.

Ah, but would you have supported Yeltsin's general strike call?" The repetition of this demand becomes positively tedious, particularly as the answer is so obvious. Yes, we Marxists would advocate participation in a general strike despite it being called by Yeltsin. The problem for the majority comrades, however, is not whether we, or they, supported Yeltsin's general strike, but the simple fact that the masses did not support it. And this is for the very good reason that they did not trust Yeltsin any more than Yanayev or, for that matter, Gorbachev. And in that, the workers showed an absolutely correct class instinct.

Where would we work? The question is answered for us in advance, by the kind of forces we possess and the social sphere in which they were already active. In the factories, schools, offices and universities, in the barracks, and, yes, also on the barricades if we saw we could get an echo for our ideas there. But the prime condition would be the maintenance of implacable propaganda directed against Yeltsin, Sobchak and the other agents of capitalist reaction.

The comrades ask us hypothetical questions, which we have no difficulty in answering. In reply, we ask, not a hypothetical question, but a real one: "what propaganda was actually produced by the comrades during the coup? What were their slogans? How did they unmask and expose Yeltsin, Popov and Sobchak before the workers and youth - or at least those whom we could be reasonably expected to be reached?

It is strange that while for many months after the coup, our paper carries many "eyewitness accounts", many of them clearly designed not so much as to inform as to counter the arguments of the Opposition, yet not a single leaflet, broadsheet or pamphlet produced by our comrades on the spot has been reprinted, not one slogan or programmatic demand reproduced for discussion. There is nothing but talk about the "heroic masses", barricades and "potential" general strikes, which provide very inspiring reading, but tell us nothing of our actual intervention in events themselves.

Frankly, it is not a very satisfactory state of affairs when the Opposition is continually challenged to state, "what we would have done", when not a word is said about what the tendency actually did! By this, we are not referring to the volume of activity. The comrades, as their past record shows, are extremely active. But what is decisive is the programme, tactics, ideas and slogans we defend. And this, to date, is still unclear.

The first thing a Marxist tendency would have to hammer home is, no blocs, no agreement, and absolutely no trust in the Yeltsins, Sobchaks and Popovs. The workers should fight against the coup using only their own class methods, and trusting only their forces. The only way to defend democratic rights and prevent social and economic catastrophe is the transfer of power to the working people. This means an all-out struggle not only against the Yanayev wing, but also against the Yeltsin wing of the bureaucracy, which wants to drag society down the road, not only to capitalism, but to dictatorship as well.

Would this have been difficult for the workers to accept? The fact, well documented from many sources, that the bulk of workers were suspicious of both sides shows this is not the case. The best workers and youth would have listened to our arguments, and subsequent developments would have proved the correctness of our warnings about the "Democrats" and "Reformists", preparing the way for a rapid growth of our tendency at a later stage. But unless we maintain an absolutely implacable firmness in defence of an independent class position (which has nothing in common with "passive neutrality"), our small forces will inevitably be ground between the two giant millstones of Stalinism and Capitalist counter revolution.

A mighty movement of the Soviet proletariat is being prepared on the basis of events. The school of capitalism will be a cruel one for millions of workers. The Yeltsins, Popovs and Sobchaks who yesterday appeared like giants on the stage of history will tomorrow be cast aside like so much rubbish in the paths of the working class. Then the workers remember those who showed foresight in explaining the facts of life in advance.

There can be absolutely no doubt, reading even the material of our paper, that those workers who tried to fight the coup in practice were supporting Yeltsin and Sobchak. The fact that Leningrad workers, leaders were prepared to allow their tactics to be dictated by Sobchak clearly underlines this point. This shows precisely how far consciousness has been thrown back. This will inevitably be overcome, on the basis of events, but it will take a little time, and in the meantime attempts to portray things in a more "acceptable" light will not help us to change the,. It will lead to one mistake after another.

In reality there is no difference between Yeltsin and Yanayev on the question of "democracy". The difference is exclusively between two wings of the bureaucracy, one which wants to defend a centralised Soviet Union (linked to the defence of the privilege of the "military-industrial complex"), whilst the other is only concerned about the interests of the Russian bureaucracy, which bases itself on the most reactionary ideas of Great Russian chauvinism.

In this respect, it is a worrying symptom that the articles which appeared in the centre spread of our paper of 30/8/91 utilised entirely un-Marxist terminology: "Militiamen loyal to Russia and armed with light machine guns guarded the doors of the parliament." And again: "One (rumour) told how the Moscow Omon (police) supporting Russia had surrounded the main Moscow prison..." (our emphasis).

One can accept that these are slips of the pen, caused by haste. But nevertheless, the impression is given that the comrades allowed themselves to get carried away, and come under the influence of ideas and tendencies, flowing from a section of the movement around Yeltsin, which coloured their judgement of events. These "slips" are merely the most striking instance of this fact.

The allegation that this was a "fight for democracy" is a false one. The idea that Yeltsin is any more "democratic" than Yanayev is a total falsehood, as events have already shown. There is nothing whatsoever to choose between them. That those workers (a small minority) who went to the Russian parliament believed in a confused way that they were fighting for democratic rights is undoubtedly true. But what is important, as Marx explains, is not what an individual believes and says about himself, but what interests he actually defends and by what he does. And the tiny minority of workers who did participate in this movement did so, irrespective of their intentions, under the banner of Sobchak and Yeltsin, the banner of open bourgeois counter-revolution.

The real attitude of the workers is shown by a quote in paragraph 62 which entirely gives the game away: a pro-Yeltsin MP is quoted after the coup as saying: "Workers are tired of everyone, of Gorbachev, of Yeltsin, and me, what they want is food." (our emphasis).

Precisely, the desperate struggle for survival, for a loaf of bread, is what is concentrating the minds of the masses in the USSR. And after five or six years of perestroika and "glasnost" the workers ask themselves, "what does 'glasnost' give you to eat?" That explains the lack of mass worker participation in the movement against the coup. At the same time, it indicates that the "Democrats" will inevitably faced with big movements of the workers at a certain stage, possibly in the next few months.

The "perspectives" for the Soviet Union after the coup put forward by the IS majority are no better than their analysis of the coup. Once again the "majority", like Mandel, specialise in facing in all directions at the same time. Where they do venture to make something that resembles a definite statement (which, in fairness, are a very rare occurrence), they immediately end up in a mess.

Thus, in paragraph 66 they assert that private investment "raises the prospect(?) of an economy dominated by foreign capital as unded Tzarism with only a small national capitalist class. Therefore, whilst a capitalist Russia would attempt to play an imperialist role in relation to the neighbours, its economic base would have many elements(?) of a semi-colonial country."

What we have here are "many elements" of an attempt to avoid any kind of definite statement about the future of a capitalist Russia. But the implication is clear, that the authors consider that capitalism in Russia would necessarily be of a basically semi-colonial kind, though they do not dare to say so openly.

This analysis is fundamentally wrong. The future development of capitalism in Russia, were it to succeed, would not be merely a return to Tsarism. The past '70 years have not passed in vain. Despite everything, the Soviet Union has built up a mighty industrial base of 150 million workers. That is nothing like the semi-colonial economy of Tsarist Russia. Many of these workers are skilled, and potentially able to achieve a similar, or higher productivity to the workers of the West. The fact that the Stalinist bureaucracy was not able to achieve this does not mean it is not impossible in the future, either on the basis of a healthy regime of workers' democracy, or even on the basis of significant investment from the West on a capitalist basis.

As usual, these comrades have swallowed whole many of the lies of the capitalist propaganda (and that of pro-capitalist wing of the bureaucracy) concerning the alleged "total failure of the planned economy." There is a conscious attempt, not only to liquidate the nationalised planned economy, but also to bury the memory of its successes. Anyone who does not set out from the historic successes of the planned economy, who merely repeats the propaganda of the bourgeois, will inevitably play a fatal role in disarming and confusing the workers in the USSR and everyone else. Unfortunately, the comrades of the majority faction have fallen into this trap.

It is entirely false to think that the USSR or any bloc that is formed around its central components, could go back to a semi-colonial dependence on the West. In the initial period, the nascent capitalist class could export raw materials, oils, gas and minerals, to finance the large scale importation of computers and other modern technology. This, in turn, would form the basis, in the medium and long term, for the modernisation of industry, making use of a vast pool of cheap skilled labour and scientific expertise.

The idea that the new Russian bourgeoisie would be content to be dependent upon the importation of manufactured goods is completely misguided, for social considerations as well as economic ones. Such relationships would mean a social catastrophe, with the bulk of the 150 million workforce, not just 50 million, unemployed. That would rapidly mean the social revolution.

Of course, it is by no means certain that the attempt of the bourgeois government of Russia to move towards capitalism will be successful. But if capitalism is restored, then it would signify the opening up of vast new resources of mineral wealth. Depending upon the relations between the different republics, it is not at all ruled out that Russian capitalism could make progress in the direction of creating a new and powerful imperialist state. This, in turn, would add new contradictions to the future of world capitalism.

Nor is it true that "Today world capitalism does not have the resources for such a massive injection of capital (as in the period of the Marshall plan) (para 69). The capitalists of the West undoubtedly do possess such resources. If they do not choose to invest them in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, that is because they have no confidence that the future development of a "market economy" will be as easy or as smooth as some people imagine.

For the IS majority, things stand no better with regard to the effect of the coup on the consciousness of the world working class. Yet, again, the document tries to wriggle and twist, until the usual trick of referring to a "contradictory effect" (para 117).

The authors are, it seems, dimly aware that "contradiction" has something to do with dialectics. However, there are dialectics and dialectics. There are Marxist dialectics, and there is also the dialectic of sophism. It is the latter, not the former, which is the main feature of this document, from the first time to the last.

In Marxist dialectic, contradictions form a necessary part in a given process, movement and life. The "contradictions" in this document are of another type altogether, they do not form part of a dynamic process, but are dragged in at the odd moment, like a rabbit pulled out of the conjurer's hat, to conceal the fact that the authors have not the slightest idea what to say about the given phenomenon and therefore enter a string of statements which do, in fact, contradict one another. There is a word in the dictionary which correctly defines this. Not dialectics, but nonsense.

"The movement against the coup", we are told, "had a contradictory effect on the consciousness of the workers internationally. Many, especially the broad mass of workers in the advanced capitalist countries see the outcome as a victory, another example of a mass movement bringing down a dictatorship and defending democratic rights(?). This can(?) raise the confidence and preparedness to fight of workers in the West."

The fact that workers "see" something as a victory, does not make it so. How do we, the Marxists, see it? As a "victory" which immediately ushered in the pro-capitalist counter revolution? And when you say it "can" do something, do you mean that it will do so, or do you mean something else? Once again, we are back to the Humpty Dumpty school of semantics.

Immediately, however, the authors get the itch to "balance" things up with a new "contradiction". And what is it an itch for, if not to give it a good scratch? "For many workers, at this stage, (just in case...), the planned economy is not seen as a viable alternative to the market. Unless important class battles cut across this (just in case...), in the short run (just in case...), the leadership of the workers' organisations will probably (probably!) drift even further to the right." (para 118)

So here we are. This great revolutionary "victory", so it is seen by "many" workers, although "many" do not see it so, now will probably lead (all things being equal) to a movement to the right!

If you can make any sense whatever out of this you deserve a medal, or, better still, a ten years reprieve from reading the "theoretical" material of the IS majority.

In the next paragraph, however, the authors (who evidently have never heard that you can have too "much of a good thing"), drag in yet another profound contradiction, that "these developments "remove a major obstacle to the politicisation of US workers and greater readiness to accept socialist ideas." (para 119)

One rubs one's eyes in disbelief. The overthrow of Stalinism, in and of itself, does not in any way predispose US workers to accept the ideas of socialism. That depends on who does the overthrowing and for what purpose. This assertion about US workers, more than anything else, reveals the complete lack of understanding of the IS majority faction. Had the bureaucracy been really overthrown by a revolutionary movement of the working class, that would have had an extremely revolutionary effect on the psychology, not only of the workers of the USA, but everywhere.

But the fact that this task was accomplished by the forces of the bourgeois counter-revolution has precisely the opposite effect. And all the "contradictory" twisting and turning in the world will not alter this fact. How does the victory of Yeltsin and the pro capitalist gangsters "predispose the US workers to accept socialist ideas?" It will merely reinforce the propaganda of the bourgeois that "socialism is finished", "nationalisation does not work" and the "market economy is the only possible economic system."

It is particularly absurd to cite especially the US workers in this context, for the simple reason that the ideas of Stalinism never exercised the slightest attraction for the workers of the USA, in the first place. There is no doubt whatsoever that the US workers will come to the ideas of socialism, on the basis of their own experience of the class struggle, but the idea that the victory of capitalist counter-revolution in the USSR can have revolutionary effect on the workers of the USA, or anywhere else, is false to the core.

It is entirely different to the effect of the political revolution in Hungary in 1956. Anyone with the slightest knowledge of that situation cannot fail to see the unbridgeable gulf that separates the effects of revolution from those of counter revolution.

The document of the IS majority faction makes a similar mistaken analysis of the movement in Eastern Europe, which we will deal with in future written material. For the present, we limit ourselves to commenting on their analysis of the coup in the USSR, on which we only have this to say. This "analysis" marks such a profound departure from the Marxist method, such a definitive break with the scientific methods of our tendency, that unless it is corrected, it will lead to the most serious errors for our tendency both in theory and practice. It is time to call halt! It is time to put an end to theoretical backending, empiricism, eclecticism and impressionism, and return to the methods of our tendency, the methods of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Trotsky, developed and enriched by the experience of the last 40 years.

3 January, 1992

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