By Renfrey Clarke
MOSCOW — "We need a decent living wage!" Aleksei Bogdanov, delegate from the Lianozovo Electromechanical Plant, told the packed stadium. "How are people supposed to live on 3000 roubles a month?"
Metalworkers' leader Yuri Timofeev was just as angry. "There are modern, well-equipped enterprises here — and they're collapsing! We're convinced this isn't accidental. This is the deliberate policy of the government!"
Five thousand leaders and activists of the Moscow Federation of Trade Unions (MFP), representing more than 5
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55D> million workers in the Russian capital and the surrounding province, had gathered around the ice hockey rink at the Sokolniki Sports Palace for the October 22 meeting. One after another, speakers strode out onto the ice to deliver a fiery message: Moscow workers had run out of patience with the government and were ready to fight.
The mood back in the factories emerged clearly when the delegates came to vote on a set of resolutions. The text proposed by the union leaders was stiffened. Unanimously, the meeting resolved that unless talks with the government yielded satisfactory results within two weeks, further meetings would be held to discuss strike action.
Observers were left wondering: did the militancy of the Sokolniki meeting indicate that the long sleep of the Russian labour movement was coming to an end?
Since 1990, mass living standards have fallen from modestly comfortable levels to the point where scores of millions can no longer afford a proper diet. Throughout this devastation, the workers' movement has been astonishingly quiescent.
There have been strikes, the latest of them including a bitter struggle by air traffic controllers. But most of these actions have been isolated, ill organised and easily crushed or bought off. Anti-government protests have been few and generally small. Even the MFP, with its large membership and relatively progressive leaders, has called only one demonstration — a May Day march and rally of about 5000 people — during the past year.
Many reasons can be cited for this passivity. With their experience limited mainly to the Soviet union movement, few unionists have much idea of how to mount an industrial struggle. The government has also benefited from the low level of political culture — and near-total ignorance of Western economic thought — inherited from Soviet times. When President Yeltsin has argued that the hardships of 1992 are "necessary", and that growing levels of prosperity will soon follow, there have been few people in the labour movement with the to give him the lie.
Although Russia now has a host of small independent union federations, the overwhelming majority of Russian workers remain members of the "official" trade unions. In most cases these bodies have not changed dramatically since the end of the 1980s. As the decay of the Soviet state became terminal, the "official" all-Russian union organisation acquired a new name — the Federation of Independent Trade Unions of Russia (FNPR) — and a new patron in the Yeltsin government. Little real democratisation took place, and many established leaders remained in office.
Predictably, the response of all but a handful of FNPR leaders to the launching of Yeltsin's pro-capitalist "reforms" was to pledge their support — albeit with a few small criticisms, as befitted the leaders of an "independent" body.
The transformation of the Communist Party union machine into an arm of the Yeltsin apparatus was not, however, completely straightforward. In the FNPR's two largest sections, the Moscow and Leningrad federations, capable individuals with genuinely independent ideas gained a number of leadership posts. The MFP in particular distanced itself increasingly from the government's program.
Meanwhile, the Russian masses were discovering the realities of capitalism, and the FNPR leaders were coming under growing left pressure. FNPR president Igor Klochkov finally responded by making a series of sharp criticisms of government policies, and by calling for nationally coordinated meetings and demonstrations to be held on October 24.
Klochkov, however, kept his feet firmly in the government camp. In an interview at the end of September, he stated that "on the whole" the FNPR supported the government's program; it was only the methods through which the "reforms" were being implemented that needed serious rethinking. He rejected strike action as "untenable at the present stage". It became clear that the FNPR leaders were placing their real trust in talks with Yeltsin, rather than taking steps to turn the proposed mass demonstrations into reality. Almost everywhere, the "day of action" passed unobserved.
On October 20 FNPR negotiators began meeting with a specially established government commission headed by labour minister Gennady Melikyan. FNPR secretary Viktor Listikov let it be known that this commission was "more serious and better disposed with regard to the trade unions" than government representatives with whom the FNPR had negotiated earlier. Personal discussions also took place between Yeltsin and Klochkov.
However, an important section of the Russian labour movement had responded to the call to action, but not with the kind of small, hastily organised public rally the FNPR hierarchs appear to have counted on. Instead, the MFP called its October 22 meeting of shop-floor representatives from some 3500 workplaces. The meeting became a popular strategy session, at which activists mapped out tasks and planned a real struggle.
Surprisingly, Klochkov stepped out onto the ice at Sokolniki to report on his meeting with Yeltsin. Complaining that he had not been able to convince the Russian president of anything, Klochkov made an impassioned speech in which he stated: "We don't need political manoeuvres — we need results! If we don't get satisfaction, we'll have to reply with meetings and demonstrations!"
The cheers, however, were not for Klochkov but for workplace delegates who urged a much tougher course, including use of the strike weapon. There was also applause for Andrei Isayev, editor in chief of the MFP paper Solidarnost and one of the leaders of the Party of Labour. Catching the mood of growing numbers of workers, Isayev argued: "We don't need these reforms — we need different reforms! We need a new course, and only the trade unions can make it a reality.
"We have to recognise ourselves as a real force. We have to take the situation in the economy under our open control, and force the government, whoever it is, to follow our course.
"We have a positive program, and the means of exerting pressure. If we're determined, we'll win."