By Boris Kagarlitsky
MOSCOW — Despite a great deal of selfless work and a steady increase in their political authority, non-communist leftists in Russia have until now failed to establish a mass political organisation.
This is despite the fact that conditions would seem to have ripened for such a development. The Russian government's neo-liberal policies have impoverished millions of people and aroused the hostility of the bulk of the working class. Even sociologists close to the government are noting a dramatic rise in anti-capitalist sentiment. Surveys show that more than half of the country's voters are inclined to support left or left-centrist policies.
However, the majority of left-oriented voters did not take part either in the referendum of April 1993 or in the December elections to the State Duma. This was only partly due to anger at the rules of the game imposed by the Yeltsin regime; the main reason was the lack of any attractive alternative and a mistrust of politicians in general.
The Communist Party of the Russian Federation, unlike its fraternal parties in Eastern Europe, has proven quite incapable of tapping into voters' growing disillusionment with neo-liberal policies. The party has also failed to carry out any serious internal reforms.
The leaders of the party combine open nostalgia for the previous "golden age" with nationalist rhetoric and appeals for policies designed to favour "national capital". Although even some liberal economists in Russia now speak of the need for massive re-nationalisation of industrial enterprises, this subject is taboo for the communist leaders.
The weakness of the Communist Party has created a political vacuum which the new left has tried to fill. But all attempts to establish a united mass party or movement of the new left have ended in failure.
Trade unions
The most important reason for this has been developments in the trade unions. As leftists anticipated, the country's mass "traditional" union body, the Federation of Independent Trade Unions of Russia (FNPR), grew more radical as it became obvious that the reforms were anti-worker and anti-popular in nature.
However, this radicalisation was superficial. The federation's leaders limited themselves to making tough statements, and even when they supported the idea of building the Party of Labour, they turned out to be incapable of creating party structures at the local level. The inefficiency of the FNPR bureaucracy stifled all initiatives, so that the conflict with the government remained purely rhetorical.
The consequences only became fully obvious after the events of October 1993, when the new leadership of the FNPR, headed by former leader of the left radicals Mikhail Shmakov, turned sharply to the right and began seeking accord with the authorities.
The Party of Labour was forced to pay the full price for excessively close collaboration with the trade union bureaucracy. Party activists who had accepted various posts within the structures of the FNPR were faced with a choice: either change their views, or quit their posts in the trade unions, in the process losing a significant part of their political influence.
The overwhelming majority of the socialists in the Party of Labour chose the latter course. The only exception was Andrei Isaev, the chief editor of the trade union newspaper Solidarnost. As a result of Isaev's decision, the editorial line of Solidarnost changed along with the policies of the FNPR leadership.
In the pages of his newspaper, Isaev defended the policies of the FNPR and the idea of "reformism with specifically Russian features". The more radical of the Solidarnost writers gradually abandoned the paper. The print-run fell from 40,000 to 20,000, the volunteer distributors lost interest, and the paper finally disappeared from the streets and newsstands, to be read only by trade union bureaucrats.
Meanwhile, the majority of Party of Labour activists were no longer hiding their disappointment with Shmakov's policies. These sentiments increased after the party's second congress, when Council of the Federation deputy Oleg Smolin, known for his firmness and independence, was elected chairperson.
The FNPR leadership's search for reconciliation with the authorities also proved repugnant to the United Social Democrats, who from 1992 had collaborated actively with the Party of Labour.
With Shmakov present at the meeting, Smolin in May 1994 told an audience of trade union activists in his native city of Omsk that unless the policies of the FNPR changed, it would be necessary to begin a struggle to change the leadership of the unions.
Duma
The same happened with the official "left" opposition in the Duma. After these "leftists" voted to support the super-monetarist 1994 federal budget, they in effect became part of the government's support base. Rank and file members of the Communist Party put pressure on the party's Duma deputies, demanding determined action, but received only promises in return.
The Social Democratic Party of Russia, whose activists were working mainly in the alternative trade unions, was also beset with crisis. A bitter struggle between the left and right wings led to a de facto split.
The United Social Democrats, headed by former dissident and sometime deputy minister of labour Pavel Kudyukin, moved sharply to the left, taking positions scarcely distinguishable from those of the Party of Labour.
Meanwhile the right wing, headed by State Duma deputy Anatoly Golov, spoke of a forthcoming unification with the forces of the "democratic centre". The people said to be involved in this process included former defence minister Marshal Shapovnikov and former Moscow mayor Gavriil Popov, individuals whose names are bywords for nomenklatura intrigue and corruption.
After December 1993 the Socialist Party of Workers in practice broke all its links with other leftists. Arguing that conditions in Russia had "not yet ripened for real left politics", leaders of the party staked their hopes on collaboration with sectors of the state and managerial apparatus that were dissatisfied with Yeltsin. This alliance was meant to operate within the framework of a "union of commodity producers".
The Free Russia People's Party, which has been renamed the "Russian Social Democratic People's Party", is also now in crisis. Groups centred around former vice president Rutskoi and Duma deputy Vasily Lipitsky are waging a constant internecine struggle.
It is obvious that in such circumstances new attempts to achieve unification from above can only make matters worse, especially since the programmatic basis for unifying the new left movement remains unclear. Statements continue to be issued about the "rebirth of Russian social democracy", while at the same time substantial numbers of left activists and supporters are demanding more radical policies and "new, original initiatives".
From below
At the same time as the leaders of the traditional trade unions have tried to appear respectable and cautious, the masses are clearly unwilling to be reconciled to the "new realities". The rapid growth of the strike movement in the spring of 1994 showed that the situation was changing.
However much the FNPR leaders have called for moderation, the grassroots union structures, reacting to the demands of the membership, have more and more often put forward political demands. Trying to calm people down, the union leaders themselves have come increasingly to figure among the targets of the dissatisfaction.
In these circumstances, both the Party of Labour and the United Social Democrats are trying to make the shift from operating through leadership structures to relying on "solidarity from below".
It is on this basis that a new left movement in Russia has to be created. In the words of Andrei Kolganov, one of the Party of Labour leaders, "an organisation of trade union and worker activists, even if only small, is necessary today in order to provide a firm structure on the basis of which we can continue our political activity among hired workers, since acting in apparatus fashion through the hierarchy of the FNPR is unrealistic and ineffective."
As Kolganov observes, activity at grassroots level is now beginning to yield results. "Even if slowly and uncertainly, and in small numbers, worker activists are nevertheless beginning to turn to left ideas and to the people who expound them. This is because of the content of these ideas, of their ability to explain what is happening and to define an independent position for workers in the continuing social conflicts."
A unification meeting, which has been postponed several times, is now due to take place in Omsk on November 26. The tasks of this meeting will be posed in a new fashion. The main aim will not so much be establishing a joint political organisation — a goal that will be addressed primarily by the Party of Labour and the United Social Democrats — as laying the foundations for a mass movement "from below".
The future of the left movement in Russia now depends on worker and trade union activists. In this sense, the failure of the attempts to create a united organisation "from above" has not been such a bad thing.