There are now many stories appearing in the capitalist press about the growing food crisis in the Soviet Union. But there is a difference from such reports in previous years. It is the ruling class here that is showing signs of embarrassment over the developments rather than those who have been consistent advocates of socialism and a planned economy.
The embarrassment arises from the fact that the capitalist ruling class has been the chief sponsor of the Gorbachev free market capitalist experiments in the hope that they would soon result in the establishment of a full-scale capitalist system. It is true that the Gorbachev regime has been pushing experiments which have resulted not merely in dismantling parts of the socialist economy but also in destabilizing practically all phases of the economic system of the USSR.
It has now reached the point where the economy is being vandalized. The familiar capitalist phenomenon of plant closings, speculation, hoarding and outright theft of socialist property has become common. Such characteristics of the capitalist system are nowhere more prevalent than in the food and consumer goods industries.
It is to be remembered that at the last party conference in 1988 Gorbachev characterized the food situation in the country as being not only critical but acute. Now it has so deteriorated that food is actually being imported from Germany, some in the form of charitable donations. The irony is that gratuitous food shipments from Germany as well as some from the U.S. are being hurried, not for humanitarian reasons, but, according to the New York Times (Dec. 5), to save Gorbachev.
Such is the situation, a truly desperate one for the Soviet leader who was hailed by all the capitalist countries as nothing less than the hero who would transform the USSR into a thriving "capitalist paradise."
Faced with today's desperate situation, the Gorbachev regime has had to resort to an entirely unexpected stratagem to fight the growing food crisis. Indeed it is a surprise that he issued a decree on Dec. 1 that calls for nothing less than the institution of a form of workers' control over the distribution of food and consumer goods. It is to go into effect 10 days after its publication.
The very phrase workers' control has genuine revolutionary implications. It brings to mind the workers' control measures that the Leninist government instituted in the days immediately following the October Revolution in 1917. What it means is that Gorbachev, in his half-hearted struggle against the thoroughgoing restorationist bourgeois elements in the USSR, feels so much endangered by the chaos, confusion and havoc brought on the heads of the population that he is calling upon the workers to come to his aid (at least in the food and consumer goods industries) and stop the sabotage by the bourgeoisie.
He is calling upon the only class in the USSR which has the inherent power to roll back the capitalist offensive which he himself started with his ill-starred economic experiments.
Workers' committees given extensive powers
The full text of the decree has not been made available here, but what can be learned from the press reports in this country is that the workers' committees are to be elected all over the country directly in the workplaces, plants and offices. Under the decree, the workers' committees have been granted the authority to shut down guilty enterprises where they find theft, diversion of resources, speculation and other criminal activity. They also have the authority to discharge personnel involved in the illegal actions and can, under the decree, institute criminal proceedings. They can not only inspect any and all enterprises, they'll have the right to look at the books, make the necessary investigations and, where they find offenses, can oust the management of the enterprise.
It's a truly sweeping measure of authority granted to the workers in the struggle against the food profiteers and saboteurs and speculators, the hoarders and outright thieves.
Of course, it's only a decree, one of many by the Gorbachev administration. Its success depends upon whether the workers' committees get the cooperation of Gorbachev's governing group in trying to solve the food crisis. It is not possible to solve the food distribution problem without a coherent plan of reinstituting a planned economy to salvage it from the vandalism and outright destructive methods of the bourgeoisie.
To be effective, the workers' committees must bear the characteristics of true workers' control as instituted in the days immediately following the October Revolution. Gorbachev would like nothing better at this particular moment of widespread discontent than to take on the mantle of Lenin and his measures for workers' control.
In 1917, all industry subject to workers' control
It should be recalled that the draft regulations on workers' control issued under the Leninist regime were not confined to the distribution of food and vital consumer products. They covered the production of essentially all products made in the new workers' state.
A draft of the initial regulations defines workers' control as follows: "Workers' control over the production, storage, purchase and sale of all products and raw materials shall be introduced in all industrial, commercial, banking, agricultural and other enterprises ...
"Workers' control shall be exercised by all the workers and office employees of an enterprise, either directly, if the enterprise is small enough to permit it, or through their elected representatives, who shall be elected immediately at general meetings, at which minutes of the election shall be taken. ... The decisions of the elected representatives of the workers and office employees are binding upon the owners of enterprises. ... " [which in the Soviet Union today would mean the managers--S.M.] (Lenin's Collected Works, Vol. 26, page 264).
We thus see that workers' control under the Leninist regime covered all phases of production as well as distribution.
Gorbachev has resorted to legalizing the form of workers' control as the only way to counter the sabotage of the bourgeois elements in the USSR.
Workers' control in capitalist countries ...
Workers' control must be understood as a transitional stage of development. In capitalist society workers' control is a revolutionary step forward toward seizure of the plants and industry generally, toward operating them in accordance with the will and interests of the working class.
Workers' control in capitalist society is the phase in the revolutionary struggle that is followed by the dispossession of the former owners of the plants and industry. That is, the expropriation of the bourgeoisie takes place, followed by a declaration that all political power over industry is now in the hands of the working class. It is the consummation of the workers' state and is generally followed by a whole series of legislative acts setting out the rights and obligation of the workers in the construction of socialism.
It is important to note that to some extent workers' control was an issue raised during the Great Depression in the 1930s. It was especially raised in France and Spain during the crisis period of capitalist society when the Popular Front was at the helm. Unfortunately it did not go much further at the time due to the unwillingness of the leadership of the Communist and Socialist parties to carry workers' control to its ultimate conclusion--the expropriation of the bourgeoisie and the establishment of workers' states.
... and as part of building socialism
Workers' control in the period of 1917 was an absolutely necessary phase in order to set the stage for the seizure of plants and equipment to be followed by the complete expropriation of the bourgeoisie. Having done that, the role of workers' control underwent an evolution in the direction of building socialism. As a precondition, that required beginning a planned economic system.
And that meant centralizing industry in the hands of the workers' government--accompanied by democratic procedures both in running the plants as well as participation in central planning for the new workers' state.
Today, however, we are dealing with a situation in which workers' control has virtually disappeared, its authority having been usurped by the managerial grouping, which has the exclusive authority to manage production and to regulate almost all phases of social production in the USSR. Of course, this could only have happened because the party itself has not only been infiltrated but undergone a bourgeois degeneration resulting from the acquisition of special material privileges which eroded its revolutionary proletarian standing with the workers and peasants.
True, the trade unions commanded a strong influence on the workers. The constitution, as it was written before the Gorbachev grouping took over and changed it, theoretically accorded the unions veto power over planning by virtue of the workers' standing as the pillar of socialist society. So that legally the unions had a great deal of power, but there is no evidence that they ever actually exercised it independently. In truth, they were shunted aside, relegated to concerning themselves only with social insurance, job safety and other matters. In reality they did not use their great legal authority.
It is only lately that there has been a reawakening of the lethargic trade union apparatus. And that came under the impact of the mineworkers' strike of 1989 and its repercussions throughout the country. The relationship between the workers' committees and the trade unions is of key significance at the present moment.
No segment of Soviet society can be relied upon to reverse this situation except the working class. Only the working class can reverse an economic catastrophe the Gorbachev administration has brought about by cultivating and strengthening the bourgeois elements all over Soviet society.
There are significant problems that have yet to be revealed, as to how the Soviet workers' control committees can succeed in their mission without the cooperation of other sectors of the civilian population in the USSR. To be successful a committee must not only be truly representative of the workers but must have the cooperation of all industrial and transport workers as the next step.
Workers' control cannot be fully successful in one industry alone because of the integrated character of the Soviet planned economy. Despite erosion and sabotage, the socialist sector is still an enormous part of the Soviet economy.
Evidence of dual power in USSR
The workers' committees must have a central organ and an elected leadership that is responsible to the committees, free from the Gorbachev administrators of the Soviet state. It must be understood that the emergence of workers' control is a symptom of the existence of dual power in the Soviet Union.
The working class has a latent power that is in sharp opposition to the new bourgeoisie, which controls a substantial part of the state apparatus. It is in many ways the kind of dual power that arises in any society where class antagonisms have reached the boiling point and cannot be reconciled because of the divergent, contrasting perspectives of each class.
One points in the direction of bourgeois restoration; the other objectively seeks to reorient society back to an improved, even more revolutionary workers' state. The former is the tendency of stagnation and deterioration growing out of the desire to dismantle, destabilize and vandalize the workers' state.
A quick fix by the Gorbachev grouping to bring about a capitalist restoration is out of the question. They have already spent more than five years trying to do it. Both sides have become impatient while Gorbachev is promising an acceptable solution to both. That explains why the bourgeois parliament surrendered so much of its authority in granting Gorbachev the power to issue decrees covering nearly every phase of Soviet society.
Gorbachev's attempt to balance one class against another has only resulted in further deterioration of the economy. But it would be erroneous to assume from his shift in favor of a form of workers' control that he is moving away from the bourgeoisie altogether. That is not true in light of his centrist politics.
The very day after he introduced the workers' committees, Gorbachev proposed that the state release 12 million acres of land for private farming, one of the very measures responsible for the food crisis in the first place. Thus he continues to balance the proletariat against the bourgeoisie.
But like all such Bonapartist regimes which can only maintain themselves on the basis of an equilibrium between the two antagonistic classes in society, such a balancing act can only be of the most temporary character and is sure to give way when one or the other of the two antagonistic classes seizes the initiative and establishes its own rule.
Proof that capitalism hasn't triumphed
The reemergence of workers' control is proof positive that not everything in the USSR has been lost to capitalism. The existence of dual power shows that the workers still have the opportunity to reverse the situation and even reach new heights in socialist construction.
Gorbachev and his grouping are at a fork in the road. A balancing act cannot long suffice. Consider the view of Ilya V. Kholmogortsev, 81, reported in the New York Times Dec. 5. "[Kholmogortsev] offered this advice on how to solve the food problem: `Replace the government. Take no foreign loans. Bring to account all those who have stolen. Take away their millions and kill them.' ...
"Much of the anger is focused on Mr. Gorbachev and his policies. `Gorbachev is to blame for everything,' said Valentina Popova. ... `We had everything under Brezhnev. Such perestroika is not needed if I cannot buy sugar.' "
Gorbachev will either be pushed over completely to the right--and in the event the bourgeois restorationists win they will cast him aside. Likewise, if the workers are victorious they will certainly have no need for him or his likes at all.