On Sept. 21, Boris Yeltsin issued a decree dissolving the Russian parliament. It was an act of unprecedented brigandage. Without any legal authority, Yeltsin by himself dissolved a duly elected body chosen through universal suffrage.
No one in Russia had ever challenged the legality or validity of the parliamentary election. Yeltsin's action should have aroused the interest, if not the opposition, of all the so-called "leading world democracies" that so often have come to the defense of individual dissidents who claim their democratic rights have been violated. Here was an opportunity for the so-called G-7 countries to come to the aid of democracy and denounce this unprecedented violation.
Of course they didn't, because they are imperialist democracies. They dedicate themselves to the defense of imperialist predatory interests and use terms like democracy as a catch phrase, a means of fooling the mass of the people.
Rather than come to the defense of a so-called sister democracy in Russia, they hurried to the defense of the very person who would destroy the democratic rights of the workers and peasants. And they are now in the process of congratulating Yeltsin for doing precisely that.
It goes without saying that the leader of the cabal of imperialist-democracy phrase-mongers is none other than President Bill Clinton. Without his early support — "four-square," as he put it — would Yeltsin even have undertaken this counter-revolutionary adventure?
One may well ask, where are all the cheerleaders for democracy? Where are the ones whom Wall Street and the Pentagon parade on TV and in print day in and day out? They are all "squarely," to use Clinton's choice phrase, on the side of those who would demolish — by force and violence, with tanks and personnel carriers — not only the parliament building in Russia, but the very idea that a parliament like that should exist at all.
It might seem far-fetched to mention the Paris Commune of 1871. But what was the Commune if not an attempt to create a workers' parliament? By the most stringent rules and democratic procedures, it elected a committee to run the city of Paris. That was a true example of proletarian democracy.
Where were the great leading capitalist democracies then? On the side of those who drowned the Commune in blood.
Is it any wonder that in the year 1993, the imperialist bourgeoisie, grown richer and more predatory, has behaved in the same manner?
Who are these "world leaders," so designated by the capitalist media, who support Yeltsin? Of course, they are the world imperialist leaders. The world leaders from China, India, Indonesia and Latin America, for example, did not voice support for Yeltsin.
Many progressives realize the significance of the wanton, brutal attack by Yeltsin's counter- revolutionary camarilla against the parliament. They ask why none of the soldiers joined the democratic and revolutionary defenders of the parliament.
The answer is that the military forces called in were not the regular Russian army. They were specially trained elite units of the military, trained for combat in civil war. These were not veterans of the war in Afghanistan, nor the regular soldiers, but special detachments separated from the main army and put under Yeltsin's jurisdiction.
Like other reactionary government leaders who live in fear of the masses, Yeltsin has learned well the importance of cultivating special detachments of the military to defend him against the masses. Cultivating them is a special art that these leaders learn while facing growing hostility from the masses.
There should be no surprise that even after weeks and months of such cultivation, of ingratiating himself with the elite units, Yeltsin should have found it necessary to publicly visit them and promise them a raise in pay!
The New York Times of Oct. 4 reported that "As the crisis has intensified, Mr. Yeltsin has taken steps to shore up his ties to the military. Before he suspended the Parliament on Sept. 21, Mr. Yeltsin visited key units around Moscow and supported pay increases for the military."
That Yeltsin bribed the soldiers should have been on Russian TV. It would have if Russian TV had not been a tool of the Yeltsin counter-revolutionary camarilla.
The assault on the parliament building follows from Yeltsin's Sept. 21 decree. From the beginning, the legislators indicated they would remain barricaded inside the so-called White House unless Yeltsin canceled the decree.
A very sanitized version of the military attack on the parliament building was presented in the capitalist news dispatches and even on TV. Its real nature was that of a fascist assault, of the type carried out by Mussolini's Black Shirts or Hitler's Brown Shirts, using tanks and personnel carriers and mortars.
It was not an expression of the rank-and-file million-fold military. Rather, it was a result of secretive planning and maneuvering to detach the elite troops from their command and superiors and to bribe them as mercenaries. Why else did Yeltsin offer soldiers a pay raise at such a moment, if he did not already regard them as mercenaries?
Important as the struggle was, it was not decisive. The bulk of the masses were not involved in it.
It is true that after considerable hesitation the parliamentary leaders called for a general strike. But without direct contact with workers — workers in the factories, mines and mills, and workers from the vast technological and industrial belt around Moscow — such a call did not suffice.
This is not the decisive turning point in the history of the Russian Revolution. The counter-revolution has not won in any direct confrontation with the masses. A battle has been lost. It was launched under very difficult circumstances.
The basic reserves of the working class were not involved. They have not yet been drawn in on the basis of a revolutionary class struggle.
In a case like the Paris Commune or the Spanish Civil War, the struggle was fought out to a finish by huge masses of workers and peasants. In Spain these masses fought on the side of the democratic forces against the fascist Franco. In Russia, the forces on the side of the progressive democratic government were too meager — they could not possibly bring about a decisive turning point in the struggle yet.
Did the leadership try to substitute themselves for the masses? On the contrary, they tried but were unable to reach the masses. That was the problem.
In the age of electronic communications, the television and radio were key. That requires preparation. But there was no preparation commensurate with the nature of the objective — nor could there have been any, for the scope of the struggle was not anticipated.
Yeltsin has loosed all the vicious elements of a classical counter-revolution. He has suppressed entirely the progressive opposition press and banned almost all the progressive organizations, including the communist parties. He has imposed censorship even on those who support him.
He has instituted arrests without warrants and he is engaged in a monstrous hunt for so-called "snipers," reminiscent of the Brown Shirt raids during the initial Hitler period. He has disbanded some local soviets and discharged regional leaders.
Untold numbers have been jailed.
As the early applause of the imperialist press has become more cautious, even his most trusted advisers are being discharged or reassigned.
Yeltsin is orienting more and more toward personal dictatorship. The mass base he had after his election as president has been eroding.
Most significant, there is no basis for Yeltsin to be optimistic on the economic front. The main thrust of the capitalist reforms is to dismantle the socialist technological infrastructure of the USSR. This entails mass layoffs. Up to now, Yeltsin has found it to his political advantage to delay such layoffs.
Remember, Yeltsin's fundamental attack on Gorbachev was that the Soviet leader was constantly delaying, "going slow" with the capitalist reforms. But Yeltsin will find it even more difficult now to speed up.
No one can make a thriving industry out of building small boats from the wreckage of huge ocean liners. The socialist infrastructure of the USSR is organized, like the liners, on a large scale. Breaking it up makes useless, partial industries.
Suppose Yeltsin begins this wholesale vandalism of the socialist industrial and technological infrastructure. Suppose he really opens wide the gates to the imperialist monopolies, which have been waiting for this opportunity. If he does, he will be digging his own grave.
The opposition leadership had no alternative but to fight on. Capitulation would have resulted in a far greater loss of morale than resisting has.
At the present time, demoralization is minimal, considering the reactionary forces arrayed against the opposition.
A significant battle has been lost. But it is only a battle — a stage in the revolutionary class struggle as the working class and its allies begin to fight to regain the fruits of their October 1917 socialist revolution.
Last updated: 15 January 2018