10.02.2000

Workers' party for Russia

Oleg Shein is the only revolutionary Marxist in the new state duma of Russia. Elected in the Astrakhan region, he is a member of the Movement for a Workers' Party, closely aligned to the militant trade union grouping Zashchita (Defence). This interview, conducted by Steve Myers and translated by Steve Kerr, has been distributed on the Iskra internet discussion list

Tell me about the work of Zashchita and to what you owe your success in the election.

In the Astrakhan region there are two organisations of the working class. There is the United Workers' Front, which is the political wing, and Zashchita, which leads the predominantly economic struggle of the class. The UWF is a Marxist organisation founded in 1989, and in 1995 Zashchita was formed from its base. The UWF is based on internationalism, and calls for the nationalisation of large and median-scale capital, and the establishment of workers' power.

Together the UWF and Zashchita combine many years of experience in the fight for the rights of working people. Our organisation has conducted dozens of strikes, including occupations, hundreds of legal actions against the bosses, blockades of roads, mass meetings. Over the years we have won the payment of wage arrears, the raising of wages, the reinstatement of workers illegally fired, and have successfully resisted attempts by bosses to simply evict workers from company housing onto the street.

In 1998 we organised a tent city under the windows of the regional governor, demanding the payment of wage arrears, an end to factory bankruptcies, and the dismissal of the local public prosecutor. It was our organisation that helped to defend the rights of small street vendors, Chechen refugees, and mothers, who have not received proper assistance from the government.

Understandably, this fight was not easy. For example, the public prosecutor has repeatedly tried to instigate suits against myself and my comrades for our so-called 'illegal' strikes; eight of our comrades have been physically attacked, and one especially talented organiser, Oleg Maksakov, was shot dead in the spring of 1999.

The bourgeois press has dumped buckets of insults on us, as of course have the official Russian 'communists', the party of Zyuganov, who serve the bourgeoisie. The election victory confirmed the high standing of the UWF and Zashchita among Astrakhaners. It is also telling that we won outright in areas dominated by the working class, and the results of this election confirmed the class nature of our organisation.

How do you intend to use your position as a member of the state duma to advance the cause of the working class?

It's hard to talk about it in great detail. It's hard right now for me to judge what is possible for a duma deputy to accomplish, though I do have five years of experience as a representative in the local government in Astrakhan. From my point of view, the principal work of a deputy is not to sit in that warm meeting hall and press the voting buttons, but to use my position to:

• Support struggling collectives fighting for their rights.
• Organise contact between workers' groups from all areas of the country.
• Publicly oppose anti-worker legislation.
• Politicise the workers' movement in Russia to facilitate the formation of a Russian workers' party.

The first steps towards that goal have been taken. Zashchita is an organisation that spans the whole country and has members and locals not only in Astrakhan, but in Komi, the Federal Atomic Centre, in all regions of European Russia and in the Urals. Not long ago the Siberian Federation of Labour joined with us.

From 1994 to 1999 we have been involved together with a whole spectrum of left parties in a fight with the government against their attempts to liquidate progressive labour laws. In August of 1999 in Moscow there was the founding conference of the Movement for a Workers' Party, in which representatives from 31 organisations in Russia, Ukraine, and Kazakhstan participated. Now the possibilities for the growth of this work have significantly widened.

How do you propose to unmask the character of Zyuganov's reformism?

The best way to expose the careerist officials of the CPRF, who live off the word 'socialism', is by the practical organisation of the working class and by defending the rights of all workers. The other Stalinist 'communist' parties, who blamed the CPRF for moving away from Marxism met a gruesome fate in these last elections. People in Russia need deeds, not mere words.

Neither the CPRF nor the other parties in Russia express the interests of the working class. The general logic of each is simply to state, 'Give us power!' These parties fight for their own power, not that of working people, which is something that people very clearly understand.

It's not surprising then that the Communist Party based its election campaign on public nostalgia for the social benefits that people fondly remember from the days of the Soviet Union. If one looks at the statements of Putin, Zyuganov, or even of Barkashov, the leader of the Russian fascists, there is no visible difference between them.

Each of them speaks of patriotism, Russia's great power status, strength-ening the state, strong power, of limiting the appetites of individual capitalists for the sake of the stability of the system. Zyuganov and his party do not speak of the power of the working people, nor do they speak of the nationalisation of the banks. Today, their slogans have been totally stolen by Putin, while the so-called 'red' governors and directors merge with big business and help it to smother the workers' movement, even sending in special militias to crush workers' demonstrations and strikes.

Voters do not know that the CPRF's elected deputies vote in favour of all government budgets, for any candidates for the post of prime minister, for the passage of anti-worker legislation. It's absolutely necessary to tell the people about this.

What has caused the growth in Russian nationalism?

Russian nationalism has more of a shade of wounded pride than it does a racist tone. The election results prove this. Parties who won seats did so on the issue of strengthening the state, not on open chauvinism. Over the past 10 years Russia has existed in a state of national humiliation.

It is necessary to mention that the anti-Chechen mood has been warmed up for quite some time, since 1992-93, because the authorities needed some kind of 'lightning rod'.

The Chechen state itself provides enough reasons for this mood. Racism in relation to the Russian-speaking population, the multi-million financial stints, kidnappings, slavery, the stealing of cattle, executions and tortures, constant threats to "liberate" the Northern Caucuses from kafirs [infidels], the intervention into Dagestan by the wahhabites - created a very negative attitude to what was going on in Chechnya.

It is quite telling that at the start of the war in August it was the peoples of Dagestan, ethnically close to the Chechens, who were most opposed to the Chechen leadership and wahhabism. Dagestan is the only territory in Russia where wahhabism and islamic extremism are prohibited by law. Then, after some residential buildings had been blown up, public defence detachments were formed in practically all large cities in Russia. They guarded neighbourhoods around the clock. Finally, on the pretext of struggle with the 'Caucasians', the businessmen of other nationalities solved their own problems, pushing their competitors from the market.

One has to keep in mind that the war of 1994-96 has sharply increased kin (teip) divisions in Chechen society. Practically all industries have been destroyed. Large sections of agricultural land remain untended. This is another reason why the Chechen economy became reduced to one of consumption and Chechen society lost stability.

[Chechen premier] Maskhadov simply could not stop the islamic extremists. It should be noted that all prominent politicians - who demonstrated their 'patriotism' - became discredited for various reasons. This is why the "small victorious campaign" has served as a springboard for the presidential promotion of Putin, until then an unknown officer of the special services from Yeltsin's circle.

Except for his role in this war, Putin did not do anything to prove himself in the eyes of Russian society. This is why the current failures of the Russian army in Chechnya weaken him before the presidential election. In the future, Russia will hardly be able to control a territory where, as the result of two wars, every family has experienced death and mutilation. The economy has been totally destroyed. And there is simply no money to rebuild it. This hardly bothers the Kremlin.

Essentially, this war has been conducted for the elections. This is a political war.

Steve Myers adds:

I would like to clarify a few points for Weekly Worker readers.

Zashchita, the only national militant union in Russia, is backed by a wide range of political forces to the left of the official Communist Party - most of whom would describe themselves as anti-Stalinist.

The 31 organisations mentioned by Oleg Shein who set up the Movement for a Workers' Party consist of several small revolutionary Marxist groups, along with trade union branches connected with many of the recent workers' struggles - including most Zashchita regions. The latest group to join is the Committee for a Workers International (Taaffe's Russian section). The MWP is still growing - boosted by comrade Shein's election to the duma in December.

The MWP was set up on a minimum, but clearly revolutionary Marxist basis: dialectical materialism, removal of alienation from society, dictatorship of the proletariat, international revolution. It intervenes in the struggles of the day, including against the new anti-labour code that president Putin is pushing through. It allows full and public freedom of criticism (each tendency can keep their own publications) - not dissimilar to Lenin's Iskra. Further, it is progressive in that it champions the oppressed: it is for women's liberation and sexual freedoms; it is against racism and anti-semitism; against patriotism, ultra-nationalism and fascism. Basically it embraces the Marxist-bloc tactic.

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