There was nothing inevitable about the victory of capitalist restoration, but here the subjective factor played the dominant role. It is a crushing comment on the degeneracy of the Stalinist ruling caste that, 80 years after October, they preferred to push the Soviet Union back to capitalism rather than hand power back to the working class. Yeltsin felt confident because he had the backing of the decisive majority of the bureaucracy that was eager to lay its hands on the property of the people. And behind that faction stood the might of world imperialism.
It is true that there were deep contradictions within the bureaucracy. Before the Second World War, Trotsky had spoken of the Butenko and Reiss factions in the bureaucracy. What Trotsky meant was that, within the ranks of the bureaucracy, there were a whole range of tendencies, from open counter-revolutionaries like Butenko up to genuine Leninists like Ignace Reiss. Trotsky also added that the former were much more numerous than the latter, especially in the upper reaches.
But not even Trotsky could have foreseen the appalling levels of degeneration of the Stalinist bureaucracy after decades in power. The prolongation of the bureaucratic regime for almost three generations had profound effects on all classes and strata of Soviet society. The degeneration of the upper layers – now the grandchildren of bureaucrats ‘born in the purple’, as they used to say of Byzantine emperors – went far further than Trotsky, or we, had ever thought possible.
Decades of monstrous totalitarian Stalinism had had the effect of throwing consciousness back. The physical extermination of the Old Bolsheviks succeeded in cutting the umbilical cord connecting the new generation with the traditions of the Revolution. The very successes of the planned economy brought about a drastic change in the composition of the proletariat. Large numbers of former peasants emigrated to the towns and cities where they were absorbed by the growth of industry. In general, this meant an enormous strengthening of the working class. However, the consciousness of the new generation of Soviet workers was not the same as the generation of 1917. Their perception of the Revolution and socialism and communism was coloured by the experience of life under Stalinist rule.
The absence of an independent movement of the working class was the decisive factor that has conditioned the whole situation ever since. For Ted Grant this situation was unexpected. He found it hard to believe that nothing had remained of the traditions of Bolshevism-Leninism in Russia. It is an undeniable fact that the consciousness of the Russian masses was thrown back a long way by the long nightmare of totalitarian rule. Even among the miners at that time, particularly their leaders, there were some illusions in capitalism. Some of the miners’ leaders imagined that it would enable them to sell their coal on world markets. They had not yet enjoyed the joys of a market economy.
However, it is entirely false to claim that the demand for the return of capitalism came from the working class. On the contrary, throughout this period there was a growing mood in the population against the imposition of a market economy. The movement against capitalism was gathering strength even before the collapse of 1998. The growing disillusionment was reflected in all the opinion polls and also in a mass protest movement of the working class. The polls showed big majorities against the market economy. As we have seen, an opinion poll in 1994 saw support for reform fall from 40 per cent, to 25 per cent five years later. The same poll found a majority believing privatisation to be “legalised theft undertaken for the benefit of the nomenklatura and criminals”. Another opinion poll conducted by the US International Foundation of Electoral Systems in November 1995 found that three-quarters were deeply dissatisfied with the current situation. Only twenty per cent thought the economy would improve over the next two or three years. And significantly, more than half wanted the re-establishment of state control over the economy. (Source: Financial Times, 29/11/95.)
Three months earlier, a poll by the All-Russian Centre for the Study of Public Opinion and the University of Strathclyde reproduced in the Financial Times (17/8/95), revealed that two-thirds assessed positively the pre-perestroika period, compared with just fifty per cent in 1992. A third wanted the return of the Stalinist regime, while ten per cent said the return of the Tsar would be better. In an all-Russian survey published in Segodnya (24/1/97), forty-eight per cent of respondents agreed or were inclined to agree with the proposition that “socialism is preferable to capitalism as a system for Russia.”
Those that disagreed or were inclined to disagree numbered twenty-seven per cent, while the remainder took an intermediate position. Forty-three per cent agreed or were inclined to agree that Russia’s economy should develop mainly on the basis of state rather than private property, while nineteen per cent took the opposite view.
Following on from similar experiences in Lithuania, Ukraine, Poland, Hungary, Romania and East Germany, in the December 1995 Duma elections in Russia, those parties that stood for reform were humiliated. It was a massive victory for the Communist Party and their allies, pushing the nationalists into second place.
But the economic collapse of 1998 produced a qualitative change in the mentality of millions of people. Many formerly privileged layers who had benefited initially from the growth of the market economy now found themselves without work and without perspectives. There was an angry reaction against capitalism in the middle class. The ground could not have been more favourable for the advocacy of anti-capitalist policies.