This document is one of the resolutions from the 12th World Congress of ISA (formerly the CWI), which took place in January-February 2020. Following a certain delay due to pressing work and interventions into the stormy world situation, it was uploaded to our archive in July 2020, for the benefit of our readers. Documents were agreed on World Relations, Western Europe, Central & Eastern Europe, Latin America, Sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East, and on women’s struggles and socialist feminism.
This resolution should be read in conjunction with the resolutions on the World and Western Europe.
Introduction
Spectacular events in the past decade have borne out the predictions made by our organisation at the beginning of the decade (see World Congress 2010 resolution on Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union), enriching our analysis and demonstrating how the ruling elite is incapable of solving the problems faced by ordinary people.
As poor living standards and the absence of strong left forces have remained key features across the region, rightwing populists of various denominations have come to power in Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, and Poland. In Slovakia the SMER party, which presents itself as Social-Democratic, has moved to the right while in the Czech Republic both new and “traditional” parties demonstrate strong tendencies in this direction. They are joining the increasingly authoritarian Putin, who has ruled Russia since 2000.
The way in which the Euromaidan protest in Ukraine in 2014 developed led to the Russian take-over of Crimea and war in East Ukraine. Hungary played a major role in blocking refugees travelling to “Fortress Europe” in 2015. In 2018, the Armenian government was overthrown during the ‘velvet revolution’.
In Zhanaozen, Kazakhstan in 2011, big business ended the seven-month strike by oil workers with a brutal massacre. But since then, important strikes have engulfed many countries of the region. Other mass movements have also taken place. In 2016, Poland inspired the world with the feminist strike in defence of abortion rights. Slovakia, Serbia, Romania, and Moldova experienced protests against corruption and a youth revolt broke out in Russia.
In addition to all this, there have been scandals over the Russian intervention in the US elections, the Skripal affair in England and the expansion of Russian influence in the Middle East and Africa.
Factors affecting situation since 2010
The region’s economy only recovered to the pre-1989 level in 2005. Following the sharp downturn of 2008, the Central & Eastern European (CEE) countries in the EU have experienced an average annual 2.6% increase in GDP, in itself higher than the Eurozone average. Some countries experienced higher growth. Poland has grown on average by 3.4%, reaching over 4% in the last two years. So too have Hungary, Estonia, Slovenia and Romania, which achieved 7% growth in 2017. They have benefited from trade with countries such as Germany and economic aid from Brussels combined with low wage levels.
Although the massive de-industrialisation of the 1990s left these economies at a low level, this growth against the background of continuously poor living standards has provided the material basis for an upsurge in class struggle, particularly among industrial and public sector workers. And despite the lack of a renewal of the labor force that is required in economies where production is growing (caused in part by mass emigration to richer countries) restricting the potential for new economic development, this growth has given those remaining more confidence to fight for better wages and conditions, particularly given the relatively low unemployment rates in several countries.
As Germany’s economy slows and global growth declines, these rates will be threatened. The implementation of populist stimuli in countries such as Poland may provide a temporary reprieve but any serious decline could cause a collapse of the housing and financial bubbles developed over the past decade.
The FSU economies
The economies of the Former Soviet Union (FSU) barely recovered after 2008 with a couple of years of 4% growth before experiencing another recession with negative (-2%) growth. Since then growth has struggled to exceed 1%. After a period of belt-tightening, hoping for better times, the mood in these countries is changing with pessimism about the future growing and support for the ruling elite falling quickly.
These economies are largely dependent on commodity exports — in particular, oil, gas, precious metals and minerals. China’s ‘Belt and road initiative’ has temporarily helped the economies of Central Asia and Caucasia, although this will increase their indebtedness and dependence on China. Despite average commodity prices having doubled in the past decade, they fell by nearly 10% in 2018 and developing trade conflicts threaten further declines. Russia, the main economy of this region accounting for 46% of the CCE & FSU GDP, faces other specific problems due to international sanctions and is teetering on the brink of recession. An escalation of trade wars, collapse of commodity prices or a global recession will cause real problems.
Comprador capitalism
Due to capitalism’s belated development on the ruins of the former Stalinist planned economy, corruption, inhumanity and authoritarianism are not alien to, but rather an integral part of the capitalist process. In the 1990s, foreign capital used privatization and the EU integration process to invade the region, exploiting low labor costs and dictating conditions. This left little room for national bourgeois classes to develop. Fighting to survive in this period, the new bourgeoisie, mainly former Stalinist bureaucrats, used methods such as bribery, inflation, speculation, privatization and outright theft to accumulate capital. Despite this, they were never able to accumulate enough to compete fully with foreign capital. Excessively dependent on foreign capital and unable to develop thriving economies, they rely heavily on corruption and patronage.
However, since 2008 foreign direct investment (FDI) has halved and domestic investment has been unable to fill the gap, in part because demand is restricted by low incomes. This has reached a qualitatively new level in Russia, where sanctions are starving the economy of investment. Corruption, already endemic, has become completely parasitic — dirty money does not find its way back as investment but goes into the pockets and offshore bank accounts of the ruling elite.
For workers and ordinary people, these trends create miserable living conditions. The monthly wage for those CEE countries in the EU ranges from €640 in Bulgaria to €1100-€1200 in Slovenia and Estonia — levels well under half of those in the richer parts of the EU. Some of the poorest parts of the world are to be found in the non-EU countries — 12 have average monthly wages less than €500. In Russia, while 12,000 people earn more than €14,000 a month, the ‘average’ monthly wage is €661; but half of Russian workers — 33 million people — earn less than €500. A million people earn less than €150.
Region torn apart by imperialism
No country in the region is free from the constant competition between imperialist powers for power and influence. Even on the level of economic diplomacy, the US is fighting a losing battle to restrict the use of Huawei’s technology. Militarily, NATO has expanded across most of Eastern Europe, although gone are the days when even Putin spoke of Russia joining NATO.
John Bolton, visiting Hungary recently made clear that Orban’s assault on democratic rights took second place to US needs to resist the growing strength of China and Russia. In Warsaw too, Mike Pence praised Poland as a ‘bastion of democracy’.
China is also encroaching. The recent 16+1 Conference in Croatia discussed the Belt and Road initiative and investments, such as the high-speed rail link between Budapest and Belgrade which will eventually link with the Chinese owned Piraeus port in Greece.
European Union expansion plans appear to have been put on the back burner after the disaster of Euromaidan — no further progress has been made on the partnership agreements with Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova, while membership applications from Albania, Bosnia, Kosovo, North Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia have been delayed to 2025, as the EU deals with its own crises.
In those CEE countries which are already members of the EU, tensions with Brussels are growing. This is reflected in a harder line over EU fund transfers, with high penalties being levied and with the reduction by 22–24% in the overall budget for the Visegrad countries (Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia and Hungary) in 2021. In Poland, for example 2.7% of GDP and 54% of public investment is provided by EU funds.
The Russian role is just as insidious. Using energy supplies in some cases and corrupt political links in others to influence governments, it too uses military pressure and covert operations. The Montenegro authorities allege that two GPU (Russia’s foreign secret service) operatives were behind the attempt to assassinate the pro-NATO Premier in October 2016. Russia is using the EU’s weakness to fill the vacuum left behind.
Although the conflict is primarily between the imperialist states, national governments underline their comprador status by playing one power against another as it suits them. With Washington increasingly in conflict with Brussels, it leans on countries such as Poland and Hungary for support within the EU, strengthening its military involvement to establish a certain fire-wall against Russia. To check the growing US/EU influence sections of the ruling elite of countries such as Hungary and Serbia are looking more to Russia for military support and China as a source of investment.
The war in Ukraine
The conflict between Russian and Western imperialism came to a head in Ukraine 2013/14 during ‘Euromaidan’. Initially demonstrations against authoritarian rule, corruption and poverty, the absence of a left leadership allowed a coalition of pro-Western neo-liberals and Ukrainian far-right nationalists to seize control of the movement, raising fears among the Russian speaking population in Crimea and East Ukraine of attacks on their rights.
Socialists supported the right of self-determination of Crimea and, although supporting the right to join Russia if the Crimeans wanted to, warned against the consequences. Only a united working class struggle to counter reactionary nationalism and the warlords, protect national minorities, and prevent attacks on living standards could have forced the different sides to drop their military attacks.
That such an approach was both needed and possible is demonstrated by the fact that before the start of the conflict there were 402,000 mine workers, mostly in East Ukraine, a force more than enough to stand up to the war-mongers. But now, after 5 years of war, two-thirds have lost their jobs. A united, working class struggle led by the miners would have laid the basis for a mass workers party, to establish governments representing the interests of working people, to replace rotten capitalism with a new socialist society. Only in such conditions could a genuine right to self-determination of nations or to regional autonomy be assured within an independent, socialist Ukraine as part of a wider socialist federation.
Instead the Kremlin exploited the threats to restrict the rights of Russian speakers, using ‘’hybrid war’ tactics to take over Crimea and support right-wing militia governments in Donetsk and Lugansk.
During their now notorious telephone call, Trump discussed a roadmap to end the war, which has so far claimed 13,000 lives, with Ukrainian President Zelensky. The “Steinmeier formula”, first proposed by the former German Foreign Minister in 2016, will mean the deployment of international peacekeepers and elections held under Ukrainian control in the two disputed republics, which will then gain self-governing status. Russia considers this a victory.
But who controls the border with Russia? The US insists Ukrainian control be restored before the elections, to hold Russia in check. Ukrainian nationalists demonstrators demand “no capitulation”. Germany and other EU powers are pressing Zelensky to be more flexible to avoid worsening relations with Russia, and thus risking plans to bring online the Nord Stream 2 pipeline in 2020, which will allow EU gas supplies to bypass Ukraine.
Although the fear of a major nationalist backlash against Zelensky may prevent this deal from going through, most Ukrainians want to end the war. But the war has cost Russia the loss of its strongest ally in the region — Belarus. Once attacked as the ‘last dictatorship’ in Europe, Belarus has removed visa requirements for EU citizens, while the EU has signed an agreement relaxing the requirements for Belarussians to visit the Schengen zone.
Russia’s apparent success in Ukraine has encouraged intervention further afield — in Syria, the Central African Republic and so on. Russia now finds itself in an on-off cooperation/conflict with another important player, Turkey. The latest events in North-East Syria raise the potential for an even greater conflict.
The dangers of nationalism
The bloody events in the former Yugoslavia, Chechnya and Tajikistan in the 1990s have left a bitter legacy. The latent Moldova-Transnistria conflict remains unresolved, while in 2016 Nagorno-Karabakh burst out again into a four-day hot war. The ruling elite exploit such conflicts for their own interests. Russia sells arms to both sides, while in oil-rich Azerbaijan (supported by Turkey) the government says economic restraint is necessary during the war, while conscripts at the front share wi-fi with their Armenian counterparts.
The potential for new ethnic conflicts remains. Inter-ethnic rioting broke out in Osh, Kyrgyzstan, in the aftermath of the 2010 colored revolution as the struggle within the ruling elite played out. The Kazakh regime regularly threatens to restrict Russian language rights whenever protests develop. In turn, the Kremlin is reducing the rights of other languages within Russia.
Land-swaps too cause conflict. In 2018, the Kazakh government retreated from plans to sell land to Chinese enterprises, following the 1990’s scandal over the ceding of a million hectares of agricultural land to China. Violent protests broke out in Ingushetia after neighbouring Chechnya seized land. Local police sided with protestors and the republican governor was forced to resign.
The former Yugoslavia too remains a hotbed of ethnic tension. 25 years after the war, unemployment in Bosnia is officially 23%, in reality closer to 40%. Privatization led to endemic corruption and nepotism, while the internationally imposed 14 layers of government has built inter-ethnic brinkmanship into the system. Meanwhile the Gulf states and Turkey are investing heavily, and in the process strengthening conservative Islamic and authoritarian tendencies.
The leader of Republika Srpska, the Serbian enclave in Bosnia, calls for the dissolution of the Bosnian republic, while the Trump administration’s support for establishing a Kosovan army is pushing Serbia closer to Russia. Serbia’s radical party wants Russia to deploy military forces in the country. All this led one Bosnian journalist to comment: ‘toxic nationalism is ever present’.
The events of the mid-nineties have left a mark on the consciousness of a layer in this region. In East Ukraine, initial distrust at Kiev’s moves against the Russian language quickly turned into fear that events would escalate into a Yugoslav type war. A layer of left youth in former Yugoslavia stress common interests and their Yugoslavian roots, but this can lead to an under-estimation of the national question.
Socialists in this region have a proud record in defending the right of self-determination, including the defence of language and land rights, while arguing for the maximum possible unity of the working class. Without retreating from these principles, they must be applied sensitively and flexibly, with an accurate assessment of the mood of workers and youth. We must avoid the mistakes of some lefts who mistook the reactionary views of “Chechen, Cossack, anarchist, nationalist, communist and radical orthodox Christian” mercenaries in East Ukraine as those of the local population or, on the other side, of lefts who dismiss the importance of the national question.
Weakness of left forces
The most dominant political trend across the region today is right populism and authoritarianism. The unprecedented restoration of capitalism in the 1990s threw back consciousness and almost completely annihilated the left, paving the way for the neoliberal consensus to gain deep roots in the region with big illusions in capitalism, liberal democracy, the EU and NATO.
The rebranding of the former Stalinist ruling parties during the counter revolution meant that a social basis among the working class, through struggling for reforms as the former social-democratic parties of Western Europe had once done, was not possible. Instead, these parties act as conduits for neo-liberalism. In Romania, the former ‘social democratic’ government of PSD decreased the flat rate income tax from 16% to 10%. In Hungary, the ‘social democratic’ MSZP is more pro-free market than the right parties, which argue for elements of state regulation to protect ‘national capitalism’. In the Czech Republic, the KSCM supports the coalition of the right-wing anti-immigrant Andrej Babis. And usually, they represent the interests of Russian foreign policy.
In the more authoritarian states, the post-Soviet communists play a baleful role. In Russia, revering Stalin, they combine left rhetoric on economic questions with reactionary, conservative, and even far-right social policies and an aggressive pro-Russian foreign policy. No actions are taken without the agreement of the Kremlin. In turn, the Kremlin leans on the CP to dissipate protests as it did effectively during the 2018 protests against the increased pension age.
Attempts to establish non-Stalinist left formations indicate a certain shift in consciousness in favour of left-wing and even anti-capitalist ideas. Although Levica (The Left) in Slovenia won 9% of the vote and 9 MPs in the 2018 election and Radnička fronta (Workers’ Front) in Croatia has some councillors, these organizations have not established themselves as leaders of broader movements.
Elsewhere, new left formations are largely petit-bourgeois, not sufficiently oriented towards the working class. Balpárt (Left party) in Hungary and Bǎlgarskata levitsa (Left party) in Bulgaria are pro-EU, modelled on the worst aspects of Syriza and Die Linke. In Romania, Demos, reflecting its model “Podemos”, argues for little more than a European welfare state.
Such criticisms also apply to Razem (Together) in Poland, which initially showed potential to develop on a left-wing program, but has succumbed to pressure to ally with the post-Stalinist Left and Wiosna (Spring), modelled on Macron’s party.
Due to the absence of left formations in other countries, such as the Czech Republic and Slovakia, the vacuum can be temporarily filled by more liberal forces using progressive rhetoric and populist slogans. Some, such as Zuzana Caputova in the 2019 Presidential race or the Pirate Party, which is currently running a strong second in the Czech opinion polls, can even gain a certain electoral success. Reflecting the desire of a large part of the urban youth and professionals for change, their trajectory, based as they are on a pro-capitalist position, is in the direction of betrayal and helping to lead to the loss of illusions.
These organisations should not be ignored in a sectarian manner, but the best activists should be convinced to orient to the working class and youth on a radical socialist program.
The nature of right populism in Central & Eastern Europe
After 2008, the regimes in CEE changed orientation from a dogmatic endorsement of liberal democracy & neoliberalism, becoming increasingly populist, nationalist, protectionist and authoritarian.
Claiming to represent ‘the people’ against the international elites and their domestic allies, the right populists lean on a certain layer of the petit-bourgeoisie, farmers and smalltown backward workers. But they represent ‘the people’ no more than Trump, Le Pen or Bolsonaro; rather, they predominantly echo the interests of the domestic capitalist class, increasingly in conflict with those of international capital.
Now the global crisis is causing mass disillusionment with capitalism — in Romania, for example, 40% live in poverty. Right populist parties have to offer social concessions to stay in government. In Poland, they introduced child benefits and decreased the retirement age; in Romania they increased the minimum wage. In Poland in October 2019, Law and Justice won a second term in this way, although losing control of the Senate.
Their ‘hybrid’ economic policy reflects the increasingly bonapartist nature of these regimes, leaning on different classes or layers at different times. Sometimes they use protectionist measures such as the renationalization of banks in Poland (‘re-Polonisation’) or of key utilities in Hungary; at other times they retreat to neoliberalism by reducing tax rates. In Poland they have created 14 ‘special economic zones’ with tax holidays, zero-hour contracts and restrictions on trade unions to benefit domestic capitalists.
Conservative authoritarianism
The process is mirrored in the openly authoritarian regimes in Russia, Belarus, Azerbaijan and Central Asia. Although formally “democratic”, elections are carefully managed with opposition parties barred from participation. Opposition activities are met in a bonapartist manner by temporary concessions combined with increasing repression as the ruling elites attempt to maintain stability.
Putin’s ideology of “anti-liberalism and conservatism” requires Russia to be a strong autocratic, centralised state with nationalist, imperialist values and Russian orthodox social policies including strict gender roles, no tolerance for LGBT rights and an end to abortion. Those who support human rights and democratic freedoms are depicted as foreign agents. Ilham Aliyev, President of Muslim Azerbaijan, simply replaces Islamic values for those of Russian orthodoxy. Significantly, all these regimes strictly control the Muslim religion, to prevent the growth of fundamentalist forces.
Economically, Russia balances neo-liberalism with state support and regulation. A stringent budgetary policy deprives healthcare, education and the skeleton social services of resources. Meanwhile, Russian capital is in reality propped up by a network of state-controlled corporations in the energy, defence and transport sectors, supported by ‘national projects’ supposedly to modernize technology, healthcare and education.
The Far right
2016 saw a dramatic flow of desperate refugees through South East Europe. Russia, after the US, has the largest number of immigrants in the world — 11 million. Used as cheap labour, they suffer discrimination and racial attacks. In addition, at least a million migrants from Ukraine are in Russia, almost as many in Poland as well as 1.5 million internal migrants in Ukraine itself. Providing a convenient scape-goat during times of crisis, the right populists and authoritarian regimes exploit them to the maximum.
Fuelling right populism, far-right/neo-fascist organisations remain strong. In Warsaw, thousands march annually under fascist symbols and chants. In Ukraine, the notorious “Right-Sector” and “National Corps”, veterans of the “Azov regiment” who fought in East Ukraine, mobilize thousands on torch-lit parades. The Romani people bear the brunt of the attacks by these thugs. In Ukraine in 2018, attacks on Roma camps left 2 dead and many wounded. In Bulgaria, the far-right Deputy Premier Krassimir Karakachanov has publicly called for a “final solution to the gypsy question”.
In Russia, although far-right street activity has temporarily declined, over 2000 immigrants, political opponents, LGBT activists and the homeless have been attacked and 300 murdered since 2010. The historic mission of the far right parties is to mobilize the desperate petit-bourgeoisie against the organised working class. Even the East European bourgeoisie are not prepared to give these groups free reign, but their very existence pushes the right-populist formations further right and, at critical times they are used to attack protestors or as a paramilitary force.
The Kremlin consciously absorbed part of the far-right ideology in its attempt to take over “Novorossiya”, and used repression to behead those organizations it could not control. Far-right activists were recruited into its ‘covert forces’ fighting in East Ukraine and now as mercenaries in Syria and the African conflicts. In Ukraine too, “Svoboda” and “Right Sector” have lost their electoral base in part due to the anti-war mood, but their active militias, who fought in East Ukraine, have been integrated into the army and police. Now the pro-Nazi “Azov Battalian”, part of Ukraine’s National Guard, is in armed conflict with the army, which is trying to establish a ceasefire in the East.
Although support for Jobbik in Hungary in European elections has fallen, in the 2018 national election it gained its highest ever vote of nearly 1.1 million. In part this is due to its attempts to moderate its image since 2014. But the tactics of other parties, which in October 2019’s local elections adopted ‘support the best placed candidate against Fidezc’ was also important. As a consequence, Jobbik has maintained credibility, with Jobbik supported candidates elected in 5 cities. Two cities now have Jobbik Mayors.
Those “left” forces in the region, who see the far-right as potential allies or the liberals who argue for unity without politics against these poisonous ideas are undermining the anti-fascist struggle. The far-right should be combated with decisive united working class action and a socialist program.
Is populism popular?
Superficially, support for these regimes is strong. But the reality is different. Turnout in elections is lower than in Western Europe — 38% in Romania in 2016. In Hungary, Orban has lost control of Budapest. Mass protests forced Robert Fico in Slovakia out when he was implicated in a gangland-style killing. His replacement, the liberal Zuzana Čaputová, is known as a campaigner on the environment, against corruption and for women’s and LGBT rights. In Poland, Law and Justice maintains support in large part by offering a minimum wage of €900 a month, while the liberal opposition promises more austerity. Even Razem was caught off guard by this move; they had been demanding a minimum wage of €600! Yet when Law and Justice attacks abortion rights, or wants to re-appoint judges, or moves against teachers, health workers and airline staff, it meets determined resistance.
Trade unions and workplace struggles
Since 2015, there have been significant industrial strikes in CEE, where the tradition of trade union organisation is stronger than in the FSU.
In Hungary in 2018, the generalized working class movement which began against the “slave law”, which almost doubled permissible overtime work, was youthful. Although it included a warning strike by 4,000 Audi workers with demands for a general strike, no leadership existed capable of taking the struggle to the next level.
In Poland, in 2018 during the important strike of airline workers, and again in 2019 during the biggest teachers’ strike since the early 1990s, Solidarnosc (which supports the Law and Justice government) largely played a strikebreaking role. Betrayed by Solidarnosc, hundreds of teachers joined the rival union ZNP and, significantly, created inter-school strike committees involving teachers, students and parents. This strike has inspired teacher protests in Lithuania and Latvia.
Militant workers’ action, organized through an independent union of crane drivers in Koper, Slovenia, successfully fought privatization. Significantly, they received solidarity actions from dock-workers in Italy and Croatia, and their example inspired a wave of public sector strikes across Slovenia in 2018.
The global crisis acted as a spur to build new independent trade unions in foreign owned companies such as Ford in St. Petersburg. The demand to nationalise the car industry was thrown up when redundancies at the giant car plant in Togliatti were threatened. But trained in the skills of ‘organizing’ and ‘negotiation’, the formerly militant leaders retreated from struggle, helping to derail the campaign against the pension age increase in 2018. The Ford factory has now closed.
The oil workers of Zhanaozen, western Kazakhstan, were also demanding nationalization of the oil companies before the brutal massacre cut across their protest. Although this damaged confidence that it was possible to struggle for several years, the oil workers are once again restoring the tradition of struggle.
After the reactionary wave that accompanied the Crimea take-over, youth protests, starting in March 2017, broke the logjam of dissatisfaction in Russia. The tempo of workers’ protests, although still modest, is growing. Mainly spontaneous, affecting at this stage health-workers, teachers, media and IT workers who face state repression, the overwhelming majority start without trade union involvement.
The weaknesses of the global trade union movement are often taken to their logical extreme in this region. Trade unions inherited from Stalinist times simply act as transmission belts for management, or in Russia actually are controlled by management. Where newer independent unions have developed, they often follow the bad practices of the international trade union bureaucracy. This acts as a certain barrier when workers want to defend their rights. But it also means there is often no structure to act as a brake on actions. Consequently, intervening requires a high degree of flexibility.
Potential for protest
The recent wave of strikes in several countries shows a growth in confidence of the working class. The movement may not grow linearly, but social and economic conditions are making further protests inescapable.
Women face a horrific situation. They suffer the most from austerity in healthcare, education and care work in general. Gender inequality has grown dramatically since 1989 and right populism places much emphasis on conservative family values. There is an epidemic of violence against women, in the home as well as prostitution, forced marriages and trafficking. Every 40 minutes a woman is murdered in Russia. Attacks on abortion rights have met strong resistance in Russia, in Slovakia (despite a 50,000 strong anti-abortion march), and most spectacularly by the feminist strike in Poland.
Environmental issues too are stoking discontent. The disposal of Moscow’s rubbish, air pollution in the Balkans or the already global climate strikes continue the long tradition of environmental issues acting to spark wider movements.
Attacks on democratic rights are likely to increase, whether over the appointment of judges in Poland, the reduction of press freedom in Hungary, repression in Russia or corruption in Romania. These are not secondary issues for the working class. The successful campaign initiated by the Media Workers Union (in which we play a big role) when the Russian opposition journalist Ivan Golunov was arrested, involved thousands — the majority of whom were teachers, medical workers, media and IT staff.
Protests over the lack of democracy or corruption will of course attract a wider layer than just the working class, sometimes throwing up bourgeois or petit bourgeois slogans. The demand for “lustration”, once a call to clear out the former stalinist apparatchiks from the state apparatus as part of the “de-communization” process, is now raised by Zelensky’s supporters to purge former President Poroshenko’s supporters. Essentially undemocratic as it allows any incoming governments to clear out any opponents, it should be counteracted by class demands and measures including election of officials, opening of the accounts for state expenditure to public scrutiny, and workers’ control leading to a call for a revolutionary constituent assembly.
Conclusions
Serbia, Georgia, Kyrghizia, Azerbaijan, Moldova, Ukraine, and Armenia have all experienced ‘color’ revolutions. “Euromaidan” just 5 years ago was the latest stage of the ‘Orange Revolution’. 2018’s ‘Velvet Revolution’ in Armenia overthrew the Serzh Sargsyan government in just a weekend. Without developed working class and left organizations, which in other circumstances would dominate such protests, they fall under the influence of bourgeois or right-nationalist forces.
In the past, the consciousness of participants would at best be confused. During Euromaidan a strong pro-EU mood developed. Today, however there are signs, particularly amongst the youth who have grown up under capitalism, of a more anti-capitalist mood. The evolution of the right populist oppositionist Navalny to the left in Russia reflects this. The potential exists for this process to develop further as a new global recession encroaches on the region.
It is the logic of this analysis that, with the new global crisis, a combination of class struggles, nebulous color revolutions and single issue protests will develop. As the confidence of the masses increases, the question remains of whether in the coming period a left alternative can develop that is capable of harnessing this renewed appetite for struggle.
Given the history of the region and the current state of the left and trade union movement, there will be a large degree of spontaneity in any movement that does develop. While there are positive changes in political consciousness, unless a clear left position is promoted, other ideas can seize the initiative. As a consequence, consciousness will be confused and movements will be volatile.
The new left formations that emerged recently are a promising sign, although by themselves they don’t seem capable of presenting the needed left alternative. Rather than adopt a cross-class approach of unity with liberals and even the far-right or fall into the trap of spreading illusions in the EU, Russia or other imperialist powers (as the reformist and Stalinist organisations do), the left should use united front methods to strengthen independent working class organization and intervene energetically in a politically sharp way to win influence over new movements.
At the same time we need to build the revolutionary cadre armed with a transitional programme dealing with economic and social issues of specific relevance to the region, including the struggle for democracy and against corruption, right populism, authoritarianism and the far right. Only in this way will we be able to lay the necessary foundation for the future mass revolutionary international in this region.
