Libertarian socialist movements during glasnost?

[Comrade-Z]

It baffles me why there weren't more libertarian socialist, anarchist and (non-leninist) marxist elements during glasnost and the collapse of the Soviet Union. After all, wasn't the collapse of the Soviet Union spurred on by such groups as Solidarity? And didn't such groups utilize strike actions and such, which tend to radicalize its participants? What was the nature of the Solidarity organization? How much western capitalist involvement or influence was there on that organization and its stances?

The lack of any significant libertarian socialist, anarchist, and (non-leninist) marxist elements during the collapse of the Soviet Union seems to indicate that Russia actually took steps backwards since 1917 as far as its working class radicalization was concerned. But wasn't Russia very industrially developed by 1990? It baffles me why the collapse of the State-capitalism of the Soviet Union led to the re-introduction of regular capitalism, instead of leading to libertarian socialism. I mean, I'm sure anarchist organizing was banned in the Soviet Union, but wasn't capitalist organizing banned as well? Should they have been starting from relatively even playing fields?

[Comrade-Z]

Ah, I found one source of information. From
http://www.isj.org.uk/index.php4?id=136&issue=108

"In August 1980 one of the Coastal Worker group in Gdansk, a 50 year old woman crane driver called Anna Walentynowicz, was victimised by the management at the giant Lenin shipyards. The group smuggled handwritten leaflets and posters into the shipyard and a few other workplaces. Their sections stopped work and marched around the shipyard calling out the rest of the workforce. By the end of the morning of 14 August a mass meeting was arguing with the shipyard manager. A member of the group, Lech Walesa, himself sacked from the shipyard, climbed over the wall, announced himself to the crowd and declared the start of an occupation strike.

The strike spread rapidly to other local workplaces. Delegates from these workplaces, including the Paris Commune shipyard in neighbouring Gdynia and the city’s tram drivers, gathered in the Lenin yard. A new body was formed—the Inter-Enterprise Strike Committee (MKS), comprising delegates from all striking workplaces in the region. It formulated a set of demands, the ‘21 Points’. No longer concerned simply with immediate local issues, the list began with the demand for new, independent trade unions. It went on to call for relaxation of censorship, new rights for the church, the freeing of political prisoners and improvements in the health service.

...

The movement was based on a huge wave of workplace occupations. Each striking enterprise sent a delegate to its local MKS. The delegates elected an inner executive committee, under their immediate control. The major negotiations with the state were conducted in front of microphones which were linked into the shipyard tannoy system so that thousands of workers could follow the proceedings and assess the progress being made.

Though they did not know it, the Polish workers had reinvented, out of the logic of their own experience, the organisational form first adopted by Russian workers in 1905—the workers’ council.

Such class organisations have the potential to develop into organs of revolutionary popular power and become the foundations of a new social order. However, that potential is not automatically realised—for the MKS to in this direction, its members would need to be able to see the potential. In Poland in 1980 no significant body existed to propose any such notion. Rather, from the beginning, the MKS consciously limited its aspirations.

Numbers of intellectual ‘advisers’ were incorporated into the circle around the MKS leadership. Their role was predominantly to act as the advocates of compromise. The church hierarchy too preached moderation. At the height of the strikes Cardinal Wyszynski delivered a widely broadcast sermon effectively calling for an end to the occupations.

Everyone looked to Solidarity for a lead. This was a dilemma for a movement that did not aspire to power. The union leaders’ response was to seek to stem the onward march of their own side.

...

In March a massive crisis erupted in the city of Bydgoszcz. Solidarity members occupying an office went to the local prefecture to negotiate with party representatives. A couple of hundred police invaded the room and systematically beat up the Solidarity men, among them a national leader of the union, Jan Rulewski. This was the first time open force had been used against the union. Half a million workers across the whole Bydgoszcz area erupted into strike. By the time a national delegate meeting, 300-strong, was held on 23 March, the pressure coming from the grassroots for national action was overwhelming. A highly successful national four-hour strike was accompanied by preparations for an unlimited general strike which would begin on 31 March if the union’s demands were not met.

The atmosphere in Poland was electric, as both sides prepared for a decisive confrontation. Strike headquarters were designated in the largest factories in each region, fortified with barricade materials.

The premier, Jaruzelski, turned to the church for support. Direct pressure was applied to Lech Walesa through an hour’s private meeting with the cardinal, and at the last moment Walesa appeared on TV to announce the strike was called off."

The reactionary Church strikes again!

So, it's really quite a distortion to say that the Catholic Church spurred on the Polish uprisings and the fall of the Soviet Union!

It's also worth noting that Lech Walesa, who is always credited with pushing the Solidarity movement forward, actually exerted a reactionary influence on the organization!

[Comrade-Z]

And then this from wikipedia:

"Throughout the mid-1980s, Solidarity persisted solely as an underground organization, supported by the Church and the CIA. But by the late 1980s, Solidarity was sufficiently strong to frustrate Jaruzelski's attempts at reform, and nationwide strikes in 1988 forced the government to open a dialogue with Solidarity."

Damn the Church! Damn the CIA for co-opting an emerging libertarian socialist movement!

[Guerrilla22]

Many citizens of the former socialist countries in eastern europe were turned off to leftist ideas because they felt that the USSR dominated their countrie's politics. This was a major criticism of the USSR by Che. As the actual USSR itself, its not surprising that leftist movements did not prosper in a time when Gorabachev was moving the country away from socialism and opening the country up to the so called free market.

There were those who resisted the USSR's total collpase as well as Russia's move away from socialism by Yelstin. they were brutally surpressed by the Russian military on Yelstin's orders. I remeber seeing photos of pro communist blocking the middle of streets Moscow as well as an incident were they occupied a government building, before it was stormed by the military.

[Morpheus]

Actually, libertarian socialism spread quite a bit during glasnot. Not as much as neoliberalism or social democracy, though, probably because those ideas were supported more by the ruling class, were more widespread before glasnot and were more conservative. See:

http://struggle.ws/eastern/glw_kas.html
http://www.struggle.ws/rbr/russrbr2.html
http://struggle.ws/eastern/ukraine.html
http://struggle.ws/eastern/yeltsin_93.html
http://struggle.ws/eastern/moscow_coup93.html

[Psy]

Solidarnosc (that was where this counter revolutionary crap started) was a sick joke, workers went on strike to bring privitization that brought huge layoffs and a larger class divide. I remeber watching a documentary about Solidarnosc on TV and there was this clip of a shipyard worker that truly belived in capitalism but was pissed that privitization gave then same bosses that just profited off their facilities, what the fuck did he think capitalism ment and it is sad he thinks different capitalist bosses would make things better.

They should have fought aginst the system but to empower the workers in the workplace and empower the people in goverment.

[rebelworker]

Working class self activity was totaly crushed. from the Bolsheviks on. All left oposition to the "Communist "party was imprisoned or killed, not to mention the massive amount of lying that was used by the state to descredit revolutionary ideals.

Peoples daily experience of "communism" was linked with an opressive state structure, especially early on under stalin. This had the efect of turning the working class of of the project. For workers they wanted freedom, this unfortunaty for them due to huge amounts of western propoghanda and the bleak reality of the soviet system mislead a whole generation of workers.

Wenever the working class did organise itself and demand political power they were put down by the communist party. The best example of this was hungary in 56. The whole country was being run by workplce coucils, the very defenition of communism was in shape, and they were brutally crushed and power was put back in the hands of the part beurocrats.

If there would have been a tradition of working class revolutionary culture in the soviet union before the breakup(that was not all in prison) perhaps the working class would have had something progressive to turn to. In the absence of a revolutionaru left they had nowhere else to turn to but existing counter institutions like the church. With no revolutionary press all that was well established was CIA manipulation.

This is like asking why didnt the working class come to the defense of Trotsky or the left alternative in the party before that in the face of Stalinism? They were already broken as a revolutionary force.

This is the crux of the problem with Bolshevism, only working class self activity can bring about communsm, and the working class(and all oprerssed classes) must be allowed to flex its muscles and get to know how to govern. Any atempts to "speed up the process" or "leave it up to the experts" will have disasterous and far reaching counter revolutionary consecuences.

[bcbm]

Although not really indicative of an organized lib-soc movement, I seem to recall an image immediately following the breakup of the USSR of an anarchist flag draped over some sort of monument. Tried to find it, without much luck.

[Comrade-Z]

Ah, thanks for all of the info. It is encouraging to hear that libertarian socialism was able to re-blossom (somewhat) during the fall of the USSR.

I also noticed something very interesting the other day while watching a documentary about the Cuban Revolution of 1959 in history class the other day. One of the citizens being interviewed talked about lots of "red flags and black flags, and red and black flags" in Cuba at the time of Fidel's victory march to Havana. Then the video actually showed many people waving some anarchist red-and-black flags (in addition to some plain red ones). Then I also saw a picture of a revolutionary lorry/makeshift-tank which was painted red and black in a triangular fashion, characteristic of the anarchist flag. Interesting stuff.