t t Continued from page 1 committee apparatus throughout the meet- ing was clearly to try to draw the party together around a compromise platform in the face of intensifying centrifugal tenden- cies. In this they seem to have largely suc- ceeded, although the price of such unity may have to be paid in terms of reduced ability of the party to take the ideological offensive ata critical moment of Soviet history, and an accelerated erosion of its ranks, particularly at the left and right poles. Much of this slippage seems inevitable in any case. The party’s social “authority” has fallen in direct proportion to the growth of the country’s crisis and the emergence of a political spectrum external to, and indepen- dent of the CPSU. Surveys show large numbers of people deserting the party, both out of ideological disillusionment and because membership is no longer convenient or professionally use- ful. The party’s ranks peaked at well over 19 million at the time of the 19th CPSU con- ference in 1988. Last year, according to Politbureau member George Razumovsky, 136,000 people left, followed by a further 82,000 in the first quarter of 1990. Even if no significant splits develop, everyone ex- pects that coming months will see an un- precedented exodus. Central Committee leaders consistently put forward at the congress the need for’a “consolidation of centrist forces” within the party, to hold together the only broadly- based, multinational instrument capable of unifying the country at this crucial transition stage. Atone of the congress’ policy workshops — anew innovation for the CPSU — Gor- bachev urged delegates “not to yield to appeals by left-wing adventurists or to those who desire a return to the past.” What is required, he said, is a coalition “of society’s sound forces. This means both left-wingers who aim for progressive changes as well as sober-minded conservatives who can pre- vent us from taking the road to adventurism in the main area of perestroika.” The success of their tactic may indeed be absolutely necessary for the short-term sur- vival of the Soviet Union and the consolida- tion of the first wave of reform, but it also leaves essential questions about the future ideological direction of the CPSU dangling in uncertainty and, at times, obscurity. A three-way struggle over the Soviet fu- ture has emerged into the open, each side finding its respective champions in the very three wings of the CPSU which Gorbachev has been trying so heroically to knit together. The first of these wings is certainly the most confused, in political terms, but was also the best represented at the congress. These are the so-called “conservatives,” the party apparatchiks,those whose political eduction, vested interests and personal loy- alties belong to a dying era. Perhaps their leader, or chief advocate, is Yegor Ligachev. Perhaps not. He declared from the pod- ium: “T belong neither to conservatives nor radicals. I am simply a realist. Blinkered radicalism and improvised dashing to and for have produced little in the five years of perestroika.” Reforms are absolutely essential, he in- sisted, but “they ought to be implemented consistently, gradually but steadily, from one stage to the next.” That speech won Ligachev a sustained ovation from the con- gress. It is highly significant that the conserva- tives put forward no independent platform to the congress and in the end— as they have through endless numbers of CPSU forums over the past four years —allowed Gor- bachev to drag them several steps further down the road of sweeping reform. 6 Pacific Tribune, July 16, 1990 Fred Weir The key reality here is.that the old com- mand-administrative system is thoroughly discredited. The existing crisis, manifest all around, makes that clear enough. Many old- time party functionaries may be nostalgic for those halcyon days of power and priv- ilege, but they are powerless even to enun- ciate a program to bring any of it back. Hence, they are reduced to merely sniping at perestroika. “With our connivance a blow is being dealt against the CPSU,” thundered Kirghiz party secretary Absamat Masaliyev from the podium. “Aspersions are cast on the coun- try’s history, even Lenin, and all this is presented to us as restructuring process.” Such sentiments were voiced in a hundred different ways. : Seen from the point of view of the con- servatives, everything is falling apart. Pere- stroika has been a destructive process, smashing, ruining what was painstakingly built by previous generations. And yet, when the party leadership and the public mood yank them, the conservatives dig in their heels but they come along. Therefore, the conservatives — at least in their old-time, Brezhnevite incarnation — may remain numerically powerful but prob- _ably-should be viewed as a spent political force. At the Congress they accepted not only the leadership of Gorbachev, but more importantly, the Central Committee plat- form. That includes the full separation of party and state, open competition for power within a multi-party system, transition to a “regulated market economy" and a new fed- eral “Treaty of the Union,” which will rec- ognize the full sovereignty of each Soviet republic. Hardly a conservative program! Moreover, we are witnessing a transfor- mation of such depth that it invites us to be skeptical of the facile “liberal versus conser- vative” categories used by the Western media, and many Moscow “radicals,” to explain this process altogether. Many so- called “conservatives” appear to have ab- sorbed the lessons of the last few years rather fully, and seem quite comfortable working under totally new conditions. Some are clearly committed to glasnost, democratization, open debate and free con- test for political influence, and are now as- serting Soviet values and socialist principles in effective, often creative, new ways. They insist that neither perestroika, nor Gorba- chev, nor anything else should be beyond criticism. One must always remind oneself that nothing in a process of this kind is static, nothing is elementary or eternal, and nothing can be taken for granted. In the months prior to the congress, the new forces emerged within the CPSU which did organize themselves into structured groups, competed in elections for delegates, and articulated their views in the form of distinct “platforms” in opposition to the central committee line. It is in the tension between those two platforms that the real struggle over the Soviet future is to be found. The first and best known of these are the “radicals” who founded the “democratic platform” some six months ago. These are, in the first place, the disgruntled party intel- ligentsia, but are more broadly based within FROM MOSCOW the highly-educated strata of the techno- cratic, professional and academic elites. The DP’S critique of the CPSU, and Sov- iethistory, is scathing. They view the past 73 years as a tragic aberration which removed the Soviet Union from the “mainstream of world civilization,” inflicting cruel and un- usual punishment upon its people. The way out of the terminal crisis of the party and its system, says the DP, is to renounce the goal of communism, change the name of the by intellectuals, the MP shows strong pos- sibilities of becoming the voice within the party of new militant working class forma- tions — such as the Federation of Labour, the Coal Miners’ Congress and others —and even the old “official” trade unions, who are moving rapidly to the socialist left. “The disintegration of authoritarian- bureaucratic society has released some so- cial forces seeking reinstatement of a capi- talist or semi-capitalist mixed economy but also others which strivefor the revival of a truly socialist perspective," says the Marxist Platform. “We campaign for a return to clas- sical Marxism, which requires a critical re- view of the theoretical heritage of its found- ers and their successors, and constant revolutionizing of the theoretical founda- tions of scientific socialism in pace with the changing world. It is from these positions that we are trying to find answers to the . challenges of our time ....” Speakers for the MP at the Congress CPSU general secretary Mikhail Gorbachev was re-elected to his post in Congress voting July 10, winning 3,411 votes in his favour and 1,116 opposing him. party, dismantle the “totalitarian” or Leninist structure of the CPSU and trans- form it into a parliamentary party of profes- sional politicians. For Soviet society, says the DP, the stra- tegic objective must be to rejoin the- “mainstream of civilization” as quickly as possible. This seems to mean the full adop- tion of western institutions and economic precepts, including freewheeling private property in a free market, an open door to foreign capital and all of the consequent adjustments in Soviet social structure and policy. The expression of this is forceful and eloquent. Argued DP spokesperson Vyache- slav Shostakovsky, rector of the Moscow Higher Party School: “The immediate goal of the CPSU should be the foundation of a civil society in which law guarantees each individual a free choice in his social, politi- cal and economic existence, in which the universal declaration of human rights is firmly established, and in which no one has a monopoly on ideology." In tactical alliance with the DP in all battles against the old bureaucrats, but in fundamental contradiction with them over the outlines of the future, is the new “Marxist Platform” within the CPSU. Also dominated joined with representatives of the “official” trade unions (ironically numbered by the Western media among the “old conserva- tives’) calling for full democratization of the economy and no price or market reforms without broad public participation through open debate and referenda. Said MP spokesperson Alexander Buz- galin: “We do not intend to split the CPSU. Our objective is to convince communists that only democratization of the party and the country will guarantee our progress along the path of socialist choice and com- munist perspective ... we should move toward the revival of public property so that it can prove it is more economically effec- tive than private property.” As the congress winds up, it seems clear that all these disparate political forces will at least be able to agree on a compromise plat- form — most dramatically symbolized by the leadership of Mikhail Gorbachev him- self — which will finally ensure the demoli- tion of the old command-administer econ- omic system, separation of party and state, and the profound transformation of the Sov- iet federation. The first stage of perestroika is over. Now begins the struggle over the shape of the next century.