THE CPSU is no longer the sole framework where various strategies confront each other: it has broken up on the one hand on the basis of national fractures into as many parties as republics, more or less looking for a base in the nationalist movements. On the other hand, the conservative and liberal currents have made efforts to find a mass hearing outside the party (for the conservatives, the United Front of Toilers, Inter-Fronts in the Baltic Republics; for the liberals the Russian Democratic Front). Finally, a multitude of parties have begun to spring up without any of them being in a position to challenge the CPSU for the moment. In this context, the abandonment of article 6 introduced by Brezhnev to consolidate the "leading role of the party", almost imposed itself on its own.
But more and more conflicts if not a sort of dual power are developing between the party machinery and that of the soviets, many of which are falling to the control of the liberals. There is a general crisis of the regime through its fragmentation.
b) The liberals have speeded up their restorationist course. They are joined by Yeltsin enjoying a temporary popularity thanks to three factors. First, his conflicts with the apparatus and his past speeches against privileges; second the proclamation of sovereignty for a Russian Federation that up until then did not exist, thus scoring points both with Russian nationalists who correctly denounced the nonexistence of institutions representing the Russian people and with non-Russian liberals and nationalists who saw in it a radical weakening of the powers of the "Centre" with the possibility of direct negotiations between republics around reciprocal terms and relationships. Thirdly, the radical free-market speeches appeared to be a response to maintenance of the status quo. The liberals, like the conservatives, will pay for the experience of power with the loss of popular illusions.
c) The national and social movements now go beyond all the limits fixed at the centre. The "full powers" that Gorbachev gave himself are going to come into open confrontation with the sovereignty proclaimed by the republics and the tendency to increased independence for regions, towns and even enterprises, with a growth of social and national exasperation both against the centre and against its paralysis (the demand for a strong hand to restore "order" and the reproach made that Gorbachev is too hesitant illustrates a certain popular ambiguity...).
• Whether a question of independence or sovereignty, it is the articulation between federal and republican powers that has been radically overthrown by the republics. They are increasingly confronted at the same time by close economic interdependence linking them together and the problems they will face in relation to the world market, and finally with proclamations of sovereignty of their own minorities possibly seeking protection from the Soviet Federation against oppressive governments in the republics.
d) Generally, the change in the enterprise law in June 1990 represented an abandonment of the initial characteristics of perestroika and its diversion in a liberal, free-market direction: its logic became privatization and management rights dependent on share holdings, to the detriment of the initial (although limited) powers given to workers' collectives. The wish for Western credits has not been negligible in this evolution, which also reflects the growing support from a section of the intelligentsia and the apparatus for restorationist projects. But this will inevitably give control of the market to mafia-type forces who are using cooperatives to launder and extend the funds previously accumulated. In addition, the growing chaos rather calls for centralist survival measures and makes the recourse to automatic market functioning increasingly difficult and the source of uncontrollable explosions.
• Initially, the "radicals" — including in the presentation of their "500 Day" programme of "transition to a market economy" — kept a demagogic language (Yeltsin, like Walesa, promised well-being for everyone straight away with the market and privatization). But the identification between liberal-market reform and democracy is being increasingly challenged by supporters of a strong-arm solution for imposing the market. They now have some decisive institutional support at the level of the soviets in several towns and republics. The population seems very torn between fear of change for the worse and exasperation with the current impasse.
• This unstable situation is reflected in Gorbachev's persistent hesitations between the different variants of the reforms and the ultimate recourse to methods of direct control beyond formally proclaiming financial autonomy. Overall, the project of bureaucratic reform with a "human face" has failed, the centrist base of support for Gorbachev has collapsed; his room to manoeuvre between conservatives and radical liberals still derives from the weaknesses of their projects, but such manoeuvres are more attempts to manage the disorder than reforms. His recourse to the party apparatus within the KGB and the army to maintain the power of the centre against the chaotic breaking-up of the Union is on a far from firm basis, so deep is the crisis of the whole system. Repression could be used by different forces present, from neo-Stalinists to supporters of capitalism. The liberal pseudo-democrats would only oppose the use of repression in cases where it would aim to maintain the former regimes. Only mass resistance could prevent a recourse to force to stamp out the developing social and national conflicts.
e) With the miners' strike, the Soviet working class has had its first experience of self-organization that will mark future struggles. Independent regroupments of workers on a socio-political or trade union level that have multiplied on various levels, sporadic local actions against the bureaucratic regimes and the massive participation in the elections and national fronts — these are all manifestations of a major political awakening. But there are no independent organizations putting forward coherent programmatic responses that can allow them to avoid the false counterposition that is continually presented: neo-conservatism adopting class-struggle language or free-market radicalism with its radical anti-bureaucratic discourse.
Our central task in the USSR is to help break this false counter-position. It is to support all the experiences and steps towards self-organization of the workers, however fragile, confused and embryonic they may be, as much on the trade union level as on that necessary for forms of self-management as a response to the crisis.