Daily Times

The sudden outburst of violent protests in Moscow, St Petersburg and other large cities of Russia after the fraudulent parliamentary elections are the largest since the collapse of the Soviet Union 20 years ago. Twenty-four hours after the polls closed in what the opposition dubbed Russia’s dirtiest vote, more than 5,000 people poured into central Moscow, denouncing the election as a fraud and chanting, “Putin out!” More than 1,600 people have been arrested in the first three days. The demonstrations this weekend could be much larger. This unrest has exposed the seething discontent and malaise that afflicts Russian society. It shows a changed relationship between parties and classes. After two decades of capitalist restoration, the suffering of the masses has worsened. In spite of the blatant rigging, the result was a blow to Putin. His party, United Russia, obtained just under half of valid votes cast, losing its two-thirds majority in the Duma (Russian parliament). Without blatant rigging the real result would have been much worse. The Communist Party of the Russian Federation (CPRF) leader Gennady Zyuganov said, “Throughout the day it was like receiving reports from a war zone. It was theft on an especially grand scale. Police had barred Communist monitors from several polling stations across the country. Some ended up in hospital with broken bones.” In some regions the sum of votes cast for all parties exceeded 140 percent. In the Caucasus region of Chechnya ruled by Putin’s man Ramzan Kadyrov, United Russia’s result was 99.5 percent. It is perhaps appropriate that a similar result was achieved in a Moscow psychiatric hospital. United Russia is now popularly known as a ‘party of thieves and crooks’.

Twelve years ago when Putin came to power on the basis of widespread revulsion with the rule of western stooge Boris Yeltsin, he enjoyed a certain public approval. His nationalist demagogy of ‘standing up to the west’ and pretentions of taking actions against the oligarchs who had enriched themselves under Yeltsin temporarily assisted him. The collapse of the Soviet Union led to an unprecedented catastrophe in which 60 percent of the economy collapsed. There was a wholesale plundering of the state by big business, former bureaucrats, and criminal syndicates. It was this period that gave birth to Russian oligarchs and their obscene wealth and pulverisation of the Russian people by these gangsters. This plundered wealth was then paraded on a world scale resulting in property prices rocketing sky-high in places like London. However, the main reason for Putin’s success was the economic recovery after the crash of the Russian economy in 1998. Russian nominal gross domestic product (GDP) rose to $ 1.9 trillion as compared to $ 200 billion in 1999. This growth in the GDP has been almost entirely due to the increase in the prices of Russian oil and gas exports. Now the illusions have evaporated. The attack on one section of the oligarchs by Putin was just to transfer the plunder to another gang associated with his clique. Huge fortunes were made by a few but the vast majority of the population is worse off than before. Levels of inequality have soared. The growth rate of 4.5 percent this year has not been of much benefit to 143 million Russians. Living standards have been eroded by high prices, decrease in real wages, unemployment and a crumbling welfare system. The masses compare this with the obscene riches and vulgar corruption at the top. Alan Woods wrote on Marxist.com last week: “The people in Russia have now got the worst of all worlds: the chaos, exploitation and inequality of capitalism and the corrupt, authoritarian and bureaucratic state left over from Stalinism.”

The impact of the worst slump of world capitalism in 2008 is beginning to bite the economy. After the fall of the Soviet Union, Ted Grant had written in the Socialist Appeal in the 1990s: “A slump in world capitalism, which is likely in the next few years, would completely undermine the attempt to consolidate a capitalist regime in Russia. Just as the 1929 slump led to the collapse of the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera in Spain. The road will be open to revolutionary developments. The illusions in capitalism would be utterly destroyed, and the stage would be set for a new October, but on a qualitatively higher level.” Parliamentarianism and democracy are no more than a facet in Russia. The Duma is a mere rubber stamp body of the Kremlin. Putin’s dictatorial methods and statements show the Bonapartist nature of the regime. His nationalist rhetoric is sounding more and more hollow. Its impact on the people has waned. His anti-west stance has no real substance. It is not the Cold War scenario of conflicting economic systems. After all, they are both based on the same economic paradigm: capitalism. Contradictions and belligerence between the two are more of an imperialist nature. This result has dented Putin’s credibility and control. It may not be a Putin coronation in the March 2012 presidential elections anymore.

The main winner in last Sunday’s election, 20 years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, was the Communist Party. The CPRF has doubled its vote and will be the second largest party in the Duma. Although the Zyuganov leadership has degenerated into reformism, yet the CPRF is the only serious opposition. Its increase in support reflects a growing undercurrent of frustration and discontent in Russian society. Even sections of the middle classes disillusioned with Putin and the Kremlin clique are turning towards the CPRF. A Reuters report quotes a 27-year-old freelance location manager in the film industry Yulia Serpikova, “With sadness I remember how passionately I vowed to my grandfather, I would never vote for the Communists. It is sad that with the ballot in hand I had to tick the box for them to vote against all.” For most Russian workers, the old Soviet Union, with all its faults, was far preferable to what they have now. The idea that ‘things were better before’ is now beginning to infiltrate the wider layers of youth for the first time. After all, in spite of a totalitarian regime, health, education and other facilities were free for the masses. In spite of the policies of Zyuganov, the support for the CPRF will grow. When the movement erupts it will rapidly radicalise the CPRF and push it to the Left. Social democracy and reformism have failed in most advanced capitalist countries. How can it deliver in the crisis-ridden Russian mafiosi capitalism? The events in Russia reflect the new revolutionary epoch that is dawning across the planet. Bolshevism is yet again the only real road to revolution and not only in Russia.

The writer is the editor of Asian Marxist Review and International Secretary of Pakistan Trade Union Defence Campaign. He can be reached at ptudc@hotmail.com