Democratic illusions hold back the development of class consciousness

We are publishing a statement by sympathisers of the ICC in the area of the ex-USSR about the demonstrations against electoral fraud which brought together tens of thousands of people in Moscow, St Petersburg and nearly 80 other cities last December.

It is particularly significant that these massive mobilisations are taking place in a country which was at the epicentre of the world wide counter-revolution for decades (since the mid-1920s in fact), a country where the proletariat was physically and ideologically crushed by Stalinism, and in the name of communism. Furthermore, the collapse and dismemberment of the USSR in the 1990s, one of the phenomena which marked capitalism’s entry into the final phase of its decadence, the phase of decomposition, pushed the disorientation and demoralisation of this part of the world proletariat to new heights. These recent movements are strongly marked by this whole history and are weighed down with major illusions in democracy. And yet they too are one expression of an international dynamic which, beginning in the Arab countries, has swept through numerous countries (the latest being Rumania), with all strata and classes of the population who are victim of capitalism protesting against the miserable present and the catastrophic future to which this bankrupt system is condemning them. Beyond the immediate spark of the electoral fraud, it is the deep dissatisfaction with their living conditions which is pushing large sectors of the population and of the exploited in Russia to express their discontent and to try to break out of the passivity which the Putin clique tries to maintain by insisting on complete acceptance of its regime of terror and exploitation. In this sense, the emergence of these movements is a major event.

On 4 December 2011, parliamentary elections took place in Russia. The electoral fraud involved was so cynical and insolent that it has aroused the indignation of hundreds of thousands of citizens. Tens of thousands of people took part in the protest demonstrations, calling for ‘honest elections’, in different cities in the country. But it should be noted that the great majority of these ‘indignants’ cling to democratic illusions and are fighting to improve the capitalist system rather than oppose it through the class struggle.

Rich and poor together in the street

The biggest demonstrations took place in Moscow on 10 December, at the Bolotnaia Square and Avenue Sakharov, where there were tens of thousands of people, according to a number of estimates. There were many different slogans and political forces, with liberal banners next to red flags, nationalist banners next to the red and black flags of the anarchists. But the majority of the demonstrators didn’t belong to any organisation or political tendency.

The main demand of the demonstration was for ‘honest elections’. Many people who are not politically committed wanted to do no more than make the authorities subject to the law and to achieve peaceful democratic changes. In general, the great majority was deaf to calls for revolution or any kind of radical action.

We should also note the extremely varied social composition of the demonstrators. On the one hand there were businessmen, former members of the government (including the former Prime Minister Mikhail Kassianov), show-biz stars, well-known journalists and even socialites like Xenia Sobtchak whose father Anatoli Sobtchak is a political sponsor of Putin. On the other hand, there were many ordinary people: office employees, students, factory workers, pensioners, unemployed people…according to some observers, the social composition of the demonstrators in the provinces (which means practically the whole of Russia apart from Moscow and St Petersburg) was more proletarian than in the capital.     

The reasons for the protest and the reactions of the Kremlin

There is no doubt that the world economic crisis was the catalyst for the protests in Russia. Despite the official optimism of the authorities, the crisis is being felt more and more by ordinary people. The electoral fraud at the 2011 parliamentary elections were just a pretext for the mass demonstrations. The demand for ‘honest elections’ was the common feature of all the large-scale mobilisations, from the far east to the two main cities, Moscow and St Petersburg.

Internet networks became the main ideological weapon of the opposition to Putin. There appear to be hundreds and even thousands of videos showing violations of electoral law. There hasn’t however been much attempt to verify them because the electoral tricks were more a formal pretext for people’s outrage, whose real causes, as we have said, lies in the general discontent of millions of people.

For their part the authorities claim that the accusations of electoral fraud are largely unfounded. The Kremlin is also running a media campaign aimed at presenting the demonstrators as being under the influence of western agents in the service of Uncle Sam and the State Department. However they are genuinely afraid of this general discontent and the Putin regime has been obliged to make certain concessions. For example Medvedev has recently promised a few democratic reforms, notably the re-establishment of direct election of regional governors, which was abolished a few years ago by Putin on the pretext of the struggle against terrorism.

Democratic illusions

There is no doubt that the discontent has social causes. Russia, as part of the world economy, is going through the same crisis as other countries. Ordinary people in Russia, like millions of workers all over the world, are beginning to understand that capitalism dos not offer them a bright future. But this feeling has not yet been transformed into class consciousness. And the democratic illusions imposed by bourgeois propaganda have a real weight. Unfortunately, many people do not yet understand that elections are nothing but the right of the oppressed to choose a representative from the ruling class at regular intervals (to use Marx’s expression). And whatever face power assumes, its nature is always the same, capitalist and exploitative. What does it matter if this or that president or deputy is elected? The proletarians, the manual and intellectual workers, are still deprived of the means of production and of political power, and remain exploited. The workers will not win any social emancipation unless they organise themselves (as in the Paris Commune of 1871 or the soviets of 1905 and 1917) and overthrow the capitalist system, because only a change in the system will put an end to exploitation.

Who is at the head of the opposition to Putin?

The liberals, the ‘left’ (above all the Stalinists) and the nationalists have put themselves at the head of the movement. They have come together to form the Coordinating Centre ‘for honest elections’. Among the leaders of the opposition there are people like Boris Nemtsov, vice-minister under Yeltsin who made no small contribution to all the looting that took place on the backs of the Russian workers.

In short, Putin’s rivals will get little sympathy from the Russian proletarians. People won’t forget about the poverty, the non-payment of wages and pensions they experienced during the days when some of today’s opposition were in power. The leaders of the opposition have no shame about using the discontent of the masses for electoral ends. This time, it’s for the next president. In the protest demonstrations, they call on the electors to vote ‘as they should’. But it’s quite clear that even if the current opposition replaced Putin and his regime, the workers would get no benefit.

The tasks of revolutionaries

We know very well that the demand for honest elections has nothing to do with the class struggle. But we have to be aware that among the tens of thousands of demonstrators, there are many of our class comrades. In such a situation, we have to openly criticise democratic illusions, even if that doesn’t help us to gain sympathy among the partisans of ‘honest elections’. Without an understanding of what is at the root of all today’s problems – the nature of the capitalist system – there will be no development of revolutionary class consciousness. This is why, despite the media barrage around the elections, revolutionaries have to tirelessly unmask the falsity of bourgeois ‘freedoms’. While criticising the errors of those taking part in the demonstrations for honest elections, we should never forget the difference between the bourgeois ‘opposition’ which wants to use the discontent of the masses to gain comfortable places within the organs of power, and the ordinary people who are genuinely indignant about the impudence and dishonesty of the current Kremlin authorities.

And as the experience of equally sterile protests as the ones in Moscow has shown us, a radical spirit can emerge very quickly. Even a month ago no one could have predicted that tens of thousands of people would be out on the street protesting against the Putin regime.

Our revolutionary duty is to expose the real nature of the Putin clique and of its political opponents. We have to explain to the workers that only the autonomous class struggle for the overthrow of capitalism and the construction of a new society without exploitation can really resolve their personal problems and the problems of humanity as a whole.

ICC sympathisers in the ex-USSR, 1/12