Boris Yeltsin, the president of the Russian Republic and the chief counterrevolutionary figure in the Soviet Union, visited Germany on Nov. 22. The trip to the city of Cologne was for the purpose of negotiating with German big businessmen in an attempt to win investments and loans for the Russian Republic from the German bourgeoisie.
Yeltsin's visit has considerable importance for several reasons. He intended, of course, to orient the German bourgeoisie, and in particular the industrialists in the high-technology field, to conduct business with him as the head of Russia, the largest republic in the USSR.
A shift in relationships from Gorbachev to Yeltsin
This would mean that the economic and political relationship between Germany and Russia would inevitably supersede the federal relationship previously negotiated between Mikhail Gorbachev, the president of the USSR, and Helmet Kohl, the Prime Minister of the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG). It would signify a profound shift in relationships.
The FRG swallowed up the German Democratic Republic (GDR), which was facilitated by bourgeois/former Communist Party elements in the Hungarian government and the Gorbachev regime. After that, Gorbachev and Kohl engaged in extensive, comprehensive negotiations on the relationship between the FRG and the USSR.
But this was all before the August coup in the Soviet Union. Yeltsin's challenge to the USSR as a unitary state and to Gorbachev as its head had not yet come out into the open.
New situation after coup attempt
After Aug. 19, however, under pressure of the counterrevolutionary elements, Gorbachev dissolved the Soviet Congress of People's Deputies. He then handed most of the power of the People's Deputies over to the various republics. This accelerated the process, which he had begun earlier, of dismembering the USSR. Soon it was on a run-away course.
What has been happening in the USSR is not so much the devolution of power from the central government to the various republics, but the disintegration of the USSR as a whole. Presumably, this has redounded to the benefit of the Russian Republic and its inhabitants. But such an assertion is belied by the growing severity of the economic crisis and the disarray in Russia as well as the other republics, all caused by the attempt to overturn the socialized economy.
There have been continual negotiations between the federal government and the republics over treaties of union and the like. To date, however, they have not stood the test of time.
Be that as it may, the USSR still exists as a "juridical entity," according to historian and deputy Roy Medvedev. But whether it exists de facto is another question.
The counterrevolutionary elements are working hand in glove with allied imperialism--especially the U.S.--to dismember the USSR. Whether the existence of the USSR as a juridical entity still has considerable significance at this time depends on the outcome of the struggle between these elements and the broad mass of the working class,the latter are showing more readiness and willingness to combat the growing threat of full-scale bourgeois counterrevolution.
Zbigniew Brzezinski, the former foreign policy adviser and national security chief during the Carter administration, has been campaigning for deepening the breakup of the USSR. He urges that less and less attention be paid to the Gorbachev regime. Bush and his advisers, however, are for holding on to Gorbachev while at the same time they continue to work on breaking up the USSR and are making separate economic and diplomatic agreements with the republics.
Will Germany deal with Yeltsin or Gorbachev?
The agreements between Kohl and Gorbachev were made before the August coup, after long and comprehensive discussions. Kohl, of course, also consulted with Yeltsin, but the agreements were consummated between the two heads of state, between the FRG and the USSR as it existed before the coup.
Since then the situation has undergone a radical change. So the German bourgeoisie and government now find themselves on the horns of a dilemma over how to deal with Yeltsin.
Certainly, those agreements which pertain to Eastern Europe and the liquidation of the GDR were specifically made with Gorbachev as head of the USSR. The German bourgeoisie's problem is that its deals with Yeltsin, even though undertaken by representatives of German big business and not necessarily the FRG as a state, imply a move toward recognition of the Russian government. By virtue of the size and importance of the Russian Republic, these deals could overshadow any agreements made with Gorbachev acting on behalf of the USSR.
Times have changed
Yeltsin's visit to Cologne comes at a time when the mood of the world bourgeoisie, particularly in Germany, differs fundamentally from when Gorbachev and Kohl were negotiating the treaties and agreements that were consummated more than a year ago. At that time, the liquidation of the GDR and the prospects for trade, investments and the penetration of imperialist capital into eastern Europe and the USSR had all generated a mood of euphoria in bourgeois circles.
By contrast, Yeltsin's present visit to Germany comes at a time when the imperialist bourgeoisie everywhere, but particularly in Germany, are seized by a mood of profound pessimism. They are becoming all too aware of the problems attendant on the liquidation of the GDR and the prospects for trade, investment and the penetration of imperialist finance capital into the USSR.
One of the purposes of Yeltsin's visit, of course, was to raise the spirits of the German bourgeoisie with tall promises of great opportunities for them in Russia.
Question of the ruble
First he went to great lengths to assure the German finance capitalists that he would work hard to make the ruble convertible (which he deems necessary to facilitate trade with the capitalist countries). He apparently doesn't remember, or maybe doesn't even know, that capitalist Germany was the USSR's principal trading partner in the capitalist world not long ago, when the USSR did not have a convertible ruble. That's because the USSR at that time, before the Gorbachev camarilla took over, was among the most credit-worthy governments in the world.
The USSR then wasn't going hat in hand to the G-7 (the seven biggest imperialist countries) to beg for credits and loans. In fact, the imperialist banks were competing with each other to loan the USSR money because of its excellent credit standing and, more significantly, because its economy was thought to be stable, if not prosperous. Also, the USSR was the world's second-largest gold producer, and was ready to secure any loans with its huge gold reserves.
What's the situation now? The German industrialists were not very impressed by Yeltsin's promises of a convertible ruble. He gave no timetable for the convertibility.
They wanted to know how quickly he would effectuate the capitalist reforms in the Russian Republic, now that it was "completely sovereign" and could carry out an independent policy. For all his big promises, his answer was most revealing.
Yeltsin promises capitalism, but can't deliver
From the beginning of the Gorbachev administration, Yeltsin had been publicized in the Western capitalist press as the maverick who was for speeding up the capitalist reforms. His difficulties with Gorbachev arose precisely from their difference in pace in restoring capitalism in the USSR.
Now he is at the head of the largest state of the USSR. He certainly must have complete authority to accelerate capitalist restoration, free from the restrictions and hindrances which plague the Gorbachev leadership.
Wasn't Yeltsin in Cologne to assure the German bourgeoisie that now everything would go full-speed ahead?
But the head of the bourgeois regime in Russia said that over the next three years "a third of the republic's large, state-owned enterprises would be converted to private ownership." (New York Times, Nov. 23)
This must have astonished his big-business audience. Here was the great accelerator, the man who had constantly attacked Gorbachev for tardiness and vacillation in converting socialist state ownership into capitalist enterprises. And what does he promise? That over a three-year period only a third of the socialist-owned enterprises would be converted to private ownership.
Now, that's taking a slow boat to China.
What does it all demonstrate? Not the unwillingness of Yeltsin and his counterrevolutionary cohorts to subvert the socialized industries into capitalist enterprises, but their inability to do so. That's the crux of the matter.
Can't persuade the workers
It has now been six years since the Gorbachev administration attempted to introduce their well-publicized capitalist reforms. They have found insurmountable obstacles. Most important is their inability to persuade the masses to accept the well-known ills that go along with conversion to capitalism: unemployment, the lifting of price controls, inflation, and the general chaos that follows when the equilibrium established in socialist industry over decades of centralized planning is disturbed.
The headline in the New York Times said, "Yeltsin leaves Germans dubious. Industrialists and politicians question commitment to the market economy." Yeltsin is committed to it, alright. But can he and his cohorts carry through the capitalist restoration? That's the question in the minds of the German industrialists he's trying to persuade.
Horst Siebert, the head of the German World Economic Institute, commented on Yeltsin's speech: "The framework is not there yet." What he meant, of course, is that the capitalist framework is not there yet. He added that "capital will only begin to flow in there when a credible program is announced and placed in effect." That comes as a cold shower after the lofty promises made by Yeltsin.
The German bourgeoisie, like that in the rest of the world, are no longer so enthusiastic about the prospects for the penetration of Soviet industries and their rapid conversion into thriving capitalist enterprises, where maximum superprofits would flow as easily as the water over Niagara Falls. On the contrary, what they know now is that large loans must first precede any outflow of maximum profits.
The risks are all too great, and they are of an economic as well as political character. The USSR, it is true, is in a state of transition from a basically socialized economy into a capitalist system. However, the bourgeoisie dreams of rapid, fundamental change that would convert the USSR into a reservoir of superprofits, which would flow into the coffers of Western capitalist banks and treasuries, may turn out to be pure fantasy.
What has happened in the USSR thus far is a counterrevolution in the political superstructure. There has been accompanying damage to the economic structure. The counterrevolution has not, however, been able to make the necessary and indispensable qualitative change in the economic structure of the USSR that would make it a viable area for capitalist superprofits.
Certainly a great deal of damage has been inflicted on the economy of the USSR. But if the counterrevolutionaries have their way and proceed with their plans, the severity of the economic crisis can provoke a genuine proletarian resurgence of a type which would topple this narrow bourgeois current now at the helm of the Soviet Union.
The cool reception in Cologne to Yeltsin's lofty promises is shared by the world bourgeoisie. Their pessimism at the moment reflects not only their dim prospects for superprofits in the USSR, but the state of the capitalist economy in general. There are no longer any capitalist economists able to deny that a full-scale capitalist crisis is penetrating every nook and corner of their decadent social system.
As for the U.S., all one has to do is pick up any capitalist newspaper and see the flow of data from the capitalist government itself. It verifies that what the masses are now enduring is not just a small-scale recession, but a full-scale and enduring capitalist crisis.