News from the former Soviet Union

UPDATE: Council-communist worker group Rostselmash, partner of MPST-AIT to which number of Anarchist, left-libertarian revolutionary and similar groups of the west donated money during the winter, seems to be locked out from the Rostselmash factory complex from now to forever. In the same time, workers staying inside have big trouble - speed ups have resulted working time increase to 12 hours 6 days a week, and bosses are talking about further increase to 13-16 hours. The area has been surrounded by barbed wire. Rostselmash-people are almost unable to go inside factory area to distribute materials. This far workers are too apathic and afraid to be locked-out to do any protests, big majority of the workers have been in practice sacked althought formal staying inside during the last 10 years of the structural adjustment.

During the summer Rostselmash-activists will do well in the substistence economy, where they will quite likely stay for some years at least. Thus no activity inside factories in Rostov-na-Donu to come in the near future. They are for sure very thankful indeed to everyone who donated, since now they made it over the winter.

- - -

MPST-AIT (Russian IWA-section) lost their best regular contact inside factories, when autonomous council communist group "Rostselmash" get sacked as a whole in Rostov-na-Donu. "Rostselmash" consists of around 10 workers who worked in huge factory complex area in Rostov-na-Donu, which used to employ 50 000 people in the soviet era but due to downsizing currently only employs small part of that amount.

"Rostselmash" has edited bulletin "New worker's movement" together with MPST-AIT, and it also distributes paper of MPST, "Direct action" in Rostov-na-Donu. It is fiercelessly fighting against attempts of parties of all leninist directions to gain control in the factories.

MPST-AIT managed lately to establish a contact with a worker's group in
Voronezh.

Addresses:
Rabozevo komiteta "Rostselmash"
P.O. Box 1173
344091 Rostov-na-Donu Russia

MPST-AIT
p.o. box 34
117485 Moskva
http://mpst.tsx.org
mpst@hotmail.com

Since the e-mail is most likely not functioning now, you may contact via me as well: antti@polly.phys.msu.su

-Antti Rautiainen

ANTI-NUCLEAR CAMP IN FRONT OF THE NOVOVORONEZH NUCLEAR PLANT

10TH anniversary of the environmental action camps in Russia: 10 years of the learning how to effectively resist to dangerous industrial projects

International action camp near the Novovoronezh nuclear plant in Russia will be established on August 17, 1999. Since 1989, every year environmental activists from different groups are camping across Russia to protect the nature and public health from dangerous influence of nuclear, oil, forest and other industries through the non-violent direct action and environmental education.

Novovoronezh nuclear plant was established in 1964, it's one of the oldest nuclear plants in Russia. Two nuclear reactors are shut down but not decommissioned and remains dangerous because the spent nuclear fuel is not removed from reactors. Presently, 3 units are in operation at the NV NPP - unit 3 and 4 of VVER-440 design and unit 5 of VVER-1000 design. In 2001-2002 two more units of VVER-440 design at the NV NPP will reach their 30th anniversary and have to be shut down. Several IAEA expert groups concluded that it's impossible to upgrade the Soviet-designed VVER-440s up to western safety standards. Russian Minatom (Ministry of Atomic Power) announced plan to build 2 more units at this nuclear plant. (You can request more information on technical condition of the NV NPP through the contact information below)

Nuclear Safety

Russian nuclear industry presently faces the great lack of cash and can not fund even its own program of the safety upgrade and reactors' repairing. Russian government is not able to extract large subsidies for nuclear industry and the consumers aren't able to pay for reactors as well. In this situation nuclear reactors must be shut down/replaced by the renewable energy and implementation of the energy-efficiency technologies. In Russia, where nuclear reactors generate about 12% of energy and potentials for efficiency are great, such replacement will help to establish a new system based on the sustainable and safe energy.

Plutonium and MOX fuel

Russian Minatom included the NV NPP into its MOX program consist of using the weapon grade plutonium as reactor fuel. This program will lead to more nuclear accidents and the proliferation of weapon-grade materials. Antinuclear camp is part of the global campaign "NIX MOX" of Russian environmental groups working for the prevention of nuclear threats and for establishing of the safer energy system.

Camp

Each person, agreed with the fundamental principles declared by the camp organizers, can take part in the camp. These principles are non-violence, no drugs/alcohol. Bring your tent, waterproof clothes and climbing gear. For more information contact:
Antinuclear campaign of the Socio-Ecological Union, phone +7(095)278 4642, +7(095)776 6546, e-mail: anc@ecoline.ru and <aln@glasnet.ru
ECODEFENSE!, phone/fax 7(0112)437286, e-mail: ecodefense@glasnet.ru
http://www.ecoline.ru/antinuclear/eng/

Striking Workers in Russia Need Solidarity

The workers of a machine building works in the small town Yasnogorsk, in the region of Tula in Russia, haven't obtained their wages for about one year. They began a strike in the fall of 1998 and occupied the factory. The workers protest against the administration forced by incorporation and hinder bringing out to sell the equipment and the fabricated wares. They organized for this aim the Workers' control. It is very important that this is actually the only real example of self-organized and assemblerist workers struggle in Russia. All decisions about the situation and actions or about the sell of fabricated wares from stock are taken in general assemblies (so called meeting) organized every second day. The "Council of work collectives" is composed of simple workers without special charge or privileges: It play the role of public strike committee and is independent from political or party influences.

It is typical that the "Yeltsinites" and the "Communists" are both against the workers. Tula region is govered by the "opposition" Communist Party, but the regional government is a strong enemy of Yasnogarsk workers and makes the same economic politics as the Neo-Liberal rulers of the Russian State.

In February, State control was installed in the factory after the decision about bankruptcy. The new administration will try to crush the workers' control and force the workers to work without obtaining their wages. The administration started the repression: All meeting, assemblies and strikes were illegalized. But for the moment, the workers don't respect the decision of the administration and continue to strike. It is possible that in the next weeks the police will be installed in the factory. There are the hungry fainting in the factory.

The struggling workers of Yasnogorsk need international solidarity. The example of this auto-organized struggle is very important for the workers in Russia and merit the support of the international anarcho-syndicalist movement.

We urge all to send telegrams in solidarity with the workers of Yasnogorsk machine building works and in protest against the actual and planned repression. The address for telegrams is:
Yasnogorki Mashinostroitelny Zavod, Profkom
Tul'skaya oblast, gerod Yasnogarsk
301030 Russian Federation

- V. Damier, CRAS-IWA, Moscow
(edited for clarity by On Gogol Boulevard News Service)

When the Shock Troops of Capitalism take a Nose Dive

By Laure A

This week in Russia, the failures of the criminal oligarchy finally reached home for everybody; there can be no more illusions about the health of the Russian economy. The economic crisis has now reached the upper echelons of the working class to an extent never seen in the recent era of so-called economic "stability".

Millions of workers across Russia have gone without payment of wages and poor living standards have not allowed the vast majority of the people here to enjoy the fruits of consumer culture but in Moscow, relatively high wages and a concentration of wealth which supported a booming consumer culture have stood in stark opposition to the overall economic realities amd have softened much of the working class, offering the promise of better times. By allocating 48% of the budget to the capital and through the development of an elite class, Moscow has appeared as some sort of perspective, a place where a middle class existence, long the ambition for many Russians, had just begun to emerge as a more widespread phenomenom. This new Moscow, as designed by Mayor Luzhkov, has acted as sort of a Potemkin city, a place with gleeming facades put up to disguise the poverty within it and beyond its borders. Indeed, much of the consent given to the system was based on the illusions of Moscow. Now, as the Russian financial pyramid is beginning to crumble, thousands of workers who keep business big and small running have been hit below the belt.

The first major problem is the possibility of panic and widescale inflation. So far, major panic has not set in. (Although it must be said that some account holders who can't access their money have come close to rioting.) Compared to the problems of 1992-1993, things are calm; most likely this is due to the fact that the artificial stabilization of the rouble, which partly led to the current crisis, made people more confident in the economy. Many do not believe that everything will be lost, unlike the fatalist feelings of the early 90s. Enough people have kept reserves in cash and haven't gone months without pay - they won't understand until they are squeezed like the miners, teachers and scientists who haven't got their wages. Everybody has taken a beating but for many, the death blow has yet to strike.

Many yuppies earning top salaries were dismayed to find that they simply couldn't withdraw any money from their bank accounts. (The situation was worse for those whose salaries get transferred to banks in the middle of the month.) There is a threat that some of these banks will go into bankruptcy or fail to pay out for an extended period of time. The biggest losers will be those who kept their accounts in roubles, the people who believed the currency had stabilized and those who invested in short-term bonds. These people will now find that all the work they've may come to nothing; the system really isn't working for them.

While many people have no sympathies for yuppies or anybody with any money, the fact is that mass sympathies for these people will help foster disillusionment and may be the thing to mobilize the nation. (In this sense, the government knows it has to do more to protect these people than they have to help out the miners.) If you study the history of revolutions, you can see that rarely do any great uprisings stem solely from the poorest segments of society; the greatest social upheavals have occurred when the interests of the bourgeoisie have coincided with the poor and working class. These people have more power and more social respect. They are the shock troops of capitalism and if they abandon the faith, something is bound to happen.

Is a new revolution possible in Russia? It must be said that Russians are more weary of change than many; what they want more than anything is stability. This partially explains why there hasn't been more protest already. Everything will depend on how much semblance of stability the government can offer; the one thing that WILL get people moving is more chaos and a sense of impending doom. The future of the economy is not clear; the pyramid has collapsed but they may be able to con yet more people into helping prop things back up again. We are all just sitting and waiting to see.

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