[lbo-talk] What Would Have to Happen First

[Marv Gandall]

Hyperinflation destroys social benefits as effectively as cutbacks and yours is the only account I've read which suggests that health, education, pensions, and other popular programs from the Soviet era remained intact in the decade following the dissolution of the USSR, and that the nomenklatura did not benefit from the redistribution of state properties. Yeltsin's shelling of the Parliament was a storm in a teacup compared to the bloody widespread repression which has historically accompanied counter-revolutions and aborted popular uprisings. That incident did not alter the fact that capitalism was already being restored peacefully in the fSU, contrary to the expectations of Marxists and others did not concieve that the working class or bureaucratic caste or a new state capitalist class (take your choice) would consent to the restoration of private ownership, abolished after the Russian Revolution, without a struggle. But I don't intend to engage in further wordplay with you as in previous threads, so you can have the last word.

On 2010-02-14, at 1:47 PM, Chris Doss wrote:


> The social safety net was not destroyed, but largely remains intact. Half the population of St. Petersburg gets state benefits to this day. In fact, Yeltsin INCREASED the amount of benefits available to various groups. Russia's economic problems in the 90s were not due to an attack on the social safety net, but because of hyperinflation and capital flight.
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> Yeltsin shelled the Parliament in 1993, which is some serious conflict.
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> Also, while some of the nomenklatura did benefit, note that almost none of the oligarchs were former nomenklatura. Berezovsky was a mathematician. Gusinsky was a theater director. I don't recollect what Abramovich was, but he grew up in a state orphanage and did not come from a nomenklatura background. The only two people I can think of offhand who actually were from the nomenklatura were Khodorkovsky (former Komsomol leader) and that guy who runs Lukoil.
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> ----- Original Message ----
> From: Marv Gandall <marvgandall at videotron.ca>
> Last gasp of the old order, no? By that time, it was pretty clear that the reintroduction of private property relations was irreversible. Yeltsin and Putin were more typical of the evolution of the CPSU nomenklutura, much of which benefited directly from the privatization of the energy and other major industries. The aging party ranks were a spent force who could do little other than peacefully protest the assault on their living standards which accompanied the destruction of the social safety net.
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