Oleg Shein is the only elected revolutionary Marxist in the new State Duma of Russia. He is one of these characters who seems to work non-stop around the clock, seven days a week.
The group he represents, the Movement for a Workers Party (MWP), was formed in August as a unification of 31 organisations. The MWP united several small revolutionary Marxist groups and trade union branches connected with many workers' struggles, including Zaschita, the only militant national union in Russia.
Shein spoke to STEVE MYERS for Â鶹´«Ã½ Weekly.
Question: To what you owe your success in the election in Astrakhan?
In the Astrakhan region, there are two organisations of the working class. There is the United Workers Front, which is the political wing, and the union, Zaschita, which leads the predominantly economic struggle of the class. The UWF is a Marxist organisation founded in 1989, and in 1995 it formed Zaschita. The UWF is based on internationalism, and calls for the nationalisation of large and medium scale capital and the establishment of workers' power.
Together the UWF and Zaschita combine many years of experience in the fight for the rights of working people. Our organisation has conducted dozens of strikes, including occupations, hundreds of legal actions against the bosses, blockades of roads, mass meetings.
Over the years we have won the payment of wage arrears, the raising of wages, the reinstatement of workers illegally fired and we have successfully resisted attempts by bosses to simply evict workers from company housing onto the street.
In 1998 we organised a tent city under the windows of the regional governor demanding payment of wage arrears, a halt to the bankruptcy of factories and the dismissal of the local public prosecutor. It was our organisation that helped to defend the rights of small street vendors, Chechen refugees, and mothers who have not received proper assistance from the government.
Understandably, this fight was not easy. For example, the public prosecutor repeatedly tried to instigate suits against myself and my comrades for our "illegal" strikes, eight of our comrades have been physically attacked and one especially talented organiser, Oleg Maksakov, was killed by a gunshot to the back in the spring of 1999.
The bourgeois press has dumped buckets of insults on us, as of course have the official Russian "communists" from Gennady Zyuganov's Communist Party of the Russian Federation (KPRF), who serve the bourgeoisie.
The election victory confirmed the high standing of the UWF and Zaschita among Astrakhaners. It is also telling that we won outright in areas dominated by the working class, and the results of this election confirmed the class nature of our organisation.
Question: How do you intend to use your position as a member of the State Duma to advance the cause of the working class?
It's hard right now for me to judge what is possible for a Duma deputy to accomplish. But from my point of view, the principal work of a deputy is not to sit in that warm meeting hall and press the voting buttons.
I want to use my position to support struggling collectives fighting for their rights, to organise contact between workers' groups from all areas of the country, to publicly oppose anti-worker legislation, to politicise the workers' movement in Russia and to facilitate the formation of a Russian workers' party.
The first steps towards that goal have been taken. Zaschita is an organisation that spans the whole country and has members and locals not only in Astrakhan, but in Komi, the Federal Atomic Centre, in all regions of European Russia and in the Urals. Not long ago the Siberian Federation of Labor joined with us.
The founding conference of the Movement for a Workers' Party, in August in Moscow also means that possibilities for the growth of this work have significantly widened.
Question: How do you propose to unmask Zyuganov's "reformism"?
The best way to expose the careerist officials of the KPRF, who live off the word "socialism", is by the practical organisation of the working class and by defending the rights of all workers. The other Stalinist "Communist" parties, which blamed the KPRF for moving away from Marxism, met a gruesome fate in these last elections. People in Russia need deeds, not mere words.
Neither the KPRF nor the other parties in Russia express the interests of the working class. The general logic of each is simply to state (to the people) "Give us power!". These parties fight for their own power, not that of working people, which is something that people very clearly understand.
It's not surprising then that the Communist Party based its election campaign on public nostalgia for the social benefits that people fondly remember from the days of the Soviet Union. If one looks at the statements of Prime Minister Putin, Zyuganov, or even of Barkashov, the leader of the Russian fascists, there is no visible difference between them.
Yet voters do not know that the KPRF's elected deputies vote in favour of all government budgets, for any candidates for the post of prime minister, for the passage of anti-worker legislation. It's absolutely necessary to tell the people about this.
Question: To what developments in Russia do you attribute the growth of Russian nationalism?
Russian nationalism has more of a shade of wounded pride than it does a racist tone. The election results prove this. Parties who won seats did so on the issue of strengthening the state, not on open chauvinism. Over the past ten years Russia has existed in a state of national humiliation.
It is necessary to mention that the anti-Chechen mood has been warmed up for quite some time, since 1992-93, because the authorities needed some lightning rod.
The Chechen state itself gave enough reasons for this mood. Racism towards the Russian-speaking population, the multi-million dollar financial schemes, kidnappings, slavery, the stealing of cattle, executions and tortures, constant threats to "liberate" the northern Caucasus from "kafirs" [infidels], the intervention into Dagestan by the Wahhabites — all created a very negative attitude to what was going on in Chechnya.
It is quite telling that at the start of the war in August it was the peoples of Dagestan, ethnically close to the Chechens, who were most opposed to the Chechen leadership and Wahhabism [an Islamic fundamentalist sect]. Dagestan is the only territory in Russia, where Wahhabism and Islamic extremism are prohibited by law.
Then, after some residential buildings had been blown up, public defence detachments were formed in practically all large cities in Russia. They guarded residential neighbourhoods around the clock. Finally, on the pretext of struggle with the "Caucasians", the businesspeople of other nationalities solved their own problems, pushing their competitors from the market.
One has to keep in mind that the war of 1994-96 has sharply increased kin ("teip") divisions in Chechen society. Practically all industries have been destroyed. Large Â鶹´«Ã½ of agricultural land remained mined. This is another reason why the Chechen economy became reduced to one of consumption and Chechen society lost stability.
Maskhadov [the Chechen president] simply could not stop Islamic extremists. It should be noted that all prominent politicians — who demonstrated their "patriotism" — became discredited for various reasons. This is why the "small victorious campaign" has served as a springboard for the presidential promotion of Putin, until then an unknown special services officer in Yeltsin's circle.
Except for his role in this war, Putin did not do anything to prove himself in the eyes of Russian society. This is why the current failures of the Russian army in Chechnya weaken him before the presidential election.
In the future, Russia will hardly be able to control the territory where, as the result of two wars, every family experienced death and mutilation. The economy has been totally destroyed. And there is simply no money to rebuild it. This hardly bothers the Kremlin.
Essentially, this war has been conducted for the elections. This is a political war.
[Translation by Steve Kerr — with help from Willi Firth and V. Bilenkin.]