"'As of now (and, remember, 13 years have elapsed since the collapse of the Soviet system!), 38 per cent of the current elite are alumni of the former Soviet nomenklatura. In the regions, this figure is as high as 61 per cent,' says Olga Kryshtanovskaya, head of the Center for the Study of Elites of the Institute of Sociology of the Russian Academy of Sciences." (1)

MIM also came across a World Bank study of the actual oligarchs controlling oil, gas and other major industries privatized. The names that came up from the World Bank are Deripaska, Abramovich, Kadannikov, Mordashov, Potanin, Prokhorov, Alekperov, Maganov, Kukura, Abramov, Popov, Melnichenko, Pumpiansky, Makhmudov, Kazitzin, Bodanov, Khodorkovsky, Lebedev, Lisin, Zuzin, Smushkin, Zingarevich, Rashnikov, Vekselberg, Balaeskul, Blavatnik, Bendukidze, Fridman, Khan, Tahaudinov, Evtushenkov, Novitsky, Goncharuk, Plastinin & Dubinin. Together they have 1.44 million employees.

The 23 individuals or groups that these names are associated with have control of over one third of industrial sales in Russia. The federal government has another 20 percent of industrial sales in business it is connected with.(2) Small and medium size businesses account for the rest--less than half of industrial sales.

In any case, by our very inexact method of looking at the names, we would say less than half the oligarchs are Jews. That's not to mention the government under Russian control. Hence, imagining some Russian national struggle that would simultaneously solve the class question in Russia is completely off-base.

Because of a few Jewish names in the oligarchy, some minority of Russians has continued in the Brezhnev social-fascist tradition of narrow nationalist resentment. The difference between Brezhnev's day and today is that today the various kooky nationalisms are all in the open.

Worst of all are the many people who used to be supporters of Gorbachev or Yeltsin and who now sing an anti-Semitic song. People who wanted Liberal capitalism should not be complaining now about the Jews in the oligarchy. Capitalism combined with attacks on the Jews is a formula for fascism.

It is important to understand that 80% of Russians oppose the privatization of assets of the Soviet Union--or at least the way that it happened. 43% of Russians as of 2003 want another Bolshevik Revolution;(3) though we have to admit that the energy, youth and vitality is not there yet. As a result, resentment regarding privatization and the economic destruction of the Soviet Union planned by the CIA and implemented by the oligarchs has bubbled up as anti-Semitism. Some Russians have gone so far as to become confused about the national question by distinguishing between Russian-speaking Jews and other Russians.

According to Stalin in his essays on the national question, a nation has a contiguous territory, economy, language and culture. Russian Jews do not deprive other Russians of their language or territory and they share the same economy and culture as Russians.

Today the indigenous peoples of the united $tates called First Nations still have land and language conflicts with the settler whites. In contrast, Jews abandoned their national territory in Russia and focused on I$rael if they become interested in the land question. If there is a land question then, it would be for Jews to obtain some in Russia. That should make it clear that seeing Russians as an oppressed nation oppressed by Jews is not what Stalin had in mind. He would not see a cohesive force of use in bringing progress with the incorrect analyses of the Jews we see today.

There is also no race question. Jews are not a race to begin with, but if the question is to what extent discrimination occurs, then again the Jews do not belong in that discussion either. Jews do not control the Russian government or have sufficient power to discriminate against Russians.

There are many situations in the world where a social minority does disproportionately well in business. In Marxism we look at the national and race questions, but we focus our fire where conflict can lead to progress. In those situations where a national struggle can advance the mode of production simultaneously, we favor national struggle. That tends to be the case of all peoples in non-imperialist countries facing Western super- exploitation.

In Russia today, the failure of Khruschev-Brezhnev revisionism has led to various crackpot ideologies to fill in where Marxism supposedly failed. According to the various narrow nationalist and racist ideologies circulating, last week it would be the Jews. This week it is the Chechens. The Ingushes are probably next.(4) These ideas take advantage of feudal provincialism that leads to intra-proletarian strife in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. In other cases, the ethnicities are involved in intra- bourgeois strife that benefits one group of capitalists over another.

As far as the international proletariat is concerned, we do not have a socialist government in Russia or Chechnya or anywhere else in the former Soviet Union or Eastern Europe. Putin and nationalist Russians may see the breakup of the Soviet Union or the attempted breakup of Russia as something to resist desperately, but we internationalists do not become alarmed except by intra-proletarian strife. Alliances with U.$. imperialism and intra-proletarian strife are wrong, but there is no saying what course the national struggle and class struggle will have to take to reforge a new and advanced Bolshevism of steel in the ex-Soviet Union. If Russia has to fall apart before political consciousness strikes the proletariat and people learn how to cooperate anew, so be it. We Marxist-Leninist-Maoists make no fetish of the bourgeois Russian nation-state.

In the former Soviet Union, if there is a national question, it is still the threat posed by Russians to other nationalities. Unlike the oppressor white nations of the West though, there is a Russian proletariat that has proven its internationalism before in the 20th century.

As Mao said in the 1920s, at first glance, some of the violent struggles of then Chinese peasants appear "terrible." Then he became used to them and realized that they portended revolutionary change in China and he called them "fine."

At MIM we oppose the Russian nationalist struggles aimed at Jews, Chechens and now the Ingush people. The people of Beslan in North Ossetia have paid a terrible price for Russia's turning away from the road of Stalin. The solution is not futile intra- proletarian strife and a cycle of revenge but proletarian internationalism.

Notes:
1. "Novaya Gazeta" newspaper, No. 63 (963), August 30--Sep 1, 2004.
2. Financial Times 7April2004, p. 7.
3. Jean-Marie Chauvier, "Russia: Nostalgic for the Soviet Era," Socialist Viewpoint 15May2004, p. 36.
4. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/3635722.stm

Dar Zhutayev assisted the research of this article.

Ironically, at both the Democratic National Convention and the Republican National Convention, and before the massacre of schoolchildren at Beslan, many topics came up, but one was the Chechens. One persyn said that Stalin's deportation of the Chechens during World War II was a "human rights violation."

We pointed out to our critic that our sister party the Russian Maoist Party was the only one doing anything to oppose the war on the Chechens. Few other parties would get out of step with Russian nationalism; even though Lenin is still regarded as the greatest Russian leader of recent times and he called Russia imperialist at a time when Russia was less powerful than today.

We should also say that deportations in Stalin's day were rough affairs. Both supplies and train power were in short supply as the battle against the Nazis raged. Some people deported to new places died in the difficulties they faced. If it had been any other time but World War II, these deaths would have stood out more. Overemphasizing these deaths is a way of whitewashing Hitler, and blaming the Russians for their relative backwardness, which is why even some families deported did not disagree or at least their children or grandchildren came to understand.

According to writers on the editorial page of the Boston Globe, 25 or 30% of the Chechens died in the deportation by Stalin, "the highest of any of the nations deported under Stalin."(1) This is likely an irresponsible charge. MIM has seen no evidence for it. We have seen a lot of evidence that each nationality has its writers who think their particular nationality sacrificed or suffered the most under Stalin. Such stories sell well in the West.

That is not to mention another important consideration: the vast majority of Stalin's purges and the Chechen deportation happened in the midst of the worst single war in world history. According to some English phony communists, "In 1940 a nationalist revolt broke out which climaxed in 1942, with the Nazi army just 300 miles away. Chechen nationalist leaders Hassan Israilov and Mairbek Sheripov issued an appeal declaring that the Nazis would be welcomed as guests, providing, of course, they were prepared to support Chechnya’s independence."(2)

Islamics aimed at a republic of some small administrative units that would be called "counties" in the united $tates today. Like many other county-sized countries or provinces in the ex-Soviet bloc, some Chechens have the illusion that they could have established a country independent of both the Soviet Union and Germany during World War II. That is something that not even Poland with its tens of millions was able to do. Like the other Nazi collaborators, some Chechens today are still talking about how the 1940 insurrection occurred while Stalin and Hitler had a pact; although it is very clear that the Chechen insurrection in 1940 affected Soviet geopolitical interests negatively. That's not to mention the 1942 insurrection of Chechens followed by the 1943-4 deportation of six nationalities in the region. Leaders who cannot understand how the 1940 insurrection adversely affected Soviet interests via the Germans only demonstrate their incompetence to offer political leadership. Those Chechen leaders and their Liberal allies talking about this to this day demonstrate an unrealistic attitude akin to having one's head in the sand.

For MIM, the failure to understand Nazi goals and ideology during World War II is the tell-tale sign of an ignorant and provincialist outlook. Had the many ethnicities won fabulous success in their insurrections in the Caucasus or Eastern Europe, the Nazis would have rolled over them and exterminated them before these county-sized units would have had time to put up anti-Soviet statues glorifying their war heroes. Now all these ethnicites are in an endless cycle of revenge and while we side with them against Russia, we at MIM are not going to encourage a misreading of Nazi history to do it.

We do the same thing in the united $tates. We support county-sized units--many First Nations for instance--in their national struggles against U.$. imperialism. Their struggle is realistic because there are many other nations oppressed by imperialism who are their objective allies. We do not support First Nations in looking down on Blacks or in supporting imperialism. That's how the struggle in the united $tates is completely different than when Nazis are rampaging through Europe.

Countless political leaders of the countries and provinces squeezed between Berlin and Moscow never accounted for the global forces at work and thereby failed their peoples entirely. Today they have to fight battles against Nazi statues--an indication of just how poor the nationalist leadership of these county-sized units was during World War II. Instead of refighting the battles of failed political leaders during World War II, the countries and provinces between Berlin and Moscow today should disown the failed leaders of the past, celebrate the Chechens and others who fought the Nazis and move on.

Russia is in peacetime in 2004, so it's hard to imagine why these ethnic cleansings still go on. As hard as it is to imagine, we do have to account for it.

In the case of Chechens and Ingushes, Khruschev let them back into the Caucasus after their deportation to Central Asia. This supposedly closes the case on Stalin's supposed criminal nature. Yet, today we see Chechens and Ingushes fighting neighbors they did not used to have thanks to Stalin's deportation. We do not know if the Chechens are right that Putin is responsible for a six digit figure of deaths in Chechnya. Khruschev let the Chechens back in, but now the political children of Khruschev and the Russian partners of Bush in the "war on terrorism" have leveled Grozny. The evidence for that is indisputable--with pictures in all the Western papers. MIM fails to see much humynitarianism in letting the Chechens and Ingushes come back just to fight more. The leaders since Stalin either did not know what they were doing in the relation of class and national forces or they wanted to stir up ethnic fighting to generate Liberal capitalism.

One thing about going to a money economy and abandoning socialism is limiting Putin's options regarding North Ossetia. His military and security forces are corrupt in a way that Stalin's were not.

In a capitalist economy, the solution to corruption is to outbid possible competitors. In a country like the united $tates, where super- profits flow in like water at Niagara Falls, most government officials have good pay. Even so, occasionally a government official gets into debt for an ostentatious lifestyle or is too junior and finds him or herself bribed by someone who can eliminate financial worry. Such openings for bribery are 50 times worse in Russia.

Putin admitted that a factor in the Chechnya and North Ossetia questions is the corruption at the borders. Under Stalin and Mao, cash transactions came under suspicion. The gains possible from corruption were less and the possible punishments greater. That goes for drugs, a black market in weapons or just planning terrorist attacks.

Someone who took a bribe of say $10,000 under Stalin or Mao would have few places to spend it and would only end up being caught. True, smaller items such as cigarettes did abound in matters of corruption, but few Russians or Chinese would deny that corruption was much less under Stalin or Mao respectively.

It is popular among the Russian people to blame the smaller nationalities for being "backward," being narrow, needing subsidies and causing the collapse of the Soviet Union. Yet it was the Russians as a people who had the most blame for putting Khruschev in power and making narrow self- interest the watchword of society. Once the pursuit of profit, bribes and selfish ends started in the economy, there was no reasonable expectation that the nationalities would not start looking to their narrow goals as well. In contrast, when the Russians crack down on Russian corruption within a Russian socialist society, only then will other neighboring nationalities tend to think they have a chance of fostering positive economic relations with the Russians.

Note:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-4473664,00.html

Pre-emptive strikes and the "War on Terror":

How Bu$h de-stabilized the whole world

"States that harbor terror, as the President has made clear, will be held accountable." --White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan September 16 2003 (1)

"Nations that continue to support terrorism, continue to harbor terrorist groups will be considered hostile." --State Department spokesman Richard Boucher October 3 2001 (2)

"With respect to the war on terrorism across the globe, the task is to see that terrorist networks are rooted out, and that the countries that harbor terrorists no longer harbor terrorist networks." - -"Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld," January 8 2002 (3)

"The United States draws no distinction between the terrorists and the regimes that feed, train, supply and harbor them." --Condoleeza Rice January 31 2002 (4)

After promising to "roll back" and "destroy" regimes that "harbor terrorists" such as the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, the Bush administration now condemns terrorism in Russia's Beslan, the actions that killed more than 326 people, approximately half children at a school. At the same time, the United $tates and England called on Putin to negotiate with the "terrorists."

According to Russian President Putin, the United $tates and England are harboring terrorists. Putin has asked for extradition of the "terrorists" Akhmed Zakayev (asylum in England) and Ilyas Akhmadov (asylum in the united $tates).(5) By Bush's logic, Putin would also be right to attack the United $tates and England for giving political asylum to aides to the "terrorist" leaders.

Putin is testing whether the West sees him as a co-imperialist or not. The Washington Post has been quite critical lately. The New York Times and Boston Globe are too, to a lesser degree. The Boston Globe defended Aslan Maskhadov,(6) now deemed a "terrorist" by Putin. In the same editorial the Boston Globe gave Putin no credit for his election victory--this coming from the country with the banana republic election in Florida 2000.

So far the English imperialists are verbally backing Putin's right to pre-emptive strikes against terrorists, but they are saying they need evidence to extradite the supposed Chechen terrorist. It reminds us of what the Taliban said about extraditing Osama Bin Laden.

Although Russian imperialism holds no promise for the Russian people, it can have the effect of holding up a mirror to the Amerikan people and this helps those of us trying to spread internationalism a little bit here. At the same time, it may mean that Putin will copy Bush and start dropping bombs on Georgia or other neighbors.

Macedonia is another place that has jumped in on the Bush logic with disastrous consequences. "Macedonian police gunned down seven innocent immigrants, then contended that they were terrorists, in a killing staged to show they were participating in the US-led campaign against terrorism."(7) The police smuggled the seven Pakistanis into Macedonia from Bulgaria and then killed them in 2002--all in an attempt to please Bu$h.

Notes:
1. http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/09/20 030916-6.html
2. http://telaviv.usembassy.gov/publish/peace/archive s/2001/october/100411.html
3. http://islamabad.usembassy.gov/wwwh02011004.html
4. http://usembassy- australia.state.gov/hyper/2002/0131/epf407.htm
5. http://www.guardian.co.uk/russia/article/0,2763,13 01219,00.html
6. "Putin's Potemkin Election," Boston Sunday Globe 14Mar2004, p. h10.
7. Boston Globe 1May2004, p. a8.

Yes, there were Nazi collaborators

In all of Stalin's repressions during World War II, which did not start with the bombing of Pearl Harbor but with the invasion of Ethiopia by Italy and the Spanish Civil War, we hear Liberal historians and journalists continue the Cold War refrain that Stalin invented all the Nazi collaborators. Yet, today there is a continuous stream of news proving Stalin's critics wrong, but the Liberals keep on singing the same old song. We will talk about just two struggles that came up in August and September of not 1944 but 2004.

An example--World War II caused crying of villagers in Sveti Rok in Croatia. This would not be a news item except it was in August, 2004. Funded by Croatians in Australia and Canada who fled their country when the Nazis got beat in 1945, the mementoes to fascism that have gone up in recent times included a plaque to Mile Budak and a statue to fascist Ustasha leader Jure Francetic (1) responsible for mass slaughters of Serbs, Jews and Gypsies. Hitler had given these Croats an extremely rare honor by officially counting all Croats as part of the supposed Aryan super-race of people.

The fascist statue had already stood for years when under pressure from the Roman Catholic Church and others, the Croatian government realized it had to come down--in August 2004. In doing so, the Croatian government adopted crypto-fascism by condemning "both" communism and fascism. Considering that the government officials carrying out the orders were former Ustasha fascists themselves, it is not surprising.