A Talk with Yuri Skubco

...Whether groups such as the Democratic Union will become leading participants in a liberal Soviet democracy, or mere anomalies in a long tradition of dictatorial rule, only history will tell...

...As a precondition for remaining in some successor entity to the Soviet Union, every republic has declared that no authority can overrule its decisions...

...We soon felt the need to create an opposition within the existing political structure, because the evils that had touched our lives over the last 70 years were basically a result of the monopolization of the country's politics by one group...

...Skubco: Our first program recognized the value of perestroïka and called for cooperating with the reformist elements of the Communist Party...

...Although the KGB raided the dacha, broke up the meeting and arrested several of the participants, we managed to complete the congress at a nearby train station...

...In the worst circumstance, a majority of them would blame democratization...

...He can impose presidential rule anywhere...

...Skubko: Yes, there are linkages...

...This government would recognize the independence, or at least sovereignty, of all the other republics...

...McFaul: You have sketched a dreary picture for the future of your country...

...Although the Soviet economy is collapsing and the Soviet Imperium is crumbling, President Mikhail S. Gorbachev failed to articulate a comprehensive strategy for responding to either crisis...

...When the country moves from its present period of semi-free elections and powerless soviets to some sort of normal multiparty parliament—in our view, we must re-elect the Constituent Assembly that was ousted by the Bolsheviks in 1918—I think the Democratic Union will have a chance of gaining up to a third of the votes as a radical opposition party...

...Michael McFaul, a new NL contributor, is a research fellow at Stanford University's Center for International Security and Arms control...

...For instance, we can work with Yuri Afanasiev, whom we consider to be a genuine democrat...

...In the first issue we suggested setting up support groups for perestroika, and this eventually materialized in various ways...

...that is absolutely out of the question...

...Our inaugural congress, held at the dacha of Sergei Grigoryants, the editor of the magazine Glasnost, was attended by over 150 delegates from 20 cities...

...McFaul: In this scenario, what role will the Democratic Union play...

...To endure the very painful transition period we need a democratic government, a government of national trust, to lead us...

...It was inevitable that as soon as the strong military and KGB pressures from Moscow lessened, the republics would start moving toward independence...

...Last October he received a 15-day jail sentence for taking part in a demonstration to have the KGB's Lubyanka Prison transformed into a museum...

...Theytake part in the activities of the strike committees in different parts of the country...

...The Chinese have done itandtheWesthasswallowedit...

...But we will not cooperate with any institutionalized structure of the Communist Party...

...This process is continuing...

...And within a year or two, the Soviet Union as a country would disappear from the political map of the world...

...To skeptics Skubco can reply: Who in July 1989 would have predicted that Vaclav Havel would be the leader of Czechoslovakia...

...Later, we again widened the scope of our activities to cover the entire Soviet period...

...Even the autonomous republics such as Tartar and Bashkir, or the Crimea region of the Ukraine, may leave...

...For example, the recent trade agreement signed between the United States and the Soviet Union will strengthen the government and make it more resistant to change, thereby provoking greater violence, a heavier collapse and a more catastrophic situation generally in the near future...

...Its objective is to push the Communists out of power...

...This, in turn, would encourage resistance from large sectors within the Party—particularly the nomenklatura, the 'securacracy' and the upper echelons of the Army...

...Formed in May 1988, it has spearheaded the forces for democratic change from below, calling for an end to one-party rule and an official denunciation of the cult of Leninism...

...Skubco: Yes...

...We also advocated deideologizing the State, Army and police, disbanding the KGB, and permitting independent worker and student organizations...

...Despite their criticism of many government actions, they see perestroïka as a social revolution that will dismantle the Communist totalitarian system and lead to democracy...

...Individual members of our moderate wing believe the goal can best be achieved by working both from within and from without, and therefore participate in elections and take seats in Soviet elected bodies...

...Naturally, there would be a period of instability...

...Our objective was to try to organize a party for the transitional period from totalitarianism to democracy that would combine a broad range of political orientations—from Eurocommunists to classical democrats of the Thatcherite type...

...For tactical reasons, we cast it as a strictly anti-Stalinist group and did not bother the corpse of Lenin for awhile...

...He is not prepared to give independence to the republics, because then he will lose his personal power...

...Inspired by those meetings, four of us—Yuri Samudorov, Victor Kuzin, Pavel Kudyukin, and myself—established Memorial in August '87...

...He will be spending the 1990-91 academic year as a visiting scholar at Moscow State University...

...To some extent, the intention appears to be to attract the minds of the democratic intelligentsia and pump new blood into the ruling power structure...

...Our aim was to enlighten—to tell the truth about the whole history of Communist totalitarianism—and thereby work toward dismantling the system in every sphere of life...

...He is trying to revive the Party by cooperating with the Russian nationalist forces...

...We still consider the Party to be a totalitarian organization...

...After the formation of the Democratic Union, many more moderate organizations sprang up...

...The same pattern occurred with the Christian Democrats...

...They are responsible for the poor living standards of our people...

...In short, we advocated a normal democratic civil society...

...When big price increases for food or alcohol went into effect, there would be a public outburst of violence...

...Some Democratic Union members took part in preparing those strikes, but on a general level there was no cooperation...

...Skubko: I cannot advocate that the West support Gorbachev, because that will continue our agony...

...The strike activity started independently...

...At our second congress in 1989, we changed our charter to limit cooperation to contacts on a personal level...

...Given the present velocity of revolutionary upheaval within the USSR, however, for many here that is not enough...

...Democratization will lead to the dismantling of the empire, because the Soviet Union was artificially created...

...They proved to be quite fruitful...

...But now he feels his future is connected with democratization, and he wants to join forces with the democratic movement...

...McFaul: Have other parties appeared subsequently...

...Regarding the economy, Yeltsin has on his team radical economists who support extensive privatization...

...During these sessions, the old dissidents released from the labor camps met the new, young generation of dissidents who were disillusioned with the system but had not yet organized to oppose Communist totalitarianism...

...If Yeltsin succeeded in challenging Gorbachev and establishing Russian sovereignty, the power base of the central authorities, the nomenklatura, the Army, and the KGB would be so threatened that they would not dare to use force to regain control...

...McFaul: How would you describe the best-case scenario...

...We have come to feel that it is simply an attempt to save the doomed ineffective system by shifting from totalitarian to authoritarian rule, with all the people of the nomenklatura retaining their positions and decisionmaking power...

...Skubko: In most cases it started during and after the '89 strikes...

...He has brought two fascists into his Presidential Council—Veniamin Yarin, Co-chairman of the United Russian Workers' Front, and Valentin Rasputin, Secretary of the Union of Writers, who is a gifted writer but one of the ideologists of the Pamyat society...

...After seven decades of totalitarian rule, we wanted to revive the whole spectrum of political and social life...

...Yeltsin could then organize a coalition government that would include some members of the Interregional Group and representatives of the newly-formed democratic parties...

...When not functioning as an activist, Skubco is a Research Fellow at the Institute for African Affairs of the Soviet Academy of Sciences, where his area of concentration is the political economy of South Africa...

...He can blame all the troubles on the democrats, start persecutions and disregard world opinion...

...Skubco is a founding member of the Democratic Union, the first and arguably the most radical of the new political parties...

...One of them was the formation of the political club named Perestroika in April of 1987, and it became a sort of 'clearing house' for different spontaneous associations...

...He also works closely with the publishers of Svobodnoe Slovo (The Free Word), the Social Democratic Party, the Democratic Platform, and the Helsinki Watch group in Moscow...

...Nonetheless, the Communist Party in its present form will break up and ultimately will have to withdraw from political life...

...McFaul: Recently there has been a virtual explosion of 'informal' political organizations in the Soviet Union, and now independent political parties are emerging...

...Interestingly, Memorial initially announced it would commemorate the victims of Communism from 1918 onward...

...Unfortunately, we do not have a Solidarity-type organization that is trusted by the bulk of the population, but there could be some multiparty combination headed by a populist like Yeltsin...

...This was a very important event, because we openly proclaimed that we were an opposition party supporting the principles of political, economic and ideological pluralism—concepts that were still taboo in May '88...

...The Social Democrats organized an association, then a confederation, and this past May they started a political party...

...This might be called Her Majesty's Opposition, because it consists of moderates working within the current Soviet system...

...Skubco: From the beginning of 1987 when political prisoners started to return, many of us thought it was high time to initiate the activities that are needed in a normal civil society...

...Born in 1953, Skubco started writing and distributing samizdat publications while studying at the Institute of National Economy in Moscow...

...For example, do you have affiliations with trade unions, youth organizations, women's organizations...

...From 1984-89 he was blacklisted from all international travel and participation in academic conferences...

...It sprang up as a result of workers' conditions and the political situation in the country, rather than because it was specially organized by someone...

...Of course, Gorbachev is not prepared to take this critical step...

...The bulk of the State enterprises must be transformed into shareholding companies, with some shares given to the workers' collectives and others sold freely...

...There would be social outbursts, violence, strikes, and really a social revolution if there were no change of government...

...For members of the Democratic Union, Gorbachev's fall would mark the beginning, not the end of progressive change...

...Skubko: Yes, it is possible...

...Yet they agree with the democratic community's basic tenet about the need to move from totalitarianism to a Western-style pluralistic democracy...

...For this to happen, Gorbachev would have to retire...

...Instead, his concern about fending off the conservative majority in the CPSU led him to once again chart a vague "middle course...

...So you should allow those of us who want to cooperate with the Communist Party and promote perestroïka to wage some limited independent democratic activity.' McFaul: Does the Democratic Union have any relationship with the Communist Party...

...Where we differ with the Interregionalists is in the assessment of perestroika...

...LEADER OF THE DEMOCRATIC UNION A Talk with Yuri Skubco By Michael McFaul Moscow The 28th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), held last month, was to a large extent a nonevent...

...Yeltsin comes from the same Party ranks and, being ambitious, could become a dictator as well...

...As in Eastern Europe, the reformers who came out of the Communist Party would have to be replaced by candidates completely untainted by the system...

...This could provide a good transitional structure...

...McFaul: Speaking of pressure from below, does the Democratic Union or similar democratic parties have vertical links with other organizations...

...McFaul: How would you evaluate the activities of the reformist Communists working within the various legislative bodies of the Soviet Union...

...But what is most important is the situation in the Russian republic...

...But, of course, all this is in an initial stage and is still very limited...

...McFau!: Are you suggesting that Gorbachev might try to rule by martial law...

...We have reached the point where the whole system is falling apart...

...Workers make up a rather large percentageof the Democratic Union...

...Moreover, those who look forward to becoming private entrepreneurs do not have any faith in the regime...

...Because the economy is a shambles, we have to start everything from the beginning...

...Everything that could be done has already been done...

...Yet no republic will accept a strong executive president with the dictatorial powers that Gorbachev has now...

...Representatives from the Vorkuta, Sakhalin and Mogadan strike committees came to Moscow to consult with us, use some of our documents and establish a closer relationship...

...Skubco: There has been an effort to organize a parliamentary opposition, the so-called Interregional Group...

...They would be left to rule themselves the way they wish, following the pattern in Eastern Europe...

...How would you describe the worst-case scenario...

...And because of the stubbornness of the central authorities, because the government does not hesitate to use force whenever it sees its power threatened, we are unfortunately moving toward a Romanian-type solution rather than a Czechoslovak or German solution...

...The regime wants to use them as junior partners, the way the East European countries did when they let small parties function as appendages of the Communist Party in a united front...

...Our overriding conviction, though, is that nothing fundamental can happen without outside pressure from below: strikes, public meetings, all sorts of public demonstrations that will compel the existing power to resign...

...You see, even if his government were ready to change to a market economy, it would not work...

...A year and a half later they were adopted by the whole democratic movement, and at the beginning of this year they were even tacitly acknowledged officially when the notorious Article Six of the Constitution, affirming the Communist Party's total control, was finally renounced by Gorbachev...

...We must now completely disband the structures continuing to hold it together...

...McFaul: Was this cooperation initiated before or after the outbreak of strikes last summer...

...This approach remains possible here because the small political parties pose no real danger to the Communist Party...

...He already has the dictatorial powers...

...At the anti-government rally in Moscow this past February 25, he shared the podium with Yuri Afanasiev, Yeltsin and others, speaking as a representative of the non-Communist democratic parties...

...Who are the major challengers to democracy...

...We are moving toward an economic and social collapse in a matter of months, not years...

...In addition, he was one of the four people who founded Memorial, a society devoted to commemorating the victims of Stalinism...

...TheCommunistsseem unable to do much more than bumble along...

...it is determined to pursue total reform...

...In other words, onlythe facade is changing...

...These ideas were published and distributed among the democraticallyminded intelligentsia...

...Frequently, the strike committees showed an acute interest in cooperating with opposition political groups, just as in Poland Solidarity worked with people from the intelligentsia...

...It does not matter whether the Bolsheviks were earnest or crooks from the very outset...

...The Democratic Union probably is less a political party in the usual sense than a path-breaker for others...

...Since then we have met on several occasions...

...Given the political situation today, and the fact that he has greater public appeal than any other leader, the democrats should cooperate with him...

...Skubko: First, the independence of the Baltic states would be accepted...

...Around the same time, Valéry Novodvorskaya and Igor Tsarkov were released from prison and they started the Democracy and Humanism Seminar, aimedatinfluencingpeoples' consciousness and promoting the notion of an opposition party...

...They would want to retain some kind of authoritarian rule with strong State paternalism...

...Who in July 1917 would have predicted that Vladimir I. Lenin would be the leader of the Soviet Union...

...In Donetsk, Kuzbass and Vorkuta Democratic Union branches actively cooperate with local strike committees and the independent workers' movement...

...Skubko: Since any serious reform will have to involve dismantling a lot of State ministries and cutting back military institutions to a minimum, millions of people would be thrown out of work...

...Itwas organized through force and deceit on the remnants of the old Russian empire...

...McFaul: Could you briefly evaluate the current state of perestroikal Skubko: Perestroika was an attempt to modernize the existing system, and it has come to its logical end...

...For many of us, it is a criminal organization...

...Indeed, chaotic and unpredictable conditions are bound to last for several years even in the best of circumstances...

...Skubko: I think it has a political future as a radical democratic opposition...

...A mutual friend introduced me to Yuri Skubco in Moscow in the fall of 1989...

...This was not so much an opposition group as a civil rights society devoted to commemorating the victims of Stalinism...

...We need each other, so economic links will be maintained along with some political links, but the USSR as we know it has to go...

...Some, like Russian Republic President Boris N. Yeltsin, Moscow Mayor Gavriil K. Popov and Leningrad Mayor AnatolySobchak, have quit the Party, thereby underscoring their feeling that it is no longer central to the fate of the country...

...they are being co-opted into the system...

...In 1987, with Vladimir Kuzin, he launched a magazine called Viewpoint, which helped to establish the first perestroïka clubs in Moscow and elsewhere...

...The United States should support the emerging elements of civil society—the private entrepreneurs, the independent press, the genuinely independent social and political organizations—and not the existing power structure...

...It was the most radical, and therefore the most persecuted, group in the early years of glasnost...

...The people now enthroned—the members of the Communist Party leadership— are responsible for the critical problems of our society...

...Such a scenario may be supported by Gorbachev...

...The conversation below took place one afternoon this summer in his mother's art studio on the outskirts of Moscow—after Skubco, perhaps out of feree of habit, unplugged the telephone and inserted a piece of cardboard in the jack to muffle any KGB listening devices...

...Besides our efforts at raising the public's consciousness through the dissemination of democratic views, we have helped to open up a whole range of moderate undertakings...

...For example, Victor Kuzin [currently a deputy in the Moscow Soviet] and I started an informal magazine called Tochka Zreniya (Viewpoint...

...How did all this develop...

...They liquidated all opponents, and any political body that lacks competition becomes corrupt and starts the process of 'fascisization.' So in May 1988 we launched the Democratic Union, the first opposition party in the Soviet Union since the advent of Bolshevik rule...

...What would need to happen for there to be a peaceful transition to democratic rule...

...Martial law would then be imposed, and many people would be appeased by the restoration of order...

...The staterun organizations must be broken do wn in several stages and the various supervising bureaucracies must be replaced, perhaps by one ministry of industry and one ministry of agriculture...

...Gorbachev is also not ready to disband the Communist Party, but I think the 28th Congress will be remembered as its last...

...We must try to limit inflation, strikes and violence, but they will occur...

...All rights of private property and foreign investment must be guaranteed...

...McFaul: How can the United States assist in the transition to democracy...

...In the bargaining between the other informal groups and the authorities, the argument always went like this: 'If you do not let us act, then the young generation will join the more radical people like the Democratic Union...

...Others, like Yuri Skubco, have for several years been involved in creating new political parties and organizations intended one day to provide a real democratic alternative to the CPSU...

...The Communist Party and the ideology of communism are so unpopular that suffering the painful transition to a market economy under the current Communist Party government would be absolutely unacceptable...

...There is a strong attempt being made to concentrate real power in the hands of Yeltsin and the democratic and populist bloc that backs him...

...Eventually Yeltsin, too, would have to go...

...But the Democratic Union has refused to go along...

...When some members of the Democratic Union in Siberia appeared in Novokuznets and took part in meetings there last summer, Gorbachev denounced them as vultures...

...He could conclude that it is the only way to preserve his power...