By Renfrey Clarke
MOSCOW — On the afternoon of April 28, several hundred representatives of Russian state structures, political parties, trade unions and religious and social organisations gathered in the Kremlin to sign President Boris Yeltsin's Pact on Social Accord. The ceremony, Yeltsin assured those present, was proof that Russia now possessed "an alternative to confrontation".
Of those who signed the document, many seem to have done so with a sense that they were taking part in a pompous but rather foolish piece of theatre. As originally announced, the pact would have bound participants to join with Yeltsin in putting large parts of Russia's normal political life into mothballs. But in order for the range of signatories not to be embarrassingly narrow, presidential staffers were later forced to delete or smooth over a long series of the pact's more contentious points.
As a result, journalists in pro-Yeltsin newspapers complained that the final version of the document "lacked clout". Instead of placing a ban on the use by presidential opponents of "destructive" tactics, the pact was said to have been reduced to a list of pious wishes.
This, however, was not strictly true. The sections of the document that bear on the Russian labour movement — sharply reducing its scope for action — passed through the drafting process almost unchanged.
The country's mass trade union formation, the Federation of Independent Trade Unions of Russia (FNPR), became locked into Yeltsin's new structure after FNPR leaders voted on April 27 to endorse the pact. As a result, militants who are trying to defend the jobs and buying power of trade union members are now likely to face increased pressures — not just from the state authorities and Russia's new nomenklatura-mafia bourgeoisie, but also from central leaders of the workers' movement.
Described in one account as "the focal point of Yeltsin's work this year, and his only major domestic initiative", the pact was presented in a nine-page draft on April 5. Under the terms of this draft, signatory organisations were obliged to renounce a range of political goals and methods of struggle for the next two years — in effect, until the presidential elections due in 1996.
Signatories were to refrain from trying to amend the new Russian constitution, widely criticised as enshrining a virtual presidential dictatorship. No attempt was to be made to seek early elections.
Russia's 21 ethnically defined republics were to bring their constitutions into line with the new Russian charter, dropping all claims to independent sovereignty.
Trade unions and producers' organisations were to desist from calling strikes around demands for the reallocation of budget funds and the provision of state benefits. They were also to refrain from violating obligations toward partners.
An arbitration commission was to be set up, with authority to rule on alleged breaches of the pact. In clear breach of the constitution, this commission was to be given wide powers to dismiss parliamentary deputies accused of violating the pact's general provisions.
Of the forces allied with Yeltsin, only those closest to the president sprang immediately to the pact's defence. Other liberal groups were sharply critical.
Former Moscow mayor Gavriil Popov, a key figure in the Russian Movement for Democratic Reform, described the document as reminiscent of Communist-era May Day slogans. Economist Grigory Yavlinsky, leader of the liberal "Yabloko" bloc, described the pact as misconceived, vague, and ultimately, unimportant. "Yabloko", he indicated, would not sign it.
However, the pact was neither half thought out nor inconsequential; in drawing it up, Yeltsin had a deliberate strategy in mind. The content of this strategy was suggested by the president in a speech on April 20, when he pledged: "We'll tell Russians about those who don't sign the agreement. This will show who the people are who have least concern for the lives of Russians, for the revival of Russia."
Attacking those who refused to sign his pact as extremists, Yeltsin aimed to isolate and grind down his consistent opponents. Meanwhile, more faint-hearted critics would be bound in a straitjacket of "social accord" from which they could break free only at peril of being black-listed along with Stalinist and ultranationalist groups.
For this strategy to work, Yeltsin needed to be able to intimidate most of the factions of the parliament into signing his pact in something close to its original form. But it quickly became obvious that since the violent days of last October, the president had lost much of his ability to twist the arms of reluctant supporters.
Early backing for the pact was sparse, and the idea of branding critics such as Popov and Yavlinsky as "communo-fascist extremists" was too preposterous even to be tried. Yeltsin was forced into retreat.
Several times a day after April 22, new variants of the pact appeared as one interest group or another was appeased. The revisions and accommodations extended through the night before the signing.
According to the newspaper Segodnya, the signatories were not given a chance to make a detailed study of the final version that was set before them on April 28. Most signatories do not seem to have been concerned by this, considering that so many of the pact's teeth had been pulled by this time that signing it had become no more than a symbolic act.
For the trade unions, however, the stakes remained very serious. As well as binding the FNPR to oppose the demand for early elections — one of the few meaningful demands around which workers in technically bankrupt Russian enterprises can campaign — the pact also banned strikes connected in any way to the question of state budget funding.
In the case of state-owned enterprises, this obliged the FNPR leadership to oppose almost all strikes, even those aimed at forcing the government to assign money for the payment of back wages. In privatised industries the situation was little different, since there are few sizeable enterprises in Russia that are not closely dependent on government funding decisions.
For the FNPR leadership, signing Yeltsin's pact thus amounted to handing the government a sweeping no-strike pledge. This was at a time when unions had an acute need to be able to use all effective methods to defend their members, and in circumstances where the pressures from the government were not especially strong; many of Yeltsin's liberal allies had rejected the pact, as had the large and influential Communist and Agrarian parties.
These points were made forcefully by leaders of sectoral and regional union bodies at an expanded meeting of the FNPR executive on April 27. Of the invited delegates who spoke on the pact, almost all condemned it and demanded that the FNPR refuse to sign. Sentiment among rank-and-file union activists, the speakers argued, was solidly hostile to the document.
Nevertheless, the members of the executive voted overwhelmingly in favour of signing.
Yeltsin's success in intimidating the FNPR leadership has left many activists in the labour movement angry and disillusioned. Strike actions will continue — decisions of the FNPR leadership have the force only of recommendations to member unions — but the government now has another weapon for isolating and breaking these struggles.
Criticism of the FNPR executive's decision has been especially sharp in Siberia, and in the coal, oil and gas industries. Rather than splitting from the FNPR, opponents of the federation's present course are likely to continue struggling within the organisation, aiming to redirect its strategies and replace its leadership at a special congress.
One of the long-term effects of the Pact on Social Accord may thus be to set in train a political renovation of Russia's umbrella union organisation. For the present, however, the FNPR leadership's capitulation has left the country's labour movement divided and weakened.