Putin's promises of reform reflect the limited success the procapitalist regime of Boris Yeltsin had in dismantling the nationalized property ownership and social relations in Russia in the 1990s.

These conquests of the 1917 revolution still survive and remain barriers to the reinstitution of capitalist exploitation. In particular, the abolition of private property in land carried out by that first, Bolshevik-led government, has erected a formidable obstacle.

"We will focus on guaranteeing the full rights of owners and investors," declared Putin three days before the March 26 presidential election. "The right of ownership must become a priority in Russia.... We will need to make the state strong enough to guarantee implementation of these rights."

Such declarations have won qualified approval from Washington. The imperialists are less enthusiastic, however, about Putin's emphasis on strengthening the country's military. Since he replaced Yeltsin as president, Putin has issued six decrees involving the armed forces, including reestablishing military training in Russian schools and mandatory training for reservists. Putin recently signed orders to call up 20,000 reservists and announced a 50 percent increase in military spending.

Although the Russian president emphasized his commitment to ratification of the Start II nuclear arms reduction treaty, he also stated plans to bolster the country's nuclear arsenal.

"We will preserve and strengthen the Russian nuclear weapons complex," Putin told a meeting at the Chelyabinsk-70 nuclear weapons center near Snezhinsk. During the latest war against Chechnya, the Kremlin broke from its no-first-strike policy involving nuclear weapons and decreed the right of Moscow to use them if "other means of conflict resolution have been exhausted or deemed ineffective."

In a move to consolidate his grip on Russia's armed forces, Putin issued a decree that authorizes the Federal Security Service (FSB), the domestic intelligence agency, to oversee some 200,000 troops under the Interior Ministry and 100,000 border guards. The new measure integrates counterintelligence units throughout the armed forces into the centralized system of the FSB.

The FSB is the successor to the KGB, the Soviet intelligence agency, which included the border force before the breakup of the Soviet Union. Putin, who began his career as a KGB agent and was appointed head of the FSB in 1998, said he plans to bring "into my inner-circle people from law enforcement bodies." This move would include former colleagues from the KGB.

"The FSB is taking on the role of a political police force within the army," remarked Sergei Yushenkov, deputy chief of parliament's security committee and a former army colonel. "It's another sign that since Putin took over, the secret services are trying to control all structures of power in Russia."  
 

Putin regime preparing iron fist

The Putin regime is preparing an iron fist to maintain political stability in the event of rising mass protests, upheaval among the military ranks, or another uprising among Russia's oppressed nationalities. Two years ago a national survey of 6,000 people conducted by the Sociology and Parliamentary Institute found that 11 percent of the respondents said they would support an armed uprising against the government. At that time unpaid soldiers had begun shooting at their commanding officers.

Last year the Russian governemtn blamed Chechen rebels for a series of still unexplained apartment bombings that killed nearly 300 people. The Kremlin then waged a fairly successful propaganda campaign to paint the Chechen fighters as "terrorists" and "bandits," as Moscow launched a bloody onslaught to crush the Chechen struggle for independence.

Putin won a degree of popularity in conducting the war, which he exploited to enhance his stature as acting president. "A terrorist or a criminal...can no longer count on finding assistance and shelter in Chechnya," he declared in an open letter to Russian citizens. That letter was published in several newspapers one month before the presidential election.

While Putin avoided a runoff election, winning 53 percent of the vote, his victory was not considered a mandate from the electorate. His closest rival, Communist Party leader Gennadi Zyuganov, won nearly 30 percent of the vote, a far stronger showing than expected. Ultrarightist Vladimir Zhirinovsky won 3 percent of the ballot.

"The people in power have cheated us a lot and Putin is just continuing in the tradition of Yeltsin," said Stanislov Gribonov, a 47-year-old-coal miner in Shakhty explaining to the New York Times why he was voting for Zyuganov. "I haven't really understood this market economy unless it is just a means to degrade the country's resources."

"It was 100 times better under the Communists because we could travel about our country almost for free and we could take our vacations at the sea at any resort," added Valery Klimovich, another miner.

The statements of Gribonov and other miners reflect the views of millions of workers who defend the social conquests of the Russian workers state despite its tattered condition. Their vote for the Communist Party candidate highlights their refusal to accept as normal the unemployment, social insecurity, and dog-eat-dog competition produced and reproduced by the workings of capitalism.

The attempts to reimpose the profit-making system in Russia by the proimperialist regime of Boris Yeltsin had wrought economic turmoil as the country edged towards the brink of a social explosion. The working-class resistance to the moves to sweep away the remaining gains of the October 1917 Bolshevik revolution had exacerbated political instability.  
 

Workers defend entitlements

The Yeltsin government sought to implement the austerity program prescribed by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which included measures to eliminate the free child-care centers and health clinics; ending price subsidies of food, rent, and other necessities; and deep cuts in education, pension, health, and other hard-earned entitlements.

Yeltsin was pushed back time after time from any serious attempt to pursue this course. Miners and other workers refused to allow these entitlements and the social relations they represent to be dismantled without waging massive battles to defend them. It is only through those social gains that working people have been able to survive for months and sometimes years without being paid.

The Russian Communist Party lead by Zyuganov seeks to tap into workers' resistance to make electoral gains. It is a remnant of the Stalinist murder machine that previously ruled the Soviet Union and shattered into countless shards in the early 1990s.

The disintegration of the bureaucratic layers or caste in Russia included abandoning any pretense to speak for advancing communism. "If you read the Communist [Party] program you won't find a single word about communism there," said Aleksandr Prokhanov, an adviser to Zyuganov. He said the Communist Party head is "becoming a velvet social democrat."

Zyuganov has dropped calls for renationalization and similar platforms from his 1996 presidential campaign. In fact some branches of the Communist Party youth league and one of its main allies in the parliament supported Putin's candidacy.  
 

Declining living standards

The Russian economy shrank almost every year during the last decade with output plummeting more than 50 percent during those 10 years. The country's infrastructure continues to decay, including hospitals, schools, roads, and railways. The population has decreased by 6 million people over the last decade. The life expectancy for men has dropped to 58 years.

Millions of workers are not being paid. Putin said last December that total back wages amounted to $252 million. In the coal industry wage arrears are among the worst in the country. At the same time tens of thousands of miners have lost their jobs. At the former state coal enterprise Rostovugol, the workforce has declined from 100,000 to 28,000.

In the face of worsening economic conditions, workers throughout the country have waged strikes and other protest actions to demand payment of back wages. Last January some 15,000 teachers in Shelabolikha and Altai demonstrated for wage arrears. In one region east of Shelabolikha teachers organized a two-week sit-in at a government office in December.

Meanwhile, the Kremlin is confronting flare-ups from Chechens fighting the Russian occupation forces, which have destroyed most of the guerrilla bases. Despite Moscow's overwhelming firepower and declarations of victory against Chechen rebel forces, thousands of guerrillas are still fighting in Chechnya. On March 29 Chechen fighters ambushed a convoy of Russian forces killing 43 soldiers and policemen. The next week Chechens attacked Russian police commandos in Argun.

The Russian government also faces difficulty convincing Russian working-class youth to join its military operations in Chechnya. More than 2,000 soldiers have been killed and 6,000 wounded in the war. "I regret to say that our big industrial centers and regions produce 60 percent of the draft dodgers. These are Moscow, St. Petersburg, and Nizhny Novgorod," said Russian general Vladislav Putilin, chief of the mobilization department of the Russian General Staff. "For the first time in four years, the armed services will experience a shortage of manpower."  
 
 
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