53 per cent of Russians support socialism: CPRF
Sergei Obukhov: From "couches" and "consumerism" to awakening the class instinct of workers. From a speech at the Plenum of the Moscow City Committee of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation
Member of the Presidium, Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, Doctor of Political Science Sergei Obukhov spoke at the Plenum of the Moscow City Committee of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, summing up the results of the discussion during the debate on the issue of “On the protection of the socio-economic rights of workers and strengthening the influence of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation in the proletarian environment.”
We publish the key points of S.P. Obukhov's speech
S.P. Obukhov
When discussing the issue at the Plenum "On the protection of the socio-economic rights of workers and strengthening the influence of the CPRF in the proletarian environment," both the report and most of the speeches showed an analytical and interested approach to the issues on the agenda. This is important, since a similar topic is to be discussed at the upcoming Plenum of the CPRF Central Committee in April.
1. On the duality in the political behavior of the capital's working class - theoretical "highlights" of the MGK report
I would like to praise the report of the City Committee Bureau, both as a scholar and as a secretary of the Central Committee. First of all, I would like to note the analysis in the City Committee Bureau report of the dual nature of the political behavior of the modern capital city worker. Today, in addition to the many social roles that the modern worker is forced to perform, capitalist reality splits his consciousness. And he acts both as a "producer" and as a "consumer." At the same time, bourgeois propaganda, universal and intrusive advertising, in particular, imposes on workers the ideology of, as I call it, universal "consumerism."
The report correctly notes: “We, as a political party, its representatives, activists, deputies, etc., are often forced to work with a person not as a worker, but as a consumer, then we, against our will, find ourselves hostages of that consumer consciousness that is formed in a citizen under the influence of his position in the economy and which is further strengthened under the influence of bourgeois propaganda, which purposefully imposes the false values of a consumer society. Our support - workers, those who produce material goods or otherwise benefit society, those on whom the country rests - are not organized, disunited and are still in an immature state from the point of view of class consciousness . ”
The Moscow City Committee of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation correctly points out that the underdevelopment of class consciousness, even the unpreparedness to fight for the most basic economic rights, leads to the fact that people are accustomed to acting not in the role of a producer, but on the contrary, accustomed to the active consumption of goods, services, impressions, etc. That is why many opposition-minded Muscovites are still much more willing to follow the liberals - real or imaginary.
Hence the urgent need to keep the focus of the agenda of party committees, and above all of Moscow communists, on the work of forming and awakening class consciousness among the capital's workers. It is necessary to impose one's own political language for discussions in society, one's own agenda.
Let us recall Gramsci, who said that a party wishing to come to power must ensure its hegemony even before coming to power. That is, dominance in views on the solution of a particular problem that it intends to defend before coming to power.
I refer the younger generation of party members to Antonio Gramsci and his "Prison Notebooks", which he wrote in fascist prisons. In these notes he explicitly emphasizes: "Hegemony is achieved not only through political domination, but above all through cultural influence. A party that aspires to power must first conquer minds."
This is why the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, for the first time in 30 years, has openly raised the question of choosing between “capitalism” and “socialism” in the 2024 presidential campaign. Let us recall the slogan of our candidate Nikolai Mikhailovich Kharitonov: “We’ve played at capitalism and that’s enough!”
The results of sociological studies confirm the correctness and effectiveness of this line. Today, 53% of citizens support socialism in choosing the paths of development of Russian society. Only 14% are in favor of capitalism. In the early 1990s, according to our Center for Research of Political Culture of Russia, other data were recorded by measuring moods along the line "socialism - capitalism". The specific anti-capitalist slogan of the CPRF during the presidential campaign was ultimately approved by more than two-fifths of voters, i.e. with our agitation on the key issue - the paths of development of society - we managed to reach the broadest layers of the working population.
But who are these 53% of Russian citizens who declare support for the socialist paths of development of Russian society? Many of them are passive philistines, who dream of socialism only while “sitting on the couch.” Our task is to turn them into conscious fighters through “class education,” which is impossible without involving them in a concrete struggle for the rights of workers, even if it is purely economic for now.
2. The working class: from a “class in itself” to a “class for itself”
According to Marxism, the working class becomes a revolutionary force only when it is aware of its interests. Even the growth from 5 to 10% of the share of industrial workers among those employed in Moscow has not yet led to noticeable manifestations of the willingness of working people to put aside their interests. The reason is the significant share of those who are employed in the well-paid state defense order. We can talk about the formation of a kind of "labor aristocracy" here. Lenin in his famous work on "Imperialism..." noted: "Monopolies bribe the top of the working class, creating a layer of labor aristocracy." Here, the high level of wages largely dampens the protest potential.
Plus the problem of the vast semi-proletarian strata in the capital. Our task is to work with them “without losing our class position.” (Marx, “Class Struggle in France”)
Today in Moscow, for example, 2.3 million people are employed in small businesses. They also have a dual class nature. Small business workers, plus the "stall" and "office" proletariat, according to Lenin's definition, still cherish the undispelled illusions of small ownership. The "Night of the Long Shovels" in the capital in 2016, when the mayor's office simultaneously organized the demolition of thousands of small businesses, by the way, led to the politicization of the semi-proletarian strata. But not for long...
We must take into account the duality of the petty bourgeoisie, the semi-proletarian strata. On the one hand, they are workers exploited by the oligarchs. On the other, they are "proprietors" who dream of becoming bourgeoisie. Engels warned in Anti-Dühring : "The petty bourgeois vacillates between the proletariat and capital."
Hence their electoral vacillations of the millions of semi-proletarian layers in Moscow from mass support for the Communist Party of the Russian Federation in the 2021 Duma elections to voting for a rabid liberal during the 2024 presidential campaign.
So far, both the industrial workers of the capital, and the hired workers, and the semi-proletarian strata, including the capital's super-disenfranchised but disunited precariat, making ends meet with temporary earnings, remain a "class in itself" and not a "class for itself." Lenin wrote in his work "What is to be done?": "A spontaneous labor movement without socialism inevitably remains petty-bourgeois... The task of the party is to introduce socialist consciousness into the masses."
And so far we, as a communist party, cannot boast of introducing class vocabulary, awareness of class interests, formation of class consciousness, understanding of the essence of modern capitalist exploitation into these layers. Therefore, it is not yet possible to talk about serious successes in the struggle for the socio-economic rights of workers in the capital.
3. Labor conflicts and overexploitation
Economic struggle is the path to awakening class consciousness. But here we are faced with another paradox: according to the Institute of Sociology of the Federal Research Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences (2023), 40% of all social conflicts in Russia are labor conflicts. But they are latent, hidden, and do not come to the public sphere. Why? Because people are afraid. Afraid of losing their jobs, of being erased by the system. This is the hegemony of capital - not only in the economy, but also in consciousness. Without access to information about such conflicts, without systematic work in teams, we will not be able to implement the slogan "Workers of the world, unite!"
How dangerous is the situation? According to the latest data from the Center for Social and Labor Rights, the level of real conflict in Moscow is one of the highest in the country, but it is completely suppressed administratively. In this situation, it is the party that must become the voice of those who are silent for now.
Today in Moscow, according to trade unions and RANEPA, about 60% of workers in construction are in a state of systematic overtime and underpayment. The average working week is 56 hours. This is super-exploitation.
And at some construction companies, as we have recently learned, wage arrears are more than two months. These are 12 major campaigns of the capital's construction complex. And this information is not from the media - it is from Telegram channels, discussions on forums. People are looking for justice, but they do not find a representative who defends their fair demands. This is where the party should be.
The scale of exploitation of the modern Russian worker is shown by the following data. Of the newly created value, 58% does not go to the worker. Of this, Capital appropriated 44%. The laborer gets only 42%. In absolute figures, the monthly value created by the worker is 170 thousand rubles, of which the worker receives only 70 thousand, and this includes taxes and payments to funds. By the way, in the USSR, workers received 60% of the value they created, plus 25% went to enterprises that provided social guarantees to workers through public consumption funds - from pioneer camps to free housing.
Therefore, returning to the huge array of labor rights violations, I want to note that now the first task is to immerse the party activists in these problems.
Until the party receives “channels of communication” and access to participants in labor conflicts, it naturally cannot stand up for the defense of workers oppressed by capitalists.
But for now, we often deal with labor issues in parallel spaces. What the same, for example, State Duma deputy from our party is forced to deal with today - landscaping, housing rights, basements, major repairs, housing and communal services, etc. Unfortunately, there is no escape from this. We follow the screaming everyday problems of voters. But if we are an advanced party, then we have no right to deal only with such "tailing".
How dangerous is the situation? According to the latest data from the Center for Social and Labor Rights, the level of real conflict in Moscow is one of the highest in the country, but it is completely suppressed administratively. In this situation, it is the party that must become the voice of those who are silent for now.
In classical Marxism there is such a definition – “khvostism”. Lenin and Stalin sharply criticized “khvostism” – the substitution of class struggle for the solution of everyday problems. Stalin clearly wrote in “Problems of Leninism”: “… adaptation to bourgeois elements… This is khvostism, leading to capitulation”.
Today we risk sliding into “tailism” if we limit ourselves to just fighting Moscow’s “curbing” instead of fighting for labor and political rights, nationalization, repairing the political and electoral system, the party’s programmatic goals, instead of imposing our agenda and our political language on society to evaluate what is happening in society.
We need “communication channels” like air, information about problems from within work collectives. For example, I often have to contact voters – activists of the unregistered Revolutionary Workers’ Party, who are active in the Eastern Administrative District of Moscow. How? I regularly deal with the problems of their detention by the police, when activists come to the checkpoints of this or that enterprise and start distributing leaflets, after which they are immediately detained by law enforcement officers. How effective is such leaflet work? Of course, we can discuss this topic, but contacts with workers are very important.
I really liked one of the speeches at the Plenum, where it was said that workers at enterprises are still someone's neighbors. So let's see - in local branches, in primary ones - if we have acquaintances, neighbors of those who work at approximately 4.5 thousand large Moscow enterprises. So maybe we will talk with our neighbors-workers - "heart to heart"? To identify their problems...
And here I really want to support the initiative of Leonid Andreyevich Zyuganov, who proposed to automate such communication with labor collectives - through the creation of a chat bot - to collect information on violations of labor rights. We need to literally "feel out" the production "environment", and otherwise it is simply impossible to assess and "saddle" this entire, literally "array" of existing labor conflicts.
The party must seriously engage in this area of activity. Since today we are the only communist party, not only in the post-Soviet space, but also in the entire European space, that does not have its own national trade union association.
And this is our great misfortune. Especially since we have been trying to approach the solution of this difficult task for many years now. The absence of our own federal trade union, by the way, causes criticism from ordinary communists.
As a State Duma deputy, I have already tried several times to provide assistance to such grassroots initiatives to create independent trade unions, but, alas, all participants in such initiatives do not have enough strength yet. And without independent trade unions, any labor movement is literally "crushed" by the authorities' "boot" - and instantly. Therefore, this issue still needs to be resolved - either by infiltrating existing official trade unions, or by creating new ones.
4. Migrants and the Deconcentration of the Contemporary Working Class: Challenges for Class Struggle
We talk a lot today about "people's substitution" - about illegal migration, the interest of the oligarchy in pumping into Russia multi-million masses of people from former Soviet republics. And now there is even a government program to attract labor migrants from distant, underdeveloped countries of Asia.
And what is migration from the point of view of classical Marxism? It is an attempt by capitalists to lower the cost of the labor force of the Russian, Russian proletariat.
Marx in Capital called migrants a “reserve army of labor” that suppresses strikes. In fact, in certain situations, the migrant acts as a “scab,” lowering the cost of labor. This is not his fault – it is the fault of capitalism, which uses migration as a tool of division and exploitation. (Marx, Capital, Vol. 1)
And it is necessary to explain to workers, calling on them to self-organize, that otherwise they can be replaced at any moment by such “strikebreakers” - with all the ensuing consequences.
And it is very good that at the plenum of the Moscow City Party Committee we call acute socio-economic problems by their real names, analyze them in Marxist terms, from the point of view of class theory. In this way we seek real approaches to solving problems.
And one of these problems is “deconcentration” – “dispersion” of the working class.
Before the Great October, a large industrial proletariat had formed in Russia. Since the level of development of productive forces required a high concentration of the working class in large enterprises, it was easier for the workers' party to act in the working environment, to bring workers out into the streets, to solve urgent tasks of the struggle for the rights of working people through the involvement of organized masses of workers in mass protest actions.
Today we have a similar situation to what the ruling Bolshevik party faced immediately after the civil war – the dispersal of the working class. Then the program of Lenin-Stalin industrialization, the historical modernization breakthrough solved the problem of deconcentration and dispersal of workers. But now, when the development of productive forces allows for greater specialization, and the use of the achievements of the scientific and technological revolution does not require the concentration of huge masses of workers in an enterprise, and automation and robotization do not require such a concentration of workers as in the industrial era, how can the left party get in touch with the dispersed working class? Only through social networks and the Internet?
It is clear that the logic of the SVO, the need for Russian Capital to compete with global centers of imperialism and all sorts of Asian "capitalist tigers" will generate a need for a highly qualified working class. Let me remind you of the order of President Putin, who is going to create 25 million new highly productive jobs. Well, so far the oligarchy has reported the creation of only 7 million such jobs. In any case, even partial implementation of such a presidential directive, even with the astonishing greed of home-grown oligarchs, will inevitably lead to a process of concentration of the working class, overcoming its dispersion. It is the bourgeoisie, creating jobs, that also creates its antagonism - the gravedigger in the person of the proletariat. (Manifesto of the Communist Party) We must prepare - theoretically, politically and organizationally for such a development of events.
It is not for nothing that our leader G.A. Zyuganov and the party as a whole are so actively promoting our draft Labor Code today. We understand that new groups of workers are being formed, on which we will have the opportunity to rely in protecting their interests. The domestic bourgeoisie will not go anywhere: elementary survival in global imperialist competition will simply force it to develop the working class.
5. In this situation, including from the course of the discussion at the plenary session, it is already clear what needs to be done.
1. Infiltrate existing or create new militant, independent trade unions. It was not for nothing that Lenin called them the "school of communism."
2. Create a system of “feelers” that immerse the party in the sphere of labor conflicts, automate communication with labor issues and conflicts (chat bots, monitoring social networks, interaction of party activists with neighbors employed in large enterprises, etc.).
3. Promote anti-capitalist alternatives in the production sphere – cooperatives, people’s enterprises.
4. Expose exploitation, impose traditional Marxist language to describe and understand the essence of the processes of exploitation, and not just complain about “bad management”.
Only in this way can we prepare the ground for socialist transformations and fulfill the mission and historical purpose of the CPRF!