page 1page 2page 3page 4page 5page 6page 7page 8page 9page 10page 11page 12page 13page 14page 15page 16page 17page 18page 19page 20page 21page 22page 23page 24page 25page 26page 27page 28page 29page 30page 31page 32page 33page 34page 35page 36page 37page 38TITLE: Survival Strategies: The Miners ofDonetsk in the Post-Soviet EraAUTHOR: Lewis H. Siegelbaum, MichiganState UniversityStephen F. Crowley, DukeUniversityTHE NATIONAL COUNCILFOR SOVIET AND EAST EUROPEANRESEARCH1755Massachusetts Avenue, N.W.Washington, D.C. 20036PROJECT INFORMATION:"CONTRACTOR:Media NetworkPRINCIPAL INVESTIGATORS:Lewis H. SiegelbaumDaniel J. WalkowitzCOUNCIL CONTRACT NUMBER:807-10DATE:April 16, 1993COPYRIGHT INFORMATIONIndividual researchers retain the copyright on work products derived from research funded byCouncil Contract. The Council and the U.S. Government have the right to duplicate written reportsand other materials submitted under Council Contract and to distribute such copies within theCouncil andU.S. Government for their own use, and to draw upon such reports and materials fortheir own studies; but the Council and U.S. Government do not have the right to distribute, ormake such reports and materials available, outsidethe Council or U.S. Government without thewritten consent of the authors, except as may be required under the provisions of the Freedom ofInformation Act 5 U.S.C.552,or other applicable law.The work leading to this report was supportedby contract funds provided by the National Council forSoviet and East European Research.The analysis and interpretations contained in the report are those of theauthor.ContentsSummaryvIntroduction1The Donbass Miners' Movement:1989-923Orientation and Agenda4The Politics of Representation9A Tale of Two Mines13Kuibyshev: The Restoration of Enterprise Paternalism15The October Mine: NPG Insurgency21Facing the Future24iiiSurvival Strategies:The Miners of Donetsk in the Post-Soviet EraSummaryThis essay is based on fieldwork undertaken in Donetsk over a span of some threeyears and most recently in the summer of 1992. It consists of two parts: an overview of theminers' movement in the Donbass, and an analysis of strategies pursued by labor andmanagement at two mines in the Kuibyshev district of Donetsk. The first part examines theinteraction of "politics" and "economics" within the movement and the ways it has institu-tionally represented itself. The second part attempts to explain why two mines, so close intheir geographical proximity and geological conditions, display radically different trajectoriesin terms of labor-management relations.Resolutions passed at miners' congresses, demands issued during strikes, newspapersand information bulletins of the strike committees and the Independent Miners' Union(NPG), and questionnaire data are used to reconstruct the evolution of the miners' movementin the Donbass. This partial record suggests a three-phase process: an initial "economic"phase in which miner-activists evoked mass enthusiasm and participation in their struggle toextract concessions from the Soviet bureaucracy; a second "political" phase in which theyreached out to workers in other industries and the "democratic" intelligentsia to bring downthe central government; and a third phase, beginning in August 1991, when they sought toadjust to the new political configuration and economic uncertainties in Ukraine.It is argued that even in its first phase, the movement at least implicitly challenged thelegitimacy of the system of centralized administrative appropriation and went beyond theboundaries of trade union demands. Reluctance to articulate political demands was not somuch a function of lack of consciousness as of a political calculus according to whichperestroika might be redefined to incorporate input from "below." The abandonment of sucha calculus did not reflect impatience or immaturity but rather the perception that the centralstate had become fatally incapacitated and could be challenged directly. In this sense,Eltsin's elevation to the chairmanship of the Russian Federation's Supreme Soviet providedvthe stimulus for direct confrontation. Yet, the fulfillment of the miners' political demandsfortuitously brought about by the failure of the August 1991 putsch attempt and the subse-quent dissolution of the Soviet Union--had several ironic consequences. While the commandsystem has been dismantled, the development of new property relations and the marketing ofcoal remain problematic. And in Ukraine, where coal is more expensive to produce, theminers' movement finds itself in the contradictory position of struggling for the maintenance(or restitution) of state subsidies on the one hand and the establishment of greater financialautonomy for enterprises on the other.In terms of institutional representation, the miners' movement has exhibited both thestrengths and weaknesses of flexibility and overlapping authority. Formed initially toprosecute the strike and enter into negotiations with the government, the strike committeesassumed the function of ensuring the fulfillment of the government's promises. In themeantime, the leaders of the committees sought to change the orientation of the officialUnion of Mine workers and to capture the enterprise-based Councils of Labor Collectives(STKs). Particularly in the Donbass, these efforts led to a diversion of energy away fromthe institutionalization of the strike committees with the result that at most mines, they wereliquidated. The formation of a new Independent Miners' Union (NPG) established a frame-work for national and regional coordination but at least in the Donbass this was at theexpense of regional and city-wide strike committees.However, to describe events thusly is to remain at the macro-level, at the level oflarge social movements and state politics. Why some miners are active and others are not,why some mines have strong NPG representation while others have retained the old tradeunion, and why at a time of great social and economic transformation, most other workershave not joined the miners as part of a "workers' movement" requires a different level ofanalysis. In the second part of our essay, we descend to the micro-level to examine thetrajectories of two mines, Kuibyshev and October.At Kuibyshev, as at many mines throughout the Donbass, the strike committeeoversaw elections to the trade union committee and the STK. The latter institution thereaftertook over from