From the Rabkor (Worker Correspondent) site, www.rabkor.ru, May 20, 2014, translation by Renfrey Clarke
The Donetsk railways have been taken under the control of the Donetsk People’s Republic. This is reported by RIA Novosti, citing the press service of the DPR. “Under its program of nationalisation,” the report states, “the Donetsk People’s Republic has taken over the Donetsk railways. The management of the railways has also been replaced.”
On May 18, the co-chairperson of the DPR Miroslav Rudenko spoke of the need to establish control over the railways: “Logically, this state enterprise [the Donetsk railways] should now belong to the Donetsk People’s Republic,” Interfax quoted Rudenko as saying. “Our Ministry of Transport was formed only three days ago, but work on this is already going ahead.”
Experts of the Moscow-based Institute of Globalisation and Social Movements (IGSO) note that the nationalisations in Donetsk and Lugansk provinces are no longer being carried out spontaneously, but on a planned basis. The institute’s director Boris Kagarlitsky also considers that such measures by the DPR refute the widespread myth to the effect that standing behind the republic is the oligarch Rinat Akhmetov.
At the same time, Kagarlitsky notes the overall haphazard nature of the process unfolding in the republic:
It’s crucially important to understand the contradictory nature of what’s occurring. On the one hand, the proposed constitution is conservative, with an established religion. But on the other hand, radical property nationalisations are being carried out or are planned.
In reality, this reflects the contradictions of mass consciousness, including among workers. Class politics is forging a path for itself spontaneously and inconsistently, coming up against pitfalls, illusions and prejudices.
But who deserves the blame for this if not the members of the left who have spent twenty years doing everything except working among the masses?
This creates a still more acute need for people to support the DPR, not just passively, with Facebook commentaries, but through active work with the movement, including educational work.
As if to confirm Kagarlitsky’s words, a video clip now circulating widely on the internet features a speech by Rinat Akhmetov calling on the workers in his plants to “go on strike against the DPR”. We note that the Prime Minister of the DPR, Aleksandr Boroday, stated earlier that property belonging to oligarchs who refused to accept the republic’s authority was being nationalised.