Yeltsin Applauds Coal Miners in Strike Aimed at Ousting Gorbachev : Soviet Union: Workers, in turn, say they will strive to protect the populist’s political position.
MOSCOW — Russian populist leader Boris N. Yeltsin on Monday encouraged leaders of the 12-day-old coal miner strike in their demand for the resignation of Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev.
Yeltsin, president of the Russian Federation, the country’s largest republic, told strike leaders that they are fully justified in their attempts to push the Kremlin into meeting their largely political demands and that they have the right to pick the methods to be used to safeguard their interests.
Representatives of the strike committee from the western Siberian coal mining region of the Kuznetsk Basin, who met for 40 minutes with Yeltsin, said they, in turn, would use all the nonviolent ways they can to protect Yeltsin’s political position, now under attack by Gorbachev.
“We told Yeltsin that the miners support him and the Russian Parliament,†Anatoly Malykhin, chairman of the strike committee from the western Siberian Kuzbass mining area, said in a telephone interview.
Russia’s populist leader, who himself demanded Gorbachev’s resignation last month, came under attack in the Soviet press and the national legislature Monday for his declaration of political “war†against the national leadership.
The Communist Party newspaper Pravda criticized Yeltsin harshly for urging those in the country’s democratic movement to unite around the striking miners and called him a phony democrat.
In the Supreme Soviet, the country’s legislature, some conservatives demanded that Yeltsin be investigated on grounds of unconstitutional actions.
But there were also warnings that attacks on Yeltsin only boost his popularity. “You know that every one of our actions against Yeltsin increases his rating,†Nikolai Engver, a centrist deputy, told the session.
More than 200,000 people rallied in support of Yeltsin on Sunday in central Moscow, and more than 20 other demonstrations were held across the country as the struggle over the future of the country intensified.
A basic element in Yeltsin’s ongoing battle with Gorbachev is a struggle for control over Russia’s natural resources. While Gorbachev has endeavored to maintain control over the country’s wealth, Yeltsin has continually tried to pry it away for the Russian federation.
Yeltsin talked with the miners about transferring the mining, iron and steel industries in the Kuznetsk Basin from the national government to the Russian republic, according to an account of the meeting from the official news agency Tass.
Leaders of the striking miners were told earlier in the day that Gorbachev had rejected their request for a meeting with him and that he had refused to comply with their demands, which include his resignation and that of the Congress of People’s Deputies, the country’s Parliament, and the Supreme Soviet.
After meeting with Anatoly I. Lukyanov, chairman of the Congress of People’s Deputies, who relayed Gorbachev’s response, Malykhin said the miners felt they had no choice but to take extreme measures.
Defying the central government’s demand that they return to work, the miners have extended their strike to more coal fields and vowed to stay out until they have ousted Gorbachev.
The strike, which started in the rich coal basins of the Ukraine and the Central Asian republic of Kazakhstan, has spread to most Soviet coal-producing areas, and tens of thousands of miners are participating, according to Pavel A. Shushpanov, chairman of the Independent Union of Coal Workers.
All 24 mines in the Rostov region of southern Russian, employing about 40,000 people, joined the strike Monday, Shushpanov said. Tass, however, reported that only 11 of 49 mines in the Rostov region had come to a standstill.
In the Arctic, six of the 13 mines in Vorkuta went on strike over the weekend, with local union leaders saying miners would not resume work until the government fulfills promises it made in July, 1989, to end the Soviet Union’s most serious labor crisis in several decades.
The strike does not match in size the industrial action of 1 1/2 years ago, when hundreds of thousands of miners walked out to demand better working and living conditions.
Miners say this strike has a very different character.
“That strike was very quiet,†Shushpanov said. “Our only demands were economic demands. We had no political demands because we still believed in a good czar.
“Now our main demands are political because we know this system is not capable of providing people with decent lives.â€
Not all of the striking miners, however, support the political demands. The Vorkuta strike, for instance, is motivated only by economic demands, and the miners striking for political reasons criticize their colleagues in Vorkuta for pursuing only “sausage demands.â€
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