Interviews with Strike Committee Members

Interviews with Strike Committee Leaders in the Donbass, 1989-1992

Source: Workers of the Donbass Speak. Workers of the Donbass speak : survival and identity in the new Ukraine, 1989-1992. Lewis Siegelbaum and Daniel Walkowitz (1995)

(a) Valery Vladimirovich Samofalov, Chair, Strike Committee, Kuibyshev Mine, August 2, 1989 (pp. 97-98)

Valery Samofalov: You know, you [Americans] have more experience with strikes than we do. Our strike broke out spontaneously, though a lot of problems had accumulated and they were sure to result in something. Besides, the mine's authorities didn't support us immediately. All of this was new for us. That's why the authorities thought it was sort of a joke, that after a while of fooling around everything would calm down.

But when our party leaders and trade union realized that it was serious, they finally began supporting us. This is the very thing that Mikhail Gorbachev means when he says that they should implement perestroika from above and we should do it from below. It's a shame to live so poorly The country is great, but we live like beggars.

Our main demands are incorporated in the first points of the protocol.' They talk about granting our work collectives full economic and juridical independence. We have a lot of work to do, and most of our workers only have a secondary education. We came to an agreement with our authorities that we'll work hand in hand and solve all the problems together. They will help us do everything we can't do ourselves.

We want to work on the basis of leasing contracts. My understanding is that this is the way to do it: we produce; in the first years, the coal ministry will mediate between our enterprise and the consumer, and between us and enterprises that produce the equipment we need. All earnings should be ours, but we pay a certain percentage to the state for equipment, materials and so on. These earnings will be allocated according to decisions made by work collectives. As our director told us, "You're my supreme council and it's for you to decide what to do with the money."

By the way, we have decided that we don't trust the chief engineer anymore and we'll relieve him of his post. Also, it win be for us to decide whether there should be an election for candidates to the post of director or not.

Note

Protocol No. 608, issued by the USSR Ministry of coal on August 3,1989 contained forty-nine points in all.

(b) Valery Samofalov, Miner, Kuibyshev Mine (pp. 137-141)

Valery Samofalov: I used to be chair of the strike committee. Now I am the deputy chair of the council of labor collectives. In fact, though, the council hardly functions. We have succeeded in crushing it, probably because we have a little bit ... a lack of ... [points to his head]. We weren't able to convince and unite people and our nerve failed us somehow.

Now, people have a chance to make some money. The problem is that it has become impossible to mobilize people, or rather, it is possible but there are many difficulties. This isn't the people's fault, but it is their problem. A piece of sausage was given to them, and that was all. Well, we were taught to live that way. One was supposed to care only about one's own stomach and not think about anything else.

Unemployment threatens us, and it will come. It will be like a flood and we will be closed down unless we take a clear-cut stand and maintain close contacts with the [city] strike committee, which I used to criticize but which I now completely support. Let the people in the strike committee be a little "too emotional." They still lack experience, and that will pass. If we are not united, the workers' movement will perish.

I hope that our official trade union will be dissolved and the people will support the strike committee. They have problems and shortcomings. There are some hot-headed people in it. They are too hot, because they were driven to despair by life's difficulties. I'm still treated like a brute here: "You are nobody here; you are a worm and we can crush you at any moment." I mean this in all honesty. And all the same, when workers don't appraise your deeds at their true worth, I don't blame them, because it is our common problem. I simply lose heart.

What kind of country would I like to live in? A federated union where each republic of the Union would be economically independent and conclude bilateral agreements with each other. But it is very complicated. During the pre-election campaign, the leaflets distributed by Rukh stated that Mister or Pan Kravchuk believed Ukraine could live without Russia.' But it was never mentioned that we get cotton from Kazakhstan, electrical equipment and timber from Russia, and so forth. It could have been deliberate or not, but they kept silent about it in order to appoint another petty prince or tsar in Kiev. It won't do any good for the people of Ukraine. Before, the granaries of the Motherland were in Moscow, now they are in Kiev. For us, for the people, it makes no difference whether they are in Moscow or in Kiev: they are not in my pocket, not in my home.

One category of people is satisfied with a piece of meat and their pay check. The other one, unfortunately, is the minority because neither the strike committee, nor the council of labor collectives nor the trade union explained anything to the people. They don't want to explain and believe that their job is to provide people with socks, underwear, etc., and they believe that helps the people. I believe that people should not be given any goods. They should be given the opportunity to earn them: to become a farmer, a businessperson, or whatever. A whole complex of laws which will really liberate people is needed. Now we are restrained. In our

mine, even now, the following policy is pursued: if you say something against your boss, you will be destroyed. You will be banished to another production unit, you will be driven from one production team to another one.

As long as there is no demand from below, everything seems to develop peacefully and quietly. The trade union committee believes that everything is fine: wages are relatively high, the supply of necessary goods is relatively good. But everything is "relatively." We have gotten used to living according to. the minimum. We were given a piece of bread, sausage, soap, butter and shelter. But what is the quality of shelter, meat, butter? We don't care about it. We want to be given at least something, and this is a problem of our people. It was rammed into our heads. But it will eventually pass.

I think that Kravchuk deceived all fifty million Ukrainians. Kravchuk, (Prime Minister) Fokin, and the cabinet of ministers should resign. The Donbass should be granted the status of a free economic zone, a zone of joint ventures, as the first stage of transition. When we were in Kiev, the guys from the western regions tried to tear us into pieces on this point.' They shouted that we were separatists, communists, that we came to divide Ukraine, and to separate the Donbass from the Ukraine. Our deputies from the Donetsk region explained to people that over ninety countries in the world live according to the principle of a federative system, such countries as Switzerland, the USA, Germany, and Austria, and they don't live any worse than we do.

During the strike of 1989, a strike committee was formed, as well as a new council of labor collectives and a new trade-union committee. Now, the strike committee of the mine doesn't exist any more, the STK disintegrated, and only the trade union remains. Was it inevitable? Yes, I think it was inevitable. Every single person who was on strike understood something for himself, but there were different people.

In all honesty, there were a few people who just didn't want to work; there were also some people who wanted to drink vodka, but they were also few. There were other people who thought that they would get everything from the top after the strike. The majority thought so. They thought that it was enough to bang a fist on the table and they would give us everything and a bright new life would arrive. They thought that we didn't have to wait any longer for something that Khrushchev spoke about when he said that this generation would live in a communist society. They thought that it was enough for them all to bang their fists at the same time and we would be in the paradise. But there were also people who understood that it was only the beginning and to get a bar of soap didn't mean achieving victory. After the strike, when the strike committee was reorganized at our mine into the council of labor collectives, I didn't see anything bad in it. Moreover, I used to say that we were not about to strike every day. The point is not whether the name is a strike committee or a council of labor collectives.

There were also people again who believed that to receive a bar of soap or a piece of sausage or overalls was the victory. They began to attack the STK, demanding soap, a car or an apartment. They were only saying. "Give me, give me...." We tried to explain to them that there was no place where we could get it all. And they were telling us to go to the director or another chief and take it from him and give it to them. I tried to explain, as much as I could, that this was what we already had in 1917, when everything was taken from the rich and given to the poor-and as a result all people became beggars. I agree that there should be social justice, but to take something from somebody and to give it to another person is not the correct way. People have different opinions and the same differences existed among the members of the STK and its presidium.

I began to get into conflicts with the other members of this organization. I proposed to find other ways besides strikes, maybe sending people to Moscow to speak there, to prove our case, maybe to organize a rally in Moscow and to demand resignations there. So the guys proposed to elect a new strike committee. They "forgot" that I was the chairman of the strike committee. I wasn't elected, but a leader of the trade union committee was elected instead. After that, I worked there for a month. I understood that if people didn't trust me, I'd better go. So I left. We are to blame that the [Kuibyshev mine's] council of labor collectives was destroyed. It didn't seem to be needed because the wrong people were in it. But, in fact, it should be reconstituted, at least in order to make our trade unions and our government work for us. All the initiatives now come from the [city-wide] strike committee and our trade union has never displayed any initiative. Did the workers' movement stop existing when we got some soap, which we demanded in 1989? It is a continuous process which is going on. It should continue and we should fight. If we do nothing and keep silent, no one will do anything for us.

All in all, nothing has changed. We replaced the people in the trade union, but nothing changed since the system has remained the same. In your film ("Perestroika From Below"), I said that I don't know anyone here who is worthy of being a trade-union leader. Now I am repeating it. This is our problem. Once we found a man--Efimov--who became a scapegoat. He was the wrong man for the job, and it was a difficult time. I can understand him now after a few years, but I can't justify him. He lived in a time and in a system when there was no workers' activism. Now, democracy supposedly has been granted. One supposedly can say everything one thinks and what one considers necessary to speak about. Or maybe it wasn't granted, but it was simply claimed that one can do it.

I often come to the trade-union committee and try to convince them-I might be doing the wrong thing that it isn't the trade union's job to buy sport shoes, socks, to distribute sausage, clothes, commodities in short supply. The task of the trade union is to change laws which contradict workers' interests, to monitor safety regulations, to resolve wage problems, to establish better relations between the engineering staff and the workers so that it is understood that they are equal to engineers and technicians and no one, neither a director nor a minister, is permitted to humiliate and insult them. But here it happens all the time.

Briefly speaking, there is an immense need for a leader in a society like ours, someone who can convince and direct people to the right path rather than to the path where one can take something away from another and appropriate it. The leaders' role is great here, but there is no such leader in the mines now.

Notes

Valery is referring to the presidential election of December 1991 in which Leonid Kravchuk received the majority of votes. Rukh, an umbrella organization representing Ukrainian nationalist groups, had its own candidate, Viacheslav Chornovyl. Pan is the Polish word for "lord," and the implication here is that Kravchuk wants to set himself up in the tradition of those who have been overlords of Ukraine.
In June 1992, several miners, transport workers, teachers, medical personnel, and others from Donetsk traveled to Kiev to picket the Ukrainian Supreme Soviet.

Valery, Miner, Kuibyshev Mine Tatiana, Laboratory Assistant, Chemical Reactive Plant Svetlana Zaguliaeva, Their Married Daughter

Valery Samofalov: I was born in 1951 into a worker's family. In 1958 1 entered school and finished in 1968. After school I began to work at the chemicals plant as a fitter's apprentice and worked there till I was recruited into the army I was drafted into the Soviet Army in 1969, that's what it was called then, and served in the army for two years. After I was demobilized, I came back to the same plant in January 1971. 1 got married in May 1971 and in June I came to work in the mine.

I went there because the money I got at the plant wasn't enough to keep my family. The first six months at the mine I worked pushing trolleys, and then in January 1972 1 began to work at the face and have remained there ever since. In 1989, when we had the strike, I was elected the chairman of the strike committee. In December of the same year I was elected by the workers of our mine to the Donetsk strike committee.

Q: I noticed that you haven't commented on party membership.

VS: Oh, yes. I had a talk with the director of the mine in 1981. He told me that I wasn't a bad worker and that it was time for me to join the party. We'd been talking for a long time. I tried to say no. I said, as people usually said in such situations, that I wasn't ready and wasn't good enough to be in the party.

Finally he asked me straight, "Something doesn't suit you in the party; does it?" I told him that he was right. We didn't discuss what exactly didn't suit me. He told me that he didn't like everything in the party either, and suggested I do something inside the party to make it better. That's what we decided to do. I applied to the party and was admitted to the CPSU. I was a party member until 1990, or maybe it was 1991.

Q: What was it that didn't suit you about the party? Was it the way it functioned or what it stood for?

VS: I'm not sure that I can separate the two. I've always believed that the task of the state and the government is to provide people with the opportunity to work and earn money. In the past we were taught that the state took care of you, provided you with free medical care, free education, a job, and so forth. This made people believe that they were nothing, that their initiative and capabilities didn't count at all.

I came to work here because the head of the production unit pays me good money But how does he live? He is a highly qualified specialist, but he is conceited. He thinks that he is the most intelligent and educated person in the world. He can say without hesitation: "You're an ape, you're a donkey, and you shut up, you keep silent when I'm speaking. I am telling you the truth, and if you step aside from this truth--one step to the right or one step to the left-you will be shot down." Nowadays, execution has been replaced by another thing: transfer to another production unit ("You're not needed here"), to a worse one.

Last year I saw on a TV program that a firm from West Germany was offering equipment for a small brewery. The firm undertook to provide free training in Germany. All they wanted in return was two carloads of coal, that's 120 tons of coal. I went to see our director and told him that I would like to start a business. I would like to provide our people with good beer. There is a department store here, called "Ugolek." On the upper floor there is a grocery and a provision shop. I suggested opening a bar in a vacant section, where I could sell beer to people in nice surroundings, politely, without cheating them.

People would drink beer in a pleasant atmosphere, which would be different from the usual conditions of such places, where people are like pigs in a pigsty. These days, one can't walk in the street without being disturbed. There is rudeness everywhere. I remember twenty or thirty years ago when I was a boy, ten years old, I couldn't say bad words in the presence of older people. Nowadays, it's a common phenomenon-a son curses his mother, a mother curses her son. I would like to change something here.

I got the answer: "You want to be a millionaire," that is, a speculator, a profiteer. It was our chief accountant who said that. I suggested that he buy the equipment and build the necessary premises. I said, "I will share the profits with you till I pay back all your expenditures, that is, the mine's. When I pay it all back, it will be mine." When you share profits with the mine, it's considered OK; when you buy it and you become a "millionaire," that's bad. But I don't understand why it's bad. My attitude towards business is positive. Nowadays there is no business. Only a few people involved in business are honest.

In my opinion, 90 to 95 percent...no, the whole 100 percent of those involved in Soviet trade are thieves. It's not because all of them are bad, but because of the circumstances, because the director of their shop won't be able to get necessary commodities from the director of the warehouse and the plan won't be fulfilled unless bribes are paid. It means that the director of that shop has to overstate the price to me, in order to pay the director of the warehouse, who pays someone on a higher level. This is our mafia.

Now, when they have already enriched themselves by way of cheating others, they suggest privatization. If you visit the apartment of anyone who has been working in the area of trade for five years, you will see that he lives five times better than I do. If he has been working for five years, he's a great expert. If he has been working for ten years, he should be put into prison for ten years with no hesitation.

Tatiana Samofalova: In 1974 1 graduated from the Donetsk Chemical and Technological School. My specialty was technician of inorganic chemical agents. Right after school I started working at the Institute of Chemical Agents. At that time it bore the name of the All-Union Research Institute of Chemical Agents and High Purity

Substances for the electronics industry. I worked there up to November 1991. 1 liked that job; we were doing research. They never paid us very much, but it was a good job, very quiet. Saturday and Sunday were days off. But I had to leave because they stopped providing money for science, and we were within a hair's breadth of closing; there was no money to pay salaries, and they had to cut the staff.

In order not to be cut, I left on my own but I didn't go far. Now I work at the same institute in a workshop for experimental production, where I'm in charge of the apparatuses. This job is much more difficult, even physically, but I've gotten used to it. I think a person can get used to anything. If I had my way, though, I would very much have liked not to go to work, just to run the house and take care of the kids. I think that a woman should stick to her destiny, to watch over the hearth. In that case I would have had more kids, far more. But in our country it is not so easy.

Valery helps me run the house, but not to the extent that I would feel his absence strongly. I think that for a man his job means everything, so I never reproach him when he's away for a long time working.

Q: Tatiana, how did you and Valery meet?

TS: I had a girl friend in fourth grade. Once she came to me and said, "Tania, there's a boy who is running after you." I was so stupid! I walked through the school and he was standing there. I ran past him and looked back, but he just stood still. So I went back to my girl friend and said, "Nina, I ran by him, but he didn't move. What do you mean, that he's running after me?" Then she explained to me what it really meant to run after someone, to have a crush on someone. After that I began to pay attention to him.

VS: Yes, yes, yes.

TS: Then we sang in the chorus together, smiled at each other. Here we are as a result of our singing and smiling.

VS: Myself especially.

TS: He didn't have any sense of music at all, but he would attend chorus just to see his would-be wife.

Q: That must have been a real sacrifice, to start singing because of love.

VS: It wasn't that bad in chorus. We had this meticulous teacher, what was her name, Sophia Il'ichna. She would ask me to come from the stage to her seat and sing in her ear.

Q: Earlier, you said that you would be content to just look after the family hearth. Does that mean that you are not interested in what is going on outside, in politics? What, for example, does it mean to you to live in an independent Ukraine?

TS: I was born in Ukraine and I've lived here all my life. My father, my husband's father, my grandparents are buried here, I believe that no one will expel me from Ukraine. This is my personal opinion. I have been converted into a Ukrainian to such an extent that it's no problem for me to speak Ukrainian, though very few Russians do it. Even the Ukrainians themselves forgot how to speak Ukrainian. It doesn't create any problem for me.

But it's not enough to live in independent Ukraine. My relatives, my aunt, my cousin, live in Russia and it has become a problem now to go and see them. We cannot meet with each other very often, and letters don't get delivered. Why should I want such independence? What am I independent from? From my own relatives? What for? I don't want such an independence.

Q: Speaking of family, how did your daughter and son-in-law meet?

TS: My son-in-law and daughter studied at the same school. For many years they sat at the same desk. That's why we weren't very surprised at what happened between them. But naturally we were worried. She got pregnant when she was still in school. I don't know how it's dealt with now, but earlier the attitude toward such girls was mostly negative: as a rule they were expelled from school. We were afraid of that and concealed her pregnancy until she finished school.

Her husband's parents didn't want them to marry either. When she produced her son, she wasn't formally married. The boy was born on October 10th, and the marriage ceremony took place on December 15th. The guy isn't a bad one but he falls under others' influence a lot. So, at first, his parents managed to talk him out of it. But after the baby was born, all that changed. He immediately moved to our place and they applied for a marriage license.

We worried a lot at that time. There was no question about having a baby or having an abortion. But it would have been bad if he refused to marry her and the baby didn't have a father. That was our main concern. So now everything has been settled, they got married and live happily.

Q: Svetlana, your mother says that you never considered having an abortion. What about other schoolgirls?

Svetlana Zaguliaeva (their daughter): I know that when we were in school there were no abortions in our class. But there were some cases in the other class. I wouldn't call it a new problem, but as life has become much more expensive, the number of abortions has grown catastrophically. The clinics are full of women and girls, because it's very expensive now to start a family.

Q: So, you believe that it's connected with inflation?

SZ: Yes, to a great extent. A young married couple can't provide for themselves. If a girl gets pregnant right after school and her husband is also straight from school and hasn't worked or studied anywhere yet, he won't have a chance to support a family, let alone bringing up children.

A Kitchen Conversation

[Valery speaks about the abortive coup of August 1991.1

Valery Samofalov: I ran to the mine and said, "Guys, whether it's good or bad, it's against the law. Let's send a letter to the Supreme Soviet of Ukraine, and another to the USSR Supreme Soviet. What are they doing there?" It was scary-August 19th. When did I go to work, at 6 Pm. or at 12 Pm.? I think it was 6 Pm.; I would have been late for the 12 Pm. shift. I was listening to the BBC, and heard Yeltsin's speech. Then you phoned me.

Tatiana. Samofalova: Yes.

VS: She said it was a coup.

TS: You were asleep.

VS: I was watching television, some movie was on. Then she called me from work and asked how I was. She asked, "Is everything quiet?" I said, "Of course everything is quiet." Tatiana said, "There's been a coup." What? Here everything was quiet. I turned on the radio. Nothing. Later, Kravchuk spoke and said, "Don't you worry, it doesn't concern us."

TS: It was so quiet on August 19th. No one thought that we could do anything.

VS: I rushed to the mine and began to talk in front of the building, almost like an hysterical woman. They just sat. Maybe a few...

TS: At the Institute people began to shout right away. Everybody agreed that it was against the law, that it was a coup d'etat.

VS: How did I persuade the director to get everybody together? I stressed that whether Gorbachev was good or bad didn't matter. It was against the law. It could happen to anyone. Gulags, dictatorship, anything could happen. They could take away all our rights and freedom that we had only begun to enjoy, democracy...

TS: Democracy? We haven't lived under democracy. We don't even know what democracy is all about. We only know about the absence of it.

VS (to Tatiana): I suspect that you are going to take all the credit for the dinner from me.

TS: I'm only helping you.

Q: Do the two of you always work together in the kitchen?

VS: No, sometimes there are three of us, including our daughter.

TS: We need more potatoes, this is such a huge pan.

VS: It's enough.

Q: How long have you been in this apartment?

TS: Ten years.

VS and TS: Eleven years.

Q: Is this a co-op?

VS: From the mine. For exemplary work.

Q: Don't tell me!

VS: I had to build a monument for my boss. Just by accident, I invited him to come over. We had one of these subbotniki. He said, "It would be great to have some wine now." So we went to my place. After a drink, he looked around at how we lived, in an apartment without any conveniences, and said, "What's wrong with you people?"

TS: No doors...

Q: You already had two kids at that time.

VS: So he began to explain the technique to me. "You have two options. First, you could go and see the director, fill out an application as a front-rank worker, to request an apartment from the director's fund. Or you can give a bribe. I can hook you up with the right person," he said. I resisted for a long time. Then, God knows, what shall we call it, was it a bargain with my conscience, or what? I was thinking and thinking again. Some people have waited for twenty, twenty-five years, and they have nothing.

TS: I already had been waiting for nine years at my institute.

VS: So I closed my eyes, spit under my feet, and filed this application. Went to see the director. To my surprise, he read the application, rebuked the housing controller and said, "Put him on the waiting list and give him the first available apartment."

Why is this apartment on the fifth floor? Because it wasn't a pay-off. Everybody asks, people who know, "What's your floor?"

TS: You don't pay [extra] for the first and fifth floors, all the rest is based on pay-offs.

Q: Now Sergei [their son-in-law] wants his own place, is that right?

VS: It's not enough to have the desire, if you haven't got the means.

Q: Is Sergei on the waiting list?

TS: No one will put him on the waiting list.

Q: Because legally you have enough space?

TS: Thirty-six square meters for six people. He's registered as if living with his mother, though even if he registered with us....

VS: Now everyone is cheating. My mother-in-law has a two bedroom apartment. Next week we'll submit papers to register her here.

TS: It's called an exchange between relatives. We'll register her with us, and the children will be registered there.

VS: It's more like we're waiting for her to pass away.

TS: My mother will continue to live in her apartment, and the children with us. But we won't lose the apartment.

Q: Do you think that the privatization of apartments might make living conditions better?

VS: For whom? God knows. What was it like before? Need to repair something? Roofing slate? Need to change the sink or the toilet? No problem. Now, well, for the last twenty years, they haven't had anything and we have to pay for all the repairs, even though repairs are their responsibility. If I privatize the apartment, who knows what will happen? The only good reason is that then I can sell it.

My nephew returned home from the army, and had nowhere to live. Well, there was an apartment, but it was too small. So I went to make an exchange between relatives. The chemical plant owned the apartment, so I went to see the deputy director. He said, "No, can't allow it. Your nephew hasn't contributed to the chemical plant yet." I began to enumerate for him, "Members of my family have worked here a total of two hundred years, and what have we received? We had to do everything ourselves, repairs and everything." Finally, I convinced him.

I was talking to my pals yesterday. Where are the moral standards, I asked them? Where is one to draw the line? What is good and what is bad? For everyone it is different. They say, "Everything is going wrong now, all is wrong, help." Someone jumps in the line, pushes aside an old woman. After that, he complains that she is bad or evil because she'd hidden some merchandise under the counter. She is bad and he is good.

TS: Yesterday a woman came to the line waiting for meat. "Can I see the manager," she said. "What's your problem?" "I would like to weigh out what I've got, I think that I was cheated," she said.

TS (to Valery): What are you doing? Why do you smoke right here?

VS: I'm nervous about how the dinner will come out. You always flatter me and say that it's delicious.

TS: I have better luck cooking soups.

VS: I was forced by circumstances. It was in 1966, when I was in eighth grade. My mother worked at the Pioneer camp, so she would leave for the summer. My older sister was in the hospital. Her husband

and my brother who was as tall as I am but twice the size of me, they would come after work hungry as dogs. So I began to cook, little by little. Actually, I like this shit.

Q: Valery, what's your specialty?

VS: Borscht. Well, I don't know, I like it. In principle I can cook everything. But I don't like to scale fish.

TS: He likes to eat it.