MOSCOW - Another horrific coal mine disaster has shocked the Russian public and angered coal industry workers. Early on January 18 an explosion and fire in the Tsentralnaya mine in Vorkuta, in the Arctic north of European Russia, claimed 27 lives. This followed a similar catastrophe on December 2, when 67 miners died in one of the pits of the Kuzbass coal region in Western Siberia.

MOSCOW - According to recently announced plans of the Russian government, 1998 is to be the year when the country's coal industry is gutted and cut up, with the most toothsome chunks ready for handing over to private owners. For scores of thousands of workers the result will be joblessness, with only vague, unreliable promises of retraining and resettlement.

The Presidential elections usher in a turbulent period in Russia and on a world scale. From the beginning of the process, we have followed it carefully through all its twists and turns. The present situation provides us with new and important facts which enable us to conclude that we are approaching a denouement. Nothing has been solved by the result of the first round. Yeltsin got 34.8%; Zyuganov, 32.1%; Lebed, 14.7%; Yavlinsky, 7.4%; Zhirinovsky, 5.8%, and all the others put together, a mere 5.2%.

"History knows transformations of all sorts." (Lenin)

The question of the class nature of Russia has been a central issue in the Marxist movement for decades. Now, with the collapse of the USSR and the movement in the direction of capitalism, this question assumes an even greater importance. How we approach this problem will be vital not only for training our cadres, but for our general work in the labour movement, and, at a later stage, for the building of a Marxist tendency in Russia.

We publish this article by Renfrey Clarke, the Moscow-based left wing journalist, about the present situation of the labour movement. We think the article not only provides us with a lot of information but also contributes to the debate about the challenges facing the Russian working class.

The July elections represent another turn in the situation in Russia. On the surface, the result was a massive victory for Russian capitalism. Despite the frightful collapse in living standards, crime, corruption and mafia capitalism, Yeltsin won. This was a heavy defeat for Stalinism, not socialism or genuine communism, but it will usher in a new period of convulsions for Russia. The underlying processes remain as contradictory and explosive as before. The result has resolved nothing.

ANZHERO-SUDZHENSK, Russia - For some reason, the Soviet system had a way of playing cruel jokes on this coal-mining centre in the Kuzbass industrial region of Siberia. One such malign whim was to locate the city administration building hard by the heating and electrical generating plant. Ever since, two immense chimneys have towered over the municipal offices, pouring out dark smoke. In winter the snow here is black; in the autumn rains, the forecourt outside the building is covered with grey sludge.

An interview with Vera Dimitrievna Arfanas, chairperson of the workers' committee of the OAO "Rosselmash" factory, published in the Russian Marxist paper Rabochaya Demokratiya (Workers' Democracy), issue no 45, August 1998

On the 23d of January the first congress of the workers' and strike committees from Syberia and Far East of Russia was held in Anzhero-Sudjensk (Kemerovo region). 155 delegates from Kranoyarsk, Barnaul, Tuva, Khakassia, Kuzbass, Tomsk, Novosibirsk, Tyumen', Cheliabinsk, Samara regions attended the congress. They discussed a report on the last year railroad war and exchanged views about the further steps by the workers movement. The delegates highlighted the necessity of revolutionary struggle and overthrown of the regime. They pointed that the state power will be the central question for the workers' movement in Russia. A few resolutions on political situation, on the struggle against

The new war in Chechnya is a further evidence of a shift of power in Russia in the direction of the military. The generals are now clearly in the saddle. Not only are they deciding the war agenda in Chechnya, but they are doing so without regard to the opinions of the Kremlin clique. Boris Yeltsin is now an irrelevance. But the army caste will not pay any attention to the rest of the so-called government of Russia which they regard as the source of all their troubles. Once having got a taste of political power, they will be all the more inclined to go one step further.

May Day in Moscow. A mass of red flags in brilliant sunshine. The demonstrators - mainly members of the Communist Party (CPRF), numbering about 50,000, made quite an impressive showing as they streamed across the river Moscow up to the ancient walls of the Kremlin. The entrance to Red Square was blocked by a row of burly policemen. Yeltsin does not want the Square used for demonstrations - at least, not anti-government ones. The meeting is held outside the walls, next to the onion-shaped Byzantine domes of the Cathedral of Saint Basil and a huge poster announcing that "Christ is Risen".