Russia’s Security Council will hold an extraordinary meeting in the Kremlin to discuss the situation in the aftermath of the miners’ “rail war” stopping trains in several regions. Meanwhile in Ukraine the recent miners’ protests are debated, trying to figure out whose interests they served among the political elite and whether they were purely economic. The miners’ problems constantly reminded Moscow and Kyiv of their past Union. Even if both capitals will follow different paths, Ukraine’s Donbas and Russia’s Kuzbas coal basins look very much alike, reduced to the status of marginal economic regions.
This unpleasant inference is a harbinger of social tragedy. Social, rather than economic, because in today’s Russia coal no longer plays its previous role, so miners’ strikes will not crucially impact on the economy. Not so during perestroika. The miners doomed tearful Nikolai Ryzhkov’s government precisely because they formed a tangible economic force. At present, they can act as a political and social one, but not economic. Let us face it: their waging the rail war did not signify their strength, rather the contrary. Previously, all they had to do was stop extraction to have government officials rush to the scene, cajoling, promising, even begging. Blocking railroads is not a strike. This method can be used once, twice at the most, before the government machine learns to protect itself. Which prompts an important conclusion: what we see now is not the beginning but the end of the miners’ movement as a force capable of changing the domestic situation. Finales are always more tempestuous than overtures, but they still signify the end. The important question is: What next? Meaning what will become of these people? They are becoming less of a threat to those in power, but how will they survive with mine pits being closed one after the other as unproductive?
Britain found herself in a situation like this under Thatcher, and the Iron Lady resorted to harsh measures against the minors without thinking twice. Under the circumstances, Mrs. Thatcher did not risk much, knowing that people would have a hard time, but by no means live on a starvation diet, as the British system of social guarantees would be there to lend them a hand, get them enrolled in retraining courses, etc. Ukrainian and Russian “guarantees” are not worth mentioning. What we have here is a vicious circle: the economy protects itself against the miners, and the latter are struggling to defend themselves against misery, while the state is trying to steer a middle course between expensive and often useless coal and the wrath of people doomed to starvation. Under the circumstances lying down on railroad tracks is not the worst of risks.
Photo by Volodymyr Rasner, The Day:
The good life has turned its back on the miners







