Russian Oligarchs More Interested in Moving Workers Away from Rich Central Cities than in Winning War in Ukraine, Activists Say

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct. 8 – Wealthy Russians have long worked to live apart from where workers do by moving factories out of the cities so that workers will follow and allow the wealthy to continue to grow rich without having to see or interact with those who produce their wealth, A. Zimbovsky, a labor activist says.

            But today, it appears that these rich Russians are so committed to “the program of the de-proletarianization of the capital” that they are prepared to sacrifice the success of the Russian military in Ukraine by closing plants in advance of relocating them and thus cutting production of important military supplies (forum-msk.org/material/news/18071125.html).

            Zimbovsky details the case of one factory which had been located near the center of Moscow which had employed 5,000 men and produced various kinds of military materiel. Now, in the midst of the fighting, it has been closed down so that it can be shifted to a location outside the city where its reduced workforce will have to follow or suffer painfully long commutes.

            Not only have the workers suffered from this and the country lost the production this factory had been producing, he says, but this move to de-proletarianize Moscow is contributing to the de-industrialization of the country, all so the rich can get richer and in control of the central city and the poor poorer and out of site on its borders.

            This rare report of the way in which the war is exacerbating class tensions is intriguing. It suggests that Russia could face labor troubles if the conflict continues for much longer and also the possibility that Putin could try to regain his standing with the population by attacking those who have been his prime supporters up to now.