What's in
it for the
workers?
IN THE "totalitarian" vision of Soviet society - a vision that is perhaps undergoing change but is still predominant in the West -the workers are atomized and totally dominated by the absolute state.
Their social situation is seen as not very different from that of workers in the capitalist countries, except that they lack the political and union rights of Western workers that would allow them to defend themselves against exploitation. The reality, however, is much more complex. DAVID SEPPO
OLITICAL AND UNION rights are indeed lacking in the Soviet Union (though one should be wary of exaggerating their practical significance for workers in the capitalist states). But Soviet workers are far from atomized, at least on the workshop level, where they possess certain rights and means that allow them to defend their most immediate material interests.! This is possible mainly thanks to certain key traits of the "command economy".
There is, first of all, full employment — or rather, the scarcity of labour (despite local pockets of surplus).2 Article 40 of the 1977 constitution affirms the right of citizens to work.3 the real force of this provision is difficult to assess directly because the "command economy" tends to maintain a chronic labour shortage.
of enterprise labour-force plans has regularly exceeded the aggregate labour-force plan for the entire economy (both before and after correc-
For the Soviet manager, this extra la-
USSR bour is without cost. Rather, the oppo-
701
site is true. It offers many advantages: management's incentive funds grow in proportion to the size of the wage fund, and the extra workers make it easier to meet plan targets in face of the irregular working of the material supply system, the resulting arhythmic pace of work, and the periodic commandeering of the enterprise's workers by outside authorities to help out elsewhere in the economy (in agriculture, construction, vegetable and fruit depots and so on — the so-called "sponsor's jobs" (shefskie raboty).4
For related reasons, workers (but not office and technical personnel) enjoy de facto job security. Although from a strictly legal point of view they can be laid off for reasons of redundancy, in practice this almost never happens." (This has not been the case for political offences, but local conflicts between workers and management are not generally viewed as political by the regime.) Over the years, workers have thus come to see job security as right.°
Workers vote with their feet
This situation creates a balance of power within the enterprise favourable to the workers: management needs them, while they can easily find another job, perhaps with conditions more to their liking. Thus, despite the absence of trade unions that would defend them, the workers can vote with their feet (change jobs), and they do so at a very high rate. Moreover, the informal use of strikes and other collective means of pressure on the workshop 1. Much of what follows is based upon personal conversations and observations during trips to the Soviet Union. For an insightful analysis of the workers' situation inside the East European factory, see C. Sabel and D. Stark, "Planning, politics and shop-floor power: hidden forms of bargaining in Soviet-imposed state-socialist societies", Politics and Society, Vol. II, No. 4, 1984, pp.339-475. See also D. Mandel, "La crise du 'socialisme réellement existant' ", Etudes internationales (Quebec), Vol. 12, No. 2, June 1982, pp.293-5. 2. For discussions of rural unemployment in Central Asia and Azerbaijan, see Sotsialistecheskaya industriya, April 25-29, 1987; and Sel'skaya Zhin', April 24, 1987 3. Constitution of the USSR, Moscow, 1977. 4. For an interesting discussion of these issues, see P. Hanson, "The serendipitous Soviet achievement of full employment: labour shortage and labour hoarding in the Soviet economy", in D. Lane (ed.), Labour and employment in the USSR, NYU Press (New York), 1986, pp.83-111; and also V.M. Rutgaizen and Yu.E. Shevnyakov, "Raspredelenie po trudu" (Distribution according to labour), EKO 3, 1987, pp.14-17. 5. See N. Lampert, "Job security and the law in the USSR", in D. Lane, ibid. 6. A. Nove, The Soviet economic system, Allen and Unwin (London), 1983, p.296. In Hungary, it is only last year that the authorities began to close down some inefficient plants. Even though the displaced workers were offered jobs elsewhere and the political authoridismit with her to real. New York Times, December 21 ties met with them to explain the situation, the workers' 2, 1986.)
October 26, 1987 • International Viewpoint
USSR level is quite frequent, especially in heavy industry.
second characteristic of the "command system" is the basis of common interest - or, more precisely, collusion - that it creates between workers and enterprise management in the face of pressures from the central authorities.
The Soviet enterprise is very different from the capitalist one, where management seeks to maximize profit by intensifying the exploitation of the labour force - keeping wages low and speeding up work. This is a management interest that workers under capitalism are able to verify every day of their working lives. Soviet workers, on the other hand, tend to have a much more ambivalent attitude toward management.
Divisions between whiteand blue-collar workers
While they do see management (and, to a lesser extent, technical personnel) as a group apart, this division is only partly based upon perceived conflicts of interest: discrimination in favour of managerial and technical personnel in the allocation of social benefits (subsidized vacations, apartments), and occasional arbitrary treatment of workers (for example, by the assignment to "less profitable" jobs, forced overtime
But for the Soviet worker, at least as important a difference lies in the nature of their work, which is dirty, physically demanding and performed standing,
"white shirts" called, sit at their desks in clean officWorkers often express the view that "those people do not work".
So, while in their minds "we" are the workers and "they" the management, because of the collusion that regularly occurs the workers' particular attitude to management seems to depend on personal, subjective factors than on objective differences of social position. The question is more whether the director is a "good person": does he try to be fair with the workers and treat them as people?
Unlike workers under capitalism, Soviet workers often say that management does not push them terribly hard — it is readily admitted that one could, in fact, work much harder — and that it tries to get them the best wage in circumstances (these are largely deter-
The collusion between workers and management in the "command economy" can take various forms. But its most striking manifestation is the pri22 piska —the "writing in" of fictitious work and of fictitious output. This International Viewpoint • October 26, 1987 serves the interests of both parties: the worker, who earns more than merited by his or her actual work; and the director, who fulfills and overfulfills the enterprise's plan targets. It is "only" the economy as a whole that loses. But then, in the bureaucratic system that is solely the concern of the central authorities. Under Brezhnev, the pripiska could account for up to 40 per cent of a
In the absence of terror, abolished after Stalin's death, the result of these two traits of the "command economy" - labour shortage management collusion — is a constant growth has borne little relationship to productivity rises, despite the insistence of the central authorities that wages follow increases in productivity.
The situation is similar in relation to wage differentials, which are relatively small within the same industry. This is also in the face of constant denunciations on the part of central authorities of uravnilovka (levelling).
third characteristic of the "command system" is the importance of the social wage — goods and services that are provided with little or no relationship to the labour furnished: heavily subsidized basic food items, rents, utilities, public transport, medical care, education and so on. Accord-
La recent Soviet estimate, for each rouble earned as wages in 1965, 46 kopeks were distributed in the form of free or subsidized goods and services 1970, the figure was 51 kopeks, rising to 56ks in 1975, 58ks in 1980 and
Even if the quality and quantity of these goods and services are often mediocre and their provision racked with corruption, they have nevertheless provided a margin of security for workers, the significance of which should not under this system the managneither the interest nor the means that the capitalist manager posensure the "efficient" "economic" utilization of labour. In other words, to constantly intensify the exploitation of labour. ers, on the other hand, possess informal means that allow them to defend their most immediate interests.
explaining the urgent need for structural economic reform that would introduce indirect, economic means of Gorbachev told the January plenum:
"The restriction of the economic rights of the enterprises and trusts has had serious consequences. It has undermined the material basis of incentives, prevented the attainment of superior results, led to the decline of the economic and social activity of the population, to the decline of labour discipline....
"There have been serious infractions of the socialist principle of distribution according to work....A mentality of dependence has developed. In people's consciousness, the psychology of levelling has taken root. the link between the measure of labour and the measure of consumption not only distorts the attitude toward labour but leads also to the distortion of the principle of social justice - and that is already a question of great political
The economic reform, if introduced in a more or less consistent manner, would thus transform the workers' situation. The enterprise directors, subject to the pressure of market forces, be motivated to produce more efficiently. A principal means to this end would be to economize on labour costs. Enterprise rights in setting would be tied much more closely to concrete results and to the performance of the enterprise, and wage differentials would widen accordingly. 1° Price subsidies and other aspects of the social wage would be drastically reduced relative to wage income. The chronic shortage of labour would end. "Social justice" and wage differentials
There is also talk of the appearance of unemployment, though for the foreseeable future this would probably be only of an episodic and local nature. More significant would be the loss of job security. Many workers would be forced to retrain and to move. A law soon to be adopted provides for threemonths average national wage for workers forced to seek new employment.' Until now there has been no provision for the able-bodied unem-
In the press and scientific literature, these measures are often discussed under 7. From personal conversations. Rutgaizen and Shevnyakov cite expert estimates of pripiska amounting to 15%-20% of reported work in individual transport and construction enterprises. See their article "Raspredelenie... " p.20. However, they do not identify the period studied. In conversations, workers stated that pressures against pripiska increased significantly after Brezhnev's death. 8. Ibid, p.5. 9. Pravda, January 28, 1987. 10. See, for example, U. Shcherbakov (Director of the Wages Department of the USSR State Commission on Labour), "Kardinal'naya perestroika oplaty truda" (Fundamental reform of payment for labour), EKO 1, 1987, pp. 37-52 11. M-A. Crosnier, "Le New Deal de Gorbatchev", Le Courrier des Pays de l'Est, March 1985, p.16. Layoffs have already begun to be reported in the press. See "Ekonomika na perepiet'e", Literaturnaya gazeta, June 3, 1987, p.10. TASS reported a first bankruptcy, a Leningrad construction firm, on March 26, 1987.
the rubric of "social justice". Thus, for example, the general above were advocated in an article by the eminent sociologist Tatyana Zaslavskaya entitled, and social justice", published in the November 1986 issue of Kommunist, the theoretical journal of the CPSU. In these discussions, "social justice" tends to be given a particular meaning: if worker A produces better results
A's real income should be higher. This, so it is argued, is generally not the case at present.
In the Soviet setting it is not hard to on strengthening the link between work and reward and on eliminating wage levelling. But it is nevertheless striking that other concerns usually implied in the term "social justice" are given little more than lip service: the motivation of work through the strengthening of social solidarity based upon real participation in decision-making and the provision decent minimum for all, regardless of accidental circumstances (such as physical infirmity, market conditions and so on) in which the worker may find her or himself.
Thus, economists Rutgaizen Shevnyakov begin "Distribution according to labour": "Until recently the improvement of distributive policy was approached mainly from the viewpoint of solving urgent tasks of public welfare. Now we need to considerably strengthen its role in the intensification of production." 12
The entire article is devoted exclusively to developing the second sentence. The fact is that almost no serious attention is being paid in the press or scientific literature or in practice to the development of the social measures necessary to soften the economic and social blows that would inevitably be the immediate experience of a very large part of the population. Workers deprived of political rights
The point is not so much whether the envisaged reform is "anti-worker" or not (though one can certainly ask if there are not other variants of reform that would better correspond to the workers' aspirations). 13 For the "command economy" is certainly not pro-worker, despite those - in both East and West - who do not hesitate to describe the Soviet workers under the existing system as privileged.
As we have seen, these "privileges" are in reality a defensive adaptation to a system that has deprived workers of their political rights. They are, in a certain sense, substitutes for political power, especially the right of control over the management of the nationalized economy, union rights.
Viewed from this angle, the workers' mistrust of a reform the short run, would reduce them to the situation of workers under capitalism, but without giving any real guarantee that they will ultimately benefit from it, is understandable. And until now, their experience in the factories under Gorbachev has been on the whole negative: tightening of discipline, intensification of labour, reduction of income and upwardly creeping prices - without significant improvement in the area of consumption.
In an interview in Izvestiya, the Director of the Institute of Sociological Research of the USSR Academy of Sciences, V. Ivanov, generalizing the results of surveys conducted in 120 enterprises throughout the country, stated changes in the sphere of intellectual little that is good has changed for workers in the sphere of material production. "Right now, the majority experience the restructuring only as growing pressure at work.... The consumer market remains unchanged, and, moreover, last year the [rate of] increase in production of consumer goods was lower than the rate for 1985." 14
A woman worker in a ferro-concrete goods factory in the town of Kurgan described her conditions in the following terms. At work - a non-existent ventilation system, preferential treatment for administrators in the distribution of benefits, a trade-union committee that lies and has at heart interests other than those of the workers. Outside work - an apartment building whose roof leaks, whose elevator does
USSR not work, that is cold in winter, and public transport so overcrowded that it takes an hour and a half to make the four kilometer trip to work, and even so, one has to fight to squeeze in.
"Restructuring of everyday
life might be forgotten
"Excuse me", she concluded, "for writing what I think. I am not able to express all at once everything that is in my heart. We have been storing up insults for too long, while remaining silent. Now life has taken a new turn. We see changes for the better. We want to believe that there will be more. Election of administrators, state product acceptance — all this is correct and necessary. But I am afraid that behind the restructuring of production, the restructuring of everyday life might be
"To be honest, for me the main thing is my home and my family, my children. I work for their sake. Believe me, the majority of women think the same. And if all around they are saying: 'We are restructuring', and in the homes it remains cold as before, and if you cannot squeeze into the public transport, and cannot buy anything in the stores, then for us it turns out that there are no changes.
"That is what we think about. In a word, we want not only to work, but also to live differently than we have until now." 15
Gorbachev is aware of this problem. The political aspect of the perestroika is aimed, in part, precisely at creating in the workers the political commitment necessary for the success reform. For example, Gorbachev that the election of enterprise directors by the workers is a necessary measure since "the well-being of the worker will depend upon the abilities of the managers. The workers should, therefore, have real means of influencing the choice of director and controlling his activity." 16
And more generally: "We need the maximum democratization of the socialist system so that the individual feels himself master and creator....Only a person who feels himself master in his house can put it in order. "17 12. Rutgaizen and Shevnyakov, ibid, p.3. 13. This very crucial issue, which has received relatively little attention East or West, is beyond the scope of this article. For an interesting and very rare — defence of democratic but still basically direct central planning, see E. Mandel, "In defence of socialist planning", New Left Review 159, September/October 1986, pp. 5-37. 14. "Real'nost' nadezhd", Izvestiya, May 5, 1987. The press has also noted a continued decline in the quality of food products (Who spoiled our appetites!), Izvestiya, March 28, 1986. 15. "My khotim zhit" inache (We want to live different- 23 ly), Izvestiya, April 14, 1987. 16. Pravda, January 28, 1987.
October 26, 1987• International Viewpoint
USSR
Other important political reforms include the strengthening of legal guarantees against abuse of power by otti-
, and the introduction of a real secret ballot (as opposed to the current practice, which renders it purely symbolic) and a choice among candidates nominated from below in Soviet elections.19 There has been talk of empowering the Soviets vis-a-vis their executive committees, whom the former will genuinely elect and control.20
There has also been a certain amount of encouragement to independent individual and collective initiatives in economic and social life, appearance in some of the larger cities of clubs of various sorts that have definitely political aspects, all, of course, formally in favour of the perestroika, but some - in particular the Pamyat' (Memory) movement - actually of a Great-Russian chauvinist, proto-fascist
There is currently discussion of the creation of a national organization of these clubs, which have taken up such varied issues as police brutality, protection of the environment, the economic reform, assistance to the elderly, the nomination of candidates in Soviet elections, labour rights and disarma-
The regime has also shown a new toleration for popular struggles and even given them some encouragement. Most of these, so far, have involved issues of protection of the environment and historical sites. These seem to have involved mainly intellectuals and student
One of these movements succeeded in stopping a project to divert northernflowing Siberian rivers into the Caspian Sea. Another, which was marked by demonstrations, failed to prevent the destruction by Leningrad authorities of the Hotel Angleterre (where the poet Esenin committed suicide in the 1920s). Both were written up in the central press as struggles against bureaucratic narrowness and au-
The most significant political protest so far has been that of the Crimean Tatars, deported by Stalin after the war, whose struggle for the right to return at last seems to be approaching a critical
Most spectacular, however, has been the unfettering of journalism and scientific and artistic work. This is the one area of Soviet life where changes have been radical and immediately visible to the ordinary citizen. Almost no aspect of Soviet society and history have remained untouched, including, for example, bureaucratic privilege, power, Great-Russian chauvinism, ethnic discrimination, drug abuse, prostitution, Afghanistan, corruption • military, deterioration of the health International Viewpoint • October 26, 1987 and falsification of medical system data, Stalin, Trotsky and the Purges. (One crucial problem that has so far received relatively little attention is the situation of women.) While the significance of these political changes should not be under-rated, especially in the Soviet context, socialist democracy still remains very much a promise, and measures to implement it are often vague and ambiguous.
### Electoral changes are
For example, a collective letter from a group of citizens of Smolensk offered the following blunt evaluation of the experiments and proposed changes in elections to local Soviets: these "changes are so timid, that they cannot hope to solve the problem of developand smashing the retarding mechanism" 23
Similarly, the draft Law of the State Enterprise is very obscure on the actual powers of decision of the worker collective and their elected councils. Even the clearly stated right to elect manag ers is subject to "confirmation by the superior body" 24 So far, the experience with such elections has more often than not been the "parachuting" of candidates from above.25 (Of course, even under the existing laws, the workers have broad powers in the enterprise, but in practice very few workers know about them, much less have seen them exercised.)
Nor did the Congress of Trade Unions in February 1987, despite the more frank and critical tenor of the speeches, create the impression that the trade unions were about to transform themselves into organizations fence of the workers' interests against management. The Komsomol (Young Communist League) Congress, held earlier this year, showed itself no more eager than the January Central Committee plenum to enter the path of internal the political pects of the perestroika, already introduced in the capital and about which one reads in the central press, are experienced very unevenly throughout the rest of the country. Outside of Moscow, implementation of political measures depends very much upon the interests and interpretations of the local authorities. In many areas, the character of the mass media has only minimally changed, and the local press has been known to reprint articles from the central papers in altered form. As a result, for a large part of the population, even the political side of the perestroika is still often just so many words.
It remains to be seen, therefore, if the democratization that Gorbachev is willing or capable of introducing will go far enough to win over a working class whose scepticism is based upon long decades of bureaucratic despotism. According to Ivanov of the Institute of Sociological Research, the "inertia and passivity" of workers is one of the major factors holding back restructuring.
In a survey of workers at the Moscow Sanitary Equipment factory, a third of the respondents stated that they "would wait it out until the restructuring became more clearly defined before deciding whether to adhere to it or not". Given the tremendous media and other official pressure in favour of the perestroika, it is safe to assume that these workers who expressed reservations were only the bravest of a larger group who feel the same way. In another survey of Kazakhstan enterprises, 40 per cent of the respondents favoured maintaining the old wage system.26
For the near future, at least, the mass of workers will, on the whole, likely remain suspicious of - and even opposed to — the economic reform, even if this opposition is of a veiled passive nature. 17. Ibid. 18. See, for example, "Proshu zashchity u suda" (I ask the court for protection), Izvestiya, April 9, 1987; and "Sila zakona" (The force of the law), Moskovskava pravda, May 17, 1987. 19. "Kak nam vybirat?" (How are we to choose?), Izvestiya, January 30, 1987. "Vybory po mnogmandatnym okrugam" (Elections in districts with several representatives), Pravda, March 29, 1987. 20. "Demokratiya i perestroika" (Democracy and the perestroika), Pravda, October 31, 1986. 21. See "Komy urok?" (A lesson for whom?), Izvestiya, March 27, 1987; "Urok ne vprok" (The lesson is in vain), ibid., April 9 and 25, 1987; and S. Zalygin, "Povorot — uroki odnoi diskussii" (The tuming — lessons of a certain discussion), Novyi mir 1, 1987, 22. Vesti SSSR, Munich, No. 14, 1987, p.36. 23. "Vybirat' no kak?" (To elect, but how?), Literaturnaya gazeta, June 10, 1987, p.1. 24. Pravda, April 4, 1987. 25. Izvestiya, February 8, 1987. 26. "Real'nost' nadezhd", Izvestiya, May 5, 1987.