CLASS
ECONOMIC REFORMS by ERIC LAURENT & M. I. HOLUBENKO: The application of the various reforms in the USSR has apparently left the working class indifferent. This can be explained in part by the marked caution that has been displayed by the bureaucracy, which at no time has taken measures that the working class could have seen as direct attacks, measures like the sudden increase in the prices of basic consumer goods that was decreed in Poland in December 1970. It is also and above all to be explained by the fact that forty years of Stalinism have not passed without having deep effects on the working class. In particular, the bureaucracy's entire policy, carried out through the party and its mass organizations, is aimed at atomizing the whole of society and especially the working class, at preventing any form of assembly or collective action outside the official channels. In fact, since the death of Stalin the working class boint the bureaucracroice opp has never burst forth onto the political scene with its own demands in defense of its own class interests against the bureaucracy. The workers also remained quite outside the democratic opposition movement during the 1960s.(1) As for the Samizdat documents, they ignore the situation and current problems of the working class. Under these conditions, the opposition of the working class to the bureaucracy is manifested essentially in individual acts: sabotage of production, very slow work pace, disinterest in the quality of production, very high absenteeism, considerable moving about by the work force, and even hooliganism and alcoholism, which the official press reports as deviations from, and lack of adaption to, "communist" society. Drunkenness is the most widespread manifestation of the feeling of social frustration; it has taken on such dimensions that in 1972 the bureaucracy enacted a whole series of special decrees to struggle against alcoholism. While under Stalin alcoholism was simultaneously an important means of coptrolling the work22
THE SOVIET & THE ing class and a significant source of income (vodka stands were set up at factory gates), today the official campaign against alcoholism is part of the systematic effort aimed at increasing the productivity of labor. This campaign does not seem to have registered much success - precisely because alcoholism is born of a deep feeling of social dissatisfaction. We will not spend any more time discussing these phenomena of individual resistance and despair on the part of the working class, for they are relatively well known. Instead, we will concentrate essentially on examing how the introduction of the various reforms since 1965 has been able to change the situation of the working class, and to the extent possible we will look at the reactions of the workers. The 1965 reform The 1965 reform was aimed above all at altering the system of management of the factories; it was introduced with a profound indifference and often even ignorance on the part of the working class. During an inquiry conducted in 1967, some 400 workers of a factory in Lugansk were asked what effects they thought the reform had had on production and on the workers personally (wages and bonuses). When asked whether the reform had increased production, 141 workers said "yes, " 43 said. "a little, " and 221 workers said "no" or did not know. When asked whether the reform had raised wages or bonuses, 94 said "yes, " 130 said "somewhat" or "not at all, " and 181 did not know. (2) Even though it is impossible to draw general conclusions from such a small sample space, the considerable number of indifferent or negative replies
(especially to the second question) is relatively significant. In 1973, some 78 percent of the workers of a factory in Voroshilovgrad stated that they did not even know that an economic reform "aimed at increasing the efficiency of production and at raising wages" had been enacted. Hence, the consequences of the economic reform have been particularly meager for the working class. The desires expressed by some liberal economists like Birman and Anasenkov who have recommended increasing workers participation in the management of factories have remained a dead letter. As for the so-called encouragement funds, their main beneficiaries have been the factory managers. In particular, the bonuses paid out of special funds go only to engineers, technicians, and supervisory personnel. When it is also known that on the average only 20 percent of the workers receive bonuses paid out of the encouragement funds, it can be better understood why indifference or ignorance is manifested by workers who are polled. The diversity in the utilization of encouragement funds among various factories and branches of industry has resulted in very clear disparities in the wages paid in different areas for the same work. (See Maximov: Premirovanie Rabosikh, Moscow, 1971.) This also explains why the 1965 reform proved incapable of changing the attitude of the working class toward production (persistence of extensive spontaneous moving about, absenteeism, relatively slow growth of productivity). In trying to enact new reforms since the beginning of the 1970s, the bureaucracy has centered all its efforts on the more "rational" utilization of the work force. Many studies and "experiments" in this direction have been made. But in this domain the bureaucracy appears to be leaning toward attacking a problem on which the sensitivity of the working class is very great: the realm of employment, or more precisely, that of security of employment. (3) Moreover, the bureaucracy is more or less aware that it is venturing into dangerous territory, and it has thus been very cautious. In this context, the experiment of Shchekino provided a test case, for its purpose was to permit a rapid development of productivity on the basis of a significant rationalization of the utilization of the work force (in five years, 1,300 jobs were eliminated). Many studies have been devoted to this experiment, but the reactions of the workers to the various measures that were taken scarcely figures in these studies. Nevertheless, some articles let a certain workers discontent come through. For example, the secretary of the party committee of the combinat (a grouping of related industries) explained that it was necessary to take a series of "psychological precautions" and that in particular they "avoided talking about layoffs and spoke especially of liberation of work force reserves. " The workers of Shchekino also expressed their hostility to agencies like the Scientific Organization of Labor and the Laboratory on Research into Norms, which were seen as agencies aimed at paving the way for the layoff of personnel. If was also reported that there were cases of collective resistance in the workshop to the planned rationalization measures. While the importance of these reactions must not be overestimated, they are nonetheless meaningful, especially in that the Shchekino project was carried out in a sort of "antiseptic" context - a situation of relative labor shortage in which the problems of transferring workers did not pose great difficulties. (In a work devoted to the Shchekino experiment, a journalist mentioned that there were recruiting agents posted at the gates of some factories trying to hire workers for other factories.) But the publicity the bureaucracy has released around this experiment and others like it also seeks to issue a warning to the working class: The workers have to change their attitude toward labor, because soon only the most qualified and "productive" workers will be able to get good jobs. And in fact, the generalization of such measures in a great number of enterprises would pose the problem of layoffs and transfers in quite different terms. It hasn't come to that yet, but already a certain number of measures have been taken that move in this direction: in particular the establishment of a State Committee for the Utilization of Labor Resources, which has local branches whose essential aim is to organize and control workers seeking employment. For the moment this committee is playing only a secondary role; 90 percent of the workers prefer to look for jobs on their own. But in the framework of an extension of measures of the Shchekino type, this committee could be led to play a much more important and authoritative role in the redistribution of the work force according to the needs of the economy - needs that, at least as far as the bureaucracy is concerned, do not coincide with the needs of the workers. Up to now the legal possibilities of a factory director laying off workers after a reduction in the number of employees required have been strictly limited; in particular, the director is required to guarantee the workers other jobs: "The absence in the factory or institution of positions to which workers or employees can be transferred instead of being laid off because of a reduction in personnel needs does not free the administration of the obligation to make sure that these workers or employees are moved to other factories or institutions in the same area. "(4) Moreover, the factory must pay the wages of the worker until he has found another job and must also pay the costs of moving should that be necessary.
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SOVIET UNION The factory directors are exerting very strong pressure to get these obligations abolished (they are presented as the main obstacle to an "efficient" employment policy) and to shift the responsibility for re locating workers onto the offices of the State Committee for the Utilization of Labor Resources: "In the course of discussions with the author (a Soviet economist), a great number of factory directors in Moscow, Volgagrad, Kuibyshev, Saratov, Chelyabinsk, and other cities have quite correctly linked the problem of the liberation of the work force (again the same euphemism for layoffs!) to the development and deepening of economic reform. They noted that the reduction of the number of workers and employees would be considerably facilitated by the enactment of the following measures: expansion of the prerogatives of the enterprises, in particular their obtaining the possibility of completely controlling the wage fund; significant strengthening of material incentives for the personnel, especially through the payment of high wages and bonuses to the most qualified and valuable individuals who successfully fulfill not only their own obligations but also the functions of people who are laid off; elimination of the enterprises' responsibilities for finding new jobs for laid-off workers and of their obligation to pay such workers compensation during the period of their retraining and search for new employment. "(5) The interest of the technocratic layers in the development of the reform could not be expressed any more clearly. But the open application of the totality of these measures would involve a frontal attack on the working class, which the bureaucracy wants above all to avoid; hence the buffer role that the bureaucracy has to play between the currents that advocate "rationalization" at any price (that is, essentially at the expense of the working class) and the working class itself, which is certainly not prepared to passively accept the challenging of one of the major gains that remain of the revolution of 1917: security of employment. Thus, certain official bodies like the Wages Committee, have intervened to slow down the extension of the Shchekino experiment to a great number of other enterprises. Wages and productivity Since the problem of the growth of productivity is the central problem today, the bureaucracy has sought to link wage increases ever more closely to increases in productivity, more and more limiting automatic wage raises. Thus, it is stressed in an official report: "In the present five-year plan, only half of all wage increases will come through the introduction of new scales of wages, salaries, and other forms of remuneration; the other half will be obtained by the workers and employees through successes in production." 24
The will to extensively subordinate increases in wages to increases in productivity (one of the objectives of the bureaucracy is to struggle against the inflationary tendencies that were manifested in the late 1960s because of uncontrolled wage increases in some economic branches) has provoked a marked slowdown in the growth of workers' wages since the first year of the current five-year plan. During the 1965-70 period, wage increases tallied very closely with productivity increases (5% and 5.7% respectively); in 1970 productivity increased 7.7% and wages only 4.4%. In 1971 a worker received in rubles for a 1% increase in productivity only a third of what he had gotten in 1968; in 1972 he got half of what he had got in 1968. In 1973 the average wage of workers incredsed 3.7%. But this increase in average wages was due in large part to an increase in the minimum wage, which passed From 60 to 62 rubles a month, and to bonuses paid For transfers to the Great North or to Siberia. For 1974 the plan calls for wage increases of only 3.6%. This wage policy seems to have generated growing discontent in the working class. Izvestia gave some indication of this at the beginning of the year when it published the results of a poll made in a locomotive factory in Voroshilovgrad. What is interesting about this poll is that it compares the workers' responses with those given during a similar inquiry conducted in 1968. In 1974 some 75% of the workers said they were not satisfied with their wages; in 1968 the figure was only 54%. The majority of workers expressed discontent with the smallness of the increase in consumer goods; 65% more workers complained about working conditions than had complained in 1968. During the winter of 1973-74 several strikes broke ouf in Moscow, especially in the construction industry; the issues involved were wages and bonuses. Another means of putting pressure on wages so as to increase productivity - and this technique was used even before the reforms - is to raise production norms; this often results in wage decreases. In fact, under the present system by which the workers are paid, base wages represent only 62.4% of the total real wages; in many factories they represent only 46.1%. An important part of the remainder of wages is made up of bonuses paid out of the wages fund, disbursement of which is linked to realization or overfulfillment of the plan. In addition, any revision in production norms entails a noticeable fall in average wages, exactly because of the role played by bonuses in the composition of wages. In the case of engineers and technocrats, the "normal" salary does not include bonuses linked to realization or overfulfillment of the plan. The bonuses received by engineers and technicians come only from the encouragement funds and the special funds. This
explains why sharp increases in production norms have been at the root of many strikes. For example, in Sverd lovsk in 1969 the change to a five-day week in a rubber plant and the sharp revision of production norms provoked a fall in wages of about 40%. The workers immediately went on strike. Although the factory director and the local authorities were advocates of an "energetic" response (sending out the militia against the strikers), the leading bodies in Moscow initially preferred to cut their losses: The old wage system was reestablished and the factory director was "laid off, " only to be offered a responsible post in a ministry in Moscow some time later. It was only later that the KGB began looking for the "ringleaders. " This initial temporizing attitude on the part of the bureaucracy is rather characteristic. Similar strikes have occurred in factories in Vitebsk, Kopceisk, and other cities. Factory cops and psychologists In face of the many tensions that are emerging in the factories, the initial response of the bureaucracy is to tighten discipline. More and more frequently, this is evidenced in the affirmation in the press of the need for the presence within the factories of representatives of the Ministry of the Interior. In an article in the July 9, 1972, Izvestia the director of a Moscow factory explained that "police officials visit the factory systematically. They conduct inquiries into cases of violation of the legal order in our enterprise. " In another article we read: "The offices of the district prosecutor in Sverd lovsk have verified the state of labor discipline in our enterprises. They presented to the management a report on violations of labor discipline and public order by the workers of the factory. " Many additional quotations regarding ever closer collaboration between the cops and the factory managers could be given. Concurrently, the bureaucracy is discovering with amazement the virtues of American-style labor psycho-sociology in the prevention of social conflicts. In the August 28, 1971, Pravda, we read: "Why shouldn't a psychological physician be included in the personnel of the big factories? Working hand in hand with the social organizations, he would make his contribution to the prevention of conflicts of all sorts." Or, in Literaturnaya Gazeta of May 24, 1972: "You have to know how to make subordinates talk. A silent worker always represents an enigma and a difficult subject for the management, But it is no less important to quickly stop a subordinate who talks more than is necessary." The bureaucracy has invented nothing new in the realm of factory cops and psychologists. Once again, this testifies to its present inability to resolve the problems with which it is confronted: more and more marked distrust and resistance by the working class to a system that appears totally foreign to the workers in spite of all the official declarations to the contrary. Discontent among the youth In the past several years, the Soviet press had devoted more and more space to the growing discontent among the youth in regard to the prospects offered them by society, especially as concerns their work. This phenomenon is linked to the extreme vertical social mobility that characterized the first decades of the Soviet regime, when the need for trained personnel at all levels and in all sectors was considerable. Today, the chances of social promotion - from the countryside to the city, from the working class to the layer of supervisory personnel, etc. - have been considerably reduced. One figure is especially significant in this regard: the percentage of youth who, having finished secondary school, go on to the university or to similar institutions:
1951 1958 1965 % of the total: 72% 13% 29% In 1966 some 1.2 million young people directly entered production at the end of their studies in secondary schools. This phenomenon has one especially important consequence: The working class is growing larger and larger because of the influx of new layers into its ranks; it now includes an ever greater number of hereditary workers. In fact, there is a rather clear correlation between the social situation of parents and the professional aspirations of youth, as the tables on pg. 26 demonstrate. Various local inquiries have shown that the great majority of youth who entered into production before completing their studies come from working-class or kolkhozi (state farms) families that have low incomes. A second point of tension derives from the very sharp contrast between the level of general education and training of the youth before they enter into production (a great number of whom have completed secondary school) and the professional training that they later receive: Presently, about 90% of young workers are trained in the factories directly on the job in a very short time and in a purely practical
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REALIZATION OF THE PLANS OF YOUTH WANTING TO CONTINUE STUDY
NOTE: A poll of 10,000 worker families in Leningrad in 1963 revealed that
40% of these families had a per capita monthly income of less than 50 rubles.
SOVIET UNION
1. On the basis of parents' income: Level of monthly family income (per capita) less than 50 rubles 50-70 rubles 70-90 rubles more than 90 rubles 2. According to parents' cultural level: Education of parents Up to oth grade 7th to 9th grade middle grades superior grades SOURCE: Social'nye problemy truda i proizvodsta, 1969, p. 53. and utilitarian manner. This explains the discontent young workers feel about their occupational situation, discontent that is expressed by an especially great spontaneous mobility and by the less intense docility of the young workers. The factory directors increasingly complain about these young workers, for the directors do not want to understand why the young workers seem less and less prepared to accept the role of simple "objects of planning" that the bureaucracy wants to impose on them. In fact, as a somewhat cynical bureaucrat said: "You can't make people happy by deciding things without them and for them. What is important is not only wnat is being planned but also who is doing the planning. And the first depends largely on the second. It is urgent to reach agreement on whether the factory collective is to be solely an object of planning or whether it is also to be the subject of planning. "(6) It is to be hoped that the Soviet working class will one day give a clear response to this anxious bureaucrat. Conclusion The application of the reforms in the USSR has gone through many vacillations. That is because the bureaucracy's room for maneuver is narrow. On the one hand, even if the bureaucrats are rather obtuse, 26
Realization of plans (in %) Working and Working Studying Studying 17.6 17.6 65.4 15.5 13.9 70.6 14.7 14.0 71.3 5.1 6.1 88.8
Realization of plans (in %) Working and Working Studying Studying 41.2 27.8 31.0 33.6 13.3 53.1 21.2 13.8 65.0 9.0 9.4 81.6 they are not unaware that a reformist process having a snowball effect in the direction of the restoration of capitalism would destroy their caste privileges, for only a minority of them would be in position to transform themselves into "capitalist managers."
On the other hand, the bureaucrats have every reason to fear a violent reaction from the workers in the event of a frontal attack on the gains of the working class (the workpace, employment security, etc.). But the hesitations are also due to the USSR's position as the lynchpin of the other bureaucratized countries. If one of the other bureaucracies sets in motion a dangerous sociopolitical dynamic or goes too far along the road of reforms, the USSR always has to be in position to assume its "internationalist responsibilities" by sending in tanks. The stability that is consequently required for the Soviet bureaucracy can only be achieved by maintaining greater power in internal policy. Nevertheless, it is hazardous to say with certainty that the reforms will always be condemned to failure. This question is important politically, for our response to it relates to the probable framework in which the activization and politicization of the working class will take place: either in struggle against the whole bureaucracy and its privileges or in struggle against the process of restoration of
capitalism and the wing of the bureaucracy that could be the driving force in such a process. The response cannot be simplistic. The factors that are pushing the bureaucracy to pose the problem of the economic reforms derive from the general characteristics of the Stalinist period, from the general crisis and decline of the bureaucratic regime. The slowdown of economic growth and the ever greater bureaucratization of the economy will undoubtedly periodically push the bureaucracy down the road of reforms. Nevertheless, equally periodically, the factors we have mentioned will probably block these reform efforts. FOOTNOTES: 1. The struggle for democratic rights - freedom of the press, freedom of speech, freedom of assembly - has in fact been waged solely through the mobilization of the intelligentsia in defense of its own interests as a social layer. The, program of liberals like Sakharov essentially upholds the demands of the technocracy against incompetent bureaucrats. Medvedev, who claims allegiance to Marxism, devotes very little space in his book On Socialist Democracy to the problems and role of the working class in the struggle for real socialism. What characterizes most of the opposition currents that have emerged from the intelligentsia is fear of the "disorder" that would be provoked, according to them, by the mobilization of the Soviet masses against the bureaucracy. In his book Will the Soviet Union Survive Until 1984? Amalric offers a good resumé of the idea that is most widespread among the Soviet opposition when he counterposes what he calls "the constructive and reformist movement of the intelligentsia" to the "destructive movement of the lower classes." The reformism of the opposition essentially expresses a deep distrust of the masses, and of the working class in the first place. Nevertheless, some clandestine groups dissolved by the KGB during the 1960s - groups about which we often know only the name and a few passages from their programs - included workers in their ranks and undertook some agitational work directed at the working class. (Examples are the Party of Real Communists, the Party of Young Workers, the Party of Workers Without a Party Struggling for the Restorafion of Socialism.) In the non-Russian republics the national question, born of the policy of total Russification practiced by the bureaucracy, has mobilized layers much broader than the intelligentsia. This emerges clearly in the documents of the Samvidav (the Ukrainian Samizdat), in which national demands and workers demands are linked. (See, for example, the Koval letter to the deputies of the Ukrainian Soviets.) 2. Cited by A. Birman in "Sut' reformy, " Novy
Mir, No. 12, 1968, p. 186. 3. This significant remark has been attributed to a
Soviet worker: "They can launch campaigns and do whatever they want, but we will not work harder. The right not to work hard is probably our only right." 4. See Comments on Labor Legislation, Moscow,
1967, p. 88. 5. See Osnovnye problemy racional'nogo izpolzovanija trudovykh ressursov USSR, Moscow, 1971, p. 17. 6. Statement of the first secretary of the party in
Tambov, quoted in Novy Mir, No. 5, 1972, p. 197.
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