Setback for De-Stalinization
_ KHRUSHCHEV'S PROPOSED "LABOR PASSPORT"
The Soviet leadership has remained faithful to Stalin in more _than one way, For instance, it displays the most absolute distrust of any initiative on the part of the workers. . . yet it redisoovers this initiative when it is a matter of introducing some measure aimed at digging the spurs into. the workers. This has just been illustrated. The Soviet press suddenly received letters from workers asking that their "labor passport" be brought up to date. A few days later, Khrushchev said he was amenable to this, What is it all about?
-In addition to their internal passport, a kind of identity card . containing information about their civil status, the Soviet people have had a "labor passport" since Stalin's time, This contains information about jobs held, promotions, changes in placement, reasons for. being layed off if this "has occurred, awards and bonuses, but not any penalties if these have not involved a change in placement or dismissal, Held by the "cadre service" of the enterprise where a person is employed, a worker cannot. be hired anywhere else without presenting this document, In Stalin's time, a worker could not get it with~ out the permission of the plant administration, At present it cannot be refused to any worker who asks for it. This change was widely held to be due to a new relationship of forces which had deprived .-. the document of the importance it had in the days of Stalin.
Pravda, Lzvestia. and the organ of the trade unions Trud opened
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their columns to workers ~-- some of whom are deputies in the Supreme., Soviet -- who demanded that this document be given fresh weight; that it should carry a whole series of job and even other qualifications, They propose that it list job penalties, court sentences, character traits,
The reasons given for this during the campaign are worth noting: the problem is "to weed out the shirkers ," the "violators of labor discipline," the “absenteeists," While one person would like to hobble "seekers of social privileges," another one -- a regional union secretary «= writes:
“we have finished with equalitarianism in the payment of wagoes,.. The labor passport will help end with equalitarianism in the attitude toward people," Thus the struggle against equalitarianism, so powerful in Stalin's day, has not yet disappeared.
One of the aims of a labor passport like this is defined as fol~ lows in Izvestia:
"This must concern not only the conferment of oldsage pensions but also the granting of vacations, procedure in payment, wage in~ creases, conferment of lodging, . distribution of reservations in rest homes and sanatoriums, disability benefits, etc." ;
One of the authors of the proposal demanded that the document should be carried at all times so that it could be produced on demand :
"For example, an individual goes to his deputy, to the party committee, or to the sovict of his town, to the management of a plant or an administration to take up the question of a job, or to ask for help in the question of lodging or any other business. Who is this individual?, . . If he presents himself. at any other administration than his own, or the union, it is always very difficult to find out what hets Like, n
The proposal for a "reform" in the labor passport in the sense indicated by the campaign in the press was approved by Khrushchev himself in his speech of February 28 on agricultural problems, It has been submitted to the central leadership of the trade unions for elaboration in a draft which will again be discussed before passage into law,
Under these circumstances, the "reform will not be adopted immediately, . But that such a proposal could be considered and earmarked for study reflects one of the contradictions of Soviet society today. The public power; that is, the instruments of the ruling bureaucracy, feel that the present administrative regulations do not offer sufficient means for pressure on and control over the workers, . For the "reform," far from aiming at a "restoration of Leninist norms," as Khrushchev pretends, would give plant administrations and manag6-
ments reinforced means of pressure and control not only in the plant but also elsewhere in daily life, as is proved by the proposal that judicial or other penalties could be included in the passport "on the demand of social organizations,"
It will be of interest to see what becomes of this proposal, especially to see how. the workers react to it in practice instead of in the colums of a press entirely in the hands of the bureaucratic power,
In any case, this is one more example of the Nachievement of socialism" and the "yassage to communism," which are quite remote from Engels! definition of the administration over things instead of rule over persons.
TRUMAN