The issue of labor discipline lay at the very heart of the antagonistic relationship between the Soviet elite and its work force. That "discipline" was slack in Soviet factories has long been noted by Western and Soviet commentators alike: high labor turnover; absenteeism, closely tied to heavy drinking on and off the job; and, more importantly, a highly irregular pace of work, with periods of intensive labor (usually involving forced overtime) interspersed with countless opportunities for time wasting, slow work, and a general disregard for production quality. The historical genesis of this system of work is complex, and beyond the scope of this article, but one factor in particular deserves special stress. In order to consolidate its rule, the emerging Stalinist elite had to break down actual and potential opposition emanating from virtually the entire society: the peasants who resisted forced collectivization, and the industrial workers (largely drawn from that same peasantry), the majority of whom resented and to a certain extent resisted the hardships and pressures of industrialization. This required an atomization of the population, in particular the working class-not perhaps a total destruction of mutual solidarity, but the elimination of its ability to function collectively as a class, and the erosion of its consciousness of itself as a class. At the same time, the bureaucratic, almost cavalier planlessness of the Five Year Plans created a deep labor shortage. For the regime this was to prove a fatal combination: a depoliticized, but alienated and bitter work force which, because labor power was desperately scarce, could neither be induced nor compelled to work efficiently. The result was that workers became a central-but by no means exclusive-cause of the long-term trend toward chronic inefficiency and economic decline which plagued the Soviet system. Workers, while politically powerless to alter the system, compromised the elite's ability to extract and dispose of the surplus product. They thereby became a prime cause of its instability. Virtually every phase of Soviet history therefore witnessed a concerted struggle by the elite to find ways to improve labor performance. Under Stalin, the emphasis was on naked coercion; to the extent that such measures proved unsuccessful, the economic losses this entailed were compensated by the existence of a massive slave-labor sector. The failure of the Stalinist strategy produced two major periods of attempted reform, under Khrushchev and Gorbachev, which sought to solve the problems of poor motivation and effort by combining the incentives of political liberalization with the economic sanctions of tighter wage policies
This 1992 book is a comprehensive study of the position of Soviet industrial workers during the Khrushchev period. Dr Filtzer examines the main features of labour policy, shop-floor relations between workers and managers, and the position of women workers. He argues that the main concern of labour policy was to remotivate an industrial population left demoralized by the Stalinist terror. This 'de-Stalinization' had to be carried out without undermining the power and property relations on which the Stalinist system had been built. The author convincingly demonstrates how labour policy was thus limited to superficial gestures of liberalization and tinkering with incentive schemes. Rather than achieving any lasting effects, the Khrushchev period saw the consolidation of a long-term decline into economic stagnation. The labour problems under Khrushchev are shown to be the same as those which confronted Mikhail Gorbachev and his ill-fated perestroika, thus helping to explain the failures of Gorbachev's policies.
Soviet Workers and Late Stalinism is a study of labour and labour policy during the critical period of the Soviet Union's postwar recovery and the last years of Stalin. It is also a detailed social history of the Soviet Union in these years, for non-Russian readers. Using previously inaccessible archival sources, Donald Filtzer describes the tragic hardships faced by workers and their families right after the war; conditions in housing and health care; the special problems of young workers; working conditions within industry; and the tremendous strains which regime policy placed not just on the mass of the population, but on the cohesion and commitment of key institutions within the Stalinist political system, most notably the trade unions and the procuracy. Donald Filtzer's subtle and compelling book will interest all historians of the Soviet Union and of socialism.
This is the first detailed study of the standard of living of ordinary Russians following World War II. It examines urban living conditions under the Stalinist regime with a focus on the key issues of sanitation, access to safe water supplies, personal hygiene and anti-epidemic controls, diet and nutrition, and infant mortality. Comparing five key industrial regions, it shows that living conditions lagged some fifty years behind Western European norms. The book reveals that, despite this, the years preceding Stalin's death saw dramatic improvements in mortality rates thanks to the application of rigorous public health controls and Western medical innovations. While tracing these changes, the book also analyzes the impact that the absence of an adequate urban infrastructure had on people's daily lives and on the relationship between the Stalinist regime and the Russian people, and, finally, how the Soviet experience compared to that of earlier industrializing societies.
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