Also by Leonard Schapiro

Transcription

1 THE SOVIET WORKER

2 Also by Leonard Schapiro THE ORIGIN OF THE COMMUNIST AUTOCRACY THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF THE SOVIET UNION THE GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS OF SOVIET RUSSIA RATIONALISM AND NATIONALISM IN RUSSIAN NINETEENTH-CENTURY POLITICAL THOUGHT TURGENEV'S SPRING TORRENTS POLITICAL OPPOSITION IN ONE-PARTY STATES (editor) TOT ALIT ARIANISM TURGENEV Also by Joseph Godson TRANSA TLANTIC CRISIS (editor)

3 THE SOVIET WORKER Illusions and Realities Edited by Leonard Schapiro and Joseph Godson

4 Leonard Schapiro and Joseph Godson 1981, 1982 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without permission First edition 1981 Reprinted 1982 Published by THE MACMILLAN PRESS LTD London and Basingstoke Companies and representatives throughout the world ISBN ISBN (ebook) DOI /

5 The editors dedicate this book to Andrei Sakharov and Vladimir Klebanov fighters for freedom and free institutions

6 Contents Preface to the 1982 Reprint Acknowledgements Notes on the Contributors viii x xi 1. The End of an Illusion LEONARD SCHAPIRO 2. Wage and Income Policies 15 PETER WILES 3. Planning and the W orker 39 DAVID A. DYKER 4. Eye-Witness to Failure 76 MURRAY SEEGER 5. The Role of the Trade Unions 106 JOSEPH GODSON 6. Schooling and Inequalities 130 MURRA Y Y ANOWITCH 7. Society Without a Present 156 FYODOR TUROVSKY 8. Welfare and Social Security 194 ALASTAIR M cauley 9. Workers' Social Perceptions 231 MAX RALIS Supplement: Retail Prices in Moscow and Four Western Cities in March KEITH BUSH Index 286

7 Preface to the 1982 Reprint This book first saw the light of day in June This reprint, which is unaltered as far as the text is concerned, leaves the editors' hands in November The original edition was, on the whole, kindly received by critics, and we are grateful to all who commented on the labours of our contributors, and on our own. The situation of the worker in the USSR has not in any marked degree changed in the time which has elapsed since the book left the editors' hands. However, in so far as there have been changes, the contributors must not be held to blame for failure to record them in their chapters in the form of a note or revision. Practical considerations beyond our control made it impossible to otfer them an opportunity ofmaking alterations o~ additions. We regret this, but comfort ourselves with the belief that this omission does not in any material sense atfect the overall accuracy of the picture which our contributors and we have tried to present. The momentous change on the worker and trade union scene has, of course, taken place in Po land since August This book is not concerned with Poland, but it is probably true to say that the Polish workers' revolt has been, and is, the issue with which the Soviet authorities have been most gravely concerned since it erupted. Obviously, there is something to be said about the possible etfects that the Polish events may have, or have had, on the Soviet workers. Had it been possible, we should have liked to invite an expert contributor to examine this problem for this reprint. This has not proved feasible. We must content ourselves with two observations. First, that as yet the repercussions, if any, of the Polish events on the Soviet worker and the so-called Soviet trade unions have been few and hard to discem. And secondly, that no attempt should be made to draw too dose a parallel between the Polish and Soviet situations. Communist rule in Poland, for one, is ahated, foreign domination: in the USSR, it may be unpopular, but it provides an acceptable way oflife for many, and, above all, it is not something that has been inspired from without. There are many other ditferences between Poland and the USSRinduding the overriding role of the Polish Church, unique in any

8 Preface to the 1982 Reprint ix Communist country, and moreover much accentuated since the accession of a Polish Pope. Apart from these considerations, Polish events are developing fast, and the time has not yet come for a full appraisal oftheir inftuence on the fate of the Communist Empire. London November 1981 Leonard Schapiro Joseph Godson

9 Acknowledgements The editors gratefully acknowledge the assistance provided by the Labour and Trades Union Press Service in London and the Advanced International Studies Institute in Washington, oe, which made the research for this volume possible.

10 Notes on the Contributors DAVID A. DYKER was born in Aberdeen, Scotland, in Hegraduated in economics and modern history from the University of Glasgow in 1965, and pursued graduate studies at the Institute of Soviet and East European Studies, University ofglasgow, and the Institute ofnational Economy, Tashkent, USSR. In 1968 he was appointed to the faculty of the University of Sussex, where he is now Lecturer in Economics in the School of European Studies. From 1976 to 1978 he was on secondment to the Economic Commission for Europe, Geneva. He is the author of The Soviet Economy (1976) and a contributor to A. Brown and J. Gray (eds), Political Culture and Political Change in Communist States (2nd ed., 1979). JOSEPH GODSON was for 21 years a senior Foreign Service Officer with the US State Department, specialising in labour and political affairs. Since his retirement in 1971 he has been living in London, where he is European Coordinator of the Center for Strategie and International Studies, Georgetown University; European Consultant ofthe Board for International Broadcasting; and Joint Editor of the Labour and Trades Union Press Service. ALASTAIR McAULEY was educated at the London School ofeconomics and at Glasgow University; he also spent a year at Moscow State University. He taught at Manchester and Princeton Universities and for the past 14 years has been a member of the Economics Department at the University of Essex. He has written extensivelyon the Soviet economy; among his most recent publications are Economic Welfare in the Soviet Union (1979) and Women's Work and Wages in the Soviet Union (1981). MAX RALIS, a sociologist, was, until his retirement in 1981, director of Soviet Area Audience and Opinion Research at Radio Liberty. He had joined RFE/RL Inc. more than 20 years previously. Earlier he was public opinion consultant to the Uni ted States Government in

11 xii Notes on the Contributors Germany, he pioneered a survey of miners conducted underground in the natural setting of the work place, and he directed cross-cultural research in Indian and Thai villages for Cornell University. LEONARD SCHAPIRO is Emeritus Professor of Political Science, with Special Reference to Russian Studies, London School ofeconomics and Political Science, University of London; and a Fellow of the British Academy. He is author of, among other books, The Origin of the Communist Autocracy (1955), The Communist Party of the Soviet Union (2nd ed., 1970), The Government and PolWes of Soviet Russia, (6th ed., 1979), Totalitarianism (1972) and Turgenev: his Life and Times (1979). MURRA Y SEEGER was Moscow Bureau Chieffor the Los Angeles Times from January 1972 until August 1974 and reported from Eastern Europe from 1975 to 1978 as Bonn Bureau Chief. He graduated from the University of Iowa and was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University, where he specialised in Soviet affairs. Until 1981 he was stationed in Brussels as the European Economic Correspondent for his paper. FYODOR TUROVSKY is a Russian jurist, a former legal consultant to Liieraturnaya Gazeta and former chairman of the legal committee of the Moscow Construction Workers' Union, who now lectures in Montreal, Canada, where he resides. He emigrated from the Soviet Union in PETER WILES has been Professor of Russian Social and Economic Studies, University of London, since 1965; he was Professor, Brandeis University, USA, ; Visiting Professor, Columbia University, USA, 1958 and City College of New York, 1964 and His publications are The Political Economy of Communism (1962), Price. Cost and Output (2nd ed., 1962), Communist International Economics (1968), The Prediction of Communist Economic Performance, editor (1971) and Economic Institutions Compared (1977). MURRA Y Y ANOWITCH is Professor of Economics at Hofstra University, Hempstead, NY. He is author of Social and Economic Inequality in the Soviet Union (1977) and editor with Wesley A. Fisher of Social Stratification and Mobility in the USSR (1973); his articles on Soviet economy and society have appeared in Soviet Studies and Slavic Review.