Russian revolution. A very short introduction

error to conclude that peasant society had sunk back into time-honoured ways. By 1928 nearly half of peasant households were members of consumer cooperatives, and agronomists and land surveyors continued the process, begun by Stolypin, of reorganizing land in a more rational and equitable fashion, mainly to the benefit of

102

the neediest households. Peasant attitudes to farming were not monolithic: traditional orientations prevailed, yet the burning question of land had ceased to absorb the younger generation in the way it had their parents. A sample of letters from the 1.3 million sent to the Peasant Newspaper between 1924-6 presents a complex picture. Nearly 60% of letters reflect a preference for collective over individual forms of enterprise but see the gradual development of cooperatives as most in tune with Russian ways; and while not antagonistic to the market, they urge the state to help agriculture through taxation and subsidies. The rest of the letters divide more or less equally into three categories: those that are mistrustful of the state and advocate individual entrepreneurshipastheonly way to improve peasant living standards; those - overwhelmingly from poor peasants - that bemoan continuing inequalities and look to the state to rectify these; and those-whose authors include communists and members of agrarian communes -that are genuinely enthusiastic for collective farms. All this suggests that change was taking place in agriculture. The problem was that it was too slow to sustain the rapid modernization that the regime wished to see.

Industry and labour

The struggle with more advanced capitalist states that had been a key element in the civil war, combined with an apocalyptic sense that socialist Russia was destined to outstrip the capitalist West, helped during the early 1920s to redefine the nature of the revolution as one against socio-economic and cultural backwardness. NEP saw the Bolsheviks discard the illusion that revolution in the advanced capitalist world would come to their aid and forced them to accept that they would have to pull themselves up by their own boot-straps. The paramount goals were to industrialize, urbanize, modernize agriculture, and bring education and prosperity to the Soviet people. These objectives were not fundamentally different from those of the late tsarist regime, and the end of the 1920s was to see a revival of the

103

traditional Russian pattern of state-induced transformation of society, driven by military and economic competition with the West. Yet the ideology that articulated these goals was historically new. In contrast to capitalist industrialization, socialist industrialization was to be carried out on a rational basis, by means of specialization, universal norms, and a 'single economic plan', about which there had been much talk since 1917. A new strain in Bolshevik ideology, which may be termed 'productivist', now came to the fore. This put the development of the productive forces and the planned organization of production at the heart of the socialist vision. It emphasized the role of science and technology in building socialism. Productivism was evident in Lenin's enthusiasm for electrification, which he avowed would 'produce a decisive victory of the principles of communism in our country' by transforming small-scale agriculture, by eliminating drudgery from the home, and by dramatically improving public health and sanitation.

с о

g NEP stimulated a rapid recovery of industry: by 1926-7, production in e large-scale industry surpassed the pre-war level and the total number jg employed in industry (3.1 million), construction (0.2 million), and 1 railways (0.9 million) was roughly the same as in 1913. However, NEP proved far more successful in stimulating light industry than the heavy industry that Russia so badly needed if it were to become a strong industrial power. Moreover, once existing factories had been restored to normal working, it was not clear that NEP could generate the level of capital necessary for the rapid construction of new factories, mines, and oil installations. In spite of privatization of small industry, nearly all large industry, together with the banks and wholesale trade, remained in state ownership. Indeed most workers - as many as four-fifths of Moscow's workforce - continued to be employed in the state enterprises. The latter were supposed to be self-financing, allowed to buy, sell, and enter into contracts, but in practice, they relied upon state subsidies. The Supreme Economic Council and the finance commissariat, together with the new State Planning Commission, influenced industrial investment by fixing wholesale prices, allocating

104

credit, regulating wages, and controlling imports, and by means of the annual state plan ('control figures'). The result was that industrial costs and prices remained high: in 1926 they were roughly twice as high as in 1913, although subsequently there was some reduction. Net investment in industry did rise -to a level about one-fifth higher than in 1913 - but at the expense of investment in housing and transport. Moreover, it has been reckoned that two-thirds of growth was financed out of the state budget, quite inadequate for a poor country facing competition from much stronger neighbours. The record of NEP was thus contradictory. By 1928 gross national income had recovered to its pre-war level, but the gap in production per head between the Soviet Union and the advanced capitalist countries was as wide as ever.

With NEP the tight controls over labour associated with militarization

were lifted, but managerial hierarchies were fully restored. TheЩ

overriding task of the 'Red Directors' - nearly two-thirds of whom were'g

technical and managerial specialists - was to revive production; and the$

DJ

secretaries of the party cell and the factory trade-union committeeg.

were expected to cooperate fully to achieve this. The unions lost their «Г

ID

voice in policy-making, but could still contest management decisions %

о

through the rates-and-disputes commissions and the courts. The power J of the foreman on the shop floor was substantially restored, and instances of foremen behaving rudely to workers, demanding bribes and sexual favours soon resurfaced. In spite of the emphasis on technical and managerial know-how, spetsy (technical specialists) remained suspect in the eyes of both workers and the regime. In 1927 miners in Shakhty in the Donbas rebelled against new production targets underthe rally!ng-cry, 'Beat the Communists and the Specialists.' The following year the regime cynically exploited such sentiment by putting the Shakhty engineers on trial for 'wrecking'. However, the regime gave its full backing to management efforts to raise productivity by cutting piece rates, increasing output norms, as well as in the longer term introducing greater mechanization, standardization, and specialization of production. To encourage

105

rationalization, time-study bureaux were set up and an army of psychophysiologists, psychotechnicians,and labour hygienists descended on the factories. Achievement fell well short of aspiration; yet by 1927 average hourly labour productivity had risen to a level 10% higher than in 1913.

Much of the rationalization drive was inspired by the 'scientific organization of labour', known by its Russian acronym NOT, an adaptation of F. W. Taylor's theory of 'scientific management'. This was one of the more egregious expressions of the'productivist' strain within Bolshevism that perceived the social organization of labour inherited from capitalism, with its particular productivity techniques and technologies, to be perfectly compatible with socialism. One of its chief proponents, A. K. Gastev, a former syndicalist and 'worker-poet', ran the Central Institute of Labour from 1920: 'In the social sphere we must enter the epoch of precise measurement, formulae,