Russian revolution. A very short introduction

blueprints, controlled calibration, social norms.' Castev's dream of a socialist society in which man and machine would merge did not go unchallenged. When he proclaimed in Pravda in 1928 that 'the time has gone beyond recall when one could speak of the freedom of the worker in regard to the machine', critics in the Komsomol (Communist Youth League) said that his understanding of the worker was indistinguishable from that of Henry Ford. In the late 1920s, the impulse to make science the arbiter of industrial relations came increasingly into conflict with a different strain in Bolshevism, the heroic, voluntarist strain that stressed revolutionary will and collective initiative as the means to overcome Russia's backwardnesses early as 1926 'shock brigades' in the Ukrainian metallurgical industry and the Triangle rubber works in Leningrad set out to bust production norms, but 'socialist competition' and 'storming' did not become entrenched until the First Five-Year Plan.

In key respects workers' lives improved during the 1920s. Nowhere was this truer than with respect to the eight-hour working day. Real wages struggled to reach their pre-war level, but subsidized rents and

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transport meant that most workers were slightly better off. Women's

wages rose relative to the pre-war period, partly because the Soviet

Union became the first country in the world to introduce equal pay, but

in 1928 their daily earnings were still only two-thirds those of men.

Some 9 million trade-unionists enjoyed free medical care, maternity

benefit, and disability and other pensions, although their real value

remained pitifully low. By 1927 workers were eating somewhat better -

consumption of meat, dairy products, and sugar had risen - although

nutritional data suggest that diet had not improved since the 1890s. The

number in employment rose substantially, to reach well over 10 million

by 1929, but unemployment also rose, affecting women workers in

particular. Initially, the rise in the number of jobless was due to

demobilization of the Red Army and lay-offs provoked by a 'regime of

economy' in industry; but later the rise was due to the resumption of

peasant migration to the cities. In 1928 over a million people settledЩ

permanently in the cities, in addition to 3.9 million seasonal migrants, 'g putting housing and rudimentary social services under extreme strain. $

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In the course of the 1920s work stoppages became fewer, shorter, and «Г

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smaller in scope. According to official figures, strikes peaked in 1922 and %

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1923 but then fell steadily, dropping sharply in 1928. Given that working J and living conditions remained very stressful, one might have expected the level of stoppages to have remained high, especially given the return to industry of many skilled and experienced workers. By 1929 half of all workers had started work before 1917. But the fall in strikes suggests not that workers were becoming less discontented, but that the regime was having some success in channelling their grievances through the rates-and-conflict commissions. Rising unemployment was doubtless also a factor depressing the level of stoppages. More generally, however, the fall in strikes may have been linked to a general increase in worker passivity that was of concern to the authorities. By 1925 the turn-out for elections to factory committees had fallen so low that the local party and trade-union cells were urged to ensure that the forthcoming elections were genuinely democratic. The campaign paid

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off since the numbers attending election meetings rose and in some areas as many as half the members elected to factory committees were non-party. But such signs of worker independence were always worrying to local authorities who soon resumed the habit of removing 'trouble makers'. By 1927 complaints of worker apathy were once again rife.

It is not easy to generalize about workers' political attitudes. The majority remained dissatisfied with their lot in spite of the fact that conditions had eased enormously compared with the civil war. However, even as they blamed the regime for their poor working and living conditions, they appear to have maintained faith with the Soviet ideal. A sample of 922 letters from urban correspondents (obviously a broader group than workers), intercepted bytheCheka in 1924-5, shows that 53% were favourably disposed towards soviet power - a ? lower percentage than among rural correspondents - but that 93% g expressed dissatisfaction with the local authorities. In spring 1926 non-e party worker conferences in Moscow voiced sharp criticism at the gap jg between workers' wages and those of white-collar employees, at 1 stressful working conditions and dismal living conditions, and at the privileges enjoyed by the'new masters': 'Lunacharsky'swife has diamond rings on her fingers and a gold necklace. Where has she got them from?' Such sentiment was rooted in a commitment to equality and collectivism, but it should not be idealized, since it could take on a reactionary hue, modulating easily into condemnations of 'Jews' - an amorphous 'other', readily associated with 'nepmen' (traders, manufacturers, and suppliers), Communist officials, and factory bosses. Nor should one forget that there was a sizeable contingent of workers who were deeply antipathetic to the regime; not because they considered it to have betrayed socialism, but because they resented its constant exhortations that they should repair their 'backward' ways, by abandoning drunkenness, male chauvinism, anti-semitism, and the like. Overall, however, the majority of workers appearto have been disappointed at the slow progress to socialism, blaming the regime for

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the gap between aspiration and reality. Yet the fact that they condemned it in terms of the ideals it claimed to uphold suggests that they still retained a belief in socialism and soviet power.

The inner-party struggle

In May 1922 Lenin suffered partial paralysis, severely undermining his capacity for work until October; in December he suffered two further strokes. Skirmishing within the party oligarchy to determine who should succeed him commenced, as the so-called triumvirate of Zinoviev, Stalin, and Kamenev emerged as the controlling group within the Politburo. In April 1922 Lenin's admiration of Stalin's skills as an administrator led to his being made the party's general secretary; before the year was out, he was expressing concern about the Stalin's behaviour. In December he wrote a testament in which he compared in somewhat begrudging terms the qualities of six members of the oligarchy. He reserved his harshest criticism for Stalin, whom he deemed rude, intolerant, and capricious, and urged that he be removed from his post as general secretary. He praised Trotsky for his outstanding abilities, yet chided him for his excessive self-assurance and preoccupation with administrative matters. Lenin's intention was that the testament should remain secret; but his secretary vouchsafed its contents to Stalin, who henceforward kept Lenin incommunicado, under the surveillance of doctors who reported to him alone. Despite his frailty, Lenin struggled to thwart Stalin's pretensions, objecting vigorously to the way he rode roughshod over the Georgian communists who dared to oppose his plan to absorb Georgia into the RSFSR. When on 4 March 1923 he learnt of an incident in which Stalin had subjected Krupskaia to a 'storm of coarse abuse', he fired off a furious letter threatening to break off relations with the general secretary. But his struggle against the'marvellous Georgian'whom he had done so much to promote, though heroic, had come too late. On 10 March he suffered a massive stroke that left him speechless and paralysed, and in January 1924 he died.

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