Trends in Soviet Industry

...Indignation was voiced against similar offenses in the schools, where teachers are paid too much...

...Since Soviet administrators found it necessary to include a special clause for employes under 16, it is safe to assume that child labor is nothing unusual in the USSR...

...Improved medical service is one of the most publicized achievements of the Soviet regime...

...Many articles in Soviet industrial journals claim a sixfold increase in Soviet industrial labor productivity in 1955 over 1929...

...The respiratory diseases are traced to "crowded conditions and inefficient ventilation, [which] play a great role in spreading these diseases not only in the factories but also at home...

...At the 20th Party Congress last February, their number was reported to have already reached 30,000...

...Sometimes, it is quite explicit in indicating the causes of these ailments: One article blames purulent diseases on lack of vitamins in the workers' diet, which consists mostly of canned foods and lard, with no fresh fruits or vegetables...

...According to Finances of the USSR, between 1946 and 1950 heavy industry received 85.7 per cent of the 407.9 billion rubles invested in all of industry, and there is no indication that the proportion has changed very much...

...On the contrary, the journal of the Soviet trade unions is worried because in some instances workers get more pay than stipulated in the collective agreement: "Since many of the trade-union organizations and industrial leaders have permitted a relaxation of controls over the setting up of labor norms and pay rates, in many enterprises the payroll uses up excessive amounts of money...

...The same journal proudly points out that, whereas most workers get 2 weeks' vacation with pay, workers under 16 get a month...

...Although some Western economists regard this figure as grossly exaggerated, the claim of a 600-per-cent increase is very useful for Moscow...

...According to these, Soviet medical personnel now includes 300,000 physicians and 900,000 feldshers (roughly the equivalent of American registered nurses...

...In 1953, the total number of hospital beds was 832,000, but more than two-thirds were in city hospitals...

...Thus, the alcohol industry was upbraided for letting workers stay overtime for extra pay instead of "increasing" their productivity...

...Yet, side by side with these relative improvements Soviet Trade noted that Soviet citizens sometimes find it difficult to buy items like umbrellas, undershirts, shorts and bathing trunks, and that menus in restaurants frequently fail to feature soups and salads because no vegetables are available...

...In 1953, rest homes and sanatoria accommodated almost 4 million guests, and the total capacity of nurseries was 2,649,200 a figure indicating how many Soviet mothers work at least part of the year...

...The workers' health is also impaired by the frantic rush to meet the production quotas just before the deadline...

...This causes a chain Maurice Friedberg, a lecturer at Hunter College, is a political and economic analyst for Radio Liberation...

...Thus, an editorial in Alcohol Industry revealed lack of refrigeration facilities workers are compelled to collect ice during the winter and store it for the summer...

...Thus, there will be more refrigerators on the market (though it should be borne in mind that production of ZIS refrigerators began in 1951...

...This even though the Soviet population now approximates 200 million and, according to a 1952 speech by ex-Premier Malenkov, is growing at an annual rate of 4 million...

...It is interesting that the journal envisages an improvement in this situation by means of quasi-private enterprise, e.g., by building additional markets where peasants can sell their surplus produce and by supplying private gardeners with tools and fertilizers...

...At the beginning of this article, I pointed out that the Soviet industrial bosses try to save money by cutting administrative costs and eliminating waste...

...L. K. Khotsyanov, a member of the USSR Academy of Sciences, writes: "The incidence of sickness with temporary loss of ability to work is affected by the lack of rhythm and the "storming' in the work of enterprises, especially the custom of fulfilling most of the production quota in the last third of the month...

...Not a word was said about shorter hours, better safety conditions or higher wages...

...In addition, anticipating the Government decree of March 8 shortening the work week from 48 to 46 hours, Shvernik reassured the Party by declaring that "Workers and employes, with the active participation and help of the trade unions, are doing everything not only to prevent a decline in output during the considerably reduced working day, but to increase it sharply, to improve quality and to reduce production costs even more.' (Pravda, February 24) If we add to this statement the efforts of Soviet industrial managers to reduce the extra income of employes from premiums and overtime, the immediate prospects for Soviet workers appear to be more work, fewer hours, and less pay...

...This reorganization has also made it possible to send many prominent executives to head backward collective farms...

...The all-important problem facing every employe of Soviet industry be he an ordinary worker, a factory director or a minister is fulfilment of the production quotas...

...The Soviet trade-union journal concluded sadly: "Hence, the increase in labor productivity, instead of being ahead of the increase in wages, lags behind to a significant extent...

...The seriousness of the problem thus created was further underlined in the speeches of Kaganovich and Bulganin at the Party Congress and, at the end of March, at the Congress of Soviet Trade Unions...

...To give the latter more maneuverability, it was divided into two sections, one of which will continue to examine long-range problems and set tasks for the next 10 to 15 years, while the other will tackle current decisions...

...What is the position of Soviet trade unions in this obvious conflict between the interests of the employer (the state) and the worker...

...An article in Party Life stated that many officials are afraid to try out new techniques and machinery, while Problems of Economics somewhat reluctantly agreed that the Soviet custom of awarding monetary prizes and exerting pressures for overfulfilment of production quotas discourages experimentation and thus indirectly contributes to technological stagnation...

...The trade unions side with the Communist bosses...

...We know already that this situation will not be tolerated much longer...

...Now it appears that the real wages rose by as much as 37 per cent, while labor productivity increased by a mere 33 per cent...

...Automotive and Tractor Industry appealed for an "increase in labor productivity," so as to avoid a repetition of 1954 when workers earned 28.3 million rubles ($7 million) more than scheduled...

...Party Life acknowledged that Soviet phonographs of 1955 were an exact copy of the 1932 model...

...An article in Planned Economy admitted that the machine-building industry's equipment is obsolete...

...Another editorial, in Light Industry, deplored the fact that 60 to 70 per cent of all work in the shoe industry is done manually although foreign factories perform most of the operations with machinery...

...All admitted that modernizing of Soviet industrial equipment depends not only on the availability of newer machinery but also to a large extent on overcoming the conservatism of factory managers who prefer the less productive, but also less risky, old tools and methods...

...days, with one renewal...

...In the dairy and oil industries, the bulky Moscow offices have been abolished and replaced with smaller offices in the provinces, while the State Planning Commission, Gosplan, was reorganized in May 1955...

...Soviet Trade Unions complained in an editorial that the directives of the 19th Party Congress in 1952 called for a 50-per-cent increase in labor productivity and a 35-per-cent rise in real wages...

...Furthermore, it is used to impress Soviet workers with the gravity of such offenses as loitering and absenteeism...

...Most doctors are empowered to excuse the patient from work for only 6 days...

...Interesting complaints are encountered in Party Life...

...One editorial, for instance, pointed out that the loss of 10 minutes in 1955 was equivalent to the loss of an hour in 1929...

...But, lest the reader suppose that Academician Khotsya-nov is shedding tears over the hard lot of the workers, we quote another passage from the article which shows the aim of Soviet medicine in general: "The complex task facing the doctor dealing with the case is not simply establishing a diagnosis that corresponds to the cause of the disease...

...Vice-Premier Lazar Kaganovich pointed out at the Party Congress that more than 40 per cent of passenger cars in the Soviet railroad systems are of obsolete design...

...It lists the main diseases troubling industrial workers as respiratory (grippe, angina, pneumonia, tuberculosis), open wounds (foruncles, abscesses), diseases of the digestive tract, and injuries...

...The journal of the Ministry of Finance accused certain administrators of spending too much money on overtime work in the construction industry...

...The most shocking instance of backwardness was revealed by Problems of Economies: The newly produced weaving machines for the textile industry are still the 1896 model with minor improvements...

...The characteristic Soviet technique of "socialist competition," whereby workers are encouraged to increase production, results in a vicious circle: Although the workers work faster and produce more, they sometimes overfulfil the existing norms and, since Soviet industry operates mostly on the piecework system, management is forced to pay them more money...

...Nevertheless, Soviet industrial productivity is bound to be much lower than in the West due to the lower degree of mechanization and the obsoleteness of existing equipment...

...The present regulations also make it very difficult to obtain a certificate of illness, without which absence from work is punishable by fines, though no longer (in view of the recent repeal of the 1940 labor laws) by prison sentences...

...In 1955, however, some medical statistics were released in the journal Soviet Health Protection...

...After the lunch hour is over, the truck takes the mothers back to the factory...

...Hence, as long as he manages to meet the demands of the plan, he is unlikely to engage in experimentation for fear of the penalties of failure...

...The journal Coal pointed out that, in many cases, production quotas were too low and miners earned too much money...

...The most important thing [sic] is the correct solution of the problem of excusing the patient from work and determining the period for which he should be excused from work...

...It might be added that these changes will release large numbers of engineers and highly skilled technicians from bureaucratic duties and enable them to shift to the field and the factories, where, in the words of a Soviet magazine, "creative and fruitful work awaits them...

...The author goes on to praise the merits of the assembly-line technique, but notes that, to avoid injuring the worker, one must either assign him to a different job from time to time or else allow him to take frequent rests and exercise...

...The euphemism used by the Soviet industrial press is that there should be more saving resulting from an increase in labor productivity, in other words, from making workers work faster for the same wages...

...Not infrequently, the increase in production quotas is not accompanied by an improvement in general working conditions...

...However, they also employ other devices...

...Yet, the publicity consists chiefly of broad generalizations, with few exact statistics it should be recalled that no population census has been taken since 1939...

...Obviously, little expansion is envisaged whereas in 1941 there were 72 medical schools with 115,000 students, in 1953 there were 75 schools with 121,000 students...

...This leads to the widespread practice of overtime work and to general fatiguing of the workers, with the result that those workers who suffer from diseases of the nervous system, hypertonic diseases and open wounds are then unable to work for a greater number of days...

...Thus, Problems of Economies complained that, in spite of "technological progress," production norms were not increased and workers' pay envelopes were heavier than expected...

...What worried the Soviet managers most of all was that workers' wages were increasing more rapidly than workers' productivity...

...In general, there is a trend toward decentralization of the economy...

...Here is how Soviet Trade Unions envisaged the functions of collective bargaining: "The collective agreements assist by all possible means the creative initiative of the toilers, further intensification of socialist competition for an increase in the productivity of labor and an improvement in the quality of production and for the fulfilment of the Fifth Five Year Plan ahead of schedule...

...The resolutions of the Central Council of Soviet Trade Unions adopted in March and the lengthy speech by its Chairman N. M. Shvernik at the Party Congress promise an increase in labor norms "corresponding to present standards of technology and production organization" and pledge to see to it that "the link between productivity and wages is comprehensible to every worker...

...And even in Moscow one must sometimes wait 4 to 6 hours for emergency medical aid...

...Higher productivity promises fewer hours but less pay for Soviet workers Trends in Soviet Industry By Maurice Friedberg Astudy of 16 specialized Soviet journals indicates that, just as in foreign affairs, the post-Stalin "new look" in Soviet industry is more a matter of form than of content...

...At the end of the article, Khotsyanov praises the Soviet practice of temporarily transferring the sick worker to an easier job rather than allowing him to remain home...

...Soviet Health Protection is a journal devoted almost exclusively to the problem of absenteeism due to illness...

...Underlying this state of affairs is not only the basic capacity of the Soviet machine-building industry but also some of the most fundamental traits of the Soviet economic system...

...There is some increase in the production of consumers' goods, but not a very large one...

...An example of Soviet solicitude for the welfare of working mothers is cited by Soviet Trade Unions: During their lunch period, mothers nursing their babies are taken by truck to the nursery to feed the children...

...reaction, since obsolete machines can only produce other obsolete machines...

...In the first place, the increase is credited to the wise policies of the Communist party and the Soviet Government...

...There was also a 50-per-cent increase in automobile production in 1955 as compared with 1951...

...However: "As a rule, workers do not get short breaks, relaxing exercise and change from one operation to another...

...Automotive and Tractor Industry complained that Soviet factories are still producing kerosene-driven tractors and that some of the equipment at Gorki, the Soviet Detroit, is 10 to 20 years old...

...Malenkov's abortive attempt to narrow the gap between heavy industry and consumers' goods is now a thing of the past, and light industry has once again become the stepchild of Soviet planners...

...It appears that important positions in industry were often filled with Communist careerists who lacked professional competence for the job and that these people, eager to impress their superiors, squandered funds on all kinds of showpieces, such as ornate architecture...