Soviet Labor Productivity

...According to reliable reports, an attempt made last October to revise the wage system and raise the work norms in the Kaganovich Ball-Bearing Plant in Moscow provoked a sitdown strike...

...Comprehensive statistics are unfortunately not available for the USSR...

...once the workers, for their own materialistic reasons, have taken the course recommended by the authorities, they may rationalize their choice by accepting as their own the idealistic motivations suggested by the authorities...

...The first indication of a shift toward a more liberal labor policy became evident in the early 1950s when the enforcement of the labor-discipline laws was visibly relaxed...

...The main criterion of improvement is the increasing productivity of labor...

...The reform of the wage structure is not a simple job, and the new committee is proceeding very cautiously...

...Improvement of the skills and the educational and technical level of workers has thus been a continuous concern...

...These difficulties can best be understood within the larger economic setting...

...But the antagonism disappears in the socialist system, under which—it is even claimed—there operates an economic "law" which insures a steady and rapid growth in the productivity of labor...

...Voprosy Psikhologii, No...

...It was also promised that the work week would be gradually shortened during the current Five-Year Plan (19561960) to 40-42 hours...

...Lazar M. Kaganovich, the first chairman of the Committee on Labor and Wages, left the job after a year and was replaced by a lesser figure...

...An attempt has been made to remedy the scarcity of labor, at least in part, by reassigning administrative personnel to production jobs...

...Whether the regime's current efforts in the field of industrial relations will bear fruit remains to be seen...

...This article discusses certain recent changes in Soviet labor policy which the logic of this new order impelled the Soviet leadership to adopt...

...the attempt In evoke among the workers a sense of "ownership" of the enterprise where they are employed has not been successful...

...It cannot be denied that Soviet methods of controlling labor have proved effective in many ways...

...But even the technological progress achieved to date has made reforms in Soviet industrial relations overdue...

...Recent economic reforms in the field of industrial relations are geared primarily to the basic problem of any modern economy—labor productivity...

...Thero is alto great emphasis in Soviet writings—although not yet much action—on the need to provide other indirect incentives in the form of greater regard for the workers' welfare, particularly as regards the wretched housing situation and factory eating places...

...The Soviet leaders are well aware of the obstacles that the labor shortage will pose to economic progress...

...Among the many reforms under consideration, the most important and radical one affects the wage system, now in a state of extreme disorder...

...This event, quite unusual in itself under Soviet conditions, becomes even more significant when considered against the background of overall Soviet difficulties in the realm of industrial Jerzy G. Gliksman, a Warsaw attorney who spent two years as a Soviet prisoner, is author of Tell the West, a description of forced labor...

...But the average worker actually earns and receives about twice as much as his scheduled standard wage...

...Technology is virtually deified in the Soviet Union...

...Their tenacity cannot be explained simply as obstinate adherence to obsolete, meaningless ideological tenets...

...A. Bulganin at the July 1955 Plenum of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union...

...Private forms of ownership of the means of production and the capitalist methods of distribution are held to be incompatible with modern technical productive forces, which are collective and social in character...

...While most of these reforms have benefited the workers, this cannot be said of the wage reform...

...they are only an attempt to adjust these tenets to the operating requirements of a modern industrial soceity...

...The Soviet authorities are aware that increased labor productivity depends also on the quality of labor...

...The Soviet Union, it is estimated, is devoting more than a quarter of its gross national product to capital.investment, with striking emphasis on heavy industry...

...This is true of the reforms in the economic as well as the political sphere...

...The Soviet rulers have at all times insisted on the supreme importance and urgency of improving the efficiency of labor in their country—by increasing labor productivity, lowering the cost of production, and improving the quality of the products...

...While they are very critical of it, they are winning to profit from its lessons...

...In the years 1954-56, almost a million people were dismissed from administrative positions...

...They point out that in the forthcoming years an increasingly important role will be played by automation, telemechanics, electronics, industrial electrification, industrial chemistry, the industrial uses of atomic energy, and so on...

...For many years, the Soviet authorities sought, by imprisonment or partial deprivation of wages, to restrain labor turnover, absenteeism, lateness, and other violations of "labor discipline...

...He is now a staff member of the Social Science Division of the Rand Corporation...

...The Soviet regime's initial appeals for dedication to the good of the community and an intensified effort to create a society of social justice were not ineffective...

...Thus, the regime has reaped the benefit of their cumulative power and achieved many of its objectives in the field of labor productivity...

...But, as the majority of those dismissed had no industrial training and no desire to become workers, a sizable proportion of them remained in the same place under another classification or took office jobs in other institutions...

...Material incentives for Soviet workers are provided chiefly by the wage policy, the underlying principle of which is payment for results shown...

...The intention is to force the workers to greater efforts by raising the work norms to a level reflecting the technological progress of recent years and by raising the basic wage rates simultaneously, but not necessarily com-mensurately...

...It is too early to predict its ultimate effect, but it is primarily designed to maximize labor productivity at the price of greater physical and mental effort by the workers...

...The search for an improvement in labor morale has also found expression in some recent labor and welfare laws...

...No extensive Soviet studies on industrial psychology are known to exist...

...It is true that in the construction industry the reform has been completed and that it is well advanced in a few other branches of industry, such as nonferrous mining and coal mining, and in certain scattered plants...

...As mentioned already, an attempt to raise the work norms in one of the experimental factories provoked a strike...

...It may be worth noting that one of the major ignition points of the workers' uprising in East Germany in 1953 and in Poznan in 1956 was also the question of work norms...

...Social incentives are supplemented by an elaborate system of prestige symbols and honorific distinctions (medals, titles and so on), which are calculated to appeal to the common human need for approval, respect and standing in the community...

...When one considers the enormous task of training millions of backward peasants for modern industry, the Soviet achievement in this respect is truly amazing, although the colossal social cost involved should not be overlooked...

...The task of relieving immediate distress was eased in the NEP (New Economic Policy) period...

...If, in recent years, the actual effect of these methods on the workers' economic behavior has declined, it is still by no means insignificant...

...A recent article in the scholarly journal of Soviet psychologists points out the need to take account of both the errors and the achievements of the West in this field and to create a Soviet school of labor psychology...

...So far, the experiments have apparently not been very successful...

...According to official theory, progress in the evolution of human society consists in the development of new social systems which are an improvement over their predecessors...

...A Russian worker is relatively more susceptible to social and ideological stimuli than many of his Western counterparts and...

...The programs to cultivate new croplands and to expand corn production—programs considered of crucial importance for continued Soviet economic growth—necessarily create greater needs for manpower in agriculture...

...The simplest—and crudest —device for obtaining the worker's cooperation is to compel him to behave in a specified manner by the use of administrative rules and disciplinary laws...

...A special State Committee on Labor and Wages was created in 1955 to simplify and rebuild the whole wage structure...

...Among these are ideological, honorific and material incentives...

...The socialist system will presumably create an abundance of goods which will constitute "the material-technical base" for the transition from socialism to communism, with its principle of distribution "according to need...

...Soviet theorists consider the productivity of labor an ideological litmus paper which can test the validity of one of the basic Marxist theories...

...Without being a primary motivation, ideological incentives do affect some workers...

...Thus, it seems clear that fewer persons will be entering the labor market in the years to come...

...The Soviet leaders show more and more awareness that a skilled worker's good will and morale are indispensable in modern industry...

...They attempt to overcome them by emphasizing the technological factors that lead to increased labor productivity...

...they depend, in the last analysis, on the human factor, on the worker's willingness to work...

...In spite of the limited tangible success of ideological and social incentives, the authorities have never abandoned this type of appeal...

...They all agree, however, that Soviet society is in flux and that recent developments have their roots not merely in a change of leadership and the political "thaw,'' but also in the new socio-economic order that has emerged after a quarter of a century of enforced and extremely rapid industrialization...

...Soviet industrial equipment, as a whole, has undoubtedly undergone revolutionary changes since the initiation of the Five-Year Plans, when handwork and primitive technique prevailed...

...But the quality and quantity of a worker's output depend on much more than his training and skill...

...At the same time, the authorities exert moral pressure in the form of organized ridicule and condemnation of undesired behavior...

...With a dwindling supply of new workers, Moscow's plans for industrial expansion demand incentives for labor Soviet Labor Productivity By Jerzy G. Gliksman "We are standing on the threshold of a new scientific, technical and industrial revolution which greatly exceeds in significance the industrial revolutions that accompanied the appearance of steam and electricity...

...The basic wage structure, originally introduced as long ago as 1931, has become obsolete and ineffective...

...once his devotion has been won, is more ready to make personal sacrifices...

...Material recompense has become the most effective single influence in the worker's performance in the Soviet system as it is in the capitalist system...

...In a speech in May 1955, Prime Minister Nikolai A. Bulganin cited an example of a machine factory in Kharkov which had one administrative official for every three or four production workers...

...There is little doubt, however, that the rate of growth of labor productivity in most Soviet industries has been unprecedented...

...To sum up, the new Soviet reforms were dictated by the need to adjust labor policy to the social changes brought about by technological progress and to the pressure of an impending labor shortage...

...All these measures obviously aim to gain the worker's cooperation, to give him a greater feeling of security, and to enhance his efficiency in a modern industrial enterprise by giving him more opportunity and time for rest and improving his skill through study and training...

...The press, radio and television, workers' meetings, and other media of publicity are used for this purpose...

...Moreover, the low birth-rate in Russia during World War II will soon show up in an absolute decline in the number of persons who reach working age each year...

...6. November-December 1956) But, even without an elaborate theoretical approach, the Soviet authorities have developed in practice the most diversified methods of influencing the economic behavior of Soviet workers...

...In the early period of the Revolution, it fell to a level which jeopardized even the physical survival of the population...

...Since the late Thirties, disillusionment, loss of faith, ami indifference have become widespread...

...Among the factors contributing to the growth of labor productivity, the Soviet authorities assign first place to technological progress...

...Ultimately, by the decree of April 25, 1956, court penalties for violation of labor discipline were abolished altogether (NL, September 24, 1956...

...The excess over his basic wage comes from progressive piece-rates for the overfulfilment of his work norm, which is apparently low, and from a maze of additional bonuses and premiums which are by now largely without incentive effect...

...There is no doubt, however, that material incentives play the predominant role in workers' motivation...

...There have been doctrinal as well as economic reasons for this preoccupation...

...Labor productivity in pre-Revolutionary Russia was only a fraction of that in Western industrial countries...

...But in the years to come such an increase in the industrial labor force will hardly be possible...

...Recognizing that men's impulses never stem from a single source, the Soviet policy has been to apply a combination of all the methods and devices outlined above...

...The industrial-production goal was reached only because the industrial labor force was enlarged beyond planned figures...

...There are now 1,900 different wage scales in operation in industry and transport...

...A further drain of manpower from the countryside would interfere with the efforts to increase agricultural output...

...relations...

...One cannot exaggerate the extent to which, year after year, these problems have preoccupied state, Party and trade-union organs...

...Soviet psychologists are, however, acquainted with the research in labor psychology conducted in the West, particularly in the United States...

...This antagonism is regarded as a brake on the rise of labor productivity...

...Thus, the worker, in order to keep his earnings at the present level, will have to produce more...

...The labor-productivity goal for industry under the fifth Five-Year Plan, which ended in 1955, was not attained...

...The Soviet Union faces great difficulties in keeping up the previous rate of economic expansion...

...Vlso...

...Although the insistence on theoretical premises has never weakened, economic considerations were undoubtedly the chief and most important grounds for the Soviet regime's great concern with higher labor efficiency...

...But, before proceeding with a general revision of wages and norms, the Committee decided to conduct experiments in fourteen major machine-building plants to provide a pattern for the whole country...

...The Soviet internal changes, as far as they go, do not alter the basic tenets of Soviet rule...

...The Soviet claims are undoubtedly exaggerated and the figures inflated, as has been shown by Western experts, particularly in the excellent study by Professor Walter Galenson (Labor Productivity in Soviet and American Industry, Columbia University, 1955...

...Soviet officialdom's current concern about labor productivity is caused, on the one hand, by the declining rate of growth of labor productivity in recent years and, on the other, by the shortage of labor which the country faces...

...These "administrators" could easily be spared, for there is no doubt that Soviet industry —like the Soviet state in general—has an overgrown bureaucracy...

...But, after the initiation of the rapid industrialization drive in 1928 under the Five-Year Plans, success or failure in the field of productivity increasingly meant the success or failure of these plans...

...Exhortations to continuing rapid progress in technology, and concern over incomplete mechanization and insufficient utilization of available machinery, are ever-present in Soviet writings, speeches and resolutions on economic problems...

...Soviet sources claim that, from the initiation of the industrialization plans in 1928 down to 1955, labor productivity in industry increased almost seven times, that it is eight times higher than before the Revolution, and that the Soviet Union has overtaken all the countries of Europe in the absolute level of labor productivity, although it still lags far behind the United States...

...But ideological incentives probably reached their peak of effectiveness during the first Five-Year Plan (lr*28-.'12'l...

...During 1956 and early 1957, the Soviet Union increased the abysmally low pensions for the aged and the permanently disabled, raised the wages of the lowest-paid workers, revised the rules governing the examination of labor disputes, and shortened the labor week from 48 to 46 hours by reducing Saturday work from 8 to 6 hours...

...Wages depend on the quantity and quality of the goods produced, on the worker's classification according to skill, the nature of his work, and its importance in the national economy...

...However, from a recent Soviet statistical handbook on cultural activities we learn that the number of pupils in the preparatory grade and in the first four elementary grades—that is, school children between the ages of 6 and 10—increased from less than 20 million in 1945-46 to nearly 24 million in 1948-49 but then decreased sharply to less than 13 million in 1954-55...

...This vision of a communist millennium, achieved through increased productivity of labor, constitutes one of the most important ideological dogmas in Soviet society...

...Experts may disagree on the scope, significance and perspectives of the post-Stalin transformations in the Soviet Union...

...But, at the same time, they seemed aware of the limitations of coercion, of the fact that improved performance could be attained only through a system of incentives...

...There is increasing recognition on the part of Soviet leaders that labor supply and performance are currently among the weakest aspects of the Soviet economy...