Socialism, Social Welfare and the Soviet Union

Vic George, Nicholas Manning

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781000519747
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Scienze sociali
• Subtopic: Sociologia

First published in 1980, Socialism, Social Welfare and the Soviet Union examines the views of Marx, Engels and Lenin on what constitutes a socialist form of provision of social security, income, education, health and housing. The authors discuss the implementation of these ideas in the Soviet Union since the 1917 Revolution in the context of economic and political development, and describe the social services in the Soviet Union, assessing the extent to which the original ideas have been matched by reality. They also briefly survey the views of several East European academic writers on social policy, outlining some distinctive features of social policy in the Eastern bloc.

The authors' general conclusion is that the Soviet Union has made great progress in social policy provision; from their research and from their visits in the course of writing this book, they show that the social services of the Soviet Union are as good as and, in some ways, more comprehensive than those of Western Europe. Equally important is their conclusion that a society in which the means of production and distribution are nationalised, and which makes a full provision of social services is not necessarily a socialist society. This book will appeal to students of sociology, political science and area studies.

1

ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT AND SOCIAL POLICY

Even the most cursory reading of the literature on the Soviet Union reveals a clear relationship between the development of economic and of social policy. Social policies have been expanded, contracted or modified to suit the goals of economic policy. Economic policy has always held the upper hand, though there have been periods when social policy was less subservient. Broadly speaking, three periods can be discerned in this developing relationship. During the first decade of the Soviet Union, social policy aims were infused with egalitarianism even though in practice they were difficult to implement because of the absence of adequate resources. The Stalinist period witnessed a change in the sense that social policy aims were aligned closely to the aims of economic policy. The tremendous emphasis on rapid economic growth dictated the shape and the scope of social policies. The post-Stalinist period, with its expanded economic base, has treated social policy on a more equal footing with economic policy. The government’s aim has been to allow an increasing proportion of the country’s wealth to be consumed by the public both in terms of consumer goods and in social services provided free or almost free at the point of consumption.

The unfolding of economic and social policy over the years can best be understood within the context of the development of the country’s economic and political system and the dominant ideology. This interrelationship between the various parts of society has also to be seen in relation to the personalities of the country’s political leaders. The Soviet Union has been governed by such strong men — Lenin, Stalin, Khrushchev and Brezhnev — that their personalities must have exercised some influence over government policies. Their influence, however, has to be seen within the objective societal conditions which set severe limits to their contribution.

Marx expressed this role of great men in history as follows:

Men make their own history, but they do not make it just as they please; they do not make it under circumstances chosen by themselves but under circumstances directly encountered, given and transmitted from the past.¹

Subsequent discussion in this chapter should provide enough evidence to substantiate this thesis.

It is commonplace to state that economic, political, ideological and social factors interact to decide government policies. The discussion in this chapter, however, suggests that economic factors have dominated the other factors most of the time. By economic factors we mean the state of the country’s economy, the methods of production and the relationships into which Soviet workers entered at their places of employment and elsewhere. It is a loose, materialistic interpretation of history which allows non-material factors an important role and sometimes a determining one. Engels expressed this loose inter-relationship between economic and other factors well:

According to the materialist conception of history, the determining element in history is ultimately the production and reproduction in real life … If therefore somebody twists this into the statement that the economic element is the only determining one, he transforms it into a meaningless, abstract, and absurd phrase.²

A loose, materialistic interpretation of the development of economic and social policy allows us not only to collect facts without undue constraints but also to present such facts as much as possible in relation to each other. In such broad areas of human life, a stringent theoretical framework can distort reality by excluding facts that do not fit into the theoretical framework. Collection of facts, however, without any adherence to theory can result in nothing more than a meaningless, descriptive account of events over the years. Thus a flexible theoretical approach avoids the pitfalls of both blind empiricism and rigid theorising.

Apart from examining the inter-relationship between economic and social policy, this chapter has another aim — to discuss the extent to which Soviet society is becoming socialist in character over the years. Any selection of criteria of a socialist society is somewhat arbitrary for at least two reasons. First, there are substantial differences of opinion between Marx and Engels on the one hand and Lenin on the other. The views of Marx and Engels were interpreted by Lenin to suit the particular conditions of the Soviet Union. Second, there are equally important differences of opinion among Soviet leaders themselves as to what constitutes a socialist society. Though Lenin’s views have remained supreme in the official pronouncements since the Revolution, they have been interpreted and stressed differently by Stalin, Khrushchev and Brezhnev to suit their particular policies. Bearing these difficulties in mind, we have based our discussion on only the main criteria which Lenin used and which received substantial support from the other Soviet leaders at the outset of the Revolution. We have selected three main criteria which are the very basic ones and which featured prominently in the discussions among Soviet leaders prior to and during the Revolution.

First, the means of production and distribution would be transferred from private hands to the government. Such a transfer would abolish social classes in the Soviet society and hence political and economic domination and exploitation of one population group by another. It would also make government macro-planning easier and in this way facilitate both balanced and rapid economic growth. Second, though people would be paid according to their work during the transitional stage of socialism, economic policy would reduce income differentials substantially. Economic incentives would be gradually replaced by ideological incentives for work. In the distant future, when the Soviet society was transformed from socialist to communist, economic rewards would be distributed according to need, the differences in esteem between manual and mental labour would vanish and people would work unselfishly for the benefit of themselves and their fellow citizens. Third, after the brief period of the dictatorship of the proletariat, full freedom in the domain of politics, literature and ideology would blossom to match the achievements of economic freedom. Participation would be a central feature of decision-making in all the aspects of economic and social institutions. Again, in the distant future of the communist society, this process of participation and self-government would reach its zenith with the abolition of the state as an oppressive apparatus.

All three aims presupposed the existence of an advanced industrial capitalist society prior to the Revolution. Lenin and the other revolutionary leaders were well aware that Czarist Russia was anything but an advanced industrial society. They hoped, however, that the Soviet Revolution would spark off a series of successful socialist revolutions in the advanced capitalist countries of Europe, with the result that material and technical aid would be provided to the Soviet Union to build its economy. When such revolutions did not materialise, Lenin and his colleagues acknowledged that the Soviet road to socialism and communism would be more difficult and more lengthy than they at first envisaged. We need, therefore, to examine not whether the above three basic criteria of a socialist society have been achieved but rather whether steady progress has been made towards their fulfilment.

For the sake of convenience we divide the historical discussion in this chapter into seven periods, acknowledging that they merge into each other and they overlap in many ways.

The first eight months — 1917-18

The October Revolution of 1917 was an almost bloodless affair. The coalition government that had tried to rule the country since the February Revolution of that year caved in under the workers’ pressure guided by the Bolshevik party under Lenin. The ease with which the Bolsheviks came to power is partly a tribute to their disciplined and intelligent political campaigning. Primarily, however, it was indicative of the utter bankruptcy of the Czarist regime. As Carr has put it: ‘The old order collapsed, not because new claimants for power were pushing it aside, but through its own inherent rottenness.’³

The same rotten state of Czarist society, however, is also indicative of the daunting task that faced the small Bolshevik party that came to power amidst the hostility of all the European governments. Marx’s brilliant analysis of how capitalist systems functioned was not of much help as to how to set up and run a socialist society. Both Marx and Engels refrained from any detailed discussion on how a socialist society would be organised and administered on the very good grounds that this was the task of the leaders of actual socialist governments in different countries. This meant, however, that the Bolsheviks had no blueprint for the creation of a socialist Soviet Union. They had to experiment, to improvise and to learn from their mistakes.

It was partly for this reason that the first eight months of the Bolshevik government saw gradual and cautious changes only. Lenin, in particular, was anxious to retain what was useful from the existing capitalist system and to proceed in a gradual and slow way towards the new social order. He saw the transition period as containing an economic system with elements from both socialism and capitalism. Nationalisation of banks and factories proceeded slowly and in many cases the reason for the nationalisation was the fact that the owners had either closed down the enterprise or had acted openly against the new government in such ways as refusing to obey government decrees or dismissing their workers and closing down temporarily. In such cases, the government was acting in a defensive way rather than in an aggressive utopian manner, as has often been suggested.

Similarly in the policy of workers’ control, Lenin’s government moved very cautiously at first. The decree of 14 November 1917 authorised local workers’ committees to participate in the running of their industries but it reserved the right of the owners and managers to give orders on how the industry should be run and made it illegal for workers’ committees to disobey such orders. The government was anxious to maintain industrial production and was well aware of the problems involved in atomised planning by individual enterprises under the inexperienced guidance of workers’ committees.

The same cautious approach was shown in the case of land reform. The land decree of 8 November 1917 nationalised all land and conferred the right to cultivate the land to the peasants. This process had begun anyhow before the decree was issued and many peasants had taken over land belonging to the aristocracy. The decree encouraged but did not even attempt to compel peasants to cultivate their land collectively. Local committees were to be set up to supervise the distribution of land but, in practice, the distribution of land was not done in any organised way. In spite of its caution and the haphazard way it was implemented the decree resulted in the abolition of the landed aristocracy and the creation of a landed peasantry. Lenin’s hopes were that the peasants would gradually join co-operatives on a voluntary basis for both economic and ideological reasons. Co-operative farming would be more productive than individual peasant farming and it would also be more in line with the collective ideology of a socialist society. As we shall see later, the policy soon ran into severe difficulties.

It was, however, the gradual policy in the industrial field that ran into difficulties first from two quarters, as Dobb notes: ‘the zeal of factory workers’ committees and the outbreak of the Civil War in the Summer of 1918.’⁴ Workers’ committees established control over production in some large factories even before the Revolution. The Bolshevik party supported this practice because it furthered its revolutionary aims. It was not, therefore, unexpected that factory committees would be anxious to take control of factories after the Revolution. In many cases committees took control of factories against the express orders of the government; and in other cases committees ran their factories in isolation from the rest of the economy with disastrous economic results. Thus during the first few months, the Soviet government found itself in the difficult position of having to control and guide the very movement which it encouraged before the Revolution. It was, however, the invasion of the Soviet Union by the German, the British and other foreign armies in support of the White Armies that changed the situation dramatically. The ensuing Civil War hardened attitudes on all sides and the Soviet government found itself fighting for its survival. Dobb writes:

In these circumstances, not only did the attitude of the bourgeoisie

to the new regime harden, and any willingness to co-operate that they had shown previously evaporated overnight, but for the Soviet government military necessities immediately took precedence over all other considerations.⁵

The result of this new situation was the decree of 28 June 1918, which nationalised all large companies without exception.

The same cautious approach of the first eight months can be found in the field of social policy. In spite of the long and protracted involvement of the Bolshevik party in social security issues before the Revolution, the new government moved gradually. In December 1917, provisions were made for unemployment, sickness, maternity and death benefit for wage-earners only, thus excluding the majority of the population who were self-employed peasants. Medical care was made free of charge to all wage-earners, again leaving out the peasantry. In housing, a government decree in November 1917 requisitioned all housing belonging to the rich to be distributed among the working class. This was no wild measure, for it involved the new government in very little expense and at the same time rectified to some degree the anomalous maldistribution of urban housing. Expectations were running high prior to and during the Revolution and the government very rightly tried to satisfy those expectations which were not contrary to its own programme.

War communism period

Briefly, then, in both economic and social policy the new Bolshevik government moved with caution, realising the difficulties involved in rapid change under the very low socio-economic conditions that were prevailing in the country. Lenin’s government was not given to wild and utopian schemes and ventures as it has often been suggested by various authors. This caution and gradualism, however, was swept aside by the whirlwind of the Civil War. War communism is the phrase used to describe the economic and social policies during the Civil War period, i.e. June 1918 to December 1920. We have already seen that the outbreak of the Civil War forced the Soviet government to nationalise all large enterprises. During the Civil War medium-sized enterprises were brought under government ownership while in November 1920 even small enterprises were nationalised. The demands, devastations and fears aroused by the war made it impossible for the Soviet government to continue its gradual policies of nationalisation and its policies of the mixed economy.

Nowhere does the influence of war conditions become clearer on government policy than in the issue of wages and prices. During the early part of the Civil War, the Soviet government lost some of the richest parts of the country in terms of agricultural produce, minerals and power to the combined forces of the White Armies and of the invading foreign powers. In addition, the massive destruction of railways and other forms of transport made it that much more difficult to bring food and raw materials to the cities. Starvation was a real threat in the cities and many people migrated to the rural areas where they could find food. The price of all goods rose substantially as they became in short supply. To cope with the situation the government printed more money but this added more fuel to the inflationary situation. Anxious to supply some food to industrial workers, the government paid higher and higher prices for foodstuffs to the peasants. Since money had lost its value, however, peasants became increasingly reluctant to sell food to the government. This left the government with no option but to requisition compulsorily foodstuffs from the peasants in order to feed the army and the workers. Both peasants and workers were paid in kind and municipal services, such as the post office and transport, were provided free. Money was being largely replaced as the medium for exchange of goods not because of ideological reasons but out of sheer necessity. There was no other way open to the government for dealing with the desperate economic and military situation. It is true that many ‘Leftist’ communists welcomed the abolition of money but this was not the view of the government. Lenin was quite clear that the economic policies of war communism were forced on his government. ‘War communism was thrust upon us by war and ruin. It was not, nor could it be, a policy that corresponded to the economic tasks of the proletariat. It was a temporary measure.’⁶

The same war destructions, inflation and semi-starvation of the urban population brought about a sharp collapse in labour discipline with strikes, demonstrations, protests and absenteeism running very high. Again, in the chaotic and desperate situation, the government had no option but to impose strict sanctions against labour indiscipline and to use the trade unions as an instrument for implementing government measures. There is no doubt that the Soviet government lost control of the situation, was blown off course, and either introduced measures or allowed situations to develop which in normal circumstances would not have been approved of. Social policy shows signs of a turn to utopianism during this period. The decree of 31 October 1918 extended social security protection both in terms of risks to include old age and in terms of pensions to cover the peasants. The only logical explanation of such a measure at a time of national economic chaos was the government’s anxiety to win peasants to its side at a time of civil war and at a time when peasants were being alienated by the requisitioning of foodstuffs by the government. In education, the decrees of August and October 1918 made primary education free and compulsory and made secondary and higher education free to all without any requirements for academic entrance qualifications. Avery vigorous liberalising campaign in education was inaugurated that aimed at changing the content of what was taught in schools in favour of the liberal subjects; teaching methods were altered to be in line with the ideas of progressive education writers; and the relationships between pupils and teachers were democratised to the extreme. In the field of family policy the same trend towards utopianism was evident. Divorce was made very easy, legal responsibilities of family members to each othere were eroded and parental responsibility for the maintenance of their children...