Table Of ContentLABOUR
P O L I C Y
IN THE USSR
1917-1928
MARGARET DEWAR
ROYAL INSTITUTE
OF INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS
LABOUR POLICY IN THE USSR
1917-1928
THE ROYAL INSTITUTE
OF INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS
London: Chatham House, St James’s Square, S.W.i
New York: 345 East 46th Street, New York 17, N.Y.
Toronto Bombay
Melbourne Wellington Cape Town Karachi
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
LABOUR POLICY
IN THE USSR
1917-1928
BY
MARGARET DEWAR
Landon & New York
ROYAL INSTITUTE
OF INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS
The Royal Institute of International Affairs is an unofficial and non-
political body, founded in 1920 to encourage and facilitate the
scientific study of international questions. The Institute, as such, is
precluded by the terms of its Royal Charter from expressing an
opinion on any aspect of international affairs. Any opinions in this
publication are not, therefore, those of the Institute.
First published 1956
PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN
AT THE BROADWATER PRESS, WELWYN GARDEN CITY
HERTFORDSHIRE
CONTENTS
PREFACE vii
ABBREVIATIONS viii
INTRODUCTION i
Pre- 1917 Labour Demands 1
The February Revolution 2
Trade Unions and Factory Committees before October 1917 4
Workers’ Control 7
Dual Control 11
Prelude to the October Revolution 13
I. THE FIRST PHASE OF THE SOVIET REGIME 16
The Capture of Power 16
The Introduction of Workers’ Control 18
The First Basic Labour Decrees 24
Wages and the First Collective Agreements 26
The First Trade Union Congress 32
The Shaping of Labour Policy 36
IL WAR COMMUNISM 41
The Need for Higher Productivity 41
The Labour Code of 1918 43
Industrial Conscription 45
Labour Army Corps and Man-power 48
Militarization of Labour 52
The ‘Subbotnik? Movement 60
The First Labour Camps 62
Wages Policy 63
Payments in Kind 65
Education and Training of Man-power 69
Social Insurance and Labour Protection 70
The Unions and the State 72
From War Communism to NEP 78
III. NEP: THE FIRST PHASE 82
Political Subjugation of the Trade Unions 82
The New Wages Policy 86
The Reorganization of Industry 90
Collective Agreements 91
Inflation and its Effect on Wages 92
The Calculation and Payment of Wages 94
The Labour Code of 1922 95
The Changed Roles of NKTruda and the Trade Unions 100
Strikes 102
Settling Labour Disputes 103
v
Contents
Social Insurance 107
Individual Pensions 109
The State of Industry, 1923-4 109
Unemployment and the Engagement of Labour 1 11
Adolescent Workers 1 1 7
IV. NEP: THE SECOND PHASE 119
Productivity and Economic Development 1 19
Specialists 123
Incentives 126
Protection of Labour 129
Regulation of Wages by the State 13 1
Wage-Scales 134
Wage Reform 136
Nominal and Real Wages 137
Payment of Wages 14 1
Collective Agreements 141
Strikes and Disputes 143
Trade Unions and NKTruda on the Eve of the Five Year Plan 146
Preparing for the Five Year Plan 153
APPENDIXES
I. Labour Programme of the RSDRP 158
IL Decrees, Ordinances, and Instructions concerning Labour
Passed between 28 October (10 November) 1917 and October
1928 160
III. Party, Soviet, and Trade Union Congresses held between 1917
and 1928 277
BIBLIOGRAPHY 278
INDEX 281
PREFACE
In the following pages the evolution of Soviet labour policy is traced,
solely on the basis of official documents, from the first attempts to put
Bolshevik theory into practice, through the subsequent modifications
and retractions to the final form achieved towards the beginning of the
first Five Year Plan. During this crucial period from 1917 to 1928 the
basic structure of Soviet labour policy was built up, and there has been
no essential modification of it since that time.
The fundamental problem confronting every society is the organiza-
tion of its labour force, which, if social progress is to be achieved, must
be made progressively more productive. In what way do Soviet
methods of disciplining, and increasing the productive capacity of, the
industrial labour force differ from those obtaining elsewhere ? Does the
Soviet industrial worker occupy a higher social position than his counter-
part in the West, and have a greater power of ‘co-determination’, or
even a decisive voice in industrial affairs ? The answer to these questions
emerges clearly from this study, which it is hoped will contribute to an
understanding of the nature of Soviet society.
The study includes an appendix giving a summary of all the relevant
decrees issued during this period. These are referred to by their consecu-
tive numbers in the text. The decrees are listed in chronological order
of their adoption (which did not always coincide with the date of
publication), except where this is unknown, when the date of promul-
gation is used. Decrees not directly relevant and which have not been
summarized are referred to under the numbers given in the Soviet
collection of laws (e.g. SU 1917, 1-10). All dates before February 1918
are old-style dates, i.e. thirteen days behind the Western calendar.
The sources referred to in footnotes are frequently given in an
abbreviated or simplified form, but full details will be found in the
bibliography appended. The quotations from Lenin are taken through-
out from the third Russian edition of his works.
I should like to thank Miss Violet Gonolly for reading the study and
giving her advice. I am much indebted to Mr E. H. Carr for his kind
encouragement, and to Miss Hermia Oliver for her patience and under-
standing in the exacting task of preparing the typescript for the press.
Acknowledgement is also made to the libraries of the British Museum,
the London School of Economics, the School of Slavonic and Eastern
European Studies, and the International Labour Office in Geneva. I
finally wish to record my thanks to my husband, Hugo Dewar, for his
untiring help and advice.
vii
ABBREVIATIONS
GKVTP Main Committee for General Labour Service
KK Control Commissions
NKFin People’s Commissariat of Finance
NKProd People’s Commissariat of Food
NKPros People’s Commissariat of Education
NKPS People’s Commissariat of Transport
NKPT People’s Commissariat of Posts and Telegraphs
NKSO People’s Commissariat of Social Security
NKTruda People’s Commissariat of Labour
NKTSO People’s Commissariat of Labour and Social Security
NKVD People’s Commissariat of Internal Affairs
NKVoendel People’s Commissariat of War
NKYust People’s Commissariat of Justice
NKZdrav People’s Commissariat of Health
NKZeml People’s Commissariat of Agriculture
ORRS Departments for the Distribution of Labour
RKI Workers’ and Peasants’ Inspection
RKK Assessment-Conflict Commission (s)
RKP(B) Russian Communist Party (Bolshevik)
RSDRP(B) Russian Social Democratic Workers’ Party (Bolshevik)
RSFSR Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic
SNK Council of People’s Commissars
SRKO Workers’ and Peasants’ Council of Defence
STO Council of Labour and Defence
TsIK Central Executive Committee of the Soviet of Workers’ and
Soldiers’ Deputies
VTsIK All-Russian Central Executive Committee (of the above)
VTsSPS All-Russian Central Council of Trade Unions (later changed
to All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions)
VSNKh Supreme Council of National Economy
NOTE
The words ‘enterprise*, ‘institution’, ‘workers’, and ‘employees’ have been used in the
Russian sense of factory, office or government department, manual workers, and office
workers respectively.
viii
INTRODUCTION
The Bolsheviks considered work not simply an economic necessity, but
a most laudable social activity. Lenin frequently drew a picture of
work in the future communist society, when people would be used to
performing social duties without compulsion, and unpaid work for the
common good would become a universal phenomenon. 1 But he was
also aware that c to create a new labour discipline, new forms and meth-
ods of attracting people to work—that is a matter of many years and
decades’. 2
So Lenin, if not all the Bolsheviks, recognized that it was one thing
to advance a broad general principle; another to put it into practice.
Operating within the framework of materially adverse conditions and
a population largely unresponsive to socialist or communist ideas, the
Bolsheviks—first as clandestine propagandists and agitators under
Tsarist autocracy, then as workers’ spokesmen against the Provisional
Governments of the February-October 1917 period, and finally as
leaders of the Government of a mainly agricultural country still await-
ing its industrial revolution—were compelled to make many shifts and
changes in their labour policy. After the October Revolution they were
for long at the mercy of forces and circumstances largely beyond their
control. Among the Bolsheviks themselves there were differences of
opinion as to the labour policy to be pursued. It was a long time before
a definite pattern emerged and when it did, it bore no relation to the
original principles enunciated before the conquest of power.
PRE-1917 Labour Demands
The Bolsheviks’ first labour programme consisted of sixteen demands
for the protection of the working class from undue exploitation, and
from physical and moral degeneration; these were incorporated in the
programme of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDRP),
adopted jointly with the Menshevik fraction at the second party con-
gress in 1903? They demanded elementary improvements in working
conditions, most of which had already been granted to the workers of
the more advanced countries; an eight-hour day, adequate rest peri-
ods, the prohibition of child labour and protective restrictions on the
employment of women and youth, old-age and sickness insurance, in-
dustrial tribunals, etc. All these demands were strictly within the limits
1 Lenin, xxiv. 651, 653, etc. 2 ibid. xxv. 15 1. 8 VKP(B) v resolyutsiakh, i. 22-3.
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