How Work Changed for 100 Million People
By: Ethan Friend
Tags: Economics, History, Work, Employment, Russia

How Work Changed for 100 Million People

The Soviet Union made many moves towards improving employment levels and work conditions. However, did they succeed?

Building radios on an assembly line. Workers on a seven-hour shift are surrounded by ample sunlight and plants hanging from the ceiling. (circa 1950s)

Before the bolsheviks came to power and the Soviet Union Era began in the 20th century, work conditions were extremely poor. There was mass inequality with men and women in the workplace and unemployment was prevalent.

During the rule of the USSR across a large amount of eastern Europe, Russia and other areas of the world, many moves were made to improve the state of work conditions and employment levels. However, was this achieved?

Early Soviet Era

Early Soviet Agriculture

Employment levels and working conditions were a key element for improvement in the Soviet Union. In 1918, under War Communism, labour conscription was introduced to ensure that the Red Army was adequately supplied to win the civil war.

Labour exchanges were established to supervise the hiring of workers, but fear of being forced into a job they did not want thus meant that many workers did not register with the exchanges.

The end of the civil war brought additional pressures to the labour market also. After the ending of the civil war in 1921, the demobilization of the Red Army returned millions of soldiers to the cities in search of work, and food shortages in the countryside led to a wave of workers and peasants drifting into the cities also.

Overall, this led to a sharp rise in unemployment, reaching over a million workers by 1926. This set off the communist government stride towards creating this utopia difficult.

The New Economic Policy (NEP) was introduced in 1921 and saw increasing job security for skilled workers under its economic growth, meaning real wages started to rise.

Under the NEP, partly due to the relative shortage of them, skilled workers demanded more money than their unskilled counterparts causing growth in wage differentials. Thus, there were increasing benefits for some sections of the working class.

“What the October Revolution gave to the female worker and peasant”. 1920 Soviet propaganda poster. The inscriptions on the buildings read “library”, “kindergarten”, “school for grown-ups”, etc.

As the five-year plans were introduced, full employment was achieved despite it not being an aim. In 1930, the Soviet government announced that it was the first country to achieve full urban employment in peacetime.

The number of hired workers rose from 11.6 million in 1928 to 27 million in 1937. Employment opportunities were plentiful with the rapid expansion in heavy industry. The excessive targets set by the government for industry resulted in factories using every available labour source.

Many had joined the urban and industrial workforce from the countryside. Large numbers of peasants drifted to the towns due to the much-hated process of collectivisation and the subsequent hardship inflicted on rural areas.

However, the ever-lasting demand for labour resulted in labour shortages in 1932 again. This was a real fear for managers who were anxious to meet their production targets.

Workers unhappy with their job constantly changed their occupation in search of better employment. In order to deal with this, the government issued a passport system.

In 1932, an internal passport was needed to change jobs, and food rations were distributed through the workplace. Both policies were introduced to keep workers where they were needed. These measures were only partly successful.

Post-1920s

An assembly line worker workers on the axel of the car. Every workplace in the Soviet Union provided more than just work — they also provided a variety of social services related to work and pro-actively built a sense of community among workers. (circa 1980s)

However, full employment came with many difficulties also. Firstly, the swamping of the old industrial workers by new peasant recruits led to divisions in the workplace.

The more established groups of skilled workers tried to protect their position and pay by discrimination and harassment of the newcomers. As a result of full employment also, unemployment benefit was cancelled in October 1930.

This meant that trade unions were left to act as providers of social insurance and had to deal with issues such as compensation for injury out of their funds.

Even though vast numbers of jobs had been created, productivity was very low. The average Soviet worker produced only half of what an average British worker produced in 1927, and although it increased during the Five-Year Plans as machinery was produced, it still lagged behind.

To meet production targets, managers used uninterrupted work, meaning the use of day and night shifts so that machines could be kept busy for 24 hours every day. Long shifts with not much time off did little to improve the experience of the industrial worker.

A technician keeps careful watch over 200 electric oil wells, while potted flowers sit above both workers. Men and Women oftentimes worked side by side in the Soviet Union, where 75% of women were working full time jobs by the 1950s. (circa 1950s)

In 1931, wage differences between skilled and unskilled workers were increased by the government to reward skilled workers and discourage them from moving jobs. Then better rations and bonuses were introduced to add to the incentives.

From 1934, the use of piecework rates, where workers were paid according to the amount they produced was expanded, an action that pleased the more skilled section of the workforce as it increased the opportunity for them to earn higher wages.

A consequence of the restrictions on workers changing jobs was the increase in absenteeism. In order to fight this, harsh punishments were introduced for absent workers in key industries, nonetheless, the problem persisted. By 1939, absenteeism was made a criminal offence that could result in imprisonment. Nevertheless, these measures were not always applied as the supply of workers was limited.

Women working a seven-hour shift on the assembly line, build tractors in a highly automated factory. Over 60,000 tractors are produced by this small plant every year. (circa 1950s)

During the Second World War, the pressure on labour intensified. During the war, women were employed in greater numbers to help make up fall in the number of men in the workforce due to conscription into the Red army.

In 1945, the demobilization of soldiers returned many men to the workforce, but not necessarily where they were needed. Prisoners of war were used as forced labour, supplemented by the increasing numbers in the Gulag. The number of inmates rose from fewer than 1.5 million in 1945 to nearly 2.5 million in 1953.

Workers on the construction of the Sayano-Shushenskaya Hydropower Plant, 1978

Khrushchev and Brezhnev Era

The Soviet Constitution (1977) guaranteed its citizens employment. Full employment had been continued through the Khrushchev and Brezhnev years from its initiation in the 1930s.

There was some unemployment seasonal work which often resulted in short-term unemployment in rural areas, and it was common for graduates to experience a short period of unemployment after finishing university. Moreover, having employment was no guarantee of job satisfaction and many jobs were created that were repetitive and sometimes pointless.

What often made a difference was the increase in real wages, as shown in the table below (Table 5). The rise in money wages gave Soviet workers an increase in spending power. Most Soviet workers accumulated savings because goods were scarce in the shops and that low prices were fixed by the government.

Moreover, jobs were highly secure for employees. It was made very difficult to dismiss someone who was not good at their job, whether that was due to anything from laziness to alcoholism.

Also, Managers often ignored low standards of work discipline as workers were absent to queue for food or moonlight to earn extra money. This would then be followed by a short period of intense work at the end of the month to ensure production was met.

In Siberia, these truck engines have fires lit underneath them all night and day to prevent engine parts from busting open. The tempature here is around — 45 degress C. (circa 1980s)

Labour turnover remained high, often at around thirty percent each year as workers moved to jobs where managers offered more benefits. A minimum wage was introduced in 1956, which was designed to ensure no workers were below the poverty line, but hardships remaining for those workers who had to support families on the minimum wage.

The working week was reduced in 1957 and the number of days’ paid holiday increased. Conditions lacked in the workplace, and restrictions were placed on trade unions, who were no longer allowed to negotiate with managers to improve conditions

Conclusions

In conclusion, despite the achievement of full employment, the Soviet worker had a harsh, drab life. The demands of industrialization in the 1930s were followed by the privations of the Second World War and the tough period of reconstruction from 1945 to 1953.

It was to be a long time before some of the material benefits of full employment were enjoyed by many of the Soviet workforces. Despite employment levels being maximised, there were many negatives and the conditions in the workplace were never to the extent to which workers would have been beyond satisfied.

The increase in wage differentials also caused a potential class divide through inequality, moving even further away from the communist ideal view of being entirely classless. Furthermore, working conditions were poor, with little attention paid by the government to even basic levels of health and safety.