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Perestroika and the Soviet Worker

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2014

Elizabeth Teague
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Extract

THE SOVIET UNION'S ONCE DOCILE WORKING CLASS IS PASSIVE no longer. Strikes — once said to be an impossibility under socialism — are now commonplace. Unofficial workers' clubs, workers' fronts, and embryonic free trade unions are springing up all over the country. These show a marked polarization: some are oriented toward reform; others are openly conservative; many are ethnically biased. It will be argued in this article that this new worker activism could prove damaging to the progress of economic reform, but that further radical changes in the political framework could reduce this risk.

Type
Articles
Information
Government and Opposition , Volume 25 , Issue 2 , 01 April 1990 , pp. 191 - 211
Copyright
Copyright © Government and Opposition Ltd 1990

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References

1 Komsomol’ skaya pravda, 13 October 1989.

2 See Pravda, Alex, ‘Is There a Soviet Working Class?’, Problems of Communism, 11–12 1982, pp. 1–24 Google Scholar.

3 TASS, 28 June 1989.

4 La Repubblica, 1 August 1989.

5 Harris, Myles, ‘He Used to Give Me Roses’, The Spectator, 11 06 1988 Google Scholar.

6 TASS, 30 November 1989.

7 Moscow News, No. 1, 1989.

8 Sergeyev, A., ‘Iz segodnya v zavtra ili pozavchera?’, Ekonomicheskiye nauki, No. 9, 1989, pp. 121–31Google Scholar.

9 Pravda, 14 November 1989.

10 Pravda, 24 July 1989.

11 ‘Nuzhna “zheleznaya rukha”?’, Literaturnaya gazeta, 16 August 1989.

12 AFP, Reuters, 23 November 1989.

13 AFP, 6 November 1989.

14 Moscow World Service, 4 November 1989.

15 Central [Soviet] Television, 2 January 1990.

16 TASS, 21 December 1989.

17 Alekseyeva, Lyudmila and Chalidze, Valerii, Public Unrest in the USSR, Silver Spring, MD, 1985 Google Scholar.

18 Izvestiya, 14 December 1989.

19 For the text of the new law, see Pravda, 14 October 1989. Though a step forward in the Soviet context, it is rather a restrictive piece of legislation, outlawing wildcat strikes and permitting industrial action only after two separate conciliation bodies have failed to resolve the conflict. Strikes may be suspended for up to two months by order of the USSR Supreme Soviet or the Supreme Soviet of one of the USSR’s 15 republics. They are banned entirely where this would create ‘a threat to people’s life and health’ as well as in the transport, energy, communications and defence sectors. One worker-activist has described the new legislation as an ‘anti-strike law’. (Central Television, 5 January 1990.)

20 As reported by Western journalists who visited the Kuzbass.

21 Nazimova, A., ‘Chelovek: konflikt na proizvodstve’, Politicheskoye obrazovaniye, No. 10, 1989, pp. 75–80 Google Scholar.

22 AP, Reuters, 29 July 1989.

23 Shakhterskaya pravda, Prokop’evsk, 17 July 1989.

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25 Sotsialisticheskaya industriya, 8 August 1989; The Guardian, 13 October 1989.

26 International Herald Tribune, 29 August 1989; The Guardian, 14 September 1989; Siegelbaum, Lewis H., ‘Behind the Soviet Miners’ Strike’, The Nation, 23 10 1989 Google Scholar.

27 Pravda, Trud, Sovetskaya Rossiya, 13 July 1989; The Washington Post, 18 July 1989.

28 Komsomol’skaya pravda, 14 July 1989.

29 Sotsialisticheskaya industriya, 8 August 1989; Pravda, 21 August 1989; Siegelbaum, op. cit.

30 Radio Mayak, 14 July 1989.

31 Central Television, 27 July 1989.

32 The Baltimore Sun, 23 July 1989.

33 The Guardian, 13 October 1989.

34 Siegelbaum, op. cit.

35 The New York Times, 27 July 1989.

36 Coal, like oil and gas, has a low price inside the USSR compared with world market prices. The exports of the Soviet energy sector generate most of the USSR’s earnings of convertible currency, but the central planners in Moscow allocate much of that convertible currency to regions and industries other than those producing these staple export earners.

37 Radio Moscow, 10 January 1990.

38 Trud. 18 November 1989.

39 Central Television, 18 August 1989.

40 International Herald Tribune, 21 July 1989.

41 Central Television, 24 July 1989.

42 The New York Times, The Washington Post, 22 October 1989; Izvestiya, 25 October 1989.

43 The Guardian, 10 July 1989; Literaturnaya gazeta, 19 July 1989.

44 Central Television, 5 January 1990.

45 Komsomol’skaya pravda, 23 September 1989.

46 Gazeta Wyborcza, Warsaw, 23 October 1989.

47 Information on Moldavia was kindly supplied by Vladimir Socor. See Socor, Vladimir, ‘Politics of the Language Question Heating Up in Soviet Moldavia’, Report on the USSR (Radio Liberty), No. 36, 1989, pp. 33–36 Google Scholar, idem, ‘Moldavian Proclaimed Official Language in the Moldavian SSR’, Report on the USSR, No. 38, 1989, pp. 13–15.

48 Leningradskaya pravda, 8 June 1989.

49 Izvestiya, 8 December 1989.

50 Salutsky, Anatolii, ‘Ural’skoye protivostoyaniye’, Literaturnaya Rossiya, 6 and 13 10 1989 Google Scholar; Tolz, Vera, ‘The United Front of Workers of Russia: Further Consolidation of Antireform Forces’, Report on the USSR, No. 39, 1989, pp. 11–13 Google Scholar.

51 TASS, 4 April 1989.

52 Literaturnaya Rossiya, 8 December 1989.

53 Central Television, 4 October 1989.

54 Sovetskaya kul’tura, 8 July 1989.

55 Central Television, 4 October 1989.

56 Tolz, op. cit.; Politicheskoye obrazovaniye, No. 17, 1989, pp. 63–65.

57 Literaturnaya Rossiya, 11 November 1989; Izvestiya, 27 December 1989.