As is well known, the dictatorship of the proletariat, carried out by the Communist Party, makes the working class the dominant class and seeks to build a new classless society.
Twenty years after the revolution, the situation of workers varies depending on the level of professional training, political status (member of the Party or Communist Youth League, a right-thinking person, a suspect, a relative or friend of a suspect or a prominent communist), the enterprise, and the region. Workers at large factories are usually paid better for the same work than those at smaller ones. Those living in large centers receive more than those living in distant provinces. The extreme inequality of wages confuses the observer and makes possible various statistical disguises, the least of which consists of reporting an average wage that, in reality, significantly exceeds the wages of the overwhelming majority.
According to a report by the late Kuibyshev’s Planning Commission, published on January 3, 1935, the average wage in Moscow was 149 rubles 30 kopecks per month. During the same period, according to my personal data, the overwhelming majority of workers at the Moscow electric power station (Elektrozavod) received between 120 and 140 rubles per month. Since the state wage fund has not significantly increased since then (if one considers the numerical growth of hired workers), the following (monthly) salaries can be taken as the most current: unskilled laborers – 100–120 rubles; average worker – from 150 to 200 rubles; skilled worker – from 250 to 400 rubles; Stakhanovite – 500 rubles and above, in exceptional cases reaching 1500–2000 rubles.
Women’s wages are always somewhat lower, which is especially noticeable at the lower levels, i.e., among the vast majority of female workers. Hundreds of thousands of Soviet female workers receive 70 to 90 rubles a month—a beggarly wage, completely insufficient to feed the person receiving it. We are forced to conclude that the employer-state actually views a woman’s wage as a bonus payment in the family budget. The theory does indeed assert: equal pay for equal work. But they will tell you that the work is rarely equal…
Wages in Leningrad and Moscow at the beginning of 1936: research fellow at a major university – 300–400 rubles; stenographer fluent in foreign languages – about 200 rubles; newspaper editor – 230 rubles; various staff – from 90 to 120 rubles. Many female workers at Moscow textile factories (Krasnaya Presnya) were still receiving 100 to 120 rubles quite recently. In the provinces where I lived, the predominant base wage for women was 70 to 90 rubles. An economist received 350 rubles (unlimited workday); an accountant (unlimited workday and criminal liability for the enterprise’s activities) – from 250 to 350 rubles; a responsible party worker – 250 rubles and above; a director of an enterprise or head of an office (communist) – from 400 to 800 rubles; high-ranking functionaries (communists) and major specialists – from 1000 to 5000 rubles. In the capitals, famous specialists receive from 5000 to 10000 rubles a month. Writers have a similar income. Major official playwrights, official artists who constantly paint portraits of the great leaders, poets, and novelists approved by the Central Committee, can receive a million a year or more.
These data require additional explanation: a research fellow at a scientific institute receives only 300–400 rubles but works in two or three institutes, which amounts to 1200 rubles at the end of the month. A newspaper editor with 250 rubles a month collaborates with other publications, which triples his income. A factory director writes himself bonuses of 500 or 1500 rubles for fulfilling the plan and on the occasion of holidays and anniversaries. Party functionaries and communist leaders receive clothes made of fine cloth as gifts, are housed by the party in comfortable accommodations built for this purpose, and have the right to visit resorts on the Caucasus or in Crimea for free or at reduced prices. But the vast majority of workers, those with low wages, are left entirely to themselves, i.e., to their misery.
Let’s count the deductions imposed on wages: tax, mandatory loans (15 days’ wages per year for the low-paid, 1 month or more for others), membership fees for the party, trade union, AviaKhim, Red Aid, etc., and voluntary—in reality, imposed—contributions for international solidarity, for the construction of airships and airplanes, etc. The total real reduction in wages amounts to 15–20 percent. In one hospital (1935), I knew interns who received 26 rubles for two weeks at a time when black bread cost a ruble per kilogram; moreover, life insurance was imposed on them conditional on good health.
The system of fines is strictly practiced in factories and workshops: fines for poor work, tardiness, work stoppage, and disciplinary violations. This provokes scenes. You expect 100 rubles at the end of the month, and the management presents you with a list of 30 rubles in fines! It is sad to recall in this context that Lenin in Siberia began his journalistic activity with an accusatory pamphlet: “On Fines.”
Official propaganda places great emphasis on indirect payments provided by social insurance, free medical treatment in case of illness, country holidays, and old-age pensions. Essentially, all that remains of this is a somewhat reduced wage in case of illness, as well as maternity and breastfeeding benefits. Doctors still often receive only a limited number of sick leave certificates for distribution. Free medicines were recently abolished. Stays in the best rest homes are free only for very prominent “activists” who have received offers from trade unions. In practice, a trip to Crimea or the Caucasus is a completely impossible dream for a worker receiving 80 to 150 rubles a month, as it involves costs of about 700 rubles, in addition to which he must obtain permission, which is not easy. Published data fully confirm this personal observation: in 1934, only 181 thousand workers (out of 24 million hired workers) visited the resorts.
What is the purchasing power of these wages? The purchasing power of the ruble is approximately equal to that of the French or Belgian franc, except for the price of black bread, which is lower in the USSR (it costs 1 ruble or 90 kopecks per kilogram; in turn, real white bread is unattainable in price: 4 rubles 50 and 7 rubles 50 per kilogram.) Here are some prices for the beginning of 1936: beef – 6–8 rubles per kilogram; pork – from 9 to 12 rubles; butter – 14–18 rubles; sausage, 7–9 rubles; salami, 25 rubles; ham – 18–20 rubles; Gruyere cheese, 24 rubles; herring – 6–10 rubles; caviar – 32–40 rubles; coffee – 40–50 rubles; candies from 9 to 40 rubles; tea from 60 to 100 rubles; chocolate, 50 rubles; alcohol, vodka 12 rubles per liter.
Industrial products: coat from 100 to 500 rubles; leather-soled shoes – from 80 to 150 rubles; cotton suit – 200 rubles; wool suit from 600 to 1000 rubles; dress from 70 to 100 rubles; wool shirt, 200 rubles. Fuel: a cubic meter of wood, cut and delivered home, from 40 to 50 rubles (at least 6 cubic meters are needed to heat a modest dwelling in winter). Rent for an unfurnished private room in the provinces from 40 to 58 rubles a month; a furnished corner as a lodger, 30 rubles and higher, and more expensive in large cities. To the high prices should be added the difficulties in obtaining food products, fabrics, wool, shoes, and wood. It is often necessary to travel to a neighboring city for a pair of shoes or a blanket from which a coat can be sewn. The shortage of goods is the reason for rising prices on the black market; and the arrests and deportations of speculators, which took place throughout the summer of 1936 at a hundred a day in Moscow alone, according to newspaper reports, do not fix anything.
A worker with 100 rubles a month receives, therefore, for 24 days of work, slightly more than 5 kilograms of butter or one hundred kilograms of black bread. Since one can live on bread alone, at least for quite a while, he is no longer starving.
A French worker who lived in the USSR for more than ten years had the brilliant idea of compiling a comparative table of wages and prices in Moscow and Paris for 1936, allowing the calculation of the necessary working time by categories of workers (unskilled, average, skilled) to acquire current goods and consumer items. He concluded that for a kilogram of white bread, a Soviet worker works 172 minutes, while an unemployed Parisian works 36 minutes; that a Soviet worker works 1584 minutes (unskilled worker) or 930 (average worker) or 632 (skilled worker) for a kilogram of butter, which a French worker receives for 180 minutes, and a skilled worker for 114 minutes. These calculations are indisputable.
M. Yvon, “Ce qu’est devenue la Révolution Russe”, Paris: La Revolution Proletarienne, 1936
This little book is probably the best study ever published [by 1937] on the situation of Russian workers.
Did workers live better before the revolution? People aged forty and older unanimously affirm this in all three respects: food, clothing, and housing. Statistics also confirm this.
A textile industry worker who received 300 kilograms of bread per month in 1912–1914, and a miner who received 600, today receive an average of 150 (the equivalent of 150 rubles). I have often heard mothers lament that their children never knew the good times when such delicious things as pastries, jams, and creams were prepared for holidays; and old women complaining that they no longer even have tea. Most of the pensions for Civil War widows amount to 30 rubles a month. In 1926, the pre-war level [of life] seemed to have been almost reached; but today it is far from it. To restore the overwhelming majority of Russian workers to the material level of 1926, wages would need to be doubled. According to the head of government Molotov, one cannot count on a growth of more than “a few tens of percent” (say, 30) in the next three or four years.
A decade ago, the labor aristocracy, receiving over 150 rubles a month, represented 5 percent of the proletariat. Let’s assume, to give a large figure, that it now reaches 10 percent, although the new highly mechanized enterprises primarily need semi-skilled workers. Nine-tenths of Soviet workers, therefore, live on low wages.
How do they manage to survive? Rent consumes only about a tenth of the budget. But the apartments are usually a hole. The norm of “living space” allocated to residents is 8 square meters per person in large cities and less in regional centers, where local authorities sometimes reduce it to 5 square meters. This means that workers are quartered at the rate of one family per room; that they sleep in corridors, attics, lofts, and basements; and since the houses are not adapted to such overcrowding, entire families occupy poorly ventilated spaces that other families have to pass through to enter or exit. Imagine the consequences of such crowding and the lack of linen, furniture, and clothing; the ignorance, alcoholism, and informers; and the fierce struggle that can occur, for example, over a room whose occupant, an elderly woman, seems to be on the verge of death. Many workers at large factories live even poorer, in barracks. In the provinces and large suburbs, people try to raise rabbits, pigs, and cows. These animals have to be kept in corridors, under windows, if not in the room itself, since theft is a social scourge. And yet, in this primitive need, the most ingenious things are contrived to create a dwelling. I have seen touching interiors, very clean and almost comfortable, in which poverty is clothed in a kind of whiteness. There was nothing but well-washed and repaired rags from old chests; the lamp glass was taped with transparent paper; the sheets were taken off at night because they are irreplaceable… The suffering of poorly fed children from severe cold in winter is the most tragic.
Alcoholism is also tragic. Men, women, the elderly, and many teenagers—everyone drinks. On the snow or in the August dust, in the fields or on the main streets of the capitals, it is not uncommon to see people fall down dead drunk. On payday and holidays, a third of the passersby stagger along the street, singing and roaring. On the day of Kirov’s funeral, the sale of vodka was banned. “You see,” a communist who managed a cooperative told me, “if people got drunk today, we would hear them say too much…”
The alcoholism of the Russian people stems from their distressed condition. No housing, no welfare, almost no entertainment—life is joyless. All that remains is alcohol, which dulls the longing and unleashes the boor liberated from conventions. Alcoholism, in turn, is the cause of malnutrition and countless incidents. In the hospitals where I was on duty, the staff prepared for the weekend to treat broken jaws, fractures, and injuries of various kinds… Living among the poor of the country, it never occurred to me to blame them for their drunkenness. I am too familiar with the heavy longing of a joyless life, without the possibility of salvation from it. Alcoholism will decrease only with an increase in welfare.
It is often said that there is neither unemployment nor a sense of insecurity about the future among workers in the USSR. It is true that there is rather a shortage of labor, because it is so poorly paid. Anyone who has looked for work in the USSR knows that, although they always find it in the end, by the time of hiring they are so discouraged that they are ready to accept even the worst conditions. Anyone who has traveled knows that train stations are filled with crowds of resettlers, clearly people who are not going to a factory, an office, or a field the next morning. Mass unemployment, which devastates capitalist countries, does not exist at the moment; but other forms of unemployment, which government statistics deliberately ignore, affect millions of workers. The lack of security in these conditions also takes a different form than in the West. In the USSR, you have neither reserves nor savings, you live in great need, so dismissal followed by a short period of unemployment (without benefits) can be a terrible experience. Moreover, the work does not entirely feed, so prison insecurity has become the most ordinary phenomenon for everyone.
Until 1934, the economy of the USSR was based on inflation and is still maintained by low wages. Wage increases are vitally necessary; but the stabilization of the ruble is also necessary. Unemployment was eliminated only through a kind of personnel inflation, based on monetary inflation. A return to a stable budget, calculated in real value terms and forcing enterprises to reduce overhead costs, would compel them to liquidate surplus personnel and bring back unemployment, which in reality seems impossible to eliminate except in a much more harmonious social organism with stronger egalitarian tendencies.
Life is even harder for those burdened with a family. Nurseries, laundries, and other communal institutions serve only a privileged minority. The situation of the masses is depressing and painfully primitive.
In summary:
Wage inequality in the ranks of the working class reaches a factor of 15. The wages of the overwhelming majority are very low, significantly below the average wage reported in statistics, and clearly insufficient to support the worker. The average wage (which, we repeat, is higher than that of the overwhelming majority) guarantees a standard of living only below the pre-war level and much lower than that of the overwhelming majority of workers in the West. The expected wage growth is too slow. A government that minimally cares about the true interests of the working class would be concerned with restoring the base wage to the 1914 level, almost reached in 1926, in the shortest possible time. But the bureaucratic regime prefers to emphasize social differentiation by creating various privileged categories at the expense of the disenfranchised masses.
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