My question about the Soviet Union is did the Workers have any say in how the Workpla

[tradeunionsupporter]

My question about the Soviet Union is did the Workers have any say in how the Workplaces were ran or did the State own and run everything without the Workers having any say when Lenin ruled the Soviet Union ? Did the Worker Councils and Factory committees allow Workers to vote for and elect their bosses ? Also did Karl Marx talk about Worker control of the Workplaces ? Sorry for all the question but I was always told by Capitalists that the Workers hads no power and the State had control of everything.

[revolution inaction]

that will depend on who you ask, I think: starlinists will say yes until Khrushchev became leader, trotskyists yes until starlin became leader, left communists, anarchists, council communists, and SPGB types will probably say yes a bit at the start, but not for long, although they will differ on how much and for how long.

edit: sorry just read your post again, i thought you where talking about the soviot union in genral not just when lenin was in power.
I think that once lenin and the bolsheviks got into power they started to remove power from the workers, have you read the bolsheviks and workers control? http://libcom.org/library/the-bolsheviks-and-workers-control-solidarity-group

[khad]

I wouldn't listen to the sectarian garbage. I'd check out something like the Soviet Empire forums' section on Soviet life, since they actually have people there who lived in that time. Revleft, with its population of budding intellectuals, is pretty disconnected from reality.

http://www.soviet-empire.com/ussr/viewforum.php?f=125

Here's one thread that sort of answers your question. It seems that even without official councils, workers had a good deal of informal influence over the system:
http://www.soviet-empire.com/ussr/viewtopic.php?f=125&t=45782


Well, as you might know, by law every citizen was entitled to a job. By the same token, every citizen who was employable, apart from women with young children, theoretically had to hold a job or else face prosecution as a 'parasite'. Practically of course, there were exceptions. For example, some women stayed out of the workforce and remained housekeepers, without consequences.

You could quit your job if you didn't like it, but would be legally instructed to look for work after being idle without good cause after four consecutive months. Once you had been instructed, you would have a month to find a position, and after that would be liable to arrest if you did not. Apparently this system had administrative loopholes which made it possible for healthy people to remain unemployed without reprimand. They would get a job at the last minute, registering their employment, begin work and a week later slip away to have the cycle start over again. Employers contributed to the problem by keeping the non-existent workers' names on the register, allowing the workplace to draw state money. Most people of this sort also had false medical certificates, forged documents giving them valid reasons to be unemployed, and phony addresses, meaning tracking them down and forcing them to find work or to prosecute them was practically very difficult. A relatively comfortable existence was possible for those living with permissive spouses or parents -because living expenses were already cheap and most basic goods were heavily subsidized.

So in direct answer to your question: Yes you could of course quit your job if you didn't like it. Because of the guarantee of a job, many workplaces had difficulty retaining their workers, and turnover was high in a lot of places. Some workplace managers dealt with this by installing a lot of conveniences -such as day care, hair salons, spas, amateur theatre companies, special stores with hard to find goods, etc. to try to keep their workers happy and wanting to stay with the company. Unfortunately workplaces of this kind were still relatively rare when the country began collapsing.

If you were fired, you would have to find another job based on the regulations above. I have no information about severance pay.
You are correct viper in supposing there weren't any privately owned businesses -at least not of the kind that employed many people and operated factories. The head apparatchiks were interested in drawing extra state money not to put it in their own pockets, but to increase their factory's monetary resources, which could then be used to purchase some of those nice things they offered workers in competition with other factories. Part of the money would also go to getting deals going and contracts signed. Like anywhere else in the world, the idea of 'greasing palms' was by no means foreign to Soviet management.

[revolution inaction]

I wouldn't listen to the sectarian garbage.

what sectarian garbage? if your talking about what i posted then criticism is not sectarianism.




I'd check out something like the Soviet Empire forums' section on Soviet life, since they actually have people there who lived in that time.

soviet empire? you've got to be taking the piss.



Revleft, with its population of budding intellectuals, is pretty disconnected from reality.

does intellectuals mean people who understand communism. I'm not sure why starlinist would want to bring up peoples connection to reality, its not something they are known for.

[Nolan]

what sectarian garbage? if your talking about what i posted then criticism is not sectarianism.

I don't think he was talking about you. But you know what he's talking about. :)




soviet empire? you've got to be taking the piss.

You need to lay off the anarcocaine. ;)



does intellectuals mean people who understand communism. I'm not sure why starlinist would want to bring up peoples connection to reality, its not something they are known for.

What a dumbass you are. :lol:

[khad]

what sectarian garbage? if your talking about what i posted then criticism is not sectarianism.

Of course it is sectarian. You even identified the sects.


soviet empire? you've got to be taking the piss.Taking the piss is a western kid who has no clue about how common people lived in the USSR telling folks that he does.


does intellectuals mean people who understand communism.You may understand communism in theory, but one thing that you cannot see are the various ways, often informal, in which people adapted the system to their lives. The reality on the ground was that because there was no reserve army of labor, Soviet workers had a significant degree of informal agency within the system even when there were no official soviets.


I'm not sure why starlinist would want to bring up peoples connection to reality, its not something they are known for.There you go again with your sectarian fuckwittery. I'm not making this into a sectarian debate, but revleft idiocy apparently shoehorns every thread into a sectarian flame war.

I'm just taking the account of someone who has observed how the Soviet workplace operated on a day-to-day basis (or at least has had enough experience through his family) over your intellectual ruminations from the west.

A big problem with Revleft (and many other leftist websites) is the level of Western chauvinism that only serves to alienate people from the former combloc. If there are posters here who could speak from experience, I'd gladly direct the topic starter to them. However, as such, I've directed him to a place where people who lived in the USSR discuss life in the USSR.

I'm sorry if that offends your sensibilities.

[Che a chara]

dont want to really jog off topic here, but what do people on here think of the 'soviet-empire' forum ? i haven't been on it in ages, but is it biased ?

[Revolution]

dont want to really jog off topic here, but what do people on here think of the 'soviet-empire' forum ? i haven't been on it in ages, but is it biased ?

It's actually a very good Forum with many Comrades that actually lived under the Soviet Union. However it's not as active as this one.

[Nolan]

Yeah I'd say it's probably the second largest leftist forum.

[Che a chara]

cheers. must give it another whack

[sarmchain]

[QUOTE=khad;1675782]I wouldn't listen to the sectarian garbage. I'd check out something like the Soviet Empire forums' section on Soviet life/QUOTE]
translation: don't listen to people who i don't agree with, here go to a site that has all my views in it , on a side note i love how when 4 people who claim to have lived in the U.S.S.R. say it was good the stalinists pass it off as undeinable proof yet when 96% of the world (aka everyone outside there own ideaology) says the U.S.S.R. was bad then its capitalist/anarchist/trotskyist propaganda because apparenly the whole world is in a giant conspiracly to defame their gloriouis leader , and to answer the question of the topic no the workers didn't but don't listen to me i'm just part of the massive anarcho-trot-capitalist-fascist plot

[khad]

translation: don't listen to people who i don't agree with, here go to a site that has all my views in it , on a side note i love how when 4 people who claim to have lived in the U.S.S.R. say it was good the stalinists pass it off as undeinable proof yet when 96% of the world (aka everyone outside there own ideaology) says the U.S.S.R. was bad then its capitalist/anarchist/trotskyist propaganda because apparenly the whole world is in a giant conspiracly to defame your gloriouis leader , and to answer the question of the topic no the workers didn't but don't listen to me i'm just part of the massive anarcho-trot-capitalist-fascist plot
If you have a western sectarian account that addresses the way in which the day-to-day labor system worked in the USSR, I'd like to hear it.

Oh wait, you can't, since every sectarian article out there refuses to talk in anything but abstract terms. :rolleyes:

I wave my finger again at the western chauvinism displayed by revleft's userbase,

And FYI, I'm not even on Soviet Empire due of the lack of theoretical discussion about Marxism. However, it is the only leftist site in English which has members who actually lived in the USSR. All the incoherent, demented, and sectarian raving in the world won't change that fact.

[Nolan]

I wouldn't listen to the sectarian garbage. I'd check out something like the Soviet Empire forums' section on Soviet life
translation: don't listen to people who i don't agree with, here go to a site that has all my views in it , on a side note i love how when 4 people who claim to have lived in the U.S.S.R. say it was good the stalinists pass it off as undeinable proof yet when 96% of the world (aka everyone outside there own ideaology) says the U.S.S.R. was bad then its capitalist/anarchist/trotskyist propaganda because apparenly the whole world is in a giant conspiracly to defame their gloriouis leader , and to answer the question of the topic no the workers didn't but don't listen to me i'm just part of the massive anarcho-trot-capitalist-fascist plot

Translation:

Fuck real testimonies of those who lived there. All the western corporate propaganda is absolutely true. Russians are better off now, and the capitalist media in former socialist countries is completely unbiased toward their socialist past. I know better than those who lived there and those who have studied the system. I'm a fucking wanker.

[sarmchain]

If you have a western sectarian account that addresses the way in which the day-to-day labor system worked in the USSR, I'd like to hear it.

Oh wait, you can't, since every sectarian article out there refuses to talk in anything but abstract terms. :rolleyes:

I wave my finger again at the western chauvinism displayed by revleft's userbase,
quite calling people sectarian , YOU are very sectarian , yes i probally am too to some extent

[sarmchain]

Translation:

Fuck real testimonies of those who lived there. All the western corporate propaganda is absolutely true. Russians are better off now, and the capitalist media in former socialist countries is completely unbiased toward their socialist past. I'm a fucking wanker.
yes because like i said all the world (capitalist and not) is in a plot to make the U.S.S.R. look bad, ever wonder why no one outside your own ideaology gives a flying fuck about you and your glorious leader and we do have testomonys of people who lived there saying it was a shit hole also some people lived in germany under hitler think nazism was great , sould we listen to them too?
*EDIT, oh and just because someone says they lived in the U.S.S.R. on the internet does not make it true, i lived mars for a few years and it was great, you going to belive me on that too?

[Nolan]

yes because like i said all the world (capitalist and not) is in a plot to make the U.S.S.R. look bad, ever wonder why no one outside your own ideaology gives a flying fuck about you and your glorious leader and we do have testomonys of people who lived there saying it was a shit hole also some people lived in germany under hitler think nazism was great , sould we listen to them too?

Lol you mad :lol:

No really, go fuck yourself.

And hey, you admitted it. Anarchists and the bourgeoisie agree. What a surprise.

[sarmchain]

*facepalm* the first sentence was sarcasm dumbass , oh and nice argument "go fuck yourself" tells me i'm winning this when thats the best comeback you have

[Nolan]

*facepalm* the first sentence was sarcasm dumbass

No shit sherlock holmes.

[sarmchain]

i think i'm done here because all you can do is put out insults you dont even try to defend your own stupid posts come up with a logical counter-point to what i said and i'll respond again untill then

No really, go fuck yourself.infact don't even bother responding to my post, because this thread has been drug from a valid question to a bunch of bullshit trolling, now please STFU unless it directaly relates to the topic "did the Workers have any say in how the Workplace was run in the soviet union"

[Nolan]

*EDIT, oh and just because someone says they lived in the U.S.S.R. on the internet does not make it true, i lived mars for a few years and it was great, you going to belive me on that too?


Ok, fucktard, since you've just proven how low you'll go to smear the USSR out of some desire to validate your ultra-left fantasy world, why don't you read sources posted on Soviet Empire and things like this. (http://soviethistory.org/index.php?page=subject&SubjectID=1991march&Year=1991&Theme=4e6174696f6e616c6974696573&navi=byTheme) You don't even have to listen to the testimonies and personal experiences.

[Nolan]

i think i'm done here because all you can do is put out insults you dont even try to defend your own stupid posts come up with a logical counter-point to what i said and i'll respond again untill then

As if you've made any legitimate arguments and not just anarchist talking points.

[sarmchain]

so far i have not used a single personal attack against you (except calling you dumbass one after i thought you missed the fact my post was sarcastic) so far you have called me
fucktard
wanker
and told me to go fuck myself
this is what i ment by trolling

[Nolan]

so far i have not used a single personal attack against you (except calling you dumbass one after i thought you missed the fact my post was sarcastic) so far you have called me
fucktard
wanker
and told me to go fuck myself
this is what i ment by trolling

Well I'm not the one who initiated this sectarian pissing contest, am I?

Ok, back on topic.

[sarmchain]

Well I'm not the one who initiated this sectarian pissing contest, am I?

Ok, back on topic.
ummmm yea i made a valid post and you responded back with insults

[Nolan]

ummmm yea i made a valid post and you responded back with insults

ummmm no you didn't. You just denied Soviet Empire's validity with no support whatsoever. It must be the name that sets you off....

[sarmchain]

fucking christ!
we do have testomonys of people who lived there saying it was a shit hole also some people who lived in germany under hitler think nazism was great , sould we listen to them too?
*EDIT, oh and just because someone says they lived in the U.S.S.R. on the internet does not make it true, i lived mars for a few years and it was great, you going to belive me on that too?

[Nolan]

fucking christ!

Shit. And that's an argument how? So if someone says something is good we should immediately discredit them and say it's bad "because some people though Hitler was good too?" Because CNN says so, maybe?

[sarmchain]

if there is no proof other then "these people lived there and say its good/bad " then its hearsay

[Kléber]

Trotskyists don't believe things got much worse under Stalin (although there is lots of evidence that a luxury economy and social inequality (http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1936/revbet/ch06.htm) grew in the 1930's, with the proliferation of special stores and restaurants for people of high rank only, and goods and services that were too expensive for average workers). Our main gripe is that Stalin labeled the system "socialist" in 1936, whereas Lenin had considered the pay differentials in Soviet industry (where workers got as low as 100 and bureaucrats got as high as 4000 rubles a month) to be "state capitalist." (source (http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1918/apr/29.htm))

[Nolan]

if there is no proof other then "these people lived there and say its good/bad " then its hearsay

And hearsay is worth what it's worth. It's interesting, but not worth much more than that. What you argued, on the other hand, is just a fallacy. Soviet Empire has so much more than hearsay.

[Green Dragon]

My question about the Soviet Union is did the Workers have any say in how the Workplaces were ran or did the State own and run everything without the Workers having any say when Lenin ruled the Soviet Union ? Did the Worker Councils and Factory committees allow Workers to vote for and elect their bosses ? Also did Karl Marx talk about Worker control of the Workplaces ? Sorry for all the question but I was always told by Capitalists that the Workers hads no power and the State had control of everything.

Yes. The workers elected their bosses, elected members of parliament, the president of the USSR was an elected official, ect. ect all based upon universal sfferage where all citizens had an "equal say" (no corporations inflicting undue pressure) in choosing their government. As many Revlefters have argued, the governments of Cuba and were East Germany (who modelled their government after that of the USSR) were popular and are/were popular amongst the people where they give/gave "mutual consent" to among other things, restricting the freedom and liberties of those who do not/did not agree with the socialist and/or communist systems those countries had.

[Kléber]

As many Revlefters have argued, the governments of Cuba and were East Germany (who modelled their government after that of the USSR) were popular and are/were popular amongst the people where they give/gave "mutual consent" to among other things, restricting the freedom and liberties of those who do not/did not agree with the socialist and/or communist systems those countries had.
Actually, in East Germany, some bourgeois parties were legal but socialist opposition was not.

Most of the people who were murdered by the Stalinist regimes were not "those who do not/did not agree with the socialist and/or communist systems," the people being executed were almost always socialists and communists themselves.

Also, your argument that "mutual consent" existed is nonsense. Politics isn't BDSM. Only one half of the consent was there because, without democratic freedom, the working class couldn't renew its "consent" for that arrangement.

[Green Dragon]

Actually, in East Germany, some bourgeois parties were legal but socialist opposition was not.

There were indeed opposition parties in east Germany. They were in a 40 coalition with the Communists (part of the speed of the collapse of E. Germany had to do with those parties breaking with the reds). But their opposition scarcely made them bourgeoise.



Most of the people who were murdered by the Stalinist regimes were not "those who do not/did not agree with the socialist and/or communist systems," the people being executed were almost always socialists and communists themselves.


Well, they were people who differed from Stalin. But so what? Are you suggesting pro-capitalists were unmolested in the USSR? Under Stalin, Krushchev, Brezhnev, et. al?



Also, your argument that "mutual consent" existed is nonsense. Politics isn't BDSM. Only one half of the consent was there because, without democratic freedom, the working class couldn't renew its "consent" for that arrangement.

Doesn't matter. The majority wishes things set up a certain way, that's democracy. There wasn't freedom? Well, yes but the majority chose not to exercise their rule in such fashion (it would have posed problems for the entire socialist project).

[bailey_187]

As the British bourgeois scholar Mary McAuley writes (in "Labour Disputes in the Soviet Union," Oxford 1969), there were special courts to hear industrial disputes to which only workers had access; managerial personnel could appear there only as defendants and were barred from initiating cases (pp. 54-55). Even before matters came to court, there were ways that the workers on the shop floor could let a troublesome director know who was boss.

One of these avenues, the production meeting, is described by the bourgeois
scholar David Granick in his book, "The Red Executive":
"Management is operating under severe ideological and practical
handicaps in its efforts to keep down worker criticism. One factory director . . . implied that production meetings were a real ordeal for him. But at a question as to whether workers dared to criticize openly, he said, 'Any director who suppressed criticism would be severely punished. He would not only be removed, he would be tried.'" (New York, 1960, p. 230)

[Ele'ill]

I think these forums could use more day to day examples and a lot less theoretical poli-socio-market bullshit.

[Kléber]

David Granick in his book, "The Red Executive":
"Management is operating under severe ideological and practical
handicaps in its efforts to keep down worker criticism.
It's true that there were handicaps left over from 1917. But workers in America also have many freedoms that workers in the USSR didn't have, which doesn't make the US more socialist. Political freedom is a lot more important than being able to "let a troublesome director know who was boss" which is something workers can secretly do at night even in the most oppressive fascist state.


I think these forums could use more day to day examples and a lot less theoretical poli-socio-market bullshit.
Vadim Rogovin in his book, Stalin's Neo-NEP notes: "Stalin used every means at his disposal to combat the forms of social protest mounted by the workers—even the exploitation of anti-Semitic sentiments. Khrushchev reports that 'when some disturbances—I wouldn't want to call them a revolt—broke out in Aircraft Plant No. 30', Stalin said to him: ‘We should organise the stronger workers, give them cudgels and, when the working day is over, they can beat up those Jews."


There were indeed opposition parties in east Germany. They were in a 40 coalition with the Communists (part of the speed of the collapse of E. Germany had to do with those parties breaking with the reds). But their opposition scarcely made them bourgeoise.
Parties like the Liberal Democrats and Christian Democrats were definitely bourgeois.


Well, they were people who differed from Stalin. But so what? Are you suggesting pro-capitalists were unmolested in the USSR? Under Stalin, Krushchev, Brezhnev, et. al?
Criminal smugglers are often punished under all administrations and governments, whether or not they claim to be socialist.

The real principled elements in the CPSU were purged, and marketeering careerists sycophantishly wormed their way to the top.


Doesn't matter. The majority wishes things set up a certain way, that's democracy. There wasn't freedom? Well, yes but the majority chose not to exercise their rule in such fashion (it would have posed problems for the entire socialist project).
If socialist opposition is met with bloody purges then the majority is not free to choose.

[Uppercut]

Trotskyists don't believe things got much worse under Stalin (although there is lots of evidence that a luxury economy and social inequality (http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1936/revbet/ch06.htm) grew in the 1930's, with the proliferation of special stores and restaurants for people of high rank only, and goods and services that were too expensive for average workers). Our main gripe is that Stalin labeled the system "socialist" in 1936, whereas Lenin had considered the pay differentials in Soviet industry (where workers got as low as 100 and bureaucrats got as high as 4000 rubles a month) to be "state capitalist." (source (http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1918/apr/29.htm))

In terms of social equality, I read on sovietempire that the slavic people were more conservative minded at the time and legalizing homosexuality was unpopular.
And yes, there were noticeable pay differences, but didn't Lenin say this was necessary for a time due to the lack of educated workers?

[Kléber]

I read on sovietempire that the slavic people were more conservative minded at the time and legalizing homosexuality was unpopular.
Well, every people has its conservatives on that question, but if you blame the backwardness of the masses, you're covering up for the backwardness of the Party. Homosexuality was not actually fully legalized in the 1920's, its legal position was neutral but ambiguous, and there were competing Soviet scientific attitudes to it, correspondent with world scientific and medical opinion. The dominant opinion was tolerant, or at least that it wasn't the state's business to regulate the sexual activity of its citizens, the same principle on which homosexuality had been legalized in France in 1791. There were however some doctors who saw homosexuality as a disease and attempted to "cure" LGBT prostitutes with unethical medical experiments. The latter position was eventually promoted to dominance, along with the politicization of virtually every scientific and cultural field during the years of Lysenko, Zhdanov and their progeny. And then, like in France under the Napoleonic Code, it was banned outright as in pre-revolutionary times.


And yes, there were noticeable pay differences, but didn't Lenin say this was necessary for a time due to the lack of educated workers?
Yes, not just educated workers but actual ex-capitalist managers and economic planners and technocrats, who made not just 2-3 times but 20-40 times the pay of an average worker. Lenin considered the big pay differentials to be "state capitalist" and a retreat from communist principles (source (http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1918/apr/29.htm)) whereas the 1936 constitution legally enshrined the society as "socialist" despite persistent inequalities. The failure of the Soviet state to provide accurate information to measure the level of social inequality is a very bad sign, since government statements show that this information was definitely available. It was simply never fully disseminated in a way that would reveal the privileges and salaries of the bureaucracy. Trotsky was one of the only people to try and make an educated guess on the subject (http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1936/revbet/ch06.htm) and he reached some unattractive conclusions about life in the "socialist" USSR.

Sorry if some of these links/rant are old news to you.

[Uppercut]

Sorry if some of these links/rant are old news to you.

Nah, I don't care. You're right and I'm wrong and that's all there is to it.

[Comrade Anarchist]

No life was shitty and the only autonomy was that of the head despot.

[RGacky3]

Yes. The workers elected their bosses, elected members of parliament, the president of the USSR was an elected official, ect. ect all based upon universal sfferage where all citizens had an "equal say" (no corporations inflicting undue pressure) in choosing their government.

First of all, electing officials adoes not make a society a democracy, democracy is when actual desicions are democratically decided, second, if you look at the actual way elections worked it would paint a different picture, the bolshevik leadership picked the candidate and it was a yes/no vote, there was no campaining so there was not much way to know who the candidate was, the "parliment" or main soviet, was really just a rubber stamping organization, that ratified the BOlshevik leaderships desicions, the USSR was not a democracy at all, the fact that there are elections does'nt make it a democracy.