Did Workers have any choice in choosing during 1917-1924 Soviet Era?

[The Man]

Like, did the Bolsheviks decide what the Workers made? Or did the workers use Self-Management and decided what to make?

[pranabjyoti]

Like, did the Bolsheviks decide what the Workers made? Or did the workers use Self-Management and decided what to make?
A good example is the book "How the steel was tempered" by Ostrovosky. The main character Pavel is actually portrayal of Ostrovosky himself.

[ComradeOm]

To actually answer the question, not really. The fullest freedoms were probably available in 1917-18 but relatively few factories were put under full workers' self-management. The early period is horribly complex, with great differences in both time and geographic locations, and most workers were concerned with little more than survival anyway. By the end of the Civil War a rough system of triangular management (treugol'nik) - in which power lay divided between the board of management, the local party cell and the union apparatus - was probably standard across the country. In this setup the management (itself typically divided between elected workers, appointed managers and technical specialists) was responsible for production but was subject to interference from other quarters

This system lasted until the introduction of one-man management (edinonachalie) and 'Red dictators' in the late 1920s but worker input into production was gradually stripped away from the mid 1920s onwards

[The Man]

To actually answer the question, not really. The fullest freedoms were probably available in 1917-18 but relatively few factories were put under full workers' self-management. The early period is horribly complex, with great differences in both time and geographic locations, and most workers were concerned with little more than survival anyway. By the end of the Civil War a rough system of triangular management (treugol'nik) - in which power lay divided between the board of management, the local party cell and the union apparatus - was probably standard across the country. In this setup the management (itself typically divided between elected workers, appointed managers and technical specialists) was responsible for production but was subject to interference from other quarters

This system lasted until the introduction of one-man management (edinonachalie) and 'Red dictators' in the late 1920s but worker input into production was gradually stripped away from the mid 1920s onwards

Looking back at some of your other posts, your one knowledgeable guy :thumbup1:

[Red_Struggle]

Economically, each factory manager had to work alongside a body of local cadre, workers, technicians, other managers, etc., but the manager was the one to put those collective decisions in practice. Still, the unions definately had a good amount of input on the factory floor.

"Even more important than these liberties is the fact that they labor not for the private profit of employers (save for the smallproportion employed in private industry), but for the profit of the whole community. State industries, like private, must show a profit to keep going, but the public use of that profit robs it of the driving force of exploitation.The liberties enjoyed by workers in Russia, whether or not in unions (less than 10 percent are outside), go far beyond those of workers in other countries, not only in their participation in controlling working conditions and wages, but in the privileges they get as a class. The eight-hour day is universal in practice, alone of all countries in the world, with a six-hour day in dangerous occupations like mining. Reduction of the eight-hour day to seven hours is already planned for all industries. Every worker gets a two-week vacation with pay, while office workers and workers in dangerous trades, get a month. No worker can be dismissed from his job without the consent of his union. His rent, his admission to places of entertainment or education, his transportation- -all these he gets at lower prices than others. When unemployed he gets a small allowance from his union, free rent, free transportation, and free admission to places of entertainment and instruction. Education and medical aid are free to all workers--or for
small fees--extensive services being especially organized for and by them." - Baldwin, Roger. Liberty Under the Soviets, New York: Vanguard
Press, 1928, p. 29-30

"The new class of state managers, or "red directors" of factories, who have replaced the former capitalist owners, are mostly Communists and former workers. But by the very nature of their position they must look at industrial life from a rather different angle from that of the workers. Although they make no personal profit out of the enterprises which they manage, they are supposed to turn in a profit for the state." - Chamberlin, William Henry. Soviet Russia. Boston: Little, Brown,
1930, p. 174

"But the general view of the Social Democratic and Anarchist critics of the Soviet regime, that there is a deep rift between a few Communist officeholders at the top and the working masses at the bottom, is, in my opinion, distorted, exaggerated, and quite at variance with the actual facts of the Russian situation." - Chamberlin, William Henry. Soviet Russia. Boston: Little, Brown,
1930, p. 177

An old issue of the PLP's newspaper metions a situation where the workers of a plant thought that their manager spent too much time talking at a plant meeting, so a lathe hand interrupted him and started listing his complains. The issue should be on their site in PDF format.