Daily working life during communism?

[NorwegianCommunist]

In the Soviet Union or Yugoslavia, was there an amount of money each worker got each hour or each day he worked or did the worker get paid by how much he made/produced?
Also; was the salary of a lawyer the same as a janitor?
(I know that money wasn't that important during communism because all the needed things where free, but if you wanted to buy something extra)

Please tell me as much as you can! I really want some help on this subject =)

[TheGodlessUtopian]

Communism is the epoch where there is no money and people work to better society and to produce. Under socialism I believe that Marx (or another important historical figure) said that people would work a few hours in the mourning than have the rest of the day to divide as they see fit between education, friends/family, and recreation.

[Gold Against The Soul]

In the Soviet Union or Yugoslavia, was there an amount of money each worker got each hour or each day he worked or did the worker get paid by how much he made/produced?
Also; was the salary of a lawyer the same as a janitor?
(I know that money wasn't that important during communism because all the needed things where free, but if you wanted to buy something extra)

Please tell me as much as you can! I really want some help on this subject =)

The workers got a wage just like a worker in Italy or France would have got a wage. The difference being that the profit was controlled by bureaucrats who gained more and more privileges from this status. The same methods were also used by the bosses and managers as would have been used by managers and bosses in the West. Arguably the workplace experience was worse in somewhere like the Soviet Union as industrial action (for example, strike action) was banned. There was no equalisation of wages, although the differences compared to the west would have been much smaller.

Yugoslavia is slightly different as they had workers self-management. However, as I understand it, this will still done within a capitalist framework, ie they had to make a profit.

[Gold Against The Soul]

Communism is the epoch where there is no money and people work to better society and to produce. Under socialism I believe that Marx (or another important historical figure) said that people would work a few hours in the mourning than have the rest of the day to divide as they see fit between education, friends/family, and recreation.

I think it was the more the case that the distinction between work and leisure would disappear. The old line about being a fisherman in the morning, a carpenter in the afternoon and a critic in the evening without ever *becoming* a fisherman, carpenter or critic. Work would become the primary want of life.

[NorwegianCommunist]

Communism is the epoch where there is no money and people work to better society and to produce. Under socialism I believe that Marx (or another important historical figure) said that people would work a few hours in the mourning than have the rest of the day to divide as they see fit between education, friends/family, and recreation.



The workers got a wage just like a worker in Italy or France would have got a wage. The difference being that the profit was controlled by bureaucrats who gained more and more privileges from this status. The same methods were also used by the bosses and managers as would have been used by managers and bosses in the West. Arguably the workplace experience was worse in somewhere like the Soviet Union as industrial action (for example, strike action) was banned. There was no equalisation of wages, although the differences compared to the west would have been much smaller.

Yugoslavia is slightly different as they had workers self-management. However, as I understand it, this will still done within a capitalist framework, ie they had to make a profit.

Which one of you are right?

Perfect communism is the epoch were no money is involved (am I right?)
And SU and Yugoslavia wasn't that.

[Gold Against The Soul]

Which one of you are right?

Perfect communism is the epoch were no money is involved (am I right?)
And SU and Yugoslavia wasn't that.

Well, we're talking about different things here. You asked about the experience of the worker in the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia. But yes, I wouldn't call that communism or even socialism or even a degenerated/deformed workers state. It was state capitalism. Just a different form of state capitalism compared to what existed in somewhere like Britain. The Soviet Union *claimed* to be Socialist but that is different from actually being so. The Nazi Party had Socialist in their name too! (Sorry Godwin's Law, I know! :thumbup:)

As for 'perfect communism', I'm not sure what you mean? Is it to suggest the Soviet Union or Yugoslavia were something short of communism but a form of communism? Which I don't agree with and is something I answer above. But either way, it is just communism and yes, this is largely proffered as a moneyless society.

[Ostrinski]

Being a worker in the SU probably sucked ass, much like it sucks ass being a worker under any other capitalist state.

[Vyacheslav Brolotov]

Communism is a simple concept: all things will be circulated among the people of the world through a free association of individuals, there will be no state or class (everyone would work; no one would take advantage of others' labor), and society would be based on the idea "From each according to his ability; to each according to his need" (rather than it being "to each according to his contribution," as it is in socialism). There would be no specialization of labor and everyone would do everything necessary to keep themselves, their community, and the people of the world alive and happy. Labor would not be rigid at all, but free from the chains of capital, wages, and alienation. It would be the true workers' paradise, and everyone would be a worker.

[ВАЛТЕР]

Communism has yet to be achieved. Communism is a worldwide system, just as capitalism is.

The workers in the SU and Yugoslavia were given wages depending on their labor. There wasn't much of a difference than now except that the wages were "fairer" in the sense that there was less wealth disparity (or so it seemed) not counting the high ranking party members and the heads of state which were basically sitting much more comfortably wherever you went.


Yugoslavia was different as it had aspects of the free market in it. I personally do not agree with the way in which this was set up, I only have "Titoist" in my tendency because I am happy that we broke from Stalin in '49 otherwise we would have suffered a similar fate as the rest of Eastern Europe. Not that I disagree with some M-L viewpoints, I just am glad that it was the way it turned out given the way the Eastern Bloc went.

In Yugoslavia you weren't working more than eight hours a day, and you had a guaranteed vacation. All in all in Yugoslavia people mostly lived comfortably. At least MUCH, MUCH more comfortably than they live now. You went to work, you came home. Weekend came you did what you wanted. When summer came, you went to the beach, in the winter you went skiing.

[ckaihatsu]

I think it was the more the case that the distinction between work and leisure would disappear. The old line about being a fisherman in the morning, a carpenter in the afternoon and a critic in the evening without ever *becoming* a fisherman, carpenter or critic. Work would become the primary want of life.


I'll proffer *yet another* interpretation of how society and everyday life could be -- an arm-in-arm grouping of *everyone's* faces-to-the-wind, in every place on the globe, so that no one is left to do the gruntwork alone and so that all are considered with like equanimity in all decisions political, for nothing less than the fate of the world itself.

[Strannik]

In SU the wages were more equal, true, but as a boss, top specialist or (especially) party member the state gave you non-monetary benefits - you got to be first in queue to buy stuff (which often didn't even get into stores), licences for building yourself houses and buying cars, rights to travel both in-country and even out of it. Food, drink, sports and cinema wasn't exactly free, but it was cheap. Basically things in SU were not distributed according to market, but also not according to social need. They were distributed by the bureaucracy to maintain the social status quo.

I think most important thing to understand about USSR is that it wasn't a static system, nor a simple one. It was a complex evolving system like any other human society.

[daft punk]

In the Soviet Union or Yugoslavia, was there an amount of money each worker got each hour or each day he worked or did the worker get paid by how much he made/produced?
Also; was the salary of a lawyer the same as a janitor?
There were huge variations in wages, i dunno about piecework. some people earned 15 times more than others. The top bureaucrats probably a lot more than that.

[KurtFF8]

Being a worker in the SU probably sucked ass, much like it sucks ass being a worker under any other capitalist state.

I remain quite unconvinced that the Soviet Union was "a capitalist state."

Apparently I'm not alone in this skepticism, as the "state capitalist" theory of the USSR remains limited to very few tendencies within the Left. (Most notably Tony Cliff folks)

[ComradeOm]

In the Soviet Union or Yugoslavia, was there an amount of money each worker got each hour or each day he worked or did the worker get paid by how much he made/produced?During the Stalin years piecework was the predominant form of wages in the USSR. There were variations in regions and industries but from 1929/1930 onwards all 'time' work was supposed to be transferred to piecework. The restoration, or at least expansion, of this Tsarist practice was understandably unpopular with the workers. Particularly given that the state regularly revised the piecework norms downwards (ie, cut the rates of payment) so that workers had to produce more to earn the same


Also; was the salary of a lawyer the same as a janitor?No. Wage equalisation was not supported by the Soviet government during the Stalin era and great emphasis was placed on using wage differentiation to supposedly incentivise workers


(I know that money wasn't that important during communism because all the needed things where free, but if you wanted to buy something extraWhat gave you that idea? Very few products were free in the USSR. Even during periods of rationing workers were expected to pay for foodstuffs and other basic goods. Money wasn't that important not because things were free but because most people lacked access to the goods; either there was a general shortage or the goods were restricted to closed shops to which only the elite had access

[robbo203]

During the Stalin years piecework was the predominant form of wages in the USSR. There were variations in regions and industries but from 1929/1930 onwards all 'time' work was supposed to be transferred to piecework. The restoration, or at least expansion, of this Tsarist practice was understandably unpopular with the workers. Particularly given that the state regularly revised the piecework norms downwards (ie, cut the rates of payment) so that workers had to produce more to earn the same

Thats interesting. In Capital Marx has this to say of peicework

"piece wages become . . . the most fruitful source of reductions in wages, and of frauds committed by the capitalists."
"the piece wage is the form of wage most appropriate to the capitalist mode of production."

There was also the practice of payment in kind. Ironically enough this increased in the post Soviet era with many workers being paid in goods rather than wages for some of the time. Payment in kind predominately favoured the elite in the Soviet era in the form of free dachas, limos, holidays abroad for the trusted few etc etc. The elite also typically enjoyed multiple salaries and when you take all this into account you can understand why it was the economic inequalitites were remarkably high in the Soviet Union contrary to superficial impressions.John Fleming and John Micklewright in their paper "Income Distribution, Economic Systems and Transition" cite the work of researchers like Morrison who, using data from the 1970s, found that countries like Poland and the Soviet Union had relatively high levels of income inequality, registering gini coefficients of 0.31 in both cases, which put them on a par with Canada (0.30) and the USA (0.34) ( http://www.unicef-irc.org/publications/pdf/eps70.pdf).




No. Wage equalisation was not supported by the Soviet government during the Stalin era and great emphasis was placed on using wage differentiation to supposedly incentivise workers


Lenin around the time of the Bolshevik revolution had enthusiastically endorsed the principle of equal pay for everyone - what is called uravnilovka or income levelling. However, in less than a year later, in an address given in April 1918 (published as "The Soviets at Work") he abjectly recanted: “We were forced now to make use of the old bourgeois method and agreed a very high remuneration for the services of the bourgeois specialists. All those who are acquainted with the facts understand this, but not all give sufficient thought to the significance of such a measure on the part of the proletarian state. It is clear that such a measure is a compromise, that it is a departure from the principles of the Paris Commune and of any proletarian rule." Stalin too recognised the importance of unequal remuneration upon coming to power and having to fashion policy to fit the needs of the developing system of Soviet state capitalism. According to Nove living standards of workers fell sharply for a while in the 1930s with the emphasis being placed on capiltal accumulation rather than consumption But Stalin went a lot further than Lenin in denouncing the "evil of equality" and declaring Marxism to be the "enemy of equalisation". Uravnilovka, was vigrously opposed on the grounds that it undermined incentives and economic performance. And most surreally of all, Foreign Minister Molotov once declared that "Bolshevik policy demands a resolute struggle against equalitarians as accomplices of the class enemy, as elements hostile to socialism." (Tony Cliff, State Capitalism in Russia, p.69 http://www.marxists.org/archive/cliff/works/1955/statecap/index.htm ). Proof if any more proof was needed of the inegalitarian capitalist nature of the Soviet regime

[ComradeOm]

Lenin around the time of the Bolshevik revolution had enthusiastically endorsed the principle of equal pay for everyone - what is called uravnilovka or income levelling. However, in less than a year later, in an address given in April 1918 (published as "The Soviets at Work") he abjectly recantedThe difference between Lenin and Stalin is that the former could be ignored. Piece work did not make a significant presence in Soviet factories until the late 1920s

[robbo203]

I remain quite unconvinced that the Soviet Union was "a capitalist state."

Apparently I'm not alone in this skepticism, as the "state capitalist" theory of the USSR remains limited to very few tendencies within the Left. (Most notably Tony Cliff folks)

Why?

All of the main ingredients of a capitalist economy existed in the Soviet Union - above all generalised wage labour. Even means of production were commodified - bought and sold between state enterprises which were required to pursue profit. De facto ownership of these means was vested collectively, rather than individually, in a distinct minority who, as a class, controlled the state and who therefore had the power of disposal over the economic surplus which marks them as a de facto owning class. (As Engels pointed out, you don't need individual de jure private ownership of capital for there to be capitalism - a myth perpetuated by people like Trotsky who seemed to have imagined that the legal superstructure carried great weight than the material economic basis of society )

The case for arguing that the Soviet Union was state capitalist is absolutely overwhelming. Rival theories like the dotty trotty theory of a degenerated workers state are poorly conceived and theoretically fundamentally flawed - they simply do not stand up to scrutiny. As for the claim that the Soviet Union was "socialist", well, can anyone take that seriously?