The same is more or less true of the whole structure of Soviet society, in particular of its enormous publicly owned and planned economy. One need not accept the
Stalinist myth that socialism has been established in Russia. Still less need one take at its face value the ludicrous claim that the Soviet Union is in ‘transition from socialism to communism’. But it is true that the framework for a socialist society, which was altogether lacking in the Leninist era, now exists; and it has been consolidated.
Precisely because of this, the methods used to bring about the present state of affairs have now become both useless and harmful; and the awareness that this is so must have grown and spread among the Soviet people.
One of the most difficult and explosive issues of the Stalin era was the great economic inequality prevalent in Soviet society; and this is likely to remain the most difficult problem in the post-Stalin period also.
The message of the October Revolution was implicitly egalitarian. Whatever the Stalinist arguments or even the original Marxist texts may say against ‘levelling’, the Russian workers and peasants backed the revolution and rallied to its defence because they took it for granted that the new regime would satisfy their longing for equality. This has been the attitude of the proletarian or plebeian masses in every revolution.
The Bolshevik regime could not help but frustrate the instinctive egalitarianism of the masses. There were not enough of the material necessities of life to go round. To take only one example: before the Five Year Plans were initiated the Russian footwear industry did not manufacture more than about 30 million pairs of shoes and boots per year. Small artisans produced perhaps another 30 million pairs. This was just sufficient to supply one pair to every third Soviet Citizen. The other two had to go barefoot, or to make their own bast shoes as the muzhiks usually did. This is a typical example because the same or a similar relation between social need and effective supply prevailed in many other essential consumer industries.
‘A pair of boots for only one out of every three citizens’ this was the formula which expressed the inevitability of Stalinist anti-egalitarianism. The barefooted and the owner of a pair of shoes are not equal; and not even a government consisting of communist angels could make them so. The government had to set out to build the factories which would produce enough footwear, clothing, dwellings, etc., for all. If the machines, the buildings, the raw materials, the power stations, and the labour force needed were not available, as they were not in Russia, the government had to start building the factories that would one day produce the machines and the power plants. It had to develop the sources of raw materials and to train industrial labour. In the meantime it had to distribute the available footwear, either directly, or indirectly, by means of a differential wage scale, among the people whose services were essential to the State and the economy. Moreover, it had to defend the man with the shoes against the natural jealousy and hostility of the barefooted.
It was in the national interest that the government should foster a privileged minority consisting of administrators, planners, engineers, and skilled workers. The development of the country's resources depended on them; and they would not have worked without incentive.
Inequality, once encouraged, takes care of itself; the privileged minority seeks to enlarge its privileges. The Soviet bureaucrat, technician, or skilled worker was not satisfied with one pair of shoes — he wanted to have two or three. The same applied to clothing, housing, medical facilities, and so on.
As long as the government was bent on expanding coal-mines and steel mills, producer industries and armament plants, the building up of consumer industries was deferred. Inequality grew and assumed shocking proportions. The greater the scarcity of goods and the more primitive the level of civilization, the more brutal was the scramble for privileges. We know that Russia's urban population grew by about 45 million during the Stalin era. Relatively few houses were built; and during the war many cities and towns were razed by the enemy. The overwhelming majority of the people therefore was, and still is, condemned to live in the most appalling conditions. The few tolerable, good, or luxurious dwellings were allotted to skilled workers, technicians, and bureaucrats.
A more humane government than Stalin's might have tried to promote consumer industries even at the cost of a somewhat slower rate of expansion in basic materials and producer goods. But when the history of these decades, with their armaments fever and war-time destruction, is viewed in retrospect, it seems doubtful that any government would have been able to improve the situation radically, unless it abandoned industrialization altogether or slowed it down to the point of endangering national interest; and this would have resulted in an even lower standard of living for the vast majority than the present.
Stalinism took upon itself the daring and dramatic task of imposing inequality on a people which had just carried out the greatest of all revolutions in the name of equality. This imposition was naturally received with indignation. The old Bolsheviks who had been accustomed to identify themselves with the egalitarian aspirations of the masses branded it as a betrayal of the revolution. Since they spoke with the authority of great revolutionaries their criticism was doubly dangerous to Stalin's policy. Reacting against the clamour for equality Stalinism established a cult of inequality. It was not satisfied with pointing out that egalitarianism would lead to economic stagnation. It declared categorically that the privileges of the minority were of the essence of socialism and it branded the defenders of egalitarianism as agents of counter-revolution. In this way Stalinism freed its hands to provide material incentives in plenty and in excess to administrators, managers, technicians, and skilled workers.
With the passing of time, however, inequality, carried to extreme, tended to change from a progressive into a reactionary factor. It began to hamper Russia's economic development instead of furthering it. It kept the vast majority in a state of apathy and sullenness. Moreover, it rapidly lost its initial justification. The relation between social need and effective supply is now no longer a pair of shoes for only one out of every three Soviet citizens. (The output of the footwear industry has in recent years been sufficient to supply every citizen with at least one pair per year.) Enough essential consumer goods are now being produced to satisfy a very wide range of needs; and far more can be produced in the immediate future.
It is a point of only academic interest whether or when equality may become materially possible. Incentive wages and salaries will remain indispensable for a long time to come. But there is certainly room for eliminating the glaring inequalities of the Stalin era.
In the initial phases of ‘socialist accumulation’ it was possible for the government to teil the people that they must tighten their belts and even starve while they were building the new factories. Stalin's successors cannot continue to demand such heavy sacrifices. The factories are there already; the capacity to produce is there; and the will to produce is also there. Most of Russia's basic and heavy industries are at a level comparable to that of American industry fifteen or twenty years ago; but her consumer industries are far below it. This disproportion is bound to produce a national crisis, unless it is reduced in the next few years.