We can assume that some of the problems were attributable to living standards in the USSR. An author like Mironov would be inclined to detect the effects of modernization, which are evident in all urban societies. But that would be to underestimate some of the socially deleterious effects of modernization, especially in Soviet conditions. We must therefore round off his unduly positive picture by pointing to dangerous side-effects overlooked by him.
WERE THERE ANY LABOUR FORCE RESERVES?
Falling birth rates were not the only reason for the problem in recruiting labour. It was becoming increasingly difficult to tap the reserves represented by those who still worked at home or on private plots. In 1960 the people engaged in such activities still represented between a quarter and a fifth of the reserve labour force (19 per cent in Russia), but by 1970 the percentage was reckoned not to exceed 8 per cent. In addition, a distinction had to be made between those employed in this sector and real reserves. In fact, only half of those so employed accepted the idea of going to work outside their homes (and half of them stipulated various conditions). Moreover, the method used to count this potential labour force was faulty and a source of disappointment. In the Russian Federation, 5,700,000 had been recruited to work in the state economy in 1960–5, but the total for the next plan was 1,000,000. Projections for the one after indicated that 500,000 might be the maximum, and the number of people working their own plots might increase sharply. Furthermore, there was a great deal of regional variation in the situation. Let us note in passing that the majority of those working in and around the house, cultivating plots, or keeping animals, were women.
Thus, labour reserves were pretty much exhausted. Some local resources still existed here and there, but were difficult to release. Many people preferred working at home, since it was more likely to improve their standard of living.
Another possible source of labour was pensioners. The population was ageing and the share of pensioners in it was rising. Many areas that lacked labour had developed social services to attract pensioners. But this was a limited source. In 1965, 1.9 million pensioners were employed in the state economy; estimates anticipated 2 million in 1970 and perhaps 2.5 million in 1980.
The authorities certainly understood that development depended less on labour reserves than on improving labour productivity. Yet labour productivity rates, measured over the long term, were in decline. Labour productivity had increased by 7.7 per cent per annum between 1951 and 1960, but only by 5.6 per cent between 1961 and 1965. In 1962 there had been a temporary recovery to 6 per cent. In 1967, however, there was a new drop as a result of a sharp decrease in growth in agriculture. The rate of growth in some leading industrial branches was still high. Yet overall, it lagged substantially behind the main capitalist countries. In the USA, labour productivity was 2.5 times higher in industry and services and 4.5 times higher in agriculture (according to the Soviet Central Statistical Office). The experts sounded the alert: if productivity did not increase, the USSR would not even catch up with the West by 2000! Improving this crucial indicator was now an overriding task: the means and measures to achieve it had to be found.
POPULATION AND LABOUR MIGRATION
Better specialization and cooperation between enterprises and industrial branches was indispensable. Decisions to this effect had been taken for Leningrad and Moscow, but they would take some years to be implemented and bear fruit. The most urgent thing was to mobilize labour reserves. However, their geographical distribution presented an additional problem. Of the 128 million inhabitants of the Russian Federation (to which we shall restrict ourselves here), only 25 million lived in eastern regions (basically meaning the Urals and especially Siberia). This imbalance was hampering the economic development of these regions, where the strongest economic growth should have occurred given the abundance of natural resources there. To achieve the targets that had been fixed, it was necessary to transfer 2.6 million people (the period being referred to is apparently 1968–80). Yet in the last fifteen years, population movements had been in the opposite direction. People were leaving Russia for other republics to the tune of 200,000 a year on average and the figures for the eastern regions were even higher. Between 1950 and 1960, Russia had lost 2.8 million inhabitants to other republics. Even more disturbing was the fact that in Russia itself people were leaving areas where labour was in short supply, and moving to areas where there was a surplus. What attracted them to Northern Caucasus or the Stavropol region was a better climate and more developed small-scale farming.
The countryside suffered from its own share of miseries. Labour productivity was between four and five times lower than that of the USA, but with regional variations. The sex and age imbalance in the rural population was getting worse. There was high, unplanned migration to the towns, which was all the more alarming in that 73 per cent of the migrants were under the age of twenty-five and 65 per cent of them were women in the same age group. The proportion of young people and of thirty- to forty-year-olds in the rural population was shrinking, whereas that of older people or those incapable of working was expanding. Those who were leaving were precisely the ones whom the countryside most needed to service the increased mechanization and electrification of agriculture. In 1968 there was only one able-bodied male for every two kolkhoz households. The average age of a working member of a kolkhoz was fifty and many worked beyond retirement age.
The overall picture was thus disturbing. The dangerously distorted age profile and the conjunction of declining labour productivity and departures for the towns were bleeding the countryside dry. Accordingly, this traditional, seemingly inexhaustible source of labour could no longer even provide for its own needs. The search for labour reserves now resembled scraping the barrel. Among those who preferred to work on their own plots (particularly women), many would only accept part-time work outside the home. But their number was also dwindling rapidly – not to mention the fact that jobs which removed them from their plots (especially in the countryside) would entail an immediate drop in food production.
Did this already amount to a crisis? At all events, one was certainly brewing. The documents we used in Part Two indicate that, according to Gosplan’s experts, the auguries for the 1971–5 five-year plan were far from favourable.
As labour became a rare commodity, there was a proliferation of studies, research and conferences. A continuous flow of texts ran from Gosplan to the Central Committee and from the State Labour Committee to the Council of Ministers. One expert put it bluntly: ‘For the country as a whole, I believe that our labour resources are practically exhausted.’ When we recall that at the same time many, if not all, enterprises were heavily overstaffed, the absurdity of this complete deadend on the labour question (to say nothing of other aspects of the economic system) should have served to put the leadership on constant high alert. And yet, the enormous flow of information and analysis, which offered a picture of monumental mismanagement and foresaw this supposed super-state rapidly approaching a point of no return, created no visible stir. The Politburo was content to produce endless resolutions enjoining everyone to be more efficient.
25
THE BUREAUCRATIC MAZE
It is now time for us to turn once again to those who actually ran (we have not as yet said ‘owned’) the economic branches and services. It is impossible to tackle any aspect of Soviet society, economy and politics without constantly running into the administrative class, whether state bureaucrats, party apparatchiks, or both in their intricate inter-relations. We are therefore going to revert to this phenomenon, starting out from the findings of the Commission for the Elimination of Waste,[×] whose remit extended to the bureaucracy.
*
The Commission for the Elimination of Waste was subsequently renamed the Commission for Economizing State Resources (see chapter 23). Here we shall refer to it simply as the ‘Anti-Waste Commission’.