Russia—1952 (1952)

Pamphlet Review from the November 1952 issue of the Socialist Standard

In response to an invitation from the All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions in Moscow a “British Workers” delegation visited the Soviet Union in May of this year. They have now published a report. The delegation consisted of five engineers, three railwaymen, one electrician, one cine-technician, one taxi-cab driver, and Pat Sloan, secretary of the British-Soviet Friendship Society, who was the only member of the party who speaks Russian. According to the report all twelve were active trade unionists; two were also active in the Labour Party and two, excluding Pat Sloan, were members of the Communist Party.

In the introduction to the report (“Russia, 1952,” 6d.) the writer emphasises conditions in the old Russian Empire prior to the revolution in 1917, and stresses that the country has only “had fifteen years of peaceful new construction since 1917.” He says that up to 1917 Russia was one of the world’s most backward countries, and quotes E. J. Dillon as saying that famine was “as periodical as the snows.” After admitting the backwardness of the Russian economy under the Czars—a fact that the Socialist Party has hammered home for years—he then makes the statement that “only from 1928 did Soviet Russia begin to progress rapidly with a Socialist planned economy.” How Russia jumped from being one of the world’s most backward countries in 1917 when the Bolsheviks took power, to a socialist economy in 1952 the report does not say. However, let us return to our “workers” delegation. They arrived at Moscow by air, and entering the city by road from Moscow airport, saw on their left the new Moscow University—with its 6,000 bed-sitting rooms for the students; on their right were the one-storeyed dilapidated wooden houses of the workers! Soon after arriving the delegation visited the Permanent Building Exhibition, and saw the plans for the Ten Year Reconstruction Plan for Moscow. To British visitors, continues the report, a backward feature of the Soviet Union to-day is public sanitation; there is a great deal to do in this respect. During the war both public and private sanitation was much worse than it is to-day. In “Workers in Stalin’s Russia” M. L. Berneri quotes a letter from a friend in the R.A.F. which he wrote on his return from the Soviet Union. In his letter he says that the sanitary arrangements on the trains (which incidentally have three and sometimes four classes) are grim; and he quotes Ethel Mannin as saying: “The Russians might aim to fulfil various five-year plans, but when they get near a lavatory they don’t aim at all.” So much for Russian sanitation.

Housing, sanitation and road-building are all priority problems, and will, according to the report, provide the Soviet people with plenty to do for very many years. All asphalt roads date from the First Five Year Plan; most cities have their main roads and thoroughfares asphalted, but once you get off the main roads, either in the towns and cities or between them, you find rough tracks.

Although housing is one of the main problems of the Muscovite worker, numerous blocks are being built, mainly in the suburbs. New thoroughfares are being built and many of the old buildings are being pulled down. Although now the capital of the U.S.S.R. (St. Petersburg was the capital of the old Russian Empire), Moscow is no better than other cities such as Rostov-on-Don or Leningrad. Moscow was at one time referred to as “an overgrown village.” But it is now changing. Numerous impressive buildings are appearing such as the new University; and there are some new semi-skyscraper type flats such as the 27-storey railwaymen’s block.

Like all visitors to Moscow the delegation was much impressed by the underground super-palaces of the Metro. Each station has superb decorations in marble, bas-reliefs, coloured tiles, porcelain plaques, mosaics, stained glass, etc. But there are only 35 stations in all.

Two other aspects of life in Moscow are worth mentioning.

The shops usually open at 11 a.m., and long queues form outside before opening time. This statement seems to belie the assertion that Moscow shops are well stocked; or if they are, then it seems—as others have reported—that there are too few of them to cope with the demands of population. The shop assistants work on an eight-hour shift system, and the shops stay open until late in the evening. Comparative food prices are higher in the Soviet Union than in Britain, in the case of all of our subsidised rationed goods. Unsubsidised foodstuffs are comparable in price. Champagne is about 17s. a bottle, red wine 6s. 6d., and vodka 11s. According to the delegation’s report the Soviet Government, by advertising, is trying to discourage the consumption of vodka in favour of beer and wine. This is not surprising as some vodka is nearly 95 per cent. pure alcohol, and having sampled it this writer can assure his readers that after one party—and Russian parties always last well into the night, and much vodka is drunk—the average worker would not be very fit for work the next day.

The cost of television sets is much less than in Britain, but radios at £25 are a little dearer. Cars were selling at £225 to £450. Although these prices seem to compare favourably with British prices it must be remembered that the average wage in the U.S.S.R. is about 1,000 roubles a month (paid monthly) and some workers such as cleaners get less than 500 roubles, which is about £3 per week. As the average wage is not more than £6 per week it can be seen that most wage workers in the Soviet Union are more poverty stricken than their British counterparts—health service, in both countries, notwithstanding. Some members of the delegation considered that a Soviet worker receiving 500 roubles per month would eat worse than his opposite number (£3 per week) here in Britain. He would also find the cost of clothing very high, and would not be so well clothed. As to highly skilled workers, such as miners, engine drivers, foundry men, etc., the report claims that their wages enable them to eat much better than the corresponding workers in Britain. Before returning to the second aspect of life in Moscow—the churches—let us look at the important aspects of the Soviet wages system.

All wages are carefully graded for every job. There is equal pay for equal work. The skilled workers' wages rise very steeply, and wages are graded as a deliberate policy, as an incentive to increase skill.

The report does not mention the stakhanovite movement, which is almost universal in the Soviet Union. The aim of this movement, which is referred to as “socialist emulation” by the Communists, is, by great effort, improved techniques and better organisation, to increase production—and profits, for the various State trusts and “combinars.”

The second interesting point made by the delegation is their description of the three churches they visited in Moscow; a Russian Orthodox, a Baptist and a Roman Catholic. At the first, a cathedral, they found a congregation of several thousand. In the second there were several thousand “souls,” including the delegation (not forgetting the two Communists), who participated in Communion! (Who was it that said “Religion is the opium of the people”?). In the last church, the Roman Catholic, there was not a full congregation. According to the officiating priest the present total Catholic congregation is some 800 souls. Most of the people in the churches were elderly, but the delegation noticed a number of children. Religious instruction is not, however, given in the schools.

Although the delegates stress the fact that the Soviet people desire peace—as do all sane and rational people—they draw attention to the one-hour military parade in Moscow which preceded the May Day demonstration, which they think might be taken in certain quarters to be a disproof of the Soviet Government’s desire for peace. Marshal Govorov took the salute at the May Day parade, and after mentioning the “new and great victories in industry and agriculture, in the development of science and culture,” he reminded his audience of the revival of German and Japanese militarism. He said that the war in Korea was the result of the policies of the “Anglo-American imperialists” and “therefore the Soviet armed forces must stand on guard ” in order to defend the “peaceful” Soviet Union against attack. As with the Western block, the Soviet Government claims to be re-arming for defence. They all always arm for defence—of course! .

Following the military parade, the civilian parade entered the Red Square—with slogans for peace! Commenting on Marshal Govorov’s speech and the demonstration, the report says:—

“Having seen this magnificent display by the Moscow workers and heard Marshal Govorov’s speech, as well as having travelled widely and made our own investigations wherever we went, we are absolutely convinced that the words of Marshal Govorov put the matter of Soviet defence in its correct perspective, and that while it would be utter madness for the U.S.S.R., in the State of the world to-day, not to be vigilant about its defences, at the same time it would prefer to devote even greater resources to peaceful development.”

This statement is quite logical—from the capitalist point of view. All countries, Britain, America and the Soviet Union included, “would prefer to devote even greater resources to peaceful development,” but unfortunately war, and preparations for war, are inseparable from the production-for-profit world of to-day.

After leaving Moscow, the delegation visited Gorky, Rostov-on-Don, Novocherkassk and a summer resort on the Azov Sea. They travelled 3,500 miles, mostly by air. In most places there was still evidence of destruction caused by the war. But large areas of some towns such as Rostov had been rebuilt. At one State Farm the delegation saw a number of excellent race-horses. One of the delegates “commented that it is worth knowing that the Soviet worker can still lose his 2s. 6d. each way in a State totalisator if he wishes, even if the bookies are a form of private enterprise now extinct.” No comment!

From Rostov the delegation went to the capital of the Georgian Soviet Republic Tbilisi, where they visited a restaurant, the Park of Culture, the Textile Combinat, and the Palace of Pioneers.

In sections 4 and 5 the report mentions Child Welfare and clinics for expectant mothers. (“Every working mother is given five weeks off work on full pay, and seven weeks after, the birth of a child,” p. 8.)

According to part 5 of the report, “Conditions in Soviet Industry,” the atmosphere in Soviet factories is absolutely different from that in Britain: it is much more free-and-easy. This is. however, a rather sweeping statement to make considering that the party were being taken on a conducted tour. This statement does not seem feasible, because, as we have mentioned above, stakhanovism and piece-work are universal throughout the Soviet Union.

In sections 7, 8 and 9 the report discusses the Health Service, sport and cultural activities, most of which has been commented on thousands of times before by previous “workers” delegations, and in the columns of the Soviet Weekly.

Although there is quite a lot of useful information in this small pamphlet (23 pages), it is, in the main, sympathetic towards the Soviet regime. Of course, it is not so much what it says, but what it leaves out. Unfortunately, they did not visit the more distant regions of Siberia such as Irkutsk or Yakutsk, or Lubianka jail in Moscow, or a “ Corrective Labour Camp.” Neither do they inform us of the functions of the “frontier units of the Ministry of State Security,” nor the most important fact of all—the existence of all the paraphernalia of capitalism.

Peter E. Newell.

Finance and Industry: What is profit ? (1965)

The Finance and Industry Column from the August 1965 issue of the Socialist Standard

What is profit ?

Last March the Daily Worker had an interview with the Russian economist, Prof. Liberman, whose views on the role of profits in the Russian economy are well known. In the course of the interview Liberman told special correspondent Peter Temple:

“Profit is—like money, wages and prices—an essential part of any economy based on commodity production. It’s merely an expression of surplus product. If we didn’t have any surplus product, then we would be consuming everything we produced and it would be quite impossible for society to develop. Socialist profit is entirely different from capitalist profit, both in its origin and in its designation. In a Socialist society it arises solely from better and more efficient production, producing more goods and services with less expenditure of time, power, raw materials—and that’s all. But capitalism extorts profit from exploiting labour, cutting the workers’ wages, raising prices to the housewife.”

A similar argument was put forward by George Brown when he addressed a meeting of businessmen in Newcastle on May 22. The Times on the following day reported his words under the headline PROFIT MOTIVE AS TEST OF EFFICIENCY. Said Brown:

“As long ahead as we can see Britain is going to have a mixed economy with a very large private enterprise sector. Therefore the profit motive has a very important role to play. It is time we stopped being silly or doctrinaire on all this. Profits are a very good test of efficiency when earned by enterprising management introducing better methods or new products in competitive conditions. They are not good if they arise out of management using market power to raise prices.”

Both Liberman and Brown commend profits that are supposed to come from efficiency and condemn profits that are supposed to come from raising prices. The only difference is that George Brown, unlike Liberman, hasn’t the insolence to call his “good” profits “socialist”. In any event both are confused over the nature and source of profits.

In a way, Liberman is right when he says that profit is something to do with the surplus over and above what is consumed. For thousands of years Man has been able to produce more than he needs for bare subsistence but this surplus has been taken by a dominant social class or classes. The means by which this has happened have varied with economic circumstances.

In Ancient Slavery the process was obvious: the slave-masters led a life of ease without working, while the slaves received their keep. The surplus produced by the slaves over and above their keep belonged to their masters. In Feudal Society the process was obvious too: the serf was required to work so many days a year on the estate of his master. In Capitalist society too the surplus is taken by those who monopolise the means of production, but the process is a little more complicated.

Capitalist production is production for sale—what Liberman refers to as commodity production. In capitalist society everything, including labour power, is bought and sold. In fact capitalism is based on the exclusion of the majority of the population from the means of production. As a result the majority have to sell their working ability for a wage to the capitalists in order to live. On average this wage is about sufficient to maintain the worker in efficient working order.

The capitalist buys labour power for a day or week or a year, as the case may be. For part of this time the worker reproduces his own subsistence; the rest is free labour time, from which profits are derived. Profit arises in the process of production. The capitalist realises his profit when he sells what his workers have produced. In fact the sharing out of the social surplus among the capitalists and their hangers-on is more complicated than this, but the basic fact remains. Profit is taken from the working class in the process of production; this is the form in which the capitalist class take the surplus Liberman talks about. Because they monopolise the means of production the capitalist class are just as able to take this surplus as were the slavemasters and feudal barons.

The hard-headed businessman doesn’t see the origin of profit in this way. To him it appears as a surplus over his costs. He knows that if he reduces his costs he has a chance of increasing his surplus. Thus to him it appears that he can make profits by eliminating waste and cutting down costs, in short through efficiency. True, under certain circumstances, he can increase his share of profits in this way just as under other circumstances he can increase it by reducing wages or raising prices. But he deludes himself in seeing here the origin of profit. George Brown shares this delusion. So does Prof. Liberman, when he tries to tell us that in Russia profits arise from efficiency. In fact, of course, profit there as elsewhere arises from the surplus labour of the working class. This Liberman can’t—or won’t—see, but then he is after all an apologist for the system of exploitation in Russia.

Liberman’s views on profit lead him also to a false theory as to the origin of his “capitalist” profit. He suggests that such profit arises from depressing wages and from raising prices. Once again, a particular capitalist may temporarily increase his share of total profit in these ways but the point at issue is not this; it is what is the source of the total profit itself. Under capitalism profit arises even if wages are equal to their value and even if there are no monopoly elements present. Liberman’s argument about profits arising from efficiency is a familiar defence of capitalism.

Profit then is a form of theft. In Britain we have many robbers fighting over their shares in the legalised robbery of the working class. At present there is an argument as to who is entitled to what. George Brown is suggesting that those who get a share through using market power don’t deserve it. Enoch Powell, on the other hand, says that every capitalist is entitled to what he can grab. This is no argument in which Socialists can take sides: in our view the entire social product should belong to society as a whole. Then profit will disappear for ever and the surplus that arises from the labour of all will be used for the benefit of all.

In Russia there is one grand larcenist; the State. Till now the State has taken the surplus product of the working class more or less directly. Profit in this sense has long existed in Russia; it is not something new, as some discussions of trends in the Russian economy suggest. What is new is the reliance on supply and demand, and on profit on capital investment, to determine what amount should be produced. The market is gradually taking over from State directives. This changeover creates problems.

“Socialist” unemployment

In a State-directed economy, such as Russia had for a time, the labour force can be more or less fully used through coercive means such as restrictions on travel or on changing jobs, involving the issue of passes and cards of various sorts. This in fact was what did happen in Russia. Now this has been slightly relaxed, allowing a drift from the country to the towns, creating that chronic capitalist problem, the housing shortage. Thus at the 22nd Party Congress nearly four years ago, Krushchev admitted:

“We still have a housing shortage, the housing problem remains acute. The growth of the urban population in the USSR during the past few years is considerably in excess of estimates.”

Another problem which the Krushchev government had to face was that of large-scale seasonal unemployment on the land. Agriculture in Russia is very backward and very few agricultural workers are paid a steady wage; most in fact are not paid any money at all. In the winter these people are unemployed. Edward Crankshaw of The Observer, in a discussion of this problem in the issue of April 4, writes that a campaign to deal with this problem has now been launched.

“According to Sovietskaya Rossia, which is sponsoring this campaign, there are now well over 10 million collective farmers unemployed each winter—or over a third of the total number of able-bodied workers on the land—and the number is rising. Nothing was done about this under Khrushchev. Nothing much has been done yet. But the fact that a newspaper is permitted to campaign for State assistance in the development of local handicraft industries to keep the peasants in winter is very much a sign of the times.”

Socialist Profits, and now a Socialist Housing Problem and Socialist Unemployment—what next can we expect from the Workers’ Paradise which Russia is supposed to be? The return of our old friends the Soviet Millionaires, perhaps?

The "Public Money" Front

There is another example of the ignorance of economics shown, by the Daily Worker, Russian economics professors and other admirers of Russia, which must be recorded. It is taken from a letter by a leading member of the so-called Communist Party in the South Midlands to a local paper. Apparently he had met a member of the Socialist Party who tried to explain to him that ultimately the burden of taxation fell on the propertied class. This, he wrote,

“. . . is a prize example of the distortion of socialist ideas into nonsense. As if capitalism, under which we live, had not developed a capitalist state! As if that state were not strong, and the buttress of the exploiting employers! As if the state machine did not organise a complex set of attacks which working people have to resist, whether fighting for higher wages, shorter hours, moderate rent, decent pensions or equitable taxes and better government expenditure! The entire future of Oxford, with the Development Plan and the crying need for improved schools and social services, depends on the all-round struggle for the right use of public money.”

There is not space to go into this in detail; we only record this as in our view the prize example of the distortion of socialist ideas. It confirms that a correct understanding of political economy is a necessary prerequisite for correct practice. One thing is puzzling though : why only “moderate” rents, why not low rents or for that matter no rent at all? Why only “decent” pensions and “equitable” taxes? Surely “high” pensions and “low” taxes would gather more votes? Marx considered the demand of a fair day’s wages for a fair day’s work conservative, but this is almost revolutionary compared with some of the demands in the letter. After all, even Gladstone would have favoured “an all-round struggle for the right use of public money”.

Adam Buick

The bear on the rampage (1946)

From the July 1946 issue of the Socialist Standard

Delcassé once said “There are two diplomacies in this world that really count, the British and the Russian, for the simple reason that they are the only ones which plan in generations and not in months, in centuries and not in years.”

The unobservant man appears to be under the impression that the foreign policy of a capitalist government is determined by the party in power at the moment, whereas the truth is the track was probably laid down in the dim and distant past. The Labour Party is forced to foster and defend the interests of the Empire, and Stalin is the logical descendant of Peter the Great, the imperialist who laid the foundations of modern Russia. Capitalism has a ruthless code, and, so long as the system lasts., rulers and ruled are compelled to obey its mandate.

Gilbert Murray, in an article, “The Rule—The Lie,” in the current number of the “Contemporary Review,” says that “ When Nansen was distributing relief in Russia in 1921-22, one of the Soviet Government’s stipulations was that he should not reveal that the food came as a good will gift from foreign ‘capitalist' countries.”

The supplies that went from Britain to Russia during the late war are thought by countless numbers of Soviet citizens to have been sent from one part of Russia to the other. The Soviet Government rules by keeping its subjects in the dark, but events are helping to enlighten them. Edgar Bruce, in the “World Review” of May, tells of his experiences with the Russians in Europe who do not wish to go back to Soviet Russia. He was engaged in repatriation work and tried all be could to induce them to return to their native land. He wanted to know why many had no desire to go home. They sent him the following explanation : —

“We object to going back to the Soviet Union, it is all lies what they told us about our better living conditions in the Soviet Union.”

“ As peasants (on collective farms) the Government imposes taxes as follows on each individual: Milk contribution up to 500 litres, meat up to 32 kilo, eggs up to 120 eggs. If we keep our own cow a tax of 350 litres of milk from that cow has to be paid to the State. As workers the Government deducts 10 per cent, compulsory loan and then income tax and culture tax from our wages.

“The Stakhanovite system is a rate-cutting system. The Government gives an outstanding workman the best tools and materials. He sets up a production record which the Government expects the ordinary worker to attain.

“The average pay for a qualified man is 320 roubles a month, for the unskilled 80 or 90 roubles. Out of this ho must buy—black bread at 1 rouble a kilo, meat 12 roubles a kilo, butter 28 roubles a kilo, sugar 6.5 roubles a Kilo.

“The cost to the Government of these commodities is one-tenth and one-fourteenth of what we pay. Punishment for late arrival at work can be six months’ imprisonment. Private work outside the factory is forbidden, espionage is rampant, and one is not safe from denunciation even by a member of one’s own family. Nobody is allowed to choose his work or place of work.” Both peasants and workers in the deputation that came to interview Edgar Bruce stated that the standard of living was at starvation level."

In fairness to Stalin & Co. it must be pointed out. that the above statements are from men who were fed up with life in Russia, and may be overdrawn. This is somewhat different, however, from what we read in Communist publications and contradicts what is said in all countries by the “Friends of the Soviet Union.”

The Soviet Government is making a bid for expansion in Europe and Asia. It is now a matter of life and death for the Kremlin to continue its policy of world deception, it must conceal from the workers in countries outside Russia an understanding of what is happening in the Soviet Union, and also keep from its own wage slaves a real knowledge of the state of things existing in the other parks of the capitalist world. The Russian rulers, having control of the organs of publicity, are at present able to make their dupes believe what they want them to believe, but when disillusionment comes, as come it inevitably will, there may be a dreadful reckoning.

The Soviet Government is, like all capitalist governments, an enemy of Socialism, and aims at using its influence over the workers of other lands as a means of spreading its imperial power. The facts cry beware. What are the aspirations of Stalin & Co.? Let us first take Persia and judge what they are after by what they are doing. Azerbaijan contains oil. During the Russian occupation of the province they started exploiting that oil (they actually bored no less than thirty-five wells) without Teheran’s desire or permission. When, later, Teheran was consulted and refused the oil concessions, an autonomous Azerbaijan Government was set up for the express purpose of ceding those rights. British capitalism is already entrenched in the oilfields of Southern Persia and, of course, sees danger to its position and profits in the Russian incursion.

As Léon Blum says in the Manchester Guardian of May 21st: “The Communists sacrifice liberty to discipline to such an extent that liberty is in danger of disappearance. The Communists always take it for granted that Moscow is right. Communist methods of propaganda are so unscrupulous that they endanger the very fabric of democracy.”

On the last day in March, in Germany, a plebiscite was held to see whether the Social Democrats should amalgamate with the Communists. The result of the voting being a foregone conclusion in an anti-Communist sense, the Russian authorities, in their own particular zone, forbade the plebiscite to be held (they held a separate and special plebiscite in their own zone when the desired result had been well and truly assured). They, incidentally, thereby gave another definition of what they mean by the word “Democratic.”

The Russian spokesman who made, this announcement to the head polling office coined a new masterpiece of Bolshevik jargon: “The plebiscite is not prohibited, but it is not permitted.”

Mr. Voigt, a well known writer on international affairs, says: “ The time will come when Russia will in Western Germany promote a German national ‘proletarian’ revolution against the Western Powers. The revolution, if it succeeds, will inaugurate the anti-Western and more especially the anti-British armed alliance between Russia and Germany ” (“Nineteenth Century,” May).

Mr. Byrnes, speaking on the radio, May 20th, said “The Balkan treaties were blocked mainly by the Council’s inability to agree upon economic clauses and particularly by the Soviet refusal to allow inclusion in the treaties of any provision promising freedom of commerce on the Danube.”

It was German capitalism’s determination to control the inland waterways of Europe that was one of the causes of Anglo-American opposition leading to the late war.

Another writer in the same magazine says: “The information and facts available show that Russia considers herself to possess exclusive rights for economic expansion in the countries of the middle zone. She has concluded with several states at present occupied by Russian military forces trade agreements which would practically bar any outside trade and would eventually lead to melting these regions into the economic system of Soviet Russia. The Soviet trade policy strongly reminds us of that of pre-war Germany, with the difference that it is very much more brutal and thorough.”

The real reason why Russia is so persistent in her attacks on Franco Spain is connected with her ambitions in the Mediterranean. How little it is concerned with combatting a government with Nazi sympathies is shown by the sudden somersault in the Russian attitude to the similar government in the Argentine.

Another sphere of Russian penetration is Manchuria, about which it may be possible to deal in a further article.

Marx said “We should obtain a knowledge of international politics. It is essential if we are to accomplish our task that we should also participate.” Russia is in the new armaments race.

The likely line-up in the next scrap can already he perceived.

The interests of the working class are not served by fostering imperialism, whether practiced by Britain, the United Stales or Soviet Russia. The workers can achieve their emancipation when they refuse to be led by politicians whose object, like that of the Labour Party, is simply to perpetuate existing capitalist institutions. The continuation of capitalism in any form means another world war. The establishment of Socialism means permanent world peace, but this requires a majority of Socialists to bring about. The making of Socialists is the only way it can be done. Therefore, keep on the job.

Charles Lestor

Uncensored News and Views on Russia (1946)

Book Review from the May 1946 issue of the Socialist Standard

"Report on Russia” (Cresset Press, 6s.), by Mr. Paul Winterton, long known as an advocate of British-Russian friendship, is an interesting and useful book, but one that will be of most use to the reader who approaches it with an alert and critical mind and remembers its limitations. Mr. Winterton first visited Russia in 1928, when he lived with a Russian family for nearly a year. He speaks Russian, has made many subsequent visits, and from 1942 to 1945 was there as correspondent for a London newspaper, the News Chronicle. As, during those three years, he “wrote or broadcast something like a million words about Russia" it might be supposed that he had said all he wanted to say—but that would be to leave out of account the heavy hand of the Russian censors. “Because of the censorship,” he writes, “I was allowed to say only nice things. Criticism was impossible.” Now he seeks to even things up by saying the things the censor barred. His complaint is not about the military or "security” censorship, which he accepted as a wartime necessity, but about the political censorship. "Broadly speaking, throughout the whole period of the war it was impossible for any foreign correspondent in Moscow to write anything which was in the slightest degree critical of anything in the Soviet Union, or which implied any disagreement with any aspect of Russian policy” (p. 52). He and the rest of the foreign correspondents were, willy-nilly, a chorus of “yes-men”—"on all controversial subjects, you either said 'yes,' or you said nothing.”

He describes in detail how the correspondents who were supposed to be reporting the war were never allowed anywhere near the fighting, so, being restricted to carefully conducted tours of selected spots long after the battle had moved on, the correspondents had to seek information of the Official Press Department and in the Russian newspapers. From the former they received only obstruction, since its function was obviously not to inform or to assist, but to censor. The latter were equally inadequate, for “Russian newspapers do not set out to be very informative about events. Indeed, their prime function is not to give facts, but to steer and organise the Russian people in the way that the government wants them to go.” Of Russian journalists he writes that, in the main, they "eschew facts and keep their writings vague. They know that they are on safe ground if they say something in slightly different words which has been said before by someone in authority. They seek security in vagueness, and (because they are paid at so many roubles a line) prosperity in length ” (p. 41).

It is not surprising that the foreign correspondents frequently obtained their first news of important events in Russia as a result of listening to the B.B.C. from London (p. 39).

The Russian censors not only cut, but also altered the reports that they let go through. They frequently "not only took sentences out, but wrote their own sentences in” (p. 52). In chapter IV many examples are given of the statements the censors would not allow to be made. They would not let the correspondents report that the Russians were purposely kept in ignorance about the extent and nature of American lend-lease supplies. They would not let Mr. Winterton report that Esthonians had told him that they objected to the incorporation. of Esthonia into Russia. Of course, be was not allowed to report the fact that Russians are nervous about mixing with foreign visitors. One critical report the Russians did let through,, but that was only because they failed to recognise it for what it was. The Russian Government was whipping up demonstrations by Persians in the part of Persia under Russian occupation, in order to make it seem that the Russian demand for oil concessions was being enthusiastically supported by the Persian population. Winterton reported this in a message which referred ironically to "spontaneous” demonstrations; but irony is a dangerous instrument to use, for the London editor likewise failed to recognise it!

Finding that they were not allowed to report the war in any direct way, the correspondents "tried to see and write about other things in Russia,” but this was likewise obstructed. They would apply to the Press Department for facilities, "but it took the Press Department weeks, and sometimes months, to arrange for a correspondent to visit even a kindergarten” (p.37). The Anglo-American correspondents many times protested to various authorities, but their letters and verbal protests were systematically ignored. Even when they got anything to report they still had to pass the censor, and Mr. Winterton’s verdict is that it was quite impossible to give an accurate and objective picture of Russian life because the censors cut out "almost every word or sentence which showed Russia in less than a perfect light” (p. 56).

It is Mr. Winterton's considered view that the difficulties placed in the way of correspondents are deliberate and are part of a settled policy of the Russian Government aimed at preventing information about Russia freely reaching the outside world and at preventing the Russians from knowing about conditions in the outside world. The censorship may, perhaps, be abolished (so far it is still going strong), but that will not necessarily mean that "thereafter the reporting of news from Russia would be fair and full,” for the Russian Government will still be able to keep tight control by withholding entry visas from correspondents who are disliked, or by withdrawing them from correspondents who are too independent (P. 57).

Mr. Winterton gives a two-fold explanation of the suppressive policy of the Russian Government. Remembering the aggression of the other Powers in the past against Russia, the government of the latter country regards all foreigners as potential spies. That is understandable enough, but the Russian Government is likewise afraid to let its own citizens know of conditions in other countries. Mr. Winterton writes (p. 63) : —

"There is no doubt whatever that for a generation the Russian people have been hoodwinked. The facts, if known to the Russians, would make the textbooks and the teachers look ridiculous. How, then, can the Soviet authorities look with any favour upon any large-scale mixing of their people with the foreigner? How can they permit their citizens to travel freely between the Soviet Union and the outside world ? ”

For twenty years the Russian workers have been told by their government that their country is happier, more fortunate and, generally, speaking, better off than the people of other countries, whereas, says Mr. Winterton, “from the purely material point of view practically everything outside Russia is better than the corresponding thing inside Russia. This is true of towns, streets, houses, parks, plumbing, shops and cinemas . . . . ” (p. 64).

Of the standard of living be writes: —

"Twenty years of peace would find the Russian people enjoying a standard of life which —though still very low by Western levels—would nevertheless be far in advance of anything they had known before ” (p. 117).

He writes that “Moscow’s slums are os bad as any in the world ” (p. 129).

Mr. Winterton contrasts the life of the rich and the poor. “The privileged—Red Army generals, police chiefs, commissars and assistant commissars, Party bosses, inventors, factory managers, highly-skilled engineers, ballerinas, writers, artists—these can command all the luxuries available in Moscow. They can have good food and wine, nice clothes and furs for their wives and sweethearts, pleasant and spacious apartments, the use of a motor car, a chauffeur, a domestic servant, and a house in the country. The poorest people have the barest necessities of life, and live in what can only be described as squalor. People are not directly exploited by each other, as happens under capitalism, but some people are certainly exploited by the State for the benefit of other people, and it amounts to much the same thing in the end . . . You can still see a poor person in Moscow from time to time searching a street dustbin for a scrap of food . . . .  just as in most other cities in the world” (P. 131).

Mr. Winterton wants an end to the humbug of pretending that Russia is a democracy: "As near as makes no odds, Russia is a totalitarian state. It is ruled in practice by a small inner ring of Communist Party leaders with Stalin at their head. Insofar as the voice of the people finds any effective expression at all, it is heard only inside the Party, where majority decisions bind the minority to public acquiescence. In reality, even the ordinary rank and file members of the Communist Party have little say in policy these days, and are hardly more than the propaganda instruments for popularising the decisions taken at the top" (p. 119).

Among many other interesting observations on Russian life, Mr. Winterton writes on the militarisation of education, the farcical "discussion" at the Supreme Soviet (Parliament), and the functions of the trade unions. On the latter he writes: "The workers in Russian factories cannot organise collective agitation for shorter hours or higher wages unless the Party approves. Their trade unions have little authority or influence and largely confine their activities to social and cultural work. Their members cannot strike" (P. 123).

The declared object of Mr. Winterton4s book is to provide real information about Russian conditions and, above all, of the Russian Government’s policies. He thinks that another war will only be avoided if America and the British Empire can avoid a direct clash with Russia. This may be achieved by cynically dividing the world into two spheres of interest, but even that, he considers, will require greater knowledge and understanding of the real Russia than exists at present

The Socialist who reads “Report on Russia" cannot fail to notice its and the author’s limitations. His (undeclared) standpoint appears to be that of a Liberal democrat who accepts capitalism and with it the inevitable international rivalry between the big Powers. His information and his criticisms of Russian policy may be accurate enough, but always there is the implication that if only Russia were like Britain and U.S.A. there would be no problems and all would be well. Yet this is manifestly untrue both of internal conditions and of international affairs.

Are there slums in Moscow? So there are in London and New York. All three countries, in common with the rest of the capitalist world, have riches and poverty side by side and the exploitation of the working class for the benefit of the privileged few. In all three countries the working class have yet to achieve the ending of capitalism and the establishment of Socialism. There is no indication that Mr. Winterton wants this or that he realises that without it the search for permanent peace is bound to fail. If Russia were democratic like Britain and U.S.A. that would not mean the end of rivalry between the Powers. The capitalist scramble for markets and raw materials, etc., would still be on.

It is important that in Britain and U.S.A. the workers are able to form their own trade unions and political parties and can publish their views and hold meetings, etc., but the contrast with Russia could be presented in a more balanced way by recalling that if in Russia dictatorship has been used by the ruling group to keep the masses poor, the capitalists in Britain and America have so far been able to achieve the same result through democracy. In all three countries the privileged group have the same end in view though their methods differ.

On one point we must strongly doubt Mr. Winterton’s conclusion. He is not hopeful about the Russian workers challenging the restrictions imposed on them. "The Soviet Union," he writes, "is solidly united under its regime, for all opposition was long ago crushed and the Russians are accustomed to obedience: nor is there much desire to criticise ” (p. 117).

Again he tells us that the existing totalitarian system "seems to work quite well with the Russians, who have never experienced political democracy in our sense, who do not particularly want it, and who would certainly have great difficulty in working it" (p. 121).

These seem to be very rash statements to make. The Russians, he says, are "accustomed to obedience.” That, of course, is what the Czars' governments used to think, but 1905 and 1917 should surely make one doubt it as a guide to Russian workers' behaviour. Of what slave-system, what autocracy and what colonial possession has it not been said that the subjects are accustomed to obedience and therefore will not rouse themselves? Yet all of the seemingly apathetic populations have sometime come to life and astounded their rulers.

As a correspondent in Russia, Mr. Winterton, for reasons he gives himself, is not in the least likely to be a good judge of the amount of opposition there may be with the Stalin regime. Oppositionists under a dictatorship do not lightly run the risk of approaching foreign correspondents and thus drawing attention to themselves.

Another point presents itself. If the Russian workers, though exploited, are satisfied and docile and do not want democratic rights, why does the Russian Government go to such trouble, including the maintenance of the secret police system, to prevent them from asserting themselves? It is just as if you went to a zoo and found a heavily barred cage, under armed guard, containing some blinkered, muzzled and shackled animals, and were told by the keeper that they were happy, contented and docile sheep. You would think that the keeper was mad or that perhaps the animals weren’t sheep after all.

Edgar Hardcastle

So They Say: Same the Whole World Over (1974)

The So They Say Column from the February 1974 issue of the Socialist Standard

Same the Whole World Over

The Paris paper Le Monde on 27th December published tables of French workers’ earnings in 1973. The information comes from employers’ official returns, and covers a working population of 13 millions.

The headline tells the story: 60% of earnings are less than 1750 francs a month. 1750 francs is in fact the approximate upper limit of the largest group of wage earners, 34.2 per cent., who receive between 1165f. and 1745f. On 27th December the exchange rate was 10.85f. to the £, giving an English equivalent for this group of about £27.10 to about £40.60 a week.

13.9 per cent. of French workers receive between 935f. a month, or £21.35 a week, and 1165f., and 14.2 per cent. less than 935f. When these figures are seen in relation to substantially higher costs for food and clothing, the position in France is the same as that of workers in Britain and other countries. To round off the similarity, a lucky 1.5 per cent, receive above 7000f. a month. Work it out for yourself.

An Incomes Policy at Last? 

A country where working-class living standards are lower than elsewhere is Russia. A report by Edmund Stevens in The Times on 2nd January described the satisfaction of the Russian press at “comparing the conditions in the Soviet Union with the turmoil and violence in much of the world”, and went on:

Nor is there a threat of petrol shortage, or an energy crisis, or runaway inflation.

However, the article went on to say that petrol prices are expected shortly to go up by 60 per cent., and that many prices have risen recently: sturgeon and other choice fish by nearly 300 per cent., while the cost of caviar doubled in December. How then does the Soviet government avoid monetary and petrol troubles? The answer is supplied:

None of this affected the vast majority of people, who have no need for petrol and could not afford such delicacies as caviar and sturgeon at previous prices, which were raised repeatedly during the past decade.

What a good way of avoiding problems — simply by not letting people have enough money to buy things ! Heath must be envious. But it should be noted that only “runaway” inflation is absent from Russia. The report tells us:

A kind of selective creeping inflation has been going on ever since 1961, when the old roubles were converted to new ones at a 10-1 rate.

So they seem to have problems after all.

Gold Mine Turns Out to be Mirage

A favourite argument of those who tell us the capitalist system is different now is to point to the number of small investors who allegedly represent the working class getting a stake in the ownership of the means of production. Under the heading “Relying on a little help from friends” a Guardian investment writer on 5th January gave a different picture (and, incidentally, showed the futility of much of the advice given by investment writers). He said:

The small investor must beware of tips in newspapers, because when he reads of them a few hundred thousand others will have read them also . . . Stockbrokers don’t want the small man. Indeed anyone with funds of less than £10,000, unless he has investment knowledge, should, if he wants equities, buy investment trusts or unit trusts.

Realistic words. They mean the capitalist class do not mind letting you have interest on small savings, but will not encourage big ideas of sharing with them. And which of us has not got “funds of less than £10,000”?

Trouble in Blue Heaven

The Socialist Party has always opposed every form of censorship. We often meet well-meaning advocates of it who say they agree generally, but believe there is some special evil to which its application will be justified. Part of the answer to them is that once censorship is instituted its use is not limited, and becomes an additional instrument for the suppression of opinion.

An interesting demonstration was given in two letters to The Guardian on 10th January. Both were concerned with the Cinematograph and Indecent Displays Bill now going through Parliament; one was from the chairman of a group of Greater London Young Conservatives, the other from the secretary of an Arts Co-operative. The first fears that the Bill will allow pornography still to be sold under the counter while restricting the availability of Men Only, Mayfair and Penthouse. The second fears that it will be used to suppress Picasso nudes.

Their juxtaposition makes our point, handsomely.

Oiling the Works

Commentators have been getting good mileage out of North Sea oil. Not only will it, in a few years, be replenishing the petrol-pumps and generators of Britain. It will bring “prosperity”. The suggestion is of a good time coming, when the working class will be more than compensated for the hardships of the three-day week and wage restraint.

Whoever believes this should read the financial pages. The good time is being had already — but not by the workers. On 4th January the Guardian's “City Comment” reported the “windfall” which has come to the merchant bank group Edward Bates.

The principal part of the $12 millions deals announced by Bates for the acquisition of working interests and royalties, was negotiated when oil was selling at $4.20 a barrel in the U.S. It is currently being sold at $8.30. As a result, the Bates projection of oil and gas income for 1974 jumps from $2.6 millions to $4.8 millions, not to mention the substantial capital gains which will result in property values.

The next day the Technology Correspondent told of the prosperity resulting from the latest North Sea find: “£180 millions added to the values of BP and Burmah Oil”. The Guardian writer calls the Bates acquisition “an example of the pickings to be had in the American market” over North Sea oil. Incorrect. The "pickings” are had out of the exploitation of the workers — for whom windfalls from capitalism remain elusive.

Where We Came In

Can you place this quotation?

You can’t conceive what existence is like without trains or tubes . . . and probably no electric light tomorrow. We in Richmond can still get to Waterloo; but Hampstead is entirely cut off . . . Then the experts say that the working classes have behaved with such incredible stupidity that the Government will beat them; and this strike is only the beginning of others far worse to follow. They say we are in for such a year as has never been known.

It comes in fact from a letter written by Virginia Woolf in 1919, quoted in her biography. What should be noted, apart from its contemporary ring, is that Mrs. Woolf was associated with groups who were going to end the inefficiency and inequity of capitalism. And fifty-five years later it is still the same.

Robert Barltrop

Workers' Paradise (1990)

From the September 1990 issue of the Socialist Standard

"Out of the 1600 essential goods supplied by the government, 1500 are in short supply. If prices rise two or three times, as they are expected to do, you can imagine what will happen to the 80 per cent of the population who are close to the poverty line". 

- Gennady Yanayev, leader of the official Soviet trade unions. (Times, 30 June).

Letter: Housing in Russia and "Socialism in one country" (1958)

Letter to the Editors from the February 1958 issue of the Socialist Standard

A reader (Mr. R. L. Rhodes, Trowbridge) writes as follows:—

Dear Comrade,

In “Notes By The Way” (Socialist Standard, December, 1957) you comment on bad housing in the Soviet Union. Surely after having about 25 million people made homeless after the last war had ended and added to other problems of reconstruction, only a person who could perform miracles could have solved the problem over night. The SP.G.B. claims the Soviet Union to be a capitalist state, and that Socialism cannot be brought about in any country unless the whole world turns to Socialism. This theory in my opinion is wrong, as for instance say, Britain’s working class were prepared to elect a Socialist government and in the United States they still elected a capitalist government. What would be the attitude of the S.G.P.B.?

Yours fraternally

R. L. Rhodes.

Reply.

Housing in Russia

Our correspondent thinks it quite reasonable in view of wartime destruction, that the Russian government has not bear able to “solve the problem overnight” This is of course precisely the excuse given by the British and other governments. It is a characteristic piece of capitalist double-talk. With the resources available in Russia, Britain, America and elsewhere it would have been technically quite practicable to have the population decently housed but for the fact that in each country priority is given to other things, notably the fantastic expenditure on armaments, including the American, British and Russian A bombs and H bombs. Since each government places “guns before butter,” and before working class housing, they can all plead that the residue of materials and labour is not sufficient for decent workers’ houses. And of course the inability to build houses only applies to working class houses, not to the abundant, luxurious accommodation made available for the rich and the leading politicians in all countries.

We would also draw our correspondent’s attention again to the statement about Russian housing in our December issue. How does his plea that houses were destroyed in vast numbers in the war that ended over 12 years ago justify the present building (for the workers only) of new houses that are “one storey buildings very little larger than a one-car garage?" And of course the masses of slums and near-slums were there in Russia before the war broke out. They are not the product of the war.

"Socialism in One Country”

There are two quite distinct notions about the possibility of getting Socialism in one country alone.

One is held by people who think that Socialism can be imposed on the people by the government and that all you need therefore is for the government to be taken over by a group who want Socialism. The point about this theory is, of course, that it assumes that you can get Socialism without having to wait for the workers to become Socialists. If this theory had been sound our correspondent would not have written to us asking a question but would have written giving us the answer. He would have been able to tell us that in 1918 the Russian Communist Party seized power and then, in accordance with the theory of Socialism in one country, had triumphantly introduced Socialism in Russia without having to wait for the workers in Russia to become Socialist or for the workers out of Russia to become Socialist. Our correspondent does not tell us this because it is not true. After 40 years of power, what they have produced is State capitalism, and we readily agree that you can have State capitalism in one country.

The other theory about Socialism in one country is the one our correspondent asks us to consider, the notion of the workers becoming Socialist in one part of the capitalist world but not in other parts, this theory has been put to us ever since the S.P.G.B. was formed but it has undergone repeated changes—the country in which this is supposed to happen is never the same. At one time, it was Germany where the workers were supposed, to be on the verge of Socialism; then the purblind I.L.P. told us that it was Australia (they even had it happening in one state alone in Australia, in Queensland). Then Mexico and France, Austria, Russia, Sweden, New Zealand and numerous other countries, each had their turn—not forgetting Britain where Socialism was about to dawn with the Labour Government of 1924. All of these examples were based on the supposition, now put in the letter above, that the majority in one country become Socialists while those elsewhere do not. Which brings us from fanciful assumptions back to reality. Our correspondent gives us no reason whatever for supposing that something will happen which is contrary to all experience. The overwhelming majority of workers in Britain, Russia, U.S.A. and everywhere else have not yet abandoned their belief in capitalism. Those who have become Socialists are everywhere a small minority, and everywhere at present the Socialist idea spreads only slowly. Experience everywhere supports the view that the progress of the Socialist movement will be much the same everywhere because broadly the workers’ experience of capitalism is everywhere similar. Also the movement in one country influences growth in other countries. The tempo will at some stage increase but again there is no evidence of any kind to suggest that it will quicken in Britain and hang back in U.S.A. and Russia or vice versa. On the contrary the only expectation is that the growth of the Socialist movement everywhere will be accompanied by increasingly effective common international action by the Socialist movement. The international Socialist movement will be strong everywhere before the possibility of Socialism arises, and if the election at which Socialists take governmental control out of the hands of the capitalists in one country slightly precedes the elections at which the workers elsewhere do the same, the situation will present no problem of any moment The capitalists everywhere will be at the end of their rule, and will know that they are at the end of their rule, in face of the worlds’ Socialists acting as one united movement

Editorial Committee

Russia: The Land That Did Not Abolish Unemployment (1933)

Editorial from the May 1933 issue of the Socialist Standard

Up to 1930 the existence of a large body of unemployed was officially admitted by the Russian Government, and particulars of the numbers out of work and of the small relief payments made to them were published in the Soviet Union Year Books. Then, in 1930, it was claimed that the building of factories and railroads, etc., had absorbed the unemployed workers and had, in fact, created a scarcity. Communists blazoned forth the tidings that Russia was “ the land without unemployment.” Superficial observers like Lord Passfield and G. B. Shaw were so overjoyed when they found a government trying to run capitalism on Fabian “strait-jacket” principles that they accepted the Russian claim and hastened back to tell Europe and America how to solve their problems by copying the Bolshevists. The S.P.G.B. was, it seems, entirely alone in refusing to accept the claim. We did not deny that Russia, or any other capitalist country, could show a comparatively small amount of unemployment during a period of great capital expansion. In that respect, Russia's experience is one which every country has shared at some time or other. What we did deny was that Russia could permanently escape the consequences of being part and parcel of world capitalism. Just as in 1918 the S.P.G.B. pointed out that economic conditions and the backwardness of the population utterly ruled out any possibility of Socialism being established in Russia at that time, or in the near future, so in 1930 we said with equal certainty that the world crisis would, in due course, upset the attempt at segregating Russian capitalism from the rest of the world. Russia could not and cannot do without the outside world. Hence, the impossibility of carrying out planned production and distribution. The Bolshevists planned to export certain commodities (oil, for example) and to import machinery, trained engineers, etc. The drastic fall in raw material prices and the curtailment of purchases of Russian exports inevitably deranged the plans. Faced with the need to meet its obligations abroad, the Russian Government had to curtail imports and cut its expenditure. The method followed was the usual one of reducing staffs. In February (see Times, February 26th) orders were issued for the dismissal of large numbers of employees in the State enterprises, and for the strict enforcement of the rule that wages must not exceed the planned total amount. The result has been an increase in the number of unemployed till it has reached large figures—how large it is difficult to say in the absence of official statistics. The correspondent in Russia of the Manchester Guardian (March 29th) states that the recently introduced Passport System , (under which nobody is allowed to live in Moscow and other big cities without a passport) had already resulted in 750,000 people being refused passports in Moscow alone, with the probability that the figure would rise to 1,000,000. The correspondent says that passports are refused to all unemployed persons, but he does not know how many of the 750,000 are unemployed, beyond the statement that in the towns the number of unemployed is "considerable.” For those driven out of the towns the prospect, he says, is starvation, “since everyone knows that outside the cities famine conditions prevail.”

Mr. Gareth Jones, formerly foreign adviser to Mr. Lloyd George, who has just returned from an extended tour of investigation, states that the economy drive in the factories has often resulted in the dismissal of from 25 per cent. to 40 per cent. of the staffs. (Daily Express, April 8th.) There has, so far, been no re-introduction of unemployment pay, but doubtless Russia will, sooner or later, have to make some provision for its "industrial reserve army of unemployed,” just like the other capitalist countries.

So Russia joins the long line of countries on behalf of which, at different times, it has been claimed that unemployment has been abolished without abolishing capitalism: Canada and Australia, France, Italy, America, the Scandinavian countries, Germany, and now Russia. Can we now hope that the I.L.P., the Communists and the Labour Party will be unable to put over any more hoaxes of this kind?

Russia: An Underground Document (1973)

From the January 1973 issue of the Socialist Standard

Esteemed Citizens!

On June 1st, 1972, it will be ten years since the date of the raising of the prices of products of greatest necessity. Ten years ago, in the decree of the Central Committee of the CPSU and the Council of Ministers of the USSR, it was announced:

  "The raising of prices of meat and meat products, and also of butter, is a temporary measure. The implementation of the measures laid down by the March (1962) Plenum of the Central Committee will make it possible, in the not-distant future, to lower the prices of agricultural produce. It will undoubtedly be possible in the immediate future to lower retail prices."

It is now clear to the people that this was the usual “promise” — the usual barefaced lie of the Kremlin bosses.

According to the newspaper reports, during these ten years our people has already successfully accomplished the resolutions of ten Plenums and two Five-Year Plans. But prices not only do not come down: they continue to rise. The concealed price rises in food products and in manufactured goods goes on by means of new packs, lowered quality, sticking on new labels and so on.

Remember the fuss over the resolution of the 22nd Congress in 1961 on The Programme of the Construction of Communism! The authors of that fantastic pseudo-programme promised us: "In the first decade (i.e. toward 1970) all strata of Soviet people will be able to enjoy affluence and will be provided for materially . . . there will be an end to the housing shortage". There was a plethora of statistics, from which it followed that nowadays we should surely be standing on the threshold of paradise of material affluence.

But instead of that deceitfully promised prosperity, life in our country gets more costly all the time. During the last ten years prices have gone up on nearly all goods by 20-30 per cent, house construction has been cut back by nearly 20 per cent and the co-operatives are made to bear an ever-increasing load.

Esteemed citizens! Our country has the richest resources in the world, and is the second greatest industrial power. But as for their living standards, the workers of the USSR occupy only the 26th place in the world and among developed countries they are at the bottom of the scale. Our worker can buy with his pay packet 7-12 times less than can the American, English or West German worker. The average size of a flat for our worker is 2-5 times less than for the workers of those countries. Cars are owned by 80 per cent of American families, 60 per cent of British families and 50 per cent of German families — but in the USSR less than 0.1 per cent of families have a car. In the USSR the scales of pensions, sickness benefit, disablement benefit and maternity benefit are negligible in comparison with Western countries. And of all these countries the workers of the USSR get the shortest paid holidays.

The unemployed Western worker can buy with his unemployment benefit 2-4 times more goods than our industrial or white-collar worker can get with his pay-packet. Yes, and what’s more the number of unemployed in the West does not exceed 2-4 per cent of the workers. Not for nothing do the Kremlin bosses completely jam all foreign radio transmissions. Even Hitler didn’t do that in peacetime!

Esteemed citizens! It’s not too well known that in our country the overwhelming majority of goods sold are sold at a price 2-4 times dearer than it costs the State to produce and market them (including the profits of the enterprises). Our economists have calculated that the take-home pay of the Soviet industrial worker is about one-third of his real earnings. And besides these secret withholdings and deductions our worker still pays taxes.

Where then do they go — these enormous secret revenues from our and your labour?

These enormous secret revenues are appropriated for themselves, stealthily and openly, by the Kremlin bosses and their servants — the big and middle bosses of the Partocracy, the apparatchiki. etc. These revenues go on their life of luxury, their dachas, villas in the resorts, limousines, or their huge salaries and bonuses, on their share-outs — concealed from the people, on their special resorts, clinics and nursing homes . . . The Kremlin bosses and their hangers-on live better and richer than many Tsarist noblemen did before the Revolution — and yet they call themselves "the vanguard of the Soviet people”, its servants!

Lucky servants! They fleece their "master", the worker, three times over . . . while the "master and missus" of the country — the labourers and workers — can hardly make ends meet.

The second way the people’s wealth leaks away is overseas. The Kremlin bosses carry on trade not in the interests of the people but in their own political-adventurist interests, in the interests of attaining their own world domination. In return for their aid "without strings attached’’, given at the cost of a burden laid on the backs of their own people, they rush on to introduce into other countries exactly the same sort of cabal as in their own country.

The Kremlinites plunder their own people so as to export abroad huge quantities of top-quality goods: meat, fats, fish, caviar, grain, wool cloths, skins, expensive raw materials and other goods in short supply. At the same time we are obliged to spend from our already scanty gold reserves to buy grain from Canada. Huge resources are squandered by the Kremlinites on arms deliveries to so-called "freedom fighters”, on propping up dictators who provide military bases for the USSR (Egypt, Syria, Cuba, etc.), on maintaining an enormous overseas spy network and on bribing foreigners who might be "useful” to our rulers. Billions of roubles were spent on the Mao Tse-Tung régime: now this regime is our dreaded enemy. Helping to arm the DRV in its attempt to occupy South Vietnam costs 3 million roubles a day, Ouba gets 1 million a day and the Arabs get 1.5 million a day.

The Kremlinites spare nothing. The wealth in Russia is to keep them in clover till the year dot.

Esteemed citizens! There is no socialism in our country! It isn’t socialism when each and every parasite and boss in the country has got 20 times more than he would have in Tsarist Russia! It isn’t socialism when the average pay of a workers is 100 roubles, while the income of a big boss is several thousand roubles monthly! It isn’t socialism when the people are in fact deprived of the most elementary rights: freedom of speech, freedom of the press, the right to strike and so on! It is precisely the absence of these rights which in fact gives the Kremlin bosses the opportunity to rob and oppress our people pitilessly, both secretly and openly.

And it is not towards communism that we are heading: all that is idle talk. Our system is state capitalism — the very worst, the most wretched political system possible which enables the rulers to adjust all the prices and incomes of the country without control and to perpetrate unbridled acts of arbitrariness and force. In Germany with Hitler’s “socialism” there was a similar form of unbridled and ruthlessly rapacious administration.

Esteemed citizens! Our rulers are ruining the country. They are destroying its economy and agriculture. They are creating dangerous international tension.

Dear citizens! The workers of Western countries attained their high standards of living and wide political freedom by struggle. The proven weapons of the struggle are the strike and demonstration. In December 1970, when price rises were announced in Poland, the workers in the towns of Gdansk, Gdynia, Szczecin, etc. set up liaison committees, called a strike and came out in street demonstrations. As a result Gomulka was dismissed, and the Central Committee and the government were replaced almost in their entirety. The new secretary of the Central Committee, Gierek, revoked the price rises, raised wages and pensions, and relaxed the censorship.

Already the people of our country are rising to the struggle. During the last ten years there have been strikes, demonstrations and other uprisings in a number of cities: there have been strikes in factories in Novocherkassk, Temir-Tau, Chirchik, Leningrad and Moscow. And recently there have been numerous uprisings of the workers of Kaunas. Ever more frequently there are protest demonstrations by many of our writers, distinguished scientists, government employees and workers. They demand freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of the unions, the improvement of people’s living conditions and they demand that an account be rendered to the people. They are persecuted, declared “apostates” and thrown into prison. They are locked up because they demonstrate almost singlehanded.

Esteemed citizens! Fight for your rights and for an improvement of your life. Defend one another: one for all and all for one. It is only by means of struggle that we can get a change for the better. If we are not going to struggle, then we will more and more be reduced to mere slaves of the bosses of the CPSU — mere working cattle. So long live freedom and democracy!

Citizens’ Committee. 

Spread the word with a leaflet to as many people as possible.

(Translated for the Socialist Standard by Charmian Skelton.)

“Wealth is in effect the property of an individual or group if that individual or that group has a right in fact against the other members of society to use it or to control its use. A class is made up of people who are in the same position with regard to the ownership and use of the means of wealth-production and distribution. One class has a monopoly over these means if the rest of society are allowed access to them only on terms imposed by the group in control. This monopoly does not have to be legally recognised though in fact, as in Britain, this is generally so. Here the privileged minority, the capitalist class, have titles backed by law to the wealth they own. In Russia the ownership of the privileged minority is generally not given formal legal backing, but, as in Britain, they maintain their monopoly through control over the machinery of government. They occupy the top posts in the party, government, industry and the armed forces. Their ownership of the means of production is not individual but collective: they own as a class. Historically this is not a new development as is shown by the position of the Catholic church in feudal times. The privileged class in Russia draw their 'property income’ in the form of bloated salaries, bonuses, large monetary prizes’ awarded by the government, and other perks attaching to the top posts.”

—from Russia 1917-1967 A Socialist Analysis, an exploration of how state capitalism came to Russia. Send 10p to Dept. R., The Socialist Party of Great Britain, 52 Clapham High Street, London, SW4.

Facing the Facts in Russia (1975)

From the December 1975 issue of the Socialist Standard

Facing the Facts in Russia 
There's an old saying that “the daughter of Time is Truth”. In Russia at last we have indications that people are beginning to discover the truth that capitalism exists in that country as much as in the rest of the world.

Granted it’s a rather different form of capitalism, without Stock Exchanges. State capitalism is the term often used for the type of capitalism existing in Russia and in most other “developing nations”. In the Socialist Standard and the Western Socialist we have recorded in recent years several instances of Russian dissenters whose conclusion is that Russia is a state-capitalist country.

"Our system is state capitalism . . ."
Two underground leaflets from Moscow were reproduced in the Socialist Standard in January and March 1973.

Both said that not Socialism but state capitalism was the system in Russia (though the solution was said to be the establishment of a “social democratic” party). The present ruling class in Russia maintains dictatorial control of the State apparatus and thus the struggle for democratic “rights” is bound to be the form which protests take. What should be understood is that the appearance of a reform or opposition party, failing to have Socialism as its objective, would only further the interests of some new or rising capitalist group.

We are hardly surprised to find that Solzhenitsyn, the darling of the Liberal establishment, takes the Kremlin line (Western Socialist, No. 5, 1974). That is to say, he takes the line that Russia is a socialist country. An awful abuse of what Socialism really means. By labelling Russia’s tyrants “socialists”, he joins the Tories and their like who see the whole world as a Wild-West all-action movie, goodies versus baddies, with “socialism” cast in the role of villain.

After Solzhenitsyn’s superficial prejudice, it is refreshing to read Sakharov’s view (Time, Aug. 4, ’75). Sakharov is active as a champion of the civil rights movement and a liberal, not a revolutionary. He describes himself as “a confirmed evolutionist and a reformist”, from which we may infer that he sees the struggle for Socialism as not important at the present time. In the meantime there are lots of things to put right, like putting Sellotape on the ceiling when the problem is caused by slates falling off the roof and letting the weather in.

But he does start out with something which is worth noting:

 Contemporary Soviet society is based on state capitalism, a total party-government monopoly over economy, culture, ideology and the other basic spheres of life. In periods of crisis, such a system engenders rule by terror; in quieter periods, it engenders the dominance of bungling bureaucracy, mediocrity, apathy and dissipation among the people, and the permanent militarization of our economy . . . Much of our financial resources provide a high standard of living for the privileged strata of society that Djilas called the “new class”. Every day radio loudspeakers tell the ordinary Soviet citizen that he is the master of his country, but he knows perfectly well that the real masters are “the bosses” who, morning and evening, are whisked along quiet, closed-off streets in their armoured limousines.

The Dog-Meat Society
For decades now Socialists have been declaring that Russia is a capitalist (or “state”-capitalist) country, with wage-workers exploited just as much as those in this country. Indeed, if the evidence of my own eyes is anything to go by, the Russian workers are worse off than those here. A view which Sakharov appears to share:

  You (in the West) do not have your backs to the wall; even if you reduced your standard of living to one-fifth of what it is, you would still be better off than people in the world’s wealthiest socialist country. Workers in the Soviet Union have the right neither to strike nor to appeal to higher authorities.
  The average apartment building in this country resembles a low-income housing project in America, though ours has fewer conveniences and is more crowded. In most parts of the country one has to stand in line for hours to get meat, and even then it is sometimes not fit for a dog.

I seem to have heard that bit about dog-meat somewhere else. A Roman Catholic Community Services worker in Los Angeles was quoted in the Western Socialist (No. 3, 1975) as saying: “Our people have so little, they don’t have the money to buy dog-food. Dog-food would be a luxury.”

So the dictators of the Kremlin cause workers to queue for offal, and the world’s wealthiest and best- fed state, a so-called democracy, reduces some of its workers to the degraded and half-starved state where even dog-food would be a luxury. And they actually expect these same workers to rise up patriotically to defend their way of life. To fight a war to defend dog-meat — ye gods!

At last we have evidence lasting over a period of years that some people in Russia have begun to realize that they are not in a socialist society, only in a state capitalist one, and at the same time they are realizing increasingly the very real drawbacks to state capitalism. Some of these are mentioned by Sakharov, such as corruption and inefficiency among managers, indifference, apathy and appalling conditions for workers, and wasteful military expenditure. He did not mention, although others have done so, the lack of flexibility in responding to market demands.

The Need for Change
Increasingly the Russian government has had to allow foreign trade to take a key rôle in the economy. Russia exports and imports on a very large scale now, and not only wheat. The result is that the Russian economy must become adapted to the ups and downs of world trade cycles. The Iron Curtain is in tatters: détente has taken over.

With economic change there will have to be political change. Mostly the dissenters see this in terms of progressing forward to private enterprise capitalism: after all, if Western free enterprise is so good at turning out cars, freezers and the tellypop, it can’t be as bad as Lenin thought, can it? There have been indications and rumours of demands for a multi-party system, for more press freedom, the right to strike, shorter hours, the right to demonstrate, and many other civil rights, all of which indicate the development of resentment against the regime.

At present most of the demands seem to be for reform as an end in itself. In time we are confident that Socialist understanding will develop, as it has done elsewhere. Why are we so confident, you ask? After all, the Socialist movement even in Britain and America is still very small and many workers reject our message.

Our answer is that socialist understanding derives from the experienced, known facts of capitalist life; from the fact that you are living in that certain sort of society where everything you make belongs to “them”, where all the housing is controlled by “them”, where food and all other necessities can only be bought from “them”, where you struggle to hold down your jobs — tedious, mindless, monotonous, maddening, boring chores, but at least still receive your meal-tickets — where you see the youngsters drift to the cities — who wants to hoe turnips on Cold Comfort Kolkhoz anyway?, where you queue wearily while you know that “they” live comfortably and what’s more are regarded with awe and respect, or perhaps fear, by all their subordinates.

“They” are the surplus-value eaters. Although they have no legal title to ownership of factories, farms or mines, nevertheless they control everything produced by you and your like.

Worm's Eye View

For the worker the state-capitalist system works very like private-enterprise capitalism. The working class are “free”: we own no land and no tools, so we are free to sell our labour-power or put it another way, we absolutely have to sell our labour-power if we want to go on living. Those who control the factories also control what we produce while working at the boss-class’s machinery with the boss-class’s raw materials. In modern conditions, with the high productivity achieved by having large numbers of people working together and by the use of power-driven machinery, we are capable of producing the value of our pay-packets many times over in the course of the week. The difference between what we produce and what we get paid (surplus-value) is used by the boss-class for their own purposes — more capital, profits including puffed-up directors’ salaries, distribution costs including advertizing and market research, limousines, law ’n' order and defence estimates, to name but a few

This system operates all over the world. It is nothing but exploitation. The quest for profits has turned the world into such a dreadful place that the very word civilization stinks. “Where there’s muck there’s brass” can be turned on its head to make better sense: "where there’s brass there’s muck”. In other words, profits pollute. We say this system only lasts because most people are contented with it and continue to go on voting for the likes of “them” to run our lives.

We say democracy can be used in our interests, to get rid of the whole profits and prices system, West or East. We say, the dog-meat system stinks and the only way out is the Socialist way.

Charmian Skelton