Wotcher comrades,
As we all know, after the Ural-Siberian crisis and the scissors crisis, the failure of the NEP in the Soviet Union was a forgone conclusion. However, historically, as the Soviet Union developed Fordism with Soviet Characteristics a new method of labour relations was developed by the famous human resources manager Stakhanov. Stakhanov is often promoted as a "leading hand," an expert manual labourer on the tools. Fuck that. He wasn't even a foreman. He was a boss. He time-and-motioned coal miners. This often has safety implications. Stakhanov's attitudes and actions were "generalised" in a cult as negative as Personnel or Organisational Studies or Industrial Relations or Human Resources would be in other societies: a complex ideological frame work for speed up and unpaid "enclosure" or use of worker capacities such as "engagement." We may see the Soviet Union's labour relations in 1936 as the world's biggest pizza party. In part, historically, this was encouraged by brutal enclosure of rural peasants into proletarians by the complex and vascillating agricultural policies in grain. You get kicked off the land, get a job in a city, and six weeks later claim to be a skilled worker and get a job in a different plant: six weeks later: six weeks later: six weeks later. But what if this failed? Not the enclosure: it was predetermined by class war where the nomenklatura chose its own survival and the urban proletariat. Not the shitty new factories: they were predetermined by the loss of agricultural productivity and import substitution. What if fordist labour *discipline* failed?
In the 1920s being an industrial worker in the Soviet Union was fairly fucking cushie as a job goes: the revolutions' go-slows had an on going effect on productivity and exertion. Stakhanovischina (negative adjective in Russian for Stakhanov's ideas) was a way to increase labour productivity through human resources management brutalisation of critical work forces. A lot of Soviet Workers genuinely wanted to make useful things, but they didn't want to make them in a super-alienated form where the pleasure of work was transformed into the abjection of labour. With critical point resistance by organised workers the nomenklatura like Stakhanov may have faced a resistance which was too great to overcome, and instead a greater "real-wage" would have had to been offered to increase productivity. As in the 1960s and 1970s this could have been offered in critical industries connected to mechanis^Wtractor production. But in other industries the state lacked the capacity to "buy off" productivity. The nomenklatura in the 1930s was pretty cheap as far as a ruling class goes: there weren't the yachts and limosines of later years. There is little fat.
Now thankfully we know historically that a major power in central europe was going to fuck things up for the Soviet Union. We also know that most pre-war production was wastefully exerted in 1941. We know that the Soviet proletariat and working class chose to over-exert itself during the Great Patriotic War, and that much of the production of the 1930s industrially was wasted in fruitless operations and strategies. No Stakhanovishchina does not mean the collapse of Soviet Society in a great patriotic war. But it does mean that the deep institutional surrender of the working class in the 1930s won't exist to amplify the surrender of the working class during the Great Patriotic War.
So to my mind no Stakhanovishchina means that in 194X the Soviet nomenklatura is faced by a working class that wants to *win the peace.* Of a victory fit for Brit^WSoviet Workers. Of a great society. No successful Stakhanov policy means a nomenklatura who can't shit over the working class in the late 1940s and the 1950s, who have to buy-off working class interests with greater returns to wages and social policies across the 1950s and 1960s than historically. Not like Brezhnev with a car waiting list, or Khrushchev with ridiculous grand-nomenklatura plans, but a Soviet nomenklatura who has to "pay their way" to the Soviet working class much more than we saw historically.
Obviously this "softens" the overinvestment in capital goods crises of 1955-1959 and 1966-1972 historically. It may mean a greater capacity for "post-fordism" in the 1950s-1970s than historically as macro-economic returns to labour are more important than "squeezing the orange" was historically through double-machine operating and piece-rates. Better planning in division II: consumer goods may mean that in order to survive the nomenklatura does make more radios and cars and trams and housing blocs than historically. This means a reduced investment in war industries and heavy industry compared to historically because of the lack of "piece rate fordism" that Stakhanovishchina became in the 1950s-1970s. Instead of factory resistance passively in the 1970s, heightened wages becomes a motivator producing a consumer society instead of a 3-mobilisations deep divisional structure as a luxury for the elite.
Negatively this may mean that the Soviet nomenklatura become a "first use" nuclear weapons power to ensure their state-system survival. Positively this means that the worker-resistance inside the 2nd world may be even more mature than historically. Obviously not post-capitalist: wage labour and capital accumulation (under state networked control) remains fundamental. But a post-post-fordism of even more horrificly intimate exploitation of worker capacities may be developed.
yours,
Sam R.
As we all know, after the Ural-Siberian crisis and the scissors crisis, the failure of the NEP in the Soviet Union was a forgone conclusion. However, historically, as the Soviet Union developed Fordism with Soviet Characteristics a new method of labour relations was developed by the famous human resources manager Stakhanov. Stakhanov is often promoted as a "leading hand," an expert manual labourer on the tools. Fuck that. He wasn't even a foreman. He was a boss. He time-and-motioned coal miners. This often has safety implications. Stakhanov's attitudes and actions were "generalised" in a cult as negative as Personnel or Organisational Studies or Industrial Relations or Human Resources would be in other societies: a complex ideological frame work for speed up and unpaid "enclosure" or use of worker capacities such as "engagement." We may see the Soviet Union's labour relations in 1936 as the world's biggest pizza party. In part, historically, this was encouraged by brutal enclosure of rural peasants into proletarians by the complex and vascillating agricultural policies in grain. You get kicked off the land, get a job in a city, and six weeks later claim to be a skilled worker and get a job in a different plant: six weeks later: six weeks later: six weeks later. But what if this failed? Not the enclosure: it was predetermined by class war where the nomenklatura chose its own survival and the urban proletariat. Not the shitty new factories: they were predetermined by the loss of agricultural productivity and import substitution. What if fordist labour *discipline* failed?
In the 1920s being an industrial worker in the Soviet Union was fairly fucking cushie as a job goes: the revolutions' go-slows had an on going effect on productivity and exertion. Stakhanovischina (negative adjective in Russian for Stakhanov's ideas) was a way to increase labour productivity through human resources management brutalisation of critical work forces. A lot of Soviet Workers genuinely wanted to make useful things, but they didn't want to make them in a super-alienated form where the pleasure of work was transformed into the abjection of labour. With critical point resistance by organised workers the nomenklatura like Stakhanov may have faced a resistance which was too great to overcome, and instead a greater "real-wage" would have had to been offered to increase productivity. As in the 1960s and 1970s this could have been offered in critical industries connected to mechanis^Wtractor production. But in other industries the state lacked the capacity to "buy off" productivity. The nomenklatura in the 1930s was pretty cheap as far as a ruling class goes: there weren't the yachts and limosines of later years. There is little fat.
Now thankfully we know historically that a major power in central europe was going to fuck things up for the Soviet Union. We also know that most pre-war production was wastefully exerted in 1941. We know that the Soviet proletariat and working class chose to over-exert itself during the Great Patriotic War, and that much of the production of the 1930s industrially was wasted in fruitless operations and strategies. No Stakhanovishchina does not mean the collapse of Soviet Society in a great patriotic war. But it does mean that the deep institutional surrender of the working class in the 1930s won't exist to amplify the surrender of the working class during the Great Patriotic War.
So to my mind no Stakhanovishchina means that in 194X the Soviet nomenklatura is faced by a working class that wants to *win the peace.* Of a victory fit for Brit^WSoviet Workers. Of a great society. No successful Stakhanov policy means a nomenklatura who can't shit over the working class in the late 1940s and the 1950s, who have to buy-off working class interests with greater returns to wages and social policies across the 1950s and 1960s than historically. Not like Brezhnev with a car waiting list, or Khrushchev with ridiculous grand-nomenklatura plans, but a Soviet nomenklatura who has to "pay their way" to the Soviet working class much more than we saw historically.
Obviously this "softens" the overinvestment in capital goods crises of 1955-1959 and 1966-1972 historically. It may mean a greater capacity for "post-fordism" in the 1950s-1970s than historically as macro-economic returns to labour are more important than "squeezing the orange" was historically through double-machine operating and piece-rates. Better planning in division II: consumer goods may mean that in order to survive the nomenklatura does make more radios and cars and trams and housing blocs than historically. This means a reduced investment in war industries and heavy industry compared to historically because of the lack of "piece rate fordism" that Stakhanovishchina became in the 1950s-1970s. Instead of factory resistance passively in the 1970s, heightened wages becomes a motivator producing a consumer society instead of a 3-mobilisations deep divisional structure as a luxury for the elite.
Negatively this may mean that the Soviet nomenklatura become a "first use" nuclear weapons power to ensure their state-system survival. Positively this means that the worker-resistance inside the 2nd world may be even more mature than historically. Obviously not post-capitalist: wage labour and capital accumulation (under state networked control) remains fundamental. But a post-post-fordism of even more horrificly intimate exploitation of worker capacities may be developed.
yours,
Sam R.