gorbachev and thatcher against the workers

7/30/2019 Gorbachev and Thatcher Against the Workers

1/10

GORBACHEV AND THATCHER AGAINSTTHE WORKERS

Hillel T icktin[An edited transcript of a talk given at a Critique 'wo rkshop' in

Hawaii, November 1988]Gorbachev and the Soviet E conomyThere is obviously a crisis in the Soviet economy and this has led tocalls for reform and the introduction of a market economy. Yet,Gorbachev's economic proposals are not really 'new' , and i t is clearthat despi te h is wish, he cannot in troduce the market in the USSR.The last point was i l lustrated in a talk by Aganbegyan to the WorldAffairs Council in Los A ngeles o n 17 No vem ber 1988. H e sp oke atlength about how little had been achieved so far, but I was struck byhow little was going to change when he outlined his plans for the futu re . He stressed the need to raise l iving standards; the imperativeof introducing new techniques; and of encouraging foreign investments in the USSR, but nothing about fundamental ly res tructur ingthe economy, of price reform or unemployment, or establishing aconvertible ruble. I t was a careful speech suggesting more of thesame, rath er tha n rad ical ch ang e. I tak e this to be th e official l ine.Several questions must be asked. What is the cause of the Sovieteconomic crisis? Why, despite itself, is the Soviet elite unable to introduce the market? Given the eli te 's inabili ty to reverse the economic decl ine by in trodu ct ing th e mark et , what does the future holdfor the U SSR ? Following from this, wh at specific m eas ure s has G orbachev taken short of the mar ket and what are their impact upo nthe U SS R ? I will show that althoug h Go rba che v cann ot preve nt thedisintegration of the US SR (by which I do no t m ean its collap se), hehas, l ike Th atc he r in Britain, given a declining system a new lease oflife. Historically, that is his main function.Thatcherism and Capitalist DeclineThere a re para l le ls be tween Gorbach ev ' s peres t ro ika and Tha tchersProgramme (besides the obvious rapport between the leaders of the


2/10

10 Search light South Africa, Vol.1 No.3, July 1989USSR and the UK and the pra ise for Thatcher in the Soviet press) .Bo th are pro du cts of econo m ic decl ine in their respect ive c oun tr ies .Both are premised on the assumption that the working class is theprinciple obstacle to economic renaissance. Both are bound to fa i l ,beca use nei ther Go rbach ev nor Th atch er can bre ak the social powerof the working class.

When Thatcher took office in 1979 the situation was crit ical . Therat e of profi t h ad dr op pe d to below 2 % ; wage different ia ls betw eenski l led and unski l led workers had dropped dramatical ly ; and moreprofound ly, after i ts severe batte rin g in the late sixties and seventiesat the hands of the Brit ish working class, the bourgeoisie faced acrisis of class rela tion s. Th atc he r set out to r ight these 'wro ng s' , a ndwas quite open about her objectives: she aimed to raise the rate ofprof its ; increase incom e differences; a nd res tor e 'norm al ' b ourge oisru le .

What then of denat ional izat ion? For the consumers , the measuresso far have made very l i t t le difference, and for the workers, condit ions of work after privit ization are neithe r be tte r or wo rse th an thos ewithin nationalized industry. The savage rationalization in the nat ional ized s teel and m ining indus tr ies took place und er bo th La bou rand Conservat ive adminis tra t ions . Although a minori ty might haverea pe d the dividends of cheap se l l-outs , most work ers who receivedshares are not going to be deceived for long into supporting capitalism. Nor can i t be argued that the res tr ic t ions imposed on t radeunio ns led to a pro fou nd alte ratio n in social rela tion s. In fact the res t r ic t ions that were imposed were of ten popular , precise ly becausethe unions were bureaucrat ic ent i t ies that fa i led to support theirm em bers . M rs Tha tcher , by res tr ic ting the un ions , a t tacked bodiesthat were a lready degenerate and possibly moribund. Consequent ly ,genuine wo rker s ' comm it tees emerged, which, but for her a t tacks ,might have taken longer to emerge.In only one sense has T ha tch er be en a success. She has, thro ugh hercombined policies of unemployment, tax cuts, anti- trade union legislation, and so on, helped force up the rate of profit in the UK. In

every other respect she has failed. Brit ish industry has been routedand, once the work-shop of the world, Britain now buys more manufactu red g ood s than i t exp orts . T he Brit ish econ om y has shrunk since1979; there has been no improvement in Bri ta in ' s competi t ive posit ion; and there have been major decl ines in Bri ta in ' s research anddevelopment , in the univers i t ies , and so on. Thatcher espouses nationalism but under her crucial sectors of the economy (whether i tbe cars , com puto rs and even the City) are in tegrated with dom inate dby the U ni ted Sta tes . Althou gh Th atch er ha s succe eded in dem oralizing and exposing the pre ten sio ns of social dem ocracy , she has not


3/10

Gorbachev and Thatcher vs the Workers 11reversed B ri ta in ' s econom ic decl ine . As a rece nt s tudy publ ishe d bythe C en tre for E ur op ea n Pol icy Re sea rch ad m it ted: 'Bri ta in . . .has notyet transformed itself into an economy capable of rapid growth inthe long run. 'T ha tc he r is m ' is not a meaningful term , being nei the r a do ctr in e nora pol icy . Th atch er ab an do ne d m one tar ism w ithin a few mo nths oftaking office, and she never had any strategy for pacifying and containing the working class, the most urgent need of the bourgeoisie.If she had any goal, i t was to proceed towards the restoration of themarket in i ts 19th century form. This was a mirage, because in thepresent era the market is superceding itself. All a t tempts to res torethe m ark et lea ds only to the necessity for further interv ention by thes ta te . Thus , the Th a tche r p rog ram m e can be summ ed u p as reac t ionary utopianism.

Furthermore her 'pol icy ' is not supported by the bourgeois ie . Theyconsider her government crass in ope rat ion , parvenu in com posi t ionand doomed to fa i l . Heath and Macmil lan sa id as much. Who thendoes Thatcher represent but the fringe and parvenu section of f inance capi ta l : the pro pe rty develop ers , the spe cula to rs , m erch ant andmarket p red ato rs . The bourge ois ie have l i tt le reaso n to l ike her , b utthey accept that a populist leader can do what they are incapable ofdoing: holding the working class at bay

Th e failure of T ha tch er 's policy is mo st ev ident in tho se plants st il loperat ing. There , workers have not been disc ipl ined. As indices ofthis: output per worker in Britain is st i l l much lower than that of i tsmain com pe tito rs; and wages have constantly risen, leaving inflationas a major pro blem . N or has she ' ro l led back the s ta te . ' In de ed , m anykey industr ies that we re dena t ional ized (Telecom , BP , Bri tG as, e tc . )sti ll de pe nd u po n state sup po rt . M oreo ver, the gov ernm ent st il l playsa vi ta l ro le in the UK economy, and probably in tervenes more nowthan in 1979. Also , the 'ne ed s bas ed ' sector of the econ om y is pr ob ably bigg er in 1988 tha n in the 1970s. Finally, in sp ite of the inc rea sing autho ri tar ianism of the Th atch er governm ent itself a reflectionof its unde rlying insecurity the Conservatives a re sti ll co ns train edby the democrat ic imperat ive inherent in a l l modern industr ia l societies.

The Thatcher government se t out to break the power of the work-mg class in ord er to preve nt th e further declin e of Brit ish capitalism .But, given th e pow er of th e working class un de r c ond itions of the socialization of pro du ctio n, this has prove d a Utopian project des pitethe defeat of the miners. The working class, both directly as a result of i ts posit ion in production and indirectly th rou gh th e p ressure it exer ts on the s ta te has rend ere d im possible any fundam entalrejuvenation of capitalism. In the USSR, the social power exercised


4/10

12 Searchlight South Africa, Vol.1, No.3, July 1989by the working class has posed equally difficult problems for the Soviet elite.Gorbachev vs the W o r k e r sFrom the outset Gorbachev identif ied the working class as the keypro blem and l ike Th atch er , he expresse d th is point euphem ist ical ly .Yet h is message, however code d, was c lear: T h e w orke rs have towork harde r , s top being lazy, and becom e truly produ ct ive m em bersof society. ' The key word for Gorbachev, as for Andropov beforehim, was 'd isc ipl ine ' . This was rep ea ted ad nauseam by Gorbachev ' sadvisers and by the intell igentsia. Aganbegyan (as cited above) saidthat the main opposit ion to restructuring did not just come from theapp ara tus , but a lso f rom those peo ple 'in work who do not work,' im plying that these lazy workers would have to be made to work.

Given the anti-wo rking class bias of the pre se nt cam paign , the cynicism expressed by Soviet workers is hardly surprising. Thus, Kostin,writing in Sotsiologicheskiye Issledovaniya (No.2, 1988) said of a recent survey of wo rke rs: Firstly, that alien ation -pre vio usly said by theregime to be non-existent sti ll existed in the U SS R . Secon dly, that6 0 % said that perestroika had to start with the leaders. Thirdly, thatthey re jected Go rbache v 's off ic ia l dem ocra t izat ion cam paign andcalled for: freedo m of spee ch, freedom of cri t icism, e qu al r ights, theright to cho ose the lead ers and th e widen ing of the rights of the working class. A letter from a wo rker in M ag ad an to Pravda on 18 April1988, displays the bit terness felt against bureaucrats and factorymanagers . He wro te :

The administration tells us fellows: work, work, work. Then they raisethe average speed of drilling and re duce wage rates, insisting that ourspeed is low and our pay does not correspond to the work produced...But for themselves they raise salaries. For what? F or sitting intheir offices. They do not care about workers, or their conditions ofwork, but how to extract a surplus from those who carry the whole administrative apparatus on their shoulders. For this they increase theirsalaries.

One possible strategy for the regime would be to tackle the grievance about privilege, and thus address, to some extent, the problemof worker 'a l ienation' . This is what Yeltsin tr ied to do, but he attacked party privilege and not inequality as such, seeking in effect,to incorporate the workers . For h is pains , he was a t tacked by theparty leadership, particularly at the 19th Party Conference (june-July 1988) and he lost his jo b . Liga chev , replying to Ye ltsin, even


5/10

Gorbachev and Thatcher vs the Workers 13claimed that party officials were not privileged and actually receivedlow salaries. This was a statement which would not be treated seriously within the US SR , and only reinforce s th e w ork ers ' scep tical att i tude towards peres t ro ika .Significantly, wh ile the qu estio n of privilege has bee n rai sed on severa l occasions by Yeltsin and by the trade unions at the 27th PartyCongress (1987), i t has made no real headway among the partylead ersh ip . This me ans that the regime is extraordinar i ly r ig id withlittle, or no , cap acity for ch an ge . After all, Y eltsin was not pr op os ingthe abolit ion of the eli te , but the reduction, or possibly the eliminat ion, of the e l i te ' s non-monetary pr ivi leges , and their replacementwith 'norm al ' m onetary re wa rds . If the regime do es wish to inco rporate the working class, some gesture is required to overcome their indifference or hosti l i ty to economic reform. The regime's inabili ty tocountenance such a move indicates that nothing is going to change.

Soviet DeclineThe present impasse is expla ined by both Soviet and western sources as due to the ending of the previous 'extensive ' form of growth(or the quant i ta t ive development of the means of product ion) . I t isclaimed that to develop further the USSR must move to an ' intensive' phase of economic growth. This i t cannot do: hence the economic crisis . Th is is wro ng on several co unts . Firstly, the explan ationis mechanical, taking a general thesis abstracted from the history ofcapi ta l ism and imposing i t upon the USSR. Furthermore, a d iscussion about the economy cannot be separated from existing social relations.

A t the hea rt of the crisis in the Soviet econom y lies the relatio nsh ipof labour and labour t ime to the economy, and particularly in thecha nge in th e availability of easily exp loitab le lab ou r. Previously thiscame from: the countryside, decimated economically by Stalin 's agricultural po licies ; th e family (near ly all wo m en wo rke d by th e e ndof the th ir t ies) ; and, par t ly , eas tern Europe af ter the Second WorldWar. These sources no longer exist , ending a 'growth' made possibleonly by the availability of a mass of labour.

The problem is not jus t quant i ta t ive . The USSR has a lways hadgreat difficulty in introducing new technology, and often solved thisProb lem only by establishing new factories. To day , for instan ce, over66% of all new technolog y goes into newly con stru cted factories.This is only possib le if the re is an am ple supply of labo ur to con stru ctthe factories, but wh ere labou r is not available, new factories cann ot


6/10

14 Search light South Africa, Volly No.3, July 1989be bui l t and new technology is not in troduced. Once again: there iseco no m ic stag natio n. In short , the eco no m ic crisis is du e to the shortage of labour and in consequence of this a failure to introduce newtechnology. Also, wh ere labour is scarce , it becom es mo re powerfuland over the past thirty years the power of the Soviet working classhas grown, allowing it to reinforce i ts nega tive con trol over the wo rkprocess and strengthen i ts posit ion relative to the eli te . This is reflected in the are as of wages an d of no rm s (tha t is , th e rate s set onthe produc t ion l ine) .

Under Brezhnev 's 'years of s tagnat ion, ' wages rose qui te considerably, th e averag e mo nthly incom e rising from 90 rou bles in 1960to 216 by 1986. A d d e d to by the pegging of the pri ce of b re ad an dmilk since 1962 (the year of the Novercherkask riots) . Brezhnev, nom ore pro-w orker than G orbac hev, was also forced to yield overnorm s a pro blem extending back to the th ir t ies , wh en the cen trewas un able to exercise contro l and plans ten de d to b e overfulfi lled.Con sequent ly , un de r Brezhnev, work bon uses led to wage r ises , an dmore ser iously , workers ' control over the product ion process wasreinforced, increasing the level of inefficiency in an already ineffic ient economy.Ag anbegyan , in h is Novem ber speech , po inted to the increasing inefficiency and waste in housing construction. The number of f latsbuilt in 1984 was approximately two mill ion, about the same as thatbuilt in 1960, although the population had risen by 30%. The cost ofconstru ct ion a lmost t rebl ing. The sam e tren d of increasing costs an ddiminishing results is found in agriculture and throughout the economy, with official figures sho wing an en or m ou s gro wth of the cap ital-o utpu t r atio in the pe rio d befo re 1985. In effect , o ne can s pea kof a ' law* of increasing inefficiency and waste under Brezhnev: leading ultimately to the crisis of the early eighties that brought firstAndrapov and then Gorbachev to powerGorbachev's DilemmaI t is no surpr ise that Gorbachev is regarded with scept ic ism by theSoviet working class, but has become the hero of the intell igentsia.He is , so to speak, their man in the Kremlin, having granted themgreater intellectual freedom, and also made a deal with world capitalism which will give them greater access to the west. But, unlikeBrezhnev who made concessions to the workers while a t tacking theintell igentsia (a primary cause of dissent in the USSR after 1964),Gorbachev has done the oppos i te . He has made concess ions to theintelligentsia while trying to discipline the working class. It was this


7/10

Gorbachev and Thatcher vs the Workers 15that led to the joke among the workers of Kharkov: 'Bring bachBrezhnev ' . Gorbachev declares that the 'peace ' bought by Brezhnevhas led to industrial s tagnation and social decay, and has broughtinto quest ion what some observers cal led the ' socia l contract ' between the reg ime and th e work ing class. If dras tic action is not take n,he insists , the USSR can only continue to decline.

If the working class were challenged, this would have momentousramifications for the Soviet system. It could also be a dangerousmove. As I have argued in Critique, this is because the eli te neverestablished full control over the economy, while workers achieved alimited degree of negative control over the work process a cont ro lwhich led to the enormous waste endemic to the Soviet system. Thismust be broken if the economy is to be restructured, but to do socould prov oke social un res t . Firstly, only if une m ploym ent was intro duc ed and th e wo rkers d isciplined throu gh fear of jo b loss could theel i te gain control over the labour process . However , as Gorbachevadmitted in his book Perestroika, th is would undermine what hecalled the 'organic unity ' of the USSR. Secondly, such control wouldnecessi ta te much more supervis ion of the work process itself. Thiswould req uire s t r ic ter adh ere nc e by wo rkers to def ined no rm s a ndtighter contro l on th e shop floor by factory ma na gem en t. The w orkforce, which now 'enjoys ' a large deg ree of auton om y within the factory, would resist such control, and this would lead to a rapidpolit icization. The workers would cease being an atomized socioeconomic category and become a collectively defined working class,or in theoret ical terms, abstract labour .

The e l i te is therefore t rapped. A cont inuat ion of the present s i tuation spells stagnation, yet a change would bring into being a different and m ore da nge rou s working class. T h e individualized form ofcontro l now exercised by the wo rke rs may cau se was te on a vast scale,but atomization of the workers keeps the system stable. The eli tewould undermine the stabil i ty if i t sought to challenge that control.But would this unrest not be contained by the secret police? I donot underest imate the power of the secret pol ice (and Gorbachev

has never proposed the abol i t ion of the KGB's 1s t Department inside the fac tories), yet , even they could no t con trol the wo rking classonce it beg an to mo ve. M oreov er , we should not ignore the eno rm ousweight of the working class in the USSR today a function of itsenormous s ize and a lso of i ts extraordinary concentra t ion. Industryin the US SR is loc ate d in hu ge factories, agg regate d as far as po ssiblexn four or five key areas to contain the centrifugal tendencies in theeconomic system. Potentially this makes them extremely powerful,r h e situ ation is very sim ilar to w hat it was in 197, an d n ot surp rising -v> some of the m ore intelligent co m m en tato rs in the US SR toda y


8/10

16 Search light South Africa, Vol. I No.3, July 1989have sugg ested tha t the factories be disp erse d. W he the r this will everhappen remains unl ikely .

Gorbachev cannot challenge the working class and for this reasoncannot in t roduce the marke t . Some wes te rn commenta tors l ike EdHewitt of the Brookings Insti tute admit the real problem for Gorbachev is not so much the 'bureaucrats ' , but workers who would beadversely affected by ser ious economic reform. Consequent ly hewrites : T h a t is why econ om ic reform in the Soviet U nio n is so difficult to carry out, and why prev ious efforts at refo rm have ha d suc h achequered h is to ry . '

Gorbachev obviously cannot carry out the programme proposed bythe ' radical reformers ' . But, lest we forget, when he came to powerin 1985 pe op le wer e in de spa ir an d th e regim e look ed tire d and ossif ied . Under Brezhnev the in te l l igents ia had reached i ts nadir , andthe USSR's in ternat ional posi t ion looked extremely weak. WhatGorbachev has been able to do, is to extend the l ife of the SovietUnion, which is no mean feat. The intell igentsia now has a posit iveat t i tude tow ards the system, and many peo ple have a new ho pe abou tthe future . The appearance of ser ious reform at home, and the reali ty of meaningful change in US-Soviet relationship has done muchto bols ter the regime.The depth of the Soviet crisis has led to serious discussion abouthow best to control the workers . The solut ion produced by Gorbac hev an d his advisers is the trad it iona l on e of exploit ing pre-existing divisions within society, particularly those within the workingclass, and be tw een the work ers and intell igentsia. Th e publicity given

to the re sear ch of Ta t iana Zaslavskaya a t tes ts to the imp orta nce nowattac hed to the ' sc ient i fic ' s tudy of th is prob lem . He r many adm irersin the west regard her with awe, but her work (like that of most social scientists in the USSR) is almost Machiavellian in serving thosein po we r. She and h er colleagues have identif ied at least four po ten tially exploitable divisions in Soviet society.Firstly, the re is the obvious but im po rtan t division betw een m en andwomen. Gorbachev has a lready touched on the 'woman quest ion ' inhis speeches, arguing that perestroika has to improve the lot of Soviet wo m en. I t is also significant that m any of the me th od s in tro du ce dto improve produ ctivity since 1985 have be en in l ight industry w her efemale labour is pred om inan t . How ever , if some form of unemployment were to be in troduced, th is would a lmost cer ta inly be accompanied by calls for women to ' return to the family. 'Secondly, Gorbachev could exploit the division between workers in

privileged and less privileged regions a nd Re pu blic s. I t wou ld b e dif-ficult and dangerous to play with reforms in sensit ive areas around


9/10

Gorbachev and Thatcher vs the Workers 17Moscow and Leningrad, but i t might be feasible to experiment in themore per ipheral areas where , pol i t ica l ly , there is less threat to theregim e. Ho wev er , Go rbach ev ca nnot and will not change the und erlying reg ion al in equ ality in the U SS R, sinc e this division, in a c on tradictory way, is a source of stability for the system as a whole.The last two divisions are those between skil led and unskilled workers , and the intell igentsia and working class as a whole. Zaslav-skaya, in her 'Novisibirsk R ep o rt ' {Survey, 1984) maintained that theregime ha d to win bo th intell igentsia an d skilled working class to th ereform pro gra m m e. Go rbach ev has been do ing th is s ince 1985, withsome degree of success, at least in the case of the intell igentsia. Hehas be en less successful in integ rating th e skil led wo rke rs. This is because there is no major difference between the real incomes ofskil led and u nskilled wor kers : mo st bein g on the sam e pay gr ad e. T hetechnical intell igentsia who work in factories and whose wages aredetermined by output have had no increases (unl ike doctors , teachers and scientif ic workers who have received pay increases underG orbac hev ) . In a s ta tem ent , m ade af ter the recent wage reforms hadbeen in troduced, the Deputy Chairman of the Sta te Committee onLa bo ur said the regime ha d manifestly failed to achieve 'i ts m ain object of surmounting egali tarianism in the payment of labour ' . Continuing, he said: Tn some instances sp ecialists are being allo cate d payup to 24 % below tha t of wo rkers in the same factory. Differen tiationamong workers [he complained] has not been imposed e i ther . Norhave norm s be en rais ed . M ore ov er 180% over-fulfi llment of th e plancont inues . '

Finally, the campaign to raise productivity by increasing inequalitybetween the different social layers (the so-called anti-levelling campaign) has run into a major obstacle: money incentives fail wheremajor shortages m ean th ere is no genuine ma rke t . In these c ircumstances, money is not money, and it is extremely difficult to createmeaningful ine qua lit ies which will act as a spur t o produ ctivity. Consequently, the campaign against levelling is bound to fail.

Has Gorbachev Found a Solution?The crisis in the USSR today cannot be explained in terms of anaborted transit ion between the extensive and intensive phases of So-^ e t industr ia l developm ent , nor is i t the con seq uen ce of a 'Marxis te x periment that has fa i led ' ( to quote the headl ine in an Americanm agazine). An explanation can only be found in the change in thes u pply and nature of labour . This has led to a s t rengthening of theWorking class, but not in the direction of socialism: rather, it has led


10/10

18 Search light South Africa, Vol.1 No .3, July 1989to increasing economic ineff ic iency. The e l i te seeks a solut ionthroug h the in trod uct ion of the m arke t to brea k the negat ive controlof the econ om y exercised by the w orking class. But this is imp ossiblebeca use it would lead to wo rkers ' unrest , and th is would be econom ically disa strou s, internationa lly dam aging, and polit ically difficult tocrush.

Yet, if the regime has been unable to discipline the working classby going over to the m ark et, it has given the impre ssion at least thatthe system is being rege ne rate d by a new dynam ic lead ersh ip led bya man who has authori ty a t home and great pres t ige abroad. I t hasbought time for itself even if it cannot solve the crisis by: exploitingthe divisions within Soviet society; integrating the intelligentsia; andhas further bolstered the system by striking an historical 'new deal 'with the US.

There is one further card that Gorbachev can play, and the basicshape of the reform has already been outlined: he can improve thefood supply through a l imited degree of privatization. But this cannot solve the agricultural crisis because, as G.A.E. Smith wrote inCritique, No.14, 'Soviet industry is inca pab le of supplying the inpu tsrequired. ' However , Gorbachev 's posi t ion wil l have been s t rengthened and the USSR temporar i ly saved, i f th is works .

There is no possibil i ty of either Thatcher or Gorbachev achievingthe market they want: and this means they must both fail . In theUSS R the working class rem ains undefe ated, but i ts res is tance takesplace in an atomized fashion. In the UK the working class hasachieved a similar posit ion thro ugh collective action. T he differencein the m eth od s used by th e workers reflects th e different kind s of society in which they function. But until they emerge tr iumphant theirrespective societies will continue to decline.

gorbachev and thatcher against the workers

Documents