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How did workers fare under the plans?. L/O – To evaluate whether workers benefitted or suffered under the Five-Year Plans. Did workers support the plans?.
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How did workers fare under the plans? L/O – To evaluate whether workers benefitted or suffered under the Five-Year Plans
Did workers support the plans? • Urban working class and young people in general were enthusiastic at the beginning. There was a sense of ‘cultural revolution’ – things were changing and a better society was being created. • Thousands of young people volunteered to go and work on distant projects, often labouring in tough conditions. • Many were prepared to make sacrifices to build a new world which would probably only benefit their children.
Did workers support the plans? • Workers also believe they would be better off materially. Real wages had risen only slowly under the NEP and unemployment had been high in the late 1920s. • There is evidence to suggest that shop-floor workers supported the party and its industrialisation drive. • They approved of the attack on bourgeois specialists – people were tired of ‘old’ managers still giving orders whilst they slaved away.
Did workers support the plans? • The party wanted to create a proletarian intelligentsia with highly developed technical skills (red specialists) who would fill the roles of old specialists and would be more loyal. • By the late 1920s, many industrial workers had advanced to these positions – there were great strides in technical education. • This group of people did well during industrialisation and their standard of living was higher than the mass of workers.
Did workers support the plans? • Workers who stayed in jobs and committed themselves to labour discipline could do well in the 1930s. • Training courses meant many workers could improve their qualifications, position, pay and prospects. • Those who exceeded targets were rewarded with higher pay, better working conditions and, with luck, better housing. They were often celebrated in newspapers.
Women in the labour force • Women were an important source of new labour. 10 million entered the workforce during industrialisation. They especially dominated teaching and medicine. • Less educated women, mainly ex-peasant women, became labourers or factory workers. Women were generally paid less and found it more difficult to gain promotion than men. • However women were working in jobs that they had not done before.
Women in the labour force • A study of women in Leningrad in 1935 (Sarah Davis, Popular Opinion in Stalin’s Russia: Terror, Propaganda and Dissent 1934-41), showed that women workers made up 44% of workforce but were less well paid, less literate, and less involved in political and technical education than males. • Their most important issues were children’s needs, queues and fluctuating prices. • Of 328 factory directors, only 20 were women and 17 of these were in textiles and sewing factories. Only 4 women head doctors.
‘Quicksand Society’ • The First Five-Year Plan required an enormous expansion of the labour force. The majority of new workers were ex-peasants, forced off the land by collectivisation. • They mostly lacked discipline, time-keeping and punctuality. Many found it difficult to adapt to monotonous factory work and were resentful about being forced to work in industry anyway. • This led to a high rate of absenteeism and high turnover of labour. The average coal worker in 1930 had 3 jobs per year.
‘Quicksand Society’ • High turnover also affected skilled and semi-skilled workers who’s skills were at a premium. Managers, desperate to fulfil targets were anxious to attract them. • Many managers competed for skilled workers by offering higher wages and extra food rations. They were able to move easily between jobs which had a destabilising effect of high labour turnover. • One Communist leader talked of Russia being liked a huge ‘nomadic gypsy camp’.
Quicksand Society • The skills shortage was one of the biggest problems planners faced. In 1931, it was estimated that less than 7% of the workforce were skilled. • Untrained, clumsy workers were doing an astonishing amount of damage to expensive imported machinery and were turning out poor-quality goods. • There were stories of whole production runs being ruined by ill-educated ex-peasants.
