In the Soviet Union the land and the factories, the mines and the dwelling-houses, are owned either by the State or by co-operative societies. And the State, as we shall see in detail in Part II, represents the people who work. It seems fair, then, to give to the Soviet State the title of “Co-operative Commonwealth.” But, once the State itself is a co-operative organization of the people, there is no longer a conflict in principle between State organizations and co-operative societies. In some spheres the State may perform functions more effectively; in others, the co-operatives. It is in this light that we must approach the problem of co-operation in the U.S.S.R. at the present time.
Consumers’ co-operation was encouraged in Tsarist Russia as one of the few working-class activities which the police considered “safe.” The people who ran the co-operatives under such conditions were not the types that, in 1917, were likely to support the Revolution. However, as co-operation was an extremely important means of combating the private trader in the interests of the working-class consumers, the Soviet State gave every encouragement to the development of co-operative societies of consumers. These did not pay dividends, but supplied goods at lower prices than the private traders. When the private traders put a new product on the market, the co-operatives sold it cheaper, and the community gained as a result. By 1934 there were about 73 million members of consumers’ co-operative societies in the U.S.S.R.
The Soviet co-operators elect their management committees. The various committees hold congresses, and a federal union of all consumers’ co-operative organizations, Centrosoyuz, co-ordinates all the co-operative trading in the U.S.S.R.
But co-operative trade has certain disadvantages. The most important of these, particularly to the town dweller, is the need to purchase in special shops, often some way from home. In a village, where distances anyway are not great, such an inconvenience is reduced to a minimum.
Soon after the beginning of the first Five Year Plan in 1928 the opening of co-operative shops at factories and other places of work began to take place on a large scale. At the same time, during the years 1926 to 1939, private trade was practically extinguished by heavy taxation on all private traders. The co-operatives were left with an almost complete monopoly of trade.
During this period, owing to the rapid growth of the town population, leading to a great increase in the demand for all products consumed by the working people, and owing to the reorganization of agriculture on a co-operative basis, which caused a temporary fall in the supply of foodstuffs, rationing of all food products and many industrial products was introduced as a temporary measure. Through the co-operatives, rationed quantities of goods could be obtained at comparatively low prices. Extra quantities could be obtained at State shops, but much higher prices were charged.
When, in 1931, I started to work in the U.S.S.R., the former importance of co-operatives as a means of carrying on trade in the interests of the consumer, in competition with private traders who traded for profit, had more or less dwindled to nothing. Since there were no longer private traders, it was possible to purchase rationed goods at low prices in the cooperatives, or unrationed goods in co-operative or other shops at high prices. The quantity of the rations allowed, and the general level of prices were already being fixed by the State. It was no surprise to me, or to others who were working in the Soviet Union when, in 1932, the co-operatives which were attached to the factories were transferred to the control of the factory administration.
As a result of this change, the manager of the factory shop, instead of being appointed by a committee elected by the customers, was appointed by the administration of the factory. At first sight this suggests that the control over the shop by the workers was slackened, but this was not the case. For, as we have shown, the representatives of the trade union participate in the management of the Soviet factories. When, in 1932, the co-operatives were transferred to the factory management, this simply meant the replacing of one form of workers’ control by another. Previously, the co-operators had elected a special committee to run the shop. Now the trade union committee appointed a delegate to supervise the running of the shop in the interests of all the workers. But the director of the factory was now responsible for seeing that the shop obtained adequate supplies. In this way the shop, like the dining-room and housing, became one of the responsibilities of the factory management, controlled by the trade union committee.
Since there was no longer private trade, this question of the status of co-operative trade and State trade no longer was a matter of principle, but of expediency. Whether the State controlled trade, or co-operative societies, in either case it was the people themselves. It was necessary simply to procure the best system of organization. And it proved that the director, together with the trade union committee of a factory, was more capable of controlling the work of the shop than a co-operative committee had been; for they represented the same people, but formed a more powerful body. The factory administration, it was found, was more able to supply the needs of the workers, for it was more influential in getting supplies than a committee whose only justification for existence was the running of a single shop.
Outside the factory, until 1935, the co-operatives had their own shops. However, with the growth of State trade the decisive factor in price-fixing became the State. As a result, all difference between co-operative prices and State prices disappeared. With the abolition of rationing, which rapidly followed the record harvest of 1933, it became no longer expedient for workers to be attached to particular shops where they drew their rations. As a result, all shops were thrown open to the public, and all goods were sold at uniform prices. This led, in 1935, to a Government decree which transferred all the co-operatives in the towns to the Commissariat of Home Trade. At the same time it was pointed out that in the villages the main distributing apparatus was still in the hands of the co-operatives, and that these were not adequately meeting the rising demands of the villagers. It was, therefore, decreed that all their resources should thenceforth be devoted to the supplying of the needs of the villages.
In the winter of 1935 and 1936 I visited certain villages a considerable distance from Moscow. The co-operative shops were well stocked with goods. Turnover had greatly increased since the decree had abolished co-operative trade in the towns. Nobody that I met looked upon the change as anything but an improvement, both in town and country. In the country, the co-operatives supplied goods which had previously gone to the town shops. In the towns, the Commissariat of Home Trade redecorated the shops of the co-operatives and re-stocked them with those increasing supplies of goods which industry was making available. At the same time prices continued to fall, while the quality of goods improved.
But such a change, it may be suggested, while it may have improved supplies, was an attack on the self-government of consumers. The answer to this is that, under Soviet conditions, it would be quite incorrect to suggest that the State shop is not subject to the control of the consumer. As a State concern, there is Socialist competition between the State shops, as there is between the State factories. The workers in the shops are interested in giving good service, just as the workers in the factories are interested in turning out good products. But, secondly, the consumer is invited to participate in judging such Socialist competition. No Soviet shop is without a “complaints book,” in which customers write their comments. Bad service may be reported, not only to the Commissariat of Home Trade, or to the local Soviet, but to the Press, and, as will be shown in the next chapter, the Soviet Press is one of the main ways of ventilating criticism. Finally, the State shops organize from time to time conferences of consumers, to discuss what goods should be supplied, and how the shops should be run.
Returning from Moscow to London in 1936, I discovered that, whereas three years previously I had found London bearing an aspect of a land of plenty in comparison with Moscow, in 1936 no such contrast was visible. And when I went to buy some luscious fruit in a London shop and was given goods which were about half the size of those displayed in the window, I realized what it was to be once more in a land of private trade! For in the U.S.S.R., both in the State shops in the towns and in the co-operatives in the villages, the goods supplied are the goods which are displayed. Since trade is not for profit and since the plan of every co-operative and State shop includes the supply of given quantities of goods of given quality, there is no motive for adulteration, or for the sale of inferior goods. Of course, it still sometimes happens that a worker in a Soviet shop may try to make a small personal profit by selling inferior goods at the price of superior ones. But in the U.S.S.R. this is a criminal offence, while in Britain it is good business!
Consumers’ co-operation in the U.S.S.R. to-day continues in the Soviet villages, where there are about 40,000 co-operative shops. In the future, the question of whether the co-operative or the State shop will be the final centre of village trade will be decided, not as a matter of principle, but as a matter of expediency. If, with the growth of the production of consumers’ goods, the Commissariat of Home Trade opens shops in the villages, and if, as a result of its centralization and vast economic resources, it is able to give better service than the co-operatives, then State trade will replace co-operative trade. If, on the other hand, the efficiency of co-operative trade exceeds that of State trade, then the co-operatives will remain supreme. Essentially, no matter of principle is now involved, for in the U.S.S.R. the State itself is a vast co-operative commonwealth, and the existence of co-operatives within co-operatives, a complex structure of wheels within wheels, is only justified in so far as better service is provided as a result.
Another example of co-operation, of considerable importance in the Soviet town, is the housing cooperative. One of the first decrees of the Soviet Government in 1917 transferred all existing housing accommodation to the local Soviets, to be distributed according to the needs of the population. They were also empowered to build houses. But at that time there were vast demands on the resources of all Soviet authorities, both local and national. The Soviet State, therefore, also encouraged the formation of housing cooperatives, societies of individuals who desired to obtain better accommodation and who subscribed to the cooperative a certain portion of their income towards the building of blocks of flats. Such co-operatives were run by the members, who elected their boards of management and paid their own officials. At the present time a substantial portion of the housing accommodation in Soviet cities belongs to such co-operatives.
In the Soviet housing co-operative an elected committee of the members is responsible for supervising the building of the houses. As each building is completed, the members who are first on the list move into the flats. For the administration of the house they elect their own house committee, which employs a paid manager to carry on the work of administration. The manager is responsible for collecting rent, which is fixed at about 10 percent of the earnings of each householder.
This rent goes entirely to the upkeep of the house, central heating and water supply, repairs and the decoration of the flats. Out of this 10 percent the manager is paid, and the house committee is responsible for seeing that the funds are wisely expended. Sometimes, of course, there may be a gross act of mismanagement. In a house where I lived for over a year in Moscow the manager absconded, with a balance of 6,000 roubles! An emergency meeting of the inhabitants was called and a new committee was elected, instructed to be more vigilant in their appointment of a new manager. I do not know whether the militia caught the thief, and whether the money was recovered, as I left Moscow soon after.
I do not tell of this incident as being in any way typical. But it is essential for the reader always to remember that Soviet citizens are human beings like everybody else, with their merits and their frailties. So long as there exist individualists in Soviet Society, putting their immediate private interests before those of the community, there will be cases of persons in positions of trust betraying this trust. Such cases are dealt with by the Soviet courts of law as criminal offences; they have not yet been completely stamped out.
With regard to housing, then, we find a widespread system of co-operation, in which the dwellers in blocks of flats govern their own affairs. In cases where houses are owned by the local Soviet, as is the case with the greater part of town housing, or by industrial enterprises, as occurs in certain cases, the system of management is in general similar to that of the co-operatives. In these cases the house manager, however, is appointed by the local housing trust, subject to the authority of the Soviet, or by the administration of the factory, subject to the co-operation of the union, instead of by the elected committee of the inhabitants. At the same time, however, a house committee is also elected by the inhabitants in all State-owned houses, and the manager must work in co-operation with this committee, spending the money collected in rents on repairs and renewals, and in the general interest of the occupants.
The elected house committee is the Soviet, substitute for the private landlord; the actual owner of Soviet houses is either the State or a co-operative of the occupants. Ultimately, it is clear, as in the case of consumers’ co-operation, the system of housing control will develop according to expediency. If administration by the committees of co-operatives proves less efficient than administration by the State housing trusts, the latter will replace the former. If otherwise, the cooperative houses will develop in relation to the State houses. This is a matter which the future will decide.
So far we have been concerned with those forms of co-operative organization of which the ordinary wage-earners are members. But not all producers in the U.S.S.R. are wage-earners; a vast number of them are members of producers’ co-operatives. In industry, a very small part of total production is carried on by co-operatives of producers. In agriculture, by far the greatest part of the total output is produced in cooperatives of peasants, collective farms. Since, in principle, the organization of an industrial co-operative in no way differs from that of agriculture, and since agricultural co-operation is by far the most important form of producers’ co-operation in the U.S.S.R., we shall examine in detail the organization of the collective agriculture, bearing in mind that, in the towns, on a small scale, similar organizations of industrial producers also exist.
From the very foundation of the Soviet State encouragement was given to the peasants, small individual producers, to pool their land and instruments of production, and to farm on a large scale. It was emphasized that the peasants themselves must organize such co-operative farms on their own initiative, and that such a system, if enforced from above, would not work because it would not have the support of the people who, in the nature of things, had to run it. But so long as the actual method of cultivation was limited to the wooden plough there was little to be gained from cultivating the land in large areas rather than in small strips. Therefore collectivization did not take place on a large scale during the first decade of the Revolution.
But so long as agriculture continued to be carried on by the individual peasant households, each working on its own little strip of land, it was bound to be inefficient. Therefore the supply of food to the people of the country was bound to be constantly menaced as a result of a bad harvest. For this reason alone it was essential to introduce large-scale farming. And this could only be done in one of two ways. On the one hand, the same method could have been adopted as had been adopted everywhere else in the world—the subsidizing of every farmer who was better off than the majority, helping him to become a large-scale farmer with many possessions and many labourers. But this, it will be noted, would have meant capitalism in the village, and the employment of labour by private individuals for profit.
This system was turned down by the Soviet Government, as giving rise to a new powerful capitalist class controlling the main food supplies of the country, and thus a menace to the very existence of the Soviet State itself. The remedy for the backwardness of Soviet agriculture had to be a Socialist remedy, and must be, as Stalin pointed out in 1928, “in a transition from small, backward, and scattered peasant farming to concentrated, large-scale social farms, equipped with machinery, armed with the knowledge of science, and capable of producing the maximum quantity of marketable grain. The solution lies in the transition in agriculture from individual peasant farming to collective and communal farming” (Stalin, Leninism, Vol. II, p. 102).
This transition was not easy. It was necessary to persuade the peasants to undertake the new methods. But that could only be done by making available for them the modern machinery which is essential to efficient large-scale production. Again, it was essential to show them that this increased production would enable them to obtain larger quantities of industrial products and to raise their standard of life. As Stalin put it in 1928; “We must maintain the present rate of development of industry, and, at the first opportunity, still more accelerate it, in order to pour cheap goods into the rural districts and obtain from them the maximum amount of grain; in order to supply machines to agriculture, particularly to the collective and Soviet farms, and in order to industrialize agriculture and increase its marketable surplus” (ibid., p. 108).
From 1928 onwards a widespread campaign was started to draw the peasants into collective farms. They were offered agricultural machinery and modern fertilizers, together with the assistance of trained experts, if they would pool their land and their instruments of production, elect their own boards of management, and farm the land co-operatively. For four years the countryside was in a state of turmoil. The peasants had no experience of large-scale agriculture, or of co-operative and disciplined large-scale production. Through the Soviets they had administered education and health services, and had built roads. But they had not had any experience at collectively managing the complicated processes of production, and they were not acquainted with modern methods.
The new system was violently opposed in the village by those few peasants who had larger farms, and who were small employers. They knew that they would lose their power in the new collectives, and used every method to prevent the success of the new co-operative system. As a result, the level of agricultural production sharply fell, and only began to recover with the record harvest of 1933, a record for the whole of Russian history.
Naturally the details of the best form of organization for the collective farms had to be worked out as a result of experience. Many changes were made as work proceeded, and only in 1935 was a special congress called, of the best collective farmers elected from all over the U.S.S.R., to adopt a “model constitution” for all the collective farms throughout the country. This congress discussed in detail a project submitted by the Government, a number of alterations were made, and then the model constitution was finally adopted by the congress. The Government accepted the draft which the congress put forward, and this has since become the basic structure of every collective farm.
In the collective farm all the land is cultivated collectively with the exception of small plots surrounding the houses of the members, which may be used by the peasant families for their own purposes as gardens and orchards and grazing-ground for small livestock. All instruments of cultivation, with the exception of simple gardening tools, are owned by the collective. All livestock, with the exception of a few animals for household use, is also owned by the collective.
The management of the collective farm is in the hands of an elected committee of the members. The management is allowed to appoint members to different jobs throughout the collective. The work is done in “brigades,” each with its own responsibilities, and competing with each other for the best results, just like groups of factory workers. The members of the collective farm do not draw wages, since they are not employees but joint owners. Each year, after the harvest, the total year’s income is calculated, in terms of revenue from the sale of products during the year together with all unsold produce in hand. After all debts have been paid, a certain quota is set aside for the following year’s seed fund, for the extension of the farm, and for social services to members. According to the model statutes, not more than 10 percent of the total revenue goes to this latter purpose. The rest is divided among the inhabitants, “to each according to his work.”
The unit by which work is measured in the collective farm is the “work-day.” This is roughly the amount of work which an ordinary unskilled worker can do in an eight-hour day. More than eight hours of ordinary unskilled work, or eight hours of skilled work, count as more than one work-day. A tractor driver in eight hours may be credited with, say, two work-days, as a skilled worker. The actual rates, like the actual rates of wages in the factory, are determined at general meetings.
I remember, in a village near Moscow, listening to an indignant old peasant woman, very rheumatic, who was furious because, during twelve hours’ work in the fields, she had not earned credit for one work-day. When I realized, however, that she was over seventy, and was already in receipt of an invalid pension, this fact hardly reacted to the discredit of the collective. If pensioned invalids of seventy were estimated to be only 30 percent less efficient than the healthy collective farmer, this would not say much either, for the average collective farmer or the system! I calmed the old lady by telling her that she should bring up the matter at the next meeting, and she showed signs of anticipating a really good row when the next general meeting was held!
In another collective farm, run by German peasants in the Ukraine, a large notice-board in the office displayed the names of all the members of the collective, with their earnings in terms of work-days every month. The manager received a regular 40 work-days a month, whereas the skilled workers, tractor drivers, milkmaids, and so on, received up to 60 and 70 work-days. In this farm, as a result of careful accounting, every member received an advance every month on the estimated year’s income. The manager told me with pride that neighbouring farms were now going to copy this method.
In the Soviet factory, as we have seen, and also in the State farms which cultivate a small proportion of the total area of the U.S.S.R., the administrative staff is appointed by the public authorities, and the trade union is the representative organization of the working people. In the collective farm the managerial staff is elected by the members, and must organize production in the general interest, and also supervise the social services and the raising of the general cultural life of the community. The collective farm, as a self-governing organization of citizens, is similar in status to a trade union. Its functions include, however, the organization of production, as well as the provision of insurance for its members against sickness and old age, communal feeding establishments, nurseries and kindergartens, and opportunities for higher education on the part of its members. Part of its funds, according to the decisions of general meetings, are devoted also to cultural and sport activities, the building of clubs and theatres and rest-homes for the members.
It is common nowadays in the U.S.S.R. to meet peasant students in the universities, sent there by their collective farms. In such cases maintenance allowances are often paid by the collective farms themselves to their members who are studying. There are collective farms which have their own theatres, built out of their own funds together with grants from the State, and which have permanent repertory companies.
And in the collective farm, as in the factory, Socialist competition and the wall-newspaper are universal features. Even the Stakhanov Movement, originating in a coal-mine, has spread through the collective farms of the U.S.S.R., The cultivator of sugar-beet, Maria Demchenko, has won fame throughout the country for the results which have been obtained under her leadership in a collective farm in the Ukraine. And not only do we read of Maria Demchenko on her farm, but also of how she, together with leading Stakhanov workers from all over the U.S.S.R., has visited Moscow and attended conferences with the Government. At such a conference Maria Demchenko promised Stalin that she would obtain a certain yield of sugar-beets on her land, and fulfilled that promise. The Soviet Government frequently summons conferences of the leading workers in all branches of Soviet life, Stakhanov and Maria Demchenko meet Kalinin, Molotov, and Stalin, discuss their problems, and their plans for the future. In this relationship with the working people the Soviet Government is simply repeating what every Government has always done in relation to the ruling class; it holds conferences with them to discuss policy. In the Soviet Constitution there is nothing to say that the Government shall hold conferences of workers to discuss policy with them, but, as a workers’ Government, it does hold such conferences. In Britain there is no law staling that the Government shall discuss matters behind the scenes with big business and the bankers, but we know that on the quiet it does hold such discussions, and the opinions of these people go a very long way towards determining the essentials of Government policy. In the U.S.S.R., however, such conferences take place in the open, as part of the recognized working of Soviet democracy, whereas, in the British system, conferences between Government and bankers are more often than not held on the quiet, since it is not considered expedient to advertise the extent to which a small plutocracy influences policy in our kind of democracy.
While co-operatives both of consumers and producers in the Soviet town are to-day of comparatively small importance, in the village they exist on a vast scale, both for consumption and production. The collective farm is the main form of productive organization in the Soviet countryside, and will continue to be so as long as co-operative production proves to be more efficient than State farming.
And why, it may be asked, has collective farming proved more popular than working in State farms? Is it that the material conditions are superior?
Certainly, up to the present, it cannot be said that in general the material conditions of collective farmers are necessarily better than those of workers doing similar work on a State farm. Where a collective farm reaps a good harvest, the members perhaps receive more than workers on the State farms doing similar work for a regular wage. But if the harvest is poor, then the collective farmers receive less than those who, on a State farm, are guaranteed a fixed wage for a given amount of work, whatever the harvest may be like.
No, it is not the actual material standard which determines the attitude of the Soviet peasantry to collective farming. The peasant for centuries, however poor he has been, has cultivated his own land, and has owned his own means of production, however primitive. Only when economic conditions became intolerable was it usual for the peasants to leave their plots of land, and to trek to the towns in search of work as wage-earners. Certainly, the rise in the status of the wage-earner which has taken place since the Soviets seized power has made wage-earning more attractive to the peasantry, but they still like to exercise direct ownership over their means of production, rather than indirect, through the State.
As a result of this attitude the peasants of the U.S.S.R. have shown an enthusiasm for forming their own producers’ co-operative organizations and running them themselves, which they never showed for becoming wage-earners in State farms. It is as a result of this preference of the people for a particular form of organization that this form has become widespread throughout the countryside. In the future, according to the desires of the people themselves, collective farms may, or may not, change their form, and may, or may not, become indistinguishable, as regards their organization, from the State farms and other enterprises which are run by the State at the present time.