unemployment has disappeared in the Soviet Union since 1930 -but just exactly the overs" [imphasis added. ]
He continues, affirming that the only problem posed is a labor shortage, the mobilization of the labor reserves, which are, "in the first place, women who are still monopolized by domestic chores and the care of children -- in brief the housewives. They are to a lesser degree the members of the kolkhoz or working-class family who work on merely their tiny individual plot of land."
We note in passing that Kanapa does not seem to have perceived that the question of individual plots -- which Khrushchev imprudently sought to reduce, even to suppress, and which his successors hastened to reestablish with all their rights! -- has much greater socioeconomic implications than one might suppose at first glance. If adults -- women and men -~ prefer to work on these plots rather than in the state enterprises, this is because the real income gained by this work is certainly not lower than the real wages paid by the state sector, What can be concluded from this, particularly with regard to the miserable level of labor productivity on the kolkhozes? And what must be concluded with regard to the relation between the new value created by the worker and thé wages paid him (it can hardly be supposed that labor productivity in industry is below that of the «eeprivate plots!)? But we leave this for future consideration.
Kanapa lies brazenly when he states that unemployment has disappeared in the USSR since 1930 and that the problem posed is that of a labor shortage. In the very article by J. Manevitch, which he quotes so abundantly, we read:
"Thanks [1] to the uninterrupted development of mechaniza= tion and the automation of production, as well as the growth of the working - youth (classes of 1946-48) a slight excess of labor was registered in some of the big cities, particularly in the central industrial regions of the country. At the beginning of the seven= year plan, in Leningrad, Moscow and other big cities, there were still unused labor reserves. Meanwhile the population capable of working likewise increased in a number of small towns, particularly in Transcaucasia, in White Russia, in the central black earth region and in the southwest of the country, in the central Asian republics, as well as in the republics of Moldavia and Lithuania. In these regions, and in others, some groups of workers are experiencing difficulty in finding work in their trade. Due to the insufficient industrial development of the-medium-sized and small towns, the workers are compelled Lt] to take up housework and private domestic labor." Emphasis add ed. | a
These sentences in J. Manevitch's article demonstrate to any-
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one who. is not motivated by bad faith: (1) There really is marginal unemployment in jthe USSR ("a slight excess of labor"); (2) that the ‘labor reserves" are composed not only of peasants and housewives, _but also of workers who are compelled to remain at-home, (working a _ Small plot of land), because they can't find jobs. in the. small and medium-sized towns, due to the insufficient development of-industry. We are far from the bustling picture showing a “labor shortage to be the only problem facing the USSR...
Kanapa discovered that there are hidden reserves of labor in. enterprises which are pushed into such practices by the way in. which the plan functions (particularly the way in which bonuses are given). It is necessary to rationalize full employment, he says, and to accomplish this, the enterprises must be induced to give up their surplus of labor. Thus modification of the "code for the enterprises! and “planning methods" is to be expected.
What should be said in response?
Neither Manevitch nor Kanapa express themselves with precision. But the context is perfectly clear,
By making the "individual profitability of the enterprises". the basic criterion for planning, enterprises must be given the right to lay off surplus personnel. The demand to "increase the rights of the managers" has in mind particularly the right to lay off personnel. Of course, the "workers must in no case be the ones to suffer," Maneviteh and. Kanapa add. The state must "finance their reclassification" (with what polite and discreet terms these things are mentioned!). To put it more bluntly: a proviso for unemployment must be reintroduced in the USSR, otherwise enterprises cannot possibly lay off some. of their excess personnel,
What Manevitch and Kanapa say by implication and with discretion, the Yugoslav theoreticians, more happily advanced down this strange road of "socialist market economy," say with great brutality. At the time of the last reform of the Yugoslav economy, they proclaimed that to make ‘the réform a success, it would be necessary to lay. off 500,000 workers in enterprises that had too many...
Must it be concluded that "capitalism has been restored" in the USSR and Yugoslavia, as the Chinese theoreticians affirm in the wake of a number of Western "“ultralefts"? (The Chinese are imprudent; they would do well to await the appearance of some of these problems -e.in their own country! )
Clearly, capitalism has not been restored in the USSR. There is no unemployment due to an economic.crisis. The enterprises are not periodically compelled to lay off personnel ‘because of inability to sell their products; the economy does not undergo a busines'’s cycle; it is continually expanding, only the rate of growth fluctuates from time to time.
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The Soviet economy is not a capitalist economy. But neither ~ is it a socialist economy -- otherwise it would: be necessary to advance the monstrous image of a "socialism"...in which unemployment has reappeared! It is an economy still in transition between capitalism and socialism. It has already proved its superiority over capitalist economy (the rate of growth of Soviet economy is proof). It already represents a colossal advance over capitalism. (The USSR spends for education ‘sixteen times more than countries like France or Great Britain, that is, four times more on a per capita basis!): But it is still far from being a socialist society -- the problems raised by the transitional phase have been enormously complicated and worsened by the existence of a privileged bureaucratic caste which has arrogated to itself the sole right to manage the state economy.
The problems.currently posed within the framework of widely disorganized planning (recently Pravda noted that it would soon be necessary to ration electricity) are due in major part to the mal~ practices of this bureaucracy.
The bureaucracy first headed blindly down the road of hypercentralization. But to manage 500,000 enterprises from a single- "center," to seek to dictate to each one in complete detail what it must produce and where its products must be sent, was clearly a hopeless task, The result was mounting disorganization and waste. Rails and turbines made in Leningrad were sent to. Vladivostok while those made in Vladivostok were in transit to Leningrad, And so on.
To find a way out, Khrushchev had a "genius-like" idea =» decentralization in Sovnarkhozes. At the time, we noted that this was a bureaucratic reform of the bureaucracy, and we predicted what would happen. In exchange for the malpractices of hypercentralization, the USSR was given the malpractices of decentralization. Each Sovnarkhoze now sought to produce all’ types of machines, energy and consumers goods needed in the region. The resulting disorder and waste was just as bad as before, being manifested particularly ina gap between the "academic plans" and the "labor plans," between the production plans" and the “labor plans."* Hence the reappearance of marginal unemployment. .
Since then, the bureaucracy has been toying with a third formula -- to return to the "market economy." But in generalizing market relations, competition is generalized, While this has certain advantages, it also entails certain...small disadvantages: periodic layoffs, periodic overproduction of certain goods, over-all waste that is not less than that of the preceding two methods »
A genuine solution can come only through an integral recasting of the economy in accordance with three principles: central planning, democratically worked out and controlled by the masses; workers selfmanagement of the enterprises within the framework of this central plan (that is, without autonomy in the field of major investments) 3; Soviet democracy in the political field, permitting running public
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criticism of the political economy and the collective working out of alternative solutions, ey only through the interaction of. these ‘three: factors can the contradictions imposed by bureaucratic planning be resolved in a harmonious and positive way. Any attempt to apply but one of these means in an exclusive way will inevitably end in rebirth of the contradictions, greater and greater waste, and a strengthening of the power of the bureaucracy. Workers who are unemployed, or threatened with unemployment, constitute no real counterweight to "power drunk" bureaucrats and technicians.
BOLIVIAN TROTSKYIST LEADER