Though the privileges which the Soviet elite had possessed could hardly be compared to that great robbery that was committed by the same elite under a pretext of so-called liberal reforms.
Those who should bear burden of the responsibility for safety of the public property has appeared to be its main thief. They had knowledge, official and personal communications, acquaintances, the access to special and secret information, the right of signature, and the most important, they had time to carry out their intentions and plans. At the same time the worker had to work all day long and could hardly find time to restore himself. Therefore Chubays’s (T: A. Chubays was of the key figures in Russian politics in 1991–2008, the “father” of Russian privatization) assurances about equal starting opportunities during privatization were not simple lie of bad-qualified economist, but do the street swindler’ dirty tricks. While “reforming” the nomenclature has shown its true face and has proved thus it represents far from being the moral leader of a society.
In a sense, certainly, everybody was guilty. Still the fault of the ordinary worker and the top-manager’s one differs greatly. The worker pressed and limited by system in many cases is compelled to act definitely.
Here is an example of former “order”. It would help to understand better who and how is responsible for our failure.
Suppose there is a daily work-quota or rate of output (WQ). The worker who carries out WQ produces 100 pieces of something and gets suppose 100 rubbles a month. Still such wages is not sufficient for a worker and he wants to overcome the task producing 120 pieces and so getting 110 rubles (100 daily + 10 for the exceeding). Everybody wants to live better and so the exceeding of WQ becomes the mass phenomenon. Then the factory management raised rates of output and accordingly reduced quotations so that work-quota was up to 120 pieces. Things’ going that way meant the worker returned to previous earning (100 rubles).
At the same time however person’s commodities have rather grown than decreased. The person matures, marries, that marriage brings children and those children begun also maturing. With those circumstances’ pressure the person adapts for the set work-quotas and starts exceeding the rates of output again. And once more the factory management was not appeased, and again the old norms and quotations had been revised and reset. In some places it took place more often, in other ones – more seldom, somewhere the process appeared to be very sharp, somewhere as just moderate. But it was the practice which to result in bloody accidents in Novocherkassk (T: – the city in the south of Russia where the workers demonstration against price-rising was shooted down) in 1962. The common intensity inevitably should blow up in any local place where the negative energy had been for some reason focused. So the elements of the protest and force of the weapon intrude into economy.
It seemed to be quite time for economists to reflect. However the scientists who serve the policy and the politicians sing chorus: “The wages shouldn’t grows faster than labor productivity”. Actually such scientists confuse labor productivity to simple mechanical performance and thus aspire to receive greater result due to relative reduction of wages. Reducing payment they intensify work, instead of raising its productivity. V. Lenin wrote: “We had seen how in 80-th (T: – of XIX century) our manufacturers have surpassed themselves in matter of ugly oppressions of workers as they have transformed penalties into means of downturn of wages, not having satisfied with downturn of quotations itself. (Lenin V. I., Complete works, v. 2, p. 59). That’s the way: Lenin’s ideological successors have gone on a way of cruel capitalists of XIX century. As a result actual depreciation of the work that quite often led workers to nervous failures and stresses has begun.
The quality of a product has been negatively influenced also. The time couldn’t be compressed. As if your rate of output or WQ has been increased, first, without technical improvement of the manufacturing, second, relying only on impellent acceleration so you can improve your skill only in the limits of labor intensification. And sooner or later the limit of human opportunities is reached, and the worker should or endow the interests, either search for another way out of situation. That’s why the more “accelerated” is the worker himself the more the worker’s sub-consciousness forces him to spend his energy less intensively. He leaves unfinished something in a product, worsens quality. The result is a decreasing of quality at the same time while the production output grows. Thus the worker compensates his loss, he met the increasing of work rates with diminishing of his labor efforts.
Still the worker suffers once more. Passing trough the checkpoint doors, he turns into the consumer, the buyer of very that product of the lowered quality that has been the result of their subquality work. Naturally as the consumer our worker doesn’t like this product. The quality decrease was accompanied therefore by deficiency increase – the goods of high quality become a rarity. The money received by the worker as extra earnings for “over-performance”, he has been compelled to pay to the speculators or to the state for the deficit qualitative goods. That is why the life of people didn’t depend on labor efforts any more.
At the same time the huge weights of goods that nobody needed accumulated in state warehouses and storehouses representing monstrous waste of social activities. This waste doubled and tripled due to persons’ made up those products getting salaries and bonuses. The nation survived only due to some number of creators who continued to make really valuable products. However the more tensely the nation worked and the more it produced, the poorer it became as the lion’s share of work simply wasted. The official reports about performance and over-performance of plans came from everywhere having a background of shelves in shops becoming emptier and emptier. If would be it the final point in that list of problems…
The enormous turnover of staff was generated in those times, and people worked there where pushed them their needs instead of working where they could apply the abilities. The whole nation creating the Communism has suddenly ceased to experience pleasure in work. The human being has started developing himself mainly as the consumer. Having been convinced of impossibility to earn a prosperity fairly the person started to look for curves, roundabout and shadow ways. He did not shun a deceit and even larceny. He established nonservice contacts with the foreman, the controller and other people whom fixing of its labor contribution and consequently earnings depended on. It preferred the career growth (posts and ranks) to improvement of parameters in work. The spirit of narrow-mindedness, mercenary thrift and bribability got into all his attitudes. Everything fair and advanced in this atmosphere suffered from stress of alienation, pressure of animosities, tearing away. There was a real false for socialist ideals.
During those times all those burbulises and gaydars, shatalines and yavlinskys, lyvshytses and chubayses, yasyns and others (T: there are the names of Russian politicians of liberal orientation who had played a appreciable role in early 90-th of XX in process of liberal reforms in the USSR and then in Russia) all these future petrels of counterrevolution, had been doing their careers (They are making their careers from the first sigh up to a grave. Be afraid of such well-wishers). They consider the economy quite out of touch with the human being and ignoring all possible communications as the closed self-sufficing system, as a transcendental object, they write Monblans of dissertations aiming to consecrate economic robbery of the party, state and scientifically-academic elites which have merged in ecstasy of privileged consumption. The work-rates abnormal growth and depreciation of work in the meantime nonplussed the economy, nevertheless nobody consider the situation as a real problem.
The individual was even more awfully nonplussed. When WQs (T: – see above) had raised and wage rates had decreased, loadings naturally increased, becoming quite often otherwordly. The accelerated deterioration of a labour took place, the everyday “weariness” became chronic and in turn chronic weariness aggravated everyday. Only illness or binge could pull out from this roundabout. The drinking-bout however easily turned into illness. Firstly the person spent