The effect was more pronounced in countries with larger Communist Parties. Capitalism did not reduce working hours on its own.
Saw this on twitter.
Link to the book pdf: Reforming to Survive: The Bolshevik Origins of Social Policies
It’s stolen from god knows where but the old adage holds true, there’s 4 distinct powers in a western democracy that keep each other in check, the legislative, the executive, the judiciary and the soviet union
for more on how concessions by capital have historically been driven by fear of an organized international worker’s movement
alice malone has written some great stuff
I will add that under Stalin, pension and free healthcare were maintained throughout the entire Great Patriotic War from 1941-45, when 27+ million Soviet lives would perish. The economy fully recovered to its pre-war condition within 5 years without austerity.
The working conditions in the USSR have always been at the leading edge of the world and comparable to the wealthier post-war Western European countries, until the demise of the USSR in the 1990s.
under Stalin, pension and free healthcare were maintained throughout the entire Great Patriotic War from 1941-45, when 27+ million Soviet lives would perish. The economy fully recovered to its pre-war condition within 5 years without austerity.
This line needs to go into the Hall of Fame, next to “The Maoist uprising against the landlords…”
We are very grateful for archival assistance from Jorunn Pedersen
Marxist Norwegian
just droppedit’s wild how things got so much better for poor people in the united states when russia turned into the soviet union and depressing to learn that all it takes to prevent a repeat with china is some social media posts; a couple of news articles/stories; some tv episodes; and a movie or two.
A really great followup to this is The Capital Order by Clara Mattei. She details the broad response to this in the aftermath of WWI, where fear of the Bolshevik revolution alongside vast nationalization of economies opened up tremendous breathing room for experiments and worker’s rights. Mainly, the capitalists cooked up “austerity” in order to crush the power of the workers, and needed fascism in Italy to do this.
It would be interesting to see data post USSR collapse
this kinda thing sort of still happens.
I knew a guy that delivered groceries, and the workers for the same mega-corp in CA unionized.
And I asked the guy if they were going unionize here. And he said why bother he and his workers just got a raise.
I looked at him and said, “And you can thank your coworkers risking their biscuit for your raise. Have a nice day.”
Some people.
That line of thinking is exactly what management was counting on when they gave everyone else a (probably pretty meager) raise
