LO To evaluate whether workers benefitted or suffered under the FiveYear Plans Did workers support the plans Urban working class and young people in general were enthusiastic at the beginning There was a sense of ID: 378157
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Slide1
How did workers fare under the plans?
L/O – To evaluate whether workers benefitted or suffered under the Five-Year PlansSlide2
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.Slide3
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.Slide4
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.Slide5
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.Slide6
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
.Slide7
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.Slide8
‘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.Slide9
‘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
’.Slide10
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.