Vol. 16 No. 3 · 10 February 1994
pages 6-7 | 4070 words
How frightened should we be?
John Lloyd
- Russia 2010 by Daniel Yergin and Thane Gustafson
Random House, 302 pp, $32.00, October 1993, ISBN 0 697 42995 4
- What About the workers: Workers and the Transition to Capitalism in Russia by Simon Clarke
Verso, 248 pp, £34.95, September 1993, ISBN 0 86091 650 2
- After the Soviet Union: From Empire to Nation edited by Timothy Colton and Robert Levgold
Norton, 208 pp, $24.95, November 1992, ISBN 0 393 03420 8
On the matter of Russia’s future there can be no such thing as idle speculation.
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Letters
Vol. 16 No. 4 · 24 February 1994
From C.J. Bailey
John Lloyd correctly identifies the obstacles to reform in Russian enterprise (LRB, 10 February). Over the last few months I have had the opportunity to observe one such enterprise at close quarters: its primary function and that of its senior managers is to fulfil roles which in Western democratic societies are largely performed by local authorities, government agencies or charities. One of the most critical of these functions is the provision of work.
Russia lacks a network of proper support for those who become unemployed and one of the reasons for continuing low levels of unemployment is the genuine reluctance of managers and administrators to consider making members of their workforce redundant. Unemployment is anathema to many, not only because they are well aware of the lack of comprehensive provision and supporting services for the unemployed but also because the value system inherited from the Soviet past defines a member of society as somebody with a job. To be without a job – especially for men – is still regarded as a form of social deviancy.
In a sense, therefore, Russian enterprises are caught in a double bind. Reluctance to terminate employment means that enterprises cannot improve productivity but this means they remain tied to the old forms of a centrally planned economy with its ‘drip-feed’ of credits and state subsidies. In fact larger enterprises are continuing to recruit young people and, at the same time, many workers stay in employment past retirement age because pension entitlements are eroded rapidly by inflation, which may well become worse during the course of this year. In this situation productivity levels continue to fall, leading to growing impoverishment and spreading disillusion about the market economy. The ‘old beast’ – as John Lloyd puts it – may continue to writhe in its coils but for many Russians the grip of those coils represents security and familiarity even though suffocation may result.
C.J. Bailey
Doncaster
