Donald Filtzer - Soviet Workers and the Collapse of Perestroika: The Soviet Labour Process and Gorbachevs Reforms, 1985–1991

Soviet workers and the collapse of perestroika is a comprehensive analysis of the role of labour policy in the development and ultimate collapse of Mikhail Gorbachev's reforms. Drawing on a wide range of sources, Filtzer argues that initially perestroika was designed to modernize the Soviet economy while keeping the existing political and property relations of society intact, a task which required a thoroughgoing restructuring of the labour process within Soviet industry. To this end labour policy had four basic goals: the creation of a flexible labour market, including large-scale unemployment; an attempt to raise workforce morale through political liberalization and limited enterprise 'democratization'; a recasting of the wages system in order to pressure workers to accept a higher intensity of labour; and the replacement of centralized planning directives by so-called 'market mechanisms'. As each of these policies failed, the regime in mid-1990 opted to move to a full-scale restoration of capitalism, a task which could not be fulfilled so long as the traditional work practices and work relations within industry remained unchanged. Filtzer argues that the collapse of the USSR has brought the solution to this problem no nearer, and that post-Soviet capitalism is rooted in corruption and speculation and cannot ensure long-term economic growth.

Stephen White (General editor) Roy Allison Anthony Kemp-Welch Alastair McAuley Catherine Merridale James Riordan Judith Shapiro

Cambridge Russian, Soviet and Post-Soviet Studies, under the auspices of Cambridge University Press and the British Association for Slavonic and East European Studies (BASEES), promotes the publication of works presenting substantial and original research on the economics, politics, sociology and modern history of Russia, the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.

93 DONALD FILT?FR

Soviet workers and the collapse of perestroika

The Soviet labour process and Gorbachev's reforms, 1895-1991

92 PETER GATRF.L I.

Government, industry and rearmament in Russia, 1900-1914

The last argument of tsarism

91 LINDA RACIOI'PI

Soviet policy towards South Asia since 1970

90 WENDY GOLDMAN

Women, the State and the family

Soviet family policy and social life, 1917-1936

89 JONATHAN C. VALDEZ

Internationalism and the ideology of Soviet influence in Eastern Europe

88 PETER RUTLAND

The politics of economic stagnation in the Soviet Union

The role of local party organs in economic management

87 DONALD FII.T?ER

Soviet workers and de-Stalinization

The consolidation of the modern system of Soviet production relations, 1953-1964

86 MILICA UVALIC

Investment and property rights in Yugoslavia

The long transition to a market economy

85 AVRII. PITTMAN

From Ostpolitik to reunification: West German-Soviet political relations since 1974

84 GEORGE O. LIBER

Soviet nationality policy and social change in the Ukrainian SSR 1923-1934

The urban harvest

83 CIIRISTOPII BLUTII

Soviet strategic arms policy before SALT

82 JOHN P. WILLERTON

Patronage and politics in the USSR

81 JAMES HUGHES

Stalin, Siberia and the crisis of the'New Economic Policy

8o ILIANA ZLOCII-CIIRISTY

East-West financial relations

Current problems and future prospects

79 MICHAEL D. KENNEDY

Professionals, power and Solidarity in Poland

A critical sociology of Soviet-type society

Series list continues on page 000

DONALD FILTZER