Horst Herlemann - Quality Of Life In The Soviet Union

"Quality of life" is a difficult concept to define, and particularly so when referring to the Soviet Union because Westerners have many preconceptions about Soviet living conditions. This volume goes a long way toward illuminating the realities of daily Soviet life and stands as an important contribution to our understanding of the Soviet Union. Contributors focus primarily on the relation of quality of life to living conditions but also discuss the quality and availability of state-provided services such as education, health care, and housing. Of special interest is their coverage of problems in Soviet society, including working conditions in factories, living conditions in rural areas, alcohol abuse, and the status of the elderly. Together these essays show that although the Soviet government has made great strides in improving the living conditions of its citizens, Soviet living standards and services are relatively poor by Western standards and several important social problems continue to burden the Soviet people.

Horst Herlemann is an associate professor of political science at Wrzburg University, Federal Republic of Germany.

A SPECIAL STUDY OF THE KENNAN INSTITUTE FOR ADVANCED RUSSIAN STUDIES

WOODROW WILSON INTERNATIONAL CENTER FOR SCHOLARS

edited by Horst Herlemann

First published 1987 by Westview Press, Inc.

Published 2019 by Routledge
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Main entry under title:
Quality of life in the Soviet Union.
1. Quality of lifeSoviet UnionCongresses.
2. Soviet UnionSocial conditions1970 .
Congresses. I. Herlemann, Horst.
HN524.Q35 1987 305'.0947 85-10679

ISBN 13: 978-0-367-28488-6 (hbk)

It was a special pleasure for me to host a conference on the quality of life in the Soviet Union during my tenure as secretary of the Kennan Institute. In part, this was because many of the conference papers were presented by scholars from the Federal Republic of Germany. Those familiar with German scholarship in the field of Soviet studies recognize that it is enormously impressive both in quality and quantity, yet the substantial portion of it published only in German is missed by many American specialists, not to mention the general reader. The conference provided an opportunity for a large group of Soviet specialists from Washington, D.C., and from other parts of the United States to read and discuss the work of an important group of German scholars.

The theme of the conference was significant and rewarding. Focusing on the broad question of the quality of life in the Soviet Uniona concept that Horst Herlemann and Robert Belknap present in the opening chapters of this volumeenabled die conference group to draw together a wide range of subjects on which there has been a good deal of research and to view them in a new light. Among specialists on such topics as Soviet living standards, consumer goods and services, housing, and medical care, it is well known that simple statistics, including statistical comparisons with Western nations, do not capture the reality of life in the Soviet Union. One must be aware of the quality of consumer goods and services, the quality of housing, medical care, education, and other aspects of Soviet life. Each of the papers at the conference was designed to emphasize the theme of "quality." The collective product provides the reader with a broad picture of the quality of life in the contemporary Soviet Union, which is difficult to find in any other single volume.

Gertrude E. Schroeder shows that the Soviet standard of living is still far below prevailing Western and East European levels. In 1976, for example, the Soviet standard of living was one-third the American level and somewhat less than half the level of France and the Federal Republic of Germany. Dr. Schroeder cites several comparative studies showing that the relatively low standard of living in the Soviet Union can be traced to the feet that the Soviet government spends a considerably smaller share of its gross national product (GNP) on consumption than do most Western and East European nations. The Soviet Union has traditionally neglected its consumer sector, and this has resulted in chronic shortages of consumer goods, services, and food supplies. Moreover, Soviet wage scales require consumers to devote about two-thirds of their earnings to basic necessities such as food and clothing. Thus, not only is the Soviet standard of living relatively low as compared to the West, but Soviet consumption patterns resemble those of developing nations more closely than those of industrialized nations.

Wolfgang Teckenberg stresses that the Soviet Union maintains a "shortage economy" where consumption is restricted in favor of investment. As a result, Soviet consumers often find it difficult to purchase the items they want regardless of their disposable income. The Soviet Union has made progress in the distribution of certain consumer items, especially during the late 1970s, but as Dr. Teckenberg emphasizes, Soviet consumers still lag behind their Western counterparts as regards the purchase of most consumer goods and services. More importantly, per capita consumption levels have fallen since the late 1970s, and governmental expenditures on state-provided social services have also decreased in recent years. Social services such as health care and education are provided by the state, ostensibly free, but through taxes and other hidden charges, Soviet consumers pay for almost half of all "free" services. For the foreseeable future, it seems that the Soviet Union will remain a production-oriented society that underinvests in consumer goods and services.

While acknowledging that all nations contain a large number of poor people, Mervyn Matthews reveals that the Soviet poverty sector is surprisingly large given the USSR's concern with its image as a socialist welfare state. Using Soviet estimates of minimum family income requirements, it appears that the average family in 1965 existed in a state of poverty. A large number of surveys conducted during the 1960s revealed that as many as a quarter to a third of the urban working class lived below the poverty line, and because rural wages are about 10 percent lower than urban wages and rural inhabitants account for about 35 percent of the Soviet population, Dr. Matthews estimates that the total number of "poor" people in the Soviet Union was perhaps 40 percent of the entire population. Although industrial workers are among the best-paid employees in Soviet society, available statistics indicate that almost a third of them do not rise above the poverty threshold.