Suppression of worker militancy during the NEP: The worker, the unions, the party and the secret police, 1921-1928

This thesis examines state-labour relations during the NEP (1921-1928). Through an examination of working and living conditions this thesis argues that workers' agenda of full employment, improved conditions, and a sharing of the responsibilities of their enterprises, which motivated industrial unrest in 1905, 1917 and 1921, remained unfulfilled at the end of the NEP. During the NEP, the leadership attached low priority to workers' interests, concentrating instead on 'intensification' and 'rationalisation' to maximize productivity and minimize costs. The various campaigns of 'intensification' and 'rationalisation' ended, however, in failure, for which the leadership itself was to blame. By assigning leadership of the campaigns to party, rather than economic organs, the campaigns were politicised, which had disastrous consequences for the efficiency of the Soviet economy and exacerbated the economic hardships faced by workers. This thesis then examines why workers, by the end of the NEP, were unable to launch coordinated and effective action to promote their agenda. This thesis argues that worker group behaviour disintegrated as workers increasingly turned to individual responses such as: despondency, downing tools in frustration, decreasing quality of production, maliciously damaging machinery or product, absenteeism, job-flitting, or seeking escape off the factory floor through promotion. This was the result of several factors. Firstly, economic hardship and the repressive nature of the Soviet regime increased the cost of public opposition. Secondly, the opportunities offered to obedient workers for promotion into the growing state, union and party bureaucracy, deprived the workforce of its natural vanguard. Finally, the regime's drive to assert total control over communications and every aspect of factory life made organised collective action increasingly difficult to sustain. While the leadership was successful in mitigating worker militancy, it failed to narrow the 'gulf' between itself and the worker masses. This, combined with the failure of the 'intensification' and 'rationalisation' campaigns, sealed the fate of the NEP