Abstract
In a state of ‘workers and peasants’ it is natural that conditions of labor should be the object of special attention on the part of the government. Parasites and exploiters cannot exist in such a state, and from the first days of its existence, the Soviet government has proclaimed as one of its leading slogans: ‘He who does not work, neither shall he eat:’1
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Article 18 of the Constitution of the R.S.F.S.R. of July 10, 1918 and Article 12 of the Constitution of the U.S.S.R. of 1936.
J. S. Voitinsky, Sovetskoe Trudovoe Pravo, Moscow 1925, p. 45; Semenova, Ocher-ki Sovetskogo Trudovogo Prava, Kharkov, 1923.
Labor law is separated from private law in a special branch of legal science. See Walter Kaskel, Arbeitsrecht, Berlin, 1925;
Paul Pic, Traité Elémentaire de Legislation Industrielle, 6th ed. 1930;
L. S. Thal, Trudovoe Pravo, 2 volumes, St. Petersburg, 1913–4,
L. S. Thal, and Promyshlennoe Pravo, Moscow 1916.
Zin. Grishin, Sotsialisticheskaia organizatsia i distsiplina truda i voprosy sovetskogo trudovogo prava, Moscow 1934, pp. 106, 118.
A. E. Pasherstnik, ‘K Tridtsatiletiu Sovetskogo Trudovogo Prava,’ Sovetskoe Gosudarstvo i Pravo, No. 10, 1947, p. 97.
‘Socialist labor regulations,’ says Prof. Piontkovsky (Literaturnaia Gazeta, January 11, 1950), ‘are radically different from the organization of coerced labor in bourgeois society.’ Therefore he repudiates the idea of Prof. N. G. Alexandrov who asserted a possibility of some generalization saying, ‘A scientific abstraction making it possible to note those features of capitalist and socialist labor regulations which are conditioned by the general nature of any hired labor, subject to law ...’
N. G. Alexandrov and D. M. Genkin, Sovetskoe Trudovoe Pravo, Juridich. Izda-telstvo N. K. J., 1946, p. 15 ;
N. G. Alexandrov and D. M. Genkin, Osnovy Sovetskogo Prava, Moscow 1947, p. 387.
Alexandrov and Genkin, Sovetskoe Trudovoe Pravo, p. 16.
‘Labor relations in the Soviet Union are the relations of comradely cooperation, based on the principle of socialization of the means of production and the lack of exploitation.’ Pasherstnik, op. cit., p. 81. ‘Socialist labor regulations reflect the comradely collaboration of a free people, with the interests of the individual coinciding with the interests of the whole state,’ while ‘the essence of labor relations in a capitalist society is exploitation.’
Piontkovsky, op. cit. See also Osnovy Sov. Prava, p. 397.
V. M. Dogadov, ‘Trudovoi Dogovor v Sovetskom Prave,’ Sovetskoe Gosudarstvo i Pravo, No. 8, 1947, pp. 61–62.
J. Stalin, Voprosy Leninizma, 10th ed., p. 393.
The Juridical Publishing Agency of the Soviet Ministry of Justice published in 1947 an annotated labor code, Zakonodatelstvo o Trude (Labor Legislation), under the general editorship of I. T. Goliakov. Only the provisions of the numerous legal acts in force are given; those articles of the Labor Code which are inoperative are omitted. This publication is hereafter referred to as Labor Legislation.
Article 37 has been amended in accordance with the law of 1932.
Article 46 has lost its validity, since the voluntary abandonment of a job is considered an act of shirking. Dismissal in case of absence for more than three days has been replaced by punishment. See below.
A guaranteed minimum wage as established by the Labor Code of 1922 is still in force for private enterprises and concessions, which of course do not exist. Several new laws inserted in the Code, such as Art. 67 (1–4) and Art. 68 (1–2) have changed unfavorably for workers the system of compensation in cases of stoppage and spoilage.
Articles 94–95 are amended by the ukase of June 26, 1940; Art. 109 concerning time of rest by the ukase of June 26, 1940; Arts, in and 112 by the Resolution of the Council of People’s Commissars of June 27, 1940 and the ukase of May 8, 1945.
Articles 131–132 have been amended by the decrees of May 27, 1929 and the ukase of July 8, 1944.
See below, note 31.
Alexandrov and Genkin, op. cit., p. 42. Rulings of the Supreme Court are not a source of law ; they only interpret existing laws.
K. M. Varshavsky, Trudovoe Pravo SSSR, Leningrad, p. 7.
Lenin, Sochineniia, Vol. XXVII, p. 319.
At the time of the N.E.P., a collection of labor legislation comprised five volumes, Danilova, Deistvuiushchee Zakonodatelstvo o Trude, 5 vols., Moscow 1925. A second abridged edition of the same collection was published in two volumes in 1927.
J. Stalin, Political Report to the Sixteenth Party Congress, Modern Books Ltd., London 1930, pp. 115–123.
Resolution of the Central Committee of the ACP (b) of October 20, 1930 concerning the planned distribution of labor and the stopping of its fluctuation.
J. Stalin, Problems of Leninism, 1942, p.
The methods of sabotage used by the trade unions against foreign concessionaries are described by the Soviet writer, Fedin, in his novel, The Rape of Europe, Vol. II. A lumber concession of a Dutch trader is depicted.
Alexandrov and Genkin, op. cit., p. 60.
RKP v Resolutsiakh, Vol. I, 1932, p. 439. See also Grishin, op. cit. (note 4), pp. 160–162.
Osnovy Sovetskogo gosudarstva i prava, p. 390.
L. M. Kaganovich, O Zadachakh Profsoiuzov SSSR, Partizdat, 1932, p. 64.
See also quotations by Gsovski, Vol. I, pp. 407–408, and Solomon M. Schwarz: ‘Trade Unions in Soviet Russia,’ in Verdict of Three Decades, ed. by Julien Steinberg. Duell, Sloan and Pearce, N. Y. 1950, pp. 454–467.
Resolution of the VtsIK of the U.S.S.R. Council of People’s Commissars and the VTsSPS of June 23, 1933, U.S.S.R. Laws, 1933, No. 40, text 238 and No. 57, text 333. It goes without saying that the authority of the latter (VTsSPS) is not equal to the authority of the Commissariats (Ministries), and in case of conflict, it is the VTsSPS which has to yield.
Alexandrov and Genkin, op. cit., p. 106.
Resolution of the Presidium of the Central Council of Trade Unions concerning collective bargaining and the Decree of the U.S.S.R. Council of Ministers of February 4, 1947 (Izvestia, No. 42, 1947). More details in Labor Legislation, p. 15. See below notes 88–94.
Pasherstnik, op. cit., pp. 79, 82. Isaac Deutscher (Soviet Trade Unions, London & N.Y., 1950, p. 136) explains ‘the peculiar role’ of the Soviet Trade Unions not so much by the needs of planned economy as ‘by the application of planning to an extremely low level of economic and cultural development, the level at which Russia stood until recently.’ This statement has nothing in common with the facts of the development of trade-unionism during the period of NEP and gives the impression that the economic and cultural level in the Soviet Union became lower after the industrialization of the country and socialist education of the new generations of industrial workers. It is hardly I. Deutscher’s point.
Pravda, April 28, 1950, Slogan No. 47. The same functions are described in the editorial of Izvestia, April 7, 1950. In conformity with the Soviet pattern the Seventh Conference of the Representatives of the Trade Unions of the Chinese People’s Republic passed on May, 1952, the following Regulations: Trade-Union ‘unites the workers around the Chinese Communist Party,’ ‘Trade Union is a school of communism, an organ stimulating workers to fulfill the established norms of production and to increase production, as well as an agency for social insurance.’ ‘Overfulfillment of the plan and promoting nationalizations is the most important mission of the Chinese Trade-unions.’
Special Committees within the Unions have to administer dormitories and other living quarters of the workers and supervise their life as well, supervise their family life for helping their wives and relatives and let the workers ‘to fulfill and overfulfill the production.’ 36 Alexandrov and Genkin, op. cit., p. 28.
Article n of the Labor Code empowers the government to assign some work as a public service in case of an emergency. In practice, this right is used also for building and repairing roads. Members of kolkhozes have to fulfill this duty without charge for six days per year. Labor Legislation, p. 14, par. 5.
Ukase of June 26, 1940 (Vedomosti Verkhovnogo Soveta, No. 20, 1940).
Article 94 of the Labor Code.
Labor Legislation, pp. 167–168, pars. 2–5 and 11 (See the text to notes 78–80).
Ukase of June 26, 1940.
Resolution of the Council of People’s Commissars and the Central Council of Trade Unions, Collection of Laws, U.S.S.R., 1939, No. 1, text 1. This Resolution was motivated by the fact that some flitters’ were getting vacations after five and a half months work and then changing their jobs and getting a second vacation. (Labor Legislation, p. 173, section 1; also Sov. Gosudarstvo, 1939, No. 1, p. 80).
Labor Legislation, pp. 176–177.
U.S.S.R. Laws, 1940, No. 16, text 385.
Labor Legislation, p. 170, section 2.
Ibid., p. 166, notes to Art. 100.
The working conditions of these girls were shown in the picture, ‘A Great Life,’ a film which was ruthlessly criticized by the late Zhdanov and the Resolution of the CC of the ACP (b) of September 4, 1946.
R.S.F.S.R. Laws, 1932, No. 59, text 262. To reject a transfer is considered a violation of labor discipline. (Art. 37 (1) of the Labor Code).
The Ukases of October 2, 1940 and June 19, 1947 authorized the U.S.S.R. Council of Ministers to draft annually 800,000 to 1,000,000 boys 14 to 17 years of age and girls 15 to 16 for compulsory technical training.
Decree of the Council of People’s Commissars of January 20, 1943.
Alexandrov and Genkin, op. cit., pp. 435–445.
Labor Legislation, p. 65. See also Gsovski, Vol. I, p. 798, note 22; p. 806, note 52; and p. 813.
Paul Haensel, ‘A Survey of Soviet Labor Legislation, 1917–1941,’ Illinois Law Review, Vol. 36 (1942), pp. 529–544.
Anton Menger, The Right to the Whole Produce of Labor, MacMillan Co., 1899; also his Neue Staatslehre, 2-te Ausl., Jena, 1904.
P. I. Novgorodtsev and J. A. Pokrovsky, O Prave na Sushchestvovanie, St. Petersburg, 1911.
Ibid. Also J. A. Pokrovsky, Osnovnyia Problemy Grazhdanskogo Prava, Petrograd, 1917, PP. 317–323.
Before minimum wages had been established by special laws, it was possible to protect the interests of workers by referring to the general principles of modern civil codes; e.g. prohibitions against transactions contra bonos mores (contrainte morale) and against usury in the wider meaning. (Cf. sec. 138 of the German B.G.G. and Art. 21 of the Swiss Code, S.C.G.B.)
‘The establishment of minimum wage rates is no longer practiced. It was on December 5, 1927 that they were established for the last time.’ (Labor Legislation, p. 66, notes to Art. 59). There is, however, one exception. A minimum wage rate had been established in 1937 for industrial and transport workers, namely 115 rubles per month for those paid by the hour and no rubles for those paid by piece work. Such a minimum is undoubtedly insufficient as an existenz-minimum.
Labor Legislation, p. 69, notes to Art. 60.
Labor Legislation, p. 67. The system of remuneration for Soviet store personnel, based on the same principles of piece work rates, is described by Henry H. Ware in the American Slavic and East European Review, Vol. IX (February 1950), pp. 20–32.
Labor Legislation, p. 70, Nos. 21–23.
Ibid., p. 71, No. 28; and p. 77, No. 58.
A comparative study of wages in various capital towns published by the I.L.O. (International Labor Office) disclosed that wages in Moscow were below those of workers of other capitals. This publication was very badly received in the Soviet Union. Cf. Ch. Prince, ‘The U.S.S.R. and International Organizations,’ The A.J.I.L., July 1942, 425–445. About the purchasing power of hourly earnings in the Soviet Union as compared with other countries see Irving B. Kravis, ‘Work Time Required to Buy Food, 1937–50,’ in the Monthly Labor Review, February 1951.
See also Harry Schwartz, Russia’s Soviet Economy Prentice-Hall, N. Y. 1950, p. 457–68,
See also Harry Schwartz, and Materials of the Conference of the Emigre Scholars, issue V, Muenchen, 1951.
Law of June 10, 1934, R.S.F.S.R. Collection of Laws, 1934, No. 26, text 146.
Resolution of the Plenum of the CC of the ACP (b) carried on December 25, 1935, and the Decrees of the Council of People’s Commissars of June 4, 1938 and January 14, 1939 (Laws, U.S.S.R., 1938, No. 27, sec. 178, and 1939, No. 7, text 38). Stakhanov was a miner who, by introducing teamwork in the mines, was able to increase output substantially. Accordingly, any innovation in methods or organization of work which raises efficiency is called ‘Stakhanovite.’
Law of November 16, 1932 (R.S.F.S.R. Laws, 1932, No. 85, text 371).
Standard Labor-Regulations of January 18, 1941, U.S.S.R. Laws, 1941, No. 4, text 63.
Labor Legislation, p. 50, sec. 5, A detailed exposition of the Regulations may be found in the comments to Art. 51 of the Labor Code.
Rulings of the U.S.S.R. Supreme Court, 1943, Sixth Issue; and 1944, Third Issue. Yurizdat, 1944, pp. 3 and 5. Quoted in Labor Legislation, p. 60.
In conformity with the Soviet pattern the satellites introduce the same strict measures concerning labor discipline. See, for example, the Polish law of April 19, 1950, Art. 1, 4 (Cf. Sociologie et droit Slaves, Revue Trimestrielle, 1950, 1–4.). Factory Regulations in China established a deduction of 50.000 J.M.P. for one day absence and dismissal for unfulfillment of the production rate.
Labor Legislation, Comments to Art. 51, p. 58, No. 34.
Ibid., pp. 58–59, No. 37.
Partly translated by Gsovski, op. cit., Vol. II, No. 40.
Gsovski, op. cit., I, p. 805.
Art. 83 and 83 (1–6) of the Labor Code. Translated by Gsovski, op. cit., Il, pp. 543–547-
N. Alexandrov, Voprosy Truda v Sovetskom Zakonodatelstve, Profizdat, 1936, p.
65.
N. Alexandrov, Voprosy Truda v Sovetskom Zakonodatelstve, Profizdat, 1936, .Ibid., p. 48.
This is the main thesis of the dissertation of Z. A. Vyshinskaia, Crimes in the Field of Labor Relations, reviewed by Korshunova, Sovetskaia Kniga, No. 1, January 1950.
The tendency to increase the severity of penalties is characteristic of Soviet legislation in general. See Ch. XIV.
Grishin, op. cit., p. 169.
The Plenum of the U.S.S.R. Supreme Court ruled on December 25, 1941 that an intentional violation of the labor regulations for the purpose of dismissal will be considered an arbitrary quitting of the job punishable as a crime. See Labor Legislation, p. 52, sec. 32.
David Dallin, The Real Soviet Russia, N. Y. 1944, asserts that workers of the
pre-revolutionary period and members of former workers’ families constituted but a small minority, not exceeding 10 per cent, of the contemporary working class, at the time of the publication of his book in 1944.
Art. 176, Labor Code, and the Decree of February 13, 1930 (U.S.S.R. Laws, 1930, No. 11, text 132). A general characterization of the Soviet system of social insurance is given by A. S. Krasnopolskii, ‘O prirode sovetskogo gosudarstvennogo sotsialnogo strakhovaniia,’ Sov. Gos. i Pravo, June 1951, pp. 62–69.
Articles 7 and 20 of the Decree of February 29, 1932.
A veteran of the second category receives 34, 48 or 68 per cent of his earning depending on the kind of his disability, but every pension is estimated from an amount not exceeding 300 rubles per month. (Labor Legislation, p. 285, sec. 122, 125, and p. 290, sec. 148).
Ibid., p. 288, sec. 140 (b).
Since 1949, prices for some food and other necessities have been reduced every year. Such a measure can improve conditions of life if wages (piece-price) are not reduced simultaneously because of the increasing of norms of production.
Many Stakhanovites, disabled veterans, and disabled workers, as well as workers at shops where working conditions are hard and detrimental to health, are boarded and treated in sanatoriums free of charge. Rank and file workers pay 30 per cent of the cost of a sanatorium. E. Kiktenko, ‘Social Insurance in 1950,’ Trud, April 8, 1950.
Trud, February 19, 1947.
Trud, January 28, 1948.
‘Interests of workers and of the socialist economy are indentical ... When collective agreements are concluded between the trade-unions and administration, the economic plans and conditions of particular enterprises as well as interests of the national economy in whole have to be taken into account.’ (A. E. Pasherstnik, ‘Voprosy kollektivnogo dogovora v S.S.S.R.’ Sov. Gos. i Pravo, 1948, No. 4, pp. 40, 41).
See also Isaak Deutscher, Soviet Trade Unions, London & N. Y. 1950.
See Art. 15 of the Labor Code.
Pasherstnik, o.e. pp. 43–44. See also notes on ‘Collective Bargaining in the Soviet Union,’ Harvard Law Review, Vol. 62, 1949, pp. 1191–1206.
M. Weisberg, ‘The Transformation of the Collective Agreement in the Soviet Law,’ (XVI, Univ. of Chicago Law Rev. 1948–9, p. 481; Cf. V. M. Dogadov,‘ Etapyrazvitiia Sovetskogo Kollektivnogo Dogovora,’ Izvestia A kademii Nauk, Otdel Ekonomiki i Prava, 1948, No. 2, pp. 83–92;
also V. Gsovski, ‘Elements of Soviet Labor Law,’ Monthly Labor Review, 1951, March, pp. 257–262 ;
also V. Gsovski, ‘Elements of Soviet Labor Law,’ Monthly Labor Review, 1951, April, pp. 385–390.
Prof. Dogadov characterizes as the moral obligations of workers, if indicated in the collective agreements: ‘to prolong the working day, to eliminate flaws in manufacture, to carry out conscientiously and on time the programme of production, to safeguard, as sacred socialist property, equipment, instruments, materials and other property of the enterprise.’
Article 156 of the Labor Code.
Labor Legislation, pp. 223–226. Comments to Art. 146 of the Labor Code.
Lenin welcomed this statement. See Grishin, op. cit., p. 103. ‘Exactly, exactly,’ he wrote on the margin. ‘The worker’s share in the social product depends on the quantity and quality of his work,’ Dr A. E. Pasherstnik, Pravovye voprosy voznagrazhdeniia za trud rabochikh i sluzhashchikh. Moscow, 1949, p. 110.
Arts. 168–174 of the Labor Code.
Regulations concerning RKK of December 12, 1928, approved by the U.S.S.R. People’s Commissar of Labor. (Labor Legislation, pp. 253–254).
Labor Legislation, Comments to Art. 168, p. 243, No. 5.
Cf. Mariga Gordon, Workers before and after Lenin. N. Y. 1941.
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 1954 Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague, Netherlands
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Guins, G.C. (1954). Soviet Labor Law. In: Soviet Law and Soviet Society. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-0869-8_14
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-0869-8_14
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-94-015-0324-2
Online ISBN: 978-94-015-0869-8
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive