Soviet Workers and the Collapse of Perestroika The Soviet Labour Process and Gorbachev's Reforms, 1985–1991

A comprehensive analysis of the role of labour policy in the development and ultimate collapse of Mikhail Gorbachev's reforms.

Soviet Workers and 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, which required a thoroughgoing restructuring of the labour process within Soviet industry. When ultimately this policy 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.

Introduction: the roots and limits of perestroika; 1. Attempts to create a labour market: employment, unemployment, and the labour shortage; 2. Economic incentives: the disintegration of the 1986 wage reform; 3. Political incentives: enterprise 'democratization' and the emergence of worker protests; 4. 'Market mechanisms' and the breakdown of economic regulation; 5. The labour process under perestroika I: the politcal economy of working conditions; 6. The labour process under perestroika II: the failure of restructuring; Conclusion: the demise of perestroika and the emergence of class conflict.

A comprehensive analysis of the role of labour policy in the development and ultimate collapse of Gorbachev's reforms. Filtzer argues that initially perestroika was designed to modernize the Soviet economy while keeping the existing political and property relations of society intact, requiring a thorough restructuring of the labour process within Soviet industry.