JPRS ID: 10629 USSR REPORT POLITICAL AND SOCIOLOGICAL AFFAIRS THE CPSU AND HUMAN RIGHTS BY K.U. CHERNENKO

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JPRS V10629
2 Ju~Y 1982
I~SSR Re or~fi
p
POLITICAL AND SOCIOLOGICAI, AFFAIRS
CFOUO 22I82~
THE CPSU AND HUP~AN RIGfiTS
BY
K~ U ~ CHERNENKO
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I
JPRS L/1.0629
- 2 auly 1982
USSR REPORT
POLITICAL AND $OCIOLOGICAL AFFAIRS
(~oUO 22/s2~
THE CPSU AND HUMAN RIGHTS
- Bv
K. U~ E~HERNENKO
~ CONTENTS
The CPSU and Iiuman Rights
(KPSS I PRAVA CHELOVEKA, 1981) 1
PART I. Equality 5
Chap ter 1. The Friendship and t~raternity of Peoples 8
_ Chap ter 2. Concern About Soviet W'omen 19
PART II. Socioeconomic Rights 29
Chag ter 3. The Main Social Right 32
Chap ter 4. One of the Most Important Tasks 40
Chap ter 5. Completely at the Expense of the State and Soctety 52
Chap ter 6. Unremitting Attention to the Improvement of the Hausing
_ �Conditions of the Working People 60
PART III. Rights in the Area of Culture ..............................o.. 68
Chap ter 7. From Illiteracy to a Universal Compulsory Secondary
Education 71
Chap ter 8. The Achievements of Culture to the People 80
Chap ter 9. The Freedom of Creative Work 90
_ a _ [III - USSR - 35 FOUO]
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- PART IV. Political Rights and Freedoms 100
Chapter 10. The Soviet People Are the Master of Their Country...... 103
Chapter 11. Mass Organizations of the Working People 113
PART V. Pereonal Rights and Freedoms 127
Conclusion 135
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THE CPSU AI3D HUMAN RIGHTS
Moscow KPSS I PRAVA CHELOVF:KA in Russian 1981 (signed to press 6 Aug 81) pp 1-208
[Book "The C~~U and Human Rights" by K. U. Chernenko, Izdatel'stvo Agenstva pechs~i
Novosti, 50,OU0 copies, 208 pages]
[Text] Introduction
The problems of the freedom of the individual and democracy, human rights, equality
and humanism are among the most important problems of the present. They are on the
edge of the ideological confrontation of the two systems--socialism and capitalism,
the new ar.d the old world.
Imperialism is rowerless to turn back the march of history. Under the conditions
when the might and influence of the countries of the socialist community and the
communist and workers' movement are increasing and the liberation struggle of peo-
~les is spreading, the forces departing from the historical arena are doing every-
thing possible to prolong their existence. In striving to distract the working
people of their countries from *_he daily manifestatioz~s of the deepening general
crisis of capitalism, which rests on their shoulders as a heavier and heavier bur-
den, and in endeavoring to conceal the essence of bourgeois democracy, which de-
prives the man of labor of real rights and freedoms, bourgeois ideologists and prop-
agandi~ts are attempting in every possible way to represent imperialism as the cham-
pion of demacracy, *_he good and ~ustice. For this they are resorting, in particu-
lar, to concepts which a.re connected with what are called "natural" human righrs,
which are ostensibl~ not connected with a specif ic socioeconomic formation. On the
other hand, the fear of the increasing attractive force of real socialism and of
its achievements in the comprehensive meeting of the material and spiritual needs
- of the working people and in the development of democracy is forcing them to use
- various kinds of insinu~.tions, slander and falsif ications with respect to the Sovi-
et Union and the other socialist countries.
In recent times imperia.lism has brought to the forefront "the idea of a campaign in
defense of human rights," which are ostensibly being violated in the socialist coun-
tries, and particularly in the USSR. The campaign organized by the United States
has assumed not only an ideological, but also a political nature. The U.S. Govern-
- m,~nt has declared that "the defense of human rights" is becoming a most important
element of its foreign policy, that it "will concentrate its fire on violations of
human rights in the communist countries...."
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_ The fact that the calls for the defense of human rights in the world are coming
from a country in which the ulcers and vices of contemporary bourgeois society are
displayed in a most hypertrophied, distorted form, apparently, little disturbs the
organizers of this sensational campaign. Well, the debate imposed upon us provides
a good o~portunity for a comparison of the socialist and bourgeois ways of life,
for the contrast of the real rights and freedoms which the working people of the
Soviet Union and the United States have. "We have," L. I. Bre.zhnev noted, "r_~
reason to avoid a serious discussion of human rights. Our revolution and the tri-
umph of socialism in our country not only proclaimed, but also truly guaranCeed the
rights of the worl;ing man of any nationality, the rights of the masses of millions
- of working people--as capitalism has not been able to do in a single country of the
world."1
Man is the greatest asset of our society. Having sprung from Great October, it
gave the Soviet people previously unhe~rd of rights and freedoms, which found their
sanction and develo~ment in the RSFSR Constitution of 1"!18 and in the USSR Constitu-
tions of 1924 and 1936. The building of mature socialism enabled us to improve con-
siderably the provisions of the Fundamental Law on the rigints of Soviet citizens.
_ The 1977 USSR Constitution grants them a set of rights and freedoms, wh~ch covers
all spheres of. e~onomic, political, social and spiritual life and affords the Soviet
- people the greatest freedom for the display of all their abilities. Everything in
the name of man, for the good of man-~-such is the theme which runs through all its
articles. The famous words of the Communist Manifesto "the free development of
each person is a condition of the free development of all"2 have become the funda-
mental constitutional principle of our state.
- It should especially be emphasized that the rights and freedoms of Soviet citizens
not only are proclaimed by the Constitution, but are also guaranteed by economic,
political, legal and other means. In Lenin's words, "the center of gravity is
shifting /from/ [in boldface] the formal /recognition/ [in italics] of free~oms (as
was the case under bourgeois parliamentariani.sm) /to/ boldface] the actual guar-
antee of the /exercise/ [in italicsJ of freedoms on the part of the working people,
who are overthrowing the exploiters."3 The new USSR Constitution not- only expands
considerably the grosp ~f rights and freedoms of the Soviet people, but also taices
a signif icant step forward in the matter of broadening and strengthening their
guarantees.
- The leading role of the Communist Party is the most important guarantee of the ex-
ercise of the rights of the working people. From the Leninist documents of the
period of the formation of the revolutionary party of the working class to the de-
cisions of the party congresses and the decrees of the CPSU Central Committee of re-
cent years the concerr_ about the welfare of man and about the all-round, harmonious
development cf the individual has been the main content of all its theoretica.l and
' practical activity, bF: it questions of foreign pc~l.icy, th~ -;olution of a complex
set of economic, sociopolitical or ideological educational problems. Precisety the
party was ttie initiator and organizer of the framing of all the Soviet constitu-
tions.
The 26th CPSU Congress once again emphasized that our main goal is a lasting peace
and welf are of the people. The program of the further increase of the well-being
of the Soviet people and the strengthening of the material and spiritt~al bases of
tlie socialist way of ~ife are providing the conditions for the more and more com-
plete development of the rights and freedoms of the individual.
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In the West they often restrict the concept of human rights, excluding from it
socioeconomic rights. It is w~.ll known th~t the rights to work, to a free higher
- education and to free me~ical service are not even recorded in the ma~ority of
bourgeois constitutions. It 'tis no mere chance, therefore, that imperialist propa-
ganda says nothing about these rights.
~de, in the USSR, include in ~he concept of the rights of a citizen, along with
political 3nd personal rights, socioeconomic rights. The treatment of human
rights as a unified set, which constitutes the content of the legal status of the
~ individual in society, is characteristic of socialist democracy. We proceed on the
basis that precisely socioeconomic rights and freedoms constitute the real basis
for the exercise of the political and personal rights and freedoms of a person. ~
- A citizen can feel truly free and equal only when he is free from exploitation and
social oppression, if he is provided an opportunity to participate in the manage-
- ment of state and public affairs. We believe that the truly free person should be
sure about tomorrow and about the fac: that he will never be deprived cf the means
of existence. He shoula also be sure that the state is watching over his rights
- and freedoms, that a material basis has been placed under his rights and freedoms.
This becomes a realiry only on the basis of a socialist economic system, which
rules out the possibility of the appropriation of the results of the labor of
others and places at the dispusal of man all physical and spiritual values.
The Soviet concep~ of human rights by no means conflicts with the provisions of the
most important international documents, beginning with the Universal Declaration of
Human Rights, which ~�as adopted more than three decades ago, and ending with docu-
ments o� a later peri.od--the International Pact on Economic, 8ocial and Cul~ural
Ri~hts and the Interriational Pact on Civil and Political Rights.
Recent decisions of �the United Nations once again confirm the fruitfulness of such
' an appr.oach to human rights. In a resolution, which was adopted by the Third Com-
- mittee (Social, Humanitarian and Cultural) of the UN General Assembly (T?ecem-
~ ber 1980), it is st~ted: "...For the complete guarantee of human rights and the
full dignity of the human personality it is necessary to guarantee the right to
work, ~~.he participation of working people in management, as well as the right to an
educatiun, m~dical service and the proper diet...." In th~ resolution it is noted
that "it is necessary to devote identical attention" to the defense of "both civil
and political rights and 2conomic, social and cultural rights."
It is typical that the U.S. delegation voted against this resolution. For the need
to guarantee the very rights which are absent in America is discussEd in the
adopted documPnt.
Soviet legislation in this area gaes much farther than the international pacts,
since broader g~iarantees of the rights and freedoms of the individual are stipu-
lated in it. For example, the International Pact on Economic, Social and Cultural
Rights envisages compliance with the right of each person to an education. In the
USSR not only elementary, but also secondary and hig~er education are free. An-
other article of the same pact speaks about the right to the protection of health,
including the provision of inedical assistance and care in case of illness. The
USSR Constitution provides for not only free and skilled medical assistance for all
citizens in case of illness, but also a large number of other measures which are
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aimed 3t the protection of the health and the assurance of a long active life of
citizens. The Soviet Union was one of the first in the world to record in its
Fundamental Law the right to housing. This right is not present in the interna-
~ tional pacts on human rights.
It should be emphasized that in our country the exercise of rights and freedoms
is inseparable from the fulfillment of civic duties. Each Soviet individual is ob-
_ ligated to observe the USSR Constitution: and Soviet laws, to respect th2 rules of
- socialist community life and to bear with dignity the lofty title of USSR citizen.
- The Const~tution requires that socialiat property be guarded and consolidated,
that the interests of the Soviet state be protected and that the consolidation of
its might and authority be promoted. The defense of the socialist homeland, the
promotion of the development of friendship and cooperation with peoples of other
countries, the support and str~ngthening of world peace are the patriotic and inter-
national duty Qf Soviet citizens. The USSR Constitution also stipulates a number
of other civic duties.
,
Our party is steadfastly pursuing the policy: the fulfillment by the Soviet people
of their duties is just as necessary an element of democracy as is the exercise of
rights and freedoms.
From the lack of rights to all-embracing guaranteed rights and freedoms--such is
the path traversed by the working people of our country under the guidance of the
Leninist party. It was a difficult, unexplored road. What we started from, what
paths we took, what difficulties and obstacles we overcame in so doing and, final- ~
_ ly, w~at the right~ and freedoms of the Soviet people are today and what the role
and attitude of the CPSU toward these questions are, are told about in this book.
FOOTNOT~S
~ 1. L. I. Brezhnev, "Leninskim kursom" [By the Leninist Course~, Vol 4, Moscow,
1974, p 337.
2. K. Mar.x and F. Engels, "Soch." [Works], Vol 4, p 447.
_ 3. V. I. Lenin, "Poln. sobr, soch." [Complete WorksJ, Vol 36, pp 73-74.
R
!
.
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PART I. EQUALITY
In the Marxist-Leninist interpretation equality is the requirement of identical
polir_ical rights for all the citizens of. the state. "...When socialists speak of
equality," V. I. Lenin indicat~d, "they always understand by it /social/ [in ital-
ics] equality, the equality of social status...."1
Ttie idea of social equality has a centuries-old hYS~ory. Since the time that human
society c~as split into classes and private property and the exploitation of nan by
man arose, it has acted as a mightiy motive force in the historical process.
At one time the bourgeoisie also adopted this idea in the struggle against feudal-
ism. However, after coming to power, it confined itself to the declaration of the
formal lega2 equality of everpone before the law, but retained the private owner-
ship of the means of production. The exploitation of man by man and, consequently,
- social inequality were thereby legitimized. "At e3ch step in the most democratic
bourgeois state," V. I. Lenin wrote, "the oppressed masses encounter a flagrant
contradiction between /formal/ [in italics] equality, which the 'democracy' of the
capitalists proclaims, and thousands of /actual/ [in italics] restrictions and con-
trivances, which mak2 the proletarians /hired slaves/ [in italics]. Preciselv this
contradiction is opening the eyes of the masses to the rottenness, mendacity and
hypocrisv of capitalism."2
Marxism-I~eninism teaches that only the destruction of the main sources of ~ocial
inequality--the private ownership of the means of production and the exploitation
of man by man--creates the prerequisites for the achievement of genuine social
equality. "...Genuine, actual equality cannot exist," V. I. Lenin indicated, "un-
til every possibility of the exploitation of one class by another has been com-
pletely eliminated."3
As a result of the victory of the Great October Socialist Revolution firm bases of
equality were created in our country. In the political field there was the estab-
lishment of the power of the workers and peasants. In the econa~ic field there was
the nationalization of the land, the main means of production and banks. In the
social field there were the abolition of all national and national republic privi-
_ leges, the elimination of the estates, ranks, titles and grades, the proclamation
of the equality and sovereignty of all the peoples of Russia, the establishment of
a single title--citizen of the Russian Soviet Republic.
The Third All-Russian Congress of Soviets, which was held in January 1918, adopted
"Thz Declaration of the Rights of Working and Exploited People," which was signed
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by V. I. Lenin. In it there was set at the main task "...the abolition of all ex-
ploitation of man by man, the complete elimination of the di~�ision of society into
- classes, the merciless suppression of the opposition of the exploiters, the estab-
lishment of a socialist organization of society...."4
= Under the conditions of the most vicious s~ruggle, which the remains of the exploit-
ing classes launched against Soviet power, our party and~state, of course, were not
able to immediately grant a]1 citizens equal r.ights. The RSFSR Constitution of
1918 proclaimed: "Guided b~i the interests of the working class as a whole, the
- Russian Socialist Federated Soviet Republic deprives individual persons and in-
dividual groups of the rigY~ts which are exercised by them to the detrlment of the
socialist revolution." Th~ nonworking elements were restricted in political and
socioeconomic rights. The honorable right to defend the revolution with arms in
hand was granted only to t:he working people. The subsequent course of events com-
pletely confirmed the correctness of this solution of the question of equality.
~ With the building of socialism and the elimination of the remains of the exploiting
classes all USSR citizens were placed in an equal position with respect to the
means of production. An equal opportun�ity to work, to make use of spiritual values,
to display their abilities in science, art, sociopolitical activity and others was
~ granted to them. The previously established restrictions in rights were abolished.
This found its ratificatioii in the USSR Constitution of 1936.
Now the Soviet peo~le are living uiider the conditions of a mature socialist soci-
ety. It guarantees the equality of working people in all areas of economic, polit- -
ical, social and cultural life. Our Constitution ensures the equality of all So-
viet citizens before the law regardless of origin, so~ial and property status, ra-
cial and national aff iliation, sex, education, language, attitude toward religion,
type and nature of occspation, place of residence and other circumstances. All
citizens of the union republics are USSR citizens, equal members of the fraternal
family of p~oples who inhabit our country.
Socialist equality presumes not only the equal rights, but also the equal duties of
citizens, which they have to society and the state. It was F. Engels who wrote
that "/equal duties/ [in italics] are for us an especially important addition to
bourgeois democratic /equal rights/ [in italics], which deprives the latter of
their specifically bourgeois meaning."5
Under socialism there are no such classes or social groups, no such people, who
enjoy privileges in the exercise af rights or are exempt from the performance of
duties. The reauirements of the law are equally binding for all Soviet people. No
exceptions can be made to this basic rule. "The awareness that he is equal in
rights with the other members of society, can always count on a just, respectful
attitude6toward himself...," L. I. Brezhnev indicated, "is important to every
person." ~
It should be noted that the distribution of material wealth in socialist society is
carried out only with allowance made for the quantity and qtiality of labor. Here,
of course, more skilled labor is paid more. But already now, at the stage of ma-
ture socialism, a high degree of the equalization of the socioeconomic status of
the members of society is being achieved.
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Public consumption funds are playing an especially great role here. Free training
and the improvement of skills, free medical assistance, grants, pensions, stipend~
for students, pay for regular leave, free travel authorizations to sanatoriums aT:d
vacation homes dnd travel authorizations at concessionary prices, the upkeep of
children at preschool institutions and a number of other payments and benefits are
_ provided from them. The state with the extensive participat3on of public organi~a-
- tions and labor collectives is ensuring the increase and fair distribution of these
funds.
_ The centuries-old struggle of the working people for their liberation is insepara-
bly connected with the struggle for national equality and the emanCipation of
women. How the ~ust solution of the nati4nal question and the equality �~f women
and men were accomplished in our country under the guidance of the Co~unist Party
will be discussed below.
FOOTTIOTES
1. V. I. Lenin, "Poln. sobr. so~h." [Complete Works), Vol 24, p 364.
- 2. Ibid., Vol 37, p 255.
3. Ibid., p 262.
~ 4. Ibid., Vol 35, p 221.
5. K. Marx and F. Engels, "Soch." [Works], Val 22, p 235.
6. L. I. Brezhnev, "Leninskim kursom" [By the Leninist Course], Vol 5, Moscow,
1976, p 70.
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CHAPTER 1. THE FRIENDSH7i E~.ND FRATERNIxY OF PEOPLES
USSR citizens of different races and na-
- tionalities have equal rights.
From Article 36 of the USSR Constitution
More than 100 different nations and national~ties, the size of which is from
137 million (Russians) to 504 (one of the nationalities of the Far East--the Negi-
dals), live in our country. All of them, in conformity with the USSR Constitution,
have equal rights. This is one of the main achievements of socialism.
K. Marx and F. ~ngels lir~ked the solution of the national question with the class
struggle of the proletariat. "Along with the antagonism of the classes within na-
tions the hostil~e relations of natians among themselves will also decrease,"1 it
- is stated in the Communist Manifesto.
V. I. Lenin crestively 3eveloped the ideas of the founders of scientific communism.
During the era when imperialism aggravated the national conflicts to the utmost,
he developed the theory of the national questian, showed the role of the national
liberation struggle and elaborated the scientific principles of the national policy
of the Couaaunist Party.
V. I. Lenin discovered the law of two opposing trends in the national question un-
der the conditions of capitalism. "Developing capitalism," he wrote, "knows two
histor.ical trends in the national qu~stion. The f irst: the awakening of national
life and national movements, the struggle against any national oppression, the cre-
ation of national states. The second: the development and increase of the frE:-
quency of all kinds of relations among nations, the breakdown of national barriers,
the creation of the international unity of capital, of economic life in general,
politics, science and so on."Z
Both of these trends are in irreconcilable contradiction under imperialism. The
internationalization of socioeconomic life takes place here not by the cooperation
of equal nation~, but by the subordinatie:., as was the case in prerevolutionary
Russia, of the le~s developed nations to the more developed ones. This inevitably
evokes t1:2 resistance of the peoples whb do not en~oy full rights. That is why,
along with the tendency of unification, the tendency toward the eradication of the
~ forcible forms of this unification is growing.
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Tsarist Russia was called a prison of peoples. The non-Russian peoples, who made
up 57 percent of the population, were completely without rights, were subject to
rapac~ous exploitation and suffered humiliations and insults. In the outlying na-
tional regions of Russia, which had the status of colonies and semicolonies, tsar-
ist governors or governor generals threw their weight around unchecked. The work-
ing people languished here under double oppression--that of the local and Russian
landowners and that of the capitalists.
The policy of the tsarist government was simed not only at oppressing the peoples,
but also at stirring up national animosity and hatred. Such a policy helped the
classes which had been in power to oppress the working people.
Our party proceeded from the fact that the unification of the working people, re-
, gardless of their national affiliation, in the cou~non struggle for a new social
system, which was free of all types of oppression and exploitation, is the main
thing in the solution of the national question. However, such a union could be
lasting only on the condition of voluntariness and the mutual trust of nations.
Therefore, "the right to self-determination for all the nations included in the
state"3 was one of the basic requirements of the first Party Program.
If we require succession for all oppressed and underprivileged nations without ex-
ception, V. I. Lenin explained, "it is not at all because /we are for the succes-
sion/ [in italics] of them, but /only/ [in italics] because we are for /free, volun-
tary/ [in italics] convergence and merging, and not for forcible convergence and
merging. /Only/ [in italics] for this reason!"4
For those peoples who wish to remain within the unified state, the party demands
the broadest autonomy; the promulgation of special laws which would guarantee the
free development of national minorities; the complete equality of citizens regard-
less of race and nationality; the right of every citizen to speak at meetings in
his native language; the introduction of the native language at all local public
and state institutions and o~hers. It customarily confirmed these demands in the
decisions of its congresses and conferences right up to the Great October So~ial-
ist Revolution.
The national policy of the Co~nunist Party won it the sympathy and support of the
broad masses. The program slogan of the right of nations to self-determination at-
tracted the oppressed peoples of Russia to the side of the proletariat and its
party and contributed to the education of the working class in the spirit of pro-
letarian internationalism and to the joining of the national libexation movement
with the all-worker and peasant movement into a united front.
_ In the class battles the fighting unity of the proletarians of all nationalities
grew stronger, the alliance of the working class and the working peasantry of all
the peoples as a powerful international revolutionary force arose. The Communist
Party, which united in its ranks the working people of different nationalities,
acted as the cementing nuclear of this alliance from the moment of its creation.
All this was one of the decisive things, which governed the victory of Soviet power
in the outlying national regions of Russia, undermined the old national animosity
and served as the basis of the emergence and development of the movement for the
unification of the peoples into a free and fraternal union.
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The Great October Socialist Revolution was the main political condition of the im-
plemer.tation of Lenin's national program. On 25 October 1917* the Second All-
Russian Congress of Soviets in the appeal "To the Workers, Soldiers and Peasants!"
solemnly declared that Soviet power would provide all the nations of Russia with
the real right to self-determination. Within the Council of People's Commissars
- (the Soviet Government), which wa~ formed by the congress, the People's Commissar-
iat for Nationalities was created for the practical imnlementation of the national
policy.
On 2 November 1917 the Council of People's Commissars adopted "The Declaration of ,
the Rights of the Peoples of Russia," in which there were proclaimed the equality
and sovereignty of the peoples of Russia; their right to free self-determination,
up to succession and the formation of an independent state; the abolition of every
and all national and national religious prisileges and restrictions; the free de-
~ velopment of the national minorities and ethnic groups, which inhabit the territory
of Russia.
In December 1917 the Soviet Government iecognized the national independence of the
Ukraine and Finland.
The working masses of the outlying national districts greeted with enormous enthu-
siasm the news about the socialist revolution. "We, the farm laborers anc~ Kirghiz
poor from Narynskiy Uyezd," it was stated in one of the documents from those times,
"greet the power of ~the soviets and the leaders of the proletariat in the person of
~he Communist Party, express sincere gratitude to them for liberating us from the
oppression, exploitation and coercion of the hated bourgeois system.
"We vow to no longer permit the dominion of rich landowners, manap [pl manapy] and
kulaks and to keep the enemies of the revolution under strict surveillance, to de-
stroy them mercilessly."5
During the first postrevolutionary years independent Soviet republics emerged on the
territory of the former Russian Empire. The first of them--the Russian Republic--
was founded as a federation, as a free union of free nations. Fotlowing it the
Ukrainian and Belorussian, then the Azerbaijan, Armenian and Georgian Soviet Repub-
lics were formed. Autonomous state formations of different peoples also emerged.
"We have given /a11/ [in italics] the non-Russian nationalities /their own/ [in
italics] republics or autonomous oblasts,"6 wrote V. I. Lenin, who con~idered the
creation of the national state system of the peoples of our country to be one of the
_ most important achievements of the October Revolution.
The bourgeoisie and its accomplices--the Mensheviks and Social Revolutionaries--
said at that time that the Bolsheviks were striving to destroy the multinational
state. In reality it was not the communists, but the bourgeois nationalists, who
were seeking the breakup of Kussia. Whereas prior to October they were for a
"united indivisible" bourgeois Russia and strove only for the granting of intern~al
autonomy, following the victory of the revolution they began to fight for the split-
ting upof the fo~er Russian Empire into individual bourgeois border states. This
was an antinational policy.
*The dates of 1917 are given in Old Style--Fditor.
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The Communist Party directed the unifying movement of the peoples. It led the
- masses with the greatest patience and caution to th~ practical solution of the prob-
lem of creating a united confederate multinational Soviet state.
Whereas during the f irst period after the victory of October, when the working peo-
_ ple of the different nat~onalities felt independent for the first time, their Co-
operation did not yet have an entirely definite, strictly established form, during
the period of the civil war and foreign intervention it assumed the form of a close
military-political alli~nce. The pooling of economic and military resources and
the fraternal solidarity of the Soviet peoples ensured their victory over the do-
mestic and foreign counterrevolution.
During the postwar period, when the questions of the restoration of the war-torn
economy were brought to the forefront, the military alliance was augmented by an
economic alliance. During 1920-1921 the relations of close mutual assistance of
the independent Soviet republics were consolidated in a number of treaties.
At the same time the problems of defending the gains of the revolution against in-
ternal and external enemies, of eliminating the economic dislocation and building
socialism advanced more and more urgently the need for the state unification of the
Soviet republics. Under the circumstances of the capitalist encirclement none of
them, taken separately, could consider itself guaranteed against economic attrition
and military defeat on the part of world imperialism.
Our National Anthem begins with the wurds: "Great Russia has united for ever the
indestructible union of free republics." Precisely the Russian Soviet Federated
Socialist Republic became the center of the unification of all the peoples of our
� country. The largest centers of industry and culture were located here. The Rus-
- sian Federat~on gave the other Soviet republics military-political, diplomatic,
economic and cultural assistance. The Russian proletariat, which was steeled in
the revolutionary battles, opened the way to a new society to all the previously
oppressed nati.ons and nationalities. ~
At that time the RSFSR was the only country in the world, in which the experience
of *_he peaceful cohabitation and cooperation of a large number of nations and na-
tiona.lities on the basis of their mutual trust and voluntary aspiration for union
turned out well.
The lOth party congress, basing itself on the experience of the RSFSR, wrote down
i.n its resolution on the national question: "The federation of Soviet regublics,
which is based on the common character of military and economic affairs, is that
common form of state alliance, which makes it possible: a) to ensure the integrity
and economic deuelopment of both the individual republics and the federation as a
whole; b) to encompass all the diversity of the life, culture and economic status
of the different nations and nationalities, which are at different stages of de-
velopment,~and in conformity with this to use une form of federation or another;
c) to organize the peaceful cohabitation and fraternal cooperation of the nations
and nationalities, which in one way or another have linked their own fate with
the fate of the federation."~
The First All-Union Congress of Soviets, :~hich was held on 30 December 1922, on the
- basis of the free will of the peoples, proclaimed the formation of the Union of
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Soviet Sociali~t Republics (the USSR). The first USSR Constitution (1924) consoli-
dated legislatively the unification of the Soviet republics into a united multina-
tional state on the basis of their sovereignty and full equality.
All the subsequent experience of the Soviet national-state system confirmed the
_ vital strength of these basic Leninist principles. "The Union of Soviet Socia.list
Republics,.'.' it is stated in the USSR Constitution of 1977, "is a united multina-
tional union state, which was formed on the basis of the principle of socialist
federalism, as a result of the free self-determination of nations and the voluntary
unification of the equal Soviet socialist republics."
Let us note in this connection that in contrast to the Soviet Union the bourgeois
federations were created not on the basis of the voluntary desire of their members,
but by means of coercion, often with the resistance to this of a portion of the
united states, at times by means of various methods of the acquisition of terri-
tories (seizure, purchase and so on). Usually they are the administration consoli-
dation of territories which ~~re not connected with the national composition of the
population, with the boundaries of the habitation of individual nationalities. For
example, in the United St~tes there are 50 states, but not mor~e than 7 basic na-
tional groups. At the same time the representatives of such ~n indigenous national-
ity as the Indians do not have here their Qwn national-state formation.
Exercising the right to self-determination, the numerous nations and nationalities
of our country established during the years of Soviet power various forms of the
national ~tate system: union and autonomous republics, autonomous oblasts and oxrugs,.
The number of national state organizations increased. Thus, whereas in 1924 tliere
were 4 union repu~lics, 13 autono~:ous republics and 13 autonomous oblasts, now
15 union republics, 20 autonomous republics, 8 autonomous oblasts and 10 autonomous
okrugs belong to the USSR.
The USSR as a confederate state is based on the principle of democratic centralism,
which makes it possible to combine in the best way the common, international inter-
ests of all the peoples of the Soviet Union with the national interests of the re-
publics. Here centralism concerns the basic questions of the leadership of the
country as a whole, which is dictated by the requirements of the socialist economy
and by the interests of the sociopolitical and spiritual development of society and
the defense of the country. But it operates in fundamental interrelationship with
democracy, with the broad independence of the republics and the unhampered develop-
ment of their initiative.
/In accordance with the USSR Constitution, all the union republics are sovereign
Soviet socialist states/ [in boldface]. This means that they retain their inde-
pendence and freedom in the exercise of state power in all matters of political,
_ economic, cultural and public lif e, with the exception of those which belong to
the jurisdiction of the USSR.
The sovereign rights of the union republics are backed by rea~ guarantees. Each
of them has its own constitution, which corresponds to the US~R Constitution and
takes into account the national features of the republic and its citizenry, solves
by itself questions of the administrative and territorial system and has the right
to enter into relations with foreign states. The territory of the union republic
cannot be altered without its consent. The right of free succession from the USSR
is reserved for each union republic.
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The Supreme Soviet of the union republic is the sole legislative organ which is
competent to settle all questions which have been assigned to the jurisdiction o.�
the union republic by the USSR Constitution and the constitution of the union re-
public.
In addition to the nationality, which gave the name to the republic, other pecples
and national groups, which are characterized by the uniqueness of economic develop-
ment, the way of life, culture and other features, liv~ on the territory of several
union republics. They have national territorial autonomy of one level or another.
The autonomous republic is a Soviet socialist state, which is a part of tt-~a union
republic. It has its own constitution, but also has the right to promulgate within
its competence laws which conform to the constitutions and laws of the TJSSR and the
union republic, has its own higher organs of state power and organs of state govern-
ment and its own citizenry. The territory of the autonomous republic cannot be al-
tered without its consent.
The autonomous oblast is also included in the union republic. It en~oys self-
government in its internal affairs and has its own national organs of state power
and state government.
The autonomous flkrug is a form of the autonomous Soviet state system of the small
nationalities of the Far North. It ensures them administrative self-government on
questions of domestic life, has local national organs of state power and government.
The autonomous okrugs (some of them unite two or more nationalities) are within
krays and oblasts, which is conducive to the quickest possible development of the
economy and culture of small peoples.
The rights of the autonomous oblasts and okrugs are backed by the corresponding
laws of the union republic of which they are a part. ~
/In conformity with the USSR Constitution the Soviet Union is based on the principle
of the equality of the unified union republics/[in boldface] regardless of the size
of their population, the amount of territory, the level of economic development and
any other features.
The formation of the highest organ of state power of the country--the USSR Supreme
Soviet--which consists of two equal chambers (the Council of the Union and the
Council of Nationalities) is a guarantee of equality. Both chambers consist of an
equal number of deputies, and equal representation from each union republic (32 re-
presentatives each) is exercised in the Council of Nationalities. Moreover, each
autonomous republic, oblast and okrug is represented in the Council of National-
ities accordingly by an equal number of deputies (11, 5 and 1).
National equality is also secured by the fact that the right to participate in the
~ settlement of questions, which are assigned to the competence of the USSR, in the
USSR Supreme Soviet, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, the USSR Government and
other organs of the Soviet Union has been granted to each union republic. The union
republics have the right of legislative initiative. Each of them is represented in
the Presidium of the USSR Supreme Soviet (in the person of one of the deputy chair-
men) and in other all-union organs.
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All the autonomous republics, oblasts and okrugs are represented in the Supreme
_ Soviets of the corresponding union republics subject to the size of their popula-
tion. The representative of the autonomous republic is one of the deputy chairm~n
of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the union republic.
The equal legal opportunity to use one's native language and the languages of the
other peoples of our country in schools, in the press, on radio and television is
granted to USSR citizens. The laws of the USSK, the decrees and uther acts of the
USSR Supreme Soviet are published in the languages of the union republics. This
principle is also strictly implemented in the activity of the courts.
Criminal and other liability for the violation of national equality has been estab-
li~hed in our country. In accordance with the USSR Constitution, any direct or in-
direct restriction of rights, the establishment of direct or indirect advantages of
citizens according to racial or national attributes, as well as any advocacy of ra-
cial or national exclusiveness, animosity or disrespect, are punished in accordance
with the law. "The duty of every USSR citizen," it is stated in the Con~titution,
"is to respect the national dignity of other citizens, to strengthen the friendship ,
of the nations and nationalities of the Soviet multinational state."
~ Legal equality, which was established during the first days of Soviet power, did
not yet imply, however, the complete and final settlement of the national question.
/One of the main political goals of the party was to put an end to actual inequal-
ity, to overcome the economic and cultural backwardness of the formerly oppressed
nations and nationalities/ [in boldface]. This required considerable time. It was
the lOth party congress that indicated that "the elimination of actual national in-
eq:~ality here is a lengthy procESS which requires the determined and persistent
struggle against all vestiges of national oppression and colonial servitude."8
- Basing itself on the ideas of the founders of scientific communism and taking into
account the historical peculiarities of the peoples of the former tsarist colonies
(Kazakhstan, Central Asia, the Caucasus and the North), the party set the task to
bring them to socialism, bypassing the capitalist stage of development. The policy
of the rapid economic, cultural and social development of the outlying national re-
gions was adopted.
The firm conviction that economic equality is the basis of actual equality was the
starting point of this policy. The formation of the USSR afforded extensive oppor-
tunities for the solution of this problem. The Communist Party and the Soviet
state, having concentrated the material resources of the republics, channelled them
into the creation of the material and technical base of socialism on the scale of
~ the entire country. In a historical short period, in 10-12 years, modern, `irst of
all heavv, industry was created in our country by the efforts of all the peoples.
The inc~ustrialization of the union republics was a component of the overall program
- of the cfeation of the material and technical base of socialism. The rational dis-
tribution af productive forces with allowance made for both the needs of the eco-
nomic development of the entire country and the problems of the development of the
economy of the formerly backward outlying national districts played an enormous
role here. The extensive development of natural resources and the construction of
industrial complexes were launched in the regions of Central Asia and Kazakhstan,
- in Transcaucasia, Siberia and the Far Eas~, in the Urals and the Volga River area,
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that is, in those regions, the population of which to a considerable extent was
made up of previously oppressed nations and nationalities. The merging of the eco-
nomic potFntials a~:~d resources of all the republics expedited the economic develop-
- ment of Fach of them and the equalization ~f the levela of this development. For
a long p~*iod the subsidies from the union budget to the republics of Central Asia
and Kazakhstan exceeded their revenues.
Our party a:ad state devoted much attention to the solution of the problem of the ~
socialist transformation of the agriculture of the national republics and the
changeov~:r of the masses of many millions of peasants to the path of collectiviza-
tion. Vast assets were allocated for the construction of machine and tractor
stations and hay-cutting machine stations, the implementation in Central Asia of a
land and water reform, the changeover of n~mads to a settled way of life and other
measures..
The material, political and organizatic?nal assistance on the part of the working
class and all the working people of the developed regions of the USSR was the deci-
sive condition of the rapid economic development of the republics of Central Asia,
Kazakhstan and Transcaucasia. This unselfish assiatance took the form of a con-
sistent and comprehensive direction, which was elaborated by the party, of the all-
union economic policy. The Russian working class and the Russian people agreed to
sacrifices in the name of the overcoming of the backwardness of the outlying na-
tional districts, seeing in this their lofty international duty. Whereas in 1940
the gross output of RSFSR industry had increased sixfold as compared with 1928,
in Kazakhstan and Georgia, for example, it had increased eightfold, in Tajikistan
and Armenia--ninefold, in Kirghizia--l0-fold.
Our party considered as one af the most important tasks in the settlement of the
national question the elimination of the cultural backwardness of rhe previously
oppressed peoples. It was also possible to accomplish this task only with compre-
hensive assistance and a high rate of cultural const~uction. In the shortest pos-
sible time an end was put to mass illiteracy in the national regions. They were
- covered by a network of schools, libraries, clubs, tekl:nikums, higher educational
institutions and scientific institutions. The party and the state sent to the
former outlying districts of Russia technical specialists, physicians, educators,
cultural workers and others. Additional assets were allocated for the needs of
public health and education. Great privileges in the enrollment in higher educa-
tional institutions were given to national personnel. The result was significant
gains in the development of culture, which were made in all the union republics.
The development of modern industry, the socialist reorganization of agriculture
and cultural construction enabled the once oppressed people, who had been without
rights and were at different stages of social development--from the patriarchal-
tribal to the capitalist system--in a historically short period to overcome their
economic and cultural backwardness and to achieve all-round prosperity.
~ It should especially be emphasized that /the inviolable friendship of the peoples
of the Soviet Union was one of the most important achievements of socialism/ [in
boldface]. Tnis friendship, which by right we are proud of today, is the result
of the overcoming of the vestiges which we inherited from the era of national op-
pression. There was among them, in particular, great power chauvinism--the
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reflection of the~past privileged status of the Russian nationality. Moreover,
among a number of peoples, who had not yet been able to free themselves from the
old national resentments, nationalism made itself felt. It goes without saying
that both of these phenomena hindered the cause of the actual unification of the
republics intc a single state union.
The resolute struggle against nationalistic vestiges, and first of all great power
chauvinism, was one of the most important tasks of our party. In rallying the
working people in the struggle for the building of a socialist society on the plat-
form of socialist internationalism, it demanded the consideration of the national
- feelings of each people. "In any case," it was indicated in the second Party Pro-
gram, "particular care and particular attention to the vestiges of national feel-
ings among the working masses of the nations which were oppressed or were without
rights are necessary on the part of the proletariat of those nations which were
oppressing nations."9 As a result of the implementation of Lenin's national policy
during the years of the building of socialism the feelings of past distrust of
- the peoples for each other were replaced by the feelings of mutual friendship and
fruternity.
The Great Patriotic War was a rigorous test of the durability of the Soviet multi-
~ national state. Fascism, when preparing for war, was convinced of its collapse,
of the revival of national internecine wars. Goering's "green folder" ordered the
fascist off icers: "In the Baltic countries to use in the interests of Germany the
conflicts between Lithuanians, Estonians, Latvians, Russians.... In the south--
the existence of conflicts between Ukrainians a*~d Russians.... In the Caucasus--
the conf licts between the natives: Georgians, Armenians, Tatars and Russians."10
However, the war smashed these plans of the enemy. The friendship of the peoples
of the USSR, which had been cemented during the years of the building of socialism,
was one of the main sources of the vict~ry of the Soviet Union in the encounter
with Hitler fascism. The representatives of all the peoples and nationalities of
our country defended shoulder to shoulder at the fronts of the Gre~t Patriotic
War their freedom and independence, their revolutionary gains.
During the years of Soviet power the character of each of the union republics
changed beyond recognition. In a few decades they had traversed a path which under
different conditions had required many decades. The emergence and development of
a new historical community--the Soviet people--are the general result of those pro-
found changes which occurred in the material and spiritual life of our society and
its internationalization. This community marks a higher stage of the sociopoliti-
cal unity of all the nations and nationalities of the Soviet Union. Such concepts
as "the Soviet man," "the Soviet economy," "the Soviet character," "Soviet patriot-
ism" and "the Soviet way of life," which orig3nated during the years of the build-
ing of socialism, serve as its expression. Soviet means common to, characteristic
of each nation and nationality of our country.
At present the national question in the form in which it arose following the revolu-
tion has been settled completely, definitively and irrevocably. It is no longer a
question of the elimination of national oppression, inequality and antagonism.
"This is an achievement, L. I. Brezhnev noted, "which by right can be ranked with
such triumphs in the building of a new society in the USSR as industrialization,
collectivization and the cultural revoluti.on."11
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In the capit~list worid in the years which have passed since the victory of Great
October the national conflicts have become even more acute. Apartheid and the
bloody racial clashes in the southern part of Africa, the anti-Arab, Zionist poli-
cy of Israel and the fierce national struggle in England, Canada, Belgium, the
Netherlands, Spain and nther capitalist countries are evidence of this.
_ As is known, the Final Act of the Helsinki Conference on Security and Cooperation
in Europe contains obligations of the states to respect the rights of people be-
_ lorging to the national minorities and their equality before the law and to provide
them with every opportunity to exercise these rights. Along with the European
statQS the United States also signed this act. How do things stand here with the
meeting of the assumed obligations?
Take, for example, the Indians. Today in the United States there is no more of an
oppressed, impoverished national minority without rights. The reservations on
whi~.:h the bulk of the 850,000 Indians liv e are in the full sense outdoor slums.
Pitiful housing, glaring poverty, diseases, nearly universal unem~ployment (up to
75 percent)--such is the lot of the ancestors'of those who inhabited this land be-
fore the appearance of the first European colonists.
And how is the status of blacks, Mexi.cans and Puerto Ricans better? At present in
America, just as 10 or 20 years ago, the representatives of the numerous national
minorities, and first of all blacks, drag out a miserable existence and are sub~ect
to cruel exploitation and discrimination in all areas of public life.
Under the conditions of mature socialism the party program and party policy in the
area of national relations are aimed at the all-round development and the all-
round convergence of the nations and nationalities. These are two objective, inter-
connected processes which express the unified international essence of socialist
society, in which the convergence of nations is the lending trend.
Of course, this does not mean that in the sphere of national relations all ques-
tions have already been settled. The dynamics of the development of such a large
multinational state as ours gives rise to many problems which require the respon-
sive attention of the party. The CPSU, it was emphasized at the 26th party con-
gress, struggied and always will struggle resolutely against such manifestations,
which are alien to the nature of socialism, as chauvinism and nationalism against
any nationalistic oddities, be it, for example, antisemitism or Zionism.l~ Unfor-
tunately, these vestiges st~ll apear at times. For centuries lie behind them and,
moreover, western propaganda is trying to stir them up.
We Qppose tendencies which are aimed at the artificial eradication of national
peculiarities. But to the same extent we consider their artificial exaggeration
to be inadmissible. The party sees as its sacred duty to educate the working
people in the spirit of Soviet patriotism and socialist internationalism, the
proud feeling of belonging to the unified great Soviet homeland.
It is quite clear that the socialist transformations changed substantially the
ratio of the international and the national in the spiritual life of all the peo-
ples of the USSR. National equality, the fraternal friendship and cooperation of
the peoples, their mutual spiritual enrichment and the all-round prosperity of
the Soviet nations, which have become firmly established in our country--such is
the result of the Leninist national policy of our party.
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FOOTNOTES
1. K. Marx and F. Engels, "Soch." [Works], Vol 4, p 445.
2. V. I. I.enin, "Poln. sobr. soch." [Complete Works], Vol 24, p 124.
3. "KPSS v rezolyutsiyakh i resheniyakh s"yezdov, konferentsiy i plenumov TsK"
[The CPSU in Resolutidns and Decisions of Congresses, Conferences and Plenums of
the Central Committee], 8th edit3on, Vol 1, Moscow, 1970, p 63.
4. V. I. Lenin, "Poln. sobr. soch.," Vol 30, p 120.
5. Quoted from T. U. Usubaliyev, "Frunze--stolitsa Sovetskogo Kirgizstana"
[Frunze--Capital of Soviet Kirghizstan], Moscow, 1971, p 63.
6. V. I. Lenin, "Poln. sobr. soch.," Vol 44, p 146. .
7. "KPSS v rezolyuts3yakh...," 8th edition, Vol 2, Moscow, 1970, p 250. ~
8. Ibid., p 252.
9. Ibid., pp 45-46.
10. Quoted from "Osnovnoy zakon nashey zhizni" [The Fundamental Law of Our Life],
Moscow, 1978, p 239.
11. L. I. Brezhnev, "Leninskim kursom" [By the Leninist Course], Vol 4, Moscow,
1974, p 50.
12. See "Materialy XX4I s"yezda KPSS" [Materials of the 26th CPSU Congress],
M~scow, 1981, p 57.
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CHAPTER 2. CONCERN ABOUT SOVIET WOMEN
Women and men have equal rights in the USSR.
From Article 35 of the USSR Constitution
It is pos~ible to ~udge the level of culture and social maturity of society from
what position women hold in it.
In prerevolutionary Russia, for example, there were laws in accordance with which
a wife without the permission of her husband could not obtain a passport, purchase
property, enter the civil service and change place of residence. The most diffi-
cult, unproductive household labor, which lowers human dignity and does not con-
tain, in the words of V. I. Lenin, anything that would promote their development
in any way,l traditionally was the lot of women. According 'to the 1897 census,
of the total number of women working for hire, household servants and farm labor-
~ ers made up 80 percent, only 13 percent were employed in industry and construct~on
and 4 percent were employed at inetitutions of education and health. Only 11 women
per 1,000 had more than an elementary education.
A letter, which the working women of the Trekhgornyy (formerly the Prokhorovskiy)
Factory addressed in the 1930's to the party Central Committee, eloquently attests
to what the fate of women was under the conditions of tsarist Russia. Here are
lines from this letter: "Many of us, the weavers and spinners, had occasion to
drink a bitter cup of sufferings and slavish humiliation at the Prokhorovskiy
Factory. Our life was gloomy and pitch dark, like a grave. Barracks~ a~oyless
existence on plank beds, religious intoxication, drudgery for meager pay, fines
and constant threats of firing, the despotic mockety of the foremen--all this was
our lot.
"We gave birtih aL the machines. The awful threat of dismissal and hunger constant-
ly hung over u~. There are few words, but a bottomless river of sorrow....i2
Bourgeois democracy with its high-flown slogans of freedom and equality in fact
concealed the lack of freedom and ine~uality of women. The ideologists of the bour-
geoisie, in attempting to ~ustify this situation, reduc~d the essence of the prob-
lem to the biological "tragedy" of women, to ostensibly their inferiority, incapaci-
ty for independent creative thought.
K. Marx and F. Engels gave the correct answer to "the question of women's rights."
Tney proved that the unequal stgtus of women in society stemmed from socioeconomic
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causes. "The genuine equality of women and men," F. Engels wrote, "can, in my
conviction, be accomplished only when the exploitation of both by capital has been
eliminated, while the running of the household, which is now a pri~ate business,
_ has been turned into a sector of social production."3 Having revealed the roots
of the social inequality of women, the founders of scientific communism also indi-
cated the only correct means of eliminating it. It is the path of the class
- struggle and the socialist revolution.
V. I. Lenin regarded the struggle for the emancipation of women as an integral
part of the common cause of the workers. "The proletariat," he emphasized, "can-
not achieve complete freedom without having won complete freedom for women."4
Lenin's theses on ttie equality of women were included in the f irst Party Program,
which envisaged for women equal political rights with men, advanced special re-
quirements of the protection of female labor and motherhood and clearly indicated
that proletarian women can achieve their liberation only by participating in the
revolutionary struggle of the working class.
The party educated working men and women in the spirit of the community of their
interests, awakened in women class self-consciousness and the sense of human digni-
ty and involved them in the general proletarian struggle against the autocracy and
capitalism. And the women's proletarian movement was never separated in our coun-
try from the general workers' movement. Working women followed the party and took
an active part in the October Revolution. "Without them," V. I. Lenin said in a
talk with K. Tsetkin, "we would not have triumphed. Or we would have barely
triumphed."5
Great October brought emanicpation to working women. During the first months af
its existence the Soviet government razed to the ground the �ormer laws which had
placed women in a subordinate position. The decre~s on ci~il marriage and divorce
eliminated, in Lenin's words, "the especially heinous, ignoble, hyp~critical in-
equality in marriage and family law."6 The equality of political and civil
rights and equal pay for equal labor were established for men and women, social
insurance was introduced, which provided for leave to pregnant women with the re-
- tention of wages. The equality of the political and civil rights of women with
men, which was proclaimed by the reso2ution, was sanctioned legislatively in the
first Constitution of the Sovie.t Republic.
The Couununist Party and the Soviet state had to solve the important and difficult
problem of the actual emancipation of women. For the complete liberation of women
and for their real equality with men," I. Lenin indicated, "it ,~.s necessary for
there to be a public sector and for women to participate in general productive la-
bor. Then women will occupy the same position as men."~
During the first years of Soviet power the main thing was to enlist as many women
as possible in socially useful labor. It was also important to increase their
political consciousness, level of culture and education and to break them away from
"household slavery."
The second Party Program for the first time in history became a program of the prac-
tical solution of the problem of women's equality. In particular, there were set
in it the tasks--by means of ideological and educational work to eradicate all
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traces of the former inequality or pre~udice with respect to women, especially
amo*_�g the backward strat~a of the proletariat and the peasantry, to free women from
the physical burdens of obsolete housekeeping by its replacement with communal
apartment houses, public dining rooms, central laundries, children's nci5~ries and
so fvrth.8
Taking into account the sociopolitical and cultural backwardness of women, which
was inherited from the recent past, the party found forms and methods of work,
which were called upon to help women workers and peasants in mastering the rights
granted to them by the revolution. All-Russian ar.d all-union congresses, rallies,
conferences and meetings of women in the oblasts, krays and national republics were
held for this purpose. Commissions on agitation and propaganda among working women,
which were then transformed into women's departmenLs, were set up in the Central
Committee of the Russian Communist Party (of Bolsheviks), and then in all the
oblast, kray, gubernia and uyezd party committees. Organizers �or work among women
were distinguished in the party cells.
Ttie women's departments heid for women workers and peasants discussions, meetings,
conferences and congresses, published leaflets, pamphlets, journals and the special
series of books "Little Library of the Woman Worker and Peasant." The women activ-
ists of the women's departments took part in the discussion of the drafts of laws
affecting the interests of women, were the initiators of many government decrees
and submitted suggestions when reviewing the budgets and the plans of the develop-
ment of the national economy.
- A peculiarity of the work of the women's departments consisted in the fact that they
combined propaganda and agitation with the involvement of women workers and peas-
ants in the everyday activity of the authorities. This was accomplished by means
of ineetings of delegates. They were permanent courses on ,che familiarization of
women with public work. The delegates were elected at the meetings of women work-
ers, peasants and housewives according to an established norm (1 out of 10, 20 or
SO). In 1926, for example, 620,000 delegateS were elected in the country, the next
year--747,000.
Reports on political themes, as well as questions about the practical activit}~ o~
the local soviets, cooperatives, trade unions and individual economic organs were
included in the programs in accordance with which the meetin~gs of delegates worked.
The delegates were sent for practical work to the departments of labor, public
education, public health, food supply and social security. They participated. with
the rights of instructors in the e.xamination of complaints and st,ztements, the re-
ception of visitors, the supervision of various departmental in~titutions. The
most capable remained for permanent work at the place where they had done practical
work.
The elections of delegates were held annually throughout the country and were con-
ducted as mass political campaigns. Millions of working women of the cities and
villages participated in them. Through the meetings of delegates the party estab-
lished strong ties with the broad masses of women.
One of the forms of the involvement of women worker~ and peasants in the building
of socialism was their participation in the organization of dining rooms, kinder-
gartens and nurseries.
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After the Great October Socialiot Revolution a network of institutions for the
care of the health of mother and child was set up. In spite of the famine and dis-
location, in 1922 there were already 300 women's ad~vice bureaus, children's poly-
clinics and outpatient clinics in the country. An all~wance was given to nursing
mothers, while free food was give to children.
The first steps in the new life were especially difficult for the women of the
- east, where patriarchal-tribal and feudal relations, customs and institutions:
polygaIDy, the buying and selling of brides, the giving of juveniles in marriage
_ and so forth, still continued to remain. The customs of seclusion by a stone wall
shut off Uzbek, Ta~ik and Azerbaijani women from the outside world.
Our party attached particular importance to the work among the working women of the
east. Women's clubs, mobile yurts and houses of women peasants were set up. These
were unique institutions. Legal and medical advice bureaus, nurseries and kinder-
- gartens and production workshops operated in them, in addition to the school for
the elimination of illiteracy, a library and amateur art circles.
_ The emancipation of the women of the east required fro m the party considerable per-
sistence, perseverance and the overcoming of the fierce opposition of fanatics.
In order to get if only in some way an idea of the urgency and complexity of the
problem, let us cite a few reports from the newspaper PRAVDA for October 1927.
This was the time when our revolution was preparing to mark its lOth anniversary.
Here are lines from these newspaper reports:
"It was awfully difficult for the eastern woman, and many of the remnants of the
servile past have continued to remain in the way of life to this day. Many regions
still do not know the use of soap, they cripple women in childbirth.... They often
continue to regard a woman as a creature of the lowest order. The savage customs
do not always enable her to obtain an education on the same level as and together
with men....
"In 1927 in Uzbekistan 90,000 Uzbek women took off the yashmak.... The entire re-
actionary world--the mullahs, rich landowners, kulaks--was up in arms against those
who had exposed themselves.... The religious fanatics are tormenting the women
delegates, who are performing propaganda and organizational work among the women,
up to massacres of them.... But there is no return to the past. Yesterday's
woman slave now is the same master of the Soviet Union as all the working people."9
_ The Communist Party exerted considerable efforts in order to involve women in so-
cial producti.on--the basis of bases of their actual equality and economic independ-
ence. During the first years of Soviet power this question was specially discussed
at a number of party congres~es.
The difficulty, apart from other things, consisted in the fact that the building of
socialism in ~ur country was begun under the difficult conditions of economic dis-
location and unemployment,,which were due to the civil war and military interven-
_ tion. Nevertheless, our party did everything possible to retain and attach women
to production. The 13th Congress of the Russian Communist Party (of Bolsheviks) in
the resolution "Gn Work Among Women Workers and Peasants" emphasized that "the re-
tention of female manpower in production is of political importance and faces the
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party with the task of intensifying the improvement of the skills of female labor
and of involving women, where possible, in those sectors of production, in which
female labor has not been used at ~11 or has been used to an inadequate extent."10
Socialist industrialization and the collectiv~:zation of agriculture, cultural con-
struction created the conditions for the mass involvement of women in industrigl
and agricultural production and for their familiarization with socialist culture.
On the instructions of the party Central Committee a special five-year plan of the
inv~lvement of women in production was drafted. In 1936 as compared with 1929 the
number of women workers and employees in all sectors of the national economy had
increased by more than 5 million.
The universal literacy of the women who worked in industry was achieved by the end
of the 1930's. The vocational and technical training of boys and girls was equal-
ized. The fact that a percentage (quota) of the mandatory admission of women and
girls to the schools of factory and plant training was established, was conducive
to this.
Profound changes occurred in the status of the peasant woman after collectivization.
Participation in social production brought her actual emancipation and equality
~ and made her free and economically independent from men.
The numerous and diverse measures, which were implemented by the party, as well as
by the soviets, trade unions and Komsomol on accustoming women workers and peasants
to conscious participation in the building of socialism, made it possible to sur-
mount the enormous gap between the social status of inen and women. The increase of
the activeness of working women increased the gains of socialism, while each gain
was a new step in the matter of their actual emancipation and equality. The USSR
Constitution of 1936 consolidated the achievements of the Soviet state in the solu-
tion of the question of women's rights, granted women equal rights with men in all
areas of economic, state, cultural and sociopolitical life and indicated the guaran-
tees which ensure the actual exercise of these rights.
Having withstood the tests of the Great Patriotic War and having overcoming the
difficulties of the postwar restoration period, out party and state invariably de-
voted much attention to the 4uestions of improving the status of women. Legisla-
tion protecting their rights was developed and improved. An extensive network of
- children's preschool institutions, as well as institutions which protect the health
- of mother and child was set up. The number of personal service and public dining
enterprises increased.
In specifying the main tasks of the building of communism, the party in the deci-
sions of its congresses has indicated the need for the complete elimination of the
remnants of the unequal status of women in daily life, the creation of the social
and everyday conditions for the combination of motherhood with the more and more
- active anet creative participation of women in national labor and public activity,
in the study of science and art. The great achievements in the development of the
socialist economy made it possible to implement a new vast set of social measurPs.
- The USSR Constitution of 1977 sanctioned all this.
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- /Among the guarantees of equality the granting to women of equal opportunities with
men in labor, the remuneration for it and job promotion are among the first/ [in
boldface]. This is not by chance. Precisely the participation of women in social-
ly useful labor creates the real basis for their actual equaJ.ity with men.
The highest rate of employment of women in the world is ensured in our country. In
the total number of workers and employees they constitute more than half. Here it
is important to note that the largest number of women work in industry, including
in the sectors which require high skills of the workers. Profound qualitative
changes are also occurring in rural labor, which is being transformed more and more
into a variety of industrial labor. The number of women machine operators and
operators of automated ~oultry factories and industrial livestock complexes is
increasing.
The number of women eng~ged in primarily mentaY labor is growing rapidly. Among
_ specialists with a higher and secondary specialized education there are more than
16.4 million of them, or 58 percent. Nearly one out of two engineers in industry
is a woman. Among agronomists, livestock experts and veterinarians with a higher
education they constitute about 40 percent. Women are taking a leading role in
public health and public education, where they constitute two-thirds of all physi-
_ cians and nearly three-fourths of the teachers. More than half a million women work
as directors of industrial enterprises and sovkhozes, the managers of construction
projects, institutions of trade, public health, public dining and personal service
and of administrative institutions.
Among all scientists about 40 percent are now women. They are actively participat-
ing in the solution of problems of thermonuclear fusion and space biology, mdthe-
_ matical physics and genetics, the chemistry of high-molecular compounds and radio
engineering, philosophy. There are 116,100 women~who have the academic degrees of
candidate or doctor of sciences, 2,900 have the title of academician, correspondi~ng
member of the Academy of Sciences or professor.
Let us note for comparison that, for example, in the United States in the mid-1970's
among engineers only 1.1 percent were women, among physicians--7 percent, among
physicists and mathematicians--less than 1 percent. As the 3ournal U.S. NEWS AND
WORLD REPORT reports, approximately 80 percent of the working American women are
employed in the lowest paid positiona. The situation in other capitalist countries
is also similar. We are m longer speaking of unemployment, which among the women of
the capitalist world is considerably higher than among men. For example, in the
Uni.ted States it is 1.5-fold higher.
/Soviet legislation completely rules out any discrimination of women as compared
- with men in wages/ [in boldface]. In all the sectors of the national economy the
same wage rates, salaries and rates for the ~ob being performed are set for men and
women of the same skill. Moreover, a number of privileges and benef its are stipu-
lated for women by Soviet legislation. Thus, in the case of a transfer to an easier
- job in connection with the birth of a child the average wage for the former job is
retained for them. For women machine operators in the case of identical pay the
output norms are 10 percent lower than for men.
In the United States again the labor of women receives considerably less pay than
the labor of inen. Moreover, this difference is steadily increasing. Whereas in
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- 1956 a woman working a full workday received 63.9 percent of the wage of a man of
the same skill, by the end of 1978 she received only 58.9 percent.
/The USSR Constitution guarantees women equal opportunities with men to obtain an
education and vocational training/ [in boldface]. The doors of schools, vocational
and technical, secondary specialized and higher educational institutions have been
opened wide to them. Women and men are trained at them according to uniform pro-
grams. At secondary specialized educational institutions girls make up 56 percent
of the students and at higher educational institutions--52 percent. Out of every
~~~~eW~, more than 800 have a higher and sec-
~ 00~ women empioyed lII Ll~c ita ~.ivuoi a,..... 3
ondary (complPte and incomplete) education.
Let us also cite in the connection several parallels. In the United States, for
example, during the 1976/77 academic year at medical schools only 25 percent were
girls, at some law schools their proportion was only 20 percent. In France many
higher educational institutions and vocational schools in reality are closed to
girls. Higher education in Japan is a male privilege,,
The CPSU Central Committee and the USSR Council of Ministers are devoting particu-
lar attention to the improvement of the vocational training of women workers. It
is very important that women workers, who have children up to the age of 8 years,
now undergo retraining and the improvement of skills with leave from work and the
retention during training of the average monthly wage.
/The USSR Constitutions guarantees women equal opportunities with men to partici-
pate in sociopolitical and cultural activity/ [in boldface]. The following data,
for example, attest to this. In our country women make up 49.5 percent of the
total number of people's deputies elected to the Supreme Soviets of the union and
autonomous republics and to the local soviets. In the highest organ of state
power--the USSR Supreme Soviet--there are 487 women, or nearly one-third, 4 of them
are members of the Presidium of the USSR Supreme Soviet. Women head standing com-
missions of deputies, hold important posts in the governments of the union and
autonomous republics. Many of them have been elected the chairmen and secretaries
of the executive committees of local soviets of people's deputies. Of the workers
of the staff of the organs of government, 66 percent are also women.
For comparison let us note that in the American Congress of the present session
there are only 21 women, and in the upper chamber--the Senate--there are only 2.
American women hold slightly more than 10 percent of the elected posts primarily
in local bodies of goverrunent.
I would especially like to emphasize the active role of women in the life and activ-
ity of our party. On 1 January 1981 there were 4.6 million of them in the ranks of
the CPSU, or 26.5 percent. Among the secretaries of the rayon and city party com-
mittees women make up 21.4 percent, while among the secretaries of the primary par-
ty organizations--more than 35 percent.
/Along with other guarantees of actual equality the USSR Constitution provides for
special measures on the protection of the labor and health of women/ [in boldface].
The use of female labor in especially difficult processes and in processes harmful
to the health is prohibited in our country. It is not permitted to enlist them in
jobs which involve the carrying and shifting of loads greater than the norms set
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- by the la~a. Additional benefits--the right to a shortened workday, additional
leave and a preferential pension--are envisaged for the women of a number of occu-
pations.
TodaS nearly 50 scientific research institutes of hygiene and labor protection,
motherhood and childhood, obstetrics ar.~ gyr~ecology are conducting research for
the purpose of providing favorable working conditions of women and protecting their
health.
Strict state supervision of the compliance with the legislation on female labor has
been established in our country. An important role here belongs to the standing
commissions of the USSR Supreme Soviet, the Supreme Soviets of the union and autono-
mous republics, kray and oblast soviets of people's deputies on maternity, child
development and the work and life of women.
In the Soviet Union motherhood is recogni2ed as the most important social function
of a woman. /The USSR Constitution guarantees the creation of conditions which en-
able women to combine labor with motherhood/ [in boldfaceJ: legal protection,
material and moral support, including the granting of paid vacations and other bene-
fits, the gradual shortening of the work time of women who have young children.
There has been established for all working women 100-percent paid maternity leave
regardless of their length of service. The number of paid days for caring for a
sick child has been increased. Monthly monetary grants for children in needy fami-
lies have been introduced.
Mothers having two children in the case of the birth of each subsequent child re-
- ceive a lump sum state grant, while those having four or more children in the case
_ of the birth of each subsequent child receive a state grant monthly. Women, who
have borne and raised to the age of 8 five or more children, receive the right to
. a pension for age at the age of 50 instead of 55. Mathers of many children are
commended with special state awards.
In our country there are more than 10,000 maternity advice bureaus. Tens of thou-
sands of inedical specialists watch.over the health of the mother and child. From
the first days after birth medical observation over each child is set up.
/The Soviet Constitution guarantees the equality of women not only in labor and
sociopolitical activity, but also in family relations/ [in boldface]. The state is
displaying concern about the family by creating and developing an extensive network
of children's institutions, organizing and improving personal and public dining
service, paying various types of grants and granting benefits to families with many
- children.
The network of personal service enterprises is stead~ly growing. In 1980 there
were 270,000 of them in the couritry, while the amount of personal services came to
7.8 billion rubles. Public dining has also developed into an important sector of
the national economy.
Today 14.4 million children attend preschool institutions in the USSR. This is
nearly one out of eve.ry two children in rt;~ country. Of the total amount of the
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expenditures on their upkeep the parents pay only 20 percent, the remainder is re-
imbursed by the state. Additional benefits have been established for some families,
especially those with many children.
Let us note f~or comparison that, according to the testimony of the American jaurna].
NEWSWEEK, at present in the United States, with allowance made for governmental,
private and commercial children's institutions, at the officially recognized child
day care centers there are fewer places than there were in 1945. Of the 7 million
small children who have working mothers, 5.4 million have to be turned over to the
care of baby sitters or be left at home without supervision.
Special schools and groups with an extended day, at which school children stay
after classes under the supervision of teachers, have been set up in the Soviet
Union. The number of these schools and groups is steadily increasing. At the be-
ginning of the 1980/81 school year there were 13.2 million pupils in the schools and
groups with an extended day, at boarding schools and ot~er boarding institutions.
In our country there is an extensive network of country Pioneer camps. In the sum-
mer of 1980 about 14 million children spent their vacation at them. On the average
a vacation at a Pioneer camp costs parents 12 rubles. This is a fourth of its ac-
tual cost. For children with p~~r health year-round Pioneer camps of the sanatorium
type have been opened, at which the children are treated and are taught in accord-
_ ance with the syllabus of the general educational school.
From year to year in our country the number of Pioneer camps, sports and health
and work bases for adolescents is increasing, the network of palaces and houses of
Pioneers, stations of young technicians and naturalists, children's clubs, sports
and music schools and other children's institutions is being developed.
Much has been done, but there are also unsolved problems. Even now it is difficult
at times for a woman to combine the duties of a mother with active participation
in production and public life.
Extensive and effective measures, which are aimed at the improvement of the work-
' ing conditions of working women, family recreation, personal and cultural service,
were specified in the decisions of the 26th CP5U Congress. It is a question, in
, particular, of the introduction of partially paid leave for the care of a child up
~ to the age of 1 year, a partial workday for mothers of young children, the enlaige-
ment of the network and the improvement of the operation of children's preschoo:
institutions, schools with groups with an extended day, all personal services ax~ci
others. The party Central Committee and the USSR Council of Ministers have ad~:p~ced
the decree "On Measures to Increase State Assistance to Families Having ChildrMn."
Soviet women by right have occupied a worthy place in the life of our society. "In
speaking about the great deeds of our people," L. I. Brezhnev noted, "it is imocs-
sible not to talk about what role the Soviet woman play~ in them. Our homeland is
obliged in many ways for its achievements and triumphs to her dedication and ~ .
tal.ent. "11
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FOOTNOTES
1. See V. I. Lenin, "Poln. sobr. soch." [Complete Works], Vol 39, p 202.
2. Cited from Ye. Bochkareva and S. Lyubimova, "Svetlyy put [The Bright Path],
Moscow, 1967, p 3.
3. K. Marx and F. Engels, "Soch." [Works], Vol 36, p 294.
4. V. I. Lenin, "Poln. sobr. soch.," Vol 40, 158.
5. "Vospominaniya o V. I. Lenine" [Reminiscences About V. I. Lenin], Vol 5, Moscow,
i969, p 40. ~
6. V. I. Lenin, "Poln. sobr. soch.," Vol 42, p 369.
7. Ibid., Vol p 201.
8. See "KPSS v rezolyutsiyakh i resheniyakh s"yezdov, konferentsiy i plenumov TsK"
[The CPSU in Resolutions and Decisions of Congresses, Conferences and Plenums of
the Central Committee], 8th edition, Vol 2, Moscow, 1970, p 43.
9. PRAVDA, 4, 6, 9 October 1927.
10. "KPSS v rezolyutsiyakh...," 8th edition, Vol 3, Moscow, 1970, p 123.
11. L. I. Brezhnev, "Leninskim kursom" [By the Leninist Course], Vol 5, Moscow,
1976, pp 545-546.
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PART II. SOCIOECONOMIC RIGHTS
The rights to work, relaxation and the protection of health, to social security and
housing are grouped with the socioeconomic rights of Soviet citizens, which are set
down in the USSR Constitution. The mighty national economic complex, which has been
. created in our country during the years of Soviet power, serves as a firm material
guarantee of the exercise of these rights. The socialist economic system ensures
the crisis-free, stable and dynamic development of a11 its sectors, the growth of
public wealth and the increase of the well-being of the working people.
The steady increase of the material and cultural standard of living of the people
is the highest gaal of the economic strategy of the CPSU. Back in 1902 when pre-
paring the first Party Program V. I. Lenin indicated that its goal is the assur-
ance of "...the /complete/ [in italics] well-being and free /all-round/ [in italics]
development of /all/ [in italics] the members of society."1
The Communist Party set about the practical achievement of this goal immediately
� after the victory of the Great October Socialist Revolution. Since the first days
of Soviet power it did everythix~g possible to improve the situation of the working
~ people. "Owing to the most serious dislocation which the country is e~cperiencing,"
it was stated in the second Party Program, "all else should be subordinate to the
practical goal--to increase immediately and no matter what the cost the amount of
products most necessary for the population. In this respect the progress of the
work of every Soviet institution, which is connected with the national economy,
should be measured by the practical results."2
The party advanced in the Program "as the main and basic thing, which determines
the entire economic policy of the Soviet regime, ...the utmost increase of the pro-
ductive forces of the country."3 The party considered socialist industrialization
as the key task in this matter. Only highly developed mechanized production, which
is based on the latest achievements of science and technology, V. I. Lenin taught,
can be the material base of socialism.
The first unified statewide plan of the development of the ecanomy in our country
and in all world practice--the State Plan of the Electrification of Russia (GOERLO)--
which was drawn up on the initiative of V. I. Lenin, was the most important step
toward this. The history of the scientifically substantiated, planned, comprehen-
sive development of the economy originates from this plan.
Using the advantages of the socialist system, the Co~unist Party was able to solve
the fundamental problems of the industrialization of the country in the shortest
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r~x vrri~tAL u~~, UNLY
historical time. The material base was created for the strengthening of the eco-
nomic independence of the USSR, the technical renovation of all the sectors of the
national economy and the conversion of agriculture to a new, socialist basis. In-
dustrialization strengthened public ownership in the decisive area of the economy,
ensured the supplanting of the capitalist elements and the triumph of the social-
ist mode of production in industry, the growth of the working class and its leading
role in society. It promoted the strengthening of the economic and defensive might
of the U~SR and in many ways predetermined our victory in the Great Patriotic War.
Along with the creation and strengthening of the material and technical base of so-
cialism the standard of living of the Soviet people increased. Our 10 five-year
plans have become glorious historical milestones on this path. And although each
of them was special in some way, one thing--concern about the man of labor=-unites
and connects them all.
It should be said that owing to a number of historical reasons our possibilities
in increasing the well-being of the working people for a long time were limited.
Only with the building of mature socialism and with the creation of a mighty eco-
nomic potential was our party able to make a sharp turn in the accomplishment of
this task. The socioeconomic programs, which were advanced by the 24th, 25th and
26th CPSU Congresses, set as the main goal the~~nore and more complete meeting of
the increasing material and spiritual needs of the Soviet people.
The share of the industrial output of the USSR in its world production at present
comes to one-fifth, while in 1913 prerevolutionary Russia accounted for only a
little more than 4 percent. The economy of our country produces daily a national
product of more than 2.8 billion rubles. This is 67-fold more than in 1313, 13.1-
fold more than in 1940 and 2.3-fold more than in 1965.
The national income--this most generalizing indicator of the development of the
economy and the source of the increase of the well-being of the people--which was
produced in 1980 amounted to 437 billion rubles ~nd had increased 75-fold as com-
pared with the prerevolutionary level. About three-fourths of it were used for
_ consumption, while with allowance made for the expenditures on housing, social and
cultural construction approximately four-fifths of the national income were allo-
cated directly for the well-being of the people.
We have now achieved such might that we can simultaneously build such giants as the
Sayano-Shushenskaya GES, the Kama Motor Vehicle Plant, the Atommash Plant and
others, create and develop tens of territorial industrial complexes, build the
Baykal-Amur Railway Line, perform ma~or operations in the Nonchernozem Zone of the
RSFSR, renovate thousands of enterprises and with all this not only not cut back
but, on the contrary, expand the programs on the increase of the well-being of the
people.
The working people of the Soviet Union understand well that labor, the mind and
hands of those who smelt steel, produce petroleum, design machines, construct
plants and electric power stations, sow and harvest grain, were and remain the only
source of our well-being. The vital interest of the Soviet peopZe in the increase
of social production is conducive to the steady increase of their creative active-
ness--our reserve in the acceleration of economic developmant, which cannot be re-
. placed by anything.
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The entire path of the building of socialism and communism is convincing confirma-
tion of Lenin's words that "socialism not only does not suppress competition but,
on the contrary, creates for the first time the opportunity to use it truly /ex-
tensively/ [in italics], truly on a/mass/ [in italics] scale, to truly draw the
- majority of working people into the arena of that work, in which they can display
themselves, develop their abilities, re~eal their talents, of which among the
people there is an untapped spring....
Our party always strove and is striving to utilize most completely the creative
potential of the masses. The Communist Saturdays of the first years of Soviet pow-
er, the shock labor movement during the period of the socialist reconstruction of
the national economy, the Stakhanovite movement, the present national campaign for
the increase of production efficiency and work quality--all these are examples of
how the party cautiously and carefully cultivated the shoots of the communist atti-
tude toward labor among the broadest masses of working people and developed their
initiative and creativity.
Under the conditions of mature socialism socialist competition assumed an unprece-
dented scale and turned into a mighty factor of social progress. Now more than
106 million people are participating in it. The party ~,s trying to see to it that
the comnetition would be lively and creative, is carefully studying and disseminat-
ing what is new and valuable that originates from practice.
The 26th party congress advanced for the llth Five-Year Plan and the 1980's as a
whole an extensive program of the further increase of the well-being of rhe people.
This program encompasses all aspecta of the life of the Soviet people--consumption
and housing, culture and recreation, working and living conditions.
With the development of socialist production, the increase of. its efficiency and
the improvement of the quality of work in all the links of the national economy the
material and cultural needs of the Soviet people are being met more and more com-
pletely, the socioeconomic rights of ~itizens are being filled with a more solid
material conten~ and the guarantees of these rights are becoming stronger.
FOOTNOTES
l. V. I. Lenin, "Poln. sobr. soch." [Complete Works], Vol 6, p 232.
2. "KPSS v rezolyutsiyakh i resheniyakh s"yezdov, konferentsiy i plenumov TsK"
[The CPSU in Resolutions and Decisions of Congresses, Conferences and Plenums of
the Central Comanittee], 8th edition, Vol 2, Moscow, 1970, p 50.
3. Ibid.
4. V. L. Lenin, "Poln. sobr. soch.," Vol 3~, p 195.
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FUK UFH'I(:LAL U~~ UNLY
CHAPTER 3. THE MAIN SOCIAL RIGHT
USSR citizens have the right to work....
From Art-.icle 40 of the USSR Constitution
The right to work is the most important social right of man. The exercise of pre-
- cisely this righ~ leads to the creation of physical assets, ensures the well-being
and genuine freedom of man and creates in him confidence in the future.
For the Soviet people the right to work seems obvious, self-evident. And this is
understandable. For they have not known for a long time now what unemployment is.
Its last traces were eliminated in our country half a century ago.
It must be said, however, that during the transition from capitalism to socialism
unemployment in the USSR was a ma3or social problem. The solut;~n of this problem
required from the Communist Party and all the Soviet.people co~isiderable efforts
and the surmounting of a large number of obstacles.
As is known, mass chronic unemployment appeared in the world along w~th the develop-
ment of capitalism. The foun~2rs of scientific communism explained and substanti-
ated scientifically the emergence of "the reserve industrial army." They proved
that the existence of an army of the unemployed enables entrepreneurs to increase
the exploitation of the proletariat to an enormous degree. "The overwork of the
employed portion of the working class," K. Marx emphasized, "increases the ranks of
its reserves, while the increased pressure, which is exerted by the competition of
the latter on employed workers, on the contrary, compels them to overwork and
obedience to the dictates of capital."1
The scientific conclusions of K. Marx and F. Engels about "surplus population" and
"the industrial reserve army," which originated from the capitalist system, were
developed by V. I. Lenin, who demonstrated that it is impossible to solve the prob-
lem of eliminating unemployment under capitalism,2 that the path of the class
st~uggle of the proletariat is the only means for.this.3
In prerevolutionary Russia the nature of unemployment did not differ from unemploy-
ment in other capitalist countries. The army of the unemployed was enormous here.
Thus, about half a million of them were identified by the 1913 census, which was
conducted only in a number of large cities.
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The ruin of thP peasantry was one of the causes of the increase in unemployment.
Not finding a use for their labor in the countryside, hundreds of thousands of hun-
gry, exhausted, ragged people rushed to the industrial centers in the hope of find-
ing work. But these hopes rarely came true. There was no social security for un-
employment, and masses of able-bodied people were often left without any means of
existence and approached the brink of poverty.
"I had occasion to experience myself that unemployment is a horror, and not only
- of a physical, but also of a moral quality," related K. Ye. Voroshilov, an out-
standing figure of the Communist Party and Soviet state and a former Luga mechanic.
"When a proletarian loses his job, he feels that no one needs him, although he is
full of strength and capable of working. He begins to scour about different glants,
factories and workshops, scours about for years, but if in addition he comes under
the suspicion of the police as poli~ically unreliable, in general he becomes an
outcast, a declasse person, a man who has nowhere to lay his head."4
Our party linked the elimination of unemployment and the establishment of the guar-
anteed right to work with the victory of the socialist revolution. It tirelessly
explained that the struggle for the elimination of unemployment was a part of the
general proletarian struggle for the liberation of the working class.
Immediately after the Great October Revolution the party began to implement its
-program in the area of labor. The nationalization of large-scale industry and the
land and the introduction of workers' control and an 8-hour workday were the mate-
rial prerequisites for the elimination of unemployment and its sources. The Peo-
ple's Commissariat of Labor, the duties of which included the registration and dis-
tribtuion of manpower resources, the drawing up of legislative acts on labor, as
well as the organization of assistance to the unemployed, was established. In the
first Soviet Labor Code the right to work in one's specialty was proclaimed.for all
citizens.
However,�the Soviet state was not able to provide a job immediately to all those
needing one--too large a reserve army of labor was inherited from old Russia. More-
over, the demobilization of the Russian army and the curtailment of military pro-
duction as a result of the withdrawal of Soviet Russia from the imperialist war
increased the ranks of the unemployed.
The situation was aggravated by the fact that the implementation of the decrees of
the Soviet regime in the area of labor encountered, especially at first, the fierce
resistance of the representatives of the overthrown exploiting classes, who still
retained some positions in the economy. Citing the lack of fuel, the former fac-
tory and plant owners frequently closed enterprises, conducted secret lockouts and
used secret "blacklists" of workers.
The representatives of the petty bourgeois parties, the Social Revolutionarie~ and
the Mensheviks, attempted to take advantage of unemployment and the famine. They
tried to suggest to the masses that the Communist Party and the Soviet regime were
to blame for unemployment, and strove to incite the working people to counterrevo-
lutionary demonstrations and to organize strikes.
Industry of the country, which was experiencing an acute crisis as a result of the
imperialist ~aar and dislocation, as well as the sabotage and lockouts of the
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i
FUR OF'FIC[AL US~ Oi~'LY
~ entrepreneurs, was not able to absorb the huge mass of the unemployed. The party
was faced with an urgent task--to organize immediate assistance to these people.
"The Statute on Unemployment Insurance," which applied to the entire territory of
the country and to all people engaged in work for hire at state and private enter-
prises, institutions and public organizations, was put into effect. The costs d~
insurance rest entirely on the employers, from whose payments tche unified All-
Russian Fund of the Unemployed was formed. The payment of benefits was carried out
through insurance offices, of which the representatives of workers' organizations
were members. In spite of the acute need for money, dining rooms and dormitories
for the extremely need~Z unemployed were set up in many cities.
In early 1918 the organs of the Soviet regime began the creation of an extensive
network of labor exchanges. They subsequently became authoritative organizations
- which were in charge of the registration and distribution of manpower.
The activity of the party and the people on the restoration of the ravaged economy
and its transformation on a socialist basis was the main measure of the struggle
against unemployment. However, the armed intervention of the imperialist states,
which began in 1918 and was supported by the internal counterrevolution, hindered
the solution of the problems of peaceful construction.
Hundr2ds o.f thousands of workers at the call of the party joined the Red Army and
with arms in hand defended Soviet power. The serious food situation in the cities
had the result that a portion of the unemployed, as well as of the workers, espe-
ciall:y of recent peasant origin, rushed to the countryside, to where there was
bread. As a result, unemployment disappeared in the cities. Moreover, by the end
of 1918 the labor exchanges were no longer able to fill the orders of enterprises--
the demand for labor considerably exceeded its supply. Unemployment developed
into a new problem--a shortage of manpower.
However, its fundamental causes were not eliminated. The party was well aware that
an intensive struggle against agrarian o~rerpopulation, the declassing of the work-
ing class and other phenomena lay ahead. Therefore, its second Program specified
as the immediate task of the economic policy "the maximum utilization of all the
manpower available in the state, its proper distribution and redistribution both
among the different territorial areas and among the different sectors of the na-
- tional economy."5 The party also set as its goal "to return to a labor life every-
one who had been knocked from the path of labor."6
After the end of the civil war and the foreign intervention a new wave of unemploy-
ment was added to the numerous difficulties being experienced by the 5o~iet people.
In January 1922 160,000 unemployed were registered at the labor exchanges, a year
later there were 641,000 of them, while by July 1924 there were more than 1,344,000.
At the 15th party congress the problem of unemployment in our country was specified
as one of the most important difficulties of the building of socialism.
What explained the existence of unemployment in the USSR at that time?
Agrarian overpopulation was one of the causes. As the national economy was re-
stored and the life of the urban population improved, the influx of the rural popu-
lation to the cities again began to increase. "For individual categories of labor
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(laborers, dcmestic employees, low-skilled office employees and so on)," it was

~ noted in the reaolution of the 15th Conference of the All-Russian Communist Party
(of Bolsheviks), "unemployment in the immediate future threatens to become chronic,
owing to agrarian overpopulation and the continuous influx of manpower to the
cities from the countryside."~
The existence of unemployment was also due to the dislocation which had been caused
to the national economy during the period of the civil war. The groes output of
large-scale industry in 1921 was one-third of its amount in 1917, while the number
of workers decreased from 2,596,000 to 1,185,000. The ranks of the unemployed were
also enlarged in connect~on with the demobilization of the army.
The party, as well as soviet, trade union an3 economic organs took steps which were
aimed at the a~leviation of the situation of the unemployed: the improvement of
their social insurance; registration and placement in a~ob through the labor ex-
changes; the extensive developmPnt of public work (the remaval of construction de-
bris from the cities, the draining of swamps, the filling of gullies and so forth); ,
the organization of labor collectives ma.de up of the unemployed, where they not
only received work, but also acquired occupations.
It should be emphasized, however, that the Communist Party saw its main task not
in alleviating the situation of the unemployed and in lessening unemployment. The
�main thing was to eliminate it forever in the life of Soviet society.
The period of the industrialization of the country and the collectivization of
agriculture was the decisive stage of the struggle against unemployment. Lenin's
plan of the building of socialism at the same time was also a plan of the elimina-
tion of unemployment in the USSR.
The restoration of the national economy for the most part was complered by 1926.
Our country entered a new period of its dcvelopment--the period of socialist recon-
struction on the basis of industrializatian. The 14th party congress specified the
policy of the rapid development of heavy industry, which was capable of providing
factories, plants and agriculture with the latest equipment and of changing the
peasant sector in the socialist manner, of transformi~tg the country from an agrar-
ian into an industrial country and of ensuring the building of a socialist soci~ty
in the USSR. In the development of industry the party saw the ~ecisive condition
of the increase of the ranks of the working class and, consequently, of the elimina-
tion of unemployment.
_ In overcoming the enormous difficulties, under the conditions of the hostile capi-
talist encirclement, the Communist Party determined the most eff ective means of in-
dustrialization and sought the necessary assets for this within the country. The
- coal, petroleum, electrical eQuipment, chemical, automotive, tractor, defense and
other sectors of industry underwent particular development. Railroad construction
was expanded. Cottage industry was also developed.
Rapid industrial construction made it possible to considerably reduce unemployment
among skilled workers. However, as a whole at the labor exchanges ~~n late 1926 ,
there were 1,310,000 unemployed, many of wham it was impossible to send to the works ,
. because they did not have the occupations and skills, which the national economy
needed.
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- Under these conditions the party Central Committee adopted a special decree on the
training and instruction of manpower, including--this was especially emphasized--
_ from among~the unemployed. Courses, in which the unemployed were trained entirely
at state expense, were set up everywhere on the basis of this decree.
_ Special attention was directed to the training of unemployed adolescents, more than
122,000 of whom were registered at the labor exchanges in October 1925. In accord-
- ance with a decision of the government the number of schools of factory and plant
apprenticeship was increased. In 1929 163,000 adolescents were studying at them.
, In the final engagement with unemployment the decisive ~aord belonged to the First
Five-Year Plan. During those years new industrial projects were built at an accel-

~I erated rate, giants of socialist industry were put into operation, the ranks of the
working class grew. The process of the building of socialism in the countryside
was intensive. The party policy of the collectivization of agriculture, which was
adopted at the 15th Congress of the All-Russian Communist Party (of Bolsheviks),
was aimed at the same time at eliminating the main source of unemployment--agrarian
overpopulation.
With the development of industry an~ the halt of the influx from the countryside of
unemployed�manpower, unemployment rapidly dwindled. In December 1929 the party
- Central Committee adopted the decree "On the Increase of the Personnel of the Work-
- ing Class, the State of Unemployment and Measures on Its Lessening." It demanded
th$ improvement under the new conditions of the training and distribution of man-
power, the registration, distribution and instrLCtion of the unemployment. The
economic organs were comatissioned to identify in the shortest possible time the
need for skilled workers and to elaborate a system of specific measures, which guar-
antee the timely and ~omplete supply of industry, rransportation and agriculture
with skilled personnel. Additional assets were allocated for these purposes, as
well as for the expansion of factory and plant apprenticeship.
In early 1930 the labor exchanges were carefully checkeci in the majority of cities.
It turned out that among those who had received unemployment benefits there were
many people who simply did not want to work: tramps, petty thieves, speculators
and so forth. As a result of the conducted check, for ~xample, at one of the larg-
est labor exchanges--the Moscow exchange--only 177 unemployed were l~ft on the
register. The fall enrollment in schools of factory and plant apprenticeship,
which attracted about 300,000 people, put an end to unemplayment among adolescents.
On 9 October 1930 the People's Commissariat of Labor adopted a decision on the im-
� mediate placement of all the remaining unemployed in a job and on the abolition
of unemployment benefits. Thus, by the end of 1930 unemployment in the USSR had
in f act been eliminated.
The 17th party congress noted: "The proletariat, having overcome.the enormous dif-
firulties ste~ning from the implementation of the five-year plan, gained a histori-
cally important victory in the matter of improving the status of the working people
of the city and the countryside.... The worker and the kolkhoz farmer have acquired
a sense of securtty, and the greater an~i greater increase of the material and cul-
tural level of their life depends only on the quality and quantity of the labor ex-
pended by them. The threat of unemployment, poverty and hunger has disappeared for
the working person in the USSR."8
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The right to work became in the Soviet Union a real right. It was sanctioned in
the USSR Constitution of 1936 as the most important achievement of socialism.
Bourgeois propaganda, as has repeatedly happened, hastened to declare that the ab-
sence of unemployment in the USSR was ostensibly of a temporary nature, that as
soon as the Soviet Union had firmly entered the path of technical progress, it
would again be faced with this problem. Life showed the utter groundlessness of
these "prophecies."
, Why is there no and can there be no unemployment in the USSR?
First of all because political power in our country belongs to all the people, in
whose hands are the tools and means of production. The order, in case of which the.
employer determines the number of workplaces, guided by his own private interests,
is thereby destroyed.
Moreover, the socialist system of management is a planned system. It is capable of
combining the acceleration of technical progress with the full employment of the
entire able-bodied population. We have every ~pportunity to determine in advance
not only the production volume, but also the amount and occupational composition of
the manpower, which are necessary for this. In other words, the production plans
are closely coordinated with the manpower resources, ensuring the full employment
of those who are able to work. This also pertains to youn~ people who graduate.
from vocational and technical, secondary specialized and higher educational insti-
tutions.
~ The planned nature of the economy has made it possible to set for industry such
rates of development that for half a century now the demand for workmen has ex-
ceeded the supply. Suffice i~ to say that during the years of the lOth Five-Year
Plan more than 1,200 large industrial enterprises were put into operation in our
country.
As is known, unemployment in the developed capitalist countries has reached a scale
which is unprecedented for more than the past 40 years and is continuing to rise
steadily. In 1970 there were more 8 million officially registered unemployed here,
in 1975--more than 15 million and in 1980--about 20 million. In 10 years unemploy-
ment in the United States increased from 4 million to 8.5 million and amounts to
8 percent of the able-bodied popu2ation of the country. But these are far from the
complete data. The trade unions give different figures: in 11 large capitalist
countries alone in early 1980 more than 25 million people were without work, in-
cluding 12 million in the United States.
Until recently the USSR was characterized by an extremely rapid increas~ of the
number of workers and employees, who were employed in the national economy. In
1928 it was 11.4 million, in 1940--33.9 million, in 1965--76.9 million and in
1980--112.5 million. But in the 1980's the rate of this increase will slow and the
problem of manpower resources will be aggravated: the effects of the Great Patri-
otic War, during which the country lost 20 million people, will being to show.
Therefore, the emphasis on the rapid increase of labor productivity and the sharp
increase of the efficiency of all social production, as was indicated at the 25th
and 26th party congresses, is becoming especially urgent.
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rux u~ri~tAL u~~. uNLY
/The Soviet Constitution guarantees the right to work with payment in conformity
with its quantity and quality and not less than the minimum amount established by
the state/ [in boldface]. In 1980 the average monthly wage of workers and em-
ployees in the national economy was 168.5 rubles, the average monthly pay of kol-
khoz fa~-mers was 116 rubles. The real income of workers and employees per working
person in 1980 had increased fourfold as compared with 1940, the real income of
kolkhoz farmers had increased 6.9-fold, while as compared with 1913--respectively
10.7-fold and 16.2-fold. Whereas in 1940 the average monthly wage with the addi-
tion of payments and benefits from public consumption funds came to 40.6 rubles,
in 1965 it came to 129.2 rubles, in 1980--232 rubles. The guaranteed minimum wage
is also steadily increasing. Now nearly half of the population of the coL.ntry has
an income of more than 100 rubles a month per family member, while in 1965 only
4 percent dido The difference in the standard of living of individual social
groups is gradually being reduced.
The 26th CPSU Congress planned to begin the implementation of such an important
measure as the increase of the minimum wage to 80 rubles a month and of the rates
and salaries of workers and employees. The increase of the average monthly wage to
190-195 rubles is planned. The income of kolkhoz farmers from the public sector
will iacrease by 20-22 percent. It is also envisaged to extend a number of wage
benefits. At the same time the Communist Party and the Soviet state are taking
vigorous steps for the most complete satisfaction of the needs of the working peo-
ple for foodstuffs, day-to-day nonfood goods, as well as durable items.
What does bourgeois society contrast with us in this matter? As is known, the eco-
nomic system of capitalism with its periodic crises entails not only unemployment,
but also the speeding up of inflationary processes. The monopolies and bourgeois
states are openly using inflation and the increase of prices in order to redistrib-
ute the national income in their favor to the detriment of the working masses. Ac-
- cording to the official data of the U.S. Department of Labor, the real wage of
American workers in 1979 had decreased by 15 percent as compared with 1973. On the
other hand, the revenues of the monopolies are steading going up. In 1978 the net
profits of the 1,200 largest American corporations increased by 17 percent, in
1979--by another 22 percent.
Reflecting the changes which have occurred in the content of the right to work, the
new Soviet Constitut~on supplemented it with /the right to the choice of occupation,
- the type of work and job in conformity with o~e's vocation, abilities, vocational
training and education/ [in boldface]. Of course, there are also taken into account
here the public needs, which make themselves known, in particular, by the fact
that there are more educational institutions of one type and fewer of another, that
it is easier to enroll in a construction institute, for example, than in the biolo-
gy faculty of a university and so on.
The growth of productive forces and scientific and technical progress are giving
rise to the demand for new specialties and are making new demands on the sk311s of
workers. Under these conditions, while guaranteeing the right to work, /our state
is carrying out free vocational training, is promoting the improvement of labor
skills and training in new specialties and is developing the system of vocational
guidance and job placement/ [in boldface]. These provisions are also set forth
~n the USSR Constitution of 1977.
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Socialist society is a society of people of labor. Labor and only labor serves in
our country as the source of the increase of public wealt~ and the well-being of the
Soviet people and determines the social status of a person. "From each according to
his ability, to each according to his labor"--such is the principle of socialism.
As was noted at the 26th CPSU Congress, the party and the state have exerted and
are exerting great efforts in order to make the labor of a person not only more pro-
ductive, but also meaningful, interesting and creative.9 Of course, while afford-
ing the Soviet people extensive opportunities for the free choice of occupation,
type of work and ~ob, our society has the right to demand of them a conscientious
attitude toward labor in the chosen field and the observance of labor discipline.
This is not only the constitutional duty, but also a matter of honor of every USSR
citizen who is able to work.
In accordance with numerous suggestions of the working people it is noted in the
USSR Constitution that the evasion of socially useful labor is incompatible with
the principles of socialist society. "And this means," L. I. Brezhnev indicated,
"that it is necessary by all organizational, financial and legal means to shut fast
all cracks for paras~tism, bribery, speculation, for unearned income, all encroach-
- ments upon socialist property."10
Thus, in practice it has been demonstrated that only under socialism is it possible
to completely eliminate unemployment and to guarantee the real right to work. So-
cialism and full employment, capitalism and unemployment--such are the character-
istic traits of the two social systems. The Soviet people view with great under-
standing and sympathy the status of the working people in the capitalist countries
and support them in the just struggle for the main human right--the right to work.
FOOTNOTES
1. K. Marx, "Kapital" [Capital], Vol 1, Moscow, 1973, p 650.
2. See V. I. Lenin, "Poln. sobr. soch." [Complete Works], Vol 14, p 108.
_ 3. Ibid., Vol 5, p 323.
4. K. Ye. Voroshilov, "Stat'i i rechi" [Articles and Speeches], Moscow, 1936,
p 509.
5. "KPSS v rezolyutsiyakh i resheniyakh s"yezdov, konferentsiy i plenumov TsF:"
[The CPSU in Resolutions and Decisions of Congresses, Conferences and Plenums
of the Central Co~ittee], 8th edition, Vol 2, Moscow, 1970, p 51.
6. Ibid., Vol 2, p 59.
7. Ibid., Vol 3, p 395.
8. "KPSS v rezolyutsiyakh...," 8th edition, Vol 5, Pioscow, 1971, p 130.
9. See "Materialy XXVI s"yezda KPSS" [Materials of the 26th CPSU Congress], Moscow,
1981, p 57.
10. Ibid., p 59.
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CHAPTER 4. ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT TASKS ~
USSR citizens have the right to rest.
From Article 41 of the USSR Constitution
USSR citizens have the right to the pro-
tection of health.
From Article 42 of the USSR Censtitution.
Now, when the Soviet people customarily exercise their right to rest, when the
achievements of Soviet health care are well-known throughout the world, it is use-
ful to recall what the working conditions, the conditions of rest and the health
protection of working people were in prerevolutionary Russia.
The workday at plants and factories lasted 12-13 hours, while in the textile indus-
try it amounted to 15-16 hours. Rest on Sunday was entirely inadequate to restore
strength after a week of gruelling labor, while the workers had no idea of annual
vacations.
The fate of the peasant was even more difficult. The farm laborers worked for ku-
laks and landlords literally from dawn to dusk. Here, for ~xample, are lines from
a conr_ract which those hired for work at the estate of Count Pototsk~y were obliged
to sign in 1905: "I, a peasant woman from such and such a village, have hired my-
self out on my own accord at such and such an estate of Count Pototskiy for agri-
cultural work, no matter wh~t is assigned to me.... I undertake to go to work at
sunrise and to work until sundown.... If the estate suumions me to do some ~ob on a
holiday or on Sunday, I do not have the right to refuse to work.... If I should
become sick or die, my family shoul.d finish working for me.... These terms are
known to me, which I acknowledge by my signature."1
Elementary labor safety regulations were absent at plants and factories, mines and
pits. In 1902 the Batumi workers wrote to the newspaper ISKRA: "...In the solder-
ing departments of the petroleum refineries the workers are sick with throat and
chest diseases, since the air in these workshogs is saturated with the vapors of
various acids. In the pouring departments of these plaHeretit isgdifficultwtokfind
are swollen and covered with ulcers from kerosene....
a worker who is not sick with a fever and rheumatism."Z Accidents, cave-ins, ex-
plosions and flooding of the shafts were a co~non phenomenon in the Donets coal.
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basin. Hard labor under unbearable conditions disabled the workers and premature-
ly took them to the grave.
The expenditures from the state budget for the purposes of public health were liter-
ally a pittance. The workers received only primitive medical help, it was essential-
ly not given to peasants at all. And it is not surprising that there was one hospi-
tal bed per 767 inhabitants, while each physician should have attended on the aver-
age 5,656 people. As for sanatorium treatment, the working people did not dream of
- it. Only the capitalists, landlords and their lackeys used health resorts. In
1907, for example, at the Caucasus mineral springs among the "~uests" 42 percent
were landlords, nobles and merchants,_24 percent were plant and factory owners and
kulaks, 23 percent were officers and government officials, 10 percent were scien-
tists and physicians and 1 percent were priests.
The periodic outbreaks of epidemica of typhus, cholera, plague and smallpox envel-
oped entire areas and took the Zives of hundreds of thousands of people. About
3 percent of the population died annually in tsarist Russia. Prior to World War I
the overall death rate of the population here was twofold higher, while infant mor-
tality was three- to fourfold higher than in such countries as England, Germany,
Norway, the United States and France.
Our party always regarded the campaign for the shortening of the workday and for
the right of the working people to rest and the protection of health as one of the
most important social tasks. In its first Program it advanced "in the interests of
the protection of the working class against physical and moral degeneration, as well
as in the interests of the development of its capacity for the liberation struggle"
, the tasks of the limitation of the workday to 8 hours a day for all hired workers;
the establishment by law of weekly.rest which runs continuously for not less than
42 hours; the complete banning of overtime; the prohibition of night labor, with the
exception of those sectors of the national economy, in which it is absolutely nec-
= essary; the prohibiting of employers from using the labor of children of school age
(up to 16 years of age) and the limitation of the wor.king time of adolescents
(16-18 years of age) to 6 hours; the prohibition of female labor in those sectors
in which it is harmful to a woman's body.3 ~
The provisions of the party program called for the properly organized health in-
spection at all enterprises which use hired labor; the criminal liability of em-
ployers for the violation of labor safety laws; free medical help for workers at
the expense of employers, with the retention of pay during illness; the inspection
- by organs of local self-government of tihe health conditions of the apartment houses
set aside for workers by employers.4
It was possible to achieve all this only by a revolutionary struggle. For example,
under the supervision of the party the working people achieved a slight shortening
of the workday, but on the eve of the Great October 5ocialist Revolution the bulk
of the workers, including adolescents, were working 10 hours a day, while about
15 percent were working more than 11-12 hours a day. "...The dialectics of the
class struggle is such," V. I. Lenin said, "that never without extreme need, without
dire need will the bourgeoisie replace the serene, customary, profitable... 10-hour
workday with an 8-hour workday."5
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Nux urr1L~~AL u~r. UNLY
The Great October Socialist Revolution did this. The Council af People's Commis-
sars adopted the decree "On the Eight-Hour Workday" 3 days after the victory of Oc-
tober. The Soviet regime carried out legislatively and sanctioned in the Code of
Labor Laws all the demands of the first Party Progr~m in the area of labor safety
regulations. "This is an enormous accomplishment of Soviet power, V. I. Lenin em-
phasized, "that at a time when all countries are up in arms against the working
class, we are coming forth with a code which firmly establishes the principles of
labor legislation, as, for example, the 8-hour workday."6
However, the extreme devastation caused by the war and the pressure of world im-
perialism forced our party and the Soviet state to allow the use of overtime in ex-
ceptional cases, limiting it to 50 days a year; to permit the labor of adolescents
from 14 to 16 years of age, limiting their workday to 4 hours; to increase the
length of night-time work to 7 hours.~ These were forced and temporary measures.
In its second Program the Communist Party set itself the task to ensure in the fu-
ture, in the case of an overall increase of labor productivity, the shortening of
the workday without a decrease of the remuneration for labor. And as soon as the
r_ational economy, which had been ravaged by the imperialist and civil wars, had
been restored, it began the implementation of this task. On 15 October 1927 the
USSR Central Executive Committee on the occasion of the lOth anniversary of the
Great October Socialist Revolution adopted a manifesto in which it proclaimed the
changeover from an 8-hour to a 7-hour workday without a decrease of wages. During
the next 5-6 years a 7-hour workday was established for the majority of workers
and employees, but the threat of aggression on the part of fascist Germany forced
the Communist Party and the Soviet state to reintroduce the 8-hour workday. And
soon after the beginning of the Great Patriotic War the Presidium of the USSR Su-
preme Soviet granted the directors of enterprises the right '.o establish, with per~
mission of the government, mandatory overtime lasting from to 3 hours a day.
Regular and additional leaves were cancelled (with the ret;ntion of the monetary
remuneration for the unused leave). These steps were cle4r to everyone: war is war.
After the victory the prewar working conditions and conditions of the rest of work-
ers and employees in the USSR were restored: mandatory overtime was abolished, an-
nual vacations were reinstated. However, in connection with the enormous damage
done to the national economy, the party deemed it necessary to maintain for workers
and employees, with the exception of a number of occupations with hard working con-
ditions, an 8-hour workday.
Following the successful completion of the plan of the postwar restoration and de-
velopment of the national economy the Communist Party again advanced the task of
shortening the length of the workday. In 1956 a decision was adopted on the uni-
versal changeover to a 7- and 6--hour workday. The planned changeover of workers
and employees to a 5-day work week was begun in 1966. This changeover was completed
for the most part by the 50th anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution.
As a result we began to have on the average during the year 112 days off~and holi-
days instead of 60 in the case of a 6-day work week.
The limitation of the duration of working time is one of the most important guaran-
tees of the right~of Soviet people to rest. /In conformity with the USSR Constitu-
tion a work week not exceeding 41 hours has been established for workers and em-
ployees in our country; the workday has been shortened for a number of occupations
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and works; days of weekly rest and annual paid vacationa are granted to all work-
ing people/ [in boldface].
The work week in the USSR is one of the shortest in the world. During the years of
3oviet power its length for workers of industry has been shortened by nearly one-
third. Now the average length of the work week of all workers and employees (with
allowance made for shortened worki,ng time on preholiday days, holidays in excess of
ordinary days off and the shortened workday of teachers, medical and other person-
nel) is 39.4 hours.
Along with the shortening of the work week the length of annual paid vacations is
being increased in our country. Thus, in conformity with the decree of the CPSU
Central Committee and the USSR Council of Ministers of 1 January 1968 it was in-
creased to 15 workdays for those categories of workers, who prior to this had a
vacation of 12 workdays. Gradually the length of the minimum vacation of all work-
' ers and employees will be increased to 3 weeks, and in the future to 1 month. Let
us note here that many categories of workers and employees in our country have to-
day vacations of 1 month and more.
As to kolkhoz farmers, the length of their work week is not regulated in the Funda-
mental Law: due to the seasonal nature of agri.:ultural work and the great diversi-
ty of natural conditions the length ~f their working time and rest is regulat:ed by
the kolkhozes themselves in conformity with their charters or labor regulations, on
the basis of the general principles of Soviet legislation.
_ Thus, as socialist society has developed our party has consistently implemented its
program provisions on the steady increase of the time for the rest of the working
people.
What does this give each Soviet individual, his family and our society as a whole?
Under the conditions of socialism the very content of free time has changed radi-
cally. It is becoming more and more a gauge of public wealth. In our country
along with the increase of free time a greater and greater portion of it is being
used not only and not so much for rest as such as for the meeting of a wide range
of spiritual needs: education, parficipation in public life and the raising of
children, reading, participation in sports and tourism, creative amateur artistic
work, going to movies, museums, theaters and so on, or, in Lenin's words, "for
one's own development, for the exercise of one's rights as a person, as a family
man, as a citizen."$
It is quite clear that the appropriate conditions were also created in our country
for this. /The LSSR Constitution guarantees the ri~ht to rest by the enlargement
of the network of cultural, educational and health institutions, the development of
mass sports, physical culture and tourism, the creation of favorable opportunities
for rest at the place of residence and other conditions of the eff icient use of
free time/ [in baldface].
Priority, of course, is given to the expenditures which directly or indirectly pro-
~ mote the improvement of the health of the working people. Starting with the first
years of Soviet power our party and state devoted exceptionally great attention to
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r~x vrr~~,~n~ a~DG VfVLY
this question. In particular, in May 1922 the Council of People's Commissars prom-
- ulgated a special decree on the organization of an extensive network of holiday
homes for workers. Country dachas, the former estates of landlowners, monasteries
and so forth were first of all used for this. Even under the conditions when the
young Soviet state did not have enough assets for the most necessary thing, the old
- holiday homes and sanatoriums were restored and renovated and new ones were built.
In subsequent years in conformity with decrees of the Couununist Party the expe~di-
tures for these purposes were steadily increased. Whereas in 1939 in the country
there were 3,600 sanatoriums and other institutions of rest with accommodations for
469,000, in 1980 there were 13,160 with accommodations for nearly 2.2 million. In
the past 10 years the number of those who have been treated and have rested at sana-
toriums and vacation institutions (excluding 1- and 2-day stays) and at tourist
centers has increased 2.3-fold and in 1980 came to 39 million. Let us note here
that 86 percent of the travel authori2ations to sanatoriums, holiday hotels, holi-
day homes and sanatorium-dispensaries were issued at the expense of the assets of
social insurance, including 17 percent free of charge.
/In our country physical culture and sports are nlaying an important role in the
improvement of the health of the working people/ [in boldface]. At all the stages
of their history the Communist Party and the Soviet state have done everything pos-
sible f~r their development. In recent years alone the CPSU Central Committee has
adopted a number of special decrees on these questions.
A firm material basis has been created in our country for the extensive, truly mas-
sive~enlistment of people in the pursuit of physical culture and sports. Now there
are about 200 paZaces of sports and riding schools, about 3,500 stadiums, 110,000
soccer fields, 74,000 gymnasiums, 6,300 ski centers, 8,500 track arenas and 1,700
swimming pools in the Soviet Union. About 318,000 staff workers are employed in
the physical culture movement. More than 220 higher and secondary specialized edu-
cational institutions, including 24 institutes and 26 tekhnikums of physical cul-
- ture, carry out the training of physical culturalists and athletes.
More than 70 types of sports are well developed in our country. Up to 500 different
all-union meets are held annually, while the Sports Festivals of the Peoples of the
USSR are held once every 4 years. About 100 million people took part just in the
mass starts of the Seventh Summer Sports Festival of the Peoples of the USSR (1979).
The broad scope of the physical culture movement is the basis of the suceesses of
Soviet athletes on the international arena. Convincing evidence of this is the
32d Olympic Games in Moscow.
The Communist Party and the Soviet state are striving to provide everything neces-
sary for the improvement and protection of the health of the working people. /Dur-
ing the years of Soviet power a unified state system of health care, which provides
all citizens with free skilled medical help, as well as ensures the implementation
of effective steps on the prevention and decrease of the illness rate, the improve-
ment of the health and the lengthening of the life of the population, has been cre-
ated in our country under the supervision of the party/ [in boldface].
Its creation commenced with Lenin's decree on the expropriation from the bourgeoisie
of all medical institutions and enterprises, which was promulgated in December 1918,
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and with the establishment in July 1918 of the People's Commissariat of Public
Health. 2'he p roperty of all medical and public health institutions of the repub-
- lic, drugstores, health resorts and so on were placed at its disposal. In just a
year and a half after the revolution V. I. Lenin had signed about 300 different
government documents which to one extent or another concerned questions of the pro-
tection of the health of the working ~:aople.
The development of Soviet public health began under exceptionally difficult condi-
tions. The country was exper3encing great difficulties with medical personnel.
Many physicians had not yet determined definitively their position. The measures
of the party and state in the area of public health were sabotaged by medical offi-
cials hostile to the Soviet regime.
The young Soviet Republic was surrounded by interventionists, the civil war was
under way. The medical service of the Red Army was among the most important aims
of the Communist Party. V. I. Lenin personally kept an eye on the dispatch of
medical personnel to the front. The care of the sick and wounded was constantly
monitored by the party Central Co~ittee.
In the country industrial and agricultural production declined sharply, the popula-
tion was starving. In early 1918 the daily bread ration even for workers of the
first category was only 200 g. Epidemics of cholera, disentery, typhoid fever and
typhus broke out. In addition to the military danger, the decline of the physical
strength of the working people and the chaos of contagious diseases, which affected
hundreds of thousands of people, threatened the revolution. "...The typhus among
the population, which is exhausted from hunger, is sick and does not have bread,
- soap, fuel," V. I. Lenin said with alarm, "may become the disaster which will not
enable us to cope with any building of socialism."9
The party took vigorous steps. The A1Z-Russian Commission for the Improvement of
the Health Conditions of the Republic was founded. The offensive on a broad front
~ against~typhus and other infectious diseases, the drive for health order and the
participation of the working people in the implementation of these measures were
the first step s of young Soviet public health.
The basic principles of the protection of the health of the people were formulated
in the second Party Program. It envisaged first of all the implementation of ex-
tensive health and sanitary measures which had as a goal the prevention of the
spread of diseases. In particular, the sanitation of populated places (the protec-
tion of the soil, water and air), the organization of public dining on the scien-
tific hygienic baeis and the establishment of public health legislation were in-
tended. Our party set as its immediate tasks the control of social diseases (tu-
berculosis, venereal disease, alcoholism and so on), the provision of generally
available, free and skilled medical and medicinal he1p.10
Of course, during the first years of Soviet power medical help could not always
be provided due to the shortage of inedical institutions and specialists. Therefore
the party and the state took steps on the increase of the network of inedical insti-
tutions and the expansion of the training of inedical personnel. In 1928 the number
of physicians and intermediate medical personnel had increased as compared with
1913 nearly 2.3-fold, there were 39,000 more hospital beds. By this time it had
been possible to eliminate such especially dangerous diseases as smallpox, plague
and cholera.
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~�uK orMiciA,. u~~ ~NLY
The First, and then the Second and Third Five-Year Plans became important stages in
the matter of radically improving the organization of public health. The decrees
of the party Central Committee "Qn the Medical Service of Workers and Peasants"
(1929) and "On Medical Personnel" (1931) were of fundamental importance in this
respect.
As the national income increased, more and more assets were allocated for the pur-
poses of public health. The number of inedical institutions in the city and the
countryside and medical educational and scientific research institutes increased
rapidly. Preventive health measures were increased, medical help improved. Steps
were taken on the organization of the dispenary method of serving the population,
the setting up of health centers at enterprises and so on.
- By the end of 1940 there were already 155,00 physicians, or nearly 5.5-fold more
- than before the revolution. The supply of hospital beds was 40 per 10,000 people.
There were about 14,000 hospitals in the country.
During the years of the Great Patriotic War the Communist Party and the Soviet
state took steps to create the necessary conditions for the treatment of the
wounded. In addition to military hospitals, an extensive network of evacuation
hospitals was developed in the rear. Much work was carried out on protecting the
health of the workers of the rear. Medical and paramedical health centers and pub-
lic health units were set up at many enterprises. Dispensaries, which enabled the
workers to maintain their health without leave from work, were organized at large
enterprises. Extraordinary anti-epidemic commissions were organized everywhere for
the stepped-up medical monitoring of the state of sanitation. The concern of the
party about the health of the defenders of the homeland and the workers of the rear
became one of the important sources of the victory of our people in the Great Patri-
otic War.
In subsequent years the tasks of improving public health were discussed at all the
party congresses. Specific steps in this regard were specified in a number of
joint decrees of the CPSU Central Committee and the USSR Council of Ministers. The
approval of the Fundamentals of Public Health Legislation in our country (1969) was
an act of great sociopolitical importance.
The rapid development of the socialist economy made it possible from five-year plan
to five-year plan to increase the expenditures on.public health and the strengthen-
ing of its material and technical base. In the past 15 years alone they have in-
creased more than 2.5-fold and in 1980 exceeded 18 billion rubles. This is more than
70 rubles per person.
During the years of the building of socialism and communism our country has been
covered by a dense network of inedical institutions--from the rural outpatient clin-
ic to specialized centers. Great changes, quantitative and qualitative, have oc-
curred in the training of inedical personnel. Medical science and industry have
been developed intensively, hospitals and polyclinics have been furnished with mod-
ern equipment, the production of drugs has increased, ma~or prophylatic measures
on the prevention of diseases were implemented.
Under the conditions of mature socialism an extensively branched system of public
health, which is based on the latest achievements of world medical science, was
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formed in the USSR. The right of ~ne S~viet people to the protection of health be-
came a reality and was sanctioned for the first time in the USSR Constitution of
1977.
How is this right guaranteed in our country?
In conformity with the USSR Constitution~ /the right to the protection of health is
guaranteed first of all by free skilled medical help, which is provided by state
public health institutions/ [in boldface]. This humane principle, which was imple-
mented back during the first years of Soviet power, is the most important principle
of the socialist public health system. ~
More than 2 billion visits and calls of doctors to the home are registered annually
at the preventive medical treatment institutions of our country. Moreover, when
going to a physician or summoning him to the home, no one has to see how much money
he has. Every type of inedical help--from a simple bandage to the most compli-
cated operation--is provided in our country free of charge. The state bears all
the expenses on the prevention and treatment of diseases. This pertains to medical
consultations, the consultations of specialists, "first aid" calls and laboratory
analyses and examinations. While in a hospital or specialized clinic, the patient
does not even ponder the fact that his stay there costs the state on the average
more than 8 rubles a day.
At the same time in the capitalist countries a significant sector of public health
is private business. In the United States, for example, the total expenditures of
the population on medical service yearly come to an amount which exceeds the expend-
itures on the purchase of clothing and shoes. A surgical operation in ar~ American
hospital costs the patient from $2,500 to $10,000. Moreover, medical businessmen con-
tinue to inflate the fee for medical help. As a result, according to the testimony
_ of the U.S. press, half of the sick Americans do not turn to physicians. Senator
E. Kennedy, being the chairman of the Senate Subcommittee for Health, wrote concern-
ing this: "The public health system in the United States is based on the pursuit
of a profit and ignores the needs of the people."11
- /The USS~ Constitution guarantees the right to the protection of health by the ex-
pansion of the network of institutions for the treatment and improvement of the
health of citizens/ [in boldface]. At present in our country there are about
60,000 hospitals, outpatient clinics, polyclinics, dispensaries and ocher state
health institutions, which are furnished with modern equipment. The value of
their f ixed capital is 35 billion rubles. The number of hospital beds in the past
15 years alone has increased nearly 1.5-fold and has reached 3.3 million. We have
6 million medical personnel who have a high level of occupational knowledge and
skill. Among them there are almost 1 million physicians, or 1.8-fold more than
there were, for example, in 1965.
One-third of all the physicians of the world work in the Soviet Union, while our
country accounts for 6 percent of the population of the world. In the number of
physicians, hospital beds and other indicators per 10,000 people we have for a long
time now considerably surpassed the capitalist countries.
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/The Soviet Constitution guarantees the right to the protection of health by the
development and improvement of labor safety practices and production hygiene/ [in
boldface~. In conformity with the instructions of the party Central Committee all ~
ministries and departments are obligated with the consent of public health organs
and trade unions to draft regularly comprehensive plans of sanitation and health
measures, which are aimed at the improvement of labor safety regulations and labor
Safety practices, the prevention of occupational diseases and the reduction of the
causes of production injuries. The state annually allocates more than 2 billion
rubles for these purposes.
The requirements of labor safety practices are included without fail in all state
standards for ma.chine tools and machines. "Our goal," L. I. Brezhnev said, "can
be formulated as follows: from labor safety practicesi~o safe equipment. We h~ve
embarked on this path and will follow it steadfastly.
Strict monitoring of the observance of the requirements of labor safety procedures
and labor safety regulations has been organized in all the sectors of the national
economy. In addition to specialists, about 4 million public inspectors, members of
commissions and supernumerary inspect4rs for labor safety procedures are engaged in
this.
As a result, the level of production in~uries and occupational disease in our coun-
try is one of the lowest in the world.
/In conformity with the USSR Constitution the right to the protection of heal:th is
'guaranteed by the implementation of extensive preventive medical measures/ [in bold-
face]. Preventive treatment is the leading direction of Soviet public health. Its
goal is the timely identification of the ill and the implementation of extensive
sanitary measures. In our country more than 110 million people, first of all chil-
dren, pregnant women, adolescents and the students of secondary and higher educa-
tional institutions, undergo preventive checkups annually.
A new type of inedical institutions--dispensaries--has been set up. They identify
ill people by means of inedical checkups, organize highly skilled medical help and
systematically observe patients. The dispensary network is making it possible to
wage in our country a planned campaign against such diseases as tuberculosis,
cancer, neuropsychological diseases and others.
The state sanitary and epidemiological service carries out the regular supervision
of the implementatio~ionsaandinormsutwhichahaveebeenmestablished in the countryand
anti epidemic regula
A well-balanced system of health education institutions, which includes special
Houses of Health Education, exists in the USSR. Annually Soviet medical men de-
liver hundreds of thclubsdslibrariesrand so~oniare devoting serioussattention tole-
vision, the movies, ,
this work.
/In accordance with the USSR Constitution, the right to the protection of health is
guaranteed by measures on the improvement of the environment/ [in boldface]. This
is a long-term problem, the solution of which the Co~nunist Party regards as an
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important socioeconomic task. Especially great attention has been devoted to it in
recent years. "When taking steps �or the acceleration of scientific and technical
progress," L. I. Brezhnev indicated, "it is necessary to do everything so that it
would be combined with a practical attitude toward natural resources and would not
serve as a source of the dangerous pollution of the air and water and the exhaus-
tion of the land."13
For the first time in constitutional practice our Fundamental Law specifiea both
the responsibility of the state for the protection of the environment and the duty
of citizens to guard nature and to protect its resources. In the USSR the neces-
sary steps are being taken for the protection and the seientifically sound, effi-
cient use of the land and ite mineral resources, water resources, the plant and an'_-
mal world, for keeping the air and water clean, for the assurance of the reproduc-
tion of natural resources and the improvement of man's environment. During the
lOth Five-Year Plan alone, in conformity with the decisions of the 25th party con-
gress, more than 9 billion rui~les were spent ior these purposes.
Our state regulates legislatively the use of natural resources and establishes the
rules of environmental protection. The Fundamentals of Land, Timber and Water Leg-
islation, legislation on mineral resources and laws on the protection of the air
and the animal world, which have been passed by the USSR Supreme Soviet, in particu-
lar serve this.
Strict sanitary requirements on the layout and building up of population centers
have been established. The master plans and the plans of the location of the sec-
tors of the national economy and large industrial complexes, zones of moss recrea-
tion and park grounds are being drafted from the point of vtew of nature conserva-
tion. Not a single built enterprise can be started up witrout treatment facilities.
Just a list of the decrees of the CPSU Central Co~ittee, which have been adopted
� in recent years: on the intensification of the protection of nature, mineral re-
sources and forests; on the protection of the Caspian and Black Seas and the Sea of
Azov, the basins of the Volga and Ural Rivers; on the protection of the resources
of Lake Baykal and many others, attests to the constant attention of the Communist
Party to questions of the protection of the natural environment.
/The USSR Constitution guarantees the right to the protection of health by special
concern about the health of the rising generation, including the prohibit3on of
child labor which is not connected with training and labor education/ [in boldface].
The party considers the formation of a physically strong young generation from the
youngest age to be one of its most important tasks.
Child consultation center-polyclinics, which operate according to the district prin-
ciple, register with the dispensary children of all ages, who suffer from various
chronic diseases, monitor neonat::s and children of early age especially carefully
and carry out anti-epidemic vaccinations. School physicians carry out the medical
service of school children. Along with treatment work they implement an extensive
set of public health and sanitary measures.
In addition to conventional medical institutions, in the country there are about
~ 1,200 children's sanatoriums where there are children who require the special care
and observation of physicians. The network of sanatoriums and holiday hotels for
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treatment, at which children live along with their parents, and of specialized year-
round Pioneer camps of the sanatorium type has undergone greater and greater devel-

~ opment in recent years.
~ /The right to the protection of health is guaranteed, according to the USSR uo:~sti-
tution, by the development of scientific research which is aimed at the prevention
and decrease of morbidity and the assurance of a long active life of citizens/ [in
boldface]. Soviet medical scientists have been provided with the latest equipment
and instruments. Programs of scientific researcY~ in the area of cardiovascular, on-
cological, viral, endocrine and other d3seases, the protection of the health of
mother and child, the scientific principles of the diet of man, environmental hy-
giene, as well as a number of other urgent problems of inedicine have been elaLorated.
During the years of Soviet power much has been dcne in the USSR in the area of the
protection of the health of the working people. Child mortality has been decreased
to nearly one-tenth, the life expectancy has increased. Whereas at the end of the
last century it was only 32 years in the most developed, European part of Russia,
now for the country as a whole it is 70 years.
The 25th CPSU Congress named the concern about the health of the Soviet people as
one of the most important social tasks. Much attention was also devoted to this
question at the 26th party congress. The congress demanded the substantial improve-
ment of the work of polyclinics, dispensaries and outpatient clinics. In many
places medical institutions have ~agged behind the potentials of inedicine, there are
not Pnough personnel, especially intermediate and ~unior personnel, the equipme:it is
obsoletes there are not enough modern~medicines. Shortcomings exist in the fulfill-
ment of the plans c,f the constructiori~of hospitals and sanatoriwns, there are cases
of the violation t~y individual medical personnel of their official duty and lack of
consideration for people. "Everything must be done," L. I. Brezhnev emphasized,
"so that the Soviet individual could always and everywhere receive timely, skilled
and responsive medical help."14
FOOTNOTES
1. SOVKHOZNAYA GAZETA, 28 October 1937.
2. ISKRA, 1 February 1902.
3. See "KPSS v rezolyutsiyakh i resheniyakh s"yezdov, konferentsiy i plenumov Ts~"
[The CPSU in Resolutions and Decisions of Congresses, Conferencea and Plenums
- of the Central Committee], 8Ch edition, Vol 1,.Modcow, 1970, p 64.
4. Ibid., p 65.
S. V. I. Lenin, "Poln. sobr. soch." [Complete Works], Vol 22, p 62.
6. Ibid., Vol 45, p 24b.
7. See "KPSS v rezolyutsiyakh i resheniyakh s"yezdov, konferentsiy i plenumov TsK,"
8th edition, Vol 2, Moscow, 1970, p 58.
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8. V. I. Lenin, "Poln. sobr. soch.," Vol 2, p 299.
9. Ibid., Vol 39, p 359.
10. See "KPSS v rezolyutsiyakh...," Vol 2, p 59.
11. See MEDITSINSRAYA GAZETA, 24 January 1973.
12. L. I. Brezhnev, "Leninskim kursom" [By the Leninist Course], Vol 6, Moscow,
- 1978, p 329.
13. L. Io Brezhnev, "Leninskim kursom," Vol 3, Moscow, 1972, p 257.
14. "Materialy XXVI s"yezda KPSS" [Materials ~f the 26th CPSU Congress], Moscow,
- 1981, p 61.
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CHAPTER 5. COMPLETELY AT THE EXPENSE OF THE STATE AND SOCIETY
USSR citizens have the right to material
security....
From Article 43 of the USSR Constitution
At the beginning of the century the working people in Russia did not have at all
any material security in case of illness, unemployment and disability and in old
age. If a worker became disabled, his employer threw him out the gate. Poverty
and death under a fence awaited him in old age.
A family which had lost its breadwinner was left without any means of existence.
Here is one of the many petitions addressed to the director of the Kha?-'kov Loco-
motive Building Plant, which da:as back to 1910: "...My husband Andrey Antonovich
Sidorov, having worked for about 4 years at the locomotive building plant entrusted
to you, at Founding Shop No 2661, from heavy and difficult work in February of this
year became seriously ill and or the 13th of this April died, leaving me and two
young children without any means of living.... Do us a great favor, aid a poor
- widow with children, so that they would not be left without their daily bread."
The reply stated: "It is impossible to give anything."1
The wretched wages did not enable the worker to create savings in case of illness,
injury or old age. The circumstances of the proletariat urgently dictated the need
for the introduction of material security through social insurance.
The demands of the working class in the area of social insurance were formulated in
the first Party Program, and then, to the fullest extent, in the resolution of its
Prague Conference (1912). They called for the introduction cf the insurance of all
people of hire~ labor at the expense of employers and the state; the provision of
insurance to workers in all instancea of disability; complete self-government in
this matter. At the same time the party emphasized that it is possible to achieve
the realization of these demands only by the overthrow of tsarism and the victory
of the proletarian revolution.2
In 1912 the tsarist government, frightened by the tension of the revolutionary move-
ment, hastily promulgated a law on the insurance of workers in case of illness and
injury. Here state insurance was not extended to agricultural and construction
workers, railroad workers, sailors and others, as well as to entire regions of the
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country (Siberia, the Far East, Central Asia). Old-age and disability insurance
was not provided for at all. The main burden of the expenses on insurance rest on
the shoulders of the workers themselves, whose insurance premiums were 1.5-fold
higher than those of employers and were up to 3 percent of the wage. The bene-
fits were extremely low, wer~ paid only beginning on the fourth day of disablement
and only within a limited period. The law in fact also placed the management bf
insurance in the hands of the employers.
_ M. I. Kalinin, an outstanding figure of our party and state, told how difficult it
,
was fo~ a worker during an ~llness: I was a skilled worker, my wage exceeded the
average wage of workers. Once I became sick at the plant. I was sick for 2 months
and during that time received only 15 rubles from the insurance office.... Add to
this the payment to the doctor, the cost of inedicine, and it will be clear to you
- in wha~t position I, a skilled worker, was. The 2 months of illness, as they used
to say, cleaned me out."3
The tsarist insurance law aroused the ~ustified indignation of the proletariat. In
Lenin's words, it was "a law which mocks in the grossest manner at the most vital
interests of the workers."4
The party exposed the true essence of the bourgeois reforms which were intended to
deceive the working masses, explained extensively to the workers that the promulga-
tion alone of insurance laws could not eliminate neediness, poverty and the lack of
rights, and directed their attention to the subordination of the struggle for so-
cial insurance to the general political struggle of the proletariat.
After the Great October Socialist Revolution the Communist Party immediately began
to carry out the tasks formulated in its insurance program. The implementation of
this program was entrusted to the People's Commissariat of Labor..
State support of the unemployed, as well as insurance in case of illness, the force
of which was extended to the entire territory of the Russian Republic, to all sec-
tors of labor and to all people employed for wages, were introduced by decrees of the
Soviet regime. The pensions of workers, who has suffered accidents, were increased
by 100 percent. Extensive work was carried out on the suppmrt of the disabled and
families which had lost their breadwinner.
Hospital funds for the payment of benefits for temporary disability, accidents,
pregnancy and birth, as well as for providing medical help to workers and their
families were set up everywhere with the active participation of the trade unions.
The assets of these funds consisted of mandatory contributions of employers. Work-
ers and employees were exempt from the payment of insurance premiums. All this was
immediately reflected in the improvement of the material status of the working
people.
During the first months after the victory of October, under the conditions of dis-
location and famine, resistance and sabotage, the Conununist Party and the Soviet
state performed much work on the implementation of the program in the area of so-
cial insurance. However, it was not possible at that time to implement it com-
pletely.
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Under the conditions of the struggle against foreign interventionists and the do-
mestic counterrevolution, social insurance was replaced by social security. It
covered all workers and employees, as well as craftsmen and peasants, who had not
exploited the labor of others, and was aimed first of all at providing material as-
sistance to the families of Red Army members, arphans and the needy ill and aged.
Insurance premiums were replaced by direct finan.:ing of the state, which by means
of its own allocations met the expenditur.~es on social security. The People's Com-
missariat of Social Security, the work of which was organized with the extensive
participation of the trade unions, was set up in 1920.
- The lOth party congress adopted the decision on the transition to the New Economic
Policy. It was aimed at the building of the foundations of a socialist economy.
State enterprises were�converted to cost accounting, the existence of small private
enterprises was permitted.
~ The system of universal social security of the working people at the eapense of the
state budget was not able to handle the new tasks. A decree, which restored the so-
cial insurance of people, who were engaged in hired labor at state, cooperative,
public, concessionary, leased and private enterprises, and extended it to all in-
stances of temporary and permanent disability, in case of unemployment, as well as
death, was prepared and adopted on the instructions of the party Central Committee.
The payment of insurance premiums was assigned to enterprises and institutions, and
in a higher amount for the private sector.
The difficult economic aituation of the country did not make it possible to immedi-
ately implement social insurance to the full extent. ~upport for temporary disabil-
ity, pregnancy and birth and unemployment were introduc;ed at first. The support of
retirees and a portion of the expenditures for financing medical help to the popu-
lation were also entrusted to social insurance.
Along with the development of the national economy the Communist Party and the Sovi-
et state from year to year extended and increased the support through social insur-
ance. Social insurance put into its budget the support at higher norms of all in-
valids of the civil war from among the workers and employees. The pensions, which
- were previously paid in equal amounts, were recalculated on the basis of the aver-
age wage for the given occupation, while those newly assigned were recalculated on
the basis of the individual wage. The pensions for those disabled as a result of
_ a work injury were increased, old-age pensiona were introduced for workers of the
textile industry.
However, by the early 1930's the nonconformity of the organization of social insur-
ance to the tasks of building socialism began to be felt. The party demanded the
radical improvement of the work of the organs of social insurance, its subordina-
tion to the tasks of increasing labor productivity and the tightening up of the
monitoring on the part of the working masses. The 16th party congress indicated
that the trade unions should be the deciding authority in the matter of the dis-
tribution of the vast amounts of social insurance. A new procedure of social secur-
ity with allowance made for the importance of the works, the length of service and
the attitude of a person toward labor was established. Central funds, which oper-
- ated under the i~nediate supervision of the trade unions, were organized in the
leading sectors of industry and in transportation.
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In 1933 all the management of the organs of social insurance, their assets and prop-
ery were turned over to the trade unions, for which the Communist Party set respon-
sible tasks. It was a question not of the mechanical transfer of social insurance,
but of its drastic reorganization in the interests of production on the basis of the
extensive involvement of the working people themselves in this work.
During the years of the.first five-year plans the group of workers, who had the
right to old-age pensions, was enlarged considerably, then it was extended to all
workers and engineering and technic~l personnel. In accordance with the budget of
social insurance assets began to be allocated for diet therapy and for the extra-
- curricular care of children.
The USSR Constitution of 1936 sanctioned the right of Soviet citizens to material
security in old age, as well as in case of illness and disablement. The previously
existing restrictions in the support through social insurance of individual cate-
gories of working people were repealed. Employees also acquired the right to old-
age pension security.
In conformity with the instructions of the partq Central Committee substantial
changes were made in the provision of benefits for temporary disability. The
amounts of the benPfits were made more dependent on the length of continuous work
at the given enterprise or institution. Restrictions were imposed in the payment
of such benefits to workers and employees, who had left a job at their own request,
as well as had been dismissed for the violation of labor discipline or in connec-
tion with the commission of a crime. The worker acquired the right to benefits for
temporary disability after 6 months of work at the new place.
During the years of the Great Patriotic War social insurance was subordinate to the
interests of the rout of the enemy. In spite of the difficulties of war times, the
pensions of all working retirees were increased. They were paid without regard for
the wage. This stimulated the return of many thousands of retirees to enterprises.
The benefits for temporary disability for the invalids of the Grea: Patriotic War
were estab:lished in the maximum amouitts. Assistance was provided to the families
- of servicemen at the expense of the assets of social insurance.
After the end of the war in conformity with the decisions of party congresses and
plenums of the Central Committee important measures on the improvement of the sys-
tem of social insurance and material security of the working people were imple-
mented in the country.
In 1956 the USSR Supreme Soviet passed the Law on State Pensions. This was the
practical implementation of the decisions of the 20th party congress on the improve-
ment of the matter of the pension security of the working people. In subsequent
years the minimum amounts of pensions were repeatedly increased, the system of bene-
fits for working retirees was gradually enlarged.
The level of the provision with benefits for temporary disability increased sub-
stantially. The minimum amounts of the benefits were increased, some previously
existing restrictions were repealed, additional benefits were introduced.
The Law on Pensions and Benefits to Members of Kolkhozes, which was passed by the
USSR Supreme Soviet in 1964, was an important social measure. In accordance with
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this law kolkhoz farmers began to be provided with old-age and disability pensions,
while the members of their families began to be provided with pensions in case of
the loss of the breadwinner according to uniform conditions and norms for the entire
country. Maternity benefits were established for female kolkhoz farmers.
5ubsequently ths retirement age of kolkhoz farmers was lowered, a uniform system of
_ social insurance, which envisages their provision w3.th benefits for temporary dis-
ability and several other types of benefits, was introduced, the minimum amounts of
old-age pensions were increased and others. The procedure of calculating pensions,
which was established for workers, employees and their families, was extended to
the members of kolkhozes and their families.
Now a uniform system of the social security of the working people in practice has
been formed in the country. The LTSSR Constitution guarantees every Soviet individ-
ual the right to material security in old age, in the caae of illness, complete or
partial disablement, as well as the loss of the breadwinner.
From what units is this system formed?
/First of all the USSR Constitution guaranteees the right to ma*_erial security by
the social insurance of workers, employees and kolkhoz farmers and by benefits for
temporary disability/ [in boldface]. Social insurance automatically applies to
every person as soon as he has gone to work. Due to social insurance no one re-
mains without material security. And no one at the same time bears any costs, the
state assumes them entirely.
The assets of social insurance are formed from the contributions of enterprises and
institutions, the amount of which is set by the government (from 4 to 9 percent~of
the wage fund). As for kolkhoz farmers, a centralized fund formed from the contri-
butions of kolkhozes exists for them.
Through state social insurance in the Soviet Union benefits are issued for tempor-
ary disability, pregnancy and birth and pensions are paid. Sanatorium and health
resort treatment is also provided, the vacation of children at Pioneer camps is
or~anized, the extracurricular care, of the children of workers and employees is car-
ried out and so ort by means of the assets of state social insurance.
Vast amounts of assets are being allocated for these purposes. In 1980, for exam-
ple, their amount was 45.6 billion rubles. This exceeds by nearly threefold the
expenditures on social security and social ~!nsurance in 1965 and by 48-fold those
in 1940. In 1980 pensions and benefits in the amount of 5 billion rubles, or 5.3-
fold more than in 1965, were paid to kolkhoz farmers from the union social security
fund.
Social insurance in our country is characterized by a high level of material secur-
ity. Minimum amounts of benefits, less than which they cannot be paid, have been
set. With a continuous length of service of 8 years or more the members of tra3e
unions receive them in the amount of 100 percent of the wage. The benefits for
temporary disability as a result of a 3ob in~ury or occupational disease are zlways
paid in the same amount.
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Benefits are paid, as a rule, from the first day of disablement until recovery or
the determination of disability and regardless of how much time has passed since
- the worker or employee went to work. Only those dismissed from a former job for
violations of labor discipline or in connection with the commission of a crime are
an exception. However, benefits for temporary disability by reason of job in~ury
or occupational disease are also issued to these workers regardless of the length
of service. ~
Such is the state of affairs in our country today. In the capitalist countries so-
- cial insurance to this day suffers from many defects. In particular, it does not
apply to all categories of working people. The social insurance funds to a signif-
icant extent are formed from contributions of the workers themaelves. The legisla-
tion of the capitalist countries is larded with a large number of norms, which
greatly limit the possibility of the receipt b}~ working people of support through
social insurance, and often completely deprives them of this opportunity. In many
cases the requirement of the ex{atence of a specific period of the payment of in-
surance premiums by the worker has been established for the right to benefits. The
benefits for illness are issued not from the first day o'f disablement, but only
after a"wait~.ng period," the length of which is up to 7 days, and, as a rule, does
not exceed ~~�-60 percent of t~e wage.
As was already noted, /in the Soviet Union the r3:ght to material security is guaran-
teed, in accordance with the USSR Constitution, by the payment at the expense of
the~state and kolkhozes of pensions for age, disability and in the case of the loss
. of the hreadwinner/ [in boldface]. They are also paid to some categories of wor~k-
ing people f.or seniority.
Pensions make up the largest item of expenditures in the budget of social insur-
ance--more than 7G percent. And this is understandable. In 1980 the number of re-
tirees in our country came to 49.9~million, or 19 percent of the population, while,
for example, in 1941 it was 4 million, or 2 percent of the population.
/Old-age pensions/ [in boldface] are granted in our country to all workers and em-
ployees of a specific age and length of services The age of inen is 60 years, the
length of service is 25 years; the age of women is 55 years, the length of service
- is 20 years. There are preferential exceptions which lower these limits by
5-10 years--work underground, harmful working conditions, the regions of'the Far
North 3nd others. Old-age pensions amount to 50 to 100 percent of the wage, and
the lower the wage is, the higher the percentage of the pension is.
Let us note in this connection that in the majority of capitalist countries the re-
tirement age is higher than in the USSR. For example, in the United States, the
FRG, the Netherlands and Sweden it is 63-65 years, in Norway--66 years. Here sig-
- nificant amounts are withheld from the wages in the form of insurance premiums (in
the United States--6.6 percent, in the FRG--13.2 percent). The minimum old-age
pensions in the developed capitalist countries to a significant extent do not come
- up to the offically recognized level of income, which is considered the poverty
level. According to the data of the American press, at present 22 million elderly
U.S. citizens have incomes less than the off icial "poverty line."
- In our country under the conditions of the steady improvement of health and the in-
crease of the length of life many retirees are continuing labor activity. At
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present they make up nearly a third of the retireea. The Communiet Party and the
Soviet state are creating the necessary conditions for their more extensive involve-
ment in socially useful labor, especially in the sphere of consumer service. To
some extent this is decreasing the shortage of manpower resources.
/Die~bility pensions/ [in boldface] are granted in the case of permanent or long-
term disablement. A specific length of service is necessary for this. However,
those who have become disabled due to a~ob injury or in connection with an occupa-
tion disease receive pensions regardless of the length of service and, moreover, `
larger pensions.
In general the amounts of the pension are determined sub3ect to the degree of dis-
ablement and the sector of industry, in which the insured worked. The time of the
onset of disability (before the start of labor activity, during it or after its
end) does not play a role in its granting.
The members of the family of a deceased worker or~.employee, who are unable to work
and were his dependents, have the right to /a penaion owing to the loss of the
breadwinner/ [in boldface].
/The USSR Constitution guarantees job placement for citizens who have become par-
tially disabled/ [in boldface]. The duty to provide such people with work within
their power is assigned to the administration of enterprises and institutions. If
no such opportunities exist at the enterprise or institution, at which the person
worked prior to the determination of disability, the organs of social insurance
assume the trouble of finding him work. They are guided by the recommendations of
expert medical and labor commissions. For the disabled an incomplete workday or an
incomplete work week is established, special shops are organized and voca~ional
training is conducted.
/In accordance with the USSR Constitution, the right to material security is guaran-
teed by the concern about elderly ~itizens and the disabled/ [in boldface]. For
this purpose a network of boarding homes, which are maintained entirely at state
' expense, has been created in our country.
The Communist Party and the Soviet state surround with special aare and attention
the disabled and participants in the Great Patriotic War and the families of dead
servicemen. In the USSR all the necessary steps are taken to improve their every-
day material living conditions. "The respect for veterans of historic battles and
- concern about them," L. I. Brezhnev said, "are a moral law of our life, a law both
for the authorities and for every citizen."5
It should be emphasized that support through social insurance is carried out in the
Soviet Union not in equalizing (identical for all) norms and amounts. Here the
amoent of the wage, the length of service, working conditions and others are taken
into account. This is fully in keeping with the principle "from each according to
his ability, to each according to his labor." Precisely for this reason, for ex-
ample, the suggestions received during the discussion of the draft of the new USSR
Constitution on the introduction of identical pensions for all or on the fact that
their amount should be determined exclusively on the basis of the length of service,
without consideration of the skills of the workers and the nature of their labor,
were not adopted.
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The management of social insurance has been organized on a broad democratic basis.
The main work here is performed by the factory, plant and local co~nittees of the
~ trade unions. They grant benefits, grant workers and employees travel authoriza-
tions for sanatorium and health resort treatment, to holiday homes, tourist and
convalescent institutions and children's sumoner camps, check the organization of
medical service, keep an eye on the timely payment by enterprises, institutions and
organizations of the contributions for social insurance. Workers and employees
participate in this work through the trade union commissions for social insurance.
The rights of the trade unions on this account are established by legislation.
The government--the services of the ministries of social security of the union re-
publics--are directly engaged in the granting of pensions and the determination of
disability, while the right to monitor this activity belongs to the trade unions.
Let us note for comparison that in the capitalist countries the decisive role in
the councils of insurance offices belongs to employers and their agents, who man-
- age the contributions of the workers at their own discretion.
Social insurance in our country is being constantly improved and developed. In con-
formity with the decisions of the 26th party congr.ess the minimum amount of old-age
and disability pensions for workers, employees and the members of kolkhozes will be
increased, while other measures on the further improvement of the social security
of the population will also be implemented. Concrete measures on this account were
specified in the decree of the CPSU Central Committee and the USSR Council of Min-
isters "On Measures to Further Improve the Social Security of the Population," which
was adopted immediately after the congress. Our goal is the gradual transition to
the complete support of those unable to work at the expense of society.
FOOTNOTES
1. PRAVDA, 11 October 1937.
2. See "KPSS v rezolyutsiyakh i resheniyakh s"yezdov, konferentsiy i plenumov TsK"
- (The CPSU in Resolutions and Decisions of Congresses, Conferences and Plenums
of the Central Committee], 8th edition, Vol 1, Moscow, 1970, pp 336-339.
' 3. M. I. Kalinin, "Izbrannyye proizvedeniya" [Selected Works], in 4 volumes,
voi 3, rioscow, 1962, pp 272-273.
4. V. I. Lenin, "Poln. sobr. soch." [Complete Works], Vol 21, p 147.
5. L. I. Brezhnev, "Leninskim kursom" [By the Leninist CourseJ, Vol 5, Moscow,
1976, p 288.
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rvx urri~iw,, u~r. ~nLY
CHAPTER 6. UNREMITTING ATTENTION TO THE IMPROVENlENT OF THE HOUSING CONDITIONS OF
THE WORKING PEOPLE
USSR citizens have the right to housing.
From Article 44 of the USSR Constitution
The right of the Soviet people to housing, just as the right to the protection of
health, was sanctioned for the first time in the new USSR Constitution. This be-
came possible as a result of the consistent implementation in our country of the
= enormous program of housing construction, which was elaborated by the Co~unist
Party and was implemented under its supervision during the years of Soviet power.
In order to fully appreciate the acale of the work which was done, it is useful to
recall what the "housing question" was in prerevolutionary Russia. The development
of capitalism was accompanied by the rapid growth of the urban population. At the
same time, of course, there arose an enormous demand for housing, which developed
at the end of the last century and the beginning of this century into a most acute
housing crisis. Everywhere, as V. I. Lenin wrote, "alongside the luxurious pal-
aces of the wealthy (or on the outskirts of cities) there arose the ahacks of
workers, who were forced to live in basements, in overcrowded damp and cold apart-
ments, or else directly in dugouts near new industrial establishments."1
In Moscow in 1912 nearly 850,000 people, or 70 percent of the population, lived in
extremely crowded conditions, in basements and barns. In Petersburg, according to
incomplete data, there were 150,000 "corner" and "bed" tenants, 63,000 lived in
basements, about two-thirds of the single workers rented one double bed. The chair-
man of the health commission of the State Duma, after visiting the workers' dwell-
ings, noted that "the living population on the Vyborg Side is quartered more close-
ly than the dead population in a cemetery."2
In other industrial cities the situation was even worse. Nearly half of the miners
of the Donbass in 1912 lived in deep dugouts without floc+rs and windows, concerning
which the 3ournal RUSSKOYE BOGATSTVO wrote that these are "more of a den of ani-
mals than a human dwelling."3 The great proletarian writer Maksim Gor'kiy compared
the huts of the Baku oil workers with a heap of ruins after an earthquake, the
dwellings of prehistoric people. The Ural miners and metalworkers, the Ivanovo-
Voskresensk textile workers and the workers of many other induatrial cities and
regions lived under similar conditions.
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In the overcrowding of workers' dwellings tsarist Russia held first place in Europe
and was at the level of the most backward colonial countries. The state of munici-
pal services and the civic improvement of cities corresponded completely to this.
The working people lived, as a rule, in the outskirts, without lighting, water and
a sewer system, under the conditiona of appalling unsanitariness.
In the budget of the family of a worker the expenditures for a roof over the head
made up 20-25 percent, while in the case of the rental of a separate room or two
~ rooms they increased respectively to 40-60 percent. According to official data, in
1903 Moscow landlords received from the rental of dwellings a net profit of 147 mil-
lion rubles, or two-thirds of the received amount of rent. The cost of dwellings,
which was excessive even for skilled workera, made inaccessible to the working
people apartment houses furnished in the slightest degree with amenities. In 1914,
when the need for housing in Moscow had become eapecially acute, about 5,000 multi--
room apartments with all the arcienities were vacant in the prosperous districts of
the city.
The countryside also had its contrasts. While the kulaks, priests and merchants
built for themseives large houses roofed with iron, the poor peasants lived in small
huts with straw roofs and dirt floore, many of which were heated, as they said in
those times, in the black manner--the smoke came out the door. During the cold
winter months along with the people the animals were also accommodated here.
The basic principles and directions of the policy of the Communist Party in the
area of housing were elaborated by V. I. Lenin back before the Great October Social-
ist Revolution. He, in part~.cular, emphasized that /"only the abolition of the
private ownership of land and the construction of inexpensive and sanitary apart-
ments can solve the housing question"/4 [in boldface], ~hat "the proletarian state
must forcibly quarter the extremely needy family in the apartment of a rich man,"5
that the working people "can and should themselves set about the /proper/ [in .
italics], most strictly regulated, organized distribution... of apartments...,/in
the interests of the poor./"[in italics].6 During the period of the building of
socialism, V. I. Lenin wrote, "the leasing of apartments belonging to a11 the people
to individual families for a fee presumes the collection of this fee, some monitor-
ing and some standardization or other of the allocation of apartments," and only
under communism "will it be possible to turn over apartments free of charge"~ for
the cse of each family.
Our party set about solving the housing problem inrcaediately after the victory of
October. By the first decrees of the Soviet regime the houses belonging to capi-
talists and aristocrats were axproprfated, hundreds of thousands of workers received
well-appointed housing. Low-paid workers and employees, as well as the families of
Red Army soldiers were completely exempt during the war from rent. Landlords were
forbidden to make an}~ increase of the rent whatsoever.
In the pursuit of the housing policy the decree "On the Abolition of the Right of
the Private Ownership of Real Estate in Cities" was of great importance. In con--
formity with this decree developed and undeveloped lots and all more or less large,
so-called profitable, apartment houses passed into the hands of the Soviet state.
The management of the expropriated apartment houses was entrusted to the house com-
mittees, which were elected at general meetings of the tenants.
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The "housing reallotment" took place under the conditions of a fierce class strug-
gle. The former owners attempted with all their might to retain their possessions.
Frequently bureaucrats and the middle bourgeoisie seized control of municipal-
ized apartment houses and sabotaged the decisions of the Soviet regime.
Of course, the redistribution of housing alone was far from sufficient to solve the
housing crisis, which was aggravated even more as a result of the civil war and for-
eign intervention, which did considerable harm to the available housing.
"The task of the Russian Communist Party," it was stated in the second Party Pro-
gram, "is... to strive with all its might for the improvement of the housing condi-
tions of the working masses; for the elimination of the overcrowding and unsanitari-
ness of old blocks, the razing of unfit dwellings, the rebuilding of old ones, the
building of new ones, which are in keeping with the new living conditions of the
working masses, for the rational settlement of the working people."8
In order to solve the urgent housing question, it was necessary to launch the con-
struction of apartment houses on an extensive scale. However, the economic base of
the young Soviet state was too weak for this, the construction industry in prac-
tice was nonexistent. After the civil war the efforts of the party were focused
first of all on the restoration of industry, transportation and agriculture. Hous-
ing construction was carried out in small amounts, for the most part by the individ-
ual method with the aid of state credit (assets were allocated primarily for the
repair of wrecked buildings).
At the same time the Communist Party and the Soviet state sought every means which
made it possible to ease the housing situation of the working people. For this
purpose, in particular, the above-standard surpluses of living space were confis-
cated from institutions and individual citizens, steps were taken to combat the de-
struction of dwellings and so on.
Under the conditions of the economic difficulties the party recognized it to be nec-
essary to use in the interests of the development of housing construction the initi-
ative of the population with the attraction of their physical assets. As was noted
at the 13th party congress, "the housing cooperative is the best form of such initi-
ative in the elimination of the need of the working people for housing."9 Coopera-
tive construction was carried out on a proportionate basis using the assets of the
state and the members of the cooperatives.
Following the conclusion of the restoration period and in connection with the tran-
sition to socialist industrialization the housing question acquired paramo~snt im-
portance. The growth rate of housing construction lagged significantly behind the
growth rate of the working class. Owing to this the average norms of living space
decreased. The housing shortage, moreover, checked the development of industry and
the increase of production personnel.
In this connection the July (1926) united Plenum of the Central Committee and Cen-
tral Control Co~nission of the All-Union Communist Party (of Bolsheviks) elaborated
urgent measures on the improvement of workers' housing construction: the creation
' of a permanent fund of financing; the drawing up of plana of the construction of
housing, which were coordinated with the ptans of the restoration of industry in the
largest industrial centers and regions; the consolidation and decrease of the cost
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of construction; the streamlining of the work of atate construction offices; the de-
velopment of the production of conatruction materials; the development of the leaet
expensive type of dwellings, which waa tr~ilored for the needs of the workera, with
- allowance made for the possibility of u~ing local construction materials; the de-
crease of the cost of credit.10 The decisions of the plenum were the basis for the
planned development of all housing construction in our country. Industrial and
transportation enterprises, as well as the local soviets became the main builders
of w~rkers' dwellinga.
During those years the construction of temporary dwellings was carried out on a
large scale. This stemmed from the need for the quickest possible provision of
housing to the workers coming to pla.nts and construction pro~ects, as well as from
the saving of physical assets which were allocated first of all for the development
of industry. Many construction workers had to live at first in plank barracks,
tents, or else in dugouts. But the Soviet people consciously agreed to these tem-
porary difficulties.
The decrees of the 16th party congress, which advanced the task of "the decisive
speeding up of the changeover to industrial methods of construction by means of
standardization, the use of type designs and timely designing, as well as the maxi-
mum mechanization of construction operations and the transition to year-round con-
struction and the creation of permanent staffs of construction workers,"11 were of
great importance for the further develogment of housing construction. The deci-
- sions of the congress marked the beginning oi a qualitatively new stage. The con-
struction materials ~ndustry began to be developed morE rapidly, equipment set off
for construction pro~ects.
The development of old industrial centers and the rapid growth of new cities and
workers' settlements raised for the party the task of the renovation of municipal
services as applied to the scale of industrial construction, the size of the urban
population and the cultural and personal needs of the working people. These ques-
tions were examined thoroughly at the June (1931) Plenum of the Central Co~�nittee
of the All-Union Communist Party (of Bolsheviks), which adopted the decree "On
Moscow Municipal Services and on the Development of Municipal Services in the USSR."
The implementation of this decree commenced the socialist renovation of Moscow and
other cities.
With the strengthening of the socialist economy the state obtained the opportunity
to assume almost entirely the concern about urban housing construction. The man-
agement of all available state housing, the technical and sanitary inspection and
nonitoring of the maintenance and repair of buildings were entrusted to the local
::~oviets and to those state enterprises and institutions, which had apartment houses
~nder their jurisdiction.
i,~_iring the first years of Soviet power the legislation on rent was steadily im-
~roved. Its amount was maae dependent upon the social status of the tenant, his
i~come and wages, the quality and amenities of the housing, the self-sufficiency
ar;d profitability of the housing services and so on. This sys~em was completely
r.ormed in 1926-1929, when rent laws, which specified the general procedure of its
~:ilculation, were promulgated. The state assumed the basic housing costs.
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- During the yeara of the first five-year plans 129.6 million m2 of housing were
built by state enterprises and institutions, local soviets, as well as the working
people by means of their own savings and state credit. The scale and rate in-
creased steadily, the quality of housing construction improved. By the end of 1940
the total amount of available urban housing came to 421 million m2 and had increased
more than 2.3-fold as compared with 1913. Moreover, apartment houses with a ~ota1
area of 254 million m2 had been built in rural areas since 1918.
The provision of cities with amenities improved appreciably. At the beginning of
1940 in cities and workers' settlements 47 percent of the dwellings were provided
with water pipes, 40 percent--sewer systems, 18 percent--central heating.
The increase of housing construction, which was enorm~us according to that scale,
at the same time was not able to adequately meet the need for well-appointed hous-
ing. The ranks of the working class, employees and the intelligentsia increased.
Thus, whereas in 1926-1930 the number of urban residents increased on the average
by 1.5 million a year, in 1931-1932 it was already increasing by 3.3 million. By
1940 the size of the urban population came to 63 million. Therefor.e the average
provision of housing during this period still remained low.
It must be borne in mind that the party and state, in spite of the steadily in-
creased capital investments in housing construction, were able to allocated only
~ limited assets for these purposes. Every "extra" ruble was allocated for the in-
= ten:~ive development of heavy industry and the strengthening of the defense of the
cout~:try.
During the years of the Great Patriotic War the entire economy of the country was
subordinate to the needs of the front, and it is quite understandable that the
amount of housing construction declined st~a~iy. Housing was built mainly in the
eastern regions of the country, to which more than 10 million people were evacuated.
In the new regions it was necessary to hastily build temporary dwellings for them
and to accommodate people by means of the considerable reduction of the space per
person in the available housing.
The war greatly aggravated the housing question. The fascists destroyed and burned
on the territory af the Soviet Union 1,710 cities and workers' settlements, more
than 70,000 villages and towns and 6 miliion buildings. In Belorussia, for example,
they destroyed three-fourths of the available housing. Kiev, Minsk, Stalingrad,
Novogorod, Sevastopol', Smolenek and many other ancient and new cities were turned
into ruins. About 25 million people were left homeless.
After the victory in the Great Patriotic War restoration work was launched on an ex-
tensive scale in the country, new housing construction took on a large scope. The
Law on the Five-Year Plan of the Restoration and Development of the National Econ-
omy for 1946-1950 advanced the task "to carry out the restoration of the wrecked
available housing of cities, workers' settlements and villages in the regions which
had been sub~ect to occupation and to launch new housing construction on a scale
which ensures the considerable improvement of the housing conditions of the working
people."lZ During those years 200.9 million m2 of living space were built in the
cities and rural areas, the restoration of the destroyed available housing was near-
ly completed.
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The high rate of development of the USSR national Pconomy created the conditions
- for the further development of housing consrruction. The following figures elo-
quently testify to its pace: whereas in 1961-1965 the state capital investments in
housing construction came to 33.4 billion rubles, in 1976-1~80 they came to 68.1 bil-
lion rubles. The capacities of construction and installation organizations are in-
r_reasing, the level of the industrialization and mechanization of construction and
installation work is rising, advanced technology and new, modern designs are being
- introduced, the practice of prefabricated housing construction is being extended.
It has ~ecome the rule to put into operation annually approxim.ately 100 million m2
of housing. In all during the vears of Soviet power 3.5 billion m~ of it have been
built in our country. y
/The development of available state and public houaing was a reliabie material
guarantee of the ~ight of the Sovi~t people to housing/ [in boldface]. During the
past 15 years the growth rate of available housix~g has exceeded by many times the
rate of increa~e of the urban popul~tion. About 11 million people annually improve
their housing conditions. In the scal.e of housing construction the Soviet Union
holds first nlace in rhe world.
The task of providing every Soviet family with a separate well-appointed apartment
. is being gradually accomplished. By the end ~f the lOth Five-Year Plan the propor-
= tion of these families had increased in the cities to 80 percent, The resettlement
of all f_a~nilies, who live in semibasement, barrack and diiapidated buildings, in
apartment houses with all modern conveniences is.approaching completion.
The steady increase of the volumes of housing censtruction is being accompan3ed j.n
our country by a significant improvement of irs quality. Now more than half of the
- housing is being built according to new standard designs, which are distinguished
from their predecessors by a more convenient layout and larger sizes of apartments.
The engineering equipment has become more perfect.
The dwellings in cities and urban-type settlements at t:ie end of 1980 wer~e complete-
ly electrified, 89 percent were provided with water mains, 86 percent--central heat-
ing, 87 percent--sewer. systems, 55 percent--hot water, 79 percent--gas service.
Mainly one- and two-apartment houses with utility rooms and outbuildings are being
built in the villages.
/The USSR Constitution guarantees the right to hossing by a low fee for the apart-
ment and municipal services/ [in boldface]. Our state provides the bulk of apart-
ments to working people f;-ee of charge. The rent has remained unchanged since 1928
and along with the charge for municipal sexvices amounts on the avera,ge to 3 percent
in the budget of the family of the worker and employee. PZeanwhile the set of modern
conveniences cannot be compared with what it was in the past.
In no capitalist country do the people receive housing from the state free of charge
and pay so little for it. In the FRG, for examFle, a skilled worker is forced to
spend on housing a third, at best a fourth ci hts wages. Rent amounts to 20-30 per-
~ cent of the family budget in other capit~list countries as well. Tens of thousands
of apartr.?ents are vacant in New York, Loz~don and Tokyo, beeause simple workers can-
not afford them. According to UN datay at present 180 million people in the world
are totally without shelter.
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/The right to housing is guaranteed, in accordance with the USSR Constitution, by
the fair distribution of the living space under public control/ [in boldfaceJ. The
procedure of registering citizens, who need to improve their housing conditions,
and of granting housing and the norms of living space are established by state
organs. The registration of citizens, who need to improve their housing conditions,
the establishment of the order of priority in the receipt of living space, as we11
as its allocation in apartment houses of the available state and public housing are
carried out under public control and with the observance of publicity. An impor-
tant role in this belongs to the trade unions and other public organizations.
/The USSR Constitution guarantees the right to housing by the preservation of avail-
able state and public housing/ [in boldface]. Along with increasing it the state
- has to allocate more and more assets for the maintenance of housing and for munici--
pal services. Whereas in 1940 these expenditures came to 100 million rubles, in
- 1965 they came to 2.3 billion rubles, in 1975--4.9 billion rubles, in 1980--
6.9 billion rubles. Let us note that the rent of the population along with the
payment for munieipal services covers less than a third of the expenditures for
these purposes.
In our countries the soviets of people's deputies with the participati4n of trade
unions and other public organizations monitor the use and safe keeping of housing.
/The state, in accordance with the USSR Constitution, promotes cooperative arid in-
= dividual housing construction/ [in boldfac~]. House building cooperatives are set
up within the executive committees of the local sovie~s, as well as at enterprise,,
- organizations and institutions. Citizens, who need to improve their housing condi--
tions, may join a cooperative and receive a well-appointed apartment for permanent
use. The state grants them credit in the amount of up to 60-70 percent of the es~i-
mated cc t of construction for 10-15 years. The construction of cooperative apart-
ment houses is included in the state plan of contracting constYuction and installa-
tion work and is provided with materials and equipment. The state provides house
i building cooperatives with aid in the operation and repair of their apartment
houaes, as well as provides assistance in the construction and repair of individ-
ual houses and their provision with amenities.
The strenghtening of legality in the area of housing relations is of great impor-
tan~e for the guarantee of the right to housing. The Fund~amentals ~f Housing Legis-
lation of the USSFt and the Union Republics, the draft of ~hich was submitted for
national discussed, and then was passed in June 1981 by th~e USSR Supreme Soviet,
are cal'led upon t~o play an important role in this.
Everything that has been said, of course, does not mean that the housing problem in
our country has been completely solved. There ~re many families who still live in
- communal apartments lacking amenities. The state for the present is unable to
grant housing immediately to the families of young couples. Moreover, the steadily
- increasing needs of the Sovie:t people are making greater and greater demands on the
quality and comfort of housing. That is why housing, as was noted at the 26th
party congress, occupies the most important place in our social program, the gr~at
- scale of housing construction w~.ll also be maintained in the Soviet Union in the
future.13 The party is setting the goal to achieve for the most part during the
1980's the provision of every family with a separate apartment.l4
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FOOTNOTES
1. V. I. Lenin, "Poln. sobr. soch." [Complete Worke], Vol 2, p 90.
2. See STROITEL'NAYA GAZETA, 13 Auguet 1967.
3. RUSSIZOYE BOGATSTVO, No 4, 1907.
4. V. I. Leniny "Polr~. sobr. soch.," Vol 32, p 159.
5. Ibid., Vol 34, p 314.
6. Ibid.y Vol 34, p 31~6.
7. Tbid., Vol 33, pp 58, 59.
8. "YPSS v razolyutsiyakh i resheniyakh s"yezdov, konferentsiy i plenumov TsK"
- [The CPS~ in Resol.ution3 and Decisions of Congresses, Conferences and Plenums
of the Central Committee], 8th edition, Vol 2, Moscow, 1970, p 57.
_ 9. "KPSS v rezolyutsiyakh i resheniyakh s"y~zdov, konferentsiy i plenumov TsK,"
8th edition, Vo1 3, Mo~cow, 1970, p 74.
10. Ibid., pp 352-353.
_ 11. "KPSS v rezolyutsiyar.h i resheniyakh s"yezdov, konferentsiy i plenumov TsK,"
8th edition, VQ1 4, Moscow, 1970, pp 439-440.
- 12. VEDOMOSTI VERKHOVNUGO SOVETA SSSR, No 11, 1946.
13. See "Materialy XXVI s"yezda RPSS" [Materials of the 26th CPSU Congress],
- Moscow, 1981, p 60.
14. Ibid., p 136.
~
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_ ruK urri~iAL u1vt,Y
PART III. RIGHTS IN THE AREA OF CULTURE
The USGR Constitution provides the Soviet people with extensive rights and freedoms
in the area of culture. Among them are the right to an education, the right to use
the achievements of culture and the rreedom of creative scientific, technical and
artistic work. These rights and freedoms are the natural result of the truly cul-
tural revolution, which was carried out in our country, and the creation of a new,
socialist culture.
Great October was the starting point and a necessary condition of the spiritual
emancipation of the working people. As V. I. Lenin noted, "in our country the po-
litical and economic change was a prEdecessor of that cultural change, that cultur-
al revolution, which we nevertheless now face."1
The cultural revolution was an inseparable component of Lenin's plan of the build-
ing of socialism. In specifying its tasks, the Communist Party proceeded from the
fact that the new culture could not be created in a void, in isolation from all the
material and spiritual values of the past. The party fought most resolutely against
the advocates of what was called "pure proletarian culture," the talk about which
V. I. Lenin called "pure nonsense." Not to invent some special culture, but "to
take that culture, which was created by all social relations and was left as the
material basis of socialism"2--thus V. I. Lenin set the goal. "Proletarian cul-
ture, he indicated, "should be the natural development of those stores of knowl-
edge,"which mankind developed under the yoke of capitalist society, the society of
= landlords, the society of bureaucrats."3
The difficulty was to approach correctly, practically and critically the question of
the use of culture of the past and not to stray from class positions. It was neces-
� sary not to miss anything valuable and at the same time "not to cram one's min3
with junk which is not necessary."4 "...We take /from each/ [in italics] national
culture," V. I. Lenin stressed, "/only/ [in italics] its democratic and its social-
ist elements, we take them /only/ [in it5lics] and /unconditionally/ [in italics]
to counterbalance bourgeois culture.... �
- Thus, in setting about the cultural revolution, the party advanced a three-in-one
task: to eliminaee the reactionary content of bourgeois-landowner culture; to
seize and place at the service of the people all the achievements of culture of the
past; to create on this basis socialist culture.
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Lenin's program of the cultural revolution ir.cluded both the creat~on of the body
of the new national intelligentsia and the enlistment of old specialists in the
building of socialism. "Every specialist," V. I. Lenin indicated, "must be valued
as the only property of technology and culture, without which there cannot be any-
thing, any communism."6
The Communist Party and the Soviet state exerted much effort to enlist the old in-
telligentsia in cooperation, firmly and persistently pursued the policy of winning
it over and gradually involved it in the building of a new life. As a result, a
larger and larger number of specialists shifted from aentiments of animoaity, dis-
trust and temporizing to active participation in the common causes of the people.
Questions of the building of culture were constantly in the purview of the Commu-
nist Party. They were examined at party congresses and conferences and Central Com-
mittee plenums and were given concrete expression in special decisions. Relying on
_ the triumph of socialism in the political and economic fields, the Soviet people
under party supervision successfully carried out the cultural revolution in a his-
torically short period.
- During those years the body of the new, Soviet intelligentsia was trained, a radi-
cal change occurred in the matter of the convergence of the old intelligentsia with
the working people. Speaking in 1936 at the All-Union Congress of Soviets, Vice
President of the USSR Academy of Sciences V. L. Komarov said: "...The Soviet intel-
ligentsia is a completely new intelligentsia, an intelligentaia which serves the
- people."~
With each new stage in the develo~ment of socialist society the amount and scope of
the building of culture increased, its content became more profound. Along with the
strengthening of the economy and the increase of the well-being.the cultural level
of the Soviet people rose. In the lifetime of ~ust one generation they not only
got rid of illiteracy, but also became an active creator of spiritual values.
Mature socialism provides the working people with extensive access to the riches of
culture. The material base of institutions of culture and education has been
strengthened considerably. In our country numerous members of the intelligentsia
have been trained, advanced science, literature and art, which are making a signifi-
cant contribution to world civilization, have been developed. The differences in
the cultural character of the different classes and social groups are gradually be-
ing obliterated, the process of the mutual enrichment of national cultures is taking
place. Socialist culture has become a culture of millions and for millions. It is
the fundamental fusion of the spiritual values created by all the peoplea. Concern
about their preservation, augmentation and extensive use for moral and esthetic edu-
cation and the increase of the cultural level of the Soviet people is the constitu-
tional duty of our state.
The interests of the building of communism require the further cultural development
of the people. "Without a high level of culture, education, social consciousness
and inner maturity ~f people," L. I. Brezhnev said, "communism is impossible, _iust
as it is also impossible without the appropriate material and technical base."~
The basic tasks and trends of the formation of the spiritual culture of communism
were examined at recent CPSU Congresses and were developed in many of its
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hUR UHr'1(;IAL U,~ UNLY
decisions. The enhancement of the role of culture in the communist education of
the working people, the utmost development Qf the spiritual potential of socialist
society and its maximum utilization for the purpose of the formation of the harmoni-
- ously developed individual, the elaboration of new moral and esthetic values and
the affirmation of communist ideals--such are the main tasks of culture at the pres-
ent stage. The realization of the rights and freedoms in thE area of cultures which
are guaranteed by the USSR Canstitution, is called upon ta promote the successful
accomplishment of these tasks. ~
_ FQOTNOTES
1. V. I. Lenin, "Poln. sobr. soch." [Complete WorksJ, Vol 45, p 377.
2. Ibid., Vol 36, p 263.
3. Ibid., Vol 41, pp 304-305.
4. Ibid., Vol 41, p 305.
S. Ibid., Vol 24, p 121.
6. Ibid., Vol 40, p 217. ~
7.~ PRAVDA, 29 November 1936.
8. L. I. Brezhnev, "Leninskim kursom" [By the Leninist Course], Vol 3, Moscow,
1972, p 287.
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CHAPTER 7. FROM ILLITERACY TO A UNIVERSAL COMPULSORY SECONDARY EDUCATION
USSR citizens have the right to an educa-
tion.
From Article 45 of the USSR Constitution
We are by right ~roud of the fact that the Soviet people are called today the most
educated in the world. This is a great achievement of our revolution.
_ In tsarist Russia nearly four-fiftha of the adult- population did not know how to
read or write, there were only 67 students at educational inatitutions of all types
per 1,000 inhabitants. There were only 290,000 people, less than 0.2 percent, with
a higher, incomplete higher and secondary specialized education in the country of
160 million. Among many non-Russian peoples the literate amounted literally to a
handful. Ac:cording to the data of the 1897 census, among Kazakhs they came to
2.1 percent, Uzbeks--1.6 percent, Turkmens--0,7 percent, Kirghiz--0.6 percent and
Tajiks--0.5 percent. More than 40 nationalities did not have their own writing sys-
tem. "..Such a wild country, in which the masses of people have been /robbed/ [in
italics] in the sense of education, society and knowledge," V. I.~Lenin wrote, "not
one such country remains in Europe, except for Russia."1
At the beginning of the century the ~ournal VESTNIK VOSPITANIYA, touching upon the
prospects of the development of Russian culture, forecast that 180 years would be
needed for the achievement of the universal literacy of inen and 2~80-300 years for
women.2 There were sufficient grounds for such a forecast. Tsarist Russia spent
considerably less for the needs of education than for the maintenance of prisons
' and the po].icQ force, education was the privilege and exclusive right of the ruling
classes.
The peasant women Anan'yev3, who was arrested for taking part in the revolutionary
movement, wrote in her deposition that she dreamed of sending her son to a gymna-
sium. Having read this deposition, Tsar Aleksandr III made the note: "This is
terrible. A peasant, but gets into a gymnasium!" The Ministry of Education, but
more correctly of "public disenlightenment," as V. I. Lenin called it, issued a
special circular which prohibited the admission to gymnasi~s of "children of coach-
men, footmen, cooks, laundresses,.small shopkeepers and similar people, whose chil-
dren should not aspire at a11 for a secondary.and higher education."3
The demands of the working class in the area of education were set ~orth in the
first Program of our party. They included "free and compulsory general and
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vocational education for all children of both sexes up to 16 years of age; the pro-
vision of poor children with food, clothing and textbooks at state expense," as
well as "the right of the population to receive an education in their native lan-
guage, which ia ensured by the building of the schools necessary for this at the ex-
pense of the state and organs of self-government."4 The party linked the realiza-
tion of these demands with its iIInnediate political task--the overthrow of the tsar-
ist autocracy and its replacement with a democratic republic.
The Great October Socialist Revolution cleared for the working people a broad path
to knowledge.
The People's Commissariat of Education was created by one of the first decrees of
the Soviet regime. All elementary, secondary and higher, opened and closed, gener-
al educational and specialized educational institutions were placed under its ~ur-
isdiction, the tasks, rights and duties of the organs of public education were spe-
cified; the interference of the. church in school affairs was completely eliminated.
Access to a higher education was afforded to the children of workers and peasants
_ by the decree "On the Rules of Admission to Higher Educational Institutions of the
RSI'SR." Education at higher educational institutions became free, stipends were
established for needy students, the representatives of the propertied classes were
deprived of all privileges when enrolling in higher educational institutions.
The Soviet regime created a fundamentally new, socialist system of education, which
affords all working people the opportunity to receive a general and specialized edu-
cation. The basic principles of this system, which were elaborated by the Commu-
nist Party back before the revolution, were formulated in its second Program. Among
them are free and compulsory general and polytechnical education for a11 children
up to 17 years of age; instruction in the native language; the joint education of
children of both sexes; freedom from any religious influence whatsoever; the close
connection of education with socia~ly productive labor; comprehensive state assist~
ance to the self-education of workers and peasants; the extensive development of
vocational education for people 17 years of age and older; wide access to the high-
er school for all those who wish to 5tudy, and first of all for workers; the mate-
ri.al support of students and others.5
There served as the fundamental basis for the development of the Soviet school
Lenin's instructions on the need to link it with life, with the policy of the so-
cialist state. V. I. Lenin viewed the mastering of the fundamentals of the sci-
ences, extensive polytechical education, the formation of a scientific world out-
- look and the cultivation of communist morals in fundamental unity. He especially
str~assed the need to combine training with daily practical work on the building of
a nt:: ~ ife.
The party set for itself a priority task: to eliminate a d~?sgraceful legacy of
tsarism--the illiteracy of the adult population. V. I. Lenin stressed that "the
campaign against illiteracy is a task /more important than others/"6 [in italics],
that in "an illiterate country it is impossible to build a communist society,"~
that "the illiterate.person stands outside politics...."8
_ This was a difficult task. Tens of millions of people had to be taught, a writing
system has to be created for the national.i_ties not having it, numerous national,
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religious and everyday pre~udices had to be overcome. The party and the Soviet
regime began this work under the most difficult conditions of the civil war and
forei.gn intervention.
The decree "On the Elimination of Illiteracy Among the Population of the RSFSR" was
adopted in January 1919. The entire pcpulation of the republic from 8 to 50 years
of age, who did not know how to read and write,~ was obligated to learn to read and
write in their native language or Rusaian, as deaired.
The number of illiterate people was so great that it was impossible to solve the
problem only by means of professional teachers. The Communist Party appealed tn the
- public to organize a"literacy campaign." The All-Russian Extraordinary Commission
for the Elimination of Illiteracy was formed within the Council of People's Commis-
sars, the voluntary society "Down With Illiteracy" was founded. Party, Komsomol
and trade union organizations, commissions for work among women and many prominent
figures of the young socialist culture actively participated in this movement. The
organs of public education acquired the right to enlist the entire literate popula-
tion by way of labor service in this work. The workday for illiterates was short-
ened for study time by 2 hours with the retention of pay.
There were not enough writing accessories, paper, fuel, lighting, school equipment
and textbooks. They often wrote on posters and newspapers with charcoal and ink
made from beets or soot. But there was not a corner in the country, where people
were not studying. In ~ust 1 year about 3 million people were taught to read and
write.
In the process of eliminating illiteracy the foundations of the adult education sys-
tem were laid. Schools with a 10-month period of instruction at the level of
2 years of the elementary school and schools for the semiliterate with a complete
' course of elementary education began to appear. At that time adult schools of a
higher type, which provided knowledge to the extent of the incomplete secondary and
secondary school, were also set up.
Immediately after the revolution work was begun on the development of the network
of elementary and secondary schools. Co~une schools were set up for children who
had been left parentless. The Communist Party and the Soviet state tried persist-
ently to see to it that the education of children and adoleacents would be univer-
sal.
Many teachers, especially of elementary schools, who were close to the people,
greeted the new regime and viewed with approval the actions and ideas of the commu-
nists in the area of public education. However, the instructors of secondary edu-
cational institutions, and especially the representatives of old pedagogy, at first
were for the most part hostile-minded. Their mouthpiece was the ~ournal PEDAGOGI-
CHESKAYA MYSL', which in 1921 wrote that the creation of the new Soviet school was
ostensibly one of the greatest disasters to have fallen upon Russian education.
The party launched an active campaign for teachers. It helped teachers to under-
stand the essence of the revolutionary changes, the domestic and international situ-
ation, and to determine their place in the building of the new life and the new,
Soviet school. At the same time the party was concerned about the moral prestige
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of the teacher, about his material circumstances and everyday living conditions.
"The public teacher should be placed in ouY country at such a level," V. I. Lenin
demanded,"at which he never was, is not and cannot be in bourgeois society."9
In the end the party won the battle for the largest detachment of the intelligent-
sia. In the declaration of the First All-Union Congress of Teachers (1925) it was
stated: "Here, there and everywhere we will be the loyal assistants of the Soviet
regime and the Co~unist Party in their world historical work, fox we now know that
the cause which the party is making is the cause of all working man~cind."10
The higher school was radically reorganized. The reactionary portion of the bour-
geois professors, who were hostile-minded to the Soviet regime, openly sabotaged
the measures being implemented and took every step not to allow the working people
to enter science.
The party enlisted in the work the professors and instructors who were loyal to the
Soviet regime, and devoted great attention to conducting political educational work
among them. At the same time institutes of red professors were organized in Moscow
and Petrograd for the training of instructors in the social sciences. A consider-
able group of highly skilled party workers was sent as lecturers and directors of
higher educational institutiuns.
Of course, during the first years of Soviet power the attraction of working people
to higher educational institutions encountered serious difficulties. For the over-
whelming majority of workers and peasants did not have the proper genPral education-
al training. Therefore, in 1919 workers' faculties, which enabled young workers and
peasants to receive a secondary education and to enroll in higher educational insti-
tutions, began to be created on the initiative of V. I. Lenin. During the 1925/26
school year tne graduates of these faculties made up about 26 percent of all those
who enrolled in higher educational institutions. The sending of workers and peas-
ants to study at higher educational institutions through party, trade union and
Komsomol mobilizations was of great importance.
During the first years of Soviet power much work was done to expand the training of
specialists of the highest, as well as intermediate skills. At the same time the
Communist Party and the Soviet state attached great importance to the training of
the regular force of skilled workers. For these purposes a new type of vocational
and technical educational institutions--schools of factory and plant apprentice-
ship--was created in 1920.
By the early 1930's new tasks in the area of education faced the Communist Party
and the Soviet stat:e.
The need for ski:l.led personnel increased under the conditions of the restoration of
the national economy. The party Central Committee considered it necessary to re-
organize radically the entire system of work on the elimination of illiteracy on the
basis of a unified plan and the pooling of all forces and assets. Practical meas-
ures on this account were specified in the Central Committee decree "On the Work on
the Elimination of Illiteracy" (1929). By the 15th anniversary of October a writing
system had been created for all the nationalities which had not had it before the
revolution. Before the Great Patriotic War our country had in essence approached
the complete elimination of illiteracy.
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School construction acquired an especially extensive scale during the years of the
first five-year plans. In conformity with the decisions of the 16th Congreas of the
All-Union Communist Party (of Bolaheviks) the party Central Committee adopted the
decree "Qn Universal Compulsory Elementary Education." It was introduced every-
where, beginning at 8 years of age, as well as for all over-age children 11-15 years
of age, who had not received it earlier. This ma~or state reform, which M. Gor'kiy
characterized as the equalization of all youth in the rights to the dev~lopment of
the mind, was carried out in 3 years. The universal compulsory educatior. of boys
and girls to the extent of the 7-year school was introduced in industrial cities,
factory and plant regions and workers' settlements.
During the years of the first five-year plans the network. of 7-year and secondary
schools grew rapidly. During the 1940/41 school years 7-year education had basical-
ly been introduced in the cities, the number of teachers came to more than 1.2 mil-
lion, or 4.4-fold more than there were of them before the revolution.
The network of secondary specialized and higher educational institutions, which ex-
isted by the early 1930's, did not meet the needs of the national economy, science
and culture. The Communist Party and the Soviet state took steps to increase con-
siderably the graduation of specialists. During the 1940/41 school year there were
already 3,773 secondary specialized educational institutions and 817 higher educa-
tional institutions in the country with about 1.8 million students and undergradu-
ates. The need for workers' faculties disappeared with the development of the sec-
ondary general educational school and the important changes in the class structure
of Soviet society.
In the 1930's the system of the vocational and technical education of young people
underwent further development. However, at that time the schools of factory and
plant apprenticeship were under the jurisdiction of individual enterprises and
trained personnel on the basis of departmental needs. Here the needs of the rapid-
ly growing new industrial enterprises were not always taken into account.
Three new types of educational instituti�~ns: 2-year trade and railroad schools and
6-month schools of factory and plant trai~ning, were created by the ukaze of the
Presidium of the USSR Supreme Soviet "On the State Labor Reserves of the USSR"
(1940). For the management of this system the Main Administration of Labor Reserves
was formed within the Council of People's Commissars.
The 18th party congress outlined a 5-year program of the further development of
public education: to introduce universal secondary education in the cities and
7-year education in the countryside and in all the national republics, to increase
the number of students at general educational schools to 40 million and at higher
educational institutions to 650,000.
The war prevented this program from being completely fulfilled.
Under wartime conditions steps were taken, which ensured the uninterrupted opera-
tion of schools in the rear, in regions near the front and in partisan areas. Even-
ing schools were created for young people anci adolescents, who in connection with
the war were unable to continue their education in the ordina~y school. The opera-
tion of higher and secondary specialized educational institutions and the network
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of vocaticnal and technical education was not halted. In all 302,000 specialists
with a higher education, 540,000 specialists with a secondary specialized education
and nearly 2.5 million skilled workers were trained.
The war caused enormous damage and losses to public educational institutions. The
fascist German invaders burned, destroyed and plundered 82,OC0 schools, 33G higher
educational institutions and a large number of tekhnikums and schools of factory
and plant training.
After the Great Patriotic War, during the building of socialism and communism, the
party and the Sovi.et state took steps on the rapid restoration and the further de-
velopment of the entire system of public education. The basic directions of this
development were s~ecified by the decisions of party congresses and were defined
more precisely in the decrees of its Central Committee with allowance made for the
requirements of scientific and technical progress, the tasks of the steady increase
of the cultural, technical and educational level of the working people and the im-
provement of the training of skilled workers and specialists. The most important
principles of the organization and implementation of public education were set down
in the Fundamentals of Legislation of the USSR and the Union Republics on Public
Education and in the corresponding republic laws. The 26th CPSU Congress devoted
much attention to questions of the further development of the system of public edu-
cation. and the increase of the quality of instruction and education.
iIn conformity with the USSR Constitution the right to an education is guaranteed
in our country by the implementation of the universal compulsory secondary educa-
tion of young people/ [in boldface]. The Communist Party and the Soviet atate
gradually approached the accomplishment of this task from five-year plan to five-
year plan, developing and strengthenfn~ the material and technical base of public
education, expanding the training of educators and taking steps tc improve educa-
tional work. During the years of the first postwar five-year plan the change~ver
to a compulsory 7-year education was practically completed in our country. In the
early 1960's the changeover to a universal compulsory 8-year education was accomp-
lished, while during the years of the lOth Five-Year Plan the changeover to a univer-
sal compulsory seondary education of young people was accomplisned. During the
1978/79 school year the coverage of young people by all forms of training, which
provides a secondary education, came to 99.2 percent.
Now more than 80 percent of the workers employed in the USSR national~economy have
a higher or secondary (comnlete and incomplete) education, 100.2 million people
are covered by all types of education. In the past 15 years alone 60.3 million
boys and girls have received a secondary education (general and specialized). In
the level of education of the population the USSR holds first place in the world.
The leading place in the system of secondary education belongs to /the general edu-
cational school/ [in boldface]. Of the 88.2 million peopl.e who received a second-
ary (general and specialized) education in 1918-1980, 68.5 million boys and girls
graduated from secondary general educational schools. At the beginning of the
1980/81 school year there were 145,OU0 schools in the country with 44.3 million
students and ~ore than 2.6 million teaehers. Under preaent conditions the tasks of
the development of school education are specified in the decree of the CPSU Central
Committee and the USSR Council of Minister.s "On the Further Improvement of the In-
struction and Education of Students of Gener.al Educational Schools and Their
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Training for Labor." The decree "On the Changeover to the Free Use of Textbooks of
Students of General Educational Schools," which was adopted in 1977, is also of
great importance.
/The USSR Constitution guarantees the right to an education by the extensive devel-
opment of vocational and technical, secondary speciali~ed and higher education/ [in
boldface], on the basis of the connection of education with life and production.
During the 40 years of its existence /the state system of vocational and technical
education/ [in boldface] has become the main school of the training of the skilled
regular labor force for all the sectors of the national economy. The number of
students of this system as compared with the 1940/41 school year has increased
5.5-fold and during the 1980/81 school year came to 4.0 million.
Vocational and technical schools are being developed and are changing in close
interconnection with the general educational school. Thus, since 1959 they have
been converted for the most part ta a uniform general educational basis--an 8-year
education. Somewhat earlier technical schools were created for young people who
had graduated from the secondary general educational school.
Secondary vocational and technical schools, which simultaneously provide an occupa-
tion and a complete secondary education, arose in connection with the changeover to
universal secondary education. During the past 10 years the number of these schools
has increased 10-fold, about 2.2 million people are studying at them. The network
of technical schools has been enlarged. Today 90 percent of the studenta of voca-
tional and technical education study at secondary and technical schools.
/Secondary specialized educational institutions/ [in bolface] are playing an impor-
tant role in the public education system. Boys and girls, who have completed not
less than the 8th grade of the secondary general educational school, are admitted
to them. Here they not only complete their secondary education, but also become
skilled specialists of various sectors of the national economy and culture. Sp:-
cial groups with a shortened training period have been created at many tekhnikums
and schools for the graduates of secondary school. The graduates of secondary spe-
cialized educational institutions successfully occupy the positions of ~unior tech-
nical managers at plants, factories, construction pro~ects, kolkhozes and sovkhozes
of our country. At the beginning of the 1980/81 school there were about 4,400 sec-
ondary specialized educational institutions in our country with more than 4.6 mil-
lion students.
/The higher school/ [in boldface] is the concluding uniC in the I1SSR public educa-
tion system. At the beginning of the 1980/81 school year there were 883 higher edu-
cational institutions. in the Soviet Union with more than 5.2 million students. This
is 41-fold more than there were in prerevolutionary Russia. Annually industrial
and agricultural enterprises and institutions of science and culture receive about
800,000 specialists of the highest skills, while in 1918-1979 16.5 million of them
in all were trained. In the level and scale of the development of higher education
the USSR long ago surpassed the leading capitalist countries. The Soviet higlier
school, which was created under the aupAr~~iaion of the Communist Party, for the
most part is completely meeting the needs of the national economy and culture.
- Under the conditions of mature socialism the party and state are focusing the at-
tention of the higher school, secondary specialized and vocational and technical
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a va\ va'a al.1HL v~ia. V1VL1
educational institutions on the further improvement of the quality of the training
of specialists and on the strengthening of the relations with production and the
practice of building communism. In particular, the decrees of the CPSU Central
Committee an.d the USSR Council of Ministers: "On the Further Development of the
Higher School and the Increase of the Quality of the Training of Specialists," "Qn
Measures on the Further Improvement of the Management of Secondary Specialized Edu-
cational Institutions and on the Iffiprovement of the Quality of the Training of Spe-
cialists With a Secondary Specialized Education," "On the Further Improvement of
the Process of Educating and Training Students of the System of Vocational and
Technical Education," which were adopted in recent years, are aimed at this.
- Evening, shift and correspondence scliools of working and rural youth and evening
and correspondence divisions of secondary specialized and higher educational insti-
tutions have become firmly established in the public education system. This af-
fords ~~orking people an opportunity to study without leave from wcr~C. During the
1980/81 school year about 8.7 mill.ion people were covered by these forms of training.
/The USSR Constitution guarantees the free nature of all types of education/ [in
boldface]--from school to graduate studtes--at the expense of public consumption
funds. The exgenditures of the state per student at general educational schools
come to more than 180 rubles a year, at secondary specialized educational institu-
tions--more than 680 rubles and at higher educational institutions--over 1,000 ru-
bles. Moreover, state stipends and benefits are granted to undergraduates and stu-
dents. Stipends are paid, as a rule, to tY?ose who are studying successfully--this
- is more than 70 percent of the students of secoadary specialized and higher educa-
tional institutions. Near.l,y all those needing housing are provLde3 *aith dormi-
tories, for the use of which, it can be said, a sym"t~o].ic payment--1 ruble 50 ko-
pecks a month--has been establish~3. At educational ir.stitutions there are dining
rooms and snacl~ bars, the cost of eating at which i3 less than at ordinary city
dining rooms.
_ Undergraduates and students, who are studying without leave from work, enjo} great
benefits. For the period of the taking of tests and examinations and the prepara-
tior_ of graduatian projects additional leave with the retention of pay for up to
40 days is granted to them, half of the cost of travel to the educational institu-
tion and back is paid to them, if it is located in another city. While in the final
= year, correspondence students and evening students can take in addition 1 free day
a week with the retention of 50 percent of the pay.
/Pioreover, the pc*ssibility of instruction at school in one's native language, as
well as various forms of self-education/ [in boldface] (lecture bureaus, people's
universities, courses and so on), far the development of which all the necessary
conditions are being created in our country, /are constitutional guarantees of the
right to an education/ [in boldface].
The equality of opportunities for receiving an education are what sharply distin-
' guishe~ the USSR fro;~ th~ western countries. As, for example, the data of a report
prepared by the College Board attest, in the United in the past 10 years al~ne the
tuita.on at colleges has increased by 90 percent. A student has to pay on the aver-
age about $10,000 for a year of ~chooling. In all 40 percent of the boys and
60 percent of the girls from .families with "a low s~cioeconomic status" cannot af-
ford this.
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a
CHAPTER 8. THE ACHIEVEMENTS OF CULTURE TO THE PEOPLE
USSR citizens have the right to use the
achievements of culture.
From Article 46 of the USSR Constitution
The Tret'yakov Gallery in Moscow, which is now world-famous, was opened to the
public back before the socialist revolution, but at that time not more than 300
people visited it daily (now more than 4,OG0 do). The colZections of the Hermitage
in Petersburg in general were inaccessible to the masses. Its last prerevolution-
ary director, for example, declared: "The very idea of assigni:~g to the museum
the task 'to open to the popular masses a sourc:e of esthetic pleasure' does not
stand up to criticism...."1
It is possible to ~udge the status of the theater in tsarist Russia if only from
the fact that it was under the ~urisdiction of the Ministry of the Court (what were
called "imperial theaters") and police organs (all other theaters). Book publish-
- ing was a private business. The working people were deprived or had limited oppor-
tunities to read the fine works of A. Pushkin, N. Gogol', F. Dostoyevskiy, L. Tol-
stoy, M. Gor'kiy and other great writers.
Tile Great October Socialist Revolution transformed all the achievements of human
culture into the property of the working people. Summarizing the results of Gcto-
ber V. I. Lenin ;~.aid at the Third All-Russian Congress of Soviets in January 1918:
"Previously all man's intelligence, all his genius created only in order to give
~ some all the benefits of technology and culture, and to deprive the others of what
- is most necessary--education and deveiopment. Now a11 the wonders of technology,
all the achievements of culture will become national property, and henceforth never
- will mar.'s intelligence and genius be turned into means of coerc3on, into means of
exploitation."2
During the first months cf Soviet power the Communist Party began the practical ac-
complishment of what had been outlined. Museums, including the Tret'yakovskiy Gal-

~ lery and the Hermitaga, an~;~ the largest private art collections were nationalized.

~ Tens of the most valuable monum~ents of architecture and decorattve art became the
propecty of the state. :rlany former nobles' palaces and estates, which surrounded
Petrograd and Moscow, were converted into museums.
rhe C~mmunist Party and the Soviet state assisted in every possible way so that the
- workers and peasants would actually take auvantage of these spiritual benefits. "I~
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According to thP testimony of the American ~ournal U.S. NEWS AND WORLD REPORT, the
- tuition per student at 13.S. private sch~ols during 1962-1980 increased more than
fivefold--from $419 to $2,015 a ye~~. TheXe is also added to this the crisis of
the American secondary school: the decline of the level of education, uncontr~Ilable
classrooms, the despair of teachers, the id.leness and indifference of student~.
i Today one student in four quits school beiore graduation. "We risk losing a gen-
- erati~n of young people, if we do not quickly improve the situ4tion at secondary
schools," warns Stanford University Education Professor R. (Kelfi).
The example of the USSR shows that only the socialist revolution destroys for wor~c-
ers and peasants all the obstacles in the way to knowledge, while the very matter
of public education is becoming one of the most important functions ef the social-
ist state and an integral part of the struggle of the working people for the build-
_ ing of communism. ~
FOOTNOTES
~ 1. V. I. Lenin, "Poln. sobr. soch." [Complete Works], Vol 23, p 127.
- 2. See VESTNIK VOSPITANIYA, No ly Section III, 1906, p 42.
3. V. A. Karpinskiy, "KonstitLtsiya SSSR" [The USSR Constitution], Moscow, 1937,
p 132.
4. "KPSS v rezolyutsiyakh i resheniyakh s"yezdov, konferentsiy i plenumov TsK"
[The CPSU in Resolutions and Decisions of Con~resses, Conferences and Plenums.
of the Central Co~nittee], 8th edition, Vol 1, Moscow, 1970, p 63.
5. See "KPSS v rezolyutsiyakh i resheniyakh s"yezdov, konferentsiy i plenumov TsK,"
8th edition, Vol 2, Moscow, 1970, pp 48-49.
6. V. I. Lenin, "Poln. sobr. soch.," Vol 51, p 257.
7. Ibid., Vol ~~1, p 315.
8. Ibid., Vol 44, p 174.
9. lbid., Vol 45, p 365.
10. PRAVDA, 20 January 1925.
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is necessary," it was stated in the second Party Program, "to reveal and make ac-
cessible to the working people all the treasures of art, which were created on the
- basis of the exploitation of their labor and were until now at the exclusive dis-
posal of the exrloiters."3
" Being concerned about familiarizing the popular masses with culture, the proletar-
ian state during the first postrevolutionary years made the visiting of museums and
theaters free. In spite of the exceptional financial and economic difficulties, the
necessary steps were taken to ensure the normal operation of museums, art galleries,
libraries and other cultura.l and educational institutions. It is noteworthy that
= at the very height of the ci~il war (November 1919) the Council of People's Commis-
sars specially discussed the question of supplying rhem with fuel.
The working people made extenaive use of the opportunities for unrestricted access
to the treasures of art. In 1919 alone 500,000 visitors went t~ Moscow museums.
The "intrusion" of workers and peasan~s into culture evoked a storm of indignation
among the supporters of the capitalist system. The "defenders of true civilization"
gave a heart-rending cry about the fact that the Bolsheviks were destroying cultur-
al values, predicted "the death of culture" in Russia and prophesied to the whole
world: "The fear for the very existence of our culture is arising in all its hor-
, ror."4
Life has refuted these fabrications. Beginning with the first days after the vic-
tory of October the Communist Party and the Soviet state did everything necessary
to preserve cultural values and to save them from destruction and theft. In Novem-
~ ber 1917 on the instructions of V. I. Lenin the Collegium for Museum Affairs and
the Preservation of Monuments of Art and Antiquity was organized within the Peo-
ple's Commissariat of Education. The decrees "On the Prohibition of the Export and
Sale Abroad of Items of Particular Artistic and Historical Value," "On the Regis-
tration, Acceptance for Registration and Preservation of Monuments of Art and An-
tiquity, Which Are in the Possession of Private Individuals, Societies and Institu-
tions," "On the Preservation of Libraries and Book Depositories" and others were
promulgated. During 1918-1920 the state registered more than 550 ancient estates,
about 1,000 private collections and n~:arly 200,000 works of art. The owners of the
estates and the most valuable collections received hundreds of governmental pro-
tective charters.
RSFSR Deputy People's Co~nissar of Education M. N. Pokrovskiy wrote at that time:
"We go about without boots, while the Hermitage, during the revolution and owing to
it, is becoming the foremost collection of the world following the Louvre and the
Vatican.... One day monuments to the Russian proletariat will be raised both be-
fore the Academy of Sciences and before the Academy of Arts precisely because it,
being thrown far from science and art by its entire difficult past and, it would
seem, being entirely alien to them, at the critical moments did not let all our
rare hothouse plants perish and, being hungry and cold itself, warmed and cared
for them for future generations."5
Now /the concern about the preservation of spiritual values and monuments of cul-
_ ture and the historical past is the constitutional duty of the Soviet state/ [in
_ italics]. More than 150,000 monuments of history, archeology and architecture are
on the state books. Much work is being carried out oz the collection of works of
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art, implements and oral folk art. New museums of famous writers, composers, art-
ists and actors are being set up. The state is allocating enormous assets for re-
storation work. Not only individual monuments, but also entire architectural en-
sembles and even cities are being restored. Among them are such world-famous ones
as Suzdal', Bukhara, Samarkand, Khiva and many others.
- The reconstruction and restoration of the monuments of culture and history, which
were destroyed by the fascists during the years of the Great Patriotic War, should
especially be discussed. The palaces of Pavlovsk, Pushkino and Petrodvorets, the
monuments of Smolenak, Pskov and Novgorod, the museum-estate of Mikhaylovskoye and
many other pearls of culture were reconstructed from ruins and ashes.
Societies for the protection of monuments of history and culture are working active-
ly. "Concern about the preservation of historical monuments and other cultural
values is the duty and obligation of USSR citizens," the Soviet Constitution states.
Such is our reality. But there is a reality of a different kind.
"How Is the Museum to Be Saved?", "How Are Works of Art and Architecture to Be Pre-
served?"--today the newspaper of all the bourgeois states abound in such headlines.
In Italy, for example, in the summer of 1977, at the very height of the tourist
season, such world-famous museums as the Egyptian Museum in Turin, the Museum of
Oriental Art in Venice and the Uffizi Gallery in Florence were closed. It is a
typical case. The Italian Government allocated 200 million lira for the restora-
tion of the (Brer) Picture Gallery in Milan, where the ceilings leaked in the halls
with pictures of Titian, Raphael, Veronese and other great ma~ters. However, at,
the last minute these assets were transferred for the upkeep of the San Vittore
prison.
It must be said that the Soviet regime inherited from old Russia a very mediocre
material base for the spiritual development of the working people. For example,
there were only 213 museums, 177 professional theaters and about 14,~J00 libraries
with a book collection of 9.4 million copies (6 books per 100 people) in the coun-
try in 1913. The material base of culture, which was weak as it was, was consider-
ably weakened by the imperialist, then the civil war and foreign intervention.
Starting with the first days of Soviet power the workers` and peasants' state took
steps to strengthen the material base of the building of culture. In the second
Party Program it was stated that one of the immediate tasks in this area was "com-
prehensive state assistance to the self-education and self-development of workers
and peasants (the creation of a network of institutions of education outside of
school: libraries, schools for adults, people's houses and universities, courses,
lectures, movie theaters, studios and so forth)."6
- An acute "book famine" was felt in the country, there were a negligible number of
books which would have met the needs of the new, Soviet reader. It was necessary
first of all to take into one's hands and organize book publishing. For this pur-
pose the nationalization of t~he paper and printing industry, the largest publishing
houses and printing houses was carried out.
The Communist Party and the Soviet state devoted much attention to the radical re-
_ organization of the entire publishing b~isiness. The Decree on the State Publishing
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House (1917) required that, along with educatienal, political and other literature,
the publication of inexpensive editions of the classics of fiction, which the broad
masses could afford, should be set up.
The publication of a series of the "World Literature" library, which was undertaken
in 1918 on the initiative of M. Gor'kiy, was one of the first cultural measureg t~f
the young Soviet state. Translations of works of the peoples of Persia, Turkey,
' Arabia, China and Japan and works of Byron, Dickens, W. Scott, Heine, Voltaire,
Balzac, Stendhal and many other writers of Europe and America were included in it.
Concerning this undertaking Romain Rolland wrote: "...A series of very carefully
prepared editions of the clasaics of Russian and world literature is being pub-
lished--at a very low price.... The state is incurring a material loss, and it
knows this. But it does not attach importanc;e to this. It wants the people to
read. And it is managing to accomplish this. The people are reading an incredibly
large amount."~
In 1918-1919 about 500 different editions of the classics of domestic and foreign
literature, textbooks, party documents and other books saw the light. However,
under the conditions of the civil war and foreign intervention the Soviet publish-
ing house was unable to ensure the publication of books in the necessary quantity.
3y the middle of 1921 the Soviet Republic had one twenty-fifth the annual supply of
paper that tsarist Russia had in 1914. Wrapping paper came into use, but this did
not save it from the "paper famine."
Under these conditions it was necessary to organize the rational and efficient use
of the stocks of books, which existed in the country. The Soviet regime national-
ized private book collections and libraries, with the exception of the libraries of
scienti~';.s and figures of literature and art. Millions of books went fr~.~i them
~ into scie:~tific, public and ~eneral libraries.
The party c~nstantly kept an eye on the organization and development of the library
business and on the enhancement of the role of libraries in the cultural life of
the working people and strove to see to it that as many readers as possible could
make use of every useful book. "The main task of our revolution," V. I. Lenin in-
dicated, "is reflected in thi~ small matter."8
As the economic situation of the USSR grew stronger, the number of publishing
houses grew, the publication of literature increased from year to year, the library
network expanded. In 1940 there were 95,400 general libraries in the country with
a book collection of about 200 million copies.
The national publishing house made especi~lly grESt gains. Whereas in 1937 the
number of copies of book printed in Russian had increased as compared with 1913 by
6.7-fold, the number of copies in the languages of other peoples of the USSR had
increased 21-fold. By the begianing of the Great Patriotic War all the union re-
publics had become equal in the provision of libraries, everywhere their stocks had
increased considerably.
The party also placed such means of spiritual influence on man as the theater and
the movies at the service of the cultural enlightenment and education of the work-
ers and peasants.
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The Bolshevist PRAVDA back in 1912 wrote that the new workers' and peasants' thea-
ter "will develop a repertoire in conformity with its ideals and aspirations for
freedom and true beauty, will become generally comprehensible and dissimilar to
the present urban city, which strives r-~re for amusement than for art."9
After the victory of October, along with nationalization, the profound reorgani2a-
tion of the theater began. The party guided its development in the interests of
the new, mass audience member, who wanted ta see on the stage the affirmation of
the truth and the embodiment of the thoughts and feelings which were disturbing
him. Struggling against the trends of demoralizing bourgeois art, it demanded con-
sideration for the leading traditions of the Russian theater, educated and enlisted
in the service of the people the old theatrical intelligentsia. This fundamental
policy gained sincere recognition on the part of many outstanding figures of cul-
ture, who sided with the Soviet regi:me.
The party attached enormous importance in the matter of cultural enlightenment and
education to the movie theater. The birth of the Soviet cinema is connected with
Lenin's decree on the nationalization of the film industry (August 1919).
During the first years of Soviet power V. I. Lenin directed particular attention to
the development of the newsreel. More than 50 agitation films, in which the tasks
of the Soviet regime, the class significance of the civil war, the importance of the
struggle against economic dislocation, speculation and so forth were explained, were
made during the period of the civil war and foreign intervention.
The decisions of ~he 12th Congress of the Russian Communist Party (of Bolsheviks),
which deemed it necessary to develop movie production in every possible way, to
make ideologically valuable movies and to develop rhe network af movie projectors
for the most complete service of the working people as possible, became the pro-
gram document for Soviet cinematic art. Guided by the decisions of the congress,
the Soviet ciir?ena made great gains. The network of movie pro~ectors, which in 1940
came to 28,000, was greatly enlarged.
It must be said that the building of a new, socialist culture, especially at the first
~ stage following the ~ctober Revolution, was carried out under the conditions of a
fierce class struggle and the desparate resistance of the exploiting elements and
their ideologists. The overthrown bourgeoisie attempted by all means, including
ideological means, to counteract the Soviet regime.
The bourgeois press represented a great danger. The ~ounterrevolutionary news-
papers and ~ournals hurled at the Soviet regime streams of mud and slander and came
out with appeals to overthrow it.
It is quite understandable that the proletariat and its party needed to wrest these
means from the bourgeoisie. The Decree on the Press, which was signed bq V. I.
Lenin, was published on 28 October 1917. In accordance with this legislative act,
there were liable to closing the organs of the press, "which call for apen resist-
a:~ce or disobedience to the Workers' and Peasants' Government"; "which sow discord
by the patently slanderous distortion of the facts"; "which call for acts of an
obviously criminal, that is, criminally punishable nature."10 By the end of 1918
all the bourgeois newpapers (with the exception of some Menshevik newspapers) had
been closed.
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At the same time the closing of the hostile bourgeois newspapers by no means im-
plied a deviation from the communist principle of the freedom of the press for the
working people. The Communist Party and the Soviet etate at the same time as the
elimination of the counterrevolutionary press took vigoroue steps to create and de-
velop their own, Soviet press. The Bolshevik newspapers headed by PRAVDA, which
played a leading role in the preparation for and accomplishment of the October Itevo-
lution, constituted its nucleus.
The 12th Congress of the Russian Communist Party (of Bolsheviks), taking into ac-
count that "the press is one of the most important toals of agitation and propa-
ganda, while playing at the same time tho role of a transfer device between the
party and the working class," deemed it necessary "in the quickest manner to take
a number of steps on the increase of tlie circulation... of newspapers and to orga~.-
ize the matter of disseminating the press...."il Numerous new newspapers and
- journals, including KREST'YANSKAYA GAZETA, the military-political newspaper KR.AS-
NAYA ZVEZDA, the newspaper of Soviet youth KOMSOMOL'SKAYA PRAVDA, the theoretical
and political journal of the party Central Co~ittee BOL'SHEVIK (now KOMMUNIST) and
others, were founded. The party treated with special attention the creation and
~ development of the national press.
With the strengthening of the printing base the number of published newspapers and
journals increased, their circu7:ations rose. In 1940 8,806 newspapers with a
single run of 38.4 million copies were published in the USSR (against 859 news-
papers with a single run of 2.7 million copies in 1913).
Along with the periodic press the Communist Party devoted much attention to the de-
velopment of radio broadcasting, which V. I. Lenin regarded as one of the mighty
levers of the cultural and political education of the people. "A newspaper without
paper and .'.~~rithout distances'...," he wrote, "will be a great matter."12
The beginning of regular radio broadcasting in the USSR dates to the end of the
period of reconstruction. Since that time it has gradually become a part of the
daily life of the urban and rural population and has become one of the most effec-
tive means of contact of the party with the masses and of their familiarization
with culture and politics. Before the Great Patriotic War the number of radios in
the country exceeded 1 millian.
The revolution also brought into being such previously unheard of mass centers of
culture as workers` and rural clubs, reading rooms, mobile libraries, agitation
trains, agitation steamships and so forth. The Communist Party showed great con-
cern about the expansion of the network of cultural and educational institutions
and.the improvement of their operation. Starting with the lOth congress these is-
sues were reflected in one form or another in the decisions of nearly all the par-
ty congresses and conferences. The party strove to transform and actually did
transform clubs into centers of the communist education of the working people, the
development of their creative initiative and the organization og wise recreation
and entertainment. In 1940 there were 118,000 clubs, houses and palaces of culture
in the USSR.
Thus, in the prewar period a firm material base of the new, socialist culture had
already been created in our country.
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During the years of the Great Patriotic War enormous harm was done to cultural and
educational institutions, as well as to the entire USSR national economy. The
fascist invaders stole and destroyed more than 100 million volumes of books, which
belonged just to general libraries, and turned thousands of libraries, muaeums,
theaters, club~~ and so on into ruins.
The restoration of cultural and educational institutions became one of the priority
and urgent tasks in the area of the building of culture following the war. Trade
unions, Komsomol, cooperatives and the broad masses of the wor~Cing people took part
in this patriotic cause.
Subsequently the material and technical base of culture was steadily broadened and
strengthened. The expenditures from the state budget and other sources for educa-
tion, cultural educational work and art increased steadily. Whereas, for example,
in 1965 they came to 16.1 billion rubles, in 1980 they came to 37.5 biYlion rubles.
On a per capita basis this is 140 rubles a year.
Let us note for comparison that :Ln 1976 in the wealthiest capitalist country--the
- United States--with an astronomical defense budget ($94 billion) $18 per person
were allocated for cultural needs (parks and institutions of recreation).
/The USSR Constitution guarantees the right of the Soviet people to use the achieve-
ments of culture by the general accessibility of the values of domestic and world
culture, which are in state and public funds; by the development and uniform dis-
tribution of cultural and ediicational institutions over the territory of the coun-
try; by the development of television and radio, the book publishing business and
the periodic press, the network of free libraries/ [in boldface].
In 1980 there were 607 theaters and more than 1,500 museums, 137,000 clubb, houses
and palaces of culture and 152,OU0 movie pro~ectors in the Soviet Union. In the
nua.ber of attendances of entert~inment establishments the US�:< holds, according to
the data of UNESCO, first place in the world. In 1980, for example, the num~er of
attendances of theaters came to 120 million, museums--156 million, movie showings--
4.3 billion.
According to the data of UNESCO, our peonle also read the most in the world. Dur-
ing the years of Soviet power 52 billion copies of books and pamphlets have been
published in the USSR. And ~vith each year the publication of scientific and polit-
ical literature and fiction i~~ increasing. In 1980 alone more than 80,000 titles of
books and pamphlets with a total run of 1.8 billion copies were published.
At present we have 132,000 general libraries with a book stock of more than 1.8 bil-
lion copies. More than 700 million books have been collected in the libraries of
general educational schools and more than 2 billion books in the repositories of
scientific, technical and other specialized libraries. More than half of the popu-
lation o� our country uses the stocks of general libraries. Moreover, there are
more than 30 billion books and pamphlets in the private collections of the working
people. The stock of home libraries increases annually by 700-800 million copies.
And nevertheless the demand of the population for books is still not being com-
pletely met.
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In 1979 iii the USSR more than 13,000 newspapers, journals and other periodic pub-
- lications were published, more than 200 publishing houses and 2 infox~nation agen-
cies--TASS and NOVOSTI PRESS AGENCY--were in operation. The annual circulation of
journals and other periodic publications came to 3.2 billion copies, while the
- single run of newspapers came to 173 million copies. On the average per family in
our country there are about six newspapers, jourr.a~ls and other periodic publica-
tions.
The entire territory of the Soviet Union is covered by radio broadcasting, while
more than four-fifths of the population can watch television broadcasts. In 1980
68 million radios and 67 million televisions were in use by the Soviet people.
Via space communications satellites the achievements of artistic culture, theatri-
cal and musical art, the best plays and concert programs reach the most remote
corners of the USSR.
Our party is devoting constant attention to the uniform distribution of cultural
and educational institutions on the territory of the country and to the convergence
of the cultural level of the city and the countryside.
/The expansion of cultural exchanges with foreign countries serves as an important
constitutional guarantee of the right of USSR citizens to use the achtevements of
culture/ [in boldface]. True to the obligation assumed at the Helsinki Conference
and on the basis of the interests of the meeting of the cultural demands of the
working people, the party and the state are encouraging cultural exchanges in every
possible way and are reinforcing them by intergovernmental agreements. The USSR
maintains cultural contacts with 120 countries of the world.
During the years of Soviet power the works of foreign authors from 136 countries
have been published in the USSR. The number of titles of these works comes to
77,500, while the total circulation comes to 2.42 billion copies. According to the
data of UNESCO, fivefold more translated literature is pubiished in o ur country
than in England and twofold more than in Japan, the United States and France. The
journal INOSTRANNAYA LITERATURA, which has a circulation of 600,000 copies, ac-
quaints Soviet readers with recent publications of contemporary foreign literature.
The international contacts of Russian art are constantly being expanded. During
1977-1979 40 ma~or exhibits of western art were held in the USSR. Among them were
- American painting of the second half of the 19th century and the 20th century,
pictures from the French Centre National d'Art et de Culture Georges Pompidou, from
the collection of Royal Academy of Arts of Great Britain and others.
Plays staged in accordance with more than 130 works of foreign authors are
being performed in Soviet theaters. In 1980 alone more than 130 foreign artistic
troupes and acting groups, which presented more than 6,000 concerts and plays in
more than 170 cities of the country, appeared in the USSR.
The Soviet Union annually purchases and releases for mass showing approximately
60 movies from the socialist countries and ~ust as many from capitalist and devel-
oping countries. International film festivals, which have become traditional, have
- been held in our country for a long time now. In recent years Soviet television
viewers have become acquainted with a number of western made-for-television films
and series programs.
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Let us noted here that whereas in Soviet film distribution the proportion of films
from capitalist countries comes to about 10 percEnt, the proportion of films of all
the socialist countries, which are shown in the West, comes to not more than 5 per-
cent. For example, the film "And the Dawns Are Quiet Here," which received an hon-
orary Oscar, was not allowed on U.S. screens. The film "Liberation," which went
around the screens of ~he entire world, was also not released here for mass showing.
The movies purchased in our country are shown in the United States at small movie
theaters,~without the proper advertising and reviews. The situation in the FRG,
Italy and England is no better.
The impression is being created that the opponents of detente are afraid of the
expansion of cultural contacts with the socialist countries and are doing everything
to hinder the extensive acquaintance of the working people of the capitalist coun-
tries with socialist art. On the other hand, they are striving in every way, under
the pretext of cultural exchange, to impose upon the socialist countries a product
which promotes violence, pornography, racism, aggression and so forth. It is quite
understandable that we oppose such a"freedom" of cultural exchange. This is fully
in keeping with the spirit and letter of the decisions of the Helsinki Conference.
Our country has never hid and is not hiding the ~-,c~ that we give extensive access
only to that culture, that art, which are permeated with the ideas of humanism and
democracy and with faith in man and which serve the strengthening of mutual under-
standing and trust among peoples.
FOOTNOTES
1. Quoted from Yu. Lukin, "Pravo na kul'turu" [The Right to Culture], Moscow, 1978,
pp 10-11.
2. V. I. Lenin, "Poln. sobr. soch." [Complete Works], Vol 35, p 289.
- 3. "KPSS v rezolyu~siyakh i resheniyakh s"yezdov, konferentsiy i plenumov TsK"
[The CPSU in Resolutions and Decisions of Congresses, Conferences and Plenums
of the Central Committee], 8th edition, Vol 2, Moscow, 1970, p 49.
4. RUSSKIYE VEDOMOSTI, 24 November 1917.
5. "Intelligentsiya i revolyutsiya. Sbornik statey" [The Intelligentsia and the
Revolution. A Collection of Article], Moscow, 1922, pp 8-9.
6. "KPSS v rezolyutsiyakh i resheniyakh s"yezdov, konferentsiy i plenumov TsK,"
Vol 2, p 49.
7. EUROPE, November-DecPmber 1965, p 203. ~
8. V. I. Lenin, "Poln. sobr. soch.," Vol 38, p 332.
9. PRAVDA, 6 May 1912.
' 10. See SOBRANIYE UZAKONENIY..., No 1, 1917-1918, p 6.
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11. "KPSS v rezolyutsiyakh i resheniyakh s"yezdov, konferenteiy i plenumov TsK,"
Vol 2, p 462.
12. V. I. Lenin, "Poln. sobr. soch.," Vol 51, p 130.
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CHAPTER 9. THE FREEDOM OF CREATIVE WORK
The freedom of scientific, technical and
artistic creative work... is guarar~teed to
USSR citizens.
From Article 47 of the USSR Constitution
The fruits of culture are a matter of the hands of man, his mind and talent. "The
people," M. Gor'kiy wrote, "are not only the force wl-.ich creates all physical as-
sets, it is the only and inexhaustible source of spiritual values, the first philos-
opher in time, beauty and genius of creative work and the first poet, who composed
all the great poems, all the tragedies of the world and the greatest among them--
the history of world culture."1
The culture of mature socialism is deeply rooted in the "popular soil." The Great
October Socialist Revolution for the first time in the history of mankind removed
the obstacles before the mighty apring of popular talents which, to use the expres-
sion of V. I. Lenin, "capitalism crushed, oppressed, suppressed by the thousands
and millions."2 It not only afforded the working people extensive acceas to the
riches of culture, but also made them the immediate creators of spiritual values
and created unlimited opportunities for the display of their cre8tive forces, abil-
ities and talents. In our country, in the words of K. Marx and F. Eng~ls, "every-
one in whom there is a Raphael" has the opportunity "to develop freely."3
The Communist Party always devoted much attention to the solution of this creative
problem of the cultural revolution. Under the conditions of mature sacialism the
freedom of creative work was sanctioned in the Constitution as one af the inalien-
able freedoms of each Soviet individual.
/The USSR Constitution guarantees the freedom of creative work first of all by the
extensive development of scientific research/ [in boldface]. At present the number
of scientists in our country comea to about 1.4 million, of whom 435,000 have the
- academic degree of doctor or candidate of sciencea. As for the achievements of So-
viet science, today they are well known.
It must be said that a pleiad of outstanding scientists, who made the most valuable
~ contributions to world science, worked under the conditions of prerevolutionary
Russia. Among them are P. L. Chebyahev, A. M. Lyapunov, P. N. Lebedev, A. G. Sto-
letov, D. I. Mendeleyev, I. I. Mechnikov, A. 0. Kovalevskiy, A. M. Butlerov, I. M.
Sechenov, K. A. Timiryazev, I. P. Pavlov, N. Ye. Zhukovskiy and many others. But
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their discoveries were made not owing to but, rather, in spite of the organization
of scientific research, which existed at that time.
Tsarism regarded the Academy of Sciences only as an attribute which was necessary
for the external embellis~ment of the empire. Th~ Ruesian Gapital~ata ~nd ~and-
owners preferred to purchase the latest machines and other equipment abroad, ~nd
not to finance the appropriate research and development in their own homeland. In
- 1913 there were only 298 scientific institutions in the country, while the number
of scientists came to less than 12,000.
One of the members of the State Dl~ma, having investigated shortly before World War I
the situation of the Academy of Sciences, expressed his impreasion~ as follows:
"If it were not for my own co:~viction on the spot, it would be difficult to believe
that such an attitude toward science and its temple--the Academy--is possible in
our capital, in the city of Peter the Great, on the bank of the Neva.... The aca-
demician and the rural teacher in the circumetances of their work have not gone far
from each other, and it is difficult to say for whom of them it is more convenient
to work."4
The Great October Socialist Revolution commenced a qualitatively new stage in the
development of domestic science, placed it at the service of the 3nterests of the
people and transformed it into a most important factor of the economic, social and
cultural transformation of society. During the years of the civil war and economic
dislocation the Communist Party and V. I. Lenin personally devoted much attention
to the creation and development of the network of academic, higher educational and
sectorial scientific institutions. The allocatione for scientific research were
increased considerably.
The most impor~ant directions of the policy of the party and the state in the area
of science were formulated in V. I. Lenin's work "A Draft of the Plan of Scientific
and Technical Work," in the second Party Program, which was adopted by the Eighth
Congress of the Russian Communist Party (of Bolsheviks), and in a number of other
party documents. Scientific institutions were oriented toward the systematic
study of natural resources and toward research connected with the efficient loca-
tion of productive forceR, the supply of raw materials, the electrification of in-
dustry, agriculture and transportation and the reor.ganization of the entire nation-
al economy on the basis of the latest technology. "The Russian Communist Party,"
it was stated in the Party Program, "...is striving for... the creation of the most
favorable conditions of scientific work in its connection with the rise of the pro-
ductive forces of the country."5
After the end of the civil war the network of scientific institutions began to be
developed rapidly. At the same time, effective steps aimed at the formation of
scientific personnel were taken.. In 1925 the system of graduate studies, which be-
came the leading form of their training, was established. With each year the ex-
penditures for the needs of science were increased, the material and technical base
of scientific research was enlarged. The activity of the Academy of Sciences be-
came fundamentally different in its nature and scope. Its role in the soluti.on of
the most important na~ional e~onomic problems especially increased after the adop-
tion in 1925 of the decree of the Council of People's Commissars "On the Recogni-
tion of the Russian Academy of Sciences as the Highest 5cientific Institution of
the USSR."
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rux urN'tc:tAL U5E UNLY
In the 1920's the unified statewide network of scientific centers and institutions
was created in the country on the basis of academic and sectorial institutes and
laberatories. By 1929 the number of scientific institutions (including higher edu-

~ cational institutions) came to 1,400, while the number of scientists came to
43,000. All this was one of the important prerequisites of the reconstruction of
_ the national economy of the country on the basis of the latest scientific and tech~
nical achievements.
In conformity with t'he decisions of the 15th party congress the expenditures on
science were increased by many times, scientific institutions wer.e reinforced by
new skilled personnel. In 154~ there were 2,359 scientific institutions (including
higher education2l institutions) in the country, the number of scientists came to
- 98,300. The national republics accounted for nearly half of the scientific insti-
tutions.
During the first months after the start of th2 Great Patriotic War the party Cen-
tral Committee and the Soviet Government took the necessary steps to evacuate the
most important scientific organizations from the European part to the eastern re--
gions of the country. As a result, in spite of the enormous harm done to our sci-
ence (the German fascist invaders deatroyed 605 scientific research institutes),
the scientific potential of the country was not only retain, but also strengthened.
During these harsh years the scientific research institutes and laboratories of the
USSR successfiilly solved problems of the improvement of combat materiel and devoted
much attention to questions of the search for and development of natural resources
in the eastern part of the country and the creation of new medicinal compounds.
Basic theoretical research was also continued.
During the postwar period research was launched in a number of new fields of the
natural, technical and social sciences. Here much attention was devoted to the
solution of scientific problems connected with the strengthening of the defensive
capability of the country. In August 1949 an end was put to the U.S. nuclear monop-
poly;;in 1948 the first Soviet long-range guided ballistic missile was launched;
in 1950 the f~rst Soviet electronic computer was installed; in 1954 the first nu-
clear electric power station in the world was put into operation in our country.
The needs of the socioeconomic development of the country and the scientific and
technical revolution, which was launched on a large scale in the middle of the
1950's, were the main factors, which were responsible for the considerable accelera-
tion of the rate of development of the network of scientific institutions and the
increase of the number of scientists of the USSR in the subsequent decades. The ex-
_ penditures on science increased from fivn-year plan to five-year plan. As compared
~ with 196.~ they have increasad twofold and in 1980 came to 21.3 billion rubles.
Under the conditions of mature socialism science is becoming to a greater and great-
- et extent a direct productive force. At this stage of the development of our so-
ciety its tasks are specified in ~he decisions of party congresses and are defined
more accurately in a number of decrees of the CPSU Central Committee.
The party of communists, it was noted at the 26th CPSU Congress, is procee3ing on
the basis that the building of a new soci.et~~ without science ~.s simply inconceiv-
able. The CPSU Cer.tral Committee suppor~:; t:he further increase of the role and
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responsibility oi the USSR Academy of Sciences, the improvement of the organization
, of the entire system of scientific research and a more attentive attitude toward
the needs of science.6
The party is directing the attention of Soviet scientists to the even greater sub-
ordination of the development of science and technology to "the solu~ion of the
economic and social problems of Soviet society, the acceleration of the changeover
of the economy to the path of intensive 3evelopment, the increase of the efficiency
of social production."~ The USSR Constitution sanctions legislatively the duty of
the socialist state to ensure the planned development of science, the training of
scientists and the introduction of the results of scientific research in the na-
tional economy and other spheres of life.
- Histor~cal experience attests that under socialism science becomes a mighty means
of the increase of the material and spiritual wealth of the people. The best re-
presentatives of the scientific forces of prerevolutiona?`y Russia 3reamed precisely
about this. The letter of K. E. Tsiolkovs?ciy, which the great Russian scientist
addressecl to the party Central Committee~a few days before his death, is a moving
document which expressed their thoughts and feelings. "Only October,'" it is stated
in the letter, "brought recognition to the works of a s::lf_-educated person; only
the Soviet regime and the party... gave me effective assistance. I sensed the love
of the popular masses and this gave me the ~trength to continue working, while
already being ill. But now the disease does not permit me to complete the begun
work.
- "I am turning over all my works on aviation, rocket gliding and interplanetary com~
muni~ations to the party of Bolsheviks and the Soviet regime--the true leaders of
' the progress of human culture. I am confiden�: that they will successfully complete
these works."$
Only 25 years had passed, and the Vostok spacecraft manned by Saviet pilot-
cosmonaut Yu. A. Gagarin made the first orbital space flight in the work. The date
of 12 April 1961 has gone down in history and is celebrated annually as the World
_ Day of Aviation and Astronautics.
/The extensive development in our country of inventing and rationalization is an
important constitutional guarantee of the freedom of creative work/ [in boldface].
The development of mass creative scientific and technical work is a regularity
which is characteristic only of socialism. The traits of the new, c:ommunist atti-
tude toward labor, the activeness and creative energy of the Soviet people and the
process of obliterating the differences between mental and physical labor are mani-
fested especially vi~~idly precistiy in ~t. �
Beginning with the first years after the victory of October the Communist Party at-
_ tached great importance to the develor.ment of mass creative technical work. In the
inventing ~f the workers it saw an in~portant factor of the acceleration of techni-
cal progress and the increase of labor productivity, the overall development of the
national economy of the country. "...7'he work on the promotion of capable... in-
ventors from among the masses of worl�ers and peasants should be systematized, ex-
panded and deveioped,"9 V. I. Lenin wrote.
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"The Statuta on Inventions" (June 1919) specified the principles of state policy in
the area of inventing. Inventing was declared state property, while inventions
were placed at the general use of all citizens and institutions. Soviet legisla-
tion ensured. on a socj.alist oasis the protection of the copyrighta of inventors and
provided for mandatory rewards for inventions. The management of creative techni-
cal work was assigned to the specially crea!.ed Committee for Inventi~ns.
The first legislative acts of the Soviet state on invention found the support and
lively response of the working people. For example, in 1922 twofold more applica-
- tions for inventions were submitted than in 1919.
Having adopted the policy of the industrialization of the country, the Communist
Party took over the leadership of the organization of a mass movement for the ra-
tionalization of production. The 15th Congress of the All-Ur.ion Communist Party
(of Bolsheviks) placed this question at the cen~er of attention of the party and
the country. The work on rationalization, it was e~phasized in the resolution of
the congress, "has as its primary and de~isive prerequisite /the extensive involve-
ment in it of the masses of workers and peasants/"10 [in italics]. The decree of
the part~ Central Committee "On the State of Mass Invention From the Standpoint of
Its Influence on the Rationalization of Production" (1930) played an especially im-
portant role in the development of creative technical work, rationalization and in-
- vention.
- For the purposes of develop~ng the movement of ra*_ionalizers and inventors the
party recommended that production conferences a*~d reviews, competitions and ex-
changes, technical circles and circles of rationalizers and inventors be used ex-
tensively. The All-Union Society of Inventors, of which 500,000 people became mem-
bers, was founded in 1932.
Mass creative technical ~~aork was developed in the campaign for the affirmation of
the socialist attitude toward labor. The party indicated that the work on ration-
alization should be linked as closely as possible with socialist competition and the
shock labor movement. It contributed to the development of mass forms of competi-
tion for the mastery of new equipment, helped to generalize advanced know-how and
to clear the obstacles in the way of the creative technical work of the working
people.
The rapid increase of the technical equipment of industry, the increase of the
well-being and cultural and technical level of the working class, the national
scope of socialist competition and the enthusiasm which arose from the great con-
struction project brought forward thousands and thousands of rationalizers and in-
' ventors, shock workers and production innovators. The names of miner Aleksey Sta-
khanov, forge worke~ Aleksey Busygin, machine operator Petr Krivonos and many
others became well known to the entire country. They broke the old technical norms,
came forth as the creators of machines and mechanisms, new, advanced techno.'~ogy.
During the postwar years the All-Union Society of Inventors and Rationalizers, de-
partments and bureaus for invention and rationalization at enterprises and organiza-
ti~ns and mass scientific and technical societies by sectors of production were
founded on the initiative of the Communist Party. The Committee ior Inventions
and Discoveries, which was formed in the iiSSR Council of Ministers, began to carry
- out the general supervision of creative techtiical work.
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The decisions of recent party congresaea, as well as the decree of the CPSU Central
Committee and the USSR Council of Ministers "On the Further Development of Inven-
tion in the Country, the Improvement of the Use in the National Economic of Dis-
coveries, Inventions and Rationalization Proposals and the Enhance~ent of Their
Role in the Acceleration of Scientific and Technical Progress" (1973) played an im-
portant role in the development of rationalization and invention.
Whereas in 1940 the number of submitted rationalization proposals and applications
for -Lnventions came to 591,000, in 1980 it came to more than 5 million. The eco-
nomic impact from the use of inventions and rationalization proposals increased
from 90 million rubles to 6.3 biliion rubles. Workers of the new type, who have
exterLsivaly technical erudition and an inventive frame of minP and combine occupa-
tional skill and the talent of a researcher, develo~,ed during those years.
At present tbe All-Union Society of Inventors and Rationalizers unites more than
11 million people. In all 23 acientific and technical societies, which unite in
their ranks 9.3 m311ion engineers, technicians, scientists, apecialists of agricul-
ture, worker-innovators, leading kolkhoz workers, undergraduates and students of
higher and secondary specialized educational institutions, operate in the USSR. In
conformity with the USSR Constitution the state is creating the necessary material
conditions for the development of mass creative technical work, is giving support
to voluntarS societies, is organizing the introduction of inventions and rationali-
. zation proposals in the national econamy and other spheres of life and is protect-
ing the rights of inventors and rationalizers.
- /The USSR Constitution guarantees the freedom of creative artistic work/ [in bold-
face]. A broad field of activity has been opened for Soviet writers, a:tists, mu-
- sicians, playwrights and cinematographers. This finds embodiment in noteworthy
works of fiction, the best productions of operas, ballets and playss the flourish-
ing af symphunic music and singing, painting and sculpture.
Lenin's principles are the basis for the policy of the Communist Party in the area
of literature and art. During tra years of the first Russian revolution in the
- article "Party Organization and Party Literature V. I. Lenin stressed that a
wr~ter cannot at all be free from society and the social struggle, that the so-
called freedom of the artist from the requirements and dictates of the times is an
illusory freedom. In such a great struggle between s~cialism and capitalism, which
mankind had entered, each artist should have specified h:is stand and should have
chosen with whom he sided--with the forces of the reaction or with the knrking
class, which was struggling for a new life. In revealing the true essence of bour-
geois l.iterature and art, which hypocritically proclaimed their own "freedom," but
in fact expressed the class interests of the bourgeoisie, V. I. Lenin opposed to
them the literature and art, which were openly connected with the revolutionary
proletariat. He appealed to writers, artists and actors to understand all the
falsity of the stand of feigned neutrality and to ~oin in the struggle tor a new
Rus~ia and a new culture.
While raising the question of the ideological self-determination of the masters of
art, V. I. Lenin at the same time categorically opposed any attempts whatsoever at
a vulgar interpretation of the slogan of adherence to party principles and the dis-
regard of all the complexity and specificity of creative artistic wo:k. He empha-
sized that literary work ler.ds itself least of all to mechanical equalization and
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leveling and that here, undoubtedly, it is necessary to provide room for personal
initiative, individual inclinations, thought and fantasy, searches in the area of
form and content.
The main demand, which V. I. Lenin made on truly socialist art, is to serve th~
common proletarian cause, "not 'the upper ten thousand, who are bored and suff~l-
f rom obesity,' but the millions and tens of millia~..s of working people."il "Art,"
he said, "be~ongs to the people. It should be most deeply rooted in the very midst
of the broad working ma.sses. It should unite the f eeling, thought and will of
these masses and lift them. It should awaken the artists in tt~em and develop
them."12
During the first years of Soviet power the party prumoted in every possible way
the creation and strengthening of special proletarian organizations in the area of
literature and art. During those years the Proletkult (the proletarian cultural
and educational organization), which united all types of artisti_c activity and a
_ large army of professional and semiprofessional writers, who came primarily from a
working class environment, wae the most massive of them and the ciosest to the rev~-
lutionary tasks.
However, the leaders of the Proletkult took stands alien to Marxism-Leninism and in
- fact opposed the guiding roZe of the party in the building of culture. On 1 Decem-
ber 1920 PRAVDA published th~ resolution of the Central Committee of the Russian
Communist Party (of Bolsheviks) "On Proletkults," in which the policy of the party
in matters of literature and art was stated exhaustively. While c~tegorically
~ condemning the erroneous stand of the Proletkult members, the Central Committee at
the same time came out against petty t�telage and pressure on the creative work of
writers and artists.
The resolution of the Central Committee of the Russian Communist Party (of Bulsh~~-
viks) "On the Policy of the Party in the Area of Belles Lettres" (1925) was also of
great importance in this respect. It was emphasize3 in it tY?at the campaign for
socialist ideology in literature should become a campaign for genuine belles let-
- tres, whi~� are close and "comprehensible to /the millions/" [in italics] and that
'�the party as a whole can in no way bind it3elf by adherenc.e to any trerid /in the
- area of literary form/"12 [in italica].
Following Lenin's principles, the Communist Party at all the stages of the building
of socialism and communism skillfully and tactfully directed the efforts of wraters,
artists and composers toward the co~nprehensive satisfaction of the spiritual needs
of the Soviet people, the formation in them of lof ty artistic tastes and the crea-
� tion of works worthy of our people. Fr~m Lenin's documents to the materials of
congresses and decrees of the CPSU Central Committee of recent years the concern
about the ideological orientation of literature and art was and remains the main
thing in the party su~,ervision of their development. Of course, this concern has
nothing in common with oversimplification and administrative methods of solving
questions pertaining to creative artistic work.
+ Our party combines great demandingne5s on the ideological stand of creative workers
and the concern about the cultivati.oz