The Soviet Model of Industrial Democracy

Abstract

Soviet-type Communist systems are organized hierarchically and are highly formalized and bureaucratized. So are their industrial relations systems and schemes of worker participation in management. Between 1953 and 1975, the Soviet Union and the Soviet-controlled countries of Eastern Europe underwent a certain measure of modern ization. Nevertheless, their basic nature remained intact. The trade unions continued to be subordinate to the ruling parties, and the main forms of participation by the working people in management continued to be production con ferences and socialist emulation. During the same period, the Soviet model of industrial democracy was severely challenged in Poland (1956), Hungary (1956), and Czecho slovakia (1968). In addition, Yugoslavia launched a rival model as early as 1950. While spontaneous strikes occurred only occasionally, certain apolitical or non-ideological forms of deviance remained permanent features of the Soviet- type system, ranging from lateness for work and indif ferent performance through evasion and violation of formal norms to absenteeism, labor turnover, and pilferage. Al though in the mid-1970s the prospect of any far-reaching reforms was bleak, the contradictions inherent to the systems had not disappeared. Consequently, they were by no means free of potential conflict.