19: "Divide and Rule"

An important aspect of the material incentives system introduced under the "economic reform" is its utilisation to play off one worker, and one group of workers, against another. In fact, contemporary Soviet economists admit that the decisive factor in the "efficiency" of the system is not the size of the bonuses paid, but the differentiation in their size between individual workers, which enables the management to play off one worker against another:

"The efficiency of any system of incentives largely depends on differentiation between the workers encouraged. Therefore, the decisive factor is not the absolute size of incentive funds but the relative size per worker".

(B. Gubin: "Raising the Efficiency of Socialist Economic Management"; Moscow; 1973; p. 79).

But this differentiation applies not only to bonus payments, but to wage-rates, which, at the discretion of management, are varied not only between different regions of the country, but between different departments of the same enterprise and -- in blatant contradiction of the principle of equal pay for equal work -- between male and female workers:

"The recent economic reform... enables industrial managers to differentiate labour remuneration rates according to the specific conditions of each individual shop, section or other production unit".

(P. Tabalov: "Switching Over to the New System", in: "Pravda" (Truth), October 27th., 1965, in: "The Soviet Economic Reform: Main Features and Aims"; Moscow; 1967; p. 119).

"Differentiating the rate of pay for labour by regions and types of labour (male, female and so on), it will be possible to influence in a planned manner the structure of utilising labour resources".

(A.G. Aganbegyan: "Territorial Planning and the Economic Reform", in: "Soviet Economic Reform:Progress and Problems"; Moscow; 1972; p. 99).

20: Anti-Semitism

A particularly unpleasant feature of "divide and rule" discussed in the previous section is the official encouragement of racist prejudices -- manifested in particular, in Soviet conditions, by a revival of that scourge of tsarist Russia, anti-Semitism.

In the days when Soviet society was socialist in character, the official position on anti-Semitism was one of outright denunciation and illegality:

"anti-Semitism, as an extreme form of racial chauvinism, is the most dangerous vestige of cannibalism.

Anti-Semitism is of advantage to the exploiters as a lightening conductor that deflects the blows aimed by the working people at capitalism. Anti-Semitism is dangerous for the working people as being a false path that leads them off the right road and lands them in the jungle. Hence Communists, as consistent internationalists, cannot but be irreconcilable, sworn enemies of anti-Semitism.

In the USSR anti-Semitism is punishable with the utmost severity of the law as a phenomenon deeply hostile to the Soviet system".

(J.V. Stalin: "Anti-Semitism", in: "Works", Volume 13; Moscow; 1955; p. 30).

In line with Stalin's statement above that anti-Semitism is of advantage to exploiters, with the revival of an exploiting class in the Soviet Union has come a revival of anti-Semitism -- both official and unofficial:

"Official and unofficial anti-Semitism.. is widespread in the Soviet Union...

This anti-Semitism, which is created by the Party bosses,... finds fertile ground among people who are looking for a scapegoat on which to vent their frustrations with the regime.

The State and the Party use anti-Semitism as a safety-valve. The regime still encourages and old saying from Czarist times, 'Save Russia, boot the Yids'. Even in the camp where there were water shortages, anti-semitic prisoners would come out with an old song about the stinking Jews drinking it all.

Every year anti-Semitism in the Soviet Union gets worse. The children of Jews are no longer admitted to higher institutions of learning -- or if they are, it's through bribery and corruption."

(M. Shtern: "Jew in Gulag: Shtern's story", in: "The Observer", April 24th., 1977; p. 10).

"The camp authorities inculcate nationalistic conflicts and agitate other inmates against the Jews. KGB Captains Maruzan and Ivkin stress in their conversation with non-Jewish inmates that all nationalities of the USSR must take a stand against Jews, particularly in labour camps. The administration provokes anti-Jewish incidents, utilizes informers and spies, and uses false witnesses in order to be able to impose additional punishment upon the Jews. Inmates who have had contact with Jews are summoned for discussions during which anti-Semitic sentiments are expressed and they are told that protest against arbitrariness in camp rules are profitable to the Zionists".

("A Perm Camp", in: Amnesty International: "Prisoners of Conscience in the USSR: Their Treatment and Conditions", London; 1975; p. 80).

"Audiences in Russia are currently being shown a specially made film which is deliberately and wildly anti-Semitic. The film is called 'Things Secret and Things Obvious' and it is a vicious attack on Jews. It is a compilation of newsreel film and reconstructed scenes, and it attacks Jews from the 1917 revolution to the present day. Accompanying the pictures is a particularly nasty commentary saying such contentious and unpleasant things as: "Jewish capitalists assisted Hitler a great deal in coming to power". It also make great play of the fact that it was a Jewess, Fanny Kaplan, who once tried to kill Lenin...

The film... has been produced by the Moscow Central Studio of Documentary films".

("The Guardian", March 29th., 1977; p. 11).