With a growing population, deteriorating economic conditions, and an unstable imperial centre, Soviet Central Asia would seem destined to become a trouble spot. Instead Islamic traditionalism has survived and flourished in Central Asia. This book looks at the reasons why.
This book is the first critical assessment of the likelihood and implications of such a contract. Linda Cook pursues the idea from Brezhnev's day to our own, and considers the constraining effect it may have had on Gorbachev's attempts to liberalize the Soviet economy.
The Workers' Opposition was a faction of the Russian Communist Party that emerged in 1920 as a response to the perceived over-bureaucratisation that was occurring in Soviet Russia. The Workers' Opposition advocated the role of unionized workers in directing the economy at a time when Soviet government organs were running industry by dictat and trying to exclude trade unions from a participatory role. Specifically, the Workers' Opposition demanded that unionized workers (blue and white collar) should elect representatives to a vertical hierarchy of councils that would oversee the economy. At all levels, elected leaders would be responsible to those who had elected them and could be removed from below. The Workers' Opposition demanded that Russian Communist Party secretaries at all levels cease petty interference in the operations of trade unions and that trade unions should be reinforced with staff and supplies to allow them to carry out their work effectively. Leaders of the Workers' Opposition were not opposed to the employment of "bourgeois specialists" in the economy, but did oppose giving such individuals strong administrative powers, unchecked from below. Alexandra Mikhailovna Kollontai (1872 - 1952) was a Russian Communist revolutionary, first as a member of the Mensheviks, then from 1914 on as a Bolshevik. In 1919 she became the first female government minister in Europe. In 1923, she was appointed Soviet Ambassador to Norway, becoming the world's first female ambassador in modern times. She was an advocate of the Workers Opposition.
From the dawning of the industrial epoch, wage earners have organized themselves into unions, fought bitter strikes, and gone so far as to challenge the very premises of the system by creating institutions of democratic self-management aimed at controlling production without bosses. With specific examples drawn from every corner of the globe and every period of modern history, this pathbreaking volume comprehensively traces this often underappreciated historical tradition. Ripe with lessons drawn from historical and contemporary struggles for workers’ control, Ours to Master and to Own is essential reading for those struggling to create a new world from the ashes of the old. Immanuel Ness is professor of political science at Brooklyn College, City University of New York, and edits WorkingUSA. Dario Azzellini is a writer, documentary director, and political scientist at Johannes Kepler University in Linz.
Brinton undertakes an innovative analysis of the Russian revolution and its implications for workers' autonomy. As he demonstrates, an appreciation of the historical precedent can generate fresh insights into contemporary problems.
The Labour Party welcomed the Russian Revolution in 1917: it paved the way for the birth of a socialist superpower and ushered in a new era in Soviet governance. Labour excused the Bolshevik excesses and prepared for its own revolution in Britain. In 1929, Stalin deported hundreds of thousands of men, women and children to work in labour camps. Subjected to appalling treatment, thousands died. When news of the camps leaked out in Britain, there were protests demanding the government ban imports of timber cut by slave labourers. The Labour government of the day dismissed mistreatment claims as Tory propaganda and blocked appeals for an inquiry. Despite the Cabinet privately acknowledging the harsh realities of the work camps, Soviet denials were publicly repeated as fact. One Labour minister even defended them as part of 'a remarkable economic experiment'. Labour and the Gulag explains how Britain's Labour Party was seduced by the promise of a socialist utopia and enamoured of a Russian Communist system it sought to emulate. It reveals the moral compromises Labour made, and how it turned its back on the people in order to further its own political agenda.
How, and why, did human trafficking out of Russia escalate at the beginning of the twenty-first century? Why did some labour migrants from Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan find happy work situations in Russia whereas others became trapped in forced labour? This book focuses on human trafficking out of the Russian Federation since the collapse of the Soviet state and on labour migration into it from Central Asia, and on some internal movement. It looks at the socio-economic reasons behind labour flows and examines key social, political, legislative and policy responses. Discussion includes how the Russian press covers these topics and what politicians, experts and the public think about them. Based on interviews, polls and focus groups in Russia, this book is rich in original research which highlights different Russian perspectives on exploitation in unfree labour. It gives examples of entrapment in prostitution, construction work, on farms, and in begging rings.
Until now, there has been little scholarly analysis of the Soviet Gulag as an economic, social, and political institution, primarily owing to a lack of data. This collection presents the results of years of research by Western and Russian scholars. The authors provide both broad overviews and specific case studies.
In 1920, Lenin authorised a plan to transform Karelia, a Russian territory adjacent to Finland, into a showcase Soviet autonomous region, to show what could be achieved by socialist nationalities policy and economic planning, and to encourage other countries to follow this example. However, Stalin’s accession to power brought a change of policy towards the periphery - the encouragement of local autonomy which had been a key part of Karelia’s model development was reversed, the state border was sealed to the outside world, and large parts of the republic's territory were given over to Gulag labour camps controlled by the NKVD, the precursor of the KGB. This book traces the evolution of Soviet Karelia in the early Soviet period, discussing amongst other things how political relations between Moscow and the regional leadership changed over time; the nature of its spatial, economic and demographic development; and the origins of the massive repressions launched in 1937 against the local population.