Book Review: More Equal Than Others

Mervyn Matthews: Privilege in the Soviet Union. George Allen and Unwin, £3.50.

Russian society is correctly described as state capitalist. The argument to support this does not rest essentially on the presence of inequality, a cleavage between the haves and have-nots. However, it does follow from the existence there of class monopoly of the means of production that most members of society will barely scrape a living from the sale of their labour power, while others enjoy the material and other fruits of this monopoly. Those who exercise this monopoly (through their control of the state and party) are called the ruling capitalist class. Matthews, however, eschews any reference to class and defines an elite purely in terms of standard of living.

The average monthly wage of a Russian worker in 1972 was officially stated to be 130 roubles including bonuses. Matthews takes 400 roubles as the lower limit for the monthly earnings of members of the ‘elite’, though some individuals receive far more, for instance, 600 roubles for the First Secretary of a Union Republic and a rumoured 900 for the First Secretary of the ‘Communist’ Party. At least as important as basic income, though, are certain privileges reserved for the elite, often specifically for members of the nomenclatura. These range from automatic payments of an extra month’s pay (the so-called ‘thirteenth month’) to special shops selling scarce goods and not open to all and sundry. Special hospitals cater for the elite while workers languish in the ordinary hospitals, and better quality holiday accommodation is also provided. All these privileges mean that basic income is a very uncertain guide to someone’s standard of living.

Matthews also provides a historical account of legislation relating to privilege and inequality. Lenin in 1918 accepted the need to pay higher wages to ‘bourgeois specialists’. Top party and state officials did not at first receive much above average workers’ wages (though the possibility of hidden benefits of the type discussed above should be borne in mind), but by 1925 there was an elaborate hierarchy of occupations, with top party workers receiving 175 roubles (a month?) and the average industrial worker about 50 roubles. By 1928, many managers would have been receiving ten times an average worker’s earnings. These extra elite benefits have existed throughout most of the post-revolutionary period; for example, from 1920 only ‘top people’ were allowed to make use of state-owned cars in Moscow.

Despite its lack of any attempt at analysis, Matthews’ book is a handy collection of data concerning the extent of inequality in Russia. The privileges he describes are consequences of the existence of two classes there, since to talk of the ‘wages’ received by Politburo members is misleading; such people cannot meaningfully be said to sell their labour power. They belong rather to Russia’s capitalist class, who enjoy material privileges and exercise political power while most of the population — like workers everywhere — are excluded from both.

Paul Bennett