In post-Soviet Russia's transition to new political and economic systems, few issues are as important as labor. Although the "worker's paradise" may have been largely imaginary, the loss of job security and benefits that has accompanied marketization could well become a catalyst for yet another political upheaval. In this timely book, Walter Connor explores how the Yeltsin government has attempted to avoid this pitfall of system change.Connor examines Russia's emergent labor politics in the critical first years of the post-Soviet period, focusing on the problems Yeltsin has encountered in...
In post-Soviet Russia's transition to new political and economic systems, few issues are as important as labor. Although the "worker's paradise" may h...
Walter Connor shows how the seven decades since Stalin launched the First Five Year plan have changed Soviet workers from a disorganized mass of unskilled ex-peasants into something very much like a class--not the working class intended by Lenin and Stalin but a new and powerful "accidental proletariat," produced by forces partly beyond the state's control. Does this new "proletariat" threaten glasnost and perestroika? To address that question, Connor examines the growth of the new "class" and its role in the crisis-ridden politics of Gorbachev's USSR. In this book, as in his earlier...
Walter Connor shows how the seven decades since Stalin launched the First Five Year plan have changed Soviet workers from a disorganized mass of un...