6.

The Social and Ideological Environment of Cooperatives

The social and political forces with which cooperatives had to contend were just as critical as the economic and legal forces and greatly influenced the development of the cooperative movement. The public’s responses to the growth of the movement were complex. The causes of this were the ideologi-cal climate that had reigned in the USSR for the previous seventy years or so; the survival of attitudes that predated the Revolution; the vicissitudes of the Soviet economy during the period of reform; the prevailing distribution of income and consumption; and the nature of the cooperative movement itself. These factors influenced both the responses by political organizations and leaders, and the ways in which people in general reacted to the emergence of this new force. For both politicians and consumers, the sudden appearance of legalized and open private enterprise challenged their views of the natural order of the world and their ability to tolerate the realignment of economic and social privileges in Soviet society.

SOCIAL JUSTICE AND ECONOMIC VALUES

The introduction of economic reforms in the mid-1980s not only ushered in a series of changes in economic life, it also began to change the very foundations of the social order, and to challenge the material and philosophical foundations of people’s lives. For more than seventy years, a social contract between the regime and the society had been evolving, and by the 1980s this contract had become firmly established and shaped the Soviet citizen’s sense of justice. An unwritten understanding had developed between the regime and the population, in which a degree of legitimacy was granted to the re-gime in exchange for security, stability, and (in principle, if not always in practice) egalitarianism. As these three pillars were being removed under perestroika, large sections of the population seemed to view the changes as a direct challenge to their sense of justice, and found it very difficult to make the adjustment.

The greater wage differentiation that was occurring in the 1980s came after several decades of wage leveling. Egalitarianism had taken the form of wage equalization in the post-World War II period. Engineering and technical personnel were paid 115 percent more than workers in 1940, but by 1978, they were getting only 18 percent more.¹ The changes in lifestyles and living standards that accompanied more differentiation in income led to a public debate on morality in general and materialism in particular. As one schoolteacher put it in a letter to Sovetskaia kul’tura, “The microbe of money- grubbing, the cult of expensive things, monetary gain and a ‘lone-wolf attitude has become widespread in our life.”² Another letter to the same paper expressed the view that “part of our population has become impregnated with a noxious odor, holding material goods above all else, with complete or partial spiritual poverty.”³ Some even claimed a moral superiority in resisting expensive goods: “I consider it disrespect to myself to wear an article that costs 300 to 400 rubles on my head.”⁴ The press itself had encouraged these views by publishing articles attacking the purchase of luxury goods, in one of which it was asked why useless jeweled items costing many hundreds of rubles, and “tiny cups and saucers at 1,000 rubles per pair” were being offered at a local store. For whom were these items manufactured? Where did the income come from to purchase them? Was there really a need for such items? Might their existence not be a spur to unlawful acts in an attempt to acquire them? The author of these thoughts, a judge from the Chita oblast, then went on to link these issues to the growth of private trade in agricultural produce, an activity at that time being encouraged under the early version of perestroika, but in the judge’s view perilously close to being “a parasitical way of life,” if not actually criminal.⁵

It was not only the fact of some having more money than others that upset people, it was the source of the income as well. Money that did not come from a regular job in the state economy was seen as at least unusual and more often as unearned and therefore unjustified. For example, the shabashniki were the subject of much discussion. Because they worked in areas where labor was scarce (often in rural areas) and because they were often efficient at producing quality work on time, they could earn high incomes, and this provoked much criticism. As letters to the editor put it, “Why does the man next door work for 200 rubles, while the ‘migratory worker’ is paid 1,000?”⁶

Because of the development of the underground economy and of widespread corruption during the Brezhnev era, high incomes came to be seen as evidence of shady activities. This view can only have been reinforced with the unleashing in May 1986 of a campaign against unearned income, and new legislation aimed at those deemed guilty of acquiring it. Targets included those who rented out property (often at five to ten times the official rent), and those who moonlighted doing home repairs (50 to 80 percent of all repairs were apparently done in this way), in addition to those involved in crime and corruption. At the same time, a new system was being set up whereby people making large purchases (over 10,000 rubles, or over 20,000 rubles for a house) were expected to produce a certificate stating that they had come by the money honestly.⁷ The opportunities that this provided for yet more fraud and corruption are obvious.

While there was nothing illegal about earning a high income or enjoying a high standard of living, it upset many people. Even Izvestiia complained that people misjudged those who worked hard and lived comfortably:

a house that stands out for its columns and decorations, for example, or a plot of land that is strikingly well-maintained draws sidelong glances: “A kulak lives there.” Meanwhile there is a thin line between sidelong glances and “opinions,” and between opinions and “taking measures.” There have also been instances in which local authorities have discredited hard-working industrious people.⁸

When the campaign was launched to encourage rural workers to produce food for the market on a larger scale on their private plots, part of the early attempt in the mid-1980s to introduce a little private enterprise, there were cases of violence against these people. Events such as these show that it was not just those who lived well as a result of corruption and theft against whom there was ill will—it was the idea of anyone moving ahead of the rest which troubled many people. As a service worker in Volgograd expressed it when condemning the lifestyle of one of her more affluent neighbors, “I don’t want to live like her. I want her to live like me.”⁹

Even among the staunchest supporters of perestroika there were those who saw the small steps being taken to reintroduce private economic activi-ties as problematic. The well-known economist and sociologist Tatiana Za- slavskaia said that the emergence of private owners of the means of production “who do not participate in social [i.e., state] production and who receive higher incomes violates the principle of distribution according to one’s labor.”¹⁰

The assault on privilege that began in the early part of the Gorbachev era was part of this popular anxiety about unearned rewards. Attacks on special stores, certificate rubles, the personal use of state property, and special access to food and goods in short supply, became more frequent and were cited as necessary for the removal of social injustice.¹¹ A previously taboo topic, the existence of essentially “private” schools for the children of the elite, received a lot of press attention in early 1986. The origins of the popularity of Boris Yeltsin lay in no small part in the belief among Muscovites that he was waging war on the privileges of the elite, and in his dogged (and highly publicized) persecution of those who failed to attend to the needs of consumers.

At the same time that the campaign against privilege was taking place, the definition of social justice was being reconsidered. Whereas in previous decades it had been seen as a matter of equalizing the standard of living, it was now being seen as a matter of differentially rewarding genuine effort and effectiveness. A higher standard of living was just if it was earned, but not otherwise. Precisely what was meant by “earned,” though, was not determined; but the economic reforms being contemplated were certainly viable only if rewards were tied to effort, instead of to entitlement. Although she was wary of a private sector, Zaslavskaia was among the influential voices advocating the use of differential rewards to workers as a way of invigorating the economy.

Since money had ceased to be an effective stimulant, a result of the wage leveling of the 1970s and the severe shortage of consumer goods, some suggested giving workers goods and services directly in order to get them to work harder.¹² Although a survey of managers done in 1980 had shown them to be reluctant to tie workers’ access to goods and services to their effort in the workplace, a scheme such as this might well have been effective given the shortages. In the Donbass mining region in which these managers lived, the waiting time was three years for a phone, seven years for a car, and twelve years for carpeting.¹³

What were the sources of these feelings that material goods were somehow immoral? An acute observer at the time suggested that it was actually fashionable to hold such a view: “To manifest a disdain for things and a readiness to get along without them is becoming a kind of ‘good form.’ One even encounters something like an attitude of ‘tender emotion’ toward difficulties and privations endured in the past, a poeticizing of those bygone woes.”¹⁴ For others, the key lay in people’s concern to maintain stability and dependability in their lives—“The breakdown of traditional relations and their replacement by new, unaccustomed relations is painful to many people.”¹⁵

Just as the alternative economy was coming into being, then, the society was engaged in an unprecedented debate on social justice, and it was inevitable that cooperatives would get caught up in this. However, while much of the discussion involved criticism of a move away from wage leveling, support for the changes was also being made in the name of social justice. Fairness was defined as both increasing and decreasing income inequality, although the pro-differentiation forces were careful to point out that higher incomes were just only if they were earned. These distinctions were too academic for many people, and they responded with great animosity to the way the cooperative movement was developing. Moreover, cooperatives were emerging in a society with what one British economist has called “the three taboos”—“a prohibition against employment of individuals by other individuals,” “a prohibition against any ordinary citizen being very well off,” and “a prohibition against the market.”¹⁶ It was the violation of these taboos that shaped public opinion, and that set up an antagonistic relationship between cooperatives and the consuming public.

PUBLIC OPINION

Public opinion about cooperatives played an important role in the development of private enterprise in the Soviet Union, although, as in other areas of Soviet life, what was meant by public opinion was somewhat vague. There was a complex interplay between what people actually thought, what they believed others thought, the views passed off by the media as reflecting public opinion, and what precisely it was that the views were about. In the early days of the reintroduction of non-state economic activity, all that was known about the public’s views was what was said in letters to the editors of official newspapers, there being no unofficial publications in those days. In 1987, the newspaper Sovetskaia Rossiia analyzed the letters it had received from readers expressing their views on the new cooperatives, and found that opinions varied with the age of the letter writer. Support was highest among those under 45 years of age (87.2 percent for and 10.5 percent against), and lowest among those aged 60-75 (7.8 percent for, 81.2 percent against). About seven out of ten of those older than 75 were in favor of cooperatives, however, while those aged 45-60 were not sure what to think (78.6 percent undecided). Evidently, the period of Soviet history during which people grew up had an effect on their attitudes to private enterprise. Those over the age of 75 were in their twenties when NEP came to an end, while those in their sixties grew up under Stalinism and spent much of their adult life during the Brezhnev years. This Stalin generation, in turn, had little in common with the generation following it, whose formative experiences were the Khrushchev thaw and its termination. That opinions were not purely a result of economic concerns was shown by the fact that some of the cooperatives’ strongest supporters were those over 75 years of age, among the poorest in the USSR.¹⁷

Those who write letters to newspapers are not representative of the population as a whole; also, editors choose to print letters for a variety of reasons, and so there is no way of knowing how representative these views were, or how they differed from place to place and from social stratum to social stratum. As glasnost developed, however, and as social research organizations became freed from tight official control, empirical surveys began to be carried out to try to find answers to these questions.

A survey of 5,500 people conducted early in 1988 found that 53 percent of Leningraders and 31 percent of people in Tallinn had “reservations” about the new cooperatives. Support for them was highest among the young (those aged 16-20) and among people who had actually used cooperative goods and services (85 percent); it was lowest among those who had not used them (76.7 percent). Whether these attitudes were the cause or effect of contact with cooperatives, however, was not made clear. The poll also found greater support among employees than among workers, and among men than among women.¹⁸

In April 1989, the All-Union Center for the Study of Public Opinion asked people if they thought that it would be better to develop the cooperatives or to curtail them. The responses showed that 45.1 percent were in favor of development, 29.1 percent thought that they should be curtailed, and 10 percent were indifferent (the remainder found it hard to say).¹⁹ A study conducted by the Institute of Sociology at about the same time in ten large cities asked people what they thought the attitudes of their friends were. Fifty percent said that their friends were against the cooperatives, 15 percent thought they were in favor, and 18 percent thought their friends were neutral. Clearly, these people believed that those around them were not enthusiastic about the new cooperatives. What is surprising, therefore, is that 31.2 percent said they themselves would like to work in the cooperative sector, and that only 20.6 percent would definitely be against their children doing so (about two-thirds said it was up to the children to make up their own minds on this).²⁰

Many of the surveys in the early days of the cooperative movement were concerned with measuring the general feelings of the population, and did not look too closely at the details of people’s views or the reasoning behind their responses. An important survey that provided an invaluable glimpse of the complexities involved, however, was conducted in April 1989.²¹ The poll covered a number of regions from the Baltic to Central Asia, including 41 cities; in all, more than 3,000 people were interviewed. The researchers found that among their urban respondents, only 44 percent had used the cooperatives at least once, a mere 3 percent said they used the cooperatives at least once a week, and only 8 percent used them at least once a month. Nine out of ten people thought that cooperative prices were too high, 58 percent believed that quality was too low, and 43 percent considered the range of goods too narrow. Only four out of ten people said that they were satisfied with the level of service found in cooperatives. As in other studies, it was found that the more frequently people used the cooperatives, the more positive was their attitude toward them (see Table 6.1).

Regarding the cooperators themselves, most people thought them no different from workers in other sectors, although 17 percent saw them as peo-ple of initiative and enterprise, and 21 percent thought them hard-working. Surprisingly, relatively few saw cooperators negatively, as swindlers (18 per-cent) or as loafers (4 percent). As for working in a cooperative, 36 percent said that they would like to do this, but part-time work was preferred to fulltime employment (29 percent versus 7 percent).

More people were in favor of the cooperative movement developing further than were against such development (45 percent versus 30 percent), the rest of the respondents being indifferent or uncertain. Although there was an awareness on the part of many people that the growth of cooperatives would bring problems (see Table 6.2), more than a third of the respondents thought that the movement should develop anyway.

Table 6.1 Percentage of Respondents with Positive Opinions about Cooperative Goods and Services

Source: Voprosy ekonomiki, no. 11, 1989, p. 130.

Attitudes toward private enterprise were not a matter of simply being for or against, since it is clear that there was considerable support for some services that cooperatives supplied, and a reluctance to tolerate others (see Table 6.3). Those cooperatives that produced goods or services that were in greatest shortage (such as housing, food, and daily services and repairs) were looked upon with the most favor, although actually trading in goods was one of the most unpopular activities. The provision of medical and educational services did not receive a great deal of support, though, and neither did the provision of prepared foods. While the picture is not a straightforward one, it seems to be the case that in this survey, at least, people were content to see cooperatives help solve the shortage of goods and services, but were reluctant to receive these services directly from them. In a sense, people may have been saying that they wanted the benefits, but that cooperators should be kept at arm’s length and should be prevented from “speculating” in these goods.

Table 6.2 Opinions about the Possible Consequences of the Growth of Cooperatives

Source: Voprosy ekonomiki, no. 11, 1989, p. 130.

Table 6.3 Attitudes to Cooperative Growth in Specific Sectors of the Soviet Economy

Source: Voprosy ekonomiki, no. 11, 1989, p. 7.

As one would expect, given earlier findings that views differed by age, the younger the respondents were, the more satisfied they were with the cooperatives, and the more interested they were in participating in this work themselves. The generations did agree on one thing, though, that prices were too high (only 2 to 3 percent were satisfied with prices). Views also varied according to the respondents’ level of education, as did the willingness to be a customer of these businesses. At the same time, the more education people had, the less likely they were to be satisfied with the quality of goods and services provided. This pattern, not surprisingly, was also found with respect to the level of family income—the higher the income, the greater the support for cooperatives. Support for cooperatives also varied depending on people’s occupational status (see Table 6.4), with white-collar employees being less negative than workers, and students being most supportive of all.

Table 6.4 Attitudes toward Future Cooperative Development by Occupation

Source: Voprosy ekonomiki, no. 11, 1989, p. 134.

During the same month that this survey was conducted, researchers in Novosibirsk in western Siberia were measuring the views of both urban and rural residents of this region that is so different from the highly industrial, urban centers of the more western parts of the USSR.²² What they found was that in the Novosibirsk oblast 44 percent were in favor of developing cooperatives further, and 29 percent were against—in other words, the views of the population of this region were almost identical to those of the USSR in general, an outcome that was not typical of other studies which examined regional differences in attitudes toward cooperatives. Likewise, three out of four urbanites thought that the further development of cooperatives would lead to negative consequences, including an increase in crime; on the other hand, two out of three thought that it would also improve the situation for consumers, and one-third thought it would lead to the improvement of the Soviet economy. The researchers noted that the number of people who thought that the state was capable of solving the problem of shortages of consumer goods was declining, although no figures were offered to support this. Rural respondents, on the whole, were more negative than those in urban areas—54 percent were in favor of closing down the cooperatives, while only 25 percent supported their continuation.

Regarding people’s views on various sectors of cooperative activities, the results were very similar to those of the national study outlined above. The difference, though, was that on every issue, rural inhabitants were less in favor of cooperatives than their urban counterparts. The differences were most noticeable in the areas of trade (urban respondents 52 percent negative, rural 70 percent), education (46 percent and 69 percent), agricultural production (14 percent and 43 percent), and health care (39 percent and 61 percent).

A large survey, covering 101,000 people in all of the republics and regions of the USSR, and all of the main occupational sectors, was conducted in January 1990.²³ By this time, cooperatives had been in operation for almost exactly three years. Overall, the results showed great uncertainty among the population about the development of this new form of economic activity— 15 percent had a positive attitude, 27 percent were ambivalent, and 13 percent were indifferent. Only 29 percent were hostile, and the rest of those polled (16 percent) did not know what to think. As was most typical of attitu- dinal surveys, the results differed from region to region. In Estonia, Latvia, and Armenia (republics with a well-developed private sector) supporters out-numbered opponents, while the reverse was true of Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Moldavia (republics with poorly developed legal private enterprise). Generally speaking, the greater the development of private enterprise in an area and the more experience people had with it, the more positive was their attitude.²⁴ Among city dwellers, attitudes were more positive than in the countryside. Attitudes also differed by income—thus, only 8 percent of those earning less than 80 rubles a month were in favor of cooperatives, compared to 15 percent of those in the 130-220 rubles range, and 20 percent among those earning over 250 rubles a month. Likewise, the educational level of those surveyed had an effect on their views. Those with college degrees were most in favor of cooperatives (20 percent), while the figure fell to 14 to 16 percent among high-school graduates, and to 10 percent among those who did not finish high school.

What made this survey of special interest was that people were given an opportunity to say what they liked and disliked about the new cooperatives. Among those respondents with positive attitudes toward cooperatives, the consequences they saw as positive were:

(1) the introduction of new goods and services—29.3 percent;

(2) reduction in the shortages of goods—15.7 percent;

(3) the ability to obtain previously unobtainable services—24.0 percent;

(4) more equitable wages—17.5 percent;

(5) stimulus for the public sector—12.1 percent;

(6) increased employment—21.1 percent.

Among those who were not in favor of the cooperatives, the consequences they disliked were:

(1) increased income inequalities—28.4 percent;

(2) increased shortages in the state retail trade sector—35.4 percent;

(3) more people earning excessive incomes—56.2 percent;

(4) the diversion by cooperatives of goods and services previously available from the state—29.4 percent;

(5) the outflow of trained personnel from state enterprises—24.6 percent;

(6) an increase in criminal activity—31.2 percent.

Asked what they considered to be the main shortcomings of the cooperative movement, 86 percent mentioned excessively high prices, 48 percent low quality of goods and services, 19 percent poor sanitary conditions in public catering, 13 percent poor selection of goods and services, and 9 percent poor service. Two out of three people who never used the cooperatives said that they avoided them because their prices were far too high, while 39 percent claimed not to be in need of their goods and services, 29 percent said it was because of the poor quality and selection, and only 9 percent said the cooperatives did not offer what was needed. As one might expect, those who actually used cooperatives were considerably more positive about them, while those who had never used them and had only second-hand information about them were more negative.

In view of the overwhelming sentiment among Soviet citizens that state restaurants and cafés are abysmal places to eat, it is surprising that the great majority of the people in this survey (70 percent) thought that only the state should be allowed to provide public catering services. This may have re-flected the anger people felt about the high prices in cooperative eating establishments at a time of widespread food shortages. It is equally surprising, given the so-called “book hunger” in the country, that so many (again, 70 percent) thought that only the state should publish books. Almost as many (65 percent) thought that only the state should produce children’s goods, and 60 percent thought that the diagnosis and treatment of diseases should be left in the hands of the state. High as these figures were, they were apparently even higher in the rural areas.

Knowledge of the cooperatives and their services was also lower than one might have imagined, given all of the publicity that they had received; thus, half of the respondents either had no information on their services or had no interest in finding out. As for the future of the cooperative movement, 23 percent predicted that it would be shut down, 14 percent foresaw slow and difficult growth ahead, and about half had no predictions about what would happen. A tiny 6 percent were expecting rapid growth, and the same percentage thought that things would continue at their current level.

Most people were still sitting on the fence regarding the development of the cooperative movement, but it was clear that the cooperatives’ constituency was coming more from the higher reaches of the society than from the lower (see tables 6.5, 6.6, and 6.7). Members of the intelligentsia were two to two-and-a-half times more likely to be supporters than were those working in agriculture, and were almost twice as supportive as the workers. At the same time, among those actually using the cooperative sector the differences were much less marked. Moreover, the more people shopped in these establishments, the more satisfied they were.

A few months later, in the summer of 1990, a poll of 55,000 people in the RSFSR found that only 14.4 percent were in favor of cooperatives, and a mere 5 percent wanted faster growth in this sector.²⁵ What this and other surveys showed was that four years after the introduction of cooperatives, only about one out of every six people was supportive of this innovation, about two out of six were against it, and the remaining half of the population were unable to make up their minds. As one observer noted, the attitudes of a large segment of the population were not based on personal experience with cooperatives, but reflected personal prejudice and the bad press that cooperatives had received during the preceding three years.²⁶

Antagonism was not expressed merely in the form of opinion, and given the strength of feelings against the cooperatives, it was to be expected that violent acts against them would occur sooner or later. In fact, violence emerged rather early in the development of private enterprise. One of the earliest events occurred in the spring of 1986, when people in the Brest oblast smashed the greenhouses of those who were growing tomatoes for sale in the markets. Later, the violence became so severe and so widespread that the Soviet press began referring to “pogroms.” Among the many acts of aggression reported were those in Lvov and Tallinn, where taxi drivers working in the state sector physically threatened drivers in a thriving taxi coopera-tive.²⁷ Much more frightening for the cooperators was the attack in Novyi Uzen in 1989 in which 27 cooperatives were destroyed and 11 cooperative workers killed, and that in May of the same year in the Turkmen city of Nebit-Dag, in which cooperatives were set on fire (17 were destroyed) and their operators beaten up by crowds. In an interview, one local unemployed 21-year-old said, “I wasn’t at the demonstration, but if I had known about it I would have gone. Why should the cooperators have everything, their pockets full of money, while I have nothing. Because of them, there is nothing to buy in the stores.”²⁸

Pogroms against cooperatives showed the depth and strength of people’s feelings about these businesses and the people who worked in them. It may well be the case that it was not private enterprise as such that generated bad feelings, but rather the specific form that it took, namely in the shape of “cooperatives.” This term had become almost synonymous in the public arena with “millionaire,” “criminal,” and “speculator.” Attitudes to “individual labor activity” (that is, private enterprise engaged in outside of an organized group) were more positive. In a poll done in November of 1989, while only 23 percent approved of cooperatives, 57 percent approved of individual labor activity. As one Soviet sociologist suggested, this may have been due to the fact that individual labor activity was “not so widespread, conspicuous or rife with dramatic confrontations.” Also, he noted, the media played an important role in shaping negative attitudes toward the cooperatives.²⁹

Table 6.5 Attitude of Different Social Groups of Population toward the Development of Cooperative and Individual Labor Activities

Source: Ekonomika i zhizn’, no. 20, May 1990, p. 9.

Table 6.6 Frequency of Use and Attitude toward Cooperatives and Individual Labor Activity by Age

Source: Ekonomika i zhizn', no. 20, May 1990, p. 9.

Table 6.7 Positive Evaluation of Activities of Various Cooperatives by Frequency of Use

Source: Ekonomika i ihizn’, no. 20, May 1990, p. 9.

The level of anti-cooperative feelings among the population should not be surprising given the campaigns waged by many official organizations. When cooperatives were attacked by the official trade unions in the summer of 1989, the head of the Moscow Union of Cooperatives responded: “People had not been psychologically prepared for the appearance of cooperatives— so what kind of attitude could have been expected. But you, the trade-union leaders, didn’t you consciously decide in the fifth year of perestroyka to play upon people’s moods?” At a rally he attended, he counted more than 300 posters with such anti-cooperative slogans as: “Down with Cooperatives, Plunderers of the People,” “It’s Time To Investigate Those Who Thought Up Cooperatives,” and “We Do Not Need a Government Which Supports the Profiteering Cooperative Movement.”³⁰

The antagonism of sections of the press toward cooperatives, and the glee with which they often publicized the more extreme aspects of this new phe-nomenon, were part of a concern with the social implications of perestroika. It was impossible to separate the public reception of private enterprise from people’s views about what was fair and unfair, what was to be tolerated from what was not.