Introduction.
Popov's article, The Problem of Strikes, is one of the most significant pieces of Marxist analysis to come from Eastern Europe in recent years, comparable to that of Kuron and Modjelski in Poland, although it is in a very different form from the latter. The Problem of Strikes appeared in an academic journal of sociology, and thus suffers from a certain tendency to jargon and convolution of expression, which can be a cover by which sentiments can be expressed which could not be more clearly stated without getting the author into difficulties. But it is much more than an article about strikes, or rather Popov examines strikes in a Marxist way, relating them to the structure of Yugoslav society as a whole. In so doing he is able to exhibit the gross deformations of this society, and indicate clearly the power of the negative trends at work, which will clearly lead to attempts to restore a complete capitalist system to the country in the near future. Popov shows that major structural trends can be observed in recent years, including:
(a) a marked growth of unemployment
(b) a large scale export of labour.
(c) a massive growth in internal inequality, in economic terms between social groups and between areas of the country, and in terms of housing standards (Popov does not go into other differences for instance in health and educational provision, which are equally striking.)
(d) a removal of the working class from all areas of political power, whether it be from elected political bodies, industrial organisations, trade unions or the league of communists.
(e) a widening gap in value systems, especially expressed in ideas about differentiation of incomes, with the working class demanding reduced differentials, and the political/economic bureaucracies defending and advocating increased differentials.
There are two further important trends which Popov does not develop, but which confirm the seriousness of the situation which he analyses at the end of his article. The first is the ever more powerful assertion of the influence, mainly economic, but increasingly political, and vital in terms of attitudes, of the petty bourgeoisie. The laws restricting private ownership were never powerful enough in Yugoslavia, and with the stimulation of the market economy, they have become largely ineffective. Not only do they hardly operate in the tourist industry or in the catering industry, but many loopholes are exploited fully in regard to the ownership of land, sub-contracting to enable more workers than the legal maximum to be employed, etc. This means that there is a very extensive group which has been able to amass considerable private capital, and there is a strong trend for this group to merge with sections of the economic bureaucracy, which has also been able to amass capital by manipulation of their positions. The laws, however, do restrict the reinvestment of this capital in large scale industry, so it constantly circulates (inefficiently) on the margins of the economy, an ever growing threat to the socialized base of production. Some firms have already taken to issuing bonds to investors.
The second trend is that of increasing capitalist investment in the economy from outside, in the form of joint schemes in which a part of the capital becomes foreign owned. (c.f. Topham, 1970). This type of penetration has become quite extensive. In addition, some companies maintain semi-legal 'front' companies to spread sales and influence in Yugoslavia. These companies are nominally Yugoslav, and the employees are Yugoslav, but salaries and training derive totally from abroad. I.B.M. operates in this way in Yugoslavia.
What Popov does not really elaborate is an historical analysis of the forces involved in these developments, and the contradictions which have given rise to them. Some of the new oppositionist groupings that are emerging in Yugoslavia, horrified by the trends of the recent period, and having lacked access to the analysis of the basis of the degeneration of the workers' states developed by the Fourth International, have stated that Yugoslavia is already capitalist, that it is run by a 'new bourgeoisie', that there is a 'new class' of exploiters, and even that things were better before the revolution. Such mistakes are extremely serious, for they play into the hands of those who would like to be able to bracket opposition from the left with counter-revolution, and groupings such as the Chetniks and the Ustase. This type of analysis is certain to be rejected by the Yugoslav working class, which alone can safeguard socialized property relationships, the self-management system, and re-direct them towards socialism. In order for the Yugoslav left to integrate with the working class opposition, it is essential, firstly, for the real gains of the revolution to be recognised, and secondly, for the dilemma presented by the bureaucracy - that the only alternative to the market is stalinist centralization - to be resolved.
In the immediate post 1945 period, the Fourth International made serious mistakes in its analysis of Yugoslavia, refusing to recognize it as a workers' state. But although we have not done an analysis in depth, there is sufficient work to be able to present the outlines of such an analysis with some confidence (See International Socialist Review, 1967, and Riddell, 1968 - the latter article supplements the more correct political analysis in the former).
1. The nature of pre-war Yugoslavia should not be in doubt. It was an under-developed neo-colony of German, and to a lesser extent French and British Imperialism, with in the thirties a completely repressive, though not necessarily very efficient, political system and containing some of the poorest areas in Europe.
2. The Yugoslav Communist Party was a working class based party with widespread actual and latent support throughout the country, which can be said of no other political organization.
3. The Yugoslav revolution was a genuine one with a power base created by the military arm of the Party, the Partisan armies, and must be characterised as a socialist revolution because it eliminated the state of neo-colonialism, expropriated such local bourgeoisie as existed, and began the implementation of a programme of industrial development which would ensure the predominance of the working class as an occupational category and lay the basis for a transition to socialism.
4. The revolutionary leadership in Yugoslavia had a particular dual character. On the one hand it was a genuine, proletarian based, widely supported leadership, every one of whose members had made total personal sacrifices for the revolution with no obvious prospect of gain (in the partisan war). On the other hand, its political training, organizational conceptions and policy were totally stalinist (with one difference in respect to peasant policy). This dual character has influenced the whole course of political decisions until the more recent period.
5. Thus, although the industrialization programme was bureaucratic from its inception, and proletarian democratic forms were excluded totally, it was not initially diverted by powerful interests of personal gain of the bureaucracy, and had elements of a genuinely popular character. Evidence of this may be seen in economic terms in the clear reduction of economic differences between the various republics in this period and the significance and popularity of the large scale voluntary labour projects for railways, highways, etc
6. The structural position of political monopoly by the party leadership encouraged over time tendencies towards the accretion of material rewards and privilege, which in turn became an increasingly important element in motivating the retention of power by this group.
7. The break with the Soviet Union represented a determination to safeguard the Yugoslav revolution from becoming subject to the perceived interests of the Soviet bureaucracy. The resulting institution by the political/leadership of the self-management system was a major and historically important step on the path to socialism.
8. A system of workers' self management either develops towards becoming a system of social control, the means by which the working class determines the allocation of social resources according to a democratically decided national plan, or it denies itself, and reverts to a manipulative system, since key decisions which affect the internal running of firms are taken outside them. (Davis, 1970). In Yugoslavia the development of the self management system therefore logically involved the continuous extension of the area of political control, therefore actually posing an ever increasing threat to the real control of the bureaucratic layers consolidating themselves at all levels. The first Congress of Workers' Councils gave a clear indication of this as demands were made for an extension of self management above factory level. This is why the second Congress has come only 14 years later, after numerous postponements to enable a "safe" Congress to be staged.
9. Since, having instituted self management, it was politically impossible, as well as economically disastrous to revert to stalinist planning methods, the political leadership was left with only two choices:- either extend the self management system to the whole society, which would remove the power and privileges of the leadership itself, or find a means of retaining a modicum of workers' management at factory level, and its own political positions at higher levels. The extension of the market, 'market socialism' seemed to them to be the solution of the problem.
10. The institution of the market was propagandized in three main ways:
(a) The market provided an efficient means of increasing the range and quality of consumer goods (in comparison with a bureaucratically planned system, it probably does, for those who have the purchasing power to make use of it)
(b) The market enabled the decentralisation of control, so that more power was held locally (the increase in the autonomy of enterprises in fact increased their vulnerability to factors arising from unplanned production competition, etc, whilst new groups of local political leaders relatively increased their power, and the factory director and his managerial assistants, as the people who had to move in the area where the crucial decisions really did take place - ie. above factory level - gained in real power at the expense of the workers' councils who were constantly faced with fait accompli and whose members either tended to become integrated with the management, or to drop out of the system into apathy (c.f. Riddell, 1968, p.66).
(c) By the suggestion that there are only two alternatives, a bureaucratically planned system or a market system (totally ignoring the third alternative, the only one that can take Yugoslavia towards socialism, the progressive extension of the self management system to cover all areas of social life at all levels, an alternative which involves the assertion of its own power by the working class).
11. But the market system has its own logic, which leads inevitably towards regional disparity; the strengthening of the efficient firm at the expense of the less efficient; pressure by firms to take over the investment of capital they have realised; in the absence of a free trade union movement a tendency for those in positions of economic power to increase their economic reward at the expense of those without; and thus to the reduction of the labour force in the interests of lowering costs, ie. increasing unemployment. In the interests of 'efficiency' foreign capital begins to penetrate the economy in various ways, from licensing agreements, to foreign loans from GATT with convertability of the dinar as a corollary.
12. Thus an economic basis is provided for the re-emergence of regional and republican chauvinism; reduction of expenditure on 'non-profit making' areas such as education, health, culture; the stimulation of individualist, anti-collectivist and anti-socialist attitudes among large sections of the population; and increasing differentiation of the economic sections of the bureaucracy, managing directors and their colleagues, who, allying with the petty bourgeoisie become an increasing threat to the socialized property relations as a whole, and thus to the basis of the political bureaucracy, especially as further links begin to be forged with foreign capital
13. The political bureaucracy is caught between two fires; the mounting social power of the economic groupings it has helped to create, and the mounting anger of the working class at the sacrifices it is making in terms of unemployment, reduction of social services, relatively poorer and poorer. It thus vacillates in its policies, not knowing where to turn, dividing into internal warring groups, with sections becoming clearly and undeniably corrupt.
The reality of the development of Yugoslav society is of course extremely complex. It cannot be reduced to one factor alone. Many other cultural, economic and political factors are also involved. - But the correct identification of the central contradictions is essential if a political movement capable of solving them and moving forward to socialism is to be built. The 1968 student movement in Belgrade was moving towards articulating such a programme, which is why it was so vigourously isolated and suppressed from all quarters of the bureaucracy. The situation has rapidly deteriorated even since then.
Defend the Yugoslav Revolution.
Neither bureaucracy nor the market!
Confiscate private fortunes. Reduce the maximum differentials to 1 to 3.
For a socialist democracy based on workers' councils!
R. Davis
References:
K. Davis (1970), Theories of Workers' Control, International, Vol. 1., no. 2.
International Socialist Review (1967), Yugoslavia at the Crossroads, Vol.28, no. 1, (also in French in Quatrieme International, nov. 1966).
D. Riddell (1968), Social Self-government in Yugoslavia, Br. Jnl. of Sociology, Vol 19, no. 1.
'Socialism, the negation of the negation that is capitalism, has contrived a meta-syndicalist hocus pocus:- by striking in socialism, strikers strike against themselves alone, becoming a negation of the anti-capitalist negation, and thus logically anti-socialist.' - M. Krleza (P. Matrejevic, Razgovori s Miroslavom Krlezom, Zagreb, Naprijed, 1969, p.56.)
Twelve years have passed since the first strike in contemporary Yugoslav society. For almost half that time elementary information about them has been concealed from the public.(1) Only after 1964 did the political police gradually relax control over matters related to strikes, and trade union circles began to become interested in them. Only from then did the first factual consideration of strikes reach the scientific, and from that the wider, public.
At first, strikes were regarded an unpatriotic activity, either because they took place at all, or because of the use that might be made of them (by propagandists, etc.). But there was never any substantiation of this argument (at that time measures would undoubtedly have been taken to find the guilty parties).(2) Even today such an interpretation has not entirely disappeared. (It mainly reveals itself in a fear that the arrival of strikers on the streets would be an opportunity for unpatriotic elements, etc., to be drawn in.)
The second tendency in interpreting strikes is based on a proposition that they are absurd in a self-managed society, the latter taken a priori as given (following from the unproved assertion that workers really are the controllers of the means of production and in fact control political power). Thus, allegedly, workers strike only against themselves. An element of neutralism in this position has contributed to the development of the most frequent explanation at the time of writing, that is, that strikes occur as a result of a conflict between the possibilities and realisation of self-management, a conflict between the aspiration for self-management and frustrations in its practical realisation.(3) But most interpretations do not establish a social basis for such a conflict, nor do they examine the real origins of the strike. As empirical enquiries into strikes have increased there have been many variants of this interpretation. A detailed examination of them all has not been undertaken here, though they have been kept in mind at the appropriate point in the article (4).
What should we call the phenomena under consideration? Terminology varies between work stoppages, protest stoppages of work and strikes. Authors who avoid making use of the term strike emphasise that they are not talking of strikes, since these are characteristic of capitalist society in which an antagonistic class conflict exists, while in socialist society there is no such conflict. In this view workers under socialism stop work, not in order to achieve new rights, but only in order to realise those rights which are given them in a normative sense, but which, for different reasons, are not realised.(5) A more precise definition is sought by two more thorough investigations. B. Kavcic proposes that:
"We can talk of a protest stoppage of work only when a (relatively) large group of workers stop work as a means of realising some of their rights, normatively given, but not realised in the concrete case, and after unsuccessful attempts to get a satisfactory answer in a normal way.'(6)
Basically, N. Jovanov accepts the same definition, but he attempts to give a broader historical explanation - considering the history of strikes after the October Revolution and especially the opinions of Lenin in regard to strikes and his position towards them.(7) Jovanov tries to give a precise delineation of the idea of the contemporary phenomenon of the strike, distinguishing two variants, related to whether the interests involved are lasting or momentary.(8) This sort of conception is probably a result of the author's orientation towards enquiry limited to the framework of the working organization. But the strike is a social phenomenon, and in order to understand it, it is necessary to consider broader social relations.
In my view, the term strike (we distinguish two forms - of active and passive resistance) is adequate for what we are investigating. A strike is a specific form of workers' struggle (worker refers to those employed in manual jobs) for better conditions of life and work in a given organisation of society. That is to say, a strike is a manifestation of a wage system, and more especially a conflict between those in the system with regard to the level of wages. In such a conflict, the working class is primarily led by the logic of its monetary interests and does not act as a class against another class. Only if a political movement arises do its actions become directed towards the abolition of existing financial relations (the general strike is the transitional form between these two basic types of workers' struggle).(9) In this article we examine the strike as a social phenomenon and in this way try to show the factors making for strikes in contemporary Yugoslav society and the means of controlling them.
Description
The basic data at our disposal has not all been systematically gathered; the sources are varies (often data has not been satisfactorily gathered from a broad public), and have been put together as a result of different needs, while the initial theories of the authors are naturally not unitary. In spite of all this, a relatively reliable reconstruction of the basic characteristics of strikes can be made on the basis of the available facts.
First we give a brief outline of two strikes, not because they are typical of all strikes, but because they make it easier to understand the meaning of the facts presented later. Also they illustrate some tendancies which it is important to discuss at this stage.
1. Two Examples
The strike of the Zasavski miners is the first registered event of this kind, and the strike in Rijeka harbour one of the latest at the time of writing (considerable data is available on these two strikes).
a. The Zasavski Miners' strike (January, 1958)(10)
On the eve of Republic Day, 1957, the enterprises in Trbovlje all paid an increase in wages, except the Trbovlje-Hrastnik brown coal mine. The mine was in a difficult financial position because of an increase in the price of electric energy and very heavy amortization which increased the cost of production, while the selling price of coal had been fixed by a clear Federal regulation. The leaders of the mine, the miners' union branch and the factory committee of the League of Communists, under the pressure of the miners' dissatisfaction, turned for help to the government, and to the leaders of the trade unions and League of Communists of the Opstina, District, Republic, and to the appropriate central committee of the trade unions of Yugoslavia. After 14 days of discussions and delegations had not changed the critical position, a strike broke out.
Everyone employed in the Trbovlje mine (about 3800 production workers and about 300 officials, among them 300 members of the League of Communists), excepting only those whose working places were in other parts of the country, stopped work for a period of 52 hours (from the evening of 13th January to the forenoon of 15th January, 1958). On the 14th January the miners of Hrastnika joined them in solidarity. The strike did not spread beyond the area of the enterprises, there weren't any demonstrations, either within the mines or out of them, nor was any violence shown by the strikers to people or machines.
When the strike broke out, no strike committee existed, but immediately work stopped, the workers' council, together with the union branch, announced the results of the discussions that were under way, and in doing so underlined the basic demands they were making on political leaders outside the working organisation, especially in Federal bodies. They asked for an increase in personal income, the payment of a supplement one step above the statutory basic tariff regulation of the enterprise, and the prospect of safety measures (hygenic and technical aids). Finally, they insisted on agreement to change the basis of the mine's income. A delegation of miners twice travelled to Belgrade, and after the second journey they got a promise that the strikers' demands would be met, after which the strike ceased.
News of what had happened at Trbovlje quickly spread by informal channels in the immediate vicinity. About 1200 of 1860 miners employed at Zagorje ob Savi joined the strike in solidarity. The situation in this mine was not as difficult as that at Trbovlje. A group of miners initiated and organized this sympathy strike. Workers from two more enterprises in Trbovlje and one in Zagorje also joined the strike.
In all these strikes, about 5500 workers took part. Probably out of fear that the strike would broaden yet further, energetic measures were taken to prevent a repetition and eventual broadening of the events that had occurred. For example, the Republican leadership of Slovenia dismissed the District, Opstina and miners' committees of the League of Communists, and dissolved the basic organisations in the separate mines.
The local press, radio and television did not carry any information or news of the strike, a fact which was to remain the case for several following years.
b. The Rijeka Port Workers' Strike (June, 1969)
For months before June 1969, Rijeka harbour was in a difficult financial situation because of which there were four smaller strikes in 1968, the overture of what was to happen later.(11)
"An examination of the economic plan of the enterprise for 1969 shows that the following were foreseen: a decrease in the actual amount of cargo by 8.6%, with a decrease in returns of 2.4%; an increase in business expenses of 6.6% with a corresponding decrease in returns, and an overall reduction of personal income by 21.6%".(12)
So holiday payment was cancelled - 30 new Dinars for every day of holiday, the price of breakfast was increased, compensation for some sickness was cancelled, and the allowance for workers' transport was reduced. All this particularly hit the workers, who anyway had a lower income than other employed people, and whose 'real standard dropped by at least 30%', leading to a worsening in conditions of life, conditions already bad, for, as it says in the report of the union investigation:
"Many workers with families live in bunkers, stables, abandoned buses and other places unacceptable in the time we live in, and incompatible with a socialist society'.
The above mentioned measures came into force by means of decisions of the workers' council, without any sort of preliminary consultation with the workers themselves. The workers discussed these acts for a long period. Bad feeling became rife, and latent conflicts developed into a strike immediately before the measures were due to come into effect.
The strike began on the first of June, when 300 workers at a job in the harbour stopped work. Early the next day, about 1500 workers (from 4600 altogether) from the docks started to move towards the enterprise offices. They broke into the building, took it over floor by floor, and threw the surprised officials and leaders on to the street. They began to berate the general and financial directors, the presidents of the union and party organisations, the main planners and other leaders and officials of the enterprise. Some of them were harried on to the streets of the town and beaten up.
On the same day, a meeting took place between representatives of the workers on strike (a strike committee existed) and the town's trade union leaders. It was stated that a meeting would be held next day between representatives of the government, and the forum of social/political organisations of Rijeka, to which Republican representatives would come.
The next day at the docks, a meeting was held which was attended by about 3000 workers. The individuals who had beaten up the leaders were criticised, regret at such acts was expressed, the strike was abandoned, with the demands of the workers fulfilled: the newly adopted regulations about personal income and work prices were cancelled and the period of validity of the old ones was lengthened; a difference of 10% between earnings and wages paid for the first four months of the year was made up. The whole of the May salary was paid, a better organisation of work and distribution of jobs was promised, as well as an enquiry into the possibility of decreasing the difference between earned income and wages paid. A short term credit was taken from the bank for the payment of the above-mentioned outlays, compulsory management was introduced, and the dissolution of the organisation of the League of Communists was proposed. Seven strikers were arrested because of attacks on leaders of the enterprise.
Press, radio and television carried more information and commentary on the strike.
2. From Trbovlje (1958) to Rijeka (1969)
a. The extent and duration of strikes
In something more than 11 years (in which period facts have been detailed), there have been 1732 strikes registered in Yugoslavia. All investigations indicate that the figure has been significantly larger.(13)
Strikes occurred at first in Slovenia, the most economically developed republic, then quickly spread to Croatia and Serbia, and finally to the other republics. They now involve all of Yugoslavia - strikes have been registered in more than two fifths of the opstina in the country.(14) In fact, they have not occurred evenly on the whole territory, but more frequently in districts where there is more developed industry, more especially in larger towns, and most of all in industrial centres.
According to incomplete data, there were 28 strikes in 1958, 35 in 1959, 61 in 1960, while the number more than doubled to 130 in 1961, and further increased to 225 in 1962.(15) In 1963 and 64 change was less than before - 213 and 273 strikes respectively. From 1965 to 1967 the number of strikes fell (1965 - 231, 1966 - 153, 1967 - 113), and began to increase again in 1968 - 135, while there were 136 strikes in the first eight months of 1969. The growth in the number of strikes has clearly occurred in periods when there have been broader changes in the economic system, with broader and deeper implications.(16)
From Jan. 1964 to Dec. 1966, the number of strikes by republic was as follows (total 654). Serbia 30.3%, Slovenia 28.7%, Croatia 16.4%, Bosnia and Hercegovina 13.5%, Macedonia 4.7% and Montenegro 0.6%(17) In total, Serbia is first, then Croatia, followed by Slovenia and Bosnia, and Macedonia and Montenegro.
According to economic type, for the 513 strikes for which precise details are known, strikes have been most frequent in industry and mining. The most numerous are in the metal industry (22.7%), textiles (9.3%) and the wood industry (9.5%), then in building (7.4%), building materials (4.9%), electrical industry (5.7%), mines (5.8%) and transport (5.1%). Strikes are most rare in the chemical industry (hardly 1%). Over and above this a strike of doctors occurred in Kraljevo, among the personnel of a medical clinic in Ljubljana, among judges and court officials in Lazarevac, and among educational workers in Ptuj and Osijek, etc.(19)
b. The number of participants, the duration and location of strikes
For the first six years (1958-63) it is almost impossible to find out the number of participants in strikes. According to incomplete data, the yearly number of participants varied between 9000 (1965) and 20,000 (in the first nine months of 1969.(20) Some more information is contained in the enquiry into 403 opstina.(21)
Duration No. of strikes % No. of participants %
less than 3 hrs. 175 34.2 19,522 26.8
3-7 hrs. 109 21.2 15,284 21.0
1 working day 111 21.6 12,852 17.6
2 working days 50 9.7 10,541 14.5
3 working days [illegible] [illegible] 7,169 9.9
4 working days 7 1.4 1,082 1.5
more than 4 working days 23 4.5 2,396 3.3
no details 24 4.7 3,933 5.4
Total 513 100 72,779 100
The biggest strikes occurred among metal workers (21.2% of all strikers) and textile workers (16.4%), followed by miners (12.5%), wood industry workers (9.5%), building workers (4.0%), etc.
3. Motives, Demands and Results
The basic causes of strikes will be discussed later. Here we are concerned with the motivation of strikes. Every investigation shows that strikes are most frequently motivated from two areas of relationship in working organisations: questions of personal income (low personal income, unpaid income, unpaid bonus, big differences in personal incomes, over-high norms, lack of knowledge of the basis of personal incomes, etc.). This category contains about [illegible] of all strikes where motivation is known. Second comes the lack of functioning of self-management (insubordination, conflicts with leaders of the enterprise, conflicts between groups, etc.). The remaining motives are various - increased productivity, and dismissals, unfulfilled promises, housing situation, the cancelling of some financial benefit, and so on.
As to the first group of motives, it should be said that it is not only a question of financial sums which should be paid, nor only of demands for an increase of personal income, to approach real living expenses. There is also a question of a disagreement about the basis of the differences in the distribution of personal income among different groups of those employed. Usually it is only direct producers who have norms or other concrete standards on the basis of which their earnings are fixed, while those who are outside direct production have a stable statutory payment, which in some circumstances means a guaranteed wage. Direct producers are deprived of such security - it can occur that all except workers get full wages, but that workers' wages are reduced. This is probable one of the basic reasons why there are conflicts within working organisations when strikes occur. Over and above this, since those with high qualifications have an important influence on the income levels - an influence made greater in as far as there are less worked out standards for the real contribution to work and results for this group - so workers with low qualifications and the poorly paid most frequently take resort to a strike. It can thus be said that the division of working groups according to qualifications also contributes to conflicts among groups within the working organisation.
Workers and those outside the productive process have no different status except in the division of personal incomes, but they nevertheless participate unequally in the division of political influence within the work organisation (later we shall see that workers in general are deprived in the division of two most influential determinants of life and work - material and political power). Polarization inside work organisations is not limited only to a conflict between workers and officials, but also often occurs between different groups of workers:-
"There exists in fact a tendency for triangular conflicts to develop and intensify. The triangle is formed by a group of productive workers who strike. They have weak influence on decision taking, poor conditions of work and low real income. Secondly, the group who have decisive influence on decision taking at the level of the work organisation, and additionally another group of productive workers who do not strike because in relation to the first group they have a stronger influence on decision taking and better conditions of work and real income."(23)
The demands of strikers are related to their motives. Most frequently the demands concern the amount and payment of income. There are sometimes demands for change of personnel in the enterprise, better organisation of work and management, and demands may touch on general conditions of the enterprises business, and tendencies in social relations. The extant enquiries do not give a complete picture of the extent to which strikers' demands are fulfilled, but there is enough material to suggest that those concerning personal income are most frequently satisfied, followed by those concerning changes in work organisation, and rarely those concerning changes outside the work organisation. Change in social relations in broader social communities does not result. As we shall see later, the causes reproduce themselves at the same level, and so it is not strange that since the environment is the same, strikes recur, although as a rule the motives for them have been removed.
4. General tendencies in the praxis of strikes
The detailed account of the two strikes given above indicates some general tendencies which are characteristic of other strikes.
1. The fact that strikes first occurred in the most highly developed republics, and developed from there draws attention to the correlation between industrialisation and the development of the working class, which becomes more conscious of its position and interests, and the possibilities of their realisation. The relative isolation of the economic sphere from other spheres of social life prevents the growth of the potential social unity of the working class, so that strikes remain by force of circumstance localised in the economic sphere. Only recently have they broadened in scope (educational workers, legal officials, students, medical personnel, private transport workers, etc.).
2. The motives of strikes are found in the area of working relations, and above all relate to the level of personal income, and how to actually obtain full earnings. Strikes are certainly effective in solving problems of the moment, and cease when they are solved. But the strike does not touch the causes of dissatisfaction so no real solution is found (causes lie in the economic condition of the enterprise and of the economic sector it is in, the relations between the working organisation and the broader social community, the nature of the management of the means of production and the division of surplus labour, conflicts of interest at the society level). Because of these underlying causes the conflict situation in the base organisation is renewed, and in a short time period a strike is repeated.(24) Strikes are the final means of struggle for the realisation of the immediate interests of workers, using the method of extra-institutional pressure on the official power structure, when attempts to use legal methods to solve fundamental problems have been completely unsuccessful.
3. Workers of a whole working organisation achieve solidarity only exceptionally, and it is rarer still among wider groups of workers (there is a certain informal influence and latent solidarity). Usually there are sharp clashes between groups with different interests within the working organisation. Such conflicts are becoming sharper, and emerging on a physical level. The restriction of the framework of the working organisation, together with the pressure of official opinion ("Let everyone solve his own problem'), increases the violence in internal relations. No one lifts his head over the fence (of economic, political and ideological indoctrination) of idealised conflicts.
4. Strikes are not always limited to working organisations themselves; workers sometimes go out into the streets and demonstrate publicly.(25) More and more frequently strike committees are created to represent workers on strike in discussions about fulfilling their demands, by-passing the official structure of leadership. Through these can develop a means of struggle by which strikes, general strikes included, can be transformed into a workers' political movement. One might add that strikes in Yugoslavia are [illegible] larger, and that increasing numbers of workers are participating in them.(26)
5. There is more and more public comment about strikes, which even approaches a public discussion - although not a proper dialogue. All these writings are limited to the working organisation as their framework, and quite rarely, and only, it appears, when authorisation is given do they discuss broader social relations involved.
6. In a number of cases, some strikers have been taken to court (Nis, Jesenice, Rijeka, Slavonski Brod), probably an indication that earlier informal [illegible] (interrogation, etc.) have in more recent times been institutionalized (the judicial process).
II. Causes and Possible Consequences of Strikes
So far we have considered strikes themselves. It is [illegible] to [illegible] further and try to answer the basic question: why do strikes occur [in] contemporary Yugoslav society? At the least we can suggest some [illegible] investigation in regard to this complex social phenomena. Because [illegible] the unsatisfactory nature of investigations of [illegible] real problem, [the] material, largely from secondary sources, is [illegible] as [illegible], and put forward as one of the ways of investigating the structure [of soc]iety as a whole, and of integrative and disintegrative processes in it, especially contradictions and conflicts.
What we have already written about the form of strikes indicates that something of broader significance is in question. Although strikes are usually limited to a partial framework, the wider structure of society is involved. There is a special type of interest group conflict, and strikes are only one of the forms of conflict by which deeper conflicts are spontaneously articulated.
In order to find the answers, we have to investigate the degree of stratification of the whole social structure. This section therefore involves an investigation of important differences between particular sections of society, and this in three basic directions - the division of material wealth; the distribution of political power (as a specific form of social power); and differences in terms of value orientations.
1. Differences in material standards
When discussing contemporary social differences, it is differences in material standard that are emphasised usually, and the criterion is, as a rule, the span of personal incomes in particular enterprises. But this usually amounts to a manipulation of the facts, and "shows" an ostensible equality. Real relationships, as we shall see, do not support this latter assertion. It holds neither for broad social groupings, nor when we examine relations in society as a whole. The evidence indicates the real differences in material position of different sectors of society, and shows clearly the material position of workers.
It is also necessary to bear in mind the differences in economic development of the different regions of Yugoslavia, as this is a material background of the differences in citizens' living standards. Whatever may be said, no real estimate of the actual position can exclude contradictions in the structure of society deriving from economic differences. Such contradictions are implied by regional indices. In 1967, the ratio between districts was 1 (636 n.d.) to 55 (35064 n.d.). The poorest region was Dragas opstina in Kosovo, and the wealthiest Ljubljana Centra opstina (the number of inhabitants is taken from the 1961 census).(27) The same facts show that in Serbia, the difference between Dragas and Belgrade-Old Town opstina was in ratio of 1 to 43.
By using differences in income taken only from individual working organisations, it appears that the differences are of the order 1 to 2-5. But if we do not limit ourselves to this framework, the differences are several times greater. For instance, the ratio in Serbia was about 1:20 if we [take the] highest and the lowest average personal income from enterprises.(28) Since differences exist within working organisations, it can be assumed that differences are significantly bigger, since:
'it is calculated that the highest personal income in working organisations is three times bigger than the average personal income for the organisations, while the lowest is about half the average'.(29)
As it is known that average personal incomes outside industry - where strikes do not usually occur - are higher than those in the economy, it is most important to examine variations in those average personal incomes below the overall average for the economy. Average income in 1968 was 862 n.d. For the 335,200 workers in the textile industry (9% of all employed in the socialised sector), the average was lower - 659 n.d., and a little above them, though still below the average are 939,300 workers in other sectors of the economy - 715-794 n.d. (27.8% of all employed in the socialised sector).(30) Thus, rather more than one third of all those employed in the socialised sector received a personal income less than the general average, and when we link this with the differences within the work organisation of the order of 1 to 2,3,4, or 5, we can begin to get a realistic picture of the actual differences.
The manipulation of levels and averages, however, hides the actual relations between rich and poor, which are shown by the extreme positions in the material standard of citizens. Groups of poor workers are neither negligeable, nor can they be ignored, not only from a moral point of view, but from an economic one, for from the viewpoint of the endangering of an increased reproduction of labour power, it has significant consequences for the efficiency of the productive process. The number of such workers is growing. In 1968 the minimum personal income was received by 89,567 workers employed in 500 work organisations, but in 1969, in the first three months alone, the situation was almost the same - 65,475 workers in 336 enterprises.(31) As to real differences in material standard, a 1968 enquiry into personal expenditure shows that 16.5% of non-agricultural workers in four member households had 499 n.d. or 120 per member: 28.8% had 799 n.d. and 11.9% over 2000 n.d.
In the same period there was an unexpectedly fast rise in the cost of living (the whole problem of standards is not our concern here - the unexpected tempo of the rise is, which indicates that for some groups of workers the situation was even more difficult. For example:
'A 28% rise in the cost of living was expected from the reform without a definite time period for the rise. Even by the end of 1965, the rise was 21.5%. In 1968 the rise reached 51%, almost twice that foreseen. In 1969 the rise continued. For the first six months of this year, the rise was 9% in relation to 1968'.(33)
According to the trade unions, real personal incomes were 28% higher in 1968 than in 1964, and grew by 2% in the first seven months of 1969.(33a) As well as this, the perception of workers as to the growth of differences between rich and poor suggests that this has a significant effect on their mood. 'In a study undertaken in Serbia at the end of 1967, the respondents (a stratified sample of 845 workers from all sectors of Serbian industry) believed that the polarities were increasing, that they were not justified by differences in work, nor were they a stimulant to the development of social relations.(34)
In the allocation of flats, there is also a significant difference between workers and other social groups. It has often been affirmed that workers get flats relatively more rarely, but there are unfortunately no systematic details. Two things can be established, the first related to the means for building flats, and the second to the social implications of urban and housing policy.
In 1965, the means of finance for house building were as follows:-(35)
Source of finance %
Industry 18.6
Other working organisations 6.2
Banks 2.1
Social-political communities 72.8
Citizens 0.3
Total 100.
The second example relates to the legalisation of social inequality in urban policy. Take for example the investigation of the development of towns in the Sarajevo area in 1967, which shows that there are important differences in the housing area possessed by the citizens - some have 2.5 square metres while others have 35 square metres. The investigator writes:
'The process of social stratification and differentiation is legally reflected in the urban sector, and leads to the phenomenon of segregation. Of five new districts in Sarajevo, three are segregated, [illegible] of 'elite' tendency, and one is a 'poor ghetto'. (36)
The facts presented could be multiplied; they cover only a short time period. The evolution of material differences should be the subject of broader enquiries, over a longer time period, for existing material differences did not appear today, nor yesterday. They do not date from either the first phase, or from the contemporary phase of the development of self-management. They date from earlier, partly from the legacy of the pre-revolutionary society, but also in direct correlation with the type of political organization (professional revolutionaries) by whose model social relations were formed during and after the liberation war.(37) Later we will show how differences in material standards originating from this basis relate to the social processes we are discussing. It may be said in passing, that the social consequences of acts usually have an independence from the intentions of the actors in social events.
National income, personal income and living space are only some of the indices of real differences in material standards. To them must be added others, which we shall only mention - the growth of unemployment, mainly among workers; differences in other cash benefits (payments for holidays, etc.); the abolition of the right of travel at a reduced fare; of free health services, etc. - all this fills in the picture of real social differences.
We are led to the conclusion that significant stratification exists in our society in terms of material position, and this leads to the reproduction and broadening of the groups who live in poverty or on the edge of poverty, while at the other end of the social structure there exist, and are growing, groups who mainly, or largely have few problems about their material existence. In the first group workers are most frequently to be found (and not only those with low qualifications). It is not composed only of the unemployed or the idle. M. Vojnovic is quite right when he says that:
'It is necessary to adopt a broader concept of poverty, that is, poverty of producers, pauperization located in production, and further in the political process. (38)
This position of workers, unless it is within a clear perspective of positive change, naturally results in a definite form of social behaviour. Secondly, social differences and the conflicts based on them are importantly linked to the possibility of their legal positive solution - that is, by means of the official power structure.
2. Workers on the margins of the official power structure
As we have seen, strikes take place outside the institutional structure of power, which limits their direct effect. They do not succeed in penetrating the political wrapping inside which conflict situations are reproduced. If such 'wrapping' is so firm, it is natural to ask how the people who make up their minds to strike share in political power, and how strong their political influence is inside their own working organizations.(39)
Among the active working population, according to the census of 1953 (7,390,000 active) and of 1961 (7,960,000 active), the number of peasants fell from 67.8% to 55.4%, the number of industrial workers (including miners, industrial and handicraft workers) grew from 26.2% to 36.3%, the numbers of those outside industry from 3.1% to 5.1% and the number of state officials from 3.0% to 3.1%(40). As we are interested in industrial workers, who are most frequently involved in strikes, we should note that they represented 42.6% of the active working population in 1969(41).
a. Representative bodies. The statistics give a clear picture of the social composition of the Skupstina. Here are details for the last six years.
Skupstina Median value Election years 1963 / 1965 / 1967 / 1969
Federal 3.0 5.5(670) 3.9(670) 1.9(670) [illegible]
Republican 4.8 7.0(2887) 4.6(2621) 2.8(2880) no data
District 13.1 13.3(4486) 13.0(2734) ceased to exist
Opstina 14.9 14.6(42994) 15.4(41445) 14.6(40279) no data
Participation of miners, industrial and handicraft workers in the social composition of the Skupstinas. Figures in brackets show total numbers [illegible].
[illegible] has two basic tendencies. First, the number of workers falls [illegible] to Federal level. The significant differences in the scope of different levels of government (especially differences in decision as to the distribution of surplus value), together with differences in actual political power, show that the greater the political power of the representative bodies, the lower the participation of workers in them.(43) Secondly, the facts show a continuing decrease in the number of workers above the level of the Opstina (in which it remains at the same level).
b. Work organisations. To discover the distribution of political power inside work organisations, it is important to discuss the nature of their relations to a broader social context, and especially to higher organs of government. It is a well known fact that the predominant part of the surplus of labour goes outside the working organisation. This indicates that the economy is not emancipated from the political sphere, that it is still not freed from state control.
'The industrial structure grew from the political-administrative, and is deeply linked with it.(44)
As well as this integral link, there exist very deep personal ties. A regular channel of entry into leading functions, particularly directors jobs, ties the state with industry. This gives directors a strengthened influence within the work organisation itself:
'Because they, more than anyone else, possess political administrative information and news which is of the greatest importance for communications between work organisations and their surroundings.(45)
Around this axis, which represents a vertical line for the formation of informally structured groups of power holders, originate different variants of personal groupings so that an informal transmission mechanism of political influence exists. Such mechanisms still further strengthen the influence of the formal leading group, while narrowing possibilities of democratic initiative in the framework of the formal self-management structure. It can confidently be stated that there exists a gulf 'between social processes and organisational structure'.(46) If we, further, take individual working organisations as isolated units, although workers have a significant representation on self-management organs and social-political bodies, almost all the investigations establish a lack of realisation of workers' political influence. One of the indicators of the real position in this respect is the way respondents perceive the distribution of political influence. Enquiries show that leaders are usually felt to have most influence on decisions, while Zupanov's study found that this applied to people with positions in the official hierarchy more than to other leaders, and that workers were felt to have least influence of all.(47)
For our discussion, it is especially important that among workers questioned in some enquiries in the last two years, the desire for formal participation in decisions has declined. Earlier a mood existed in favour of changing the existing autocratic structure of influence to its opposite, a democratic one, but more recently workers have become to come to terms with the existing distribution of influence, subject to certain corrections.(48) Such a mood, in as far as it is representative, warns of the possibility that apathy is present, gained from experience of the impenetrability of official political structures. This could, under specific circumstances, lead not only to wider strikes, but to more powerful social upheavals which would break the period of truce and acceptance of submission.
c. The League of Communists. Facts on the social composition of the League of Communists are not completely reliable. Some material has been written because of the last Congress. As long ago as the days of the introduction of self-management, there were contradictory tendencies, which were expressed more clearly at the Fourth Congress. Of them, two are of most significance; one which was oriented towards the realisation of the conception of a self-managing democracy without parties, and the other oriented towards the prolonging of classical political relations (the monopoly of all political power at the top of the party hierarchy). Judging by the difficulties of success in realising the generally accepted notion of the avant garde democratic political role of the working class, it seems that the second tendency is still very powerful.
One of the key assumptions essential for the realisation of the first tendency, which has been insisted upon for many years, not only in the League of Communists, but outside it, is that increasing participation by workers in the League would give a greater prospect of a broadened workers' influence, not only within the League, but also in the politics of broader social communities.
However, the tendency has not been in the direction of the democratic tendency, as the following facts show. From 1946 to 1966, the percentage of workers in the League of Communists has risen insignificantly, while the participation of officials has markedly increased. Their number has quadrupled, at the expense of peasants who are seven times less frequently to be found in the League.(49) The members of the League of Communists in 1964 comprised 2% of the peasants, 19.5% of other workers (except industrial workers), and 60.4% of those in the state apparatus.(50) If we divide the categories further we find 60% of the leading cadre, 50% of intellectual workers, 40% of routine officials, 25% of highly skilled and skilled workers, 7% of semi and unskilled workers, and 2% of peasants. More recent data shows that at the end of 1968, 31.1 of the members were workers, which represents 13.4% of all employed workers.(51)
4. The trade unions. Instead of giving percentages and averages, in this case we shall detail an event which gives equivalent insight into the need and preparedness of workers to have influence on the vertical line of political organisation of society, and the real limits to the realisation of these aspirations.
The comments of several of the delegates to the 6th Congress of the Yugoslav Trade Unions (June 1968), immediately after the student demonstrations) indicate in a lively way the mood of the Congress. The speech of a motor industry worker from Rakovica, M. Kicovic, which was made after consultation with delegates of the metal industry of Skopje, Zagreb, Ljubljana and Belgrade, had the approval of a large number of delegates, especially when he spoke of the bureaucratisation of the trade unions:
'In the unions we don't need professionals - they only hold back the action of the workers and blunt the sharpness of our demands. Functionaries often think only of their positions and - understand - protect them ...(52)
He spoke of the union as a surrogate of workers' self management, unnecessary to workers because it served to amortize conflicts and delay their solution. On the same theme, I Gregurincic, a printing worker from Zagreb, spoke. Speaking of bureaucracy in the framework of broader social communities, and not only of the factory, which in his opinion it was not difficult to go out of in the end, he warned of the power of bureaucracy outside working organisations:
'But the Federal and Republican administration which carries off all our surplus labour makes my head ache. (53)
Both speakers suggested some concrete measures by means of which they believed some basic social problems could be solved. Thus M. Kicovic:
'Isn't it true that individuals have enriched themselves at our expense? If it is true, and it is true, it is necessary to take their property from them.'
I. Gregurincic suggests the same position in his article:
'With all our strength we should endeavour that a law is passed on the confiscation of property gained in a dishonest manner and by corruption, no matter who is involved.' (54)
In such an atmosphere, it was necessary to elect new members to the Central Committee of the League of Unions. The electoral commission produced a closed list of candidates which aroused the resistance of a large number of delegates, who demanded a wider list, without success. The conflict continued as to the manner of voting - public or secret - statutes provided for secret voting. The leaders proposed that it should be public. Then confusion arose. On the counting of the votes on this matter there was an allegation of an incorrect count. In the end there was a secret vote on a closed list. This method did not satisfy one section of the delegates, for:
'About 300 delegates left the congress, and did not agree to the list of 107 candidates proposed by the commission. (55)
The conflict about the nature of the election is summed up by Gregurincic:
'Individuals themselves ensured their paid positions as functionaries because they were afraid that if there was a broadened list of candidates they might very easily lose their bread and butter, which would certainly have happened to them. (56)
And at the end, he says:
'I ask myself, whose congress was it?(57)
The facts disclosed indicate that the workers have no real possibility from their local positions to influence the contents of political decisions within the institutionalised structure of power. The influence of other social groups is dominant.
We may note in relation to this, that parallel with broadened institutions, normatively pluralistic which ought to allow the interplay of the interests of different sections of the community to achieve successful compromise solutions, an oligarchic distribution of power is reproduced, which represents a powerful barrier against the realisation of the interests of workers.
An informal hierarchy of power and transmission of influence in formal structures exists not only in our conditions, but also in highly developed industrial societies. The type of hierarchy we have does not only derive from industrial organisation itself, but from a particular type of political organisation which has a long tradition. It is characteristic of such a type of political organisation that a narrow group exists, which concentrates to itself more or less all organisational power.
'That form,' suggests J. Zupanov, 'seems to have been an important part of the structure of revolutionary groups before the war, and then into the post-war period. (58)
The influence of these monopoly groups spreads out towards all decision making centres, holding back real possibilities of democratic initiative. This influence represents the skeleton of a vertical structuring of social groups from which develop conflicts of interests.
III. VALUE ORIENTATION
The third aspect of stratification of the society as a whole is related to the value orientations. From different sectors of society grow value systems which, in specific circumstances, come into conflict as only one of the various aspects of overall conflicts.
We can investigate the tendency of diffusion of value orientations related to the basic normative values of the proletarian movement: a free integrated personality and a communistic community of free people, and secondly in terms of an instrumental, but no less significant value, linked with the first, social equality. This complex area of social life is a delicate and relatively little investigated one, and only its basic contours will be sketched.
The totalization of political power in peasant worker revolutions from October onwards has a tendency to transcend the conditions which were responsible for it at the time. In such a framework, there is an inevitable reduction of personality in a political sense, because it is one of relations of domination and subordination inside a petrified hierarchical political organization of society. In this way the personality is repressed in one of its possible spheres of affirmation—the political sphere, in which self-realization is distorted, without regard to whether a person is servant or master.
On a broad social plane, the possession of power represents the basis of vertical social divisions by which the classical differences of interest and conflicts in society are reproduced on a new basis. The authoritarian potential of political power motivates old and new impulses and in some cases leads to the physical liquidation of people. Self defence of achieved freedom from those who would threaten it in different ways is necessary. But this necessity can be overstepped by pressures from material interest (the fruits of political monopoly) and by irrational impulses of will to power, motivated not only from cultural backwardness but also from anxiety characteristics of modern civilization. In such cases, where there are variations in political ideology, with all their practical consequences, one can obtain the exclusive means of absolute good or absolute evil. And from there to a drastic settling of accounts is only a short step. Then, in terms of such experience, comes the crystallization of divergent value orientations, and above all two basic ones, democratic (self-governing) and authoritarian.
The polarization between tendencies which desire to reduce the personality in the political sphere and aspirations for a many sided fulfilling of the potentialities of personality express themselves in a contradiction, about which there is often concern: equality or social differences. The official persuaders of public opinion insist on this dilemma. We have already seen how little reason there is to speak of the spreading of equality in society when there are marked differences in the material position of different parts of society, even tens of times bigger than those that are assumed or presented.
A number of actual investigations shows that there exist marked and spreading aspirations, particularly among workers, for the lessening of existing material differences. Thus, for example, J. Zupanov in his work asserts that there is a disharmony between the position and aspirations of the respondents. The actual spread in nominal income was 1:5 and there was a desire for it to be reduced to 1:3. (59) Those who had least (up to 450 N.D.) wanted the highest increase in income (94%), those with from 450 to 600, 73%, and those with the highest income wanted a 4 times smaller increase in pay —23%, which, it can be seen, would not eliminate the differences.
Further investigation of the relation between a wish for an increased income and other variables (amount of nominal income, qualification, type of work place, family situation, technical-economic efficiency of the enterprise) suggested that none of them was as significant as one unforeseen factor (60). That factor lies in the "norms of egalitarianism" which are "implicitly present in Yugoslav culture" and which act not only as internalized, but as external norms (61). My own enquiry at the end of 1967 suggests a similar result, but in a rather more concrete way, (62). Workers are, according to this investigation, above all interested in the growth of social wealth and the progressive elimination of poverty in society, and that it is necessary to limit maximum incomes. Such limitation has for its purpose the prevention and control of tendencies to enrichment of one part of society at the expense of the pauperization of another part. Particularly this is related to people with political functions, who, when they professionalize the evasion of social control and influences, represent a significant barrier to democracy. The egoism of this layer, which in certain circles comes to be privilege, links income directly to the distribution of political power, is related to the egoism of those groups in society who have a preferential economic position from which they extract extra income (profit).
The attitude of these groups towards the idea of social equality is negative. But because these groups have dominant influence on public opinion, it is no surprise that there is a broadening fear of the spectre of equality and everything related to it. And the real values for which these social groups are pressuring are only implicitly given; we can say that they accept existing material differences or pressure for even bigger ones, with all the social consequences that they would produce.
In connection with this, it is important to draw attention to earlier cases of decisions in conflict with "equality". After Lenin's attempt to realize some of the important intentions and decisions of the Paris Commune (that the wages of officials be no higher than those of workers), Stalin, at the beginning of the 1930's, began a decisive battle against what he called "uravlinovka", against "ultra-left levelling of incomes". The criticism of "uravlinovka", became, as Zivotic points out, "the curtain behind which hid the bureaucracy's struggle for ever greater material privileges for itself." (63).
The cutting short of a new experiment in such a way has made it impossible right till the present day to explore solutions which would represent a fundamental contribution to the realization of the value orientations of the proletarian movement as well as the democratic political organization of the process of socialist transformation of social relations (64).
Equality as it is represented, has never existed, neither in any period of the existence of the communist movement, nor in the organization of society which came into being after revolution, as we have shown in the first two sections of the article. It is nearer to the truth to say that there have been inner social groupings which have had essentially different and not equal political influence and material position, even where perhaps relatively small differences in material standards existed. This in no way signified that equality in society also existed: society has always been significantly divided in this respect. It should not be forgotten that there were existing differences which the revolution did not, and, following from the above, could not, abolish. This whole problem, of course needs further investigation.
The social differentiation, excluding that previously existing, is not even today based on work, but is based in the hierarchy of power, that important factor which determines the material position of groups and individuals within them. This is a result of the fact that,
"To a large degree, many of the economic functions of the former capitalist state are concentrated in the political sphere, and so political inequality expresses itself as a specific totality of all social forms of inequality" (65).
All this shows that aspirations for the realization of the idea of social equality cannot be based on calls for a return to an old state of things in which equality never existed. They can only be based on a progressive realization—a principle accepted in countries which don't verbally accept a socialist orientation. It is not possible to strive for social integration by insisting on differences. It seems that some interpretations insist that only after the increase of differences can they be reduced!
A breakthrough the political restrictions of contemporary society would involve real opening on a broader plan for the practical affirmation of the potential development of the personality. But such a social course would naturally imperil the power of those who maintain the restriction. Therefore there are two tendencies in real conflict. The mutual incompatibility of the value orientations represents a relatively independent expression and contribution to broader conflicts in society.
The material above, it is hoped, gives a satisfactory basis for proposing two basic causes of strikes in contemporary Yugoslav society.
1. Workers, who are in fact those who strike, exist on the margin of economic and political processes in society, and thus have no possibility of changing their social position from inside those processes. The process of material and spiritual impoverishment in terms of the given level of development and real possibilities of the society, gives an additional impulse to their resistance and to the struggle for the provision of improvement of the actual cash income necessary for the reproduction of labour power, in fact for everyday living.
2. Strikes remain on the margins of the official political structure, in the sphere of political economy, because workers are not adequately integrated as a social group in the existing centres of political power. The results of strikes are similarly on the margins. As a result of deep social divisions, the official political structure is paralysed and closed to outside influence, but this does not disturb the reproduction of such social relationships.
These propositions lead us further to the question of the relations of production, and in the first place to the dominant form of ownership relation in contemporary Yugoslav society. Considered in a normative and formal legal way, the monopoly of ownership of the means of production is excluded. From that viewpoint they are socially owned. The question is, however, what is the character of ownership relations as economic relations? (66).
The relationships of distribution as an expression of ownership relationships (Marx) suggest an answer. There are undestroyed wage relationships as an important, but not the only, characteristic of the relations of production. Understood in this way, ownership relations represent even today the source of social division, and the focus of vertical structuring of society. Simply, the workers (with certain sub-groupings), and the "politocracy" (also with sub-groups of which the most significant is the bureaucracy), represent opposing poles in the social structure (67). Social ownership as an economic relationship (disposal, use of the surplus of labour) is still restricted to a nucleus by powerful political controls, but it has powerful potentialities for development. It can grow into a central social tendency in as far as it penetrates society as a whole. One of the basic requirements for the opening up of this process is the taking of key positions of political power by the workers; this would be in total contradiction to etatism.
As long as wage relationships exist in society, there is no reason why strikes should not also exist as a natural result of them. They grow from and remain in the framework of wage relationships (68). This is not to say that they do not contain in themselves the possibility of transformation into a political movement as a higher form of workers' participation in the overcoming of wage relationships. This is particularly true in conditions when the idea of self-management, including the results which are achieved so far, is one of the dominant integrative social values.
Finally, it is necessary to consider two significant aspects of strikes, and thus try to answer, as far as is possible, the problem of why strikes have happened since 1958 and what is their future.
1. Yugoslav society, like other societies, is not homogeneous. Although the first steps towards that were strongly made, existing social differences were not removed and there are, as we have seen, some new ones, which derive from a specific type of political organization in which political power dominates the political organization of society. But although there has been social stratification for a long period, strikes have happened only recently.
The reasons are clearly complex and numerous. One of the most frequently put forward is that the power of the police apparatus was such that real differences could not be expressed (69). However, this is not a sufficient reason because strikes happened while the power of the political police was still untouched. A further reason for their expression was the broadening of the normative rights and material basis of self-management gained a deeper basis in society, and the rationalization of the relations between government and economic processes (the market economy and the principle of efficiency) (70). In addition to this, there are two other reasons. Firstly, we have seen that strikes are more intense when there have been crucial changes in the economic system, so that a significant number of workers felt social instability (the growth of unemployment. etc.). Secondly, an ever more persistent insistence on the "fatal" consequences of equality hides in itself symptoms of an aspiration for the legalization of existing social differences (and their sources), by means of the establishment of a specific "dualism" of political and economic privileges, which would be a stable basis for gaining political and economic rights. That would allegedly be achieved by means of the emancipation of the economic sphere of society, but under the conditions that the monopoly of the political sphere is not broken—perhaps we can find the real obstacles to the reform in that. Such a situation has been the cause of a stronger wave of workers' strikes.
2. It is more difficult to answer the second part of the problem. However, we shall indicate three possibilities, probably the most likely in regard to the destiny of strikes in Yugoslav society.
a) The revival of a workers' movement and the development of a progressive social consciousness could lead to the coming about of a modern communist movement which would be based on a dialectical inter-relationship between the traditional value orientations of the proletarian movement and the results of the scientific and technical revolution. Such a movement could make an important new attempt to reconcile reason and rationality, spontaneity, and the means of realization of the historical potentialities of a movement, thus eliminating the dilemma between radicalization and functioning.
A spontaneous workers' movement whose autonomy would not be absorbed into a political machine would constantly pressure towards the direction of the socialization of politics, with all the important consequences of such a process.
b) The second possibility is the reproduction of the status quo in such a way that conflicts outside institutions would be built into a positive institutional mechanism, which would ensure the control of extra-institutional conflicts, and which would, as was seen many years ago, indicate in fact a recognition that there is no possibility of socializing politics and economics (71). Polemics about this have recently been renewed (72). On the one hand, it is argued that institutionalization has positive sides in the more efficient solution of conflicts, a complex procedure of arbitration would complicate the conditions in which a strike could take place, and this way reduce their number, the competence and thus the responsibility of leading personnel and of social-political organizations would be increased, and the balance between leaders and workers would be regulated. In opposition to this viewpoint are those who believe that the institutionalization of strikes would indicate a recognition that the self-management method of solving conflicts is not efficient.
The institutionalization of conflicts, particularly when their basic focus and courses in the society as a whole are untouched, would facilitate the reproduction of the existing social structure, including in that even the possibility of a longer lasting symbiosis of politics and economics on the principle of the unity of the egoisms mentioned earlier.
c) We cannot exclude another possibility, the real prospect of which [illegible] with the lessening of the probability of realization of the first two. The possibility is, namely, that the impoverished parts of society in a moment of hopelessness and because of uncertainty about the future, would turn towards powerful individuals who would promise an exit from the difficulties on condition that they were given unlimited power in law and in reality.
Although we are sure that the first possibility is the most progressive historically, we shouldn't exclude the other two. It is also true that the possibilities may not appear in a pure form, but the question is, which of them will become more dominant.
Footnotes
1. Some writings appeared earlier, but they almost exclusively mentioned strikes [without] internal knowledge, mainly as events which did not correspond to self-management. Only in one enquiry was it suggested that in two cases of strikes, workers returned from economic emigration (to West Germany), had a significant influence, and remarks on standards there contributed to an atmosphere of dissatisfaction, but this would be difficult to attribute to unpatriotic activity. See R. Lampret, Nekatera [illegible] v gospodarskih organizacijah, protestne ustavitve dela, [illegible]; M. Svab, Konflikt med moznostjo in uresnicitvijo, in a symposium on the theme '[ustavitev] dela,' Teorija in praksa, 1964, no. 2.
2. The reader can find complete and relatively systematized information about the different positions concerning strikes and interpretations of them in Obustave Rada, [illegible] za politicke studije i obrazovanje, Belgrade, May 1967.
3. See M. Svab, op. cit., p. 258, and R. Lampret, op. cit., p. 9. O. Kozomara takes a similar position, except that she equates strikes in capitalism with a political movement. O. Kozomara, Obustave rada juce i danas, Kulturni Radnik, Zagreb, 1968, no. 3.
6. B. Kavcic, O protestnih ustavitvah dela, Teorija in Praksa, Ljubljana, 1965, no. 9.
7. N. Jovanov, Neka opsta pitanja protestnih obustavama rada, Gledista, Belgrade, [19]66, no. 2.
9. See on this concept K. Marx, The Poverty of Philosophy, Kultura, Belgrade, 1946, [p.] 154-155, and V. I. Lenin, What is to be done, Selected Works, Kultura, Belgrade, Vol [illegible].
10. [See] R. Lampret, op. cit., p. 22-36, and 'Reflektor', Borba, Belgrade, [illegible].
11. Informacija o obustavama rada u Hrvatskoj (from 1.68 - 31 VII 1969) RVSSJ za Hrvatsku, Zagreb, 9 X, 1969.
12. Detailed in the report of the Central Committee of the unions of workers in transport and related industries, Belgrade, 27 VI, 1969, and from Borba, 3 VI, 17 VI and 27 IX, VUS, 11 VI, and Vecerne Novosti, 8 VI, 1969.
13. Konfliktne situacije u radnim organizacijama i uloga komunista u njihovom razresavanju, Komisija Predsednistva SKJ za unutrasnja politicka pitanja i razvoj drustvenih odnosa, za ekonomsku politiku i za razvoj SK i komisija Veca SSJ za drustveno-ekonomske odnose, Belgrade, 6 X, 1969, prilog 1.
14. Facts from the enquiry undertaken by the Federal Labour Council of the Yugoslav Trade Unions, in the first half of 1969. Enquiries were sent to 478 opstina, of which 403 answered, 202 giving details about strikes (op. cit. appendix 1). Nine tenths of these had happened between the beginning of 1966 and August 1969, when there were 516 and 500 opstina respectively. (Statisticki Godisnjak Jugoslavije, 1969, p. 62).
15. Konfliktne situacije, prilog 1.
16. 1961-2 was a period of new economic measures, and the second period was that of the economic reform. In both cases it could be suggested that the growth of strikes represented insecurity and uncertainty deriving from these measures.
17. Konfliktne situacije, appendix 1.
18. As above.
19. Politika, 5 VII, 68, 31 V, 68, 2 VI, 68, Borba 25 V, 68.
20. Konfliktne Situacije, App. 1.
21. As above.
22. Most information on this is given by R. Lampret, op. cit. N. Jovanov, O Protestnim Obustavama Rada, op. cit., and Obelezju i tendencije razvoja strajkova u Jugoslaviji (introductory essay in a discussion about strikes), in O Obustavama Rada i Pitanjima koja su u Direktnoj Vezi sa njom, CVSSJ, Belgrade, Jan. 1968.
23. N. Jovanov, O Obustavama Rada, op. cit., p. 14.
24. As well as the Rijeka harbour case, where in less than a year there were five strikes, the case of the motor factory at Rakovica is also significant. In less than half a year there [were] four small strikes in which some groups of the collective took part, which didn't prevent a fifth in which all employed workers took part. (Politika, 11 V, 69).
25. Strikes have turned into street demonstrations in many cases. Among the first were those of the hospital personnel in Ljubljana, then educational workers at Ptuj and from there the Rijeka strike, as well as earlier in Kopar, where the workers of the Tomos factory demonstrated in the streets on the 17th and 18th of May, 1968.
26. Jovanov's work shows that, 'a tendency exists for the reduction in the number of strikes with a small number of participants and an increase in the number of strikes in which a larger number of strikers take part.' Jovanov, Obelezju i tendencija, p. 11, 12.
27. Promene u Kretanjima Nekih Elemenata Zivotnog Standarda od 1964 do 1969 godine, Vece SSJ, Belgrade, June, 1969, p. 9.
28. See Statistika Licnih Dohodaka Posebno Saopstenje, No. 5, Sept., 1967, Statisticki Zavod S.R. Srbije, Belgrade, Nov, 1967, p. 3. In terms of averages, the stratification of the population is indicative: 'In the distribution of working organisations and employed personnel according to the amount of average personal income, the largest percentage of working organisations, 37%, in which 43% of workers are employed, have an average personal income of between 500 and 700 n.d... 22% of working organisations, with 19% of employed people, have an average personal income of less than 500 n.d..., 3% of those employed in working organisations have an average personal income of above 1200 n.d. To this 3% goes about 6% of the total personal income paid in industry and mining, while income paid to those in enterprises with average personal income of above 1400 n.d - 1% of all workers - amounts to 3% of all personal income.' (p. 3 and 4).
29. As above, p. 3.
30. Promene u Kretanjima Nekih Elemenata Zivotnog Standarda, p. 46.
31. As above, p. 48.
32. As above, p. 52.
33. As above, p. 51.
33a. Razlike u Ostvarivanju Licnih dohodaka i Njihove Implikacije na Razlike Penzijskih Osnova, VSSJ, Belgrade, Oct. 1969, p. 7.
34. N. Popov, Radnici i Princip Socijalne Jednakosti, Polet, Zagreb, 1969, nos. 25, 26.
35. Material from the precongress discussion of the SSJ, Belgrade, Feb. 1968, Sveska 4, p. 21.
36. M. Zivkovic, Jedan Primer Segregacije u Razvoju Nasih Gradova, Sociologija, Belgrade, 1968 (3), p. 54.
37. See on this the more detailed discussion by M. Caldarovic in Diskusija o Teoriji [illegible], Pregled, Sarajevo, 1964(6), p. 626. This author discusses the same problem in her article: 'In contrast to the influence of revolutionary changes, [a] negative part [is] played by a firmly set up and detailedly worked out system of economic and political privileges as well as an ideological monopoly by the leading layer, the 'revolutionary elite.' Closedness, illegality and hidden special distributions in a period of general [illegible], frequent misuse, and many extra-legal acts to ensure privileges led to the crystallisation of an oligarchical hierarchy and to the mystification of authority.' Drustveni [Red] i Drustvene Vrijednosti, Institut za Drustvena istrazivanja Sveucilista u Zagrebu, Zagreb, 1968, p. 18.
38. M. Vojnovic, Diskusija na Kongresnim Razgovorima, III Kongres, Psihologa Jugoslavije, Belgrade, 1969, p. 62. In the congress a wide discussion of poverty took place - see the same publication, p. 46-83. The same theme is frequently discussed in the review Susret, see nos 78 and 79. (20 II and 31 V, 1968).
39. See also on this question, S. Suvar, Daleko od Vlasti, VUS, 25 XII, 68, Daleko od [illegible], VUS, 5 II, 69, and Elite Mase i Moc, Omladinski Tjednik, Zagreb, 29 XI 69, [nos.] 70, 71.
40. B. Horvat, Ogled o Jugoslavenskom Drustvu, Mladost, Zagreb, 1969, p. 225.
41. Statisticki Bilten, Belgrade, Jan. 1964, no. 206, Nov, 1965, no. 372, Oct. 1968, no. 491, Jugoslovenski Pregled, July/Aug. 1969, no. 78. The same sources show more precisely the following: in the elections of 1963, 1965, 1967, and 1969, the percentage of workers in the Federal Parliament was 2.1, 1.1, 0.5, and in 1969 when the [general] chamber was elected, there were 0.2% workers. In the newly formed social political chamber there was not one worker, in the Economic chamber (18.3, 14.2, 5.8, 0.6), in the Educational chamber there was no representative before, or in 1969, in the social Health chamber in 1963 there were 0.8% and later no workers, in the Organisational/Political chamber percentages were 8.3, 5.8, 4.2. In republics, the participation of workers changed as follows:- Bosnia-Hercegovina (5.7, 4.5, 2.3,), Montenegro (3.6, 1.2, 0.8), Croatia (4.1, 4.1, 3.2), Macedonia (10.3, 4.4, 3.3), Slovenia (12.8, 6.8, 1.7), Serbia (7.7, 5.2, 3.2), Vojvodina (7.7, 6.3, 4.0), and Kosovo (4.4, no data, 3.7).
43. On economic changes in the distribution of surplus value see: Sumarna Analiza Privrednih Kretanja i Prijedlozi za Ekonomsku Politiku, Jugoslovenski Institut za Ekonomska Istrazivanja, Belgrade, 1968.
44. J. Zupanov, Samoupravljanje i Drustvena Moc, Nase Teme, Belgrade 1969, p. 107.
45. As above, p. 107.
46. V. Rus, Socijalni Procesi i Struktura Moci u Radnoj Organizaciji, Sociologija, Belgrade, 1966 (4), p. 11.
47. J. Zupanov's investigation shows that leaders are the most influential group in both hierarchies. In the first ('representative') leaders of economic units come from them, then immediate leaders and workers; in the second hierarchy ('leading') behind this group comes the workers council and management committee. (Op. cit., p. 173).
48. For more information see J. Jerovsek, Nesporazumi o Modelih Samoupravljanja v Delovnih Organizacijah, Teorija in Praksa, Ljubljana, 1969, no. 3, p. 432f.
49. The number of workers changed from 27.6% (1946) to 32.2% (1952) to 33.9% (1966). In the same period, the number of peasants lessened seven times (from 50.4% in 1946 to 42.3% in 1952 to 7.4% in 1966, and the number of officials has increased four times (from 10.3% to 18.9% to 39.1%). See B. Horvat, op. cit, p. 248.
50. As above, p. 255.
51. M. Tripalo, O Problemima Daljeg Razvoja i Aktivnosti Saveza Komunista, Komunist, Belgrade, no. 664, 11 XII, 69.
52. VUS, Zagreb, 10 VII, 68.
53. J. Gregurincic, Zadaci Sindikata Poslije VI Kongresa Saveza Sindikata Jugoslavije, Kulturni Radnik, Zagreb, 1968, no. 5, p. 44-45.
54. VUS, same no. and Kulturni Radnik, same no., p. 50.
55. I. Gregurincic, p. 47.
56. As above, p. 49.
57. As above, p. 50. Following on from that question, here is one other fact which also tells us something about the relation of workers and trade unions. The Opstina T.U. Committee of Pozarevac demanded that the Executive committee of the trade unions elected at the Congress should submit its resignation because they had allegedly altered the decisions of the Congress, and because 'members of the higher T.U. forums, without any great opposition graciously agreed to many decisions of the Federal and Republican authorities, although those decisions were opposed to the vital interests of, and constantly reflected back on all workers. We think this tolerant position derives from the high personal living standard of members of the highest trade union circles.' Politika, 26 II, 69.
58. J. Zupanov, op. cit, p. 138. On the same phenomenon, M. Caldarovic writes; 'The subordination of discussion, the concentration of power initiative and responsibility into the hands of the leaders, drastic differences in information, particularly in conditions of illegality and conspiracy, between leaders and members, these are the basic characteristics of revolutionary organisations in the movement between the two world wars (p.13).' And after the war, a hierarchy crystallized during the war is realized, 'An already formed bureaucratic hierarchical structure comes after the war into conflict with the revolutionary life experience of broad masses, particularly those in liberated towns, which were not exposed to such 'ideological training', during the war.' p. 17.
59. J. Zupanov, op. cit., p. 279. See also D. Tadic - J. Zupanov, Ekonomske Aspiracije i Drustvena Norma Egalnosti, Sociologija, Belgrade, 1969, no. 2. Data was gathered from ten enterprises in an industrial centre in Croatia (1156 respondents) from a 1966 investigation.
60. J. Zupanov, op. cit., p. 297.
61. As above, p. 299.
62. N. Popov, op. cit.
63. M. Zivotic, Covek i Vrednost, Prosveta, Belgrade, 1969, p. 159.
64. See for more on this, S. Stojanovic, Izmedu Ideala i Stvarnosti, Prosveta, Belgrade, 1969, p. 201-221.
65. [illegible], 1967, (4), p. [illegible].
66. For further material see A. Bajt, Drustvena Svojina - Kolektivna i Individualna, Gledista, 1968, no. 4.
67. "Politocracy" is a better term than bureaucracy because by the latter we usually understand the social composition of the state apparatus and there [are those] who are related to the bureaucracy as a political power [illegible]. In addition, if we use the term politocracy, the principle by which social relationships are formed becomes clearer, [i.e.] the place of the hierarchy of political power in the whole. This is only a working definition, while a more [valid] definition would require deeper and broader investigation. Then we could also answer the question whether we have a quite new historical type of society which is not divided by class in the traditional sense, or whether there is a new [form which is analogous] to castes, estates, and classes, but cannot be reduced [to any] of these types of grouping.
68. See Da Li strajkovi Jacaju ulogu radnicke klase?, discussion in the review [Gledista], Beograd, 1969, No. 68.
69. A clear example of the [strengthening] of a [repressive] apparatus, particularly the political police, is the [reintroduction] of the "Administrative [Law]" (Zakon o Prekrsajima) from 1947 [abolished] in 1967). After the student demonstrations, there were attempts to reintroduce such practice (propositions [s]hown under number AS1139—see Susret, No.97, 2/4/69 and Nin, No.944 and [illegible] 1969), which was not completely successful, but only partially so, in the administrative law in Serbia.
70. Authors who have written about this have already been mentioned, particularly R. Lampret and B. Kavcic.
71. V. Rus wrote already in 1964 on this. His view was that if the socializing of plan and market, to be achieved through self-management in working organizations and in society as a whole, was not possible, then the optimum democratization was by institutionalizing opposing tensions. V. Rus, Simbioza Dela in Lastva, Perspektive, 1963-4, No.36-7, p.858.
72. See J. Jerovsek, Konflikti u nasom Drustvu, Sociologija, 1968, No. 4, [I.] Perko-Separovic, Konfliktni Interesi u Socialistickom Drustvu, Gledista, 1969 No. 1, and Z. Vidakovic, Dva Prilaza Protestnim Obustavama Rada (strajkovima), Gledista, 1968, No. 1, p. 32-[illegible].