Trade Unions in Communist States

Originally published in 1986, just as Gorbachev was launching his perestroika programme, this book provides valuable historical discussions of economic reform and the role of communist labour unions. The editors a model of unions in Leninist systems as 'dual functioning', operating both to mobilize labour for production and to protect workers' rights and interests. In practice, the production function has preference. However, changes within communist systems challenged the 'Classical Dualist' model. These included the emergence of a more educated, critical and demanding workforce; the marginal relaxation of centralized control over enterprise management; and the deteriorating economic performance of communist systems. The country chapters emphasize the generally inadequate defence of workers' interests by communist trade unions. The weakest unions were those in China and Romania, as the chapters by Daniel Nelson and Jeanne Wilson, respectively, indicate. These were the most heavily agrarian societies, and (until the Deng reforms) the most politicized. The systems in which trade unions were the strongest—the GDR, Hungary and Yugoslavia—were either materially advanced, had a history of strong labour movements, or had enacted significant economic or political reforms. Istvan Kemeny's chapter describes the fascinating informal mechanisms that emerged to defend workers' interests in Hungarian factories. Poland was a special case. Alex Pravda details the failings of Poland's labour structure in the 1970s, while Tom Keenoy's chapter on Solidarity highlights the major goals of Polish workers in establishing an alternative to official unions.