THE POLICY OF REMUNERATION OF THE RSFSR’S URBAN DWELLERS IN 1946–1953: A MOBILIZATION TOOL AND MATERIAL INEQUALITY FACTOR

Abstract

The paper analyzes the policy of remuneration of various professional groups of the urban society of the RSFSR in 1946–1953 to determine the specifics and extent of wage differentiation, its conditionality with the tasks of the mobilization strategy of the state. The policy of remuneration of urban dwellers was characterized by a high level of differentiation. In accordance with the main link principle, in urban society “priority” groups were identified, in relation to which positive material incentives (salary increases, payments, etc.) were more actively applied. In relation to the rest of the townspeople, methods of negative financial incentives were more widely used (increasing production rates, reducing piece rates). Differentiated wage policy was a tool for solving state tasks: securing personnel in priority industries, increasing labor productivity, stimulating scientific research, etc. On the other hand, it contributed to the material polarization of Soviet society. In assessing the scale of material inequality, the system of estimating coordinates plays a decisive role. Contemporaries noted a significant level of material stratification of Soviet society, interpreting it as a violation of the principle of socialist distribution. According to T. Piketty, F. Novokmet and G. Zucman, the coefficient of material inequality in the post-war USSR was quite low (in comparison with the pre-revolutionary, post-Soviet, foreign levels), but on the scale of the Soviet period, this indicator reached its maximum precisely in the post-war years.