Vavulinskaya, L. I. THE POLICY OF THE SOVIET STATE IN THE SPHERE OF LABOUR RELATIONS IN INDUSTRY IN THE POST-WAR DECADE // Proceedings of Petrozavodsk State University. 2020. Vol. 42. No 8. P. 38–43. DOI: 10.15393/uchz.art.2020.548


Russian history

THE POLICY OF THE SOVIET STATE IN THE SPHERE OF LABOUR RELATIONS IN INDUSTRY IN THE POST-WAR DECADE

Vavulinskaya
L. I. 		Karelian Research Centre of the Russian Academy of Sciences
Keywords:
post-war years
repressive policy
workplace discipline
administrative and judicial compulsion to labour
unauthorised absence		 Summary: The article analyses the regional practices of applying the Decrees of the Presidium of the USSR Supreme Council of June 26, 1940 and July 14, 1951, which envisaged criminal sanctions for violating workplace discipline. These matters have so far been little covered by either legal or historical literature. On the other hand, the criminal-executive policy of the Russian state cannot be improved unless both the positive and the negative experience in this sphere is taken into account. The main sources were previously unpublished documents kept at the Republic of Karelia National Archives. The paper mentions numerous cases of unjustified judicial punishment of employees. It is highlighted that the workplace discipline issue was the most acute in the republic’s forest industry, which was short of manpower and had to extensively use workforce from other regions. Approximately 2/3 of those sentenced for unauthorised absence and abandonment of forest industry enterprises were people who had arrived in the republic to work under contract or under organised recruitment arrangements. On some occasions, company leaders resorted to illegal methods to keep the workforce. Analysis of archived statistical data has demonstrated that although judicial punishment for unauthorised absence was replaced with disciplinary actions and community-based correction the number of such violations in the republic early in the 1950s increased. In view of this, the republic’s party leaders submitted a request to the CPSU Central Committee to annul the Decree of the Presidium of the USSR Supreme Council of July 14, 1951. The article explains the reasons for annulling the repressive laws and regulations in the labour relations sphere after World War II, and emphasizes that the practice of their application was a failure. The actions that workedё well for setting labour relations in order were enhancement of the work environment and the living standard of employees, as well as developments in the social sphere.



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