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| Title | What has become of the Russian Revolution |
| Creator (LCNAF) |
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| Contributor (Local) |
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| Publisher | International Review |
| Date | 1937 |
| Subject.Topical (LCSH) |
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| Subject.Topical (Local) |
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| Subject.Geographic (TGN) |
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| Genre (AAT) |
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| Language | English |
| Type (DCMI) |
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| Original Item Extent | 63 pages; 22 cm |
| Original Item Location | HN523.Y8613 1937 |
| Original Item URL | http://library.uh.edu/record=b8304536~S11 |
| Original Collection | Socialist and Communist Pamphlets |
| Digital Collection | Socialist and Communist Pamphlets |
| Digital Collection URL | http://digital.lib.uh.edu/collection/scpamp |
| Repository | Special Collections, University of Houston Libraries |
| Repository URL | http://libraries.uh.edu/branches/special-collections |
| Use and Reproduction | In Copyright |
| File Name | index.cpd |
| Title | Image 26 |
| Format (IMT) |
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| File Name | uhlib_2209396_025.jpg |
| Transcript | "Trade-union" assessment (as membership in the State "trade-unions" is practically obligatory) : 2% of the wage. State Loan (theoretically free, but in practice obligatory) : 10% of the wage. Assessments (actually obligatory) for various societies and social enterprises: 1% of the wage. We see that altogether from 15 to 21% of the worker's wages is taken out of the worker's pay envelope even before the payment of the wage is made. This is money that the worker never sees. This can be verified by examining the pay books of any factory. Alongside of these direct taxes, we find very high indirect taxes on wine, tobacco and alcohol. The Soviet State has not passed up the chance to poison its people with vodka (grain alcohol) in order to bolster up its budget. There is something archaic about the existence of all these taxes, since the State, having a monopoly of the exchange of commodities, takes what it wants from the producer as well as from the consumer by arbitrarily fixing all prices. In 1935, for example, the Soviet State bought rye from the peasant at 6.5 kopeks a kilo and resold it as flour in Moscow at 2.10 roubles a kilo and as bread at a rouble a kilo. (The rouble contains one hundred kopeks.) Additions to Soviet Wages (Social Security) The legend of the Soviet "salary supplement" is so widely spread that we must deal with it in detail. In his calculation of production prices, every factory director or head of a Soviet enterprise adds 30 kopeks to each rouble written down for wages. These 30 kopeks are put under the heading of "Social Security." The State Bank effects the transfer of these sums to the various State organisms concerned. It is natural for us to be interested in the following question (or questions) : What does this 30% of the workers' wages represent? Where does this sum really go? Who profits by it? To find an answer, we shall have to take a close look at the official budget for "Social Security." Now there exists no public Soviet budget that tells the manner of distribution of the 30% deducted in this way from the product of labor—and for a very good reason! A published budget of this kind would have to mention that a part of the money it disposes of is devoted to certain purposes that are hardly worthy of a government labelling itself as "proletarian." We are therefore obliged to refer only to the admitted budget for "Social Security." Such a document was published in Izviestia, of July 9, 1935. Its total of about 9 billion roubles indicates that half of the money collected for "Social Security" did not figure in the expenditures given under the same heading, since 30% of the wages of the USSR2 represents at least twelve billion roubles. In order to make clearer our study of the question, we shall distribute 2About 40 billion in 1935. (Zhdanov's speech, Leningrad Pravda, December 26, 1934.) 24 |