Date: 29 Jan 97 22:40:39 EST
From: jonathan flanders <72763.2240-AT-CompuServe.COM>
Subject: M-I: Foucalt on USSR


 >> In one of the mid-70s interviews collected in Power/Knowledge (p. 
73), Foucault says:

"In Soviet society one has the example of a State apparatus which has
 changed hands, yet leaves social hierarchies, family life, sexuality and
 the body more or less as they were in capitalist society. Do you imagine
 the mechanisms of power that operate between technicians, foremen and
 workers are that much different here and in the Soviet Union?"

Is this true? <<Doug Henwood

Jon Flanders:

  Here's a statement by a Russian immigrant to the US recorded in Kathy
Kahn's Fruits of Our Labor, 1982. The book contrasts the lives of workers
in the US and USSR.

>>Ivan

  I live in the United States. Da, right here. But I am Soviet citizen, 
da. Why am I here in US? I will tell you.

 ..........Look, here is Soviet worker, he feels like sitting down on his
job, he feels like resting. Here comes the boss, and what does Soviet
worker do? He does nothing. Boss says, "Hey, why aren't you working? Get
up and go to work!" Soviet worker says "Nyet, nyet. Go away, leave me
alone. I am resting."

Now you take American worker. If the boss sees American worker not 
working, maybe talking to other workers, boss thinks it's a conspiracy. 
"Get back to work!" And what does American worker do? He tiptoes back to 
job!" So you see, for the worker, it is better in Soviet Union."<<

  Ivan goes on to explain all the things he didn't like in the SU, things
like lack of freedom to travel etc., but I think this passage illustrates
the different relationship of forces between the workers and the 
supervision in a worker's state. It also illuminates why, once the SU 
leadership's socialist credentials became irredeemably tarnished, they 
had to turn to capitalist methods to get work done.

  I would also say though, that Ivan obviously had not worked in a 
strongly unionized US workplace like the railroads. The *problem* yet to 
be solved by the US ruling class.



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