Russia's Work Ethic

Abstract

Have They Forgotten How to Work? OPTIMISTS LOOK to the market and democratic pluralism as the motors for driving Russia, the great outsider, back into the fold of normal eco nomic and political development. Seeking aid and investment from the West, President Boris Yeltsin and his economists point to Russia's vast natural resources as collateral for loans and capital. Little is said, however, of another critical factor: the Russian labor force. While the technology can be import ed, the essential human element cannot. In city and country alike workers exhibit long-suffering passivity and what the labor newspaper Trud called a psy chology of permanent dependence. With little pride in their inadequately remunerated work, and for years aware that they were anything but masters of their own proletarian country, the resignation of Russia's workers leaves them ill-prepared for the rough-and-tumble free market. Russian Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin said at this year's World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Without discipline and hard work we will achieve nothing. We cannot live as they live in the West and work as we work in Russia. For three genera tions negative selection process systematically weeded out workers of the greatest drive, know-how and resilience, giving rise to pervasive, cowed apathy and scheming work ethic, with the liveliest initiatives directed at seeking maximum per sonal gain with minimum expenditure of effort. Soviet communism has left demoralized and dissatisfied Russian work force. What use will the world's poorest white workers make of new economic opportunities? Will they take advantage of novel freedoms and credits to hoist their country again to the respectable growth rates and vigor that it knew at