One of the pioneers of Soviet sociology was Stanislav Gustavovich Strumilin (1877-1974). He was a major revolutionary and scientist, public figure, theorist and practitioner of planned management, economist and sociologist. Taking active participation in the revolutionary labor movement, he was repeatedly subjected to repression and exile, and was a delegate to the I (Stockholm, 1906) and V (London, 1907) congresses of the RSDLP. S.G. Strumilin has been involved in socio-economic research since his youth. In 1921-1937 and 1943-1951 he worked in the State Planning Committee of the USSR and at the same time carried out scientific and teaching work in a number of universities in the country. Strumilin is almost the only representative of the revolutionary generation of social scientists in Russia who survived the Stalinist repressions of 1937. Strumilin’s main scientific works relate to the fields of statistics, economic management, planning, demographic forecasting, political economy of socialism, economic history, sociology and philosophy. He owns one of the methods for constructing a labor productivity index, creating a classification of professions, conducting major budget studies, and developing the world's first system of material balances. Participating in the development of national economic plans, Strumilin was responsible for social issues. The development of social planning issues led him to the idea of creating<цикла плановых дисциплин под общим именем социальной инженерии>. Scientific achievements of S.G. Strumilin's works are recognized not only in Russia, but also abroad.
One of the most profound and still classic studies of the social condition of the working class is his work<Прожиточный минимум и заработки чернорабочих в Петрограде в 1914-1918 гг.>, published in issues 2 and 3<Статистики труда>for 1918. In the first years of the revolution, economic devastation, military intervention and famine brought the main productive force of society and the political support of Bolshevik power - the working class - to the brink of physical extinction.
Food distribution standards during the First World War and the subsequent civil war were sharply reduced, while enterprises had to work with the same intensity, fulfilling defense and national economic orders. Scientists were required to accurately analyze the current situation and forecast for the future. Strumilin believed that the living wage and the corresponding minimum wage should be determined not only in monetary units, but also in the real (material) form of essential items that satisfy the primary vital needs of workers. The difficulty was that the volume of needs varied depending on cultural level, habits, tension and working conditions.
Strumilin believed that the amount of food entering the body, supplying it with the energy necessary for work, should correspond to energy expenditure. If a person does not receive enough of something, then his body is physically exhausted, which significantly affects the decrease in labor productivity. From physiological studies it is known how many calories an adult worker should receive per day during light, medium and heavy work.
Using these and other statistical data, Strumilin built a table in which<подлежащим>there was an indicator<характер работы>, A<сказуемым>were<нормы питания>, <продуктивность труда>And<расход энергии на единицу продукта>. The table clearly confirmed an important conclusion: low wages with economic point of vision is the most expensive per unit of product, and high, on the contrary, is the cheapest. Reducing the normal ration of a laborer (3600 calories) by only 10-20% reduces labor productivity by 28-55% and thereby increases the cost of production per unit of product by 25-80%.
Strumilin came to the government with a proposal to increase workers' wages at least to the minimum level that would provide sufficient food and increase labor productivity. Subsequently, Strumilin analyzed the dynamics wages and the rise in prices for basic necessities over the period from 1914 to 1918. It turned out that in 1918 a worker could receive 1.5 times less calories from his earnings than in 1914 or than is necessary for minimal maintenance of life.
And yet the workers lived for something. Strumilin asked the question: how do Petrograd workers live if their earnings do not provide living wage? Based on data from a survey of workers' budgets conducted by the Petrograd Regional Commissariat of Labor in May 1918, Strumilin found out that the Petrograd worker from different sources receives additional funds to cover food shortages: free food parcels from relatives from the village in exchange for textiles, proceeds from the sale of property, clothing, savings from large paychecks when new tariffs were introduced retroactively, renting out rooms to residents, loans and even collecting alms. These side incomes amounted to up to 60 rubles. for every 100 rub. earnings.
However, these additional incomes still did not provide enough money for food. From total income it was also necessary to subtract expenses for housing, clothing, etc. Analysis of time series showing changes in items of the workers' expenditure budget over a ten-year period revealed that average earnings increased by 9 times, while expenses increased by 14.
Strumilin continued his analysis in another work -<Питание петроградских рабочих в 1918 г.>, published in the 4th and 5th issues of the magazine<Новый путь>for 1919. Supply of workers with food in the era<военного коммунизма>had several sources: by cards, food in public canteens, purchase at the city market (<по вольным ценам>) or in the village, etc. At standardized prices (i.e., ration cards), a worker received 1,000 calories, and at free prices, 1,100 calories per day.
Thus, through the state distribution bodies the worker received less than half of the already<архиголодного пайка>. Was it necessary to introduce a card system in this case? If the monopoly established by the state on distribution does not give the worker - the most privileged consumer - even half of the product he needs, then there is no monopoly.
The market has actually ousted the state from<потребительской корзины>the bulk of the population. The only exception was, perhaps, the party elite, which was intensively fed by the state.
Strumilin formulates new question: what consequences will the rationing of wages lead to in conditions of high (<мародерских>) prices for<черном рынке>? An increase in wages will result in the fact that workers, buying on this market, will essentially enrich private traders and speculators at the expense of the state.
Allow strengthening<капиталистических элементов>the Bolsheviks could not. To introduce a card system would require a partial ban on free trade. But in this case, market trade will turn into the illegal business of a handful of looters who, in the absence of competition, will only strengthen their monopoly by inflating prices and robbing already impoverished workers.
At first glance, it is government measures that worsen the situation of workers, enriching<кучки капиталистов>and increasing indirect exploitation of workers. In reality, the distribution picture turned out to be much more complex. Having regrouped the data, Strumilin builds a new table, where the subject is budget groups (distribution of workers depending on the size of wages), and the predicate is the number of dependents in the family, the average number of calories per consumer at standardized prices, at free prices, in calories and in products normal soldering.
It turned out that only 30% of the workers surveyed received an average ration of 2,100 calories. Highly paid workers, who make up less than 1% of the total workforce, receive up to 3,600 calories - the optimal ration, more than enough for an adult male doing heavy physical work. The minimum fast ration was then 1850 calories. At the same time, about 50% of workers received less than this level and became the main victim of starvation typhus. The difference in nutrition between high- and low-wage workers was 10:1.
Calculations showed that the nutritional norm for the former exceeded 3600 calories, and for the latter it did not reach 360 calories, i.e. low-paid workers found themselves beyond the point of physical exhaustion. Nevertheless, they somehow lived. It turned out that low-paid people receive food only on food cards, 3 times more than what the minimum norm showed. The social significance of the rationing system was that it provided a minimum of food for the least paid segments of the population. Its role turns out to be more significant the higher the differentiation of the population by income.
The card system smoothed out the extremes of the hierarchy of inequality. It contributed to the rise in prices on the free market, as a result of which the wealthy strata, overpaying for food, became somewhat equal to the lower strata, which were helped by the state.
Thus, Strumilin assessed the card system in different ways: at first he spoke of its inexpediency, and then he recognized its necessity. What is the final conclusion? In order to answer the question, Strumilin suggests doing the following thought experiment.
Suppose, he argues, the card system is abolished. How will this affect the poorest groups of the working class? First time will happen a reduction in all food prices by approximately 30%, which means that it will be easier for workers to feed themselves. For speculators, such a measure is tantamount to the end of their monopoly and their receipt of excess profits. But free trade has not been destroyed. As demand exceeds supply, prices at the point of sale (i.e. in the city) continue to rise.
The consequence is obvious - the differentiation in the actual nutrition of different groups of workers is increasing. Let's consider another scenario. Let’s say that the rationing system is not only not abolished, but even tightened so that each worker receives an additional 500 calories per day. Let's assume that market prices increased by 50%, but earnings and food expenses remained the same. There can be only one consequence - the social differentiation of the population is smoothed out. Strumilin supported each scenario with a forecast table.
Strumilin's calculations indicate that free trade benefits high-paid layers of workers, but at the expense of worsening the situation of low-paid ones; on the contrary, the card system changes everything. Considering that the three poorest groups make up 83% of the working class, and the three richest - only 17%, and that lowering the minimum food standard for the former means starvation, then the introduction of the rationing system in those conditions turned out to be the only means of saving the urban proletariat from physical and spiritual degradation .
Relative poverty refers to the inability to maintain a decent standard of living, or some standard of living accepted in a given society. Relative poverty measures how poor you are compared to other people. Typically, relative poverty is less than half the average family income in a given country1.
The relative poverty of L.A. Belyaev and L.A. Gordon is defined as a state in which mass groups of the population find themselves<считающие свой уровень жизни существенно и неоправданно более низким, чем у иных социальных категорий или у себя лично в иное время>and therefore subjectively abiding<в ситуации бедности, независимо от абсолютной величины их доходов и потребления>. Here we are dealing not with poverty, but with impoverishment - absolute or relative; its first level is expressed in the absolute deterioration of life, the second - in the fact that<уровень жизни у части населения снижается, а у остального населения повышается>. And if absolutely the poorest of all today<те же, кто и раньше составлял низы общества>, That<относительно обеднели больше всех совсем другие люди, в массе своей принадлежащие прежде к средне-высоким общественным группам>2.
A simple way to determine relative poverty is to identify those whose incomes are noticeably lower than those of the most numerous part of society. Comparison with how the majority of neighbors live gives rise to a feeling of relative poverty much more often than the difficult-to-imagine comparison of one’s own existence with the life of the top rich.
She is comparative characteristics in two senses. First, it shows that you are poor relative to the abundance or wealth that other members of society who are not considered poor have. The first meaning of relative poverty is the comparison of one stratum with other strata or strata. Secondly, it shows that you are poor relative to some standard of living, such as the standard of a decent or decent life.
Just 40 years ago, a black-and-white TV in the USSR was considered a luxury item, affordable to few. In the 90s, color television appeared in almost every family, and black and white began to be considered a sign of modest wealth, or relative poverty. Soon those who cannot afford to buy a computer or a Japanese TV will fall into relative poverty.
The idea of relative poverty can be found in Adam Smith, who by the necessities of life understood not only goods that are necessary to maintain life, but also those without which, according to the custom of the country, respectable people, even from the lower strata, cannot be left without. A. Macauley believes that<человек или семья считаются бедными, если средства, которыми они располагают, не позволяют им иметь образ и уровень жизни, достигнутые в обществе, в котором они живут>1.
In general, absolute poverty is characterized by biological (physiological) characteristics, and relative poverty by social ones. Therefore, relative poverty groups should also include those groups of the population that, although they live in a certain material abundance, experience problems in the sphere of social or political relations, recreation, etc.
In the concept of relative poverty, a certain ratio between the lowest income and the size of the average (median) income is taken as the poverty line. Persons whose incomes in relation to the average (median) level are below the established ratio are classified as poor. The poverty line can be determined by identifying families whose equivalent per capita income does not exceed 40% (extreme poverty) or 60% of the average income calculated for all families. For example, in Taganrog in 1989, only 4% of families had an income below 40% of the average equivalent income, i.e. were in extreme poverty, and 13% had incomes below 60%1. Today this method is most common in international research.
In the concept of relative poverty, the poverty line is defined as 60% of the median per capita income2. If this concept of poverty sets the poverty line in a certain ratio to average income, then according to the concept of poverty as absolute poverty, the population with the lowest incomes is considered poor. A. Macauley draws the following conclusion:<В первом случае масштабы бедности остаются неизменными при любом экономическом росте. Во втором - ни экономический рост, ни уменьшение дифференциации доходов не повлияют на число бедных. При такой концепции можно утверждать: бедные всегда будут существовать>3. P. Townsend suggested that relative poverty means the inability to fully participate in the life of society:<Индивиды, семьи, социальные группы населения можно считать бедными, если они не имеют ресурсов для участия в общественной жизни, поддержания соответствующей диеты, условий жизни, труда и отдыха, которые являются обычными или по крайней мере широко принятыми в обществе, в котором они живут. Их ресурсы значительно ниже того, что имеет средний индивид или средняя семья, вследствие чего они исключены из обычного стиля жизни, общепринятых моделей поведения, привычек и типов деятельности>4.
The boundaries of absolute and relative poverty do not coincide. Absolute poverty can be eliminated in a society, but relative poverty will always remain. Inequality is a constant companion of complex societies. Relative poverty persists even as living standards for all sectors of society have improved. Among developed European countries, the lowest level of relative poverty is observed in Sweden.
The richer the country, the more attentive the government and society are to the problem of poverty and the more decisively they fight it. So the US government carefully studies groups of people living in absolute poverty. During the Great Depression, one in three Americans lived in poverty. In the early 60s, despite twenty years of economic growth, 30% of the US population remained poor. Poverty levels decreased during the period<войны с бедностью>mid-60s to 17%. In the 1980s, the Reagan administration cut social spending, and the poverty rate rose from 10% in 1975 to 15% in 1985. In 1988, more than 32 million people, i.e. more than 13% of the population lived below the official poverty line1. Subsequently, the country adopted and continues to accept all kinds of programs to help the poor. As a result, out of 25.3 million absolutely poor, 11 million people were transferred to the category of relatively poor.
The scale of relative poverty in the USSR and Sweden in the 70s was very similar. A. Bergson also wrote about this:<Неравенство в распределении доходов в СССР таких же размеров или чуть больше, чем в Швеции>2. More precisely, families living in relative poverty amounted to 7.2% in Sweden and 11% in Taganrog-2. But in Canada and the USA, the level of relative poverty during approximately the same years was significantly higher (see Table 4.6).
It turned out that in Taganrog the poverty index for households headed by women is 4 times higher than for households headed by men. Thus, among those below 40% of the poverty level, almost 80% are headed by women. In Sweden, the poverty line for female-headed households is lower3.
In addition to absolute and relative poverty, foreign researchers distinguish between primary and secondary poverty.
Primary poverty exists among those families who, with the most reasonable use of available funds and forces, without squandering, organizing a rational lifestyle, still remain below the poverty threshold. Secondary poverty characterizes families in which the basic needs of life are not met due to unreasonable spending of funds1.
If we transfer these concepts to Russian soil, we can conclude that primary poverty affects, first of all, the so-called<новых бедных>- humanitarian and technical intelligentsia employed in the public sector, which after 1991 did not receive government subsidies, as a result of which the material level of its workers sharply decreased. It is advisable to include families whose members abuse alcoholic beverages as secondary poverty.
Domestic experts propose to distinguish between two forms of poverty:<устойчивую>And<плавающую>. The first is due to the fact that poverty, as a rule, reproduces poverty. A low level of material security leads to deterioration of health, deskilling, deprofessionalization, and ultimately to degradation. Poor parents have potentially poor children, which is determined by their health, education, and qualifications1. The second, more rare, is due to the fact that the poor, making efforts, leave their circle and, adapting to new conditions, acquire a better standard of living.
L.A. Gordon distinguishes two types of poverty - social and economic. The first refers to<слабым>, second - to<сильным>employees.
Poverty<слабых>- this is the poverty of disabled and low-capacity people, the disabled, the sick, the physically and psychologically unstable, as well as workers forced to bear an unreasonably large load (breadwinners of large families, etc.). It can be called social poverty.
Poverty<сильных>arises in emergency conditions, when full-fledged (or even outstanding) workers, usually capable of receiving income that gives<нормальный>standard of living, find themselves in a situation in which they cannot, through their labor, ensure the level of well-being accepted at a given time and in a given society. Poverty<сильных>can be described as economic poverty2.
Thus, social poverty is chronic. If you are disabled, then get out<в люди>almost impossible. Economic poverty is typical for able-bodied workers who find themselves in a crisis situation.
Characteristic feature modern Russia is that poverty<слабых>connected with poverty in our country<сильных>3.
Strumilin (Strumillo-Petrashkevich) Stanislav Gustavovich (01/17/1877, village of Dashkovtsy, Podolsk province - 01/25/1974, Moscow). Soviet economist and statistician. Academician of the USSR Academy of Sciences (1931). Laureate of the State Prize (1942), Lenin Prize (1958). Recipient of four Orders of Lenin (1945, 1953, 1957, 1967), the Order of the October Revolution (1971), and the Order of the Red Banner of Labor (1936). Hero of Socialist Labor (1967).
Since 1897, he has been a participant in the revolutionary movement. Social Democrat, Menshevik. Delegate to the 4th (Stockholm) (1906) and 5th (London) (1907) congresses of the RSDLP. After 1917 from political activity moved away.
Graduated from the commercial department of the Petrograd Polytechnic Institute (1914).
He served as head of the statistics department of the Special Meeting on Fuel (Petrograd, 1916), head of the statistics department of the Petrograd Regional Commissariat of Labor (1918-1919), head of the statistics department of the People's Commissariat of Labor and the All-Russian Central Trade Union (1919-1923). In 1921-1937 and in 1943-1951. worked in the State Planning Committee of the USSR (deputy chairman, member of the Presidium, deputy head of TsUNKHU, member of the Council of Scientific and Technical Expertise, etc.).
At the same time, he conducted scientific and pedagogical work at Moscow State University (1921-1923), the Institute national economy them. G.V. Plekhanov (1929-1930), Moscow State Economic Institute (1931-1950).
Main directions scientific activity S.G. Strumilina - statistics, development of planning methods, research into problems of labor economics, labor resources, education, science. He owns one of the methods for constructing a labor productivity index - the so-called “Strumilin Index”. Under the leadership of Strumilin, a system of material balances was first developed.
S.G. Strumilin is a constant participant in discussions about the long-term plan held in the USSR State Planning Committee, the Communist Academy and the Supreme Economic Council of the USSR, the central issues of which were questions about the nature and content of the plan, its goals and objectives. Strumilin, in particular, substantiated the assertion that plans inevitably contain, on the one hand, elements of foresight, and on the other, elements of designing tasks or directives. Convincing that a plan is the unity of these two principles, he compared planned construction (“social engineering”) with the art of construction.
Planning work is a real science, designed to scrupulously study the objective real situation, the multitude of forces and influences, the laws of their interaction, and the “art” of foresight, the level of which is largely determined by the subjective factor. The nature of the plan, according to Strumilin, always depends on the social status of the person who compiled it, on his class aspirations. The plan is, first of all, a system of imperative instructions, varying depending on the class attachments of the “architects”.
S.G. Strumilin pessimistically assessed the chances of a capitalist economy, believing that the absence of a unified plan, the very fundamental impossibility of its implementation, deprives this economy of dynamism and dooms it to absolute defeat in confrontation with the socialist economic system. According to Strumilin, the economic prerequisites for establishing a “complete planned economy”, “complete socialism” include the complete elimination of the influence of the “market element” on our economy. In this regard, the further preservation of “single-person farms of the petty individualistic bourgeoisie” is also impossible. The plan is an “innate” advantage of socialism, but at the same time Strumilin emphasized that we do not have any ready-made recipes for developing plans. This matter is “exceptionally complex,” Strumilin emphasized: “There is no such ready-made planned science that we could borrow from somewhere from some department of one of our universities or even, perhaps, from world practice.” He admitted that “we have to create, in essence, completely new methods, new areas of knowledge, and we learn, as they say, from our own mistakes.”
Exploring the commodity-money aspects of the development of capitalist and socialist economic systems, Strumilin pointed out that with the transition to socialism, only the exchange form of value dies off, while the “logical concept” of value is not only preserved, but even increases its importance in economic life. However, the distribution of consumer goods was to be carried out on the basis of freedom of choice, and in regulating this process it was proposed to use “labor rates”, which, by Strumilin’s own admission, are “like two peas in a pod,” similar to prices.
S.G. Strumilin was the first to forecast the size and age-sex composition of the Russian population. He carried out the first demographic and sociological survey of the time budget of workers and peasants (1922-1923), made calculations and gave an economic assessment of Russia’s demographic losses in the First World War and civil wars associated with a decline in the birth rate and a reduction in the working-age population.
Investigating the problems of economic efficiency of education, Strumilin formulated the law of diminishing productivity of the process of public education, according to which, with an increase in the number of levels of education, its economic profitability for the state decreases, and the qualifications of workers increase more slowly than the number of years spent on their training. By studying the relationship between the degree of qualification of workers and the timing of their training as specialists, Strumilin approached the determination of the optimal period of study and the amount of education expenses for each student, taking into account the growth of the state’s national income. In his opinion, the introduction of universal primary education gave a socio-economic effect in the Soviet Union that was almost twice the funds allocated for its organization; profitability primary education for manual workers was 28 times higher than the cost of training, and the capital costs for it, according to Strumilin’s calculations, will pay off in 1.5 years.
Strumilin’s conclusions about the high profitability of education in universities for predominantly low-income workers and peasants confirmed the payback of free higher education and maintenance of students at state expense, and also made it possible to justify the compulsory 3-year work of university graduates in distribution, setting their wages at a level not lower than skilled workers.
In 1942-1946. S.G. Strumilin is deputy chairman of the Council of Branches and Bases of the USSR Academy of Sciences. In 1948-1952. - Head of the sector of history of the national economy of the Institute of Economics of the USSR Academy of Sciences. In 1948-1974. - at the Academy of Social Sciences under the CPSU Central Committee.
In 1961, Strumilin published the article “In space and at home (On the question of the limits to the growth of the Earth’s population). Notes from an Economist,” in which he expressed his thoughts on the demographic future, believing that over time, when humanity approaches the natural limit of its longevity and moves on to simple population reproduction, society’s attention will be directed to increasing the quality of the population.
S.G. Strumilin is a member of the Polish Academy of Sciences and the Romanian Academy of Sciences, honorary doctor of sciences from the University of Warsaw and the Jagiellonian University in Krakow (Poland, 1966), honorary member of the Demographic Society of the Academy of Sciences of Czechoslovakia, the Academy of Economic Sciences (Romania, 1971).
Hero of Socialist Labor (1967). Awarded the Orders of Lenin (1945, 1953, 1957, 1967), the October Revolution (1971), and the Red Banner of Labor (1936). Laureate of the Stalin (State) Prize, 1st degree, for the collective work “On the development of the national economy of the Urals in conditions of war” (1942); Lenin Prize (1958; for the book “History of Ferrous Metallurgy in the USSR”).
He began his scientific and journalistic activities in 1897. Since 1897, he actively participated in the left revolutionary movement, was prosecuted for illegal activities, and twice escaped from exile. Delegate to the 4th (Stockholm) (1906) and 5th (London) (1907) congresses of the RSDLP. Subsequently he joined the Mensheviks. Member of the CPSU since 1923.
Graduated from the Petrograd Polytechnic Institute (1914). The manager worked Department of Statistics of the Special Meeting on Fuel (Petrograd, 1916); head Department of Statistics of the Petrograd Regional Commissariat of Labor (1918-1919); head Department of Statistics of the People's Commissariat of Labor and the All-Russian Central Trade Union (1919-1923); deputy Chairman, member of the Presidium, deputy head of the Central Directorate of National Economic Accounting (TSUNKHU) of the USSR State Planning Committee, member of the Council of Scientific and Technical Expertise of the USSR State Planning Committee (1921-1937, 1943-1951). Known for his saying, “It is better to stand for high tempos than to sit for low tempos.”
Head sector of the history of national economy of the Institute of Economics of the USSR Academy of Sciences (1947-1952). Professor at the Department of Applied Economics, Department of Theory and Technology of Statistics and Economic Statistics of Moscow State University (1921-1923). He taught at the Institute of National Economy named after. G. V. Plekhanov (1929-1930), Moscow State Economic Institute (1931-1950). Conducted scientific and pedagogical work at the Academy of Social Sciences under the CPSU Central Committee (1948-1974).
Foreign member of the Polish Academy of Sciences (1967), Romanian Academy of Sciences.
Honorary Doctor of Science from the Jagiellonian University in Krakow (Poland, 1966), Academy of Economic Sciences (Romania, 1971), University of Warsaw. Honorary member of the Demographic Society at the Academy of Sciences of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic.
Hero of Socialist Labor (1967). Awarded the Order of Lenin (1945, 1953, 1957, 1967), the October Revolution (1971), the Red Banner of Labor (1936) and medals.
Laureate of the Stalin Prize of the first degree - for the collective work “On the development of the national economy of the Urals in conditions of war” (1942). Lenin Prize (1958; for the book “History of Ferrous Metallurgy in the USSR”).
Author of more than 700 works in the field of economics, statistics, economic management, planning, demographic forecasting, political economy of socialism, economic history, scientific communism, sociology, philosophy.
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Under his leadership, the world's first system of material balances was developed.
While exploring the problems of economic efficiency of education, he formulated the law of diminishing returns schooling, according to which, as the number of levels of training increases, its economic profitability for the state decreases, and the qualifications of workers increase more slowly than the number of years spent on their training.
Investigated the relationship between the degree of qualification of workers and the timing of their training. He established methods for determining the optimal period of schooling and the amount of expenses for the education of each worker, taking into account the growth of the state's national income - the introduction of universal primary education in the USSR gave an economic effect that was 43 times greater than the costs of its organization; the profitability of initial training for manual workers was 28 times higher than the cost of training, and the capital costs for it paid off in 1.5 years.
Strumilin’s conclusions about the high profitability of education in universities for predominantly low-income people from workers and peasants confirmed the payback of free higher education and the maintenance of students at state expense, and also made it possible to justify the mandatory 3-year work of university graduates for distribution, setting their wages at a level not lower skilled workers.
Proceedings
Wealth and Labor (1905)
Problems of Labor Economics (1925)
Industrialization of the USSR. Epigones of Populism (1927)
Selected works (vols. 1-8, 1963-1968)
Social progress in the USSR over 50 years (Questions of Economics. 1969, No. 11)
Problems of socialism and communism in the USSR. M., 1961,
One of the outstanding economists - theorists and practitioners who made a great contribution to the development of domestic economic thought in the 20-30s. and much later, there was Stanislav Gustovich Strumilin (pseudonym; real name - Strumillo-Petrashkevich, 1877-1974).S.G. Strumilin- Academician of the USSR Academy of Sciences (1931), laureate of the State Prize (1942), Lenin Prize (1958), Hero of Socialist Labor (1967). He began his scientific and journalistic activities in 1897. His first book, “Wealth and Labor” (1905), contains a deep political and economic analysis of the Russian reality of that time.
S.G. paid a lot of attention in his economic work. Strumilin paid attention to the problems of agrarian reforms in Russia (for example, the works “A Word to the Peasant Poor” (1906), “Community and the Land Question” (1907), etc.). Speech by S.G. Strumilin at the 4th Party Congress criticizing P.P.’s agrarian program. Maslov was highly appreciated by V.I. Lenin.
In 1913, the scientist’s work “Tasks and Plan for Organizing Current Flax Statistics” was published, in which the balance method was first applied. In 1914 he graduated from the economics department of the St. Petersburg Polytechnic Institute. After the February Revolution of 1917, he became a member of the Petrograd district and city councils, a member economic department Petrograd Soviet of Workers' Deputies (1917), after October 1917 he was appointed head of the statistics department of the People's Commissariat of Labor and the All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions.
In 1921, on the personal recommendation of V.I. Lenin, the scientist was recruited to work at the State Planning Committee. Lenin wrote to GM. Krzhizhanovsky, which considers it very important that Strumilin monitors “...extremely carefully the facts and figures about the actual implementation of our economic plans...”.
In 1921-1937 and 1943-1951. S.G. Strumilin worked in the State Planning Committee of the USSR (member of the presidium, deputy head of the Central Administration of National Economic Accounting (TSUNKHU), member of the Council of Scientific and Technical Expertise, etc.). At the same time, he carried out scientific and pedagogical work. He wrote more than 700 works on economics, statistics, economic management, planning, demographic forecasting, political economy of socialism, economic history, scientific communism, sociology, and philosophy.
The scientist owns one of the methods for constructing a labor productivity index - the “Strumilin index”, as well as primacy in the compilation of a number of budget indices. For the first time in domestic practice, he developed a scientific methodology for the widespread use of budget surveys. Under his leadership, a system of material balances was created. Already in the 1920s. he made extensive use of modeling, proposing a whole range of numerical aggregate models in relation to the practical needs of the domestic economy and modern planning. He took an active part in drawing up the socio-economic programs of all pre- and post-war five-year plans.
The main works of S.G. Strumilin on political economy are devoted to the problems of transforming a mixed economy into a socialist one; systematic development of the socialist economy; the operation of the law of value under socialism; scientific foundations of socialist planning; various aspects of labor economics under socialism; the ratio of accumulation and consumption; prices. He prepared a number of works on the genesis of capitalism in Tsarist Russia.
S.G. Strumilin is one of the founders of the study of time budgets in Soviet sociology. In his research, he came to the conclusion that in the reproduction of the population, “the primacy of economics over biology is undeniable.” He considered the growth of the quality of the population to be the most important law of population. To solve this problem, the scientist proposed original system redistribution of income employed in social production to invest in a system of public education for children, which he considered more preferable than purely family education.
In the field of population studies, he was the first to make a forecast of the size and age-sex composition of the Russian population, which, by the way, was justified with great accuracy. He carried out the first demographic and sociological survey of the time budget of workers and peasants. In his work “Russia's Labor Losses in the War” (1922), he calculated the losses associated with the decline in the birth rate and the reduction in the working-age population. He was one of the first to study the problems of overpopulation, migration and many others from an economic and demographic point of view.
In the 1920s Strumilin took an active part in the study of the most pressing problems of sociology: labor, education and upbringing, the social structure of Soviet society, the composition of the working class, etc. He was the first to conduct sociological studies of working life using questionnaires. Under his leadership, time budget problems began to be actively studied. In particular, using materials from Penza budgets, S.G. Strumilin showed that the percentage of food expenditure is more closely related not to the level of well-being, but to the size of the family and the age of its members.
By the mid-1920s. he collected significant material about the life of workers, as the most important component of their way of life. Collected by the scientist rich empirical material allowed us to identify a number of non-trivial patterns. For example, it was concluded that in the families of textile workers, the wife working in the factory added less to the family budget with her additional income than if she devoted all her time to housekeeping.
Investigating the problems of economic efficiency of education, S.G. Strumilin formulated the law of diminishing productivity of schooling, according to which, as the number of levels of education increases, its economic profitability for the state decreases, and the qualifications of workers increase more slowly than the number of years spent on its education. He studied the relationship between the degree of qualification of workers and the time of their training and determined optimal timing schooling, as well as the amount of expenses for the education of each worker, taking into account the growth of the state’s national income. He calculated that the introduction of universal primary education will give the country an economic effect that exceeds the cost of its organization by 43 times, the profitability of primary education for manual workers is 28 times higher than the cost of training, and capital costs will pay off in 1.5 years.
S.G. Strumilin’s conclusions about the high profitability of studying at universities confirmed the payback of free higher education and the maintenance of students at state expense, and also made it possible to justify the mandatory three-year work of university graduates for distribution with their wages being set at a level not lower than that of skilled workers.
As is known, the development of the first five-year plan for the development of the national economy (1929-1932) was carried out from the standpoint of a teleological approach, i.e. from a goal setting point of view. Thus, characterizing the main task of constructing a long-term plan for the development of the USSR economy, Strumilin formulated it as the need for “such a redistribution of the available productive forces of society, including both the labor force and the material resources of the country, which would optimally ensure the crisis-free expanded reproduction of these productive forces as quickly as possible.” pace in order to maximally satisfy the current needs of the working masses and bring them as quickly as possible to the complete reconstruction of society on the principles of socialism and communism.”
During the endless revisions of the projects of the first five-year plan, the digital indicators changed, the proportions were clarified, but in the field of view of the designers, two main goals remained unchanged: the maximum development of the production of means of production as the basis of industrialization and the decisive strengthening of the socialist sector in the city and countryside.
In the concept of a planned economy S.G. Strumilin is dominated by a clearly expressed centralized, directive principle, which was pointed out and criticized by his constant opponent N.D. Kondratiev, who argued that the formulation of certain tasks in plans requires much greater caution and justification. Based on this, he considered it necessary to constantly take into account market fluctuations, lending rates, market prices, and the balance of exchange rates. And if N.D. Kondratiev saw in the market mechanism a fairly effective regulator of production, maintaining proportionality, balance of the economy, its economic equilibrium various parts, then S.G. Strumilin saw it as a constant source of serious crisis shocks.
The scientist made an invaluable contribution to the development of a specific planning methodology. He was convinced that plans should be based on ensuring proportionality in the development of the most important sectors of the national economy, balance, and coordination of resources with needs. In the very first days of the work of the State Planning Committee, he formulated the problem of preparing annual projects for the general long-term balance of the national economy for the planned use and distribution of labor within the republic for the coming year.
Speaking back in 1923 with a report on the scheme of the balance of the national economy, S.G. Strumilin identified three large groups: 1) all types of private economy; 2) state economy; 3) healthcare, public education, armed forces. Under his leadership, a system of material balances was first developed, which is widely used to this day in many industries. developed countries peace.
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WITH Trumilin Stanislav Gustavovich - scientist economist and statistician, academician of the USSR Academy of Sciences.
Born on January 17 (29), 1877 in the village of Dashkivtsi, Podolsk province, now the Litinsky district of the Vinnitsa region of Ukraine, in the family of an impoverished nobleman (real name - Strumillo-Petrashkevich). In 1896 he graduated from a real school.
In 1897, he took part in a political demonstration of students in St. Petersburg and actively participated in the revolutionary labor movement. In 1898 he joined the RSDLP and carried out underground revolutionary work. In 1901 he was arrested and exiled. A year later he escaped from exile, returned to St. Petersburg to work illegally, was again arrested and exiled to the Olonets province. In 1908 he escaped from exile to the western border. He was a delegate to the IV (Stockholm, 1906) and V (London, 1907) party congresses. Subsequently he joined the Mensheviks.
In 1908 he entered the economics department of the St. Petersburg Polytechnic Institute. In 1910 he was expelled from the institute due to student unrest. In 1905-1914 he wrote a number of scientific and popular pamphlets for workers. He worked as a statistician at the Ministry of Agriculture. In 1912, he was reinstated at the institute, in the commercial department, and graduated in 1914 (at the age of 37) with the title of Candidate of Economic Sciences. Until the autumn of 1916 he served in the Russian Imperial Army.
After 1917, he withdrew from political activity; since 1923, he was a member of the RCP(b)/VKP(b)/CPSU.
In 1916, he served as head of the statistics department of the Special Meeting on Fuel. In 1917 he was elected a member of the Petrograd Duma, then the Petrograd Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies. In 1918-1919 he worked as head of the statistics department of the Petrograd Regional Labor Commissariat, head of the statistics department of the People's Commissariat of Labor and the All-Russian Central Trade Union (1919–1923).
In 1921, on the personal recommendation of V.I. Lenin, he was sent to the State Planning Committee of the USSR, where he worked in 1921–1937 and in 1943–1951. At various times he was deputy chairman of the State Planning Committee, a member of the Presidium, deputy head of the Central Administration of National Economic Accounting (TsUNKhU), a member of the Council of Scientific and Technical Expertise, etc. In 1931 he was elected a full member of the USSR Academy of Sciences.
In 1937-1938, the party press accused him of following opportunist theories of the Soviet economy. Under the influence of bullying, he ended up in the hospital. Despite the severity of the political charges, Academician Strumilin avoided reprisals.
During the Great Patriotic War was Deputy Chairman of the Council of Branches and Bases of the USSR Academy of Sciences.
At the same time, he conducted scientific and pedagogical work at the Moscow State University. state university(1921–1923), Institute of National Economy named after. G.V. Plekhanov (1929–1930), Moscow State Economic Institute (1931–1950).
In 1948-1952, he headed a sector at the Institute of Economics of the USSR Academy of Sciences. He was a teacher at the Academy of Social Sciences under the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) - CPSU, and deputy chairman of the Council for the Study of Productive Forces at the USSR Academy of Sciences. Since 1960 - member of the State Scientific and Economic Council under the Council of Ministers of the USSR.
The main directions of scientific activity of S.G. Strumilina – statistics, development of planning methods, research into problems of labor economics, labor resources, education, science. He owns one of the methods for constructing a labor productivity index - the so-called “Strumilin Index”. Under the leadership of Strumilin, the world's first material balance system was developed. Author of over 700 articles and monographs on economics, statistics, economic management, planning, demographic forecasting, political economy, economic history, scientific communism, sociology, philosophy.
U Kazakh Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR on January 28, 1967 for outstanding services in the development of economic science and in connection with the ninetieth anniversary of his birth Strumilin Stanislav Gustavovich awarded the title of Hero of Socialist Labor and awarded him the Order of Lenin and the Hammer and Sickle gold medal.
Laureate of the Lenin Prize (1958; for the scientific work “History of Ferrous Metallurgy of the USSR”), the Stalin Prize (1942; for participation in the work “On the development of the national economy of the Urals in conditions of war”). Foreign member of the Polish Academy of Sciences (1967) and the Romanian Academy of Sciences, honorary doctor of Warsaw, Jagiellonian (Krakow, Poland, 1966) universities, honorary member of the Demographic Society at the Academy of Sciences of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic.
Lived in the hero city of Moscow, died on January 25, 1974. He was buried in Moscow at the Novodevichy cemetery.
Awarded four Orders of Lenin (06/10/1945, 09/19/1953, 02/04/1957, 01/28/1967), Orders of the October Revolution (05/24/1971), Red Banner of Labor (02/21/1936), medals, including “For Labor Valor” (03/15/1960).