workers and peasants. Nevertheless. I tink wat us situation will change to! the better relatively soon.
Q. What has been and what is the attitude of the democratic opposition towards the working class? Can one speak of a gap between the opposition and the working class?
A. As a whole, the democratic opposition is conscious of the need to improve the material situation of the workers and peasants and to eliminate the privileges of the bureaucracy.
main emphasis is placed on demands relating to respect for legality and individual liberty, in a manner that is not Justinea propornonany. It is an essentia insufficiency of the movement, although iris quite correct to unk mat democra tisation of the country is the principal task.
exception of the neo-Marxists, ridicule the belief in the leading role of the working class.
Q. Can one speak of social and political passivity of the working class? If so, why? Isn't this contrastrikes and clashes with the police that sometimes comes out of the USSR?
A. Yes, the working class in the USSR is very passive. There are many reasons for this. The main one is the absence of consciousness of the class of workers.
traditions of struggle for their interests. The third is common to all classes in the USSR, and that is fear for one's family, fear of losing a good job, fear of the is a deep mistrust ol all propaganda and all agitation. in the USSR are very rare. They are evigone for another year.
But in the democratic samizat the and noble work..."
The majority of democrats, with the dictory with the news we have about organisations expressing the interests and The second reason is the absence of Soviet celebrations of International Women's Day on 8 March have been and The national holiday was marked with the usual official gathering in the capital, attended by an impressive assortment of govern ment and party leaders and addressed by the space heroine Valentina Tereshkova and other women famous for their successes in production. The Central committee's message to Dear soviet Women' was along the traditional lines:
*The warmth of the female soul, the solicitude of wives and mothers makes the Soviet family strong. Loving and attentive, they raise their children - the future builders of communism - to be neainy or body and ideologically TIrIT of mind and worthy citizens of the soc socialist tather ano. ine nation grateful to you women for your great But this year was a little different, for 1976 is the beginning of the 10th Five Year Plan and the 25th Party Con gress has just finished its session. Congress directives made the usual promises to improve living standards and specifically 'the work conditions and everyday life of women, but this yeat une measures to de taken to acnieve ne desired goal were outlined in more det PAID LEAVE These measures include wages for women who stay at home and look after their babies in the first year after birth. Previouslv women have had four months paid leave two months before and two monins arter chlabirn - and tne option of another ten months unpaid leave with their job held open for them. The proposal is therefore to encourage all mothers to stay at home for the first vear by offering them a wage for thi work. A second directive is to provide greater opportunities tor women to work a part-time day or part-time week, and to provide women with work wat they can Soviet women have for long had to shoulder the double burden of work in production and all domestic responsibilities — as 90 per cent of Soviet womer work, the average woman puts eight hours dally into production and an estim ated four hours daily into housework, with consequently less time than her husband for sleep and leisure. It must come as a welcome relief to them to near inat ine government nas recoonisce their position as intolerable. However, although it is not yet clear what impres sion these changes will have in practice, the tendency is obviously to solve the problems of woman's double load by piece-meal changes within the family system, and by trimming woman's pro duction role so that she can meet her The Soviet economy could not function without women, and there is no Dossibilty or a mass exodus or women from production. Nevertheless, it is Imoorant to uneersane now suca dovernment legislation threatens women's position as highly-qualified workers capable of holding posts of importance and responsibility in the work collective.
Women constitute 50 per cent of the Soviet student body and 50 per cent of the qualified 'specialists. The claims or nousework nave in une past alread made it more circuit tor women to cel to the top. It women are now to tak! several years off to bring up their families - and, worried by the dropping birthWomen's conference in Moscow rate the Government is encouraging larger families - and to perform their work outside tne collective, unel chances or playing an equal role in social and political life will recede even further.
The Soviet bureaucracy has never dis played any real understanding or interest in the liberation or women. and it 1976 directives show once again that it prefers to sacrifice liberation to what it chooses to call the 'needs' of the domes-пІс есопошу The Bolsheviks believed that the dom estic economy which determined women's inferior position in society would with the transition to socialism be eliminated by the socialisation of both housework and the upbringing of children. Far from believing that the introduction of women into production would automat ically bring their liberation, they out lined measures for the creation of a whole network of communal facilities. In the early years after 1917, however, the country was too poor to carry out fully such a programme; and in the late 1920s and "30s the growing control of the bureaucracy was accompanied by a rejection of these perspectives, with the tamily and the domesuc economy heing heralded as an integral and important part of socialist society Over the years, it is true, much has been done to lend women a hand. The 1976 directives promise more pre-school facilities, including 2.5-2.8 million extra kindergarten places (in 1975 preschool facilities provided for 11 million under-sevens), more extended day school schools, and more pioneer camps. And the new plans also speak of new labour and time saving gadgets in the home and the marketing or semi-processed Toods.
But the pre-school network and the schools only free women for the time that they are needed in the factory or office, and the most modern home applances or generous supples or Trozen and tinned foods do not free women from the nousework. even when there is talk of improving communal facilities, this is again seen as assisting women -as easing and complementing the family's domestic economy, rather than replacing it.
ing woman's oppression her liberation; but whereas in the 1930s and '40s the economy was not advanced enough to attempt the socialisation of housework the USSR is now wealthy enough to pro viae za-nour nurseries and orner torms of social upbringing on a mass scale, and To maintain a svstem or cares ana res taurants with fare cheap and appetising enough to replace the private kitchen.
There is no longer any need for the dom estic economy - only the bureaucrats' need for the family unit that absorbs the time and energy of its members and atomises the working class, thus depol fLICIsInG I in the early days or the revolution, working women had their newspapers and conterences and organisations through which to discuss and fight for their interests. Stalin, needless to say, found such practices incompatible with his style of 'socialist construction'; and to tnis dav soviet women are witnou the channels through which to articulate their needs. The struggle for the 'active democratic participation of the masses in public life' of which British CP leader John Gollan has spoken involves the re birth of these women's organisations and or the ront to enminate une dom estic economy and the family relations it fosters.
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NO EXCUSE There was never any excuse for call-