Slide 1:

Labour Relations in the Interwar Period

1917 - 1939
Comparing Historiographical Approaches and Debates

Slide 2: Project Summary

This project shall focus on writing a labour history of the Tata Iron and Steel
Company. By labour, I essentially mean the company’s employees, the city’s working
classes, industry dependent workers, and the poor. The core of the research will be located in
the city of Jamshedpur, although I also wish to look at the history of the communities
working in the captive collieries and mines of TISCO. The time period shall be the 20th
century, beginning from the post World War 1 period in the 1920s, and extending tentatively
up to the contemporary period. The end date should ideally be after 1991, with ample scope
for studying the impact of state-sponsored neoliberalism upon the labour force of the
company. The writing of labour history will necessarily have to intersect with an
understanding of business history, in order to achieve a better socio-economic history on the
whole. Thus, the aim will be to understand the tripartite relations between labour, capital and
the state.

The approach shall be thematic, in the sense that the dissertation shall prioritize the
relevant historiographical questions, over a simple chronological narrative. Some of the main
themes (which should go on to be converted into chapters) are as follows: the economic
history of steel; law and juridification; technological changes; determination and distribution
of wages; class, caste and tribe; linkages between the formal and informal economy; and
deindustrialization.

Within the global history of the 20th century, iron and steel occupied an important position in
the drive towards industrialization and modernization. The traditional Marxist position held
that with the inevitable movement of states towards heavy industry, there would be a decline
in the share of agricultural production, and the situation would be increasingly conducive to
the formation of the ‘proletariat’, with corresponding political changes following suit. Of
course, historical experience informs us that the case of labour is much more complex. In the
case of TISCO and Jamshedpur, there were a series of different political stages and processes
that they came to be associated with: production during the World Wars, the post-tariff
colonial state, socialist planning and industrialization under the Nehru-Mahalanobis model,
and the neo-liberal regime. What was the nature of the relationship between these political-
economic processes and the labour force, and how did it get modified with the
transformations? To understand the interventions that I propose to make, it is necessary to
look at the existing literature. It is mainly of two types: the first consists of economic
histories of India which look at larger structural economic questions regarding the colonial/
independent state, and treat TISCO as a case study. These refer to the TISCO labour case
only tangentially, and do not contain a substantial discussion of labour matters. In the second
category are works which are based upon either archival or ethnographic resources, and they
deal with very specific instances, episodes, or themes.

Slide 3: Introduction
This presentation will consider aspects of labour relations in three different states,
USA, USSR and Germany in the interwar period, with special reference to the steel industry.
The industry of iron and steel was integral to the formation of modern capitalism, and the
onset of what has been termed the ‘Second Industrial Revolution’. The choice of the three
states is because they represented fundamentally different conceptualizations of the nation-
state in terms of political formations - namely, free market capitalism, fascism and
communism. The formations rely upon fundamentally different institutions (in terms of
government, market, judiciary, bureaucracy and so on), which derive their legitimacy from
radically opposed ideological world-views. The interwar period was indeed an exciting time
from the point of view of differing ideological formations: these found expression in the
diverse sovereign states and corresponding political movements that were influential in this
period. What were the various social, economic and political forces that came into play in
these contexts? The objective is to understand the various approaches that historians have
taken to study the working classes in these states - and simultaneously apply it as an
analytical framework in writing a labour history of TISCO.

It is obvious that the case of TISCO is fundamentally different from that of the steel
industries in each of the aforementioned contexts. Yet, it should be clarified that the
comparison is not about the state of the steel industry per se; rather, it is of the various
historiographical approaches and questions that have been applied to the question of
industrialization in various contexts. For at least the period before the 1950s, it makes sense
to derive a historical framework for labour history from the international context. This is
because there are no comparable steel plants, or corresponding studies on the labour history
of steel in this period in the Indian context.

Slide 4: U.S.A. Timeline and Takeaways

Unionization, Class Struggle, and Race among the

Steelworkers in the Pittsburgh Industry
Accounts of the steel industry have mainly attempted to understand the dynamics of
the process of unionization that happened in the 1930s. If any single series of events in the
labour history of the 1930s could be considered to have unparalleled importance, it would
indeed be the organization of the steel industry. This is because prior to the 1930s, the
Amalgamated Association faced an abysmal history, when it came to the question of
representing the workers. During the 1892 Homestead strike, Andrew Carnegie and his
deputy Henry Clay Frick had completely routed the workers’ movement by various methods,
including lockouts, the deployment of Pinkerton, and use of state militia. In the 1919 steel
strike again (when there were fears of a potential revolution being the motivation), the steel
industry led by Elbert Gary, had used a combination of brute force and repression to force the
labourers back to work. Did the United States of America, during the Gilded Age, ever
possess the circumstances ripe for the unionization of the workers, or were the structures
heavily loaded against such an occurrence?

The historiography of the steelworkers and their movement for industrial unionization
largely falls into two categories, as delineated by David Brody: The first tries to show that the
Committee for Industrial Organization (CIO) was largely a mass-oriented movement, away
from the earlier formal unionism towards a national level player. The second line holds that
the CIO was in fact a movement towards the right rather than the left, and was an ally to the
interests of American monopoly capitalism. This line asserts that the right of representation
of labour leaders, and their ability to negotiate with government and industry leaders, was
itself contingent upon their ability to guarantee non-radical industrial relations.
 From the late 1800s to the 1930s, employers and the government in Pennsylvania
actively worked to prevent the organization of industrial workers. Business-driven political
machines dismantled labour parties, co-opted labour politicians, and saw to it that labour laws
were struck down by the courts. Private security forces, spies, militias, and state police were
used to suppress unions. Employers also deepened worker disorganization by dividing labour
markets along racial and ethnic lines. Meanwhile, large industrial corporations thrived due to
their strong legal advantages, political influence, and control over police powers. Despite
efforts to break up monopolies, government policies ended up strengthening the wealth and
power of industrial giants, particularly through industrial policing and generous military
contracts.

Before steelworkers could form a union, they needed political power to

counterbalance the influence of the steel companies. Rebuilding labour in the 1920s and
1930s, therefore, required a political approach. Communist attempts to organize miners and
steelworkers were unsuccessful, but they did help unite other groups like the Amalgamated
and the UMWA. These left-wing efforts motivated pro-labour reformers within the
Republican and Democratic parties to challenge the control industrialists had through their
police powers and spy networks. Over time, workers in mill towns gained more civil liberties,
and politicians began to support key unions, such as the UMWA, Amalgamated, and SWOC.
This support helped foster a sense of unity among workers that crossed racial and ethnic
divides.

The SWOC succeeded where many others had failed. With vast resources, strong
leadership, and unwavering loyalty from hundreds of thousands of workers, it was able to
exert significant pressure on the New Deal governments. John L. Lewis, with his
authoritarian control over the UMWA and, to a large extent, the SWOC, played a key role in
rallying political support. This backing proved crucial to labour’s victories. The
government’s decision to cut off naval contracts to steel companies in 1936 and 1937 brought
U.S. Steel to the negotiating table. When steelworkers went on strike at J&L, state police
protected their picket lines, and federal officials supervised union elections. This victory for
industrial unionism was the result of both grassroots organizing on the shop floor and
strategic political action.

Given the anti-union track record of the U.S. Steel company, there is one incident in
its history which stands out. The whole discussion around the labour history of the United
States of America in the interwar period can be perhaps well represented by a nationwide
agreement that the head of U.S. Steel, Myron Taylor, signed with the SWOC. While this
agreement may appear to be vindication for the existence of the SWOC, and of the ability of
its leaders including John Lewis, historians such as John Hinshaw have argued that it was
really the situation with the military contracts that led to the agreement. U.S. Steel’s supply to
the military-industrial complex was a well established business arrangement since the 1880s.
However, this very source of enormous profits would make it vulnerable to political pressure.
The Wagner Act in 1935 had already signalled the willingness of the government to act, and
this was compounded by the recruitment drive of the SWOC, at the eve of what promised to
be a major war. Thus, the U.S. Steel’s agreement on wages and hours was more of a
concession to the government than to the SWOC, and definitely not to the labouring work-
force. This line of argumentation, gives in to the perspective that the intervention of the
federal government into industrial relations was what truly enabled modern industrial
unionism.

Slide 5:

James Douglas Rose argues that steelworkers in the 1930s faced a choice that was
essentially about accepting or rejecting the possibilities offered by the SWOC (Steel Workers
Organizing Committee); in other words, there was no choice between a radical or a
conservative union. The SWOC was formed by the Committee for Industrial Organization
(CIO). This is an argument that is seemingly attested to by John Hinshaw as well: mainly
because of the tight control exercised on the workers by the significant social, political and
economic powers of the steel companies. Political reforms were forthcoming in order to
counter the Depression; however, it is contested as to how much of the Federal reforms were
motivated by the interests of the workers. The opposing view, popularly known as the New
Left view has been best articulated by Staughton Lynd, through his writings on oral histories
and rank-and-file movements. Instead of focusing upon the limited concessions won by the
CIO or the SWOC, the new left view critiques the interests of monopoly capital, and the
complicity of the majority of the top-down bureaucratic unions and government with it. They
insist that the spontaneous militancy of the rank-and-file workers was overturned, and labour
relations were disciplined in line with the needs of capital.
 Thus, new Left writers would insist that it is ultimately the rank and file which should
be the object of study. For instance, the spontaneous appearance of local unions in the steel
towns after the passage of the NIRA was undoubtedly as a result of the efforts put in by rank-
and-filers. A recruitment drive of 1933-34 is highlighted during which the rank-and-filers,
without any union resources, were able to mobilize as many steelworkers, as was the SWOC
during a similar drive in 1936-37. However, the former drive was bound never to get the
institutional recognition as given to the SWOC - as capital, government electives, and even
labour leaders were afraid of its potential of militancy.

Slide 6:
How welfarist were the welfare policies of the steel companies? Historians have
argued that the welfare policies of these companies engendered significant ill will. The
philosophy of welfare capitalism was one thing in theory, however, what was the reality of its
practice? There is no doubt that the policies of welfare were discarded at the first sign of
trouble with the onset of the Depression. For instance, U.S. Steel notified that any employee
who received county or city welfare payments would be liable to retrenchment, in order to
protect the rights of other workers dependent on the company.

It is important to understand the impact of sociological factors upon the general

labour trends in the industry. The First World War brought about significant changes in the
sociological composition of the steelworkers. The war nearly brought to a halt immigration
into the industry from Europe, and the companies were compelled to recruit African-
American workers from the South, and women in large numbers. Hinshaw argues that it was
the increasing militancy of unskilled immigrant steel workers in 1919 which forced the
Amalgamated to call a general strike. It is shown that significant racial and ethnic divisions
persisted during the 1919 strike, and the workers’ inability to overcome these led to the
strengthening of the hands of the management. This would ultimately lead to the policy of the
‘100% Americanism’ of the 1920s. In fact, it is shown that the blame for the strike was
squarely placed according to racial lines, and black workers were even fired or downgraded
in order to regain the loyalty of the white workers who were rehired. Later during the
Depression, the steel firms strategically laid off black workers disproportionately.

The Communist Party USA (CPUSA) played a significant role in the labour
movements of the 1930s, particularly through its influence in the formation of the Congress
of Industrial Organizations (CIO) and the industrial unionism movement. However, the
CPUSA's failure to fully support the radicalization of the Rank-and-File Movement,
especially within the steel industry, remains a point of contention among historians. As noted
in the critique by scholars like Lynd, the party's strategic adherence to the Communist
International (COMINTERN) directives, particularly its dual unionist phase, led to missed
opportunities for developing a more militant, independent, and rank-and-file-driven labour
movement.

In 1933 and 1934, the CPUSA adhered to the COMINTERN’s line, which prioritized
the formation of dual unions, independent of existing union structures like the Amalgamated
Association of Iron, Steel, and Tin Workers. The dual unionism approach was an attempt to
build a worker’s movement outside the traditional capitalist-controlled unions, but it created a
tactical deadlock. The Communist party’s insistence on this approach resulted in the failure to
provide the necessary leadership and support to the Rank-and-File Movement, a crucial factor
in its eventual fragmentation. When the CPUSA could have leveraged its influence to unite
workers within the Amalgamated, it instead chose ideological purity over practical solidarity,
even as steelworkers were clamouring for a more militant union that could challenge the
monopoly of the steel industry.

The change in the CPUSA's position in 1935 to adopt a united front strategy, which
was in line with Moscow's new directives, did little to rectify the situation. By then, the
Rank-and-File Movement had already been marginalized and expelled from the
Amalgamated. The rise of John L. Lewis and his dominance over the CIO, with its organizing
committees that were, as some critics noted, as bureaucratically rigid as any corporation,
shifted the direction of labour organizing away from the grassroots militancy that had
characterized earlier efforts. This shift highlighted the inherent contradiction in the CPUSA’s
strategy: while it was theoretically capable of fostering a more democratic and militant
industrial unionism, its bureaucratic nature and alignment with Soviet directives prevented it
from engaging effectively with the rank-and-file movements that had the potential to push the
labour struggle to new heights.

Furthermore, the party's close ties with the COMINTERN and its emphasis on
centralized control meant that even if the CPUSA had the political will to push for a more
radical, rank-and-file-driven movement, its top-down structure would have limited its
success. The rank-and-file workers in steel, many of whom were eager for a more democratic
and militant union, likely would not have been receptive to a Communist party that was seen
as overly bureaucratic and constrained by international directives. The CPUSA’s failure to
fully embrace the radical potential of the steelworkers' struggles—opting instead for tactical
compromises and top-down control—ultimately diminished its impact in shaping the
direction of industrial unionism in the 1930s. This inability to adapt to the needs and desires
of the rank and file, in combination with its subordination to Moscow’s policies, left a gap
that other forces, like Lewis’s CIO, filled, but at the cost of the more radical, independent,
and militant vision that might have truly transformed the labour landscape.

Slide 7: Germany Timeline and Takeaways

Comrades and Fascists: The Social Location of

Nazism

Timothy Mason mentions that since 1879, heavy industry had been the fulcrum of the
German political economy. In comparison to the process of British industrialization, which
had largely been based on textiles, it was sectors like iron and steel which dominated the
economic interests in Germany - in terms of protective tariffs, price agreements and so on.
Histories of the big business collusion with the Nazis have largely paid attention to the direct
political and financial relations between prominent industrialists such as Fritz Thyssen and
leaders of the NSDAP. However, this is not sufficient to understand the theoretical
underpinnings of the ideology of fascism - or National Socialism, in its specific German
variant. How far were the industrial policies of the heavy industries responsible for
destabilizing the political systems of Weimar Germany? The aspirations of the workers
regarding economic and political rights seemed to be on the verge of fulfillment during the
German Revolution, with the Stinnes-Legien Agreement. However, while several demands
regarding the working conditions were met under this Agreement, the unions all but conceded
the private ownership of the means of production.

Slide 8

The rise of fascism in interwar Germany is a complex phenomenon, entangled with

economic, social, and political forces. To fully understand the relation between fascism and
labour, we must first explore theoretical perspectives on fascism, its origins, and the political
and economic contexts that gave birth to it. Various schools of thought, from Friedrich
Hayek’s classical liberalism to Marxist-Leninist analysis, offer differing interpretations of
how fascism emerged in Germany, particularly with respect to the interplay between capital
and labour. This paper will examine these theoretical views, delve into the primacy of politics
versus economic determinism, explore the polarization of politics due to economic insecurity,
and analyze the porous relations between the KPD and the Nazis. Finally, it will touch on the
potentialities of a ‘history of the everyday’ to understand the complex relationship between
workers and the Nazis.

The debate between Friedrich Hayek and Karl Polanyi offers a foundational
understanding of the origins of fascism, especially as it relates to the economic dynamics of
interwar Germany. Hayek, a staunch advocate of classical liberalism, argued that socialist
economic planning inevitably leads to totalitarianism. For Hayek, the attempt to centralize
control over economic life—whether through a state-run economy or socialism—ultimately
results in the erosion of individual freedoms, leading to a totalitarian state. In his view,
fascism was the product of government intervention in the economy, specifically centralized
planning, which he believed undermined the market’s spontaneous order and led to dictatorial
control.

In contrast, Polanyi offered a different perspective. He argued that the

commodification of land, labour, and money under self-regulating markets created a crisis of
social cohesion. According to Polanyi, the unregulated market system did not simply lead to
economic instability but also threatened the social fabric by undermining the protection of
basic human needs. This breakdown of social structures, Polanyi argued, led to fascism as a
form of reactionary politics, one that attempted to restore social order by emphasizing
nationalistic and authoritarian principles. Thus, while Hayek blamed socialist planning for
totalitarianism, Polanyi saw the very mechanisms of the free market as responsible for the
rise of fascism.

From a Marxist perspective, fascism represented the final stage of capitalist class rule,
a form of bourgeois dictatorship that substituted the traditional democratic state with a more
repressive, terrorist form of governance. Key Marxist thinkers, including Leon Trotsky,
Palmiro Togliatti, Georgi Dimitrov, and Antonio Gramsci, argued that fascism was an
attempt by the capitalist class to preserve its interests in times of crisis. For Trotsky, fascism
was an expression of the inability of capitalism to resolve its contradictions and a desperate
attempt to maintain bourgeois rule through violence and repression.

Togliatti and Dimitrov also saw fascism as an expression of capitalist decay, but they
emphasized the collaboration between big business and government in the fascist model.
Fascism, in this view, was not just a reactionary force but a coordinated effort by capitalists
to secure their interests against the growing threat of working-class revolt. For Gramsci,
fascism was part of a broader strategy to neutralize revolutionary movements through the
creation of a new kind of political hegemony that incorporated both elements of bourgeois
and proletarian culture.

Revisionist approaches, such as those offered by Ernst Nolte and Roger Griffin,
provide a more nuanced understanding of fascism. Nolte argued that fascism could be defined
by a series of negations—anti-liberal, anti-communist, and anti-bourgeois. This framework
helped emphasize the cultural and ideological aspects of fascism, as opposed to its purely
economic dimensions. Similarly, Griffin's concept of ‘palingenetic ultranationalism’ focused
on the idea of fascism as a form of national rebirth, a reactionary movement seeking to
restore a perceived lost national greatness. In this view, fascism was less a result of economic
forces and more a cultural and political revolution that sought to reshape national identity
through authoritarian means. These revisionist theories offer valuable insights into the nature
of fascism, particularly in how it was shaped by ideological and cultural factors rather than
being solely the product of economic structures.

The Marxist assumption that the economy serves as the ‘base’ and politics the
‘superstructure’ has been challenged by many scholars, particularly in the context of the rise
of fascism. According to this deterministic view, the political structure is primarily shaped by
the economic base, with political ideologies and institutions emerging as a reflection of the
material interests of the ruling class. However, this view does not fully explain the rise of
fascism in Germany, where political dynamics were often at odds with the economic
structures of capitalism.

The economic crisis in Germany during the Great Depression fueled political
polarization, but it also revealed the limitations of capitalist recovery. One key argument is
that capital could not bring about economic recovery due to the fragmentation of the
economy, notably the dominance of cartels in heavy industries like iron and steel. These
cartels prevented the kind of economic dynamism necessary for recovery, thus forcing a shift
in German capital’s approach to governance. Under Nazi policy, economic cooperation in the
Weimar Republic gave way to a fragmented and nationalist economic policy. This shift
underscores the growing political centralization and authoritarianism under Nazi rule, with
economic policy subordinated to foreign and social policy goals, particularly rearmament.

However, the thesis that the rise of fascism can be understood through economic
determinism is problematic, particularly when applied to the period after the Nazis seized
power (around 1936). The Nazis were not merely responding to economic crises but were
actively reshaping the political and economic order in ways that transcended mere economic
necessity.

Slide 9:

The psychological impact of the Great Depression played a critical role in the
politicization of the workforce. Seymour Lipset’s thesis that economic insecurity causes
political radicalization, leading to polarized politics along class lines, provides a useful lens
through which to understand the political dynamics of the interwar period. Lipset argued that
the middle class, threatened by the economic upheaval of the Depression, increasingly
abandoned the moderate center and gravitated toward extremist movements like the NSDAP.
Meanwhile, the working classes oscillated between the Communist Party (KPD) and the
Social Democrats (SPD), unable to find a stable political home in the face of rising
extremism.

Reinhard Bendix’s theory complicates this narrative by asserting that the

radicalization of the electorate was not confined to the working class but also involved
previously apolitical groups who were won over by extremist parties. This thesis challenges
the idea that the Depression led to greater solidarity among the working classes and suggests
that the political landscape was far more fluid, with new political allegiances being formed by
non-voters and political outsiders.

A crucial challenge to the traditional understanding of the relationship between the

KPD and the Nazis comes from Conan Fischer, who argues that the relationship between the
two parties was not entirely negative. Drawing on KPD internal documents and police
reports, Fischer shows that the KPD attempted to develop a strategy of working-class
engagement with Nazi supporters, particularly through a program of ‘national and social
liberation’ aimed at wooing Nazi sympathizers. While it is clear that the Nazis outpaced the
KPD in terms of working-class recruitment during the 1930s, Fischer’s argument highlights
the complexity of political alliances and tensions in the German labour movement during this
period.

Finally, the experiences of workers under the Nazi regime cannot be understood
solely through macroeconomic or political lenses. The ‘history of the everyday’ approach
offers a more nuanced view of the relationship between workers and the Nazis, focusing on
the daily practices, rituals, and collective crises that shaped working-class experiences.
Celebrations like May Day and the rise of worker orientations within the Nazi regime
demonstrate the multifaceted and contradictory nature of proletarian politics. Workers did not
simply conform to Nazi ideology but engaged with it in complex ways, reflecting the
multilayered quality of working-class praxis during this period.

The rise of fascism in interwar Germany cannot be reduced to a simple set of

economic or political causes. Instead, it represents a complex interaction of economic crisis,
political polarization, class dynamics, and cultural factors. Theories of fascism, whether
economic (Hayek vs. Polanyi) or political (Marxist-Leninist vs. revisionist), provide valuable
frameworks for understanding how fascism emerged, while the lived experiences of workers
offer a deeper understanding of the contradictions inherent in fascism’s appeal. Ultimately,
the relationship between fascism, capital, and labour in Germany was shaped by a
combination of factors that defy easy categorization, reflecting the broader complexity of the
interwar period.

Slide 11: USSR Timeline and Takeaways

The Revolution Betrayed(?): The ‘Great Debate’

and the First Five Year Plan

There is no denying that the growth of Soviet heavy industry was impressive: in the
period between 1928 and 1941, gross industrial output increased over seven-fold to 138.5
billion rubles. Basic steel production rose to 18.3 million tons. The industrial work-force
grew three times between the said period. However, this industrialization was heavily
contested through ideological debates. Moreover, there were heavy political and social costs
to this transformation - which had to be borne by the labouring masses. This essay shall
reflect upon the aforementioned issues, and suggest some takeaways for writing a labour
history of TISCO. The title of this essay borrows its name from Trotsky’s famous exposition
in 1936. Writing in exile during a period of ruthless industrialization, Trotsky captured well
the problems faced by the Soviet Union - in staying true to its ideological pivots, while
attempting to catch up with the Western industrial powers simultaneously. In one of the most
cynical political maneuvers of history, his own ideologies (regarding collectivization,
industrialization) had been appropriated by Stalin, his bitter opponent in the Bolshevik party,
who had previously staunchly criticized the ideas of Trotsky and the Left Opposition.

Slide 12:
Alec Nove asserts that the debates of the 1920s Soviet Union are fundamental for any
student of development economics. The development and growth of economies even today
face similar challenges as did the then Soviet Union: strategies of economic growth in
industrialization, role of peasantry during land reform, the financing of capital accumulation
and so on. Nove’s observation is that development and growth were not really on the agenda
of Western countries, for one reason or the other. Moreover, as the bulk of finance and
investment in these countries lay in the private sector, these were not subject to public policy.
Consequently, the Soviet economists found themselves in the position of pioneers -
addressing questions that would be potentially tackled by several post-colonial, and
industrializing countries. What are some of the questions addressed in the writing of the
Soviet Union’s history that can be used for the writing of TISCO labour history? I shall
attempt to look at these questions according to two periods: firstly, the economic debates of
the 1920s, and secondly, the era of collectivization and heavy industrialization during the
First Five Year Plan. Also, what was the position of the iron and steel industry, and what
were the specific issues faced in the process of ‘socialist’ industrialization?

The ideological challenge before the Soviet Union was to achieve the socialist
transformation of the economy, on the lines of industrialization, from a semi-feudal economy
- without having undergone the intervening stage of capitalist accumulation. The question, of
course, was the transformation of the relationship between agriculture and industry, and the
source of investment from which this transformation was to be financed.
 The New Economic Policy, or the NEP, represented a temporary retreat from War
Communism, in that it sought to accommodate certain features of a market-linked economy.
In the post-revolution Bolshevik state, NEP was always going to be a problematic and highly
uncomfortable affair. In theory, it was based upon ‘smytchka’ - the concept of wilful co-
operation between the peasantry and the industrial workers. It provided some potential of
capital accumulation - as Lenin himself recognized, the private market oriented peasantry
generated savings, which could eventually be appropriated by the state for the purpose of
industrial investment. However, this had the potential threat of encouraging capitalistic
elements, and the return of inequalities from the Tsarist period. The dilemma was basically
this: agriculture had to be allowed to flourish, since that was where the primitive
accumulation was going to come from; however, this could not happen through the agency of
a prosperous peasantry, or the hated ‘kulak’.

What were the various political strategies that were proposed by influential
ideologues? The Bukharin approach consisted of focusing upon the production of the goods
that the peasants wanted, which at the same time would imply a slower ‘industrial’ growth.
On the other side of the spectrum, it is necessary to reflect upon the concept of ‘primitive
socialist accumulation’, as coined by Preobrazhensky. Primitive capitalist accumulation,
according to Marx, had happened over a period of centuries through expropriation of the
peasantry, colonialism, enclosures of agricultural land etc.

Also, the question of economic transformation was intricately connected to the

question of national security. The debate on ‘Permanent Revolution’ versus ‘Socialism in
One Country’ was of utmost importance - the reality was that the USSR was an isolated
‘revolutionary’ state surrounded by imperialist powers. Thus, the more the importance given
to considerations of national security, the greater was the reliance upon the iron and steel
industries. The argument by the Left Opposition was that of ‘Permanent Revolution’: based
on the hope that the revolution would follow in other capitalist countries, they would
eventually come to the aid of the USSR in its goal of industrialization. However, does this
reflect a certain logical deficiency in the arguments of the Left Opposition? If the support of
other countries was indeed required, this reflected a certain lack of belief in the policies of
primitive socialist accumulation as far as domestic industrialization was concerned.
 Two problems were faced which would be prescient from the Indian point of view,
eventually during the 1950s: the question of agriculture vs. industry, and the problem of
investment capital. Firstly, given the fact that the USSR was still primarily an agrarian
economy in the early 1920s, should the priority have been a policy of export of agricultural
surplus? Secondly, capital was extremely scarce. How could the state have managed the
transition to heavy industry - whose establishment was predicated upon a substantial
investment of capital resources, and which also matured only in the long run?

Slide 13:
In the context of TISCO, the rural-urban divide was also crucial. Many of the workers
at TISCO came from rural backgrounds and were involved in a complex relationship with
their traditional rural holdings. This situation was similar to the Soviet labour force, where
many workers maintained ties to the land, which impacted both their mobility and their
attitudes toward industrial work. Understanding how rural-urban migration played a role in
the formation of TISCO’s labour force could shed light on labour conditions and the interplay
between peasantry and industrial work.

Similarly, India in the post-independence era faced challenges in financing its own
industrialization. TISCO, while a private enterprise, benefited from the state’s support and
protection, particularly as steel was seen as a critical part of India’s post-colonial industrial
strategy. The comparison with primitive socialist accumulation could be useful in examining
how the Indian state attempted to extract resources from agriculture and other sectors to
finance industrial growth. For TISCO, the state acted as both a regulator and a benefactor,
dictating certain aspects of labour, wages, and even the distribution of industrial resources. A
labour history of TISCO needs to explore how capital accumulation within this framework
affected the workforce, particularly in terms of wages and working conditions, which were
often subordinated to national industrial goals.

The problem with the work of Alec Nove is that it places too much emphasis on the
impact of factions in the Politburo. One way out is to go with the perspective of Donald
Filtzer, who presents a dichotomy between the Soviet bureaucratic elite, and the labour force.
However, this gives in to most polemical approaches, which portray the Soviet Union as a
brutal regime, instead of a state that was constantly adapting to changing circumstances. In
contrast to these perspectives, is it possible to see the ideologues as actually representative of
the various ideological strands within the nascent USSR? Also, how can we imagine a history
from below of the concerned period? In other words, can we show the changing political and
economic circumstances as a determining force from below, which impacted the ideological
maneuvers of the policymakers?

No doubt, Filtzer’s work is a closer look at the dynamics of the labour force, although
his ideological lens compel him to see mainly repression throughout. He goes beyond the
strictly economistic descriptions of industrial production, and reflects on the cultural changes
that were wrought on the working classes. In reflecting upon the strategies by the workers to
make the most of the new situation, he discusses the effect of the ‘shock work’ economy.
Shock workers were essentially workers who overworked official norms, in their supposed
zeal for the socialist construction. It is probable that these were more likely efforts to
appropriate scarce resources in a situation where consumption goods and commodities were
in low supply. This shortage had especially been caused in the food production sector, due to
a series of crises that took place- which were namely the scissors crisis of 1923, the forced
collectivization of the first Five Year Plan in 1928, the ensuing famine including the
Holodomor and so on.

Nove demonstrates how the economic debates of the 1920s anticipated several of the
models to come later in the field of development economics - one such debate was the
question of the theory of unbalanced growth (associated with Albert Hirschman) versus that
of balanced growth (Ragnar Nurkse, then advocated by Bukharin).

The context of the USSR reminds us that it is not really possible to write the history
of the urban work-force, without looking at the question of its relationship to the countryside.
Of course, in the Soviet Union’s case, it was not really a story of workers’ migration for
better opportunities, but rather that of forcible proletarianization by the state through
collectivization, dekulakization, etc. This begs the question: in the course of industrialization,
how do we understand the relations that the labourers had with their traditional rural
holdings? Filtzer mentions that the proportion of workers with ties to the land was the highest
in coal, and iron and steel.

It should be noted that with the heavy thrust on urbanization and industrialization,
there was a significant demand created for labour. Yet, it is mind-boggling to see that even
with all the displacement, and forced labour, a shortage of labour developed due to the
massive requirements of labour in the industries and collectives. The most direct impact of
this was faced upon the traditional sectors which were dependent upon seasonal labour. How
did the process of proletarianization impact the erstwhile arrangements of seasonal labour? It
is argued that the collective farm administrators attempted to tie the seasonal workers to the
collective kolkhozes by threatening to confiscate their rural holdings, unless they returned
from their seasonal occupations.

As far as worker welfare is concerned, it has to be admitted that the individuals

enjoyed considerable rights. Of course, whether this was comparable to the worker in other
capitalist countries is a matter of much extensive research. Nevertheless, regarding wages,
output quotas, and disciplinary mechanisms, the workers were protected by an elaborate
system. Although, as far as the trade unions were concerned, Filtzer argues that they came to
occupy an ambiguous position vis-a-vis the regime. Instead of industrial action, they came to
see their main role as the resolution of conflicts through arbitration.

TISCO’s labour relations were also influenced by the state - the Indian government’s
policies of industrial development were coupled with certain labour reforms. The question of
worker autonomy vs. state control was crucial in both contexts. For TISCO, the labour unions
and their role in negotiating wages, work conditions, and strikes could be compared with the
Soviet unions' changing role. A labour history of TISCO would study how unions navigated
between state policies on industrial growth and the needs of the workforce. It could also
explore the ambiguity of trade unions' roles in industrial progress—whether they served the
interests of the workers or primarily the state’s industrial objectives.