Poverty in the Soviet Union
The Life-styles of the Underprivileged in Recent Years

This 1986 book deals with the continuing problem of poverty in Soviet society, which the Revolution of 1917 was supposed to solve.

Mervyn Matthews (Author)

9780521325448, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 30 October 1986

244 pages
21.6 x 13.8 x 2.3 cm, 0.42 kg

The 1986 book deals with the continuing problem of poverty in Soviet society, a problem which the Revolution of 1917 was supposed to solve in a planned and expeditious manner. The topic is important both because it involves large numbers of people, and because it illustrates a major failing of Marxism-Leninism in practice. The book attempts to analyse Soviet poverty both from Soviet and western sources: the former are very limited, because discussion of poverty in the USSR falls under a strict censorship ban. This is one of the reasons why it has been so sadly neglected by western observers. The analysis concerns itself with most of the common problems of poverty and under-privilege in an industrialised society. Exclusion from the political process, and the particular social implications of the constitutional status of labour as both a right and a duty, are examined in an account that emphasises life-style and social problems, rather than merely the content of the wage-packet.

Preface
Part I: 1. Is there poverty in the Soviet Union?
2. Who are the Soviet poor?
3. Poverty life-styles: food, clothing, shelter
Part II: 4. Poverty life-styles: other aspects
5. Work and social security
6. Poverty, politics and charity
7. Some further dimensions
Postscript
Appendix
Notes
Bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: Poverty & unemployment [JFFA]