The reason [forestry] workers failed to meet scientifically determined yields and targets is that in the forest, as on the farm and at sea, they remained underpaid, mistreated, and unmotivated to improve their unhappy lot. They realized that in comfy offices in Moscow sat cartographers, compilers, and codifiers who had no clue what life was like in a dump truck, on a tractor, or on a boat. The lumberjacks would have told the Moscow bureaucrats that their slovenly performance was linked not only to the low level of mechanization but also to their miserable conditions: the dorms in which they lived were spartan and filthy, with broken windows and no shades. The construction of modest housing for the lumbermen lagged considerably. The workers dropped their clothes on the floor at the end of the day, drank vodka, and fell asleep exhausted. Mice and cockroaches loved these new homes, especially because the clothes were rarely washed; of course there were no laundry facilities. Dining halls were breeding grounds for intestinal disorders, if the workers could stomach the long lines that stretched far from the door and into the mud.

Those in urban employment are in a way a privileged elite, into which many a peasant’s child would wish to climb. They work and live in more secure and comfortable conditions than the agricultural population and in general receive much higher cash remuneration, as well as labour insurance and medical benefits; this applies more particularly to the regular workers in modern enterprises who are an elite within an elite.