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The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted by Ucucha 00:58, 4 April 2012 [1].

Wage reform in the Soviet Union, 1956–1962

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Wage reform in the Soviet Union, 1956–1962 (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

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Nominator(s): Coolug (talk) 13:01, 18 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

This article is about a series of reforms that took place in the Soviet Union after the death of Stalin. Being a ridiculously under-researched area of Soviet history, there isn't a massive amount of information out there in the world about this reform, however, what little that has been written is of very high quality, and has all been used to source this article. The article had a pop at FAC over the christmas/new year period, the result being four supports and one oppose, the oppose being about prose concerns. I stuck the article on the no-mans-land that is the copyeditors request page, but decided to have a go at rewriting bits myself when interest at GOCE was shown to be non-existent and I had a couple of days at work with nothing to do but mess around on wikipedia. I'll be the first to admit that I found the failure to be promoted last time a bit demoralising, but my previous experience on wikipedia with other FACs has taught me that resilience always pays off in the end. I would ask that anyone with any concerns that they think might be a quick easy fix consider making the changes which may often be a great deal quicker than writing an essay on my failings as a writer. I look foward to any constructive comments. Cya! Coolug (talk) 13:01, 18 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Seeing that I'm a GA and FL-man, and not a FA-man, I'm not the best of reviewers. Even so, here I go:

  • I'm guessing that the Sovnarkhoz reform of 1957 and the monetary reform of 1961 did effect the implementation of this reform in some way or another....
  • Shouldn't the Seven-Five Year Plan be mentioned? Considering that the Soviet economy was built on planning, the plan in which the reform was a part of should be mentioned.
  • I'm not sure, but should it be mentioned that the 1986 wage reform was very similar to to the 1956 reform?
  • The reform caused major disruptions in the machine-tool sector, for instance, the machine-tool sector reported a shortage of 600,000 in 1964 because of the reform. The Brezhnev–Kosygin leadership partially reversed the reform when they came to power. This is not mentioned...
  • A new reform came during the 1970s; did it replace this one, or was it only minor?
  • While the reform was planned to end in 1962, several features of the reform were delayed to 1964 and 1965; for instance, the reform was not introduced in the service sector before 1964/1965
  • The article could do with more pictures of something - maybe pictures of workers? This one maybe?
Probably more to say, but I can't seem to come up with any.... --TIAYN (talk) 16:35, 18 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
hello. Thanks for your comments. Unfortunately there isn't a huge amount of sources that specifically mention this wage reform, so to be perfectly honest I'm not massively knowledgable about a lot of the stuff you mention because I haven't read about it in the sources I've used. However, this machine-tool sector problem sounds very interesting, especially if the leadership specifically blamed the reform, could you point me in the direction of a reliable source I could use for this? I can access academic journals via a friend who works at a university. Anything you can suggest that cites this would be great. Thanks! Coolug (talk) 19:58, 20 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry for the late response, here; Soviet Workers and De-Stalinization: The Consolidation of the Modern System of Soviet Production Relations 1953–1964 (this one contains much information which this article is missing) and The Dilemmas of de-Stalinization: Negotiating Cultural and Social Change in the Khrushchev Era mentions some of this... Do you need more? --TIAYN (talk) 07:29, 25 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Hi, sorry for my even later response :) I've got the "Soviet Workers..." book by Filtzer at home so I'll try and add some of this stuff, however, the index is not super comprehensive so it might take me a while to read through and find the things you suggest I add. Cya! Coolug (talk) 12:44, 2 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I've thrown in a mention of the gorbachev thing, however, I really want to include this machine tool shortage thing but can't find the reference to this among the 300 pages of filtzers book, where is this? Have you got a page number? Coolug (talk) 19:47, 8 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I have found this blasted machine-tool reference in the book! At last! Coolug (talk) 21:30, 29 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support I supported this last time, and I've been through the edits since the previous nomination was archived. These include helpful copyedits from two other editors. The article prose is improved, and I can't see any new issues Jimfbleak - talk to me? 12:23, 19 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comment:

  • Shouldn't the headers "Positive results" and "Failures" be consistent? i.e., "Successes" and "Failures", or "Positive results" and "Negative results"? More of a query than a criticism. But "Conclusions" strikes me as somewhat wrongly worded; wouldn't "Legacy" be a better term? MasterOfHisOwnDomain (talk) 18:14, 19 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
hello. Thanks for this. I have made successes/failure more consistent. I'd rather keep 'conclusions' however, as the text is more about how the reforms told us something interesting about labour relations in the USSR than any lasting legacy of the reforms. That's not to say I'm against changing it, I just don't think legacy would be any more an accurate title. cya! Coolug (talk) 19:28, 20 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: The opening paragraph remains problematic, as indicated by Tony during the last FAC. I wonder why you have not adopted his suggested rewording, which in my opinion is much more fluent and authoratitive than the present tentative beginning. His suggestion was:-

"During the Khrushchev era, from 1956 through 1962, the Soviet Union attempted to implement wage reforms intended to move industrial workers away from the mindset of overfulfilling quotas, which had characterised the Soviet economy during the Stalinist period."

As Tony suggests, this could be tweaked in a few ways without losing any force. I strongly recommend you make this change. Brianboulton (talk) 15:06, 20 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I did do just that during the first FAC. I'm not going to not follow some advice due to some fear of losing face. Here's the page last week [2]. I changed the opening again because short of anyone telling me otherwise I was under the impression the opening was still regarded as falling short (tbh I forgot that the article opened that way because someone else suggested I do it that way).... Anyway, I'll change it back.
Other helpful comments, I shall respond shortly...... Coolug (talk) 18:44, 20 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I've just had another look at the first FAC and noted that I actually did make every change he suggested, except for the removing of the word 'incentive' as I felt (and other editors agreed) that it was an entirely appropriate word for an economics article and was also a the word used in the original source. I'm always happy to make a suggested change if it's a constructive one. Coolug (talk) 13:05, 21 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Support on (1bcde; 2abc; 3 (limited); 4): I've read it again, and it still meets: Content depth, breadth and correctness; source & cite quality; structure; neutrality & stability; media (appropriateness and captions only) Fifelfoo (talk) 01:12, 21 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comments: not as tasty as your last featured article candidate, but I'll try to read this over and review the prose as best I can. A couple quick comments to start:
  • Try to be consistent with comma usage, for example, I see "In 1956..." (no comma) "In May 1955,..." (comma).
  • "Academic Donald Filtzer wrote that wider issues in Soviet industry..." What kind of Academic was Dr. Filtzer? An economic, a historian? Mark Arsten (talk) 20:01, 23 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Hi. Thanks for these comments, I have made a few changes. If there's anything I've missed please let me know. Cya! Coolug (talk) 12:10, 24 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Alright, I'm back again with more:
  • Not a big deal, but I'm not sure wage reforms needs to be bold in the lead (WP:BOLDTITLE).
  • You start the first two paragraphs with "During...", is there a good way to avoid that?
  • In the image caption, I'd suggest "celebrates" rather than "is celebrating".
  • In the second caption, I'd suggest "was offered as a role model for workers by Soviet authorities." instead of "was used by Soviet authorities as a role model for other workers."
  • "This was usually because, due to supply problems, factories simply did not have the resources to complete production until the end of the month." This reads somewhat awkwardly to me. How about "This was usually due to supply problems that left factories without the resources to complete production until the end of the month."?
  • "Alec Nove wrote in 1966... that the lack of transparency surrounding average wages was in fact to prevent Soviet workers..." I'm not sure "in fact" is the best choice there, I'd suggest something like "was intended to prevent Soviet workers..."
  • I made a few copyedits, hopefully inoffensive ones. Mark Arsten (talk) 01:13, 29 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'd prefer 30em over 20em here, but that is purely a matter of preference.
  • "Quotas had been lowered during the Second World War so that new inexperienced workers" Is "new inexperienced" redundant here? Mark Arsten (talk) 03:05, 1 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Hi there. Thanks for your excellent edits. I have now made changes for everything you suggest. Thanks! Coolug (talk) 12:41, 2 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "First, basic wages were increased. This meant that there would be less pressure to overfulfill quotas, and therefore less pressure to manipulate or distort results." Maybe combine these two sentences?
  • Maybe think about combining some of the short paragraphs in the Provisions subsection.
  • "The number of different wage rates and wage scales was drastically reduced." Could we remove "different" here without changing the meaning?
  • "This allowed managers to better distribute labour and helped to reduce the frequency of bottlenecks occurring in production, as formerly less attractive tasks would now be carried out by workers who had seen their financial incentive to focus on higher paying tasks disappear." Is there a good way to tighten this sentence up a bit?
  • "with only 0.5 percent of workers continuing to receive them in 1962", "with piece-rate workers seeing", "with wages across the entire state (not only industrial wages) rising" Is there a good way to avoid the WP:PLUSING in some (or all) of these?
  • "The wage reform was linked to a program that reduced the length of the overall working week in the Soviet Union. From 1958 the working week was reduced from 48 hours to 41." Maybe try to combine these two sentences?
  • "Whilst the reform did remove some of the peculiarities of the Stalinist era, overall the reforms created more new problems for Soviet workers." See if you can avoid the repetition of "the reform... the reforms" here.
  • "A further problem with the centrally directed bonus system was that it would encourage factories to continue producing old, more familiar products where it was therefore easier to overfulfill targets than to start work on new products." This feels a bit wordy to me, is there a good way to tighten it up?
  • "in the same way that their counterparts in the west could" & "Some academics in the west believed" vs "the culture of consumerism that in the West" & "seen to such an extent in the West in industries" Not sure which version is correct here.
  • Made some more copyedits, feel free to revert if you think I put too many commas in. Mark Arsten (talk) 00:03, 6 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I've made changes to everything you suggest. Thanks for your edits, plus thanks for the help Mathew! Coolug (talk) 12:57, 8 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Alright, fixes look good. I'm taking a second, and hopefully quicker, run through the article. I think the prose is in good shape at this point. Just a preference issue, but I'd suggest condensing the lead to two paragraphs. Mark Arsten (talk) 06:28, 9 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • You have "The subsequent sixth Five-Year Plan for 1956 to 1960" and then "The Sixth Five Year Plan made several key changes" in the next paragraph. I think the first one is right?
  • Is there a good article to link to "corrective labour"?
  • Feel free to push back against my last round of copyediting if you think I got too ambitious.
  • Support -- Alright, I've gone over the article about as thoroughly as I can, and I am now more than willing to support its promotion to featured status. Mark Arsten (talk) 14:05, 9 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Hey, thanks for all your help with the article and your support. I piped 'corrective labour' to Gulag. But I've realised that the Gulag system was dissolved in 1960, so I've undone the edit. It would be good to have a link there though, I'll have a look around and see what I can find that might be suitable. cya! Coolug (talk) 16:40, 9 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comment:

  • This page lacks a discussion, or even a mention, of Marxism, Marxism-Leninism or socialism. These theoretical ideas lay behind much of what the Soviet Union was about, and the fact that they are not even mentioned in this article is a great omission. A section discussing these theoretical currents and their influence on the Soviet wage system should really be included in the background section to ensure proper coverage of this area. I personally believe that this is a major issue, but maybe others would disagree with me.
  • Another niggling point that is in the "Conclusions" section the term "West", referring to the western world, is referred to in both capitalised and de-capitalised forms; this should be standardised. (Midnightblueowl (talk) 22:20, 7 March 2012 (UTC))[reply]
The use of these theoretical constructs in the article is inappropriate, if only because the scholarly literature avoids these shibboleths. I don't think the first part of this comment is substantially actionable. In particular neither Marxism-Leninism, nor Marxism, nor Socialism actually lay behind PC policy decisions in the late 1950s and early 1960s. There was more Marxism in the PCI. Fifelfoo (talk) 23:04, 7 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the comments. I'm afraid I tend to I agree with Fidelfoo about the first part, unfortunately the sources I've used are all super scholarly so they don't go into the fact that the Soviet Union was a marxist-leninist state, and in fact I don't think having a centrally dictated wage system is an especially marxist idea anyway.
Fixed the West bit, thanks! cya Coolug (talk) 13:19, 8 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Communism is mentioned at the end of the "successes" section: "He had spoken previously of the reduction of working hours as a basic goal of a communist movement, and had hoped that communism would eventually achieve a working day of 3–4 hours." Not sure how much more you can fit in, but maybe a link in that section? Mark Arsten (talk) 14:05, 9 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Support Comments from Noleander

  • I supported this at prior FAC, and I'm prepared to support it again.
  • The topic is very obscure, boring, and not heavily documented .. but that is no reason to refrain from FA consideration.
  • One improvement I see as necessary: The article does not mention, let alone explain "De-Stalinization". Yet that is the title of the primary source book for the article. The "khrus era" is a close synonym, but "De-Stalinization" also needs to be mentioned and elaborated upon.
  • Leaning towards support once the above is addressed.

End Noleander comments. --Noleander (talk) 23:18, 29 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Hi. Thanks for making a very good point. I agree that this article could do with a brief explanation of what this whole de-Stalinisation thing is all about. I'm at work at the moment but when I get home I'll add something. Cya! Coolug (talk) 09:23, 30 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I've thrown in a sentence about what de-Stalinization was with a wikilink to the appropriate article. I've kept it brief, so if you think it needs more let me know. Cya! Coolug (talk) 12:04, 2 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Changing to Support based on recent change. Support based on prose & MOS only. I have not done spot checks or image checks. The topic of the article is very narrow and there is not a lot to say on it, so it does not leap out as one of WP's stellar articles. Yet, it does mee the FA criteria. --Noleander (talk) 22:21, 2 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Note -- Doesn't look to me that a spotcheck of sources for accuracy and avoidance of close paraphrasing has been carried out on this article as yet. If Fifelfoo is able to take care of that, well and good, otherwise one can be requested at WT:FAC. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 05:49, 2 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • Note -- Source check carried out for nominator's last FA: Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/The Human Centipede (First Sequence)/archive3. Does that count? MathewTownsend (talk) 23:05, 2 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • Spotchecks — I did spotchecks on online sources (no books) using this revision. I think the accuracy and paraphrasing was mostly good, with a few (possibly nitpicky) exceptions. Here are the ones I looked at:
      • reference 3 is accurately quoted -- but should there be a subscription note if you want to read the entire article?
      • ref 5 accurate for the sentence cited. The source also mentioned supplementary pay after above the norm, but it gave an example of 50 and 100% increases, not 10% tiers that was written in this article.
      • ref 9, accurate, assuming it is OK Moscow is used to summarize a synonym for various governmental ministries
      • refs 11, 14, 15, 16, and 26 are good
      • ref 18a,b,c,d accurate, though "by...1961...40 million workers... nearly two-thirds" resembles the sentence structure fairly closely. I also think there is something wrong with "working to a" around one of those #18 references. I think I fixed it.
      • ref 30, OK, but both use "old, familiar"
      • ref 31, no page 80 in that article, couldn’t find what was cited on page 70, which seemed to be the most probably typo
      • ref 7, accurate, but "conceal" used in both
Strafpeloton2 (talk) 00:38, 3 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Hi, thanks for this spotcheck. Ref 31 was made in error on my part, I was supposed to cite page 80 on the Filtzer book, not the Grossman piece. It's lucky that you chose to pick that one out as it might have slipped through otherwise. Incidentally, I found a copy of the Filtzer book online here [3] in case anyone wants to have a look at it (I link goes straight to page 80 btw). cya! Coolug (talk) 07:42, 3 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]


The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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