The legacy of the old world Bolsheviks inherited a largely destroyed system of state charity. Provisional government for the first time in the Russian stories attempted to replace the royal system of public charity on the institution of state charity. However, the creation of such a ministry did not go further. The three ministers of state grants changed, but local structures were never created and did not actually work anywhere.
It must be said that the Bolsheviks went to power with an attractive retirement plan for the workers. So, back in 1912, the decisions of the VI (Prague) All-Russian Conference of the RSDLP fixed the provision on the full pension replacement of lost earnings. The resolution “Concerning the Duma Bill on State Insurance of Workers” noted: “The best form of insurance for workers is state insurance based on the following reasons: a) it should provide workers with all cases of disability (injury, illness, old age, disability) ;… (B) insurance should cover all wage earners and their families; c) all insured should be rewarded according to the principle of full wage compensation, all insurance costs should fall on entrepreneurs and the state ... ”But already in May of 1917, Lenin returned from emigration to Russia, assessing the real socio-economic situation in the country, writes an article Materials on the revision of the party program. In this work, he revised the principle of social security for the elderly and disabled. The provision on the full replacement of the employee’s earnings with a pension by the state was completely excluded from the party program. Together, this included a new thesis on the need to achieve: “Full social insurance for workers: a) for all types of wage labor; b) for all types of disability, namely: from diseases, injury, disability, old age, occupational diseases, motherhood, widowhood and orphanhood, as well as unemployment, etc .; ... d) payment of insurance costs at the expense of capitalists ... "
Or, if to formulate briefly and somewhat simplified in relation to the issue under consideration, then it was a question of the age of old age, with the occurrence of which a person was considered disabled. As we will see later, the age limit of old age in our country has changed several times. At the same time, it was not always universal, and was often established for certain categories of workers.
After the October coup, rather on inertial-logical thinking, the new government created the assignee of the Ministry of State Prize in the person of the People's Commissariat of State Prize (NKGP) headed by A. Kollontai. The main feature of the new socio-economic institution of Soviet Russia was the development and implementation of class restrictions on pension rights. Originally, the budget of the RSFSR for 1918 for the payment of pensions from the treasury, by analogy with the previous year, allocated more than 1 billion rubles. It immediately became clear that in a war-torn country there are no financial opportunities to maintain the existing mass of pensioners. In the future, this item of expenditure sharply decreased due to the refusal of pension payments to “class-alien” old people from the “former” category. Individual retirement savings of the emergency funds and pension funds of the order funds were nationalized.
At the same time, it was decided to switch to the insurance model of the pension system, the foundations of which were laid in the interests of factory workers back in the 1912 year. Now it was decided to extend its effect to all employees. Disability for any reasons (injury, illness, old age, etc.) was considered an insured event. Separation of the pension system was enshrined by the Decree of the CPK from November 15 1921. Since that time, all employees engaged in hired labor, at the age of old age established at that time, began to receive a disability pension through the social insurance system. At the same time, workers were completely exempted from insurance premiums. This obligation was assigned to legal entities regardless of the form of ownership. The amount of the contribution was within 21-28% of the organization’s salary fund.
For certain categories, mainly military and civil servants, the state pension system has been preserved. In this publication, this direction is not considered.
The first steps to determining the retirement age in the USSR
After the formation of the USSR, the process of centralization and the formation of a single pension system of the country began. The size of the pension was normalized in solid amounts. District coefficients were introduced. The system of pension calculations was streamlined - now it was not personal earnings that were taken as a basis, but the average salary index for a specific region.
In 1924, for the first time, the age limit was established and the conditions for acquiring pension rights for faculty members and academics were determined. The working age limit was determined in 65 years. Further it was possible to work, but already out of state. To receive a pension, 2 foundations were established: 1) to serve in these positions for at least 25 years or 2) reaching the age of 65 years if you have teaching or scientific experience 10 years or more. The pension was set for life in the amount of salary. At the same time, there was a procedure similar to the modern indexation of pensions. In those years, the pension of this category of citizens automatically increased as the rates of remuneration of the faculty increased. Favorable conditions for retirement with disability at an earlier age and with less length of service were also envisaged. Widows and young children were entitled to receive pensions in case of loss of the breadwinner.
A year later, seniority pensions were established for teachers, classes, librarians and some other employees of the public education system. Pensions in each category had lower and upper limits (“fork”). The minimum pension was 20, and the maximum - 97 rubles.
How attractive were such pension rules when they reached the retirement age at the beginning of the 1920s? Let's compare pension conditions for professors with insurance pensions of employees. At that time, the main document establishing the pension standards was the Labor Code of the RSFSR, first 1918, and then 1922 of the year. At the same time, the code from 1918 of the year simply established the 50 age of old-age disability. The normative documents of those years identified 6 disability groups with the loss in varying degrees of ability to work. An employee’s achievement of 50 age was equivalent to disability and was considered a reason to apply for the establishment of a disability pension. But in the 1922 code of the year a separate chapter XVII “On social insurance” has already appeared. It was also indicated there that SNK is granted the right to establish “the duration of the work period giving the right to receive old-age allowance”. By the way, in art. 176, which listed everything that is part of the “social insurance” norm, does not mention the “old-age allowance” referred to in art. 187 Codex. However, the same article explains that disability benefits are granted in three cases: 1) injury; 2) disease and 3) old age. In more detail, all pension issues were regulated by regulatory documents of the NKGP and the National Social Insurance Fund of the RSFSR.
For future retirees, a “class cut-off filter” was installed - a mandatory work experience of at least 8 years. It is quite clear that the old people from the “former” under no circumstances could have had such work experience and were automatically located outside the new pension system. Later this restriction was removed.
For all workers, the age of disability, the same for men and women, was set to 50 years. Upon reaching this age, there were grounds for granting a disability pension. With the age of 60 years, the pension was automatically assigned, without undergoing medical examination. After 50 years, citizens were exempted from all types of labor service in accordance with the Labor Code 1918 of the year. However, in the Labor Code 1922, the age of full exemption from labor service was divided by gender and significantly reduced. Since that time, men older than 45 and women older than 40 have been assigned to this category. The codes laid down the norms of the 8-hour working day, vacation, rest time, etc. It is noteworthy that in both codes only 6 holidays were established in the year, of which only the New Year has been preserved. The rest of the holidays, such as: the Day of the overthrow of the autocracy (March 12), the Paris Commune Day (March 18), the International Day (May 1) and others were lost in the last century.
Introduction of labor retirement pension
In 1928, for the first time in our country, we started to insure workers for old age. Such pensions were established for textile workers. Why did the old-age pension start spreading from textile workers? There are several reasons for this. The textile industry in the period from 1920 to 1927 years recovered quite high, up to 46% per year, by rates. The country's leadership was interested in the production of textiles to increase the volume of commodity-money relations between the city and the countryside. However, the restored level of production of the 1913 of the year began to decline again, since all the internal production and human reserves of the industry were already used. At the same time, textile products have traditionally been considered as one of the sources for obtaining funds for the beginning industrialization of the country. It was in those years that the well-known division of all products into group A (production of means of production) and group B (production of consumer goods) took shape. To reduce employee turnover and attract new employees to the textile industry, one of the stabilizing measures was the introduction of a sectoral innovation - old-age pension insurance. For textile workers, the retirement age was set: for men - 60 years, for women - 55 years. The size of the pension corresponded to 2 / 3 of the amount of pension payments for the 2 group of disability for general illness and depended on the average earnings of the pensioner. As we now understand, in 1928, the year was significant - immediately by 15 years the retirement age for old age was increased compared to the age of disability under the Labor Code from 1922 years for employees (45 men and 40 years).
A year later, this pension practice was legislatively introduced in some branches of heavy industry, in railway and water transport. However, the dynamics of retirement to reach the age limit of working capacity (old age) was insignificant. According to data published by V. Roik, in the USSR in 1928 there were only 2 thousand. 700 old-age pensioners. However, over the next 5 years, their number increased by about 17 times. In 1932, an old-age pension was granted to about 48 thousand employees.
In the 1924 year, on the issues of the Insurance Issues magazine, with all the proletarian categoricalness it was stated: “If you are an old man and are still capable of work, work. But I lost my ability to work - get a pension. ” Nevertheless, in fact, for the 1929 year inclusive, workers of 50-year-old age acquired the right to a disability pension due to age-related disability. At that time, old age as a social risk in the pension legislation of the RSFSR and the USSR did not exist.
Workers reach the age of old age as an insured event
Of key importance for the development of the Soviet pension system was a joint decree of the Central Election Commission and the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR on 15 of May 1929 of the year “On the provision of old-age social insurance”. This document laid the foundations for the future Soviet old-age pension insurance system. The decree was normatively established:
- class orientation of old-age pension provision - only for workers;
- sectoral priorities - for the mining and metal industries (and the electrical industry), as well as rail and water transport, and also confirmed the previously introduced for the textile industry;
- conditions for the formation of pension rights at the onset of old age for workers: 1) for men who have reached the 60 age by the day they left work and who have a total work experience of employment for at least 25 years; 2) for women who, by the time they left their employment, are 55-old and have at least 20 years of general employment experience.
- for the first time, special preferential conditions for receiving an old-age pension for those employed in underground mining operations are standardized - when the age is 50 years and the total work experience is at least 20 years;
- the independence of the appointment of an old-age pension on the degree of working ability of the employee was established;
- introduced a simple and clear calculation of the pension - half of the previous earnings;
- There are several options for pensions in case the pensioner starts to work for hire or to receive additional income in another way.
A new procedure for the appointment of old-age pensions was introduced for workers in the textile industry from 1 December 1927 (retroactively), for workers of the railway and water transport - from 1 January 1929 (retroactively), for workers in the mining and metal industries (and the electrical industry) - from 15 April 1929 of the year.
At the same time, special rights were granted to the Social Security Council under the People's Commissariat of Labor of the USSR to lower the age and length of service for people employed in hazardous industries, as well as to set limits on the amount of pensions to be granted. In 1933, social insurance was transferred to the union.
It should be borne in mind that all the measures taken on social insurance related only to workers and other employees for hire, mainly working in the field of industrial production and transport. The rural population still, as in the old days, did not have pension rights and was provided with the loss of earning capacity due to the system of communal mutual aid. By 1924, more than 50 thousand self-help committees in the countryside were established with a fund in excess of 5 million rubles. By the end of 1920, the cumulative amount of funds in these funds increased 10 times.
To be continued ...