ABSTRACT
The State Enterprise Law of 1987, which was to be implemented by January 1, 1990, was designed to shift control over industrial activities from the central ministries to the individual enterprises, and in the process, to guarantee the workers some authority over the same enterprises and plant managers. Departmentalization was typically indifferent to all regional demands; hence, during its post-Stalinist heyday, Siberians were not much worse off than their Moscow or Leningrad comrades. Kuzbas miners expressed their dismay by voting against incumbent Communists in the city of Kemerovo, candidates for the regional executive committee, and the directors of the Kemerovo coal and railway administrations. As demand for Kuzbas coal withered under the new economic stimuli, conditions worsened. Working class resistance increased against attempts to solve the economic crisis at the expense of living standards and social welfare.
