Andrew rothstein

The letter was read at the factory meeting on 13th April, 1929, causing much surprise. In the course of discussion as to how emulation with a village could be organised, it was pointed out that the factory should have economised 495,000 roubles on the year’s programme so far, and had not achieved even half the amount. The meeting elected three workers to go to the village and sign a contract, which was duly concluded. The factory promised to raise productivity by 11%, lower the amount of bad work from 8% to 4%, reduce waste by at least half, do away with all wilful absenteeism, keep an account of the production of every loom, and thus lower costs by 7%. On the other hand, the peasants undertook to increase their contract with the State for sowing of flax from 43 acres to 72 acres, including 12 acres which should be farmed collectively; to buy agricultural implements out of the profits from the collectively farmed land, and by better farming to raise their harvest by 7%.⁵

Other examples of this kind of emulation may be found in the Webbs’ Soviet Communism (volume II, p. 738).

The political and economic significance of the new phase of Socialist emulation was emphasised by Stalin in his political report to the XVI Congress of the C.P.S.U. in 1930:¹

“It can now no longer be doubted that one of the most important facts, if not the most important fact, in our construction is at the present time the Socialist emulation of factories and works, the roll-call of hundreds of thousands of workers in respect of the results achieved in emulation, and the widespread development of the shock movement. Only the blind can fail to see that a tremendous revolution has taken place in the psychology of the masses and in their relation to labour, which has radically altered the features of our factories and works. Not so very long ago there could still be heard among us voices talking of the ‘artificiality’ and ‘impracticability’ of emulation and the shock brigade movement. Today these ‘sages’ don’t arouse even a jeer: they are treated merely as ‘sages’ who have outlived their day. The cause of emulation and the shock movement today is a cause which has been won and consolidated....

“The most remarkable feature of emulation consists in the radical revolution it has wrought in men’s' views of labour, because it transforms labour from a disgraceful and painful burden, as it was reckoned before, into a matter of honour, a matter of glory, a matter of valour and heroism....

“It would be foolish to think that our working class, which has gone through three revolutions, would accept intensification of labour and the mass shock brigade movement in order to manure the soil of capitalism. Our working class has accepted the intensification of its labour, not for the sake of capitalism, but in order finally to bury capitalism and build Socialism in the U.S.S.R.”

The results of the first Five Year Plan examined in the first chapter were regarded by Soviet leaders, among other things, as the supreme victory of the Socialist emulation movement. It was not only the result in quantity— evaluated at 96.4% of the plan for industry, according to the final figures given by Molotov at the XVII Congress of the C.P.S.U. in 1934—but also the increase in labour productivity that was used as the criterion. This amounted to over 41% by the end of 1932.² True, the plan had provided for a much greater increase (by the end of 1933)—110%. But the tremendous recruitment of workers from the countryside (man-power in industry increasing roughly from 11 millions to 22 millions—more than 50% above what had been planned) meant that the factories had been diluted with millions of workers at a less advanced level of political development than those who had brought Soviet industry to the 1913 level before the Five Year Plan was started. To achieve such a big general increase in productivity, in these circumstances, was a substantial success. Moreover, non-fulfilment of the plan in this respect was compensated, as Stalin pointed out later, by the training of this new labour force to handle the most modern machines from the very outset: which would be of great value in the next Five Year Plan.

Reporting on the results of the first Plan at the Central Committee and Central Control Commission of the C.P.S.U., in January, 1933, Stalin declared that without the “activity and self-devotion, enthusiasm and initiative” of the workers, technicians and collective farmers in developing Socialist emulation and shock work, “we could not have achieved our goal”.³

In the fulfilment of the second Five Year Plan yet wider horizons opened before the millions engaged in Socialist emulation; and the result was still more important than in the previous four years. To begin with, the idea of the counter-plan and that of the cost-accounting brigade played a prominent part from the outset in the discussions of the new Five Year Plan, instead of being reached by stages, as they were before. The consequence made itself felt already in 1933, by the appearance of the movement for technical, industrial and financial plans, produced by the method of counter-planning from below. Molotov spoke of this, in the report to the Party Congress of 1934 already mentioned, as a movement, started in a number of Leningrad factories, which was “worthy of imitation”:⁴

“The technical, industrial and financial plan, in the drawing up of which not only the economic and technical personnel participate but also all the workers in the factory, who test the technical and productive capacity of each department, each stage and each machine, and thereby actively participate in discovering the productive resources of the given factory, is one of the finest Socialist forms of struggle for our rate of development. This idea of a technical, industrial and financial plan cannot be reconciled with the old habit of economic administration ‘in general’; it heightens the sense of responsibility of every worker for his factory—and therein lies our great strength.”

The construction of such plans, indeed, meant that the workers had to consider the technical side as well as the economic and labour side of production. This, of course, presupposed just such a vast army of workers, more or less familiar with modern machinery, as had been produced; on the other hand, it developed in them a much more profound knowledge of their machines and of technical processes than before. Without the stimulus of a personal interest in matters of public importance it could scarcely have developed.

One of the first examples was at the “Svetlana” Works at Leningrad. More than 2000 workmen took part in drawing up the technical, industrial and financial plan, jointly with the technicians. The work involved issuing “passports” for each machine-tool, or in other words ascertaining all its productive possibilities as well as its peculiarities; planning the replacement of out-of-date machines by more modern, automatic machine-tools; working out more precisely the different stages in the process of manufacturing every item of the output of the works; investigating possibilities of better use of works space, power and coal, and transport inside the works; fixing higher qualities of output; proposals for replacing imported materials by those produced at home; organising the use of man-power and methods of management more rationally. As a result, the workers economised man-power in their counter-plan by 1141 workers, compared with the draft coming from above; they raised productivity by 30% above what had been planned; they reduced costs by almost 10% above what had been required, and they reduced the demand made by the works for imported materials from 1¼ million roubles to 63,000 roubles. The example was widely followed; and Kirov, one of the outstanding leaders of the C.P.S.U., described the movement as “a model of the true Socialist organisation of labour, a genuine bit of Socialism”.¹ It was of vast importance, he declared, “from the point of view of eliminating the gulf between manual and intellectual labour, because the worker, when actively taking part in planning production, really does rise to the level of the creative management of his machine, his shop and of the whole works in its entirety

At the end of 1933 three-quarters of the nearly 23 million industrial workers and employees were engaged in Socialist emulation, and the number of shock brigaders in industry exceeded 4 millions. One-third of the workers were members of “ cost-accounting brigades”.²

5. Stakhanovites in Peace and War, 1935-45

In 1935 the movement rose to an entirely new height with the appearance of the Stakhanov movement. The essence of this has often been described. It was begun by a Donetz miner, Alexei Stakhanov, who on 31st August, 1935, re-arranged by agreement the jobs of an entire group of miners at his work-place, so as to ensure the use of modern coal-cutting machinery to the full, the fullest possible employment of skilled workers at their own speciality, and the most rational division of labour between the hewer, the filler, the propper, and so forth. By doing so his shift produced 102 tons instead of the 7 tons which had been the quota, without anyone having to work harder or more exhaustingly than before. The net result was that the pit as a whole, which used to produce from goo to 980 tons a day, increased its output to 1200 tons. Stakhanov said of this experience:³

“I must say that there were plenty in our own pit who wouldn’t believe at first that I could have cut 102 tons in a shift. There must have been a mistake in adding up his figures, they said. We had to get this firm, we had to show all the doubters that you could get 102 tons and more without a big strain, providing only the work were properly organised. So on 3rd September the Party organiser of the stretch where I was working, comrade Dyukanov, went down into the pit. This stretch is called ^‘Nikanor East’. Dyukanov worked one shift and got 115 tons. But they didn’t believe Dyukanov all at once, either. We had to send another man down. And the third to go cutting in the pit was a member of the Communist League of Youth, Kontsedalov, who put up a new record—125 tons. A few days later I beat my own and their records, cutting first 175 tons, and then 227, in one shift. Of course my record would have remained just a record, if the practical conclusions had not been drawn at once from it for the whole district, the whole pit. Everyone realised that you could so organise the work as to use the pneumatic drill 100%, and so as to surpass existing output of the hewer several times. You had only strictly to specialise the workmen: the hewer must cut and the propman prop, and the lengths of ledge must be made larger.”

Immediately the principle underlying Stakhanov’s initiative—a new approach to the rational organisation of the labour process—spread to other industries. The names of a blacksmith, Busygin, in the motor industry, of a milling-machine operator, Gudov, in the machine-tool industry, of the weavers, Maria and Yevdokia Vinogradova in the textile industry, of a driver, Krivonos, on the railways, of a leather-worker, Smetanin, of Maria Demchenko and Pasha Angelina in agriculture, and of many others became famous for the appropriate changes they made in their respective fields of work. By the end of the second Five Year Plan, 25% of all the workers were engaged in the Stakhanov movement.¹ On the railways alone there were over 560,000 Stakhanovites.²

The effect on output was extraordinary. In the first year of the movement—1936—industrial output achieved a record increase, even by Soviet standards, of 30.2%.³ The aggregate output of industry over the five years increased by 121%, instead of the 114% which had been planned.⁴

Moreover, to a considerable extent this was due to a phenomenal rise in the productivity of labour. This time plans were over-fulfilled in that sphere too. The anticipated increase had been 63% in industry: in fact, it rose by 82%.⁵ Productivity of labour in the building industry had been planned to rise by 75%: in fact it grew by 83%. In heavy industry between 1930 and 1934 productivity increased by 30.7%, while from 1934 to 1938 it rose by 78.6%.⁶ This was the return on the big capital expenditure, in all senses, of the first Five Year Plan.

At an All-Union Conference of Stakhanovites held in Moscow in November, 1935, Stalin had made the following observations on the nature of the new movement:⁷

“Wherein lies the significance of the Stakhanov movement?

“Primarily in the fact that it is the expression of a new wave of Socialist emulation, a new and higher stage of Socialist emulation.... In the past, some three years ago, in the period of the first stage of Socialist emulation, Socialist emulation was not necessarily associated with modern technique. At that time, in fact, we had hardly any modern technique. The present stage of Socialist emulation, the Stakhanov movement, on the other hand is necessarily associated with modern technique. The Stakhanov movement would be inconceivable without a new and higher technique....

“Further, this movement is breaking down the old views on technique, it is shattering the old technical standards, the old designed capacities and the old production plans, and demands the creation of new and higher technical standards, designed capacities and production plans. It is destined to produce a revolution in our industry. That is why the Stakhanov movement is at bottom a profoundly revolutionary movement....

“Its significance lies also in the fact that it is preparing the conditions for the transition from Socialism to Communism.

“The principle of Socialism is that in a Socialist society each works according to his ability and receives articles of consumption, not according to his needs but according to the work he performs for society. This means that the cultural and technical level of the working class is as yet not a high one, that the distinction between manual and mental labour still exists, that the productivity of labour is still not high enough to ensure an abundance of articles of consumption, and that as a result society is obliged to distribute articles of consumption, not in accordance with the needs of its members, but in accordance with the work they perform for society.

“Communism represents a higher stage of development. The principle of Communism is that in a Communist society each works according to his abilities and receives articles of consumption, not according to the works he performs, but according to his needs as a culturally developed individual. This means that the cultural and technical level of the working class has become high enough to undermine the basis of the distinction between mental labour and manual labour, that the distinction between mental labour arid manual labour has already disappeared, and that productivity of labour has reached such a high level that it can provide an absolute abundance of articles of consumption: and as a result, society is able to distribute these articles in accordance with the needs of its members....

“The elimination of the distinction between mental labour and manual labour can be brought about only by raising the cultural and technical level of the working class to the level of engineers and technicians. It would be absurd to think that this is not feasible. It is entirely feasible under the Soviet system, where the productive forces of the country have been freed from the fetters of capitalism, where labour has been freed from the yoke of exploitation, where the working class is in power, and where the younger generation of the working class has every opportunity of obtaining an adequate technical education....

“In this connection, the Stakhanov movement is significant for the fact that it contains the first beginnings—still feeble, it is true, but nevertheless the beginnings—of precisely such a rise in the cultural and technical level of the working class of our country.... Today the Stakhanovites are still few in number, but who can doubt that tomorrow there will be ten times more of them?”

As though to emphasise the latter point, the increase of productivity in State industry during the first three years of the third Five Year Plan (1938-40) was a further 38%¹ —thus keeping abreast of the programme for the whole period (an increase of 65% by 1942).

It was in war-time, however, that the dependence of the entire economic and political structure of the U.S.S.R. upon the active attention of its working class to its own affairs was brought out most sharply.

The war produced some problems for Soviet industry which were familiar to other countries, such as the need for a great expansion of war production, for the adaptation of existing factories and building of new plant, and for the training of millions of women and young people to take the place of workmen called up for military service. But in addition there were vast problems peculiar to the U.S.S.R. Thirteen hundred factories, as we have seen, had to be moved from west to east, and re-started on the new sites as rapidly as possible (in fact, the factories began production at the new sites usually three or four weeks after their arrival, and within two or three months were producing more than before the war).² Unlike other countries which could rely upon mass imports of finished high-quality war material, the U.S.S.R. to expand its armaments had to expand its production of the basic semi-finished requirements of the war industries—coal, iron and steel, electric power—on a vast scale (in fact 200 new coal-pits were sunk, 24 blast furnaces, 128 open-hearth steel furnaces, 56 rolling mills and 67 coke batteries were built, and many new power-stations put up).³ This was all the more pressing because the German invasion deprived the U.S.S.R., for a considerable time, of areas which before the war produced two-thirds of its coal and 60% of its steel. It was no small problem of the U.S.S.R., moreover, that as its armies liberated parts of its territory, from the end of 1941 onwards, it had to cope with devastation such as the other Great Powers were spared: which imposed an additional strain on Soviet industry long before the war ended.