Aleksei Kapitonovich Gastev ( ‹See Tfd› Russian : Алексей Капитонович Гастев) (8 October 1882, Suzdal, Vladimir Governorate – 15 April 1939, Kommunarka, Moscow) was a Russian revolutionary, a pioneering theorist of the scientific management of labour in Soviet Russia, a trade-union activist, and an avant-garde writer and poet.
Aleksei Kapitonovich Gastev was born in the small central Russian town of Suzdal. He grew up in an idyllic neighbourhood with large cherry orchards a short distance from the centre of the town. The towns inhabitants were mostly artisans - cobblers, tailors, hatters, painters, etc. Gastev’s father Kapiton Vasilevich Gastev was a teacher, a school headmaster and an inventor. Among other things, he invented an electrical apparatus for the treatment of rheumatic ailments. He died when Alexei was two years old. Gastev's mother, Ekaterina Nikolaevna, was a seamstress. Aleksei Gastev later described his childhood home as clean and cosy and furnished in the national Russian style. [1]
In 1898 or 1899 Alexei Gastev entered the Moscow Teachers' College with the intention to become a teacher like his father. In 1900 he joined the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party. In 1902, just before final examinations, he was expelled from the college for being among the leaders of a student demonstration to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the death of Nikolay Dobrolyubov. From this time on he became a professional revolutionary and devoted himself to political activities mostly in the form of propaganda and agitation among the industrial workers. [2] During this time, Gastev was closely associated with the Bolshevik faction of the party; he frequently corresponded with Vladimir Lenin and his wife, Krupskaya, on matters of party policy in 1903-1904 and reported to Lenin on the general strike in Ivanovo-Voznesensk in 1905.
As a result of his revolutionary activism, Gastev was arrested by the authorities and exiled to various parts of Northern and Eastern Russia in at least three separate incidents. He was nevertheless able to escape from his exiles each time, living illegally in Russia and usually managing to find his way abroad. In 1907, Gastev dissociated himself from the activities of the Bolshevik faction and officially left the party in 1908.
From 1901 until 1917, Gastev's time was divided between exiles, escapes, and work in Russian or European factories. His experience as a factory worker led him to develop a rather practical approach to Marxism. Revolution for Gastev meant empowering workers by allowing them to control everyday matters related to work-processes. Gastev became involved in the work of the Petersburg Union of Metal Workers, one of the most influential trade-unions in Russia, in 1907. In 1908 he got work with the Vasileostovskii Trolley Depot. Here he was chosen to monitor wear and tear on the transmission belts and sprockets and analyze the repair process of the trolley cars. It was here that he first thought of developing a "science for the social construction of enterprises". [3]
In 1910, he was again arrested but when he was sent to Siberia, he escaped to Paris, where he worked for the motor-car manufacturer Clément-Bayard. Here he first became familiar with quality assurance which was carried out in a particularly thorough fashion. [3] By 1912 he was working for Citroën where he witnessed the application of assembly line production which was inspired by the Ford plant in the United States. [3] At that time, he became familiar with French Syndicalism and adopted many of its views, seeing trade unions as a chief means of confronting capitalism by bringing concrete improvements into the lives of workers. By 1913, Gastev had joined the Circle of Proletarian Culture, composed of revolutionary writers of Anatoly Lunacharsky, Fedor Kalinin, Pavel Bessalko and Mikhail Gerasimov. [4] In 1917-1918, Gastev won election as the Chairman of the Central Committee of the newly created All-Russian Union of Metal Workers. He actively participated in the 1918 Conference of the Union.
In 1920, Gastev became the founder and Director of the Central Institute of Labour (CIT) ( ‹See Tfd› Russian : ru:Центральный институт труда ) in Moscow, which he referred to as his "last work of art". The institute was encouraged by Lenin, who promised to allocate the initial funding for the project. The institution developed scientific approaches to work management, which in practical terms amounted to methods of training workers to perform mechanical operations in the most efficient way. Simple repetitive operations (like the cutting of materials with a chisel) were studied in great detail, allowing for more efficient operations to be developed. According to Figes (1996), Gastev "As the head of the Central Institute of Labor, established in 1920, he carried out experiments to train the workers so that they would end up acting like machines. Hundreds of identically dressed trainees would be marched in columns to their benches, and orders would be given out by buzzes from machines. The workers were trained to hammer correctly by holding a hammer attached to and moved by a hammering machine so that after half an hour they had internalized its mechanical rhythm. The same process was repeated for chiseling, filing, and other basic skills. Gastev's aim, by his own admission, was to turn the worker into a sort of 'human robot' (a word, not coincidently, derived from the Slavic noun robota meaning work). Since Gastev saw machines as superior to human beings, he thought this would represent an improvement in humanity." [5]
In 1921, in his article “Our Tasks” Alexei Gastev proposed a “social engineering” program based on the following principles of the scientific organization of labour in the socialist economy:
Alexei Gastev understood “social engineering” as a scientific and practical method to solve the complex problem of the “machine-man” system that requires scientific experiment and rationalization. “In the social field, an era must come... of precise measurements, formulas, drawings, control gauges, social norms... we must pose the problem of complete mathematisation of psychophysiology and economics, so that we can operate with certain coefficients of arousal, mood, fatigue, on the one hand, straight and curved economic incentives, on the other”. [7]
However, unlike Frederick Taylor or Henry Ford, Alexei Gastev focused first of all on the human factor, making it the main idea of his seminal book “How to Work”. He believed that people play the main role in the operation of an enterprise. The effectiveness of an organization begins with the personal effectiveness of each person in the workplace. Being himself both a worker and an intellectual, a representative of the so called proletarian intelligentsia, he tried to see things from the worker’s perspective. [8]
Platon Kerzhentsev criticized Gastev's Taylorist approach for adopting a "narrow base" by focusing on the worker rather than looking at the more general aspects of how production should be organized in a socialist society. In 1921 the Central Council of Scientific Organization of Labor (SOVNOT) was set up with both factions involved. In 1924 the All-Russian Scientific Management Conference was held in Moscow, where both Gastev and Kerzhentsev argued their case. The conference sided with Gastev, although Kerzhentsev argued that the CIT had wasted three years. [9] From 1932 to 1936 he was the chairman of the All-Union Committee for Standardization (Gosstandart) under the Council of Labor and Defense, as well as the editor-in-chief of the journal Bulletin of Standardization. [10]
In 1928, in an effort to increase the funding of the CIT, Gastev organized the Ustanovka ("Setup") as a social enterprise (joint-stock company) which audited the work of industrial enterprises and provided recommendations on efficient organization of their work processes on a commercial basis. [11] Here Gastev applied his ideas on education, based on his concept of "social engineering", meaning the creation of training methods based on the physiological and psychological study of humans in the work process, using both observational and experimental methods. This led to the creation of the "setup method" (установочный метод), which viewed the conditioning of human faculties as a basis for reform of the educational system in its entirety. The term "setup" (установка) implied the formation of personal automated behaviors through "biological setups", "cultural setups", etc. Gastev's methods were used in intensive trainings of qualified workers and were highly successful.[ citation needed ]
Gastev's Poeziia rabochego udara, (Poetry of the worker's blow), was the first book published by Proletkult in 1918. [12] Most of Gastev's poems may be fairly labeled prose poetry. The rhythm is usually not organized enough to qualify for verse, the rhyme is absent, the poems are written in the form of prose pieces. However, the use of metaphor, lyrical expressiveness, and repetitiveness of syntax undoubtedly make Gastev a true lyrical poet, with influences ranging from Émile Verhaeren and Walt Whitman to the Russian Futurists.
Gastev's poetry energetically celebrates industrialization, announcing an era of a new type of human, trained by the overall mechanization of everyday life. In the 1920s Gastev abandoned his literary work completely, dedicating himself to his scientific management research. However, many of his later publications on non-poetic topics are written in the expressive language of prose poems.
On September 8, 1938, Gastev was arrested on false charges of "counter-revolutionary terrorist activity". He was detained in a Moscow prison and sentenced to death by a speedy trial on April 14, 1939. There was no defense attorney and no possibility to appeal against the decision, as was common during the Great Purge. On April 15, 1939, Gastev was shot to death in the suburbs of Moscow.[ citation needed ]
October 1, 1941, the date of Gastev's death given by some sources, is based on false information given by the authorities to Gastev's family prior to 1991. No reliable information about Gastev's fate after his arrest was available until the KGB archive, where the interrogation and trial documents were kept, became accessible to relatives in the early 1990s.[ citation needed ]
Gastev's legacy is commemorated by the Gastev's Cup [13] by the "Lean Forum. Lean Production Professionals" Inter-Regional Public Movement. His son Yuri Gastev was a prominent Soviet mathematician and dissident who eventually emigrated to the USA. In 2019, an exhibition in the Na Shabalovke gallery in Moscow presented the work of Gastev. For the first time exhibits were presented that documented the different roles of Gastev as a theorist, writer, journalist, politician and founder of the CIL (Central Institute of Labor) (Manovich 2020). [14]
The Bolsheviks, led by Vladimir Lenin, were a far-left faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) which split with the Mensheviks at the Second Party Congress in 1903. The Bolshevik party, formally established in 1912, seized power in Russia in the October Revolution of 1917, and was later renamed the Russian Communist Party, All-Union Communist Party, and Communist Party of the Soviet Union. The party's ideology, based on Leninist and later Marxist–Leninist principles, is known as Bolshevism.
Leninism is a political ideology developed by Russian Marxist revolutionary Vladimir Lenin that proposes the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat led by a revolutionary vanguard party as the political prelude to the establishment of communism. Lenin's ideological contributions to the Marxist ideology relate to his theories on the party, imperialism, the state, and revolution. The function of the Leninist vanguard party is to provide the working classes with the political consciousness and revolutionary leadership necessary to depose capitalism.
Bolshevism is a revolutionary socialist current of Soviet Leninist and later Marxist–Leninist political thought and political regime associated with the formation of a rigidly centralized, cohesive and disciplined party of social revolution, focused on overthrowing the existing capitalist state system, seizing power and establishing the "dictatorship of the proletariat".
Anatoly Vasilyevich Lunacharsky was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and the first Bolshevik Soviet People's Commissar (Narkompros) responsible for the Ministry of Education as well as an active playwright, critic, essayist, and journalist throughout his career.
Proletkult, a portmanteau of the Russian words "proletarskaya kultura", was an experimental Soviet artistic institution that arose in conjunction with the Russian Revolution of 1917. This organization, a federation of local cultural societies and avant-garde artists, was most prominent in the visual, literary, and dramatic fields. Proletkult aspired to radically modify existing artistic forms by creating a new, revolutionary working-class aesthetic, which drew its inspiration from the construction of modern industrial society in backward, agrarian Russia.
Mikhail Prokofyevich Gerasimov was one of the most widely read working-class poets in early-twentieth-century Russia. Initially embracing the Bolshevik Revolution as a liberating event and participating in the effort to create a new proletarian culture, following the New Economic Policy he became disillusioned and was imprisoned during the Joseph Stalin era.
Platon Mikhailovich Kerzhentsev, was a Soviet state and party official, revolutionary, diplomat, journalist, historian, playwright and theatre and arts theorist who was involved with the Proletkult movement.
God-Building is an idea proposed by some prominent early Marxists in the Bolshevik faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party. Inspired by Auguste Comte's Religion of Humanity, the concept had some precedent in the French Revolution with the Cult of Reason. The idea proposed that in place of the abolition of religion, there should be a meta-religious context in which religions were viewed primarily in terms of the psychological and social effect of ritual, myth, and symbolism, and which attempted to harness this force for pro-communist aims, both by creating new ritual and symbolism, and by re-interpreting existing ritual and symbolism in a socialist context. In contrast to Leninist atheism, the God-Builders took an official position of agnosticism.
Vpered was a subfaction within the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP). Although Vpered emerged from the Bolshevik wing of the party, it was critical of Lenin. The group was gathered by Alexander Bogdanov in December 1909 and was active until 1912. Other notable members of the group were Maxim Gorky, Anatoly Lunacharsky, Mikhail Pokrovsky, Virgil Shantser, Grigory Aleksinsky, Stanislav Volski, and Martyn Liadov.
Vladimir Alexandrovich Bazarov was a Russian Marxist revolutionary, journalist, philosopher, and economist. Born as Vladimir Alexandrovich Rudnev, Bazarov is best remembered as a pioneer in the development of economic planning in the Soviet Union. He was one of the Russian Machists, as Lenin dubbed the term, and was a close friend to Alexander Bogdanov.
The Central Institute of Labour (CIT) was an organisation set up in Moscow for the study of work.
The first significant attempt to implement communism on a large scale occurred in Russia following the February Revolution of 1917, which resulted in the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II. The Bolshevik Party, led by Vladimir Lenin, capitalized on the discontent with the Provisional government and successfully seized power in the October Revolution of the same year. Lenin's government began to transform Russian society through policies such as land redistribution, nationalization of industry, and withdrawal from World War I. After Lenin's death in 1924, Joseph Stalin's rise to power brought about rapid industrialization, forced collectivization, and widespread political repression, which solidified the Soviet Union's status as a major world power but at a tremendous human cost.
Proletarskaya Kul'tura was the main theoretical magazine published by Proletkult.
Alexander Aleksandrovich Bogdanov, born Alexander Malinovsky, was a Russian and later Soviet physician, philosopher, science fiction writer and Bolshevik revolutionary. He was a polymath who pioneered blood transfusion, as well as general systems theory, and made important contributions to cybernetics.
Alexei Ivanovich Rykov was a Russian Bolshevik revolutionary and a Soviet politician and statesman, most prominent as premier of Russia and the Soviet Union from 1924 to 1929 and 1924 to 1930 respectively. He was one of the accused in Joseph Stalin's show trials during the Great Purge.
The First Conference on Scientific Organization of Labour was held in Russia in January 1921 to bring together experts in different fields around the study of the problems of human work.
In Marxist philosophy, the dictatorship of the proletariat is a condition in which the proletariat, or working class, holds control over state power. The dictatorship of the proletariat is the transitional phase from a capitalist to a communist economy, whereby the post-revolutionary state seizes the means of production, mandates the implementation of direct elections on behalf of and within the confines of the ruling proletarian state party, and institutes elected delegates into representative workers' councils that nationalise ownership of the means of production from private to collective ownership. During this phase, the organizational structure of the party is to be largely determined by the need for it to govern firmly and wield state power to prevent counterrevolution, and to facilitate the transition to a lasting communist society.
Terrorism and Communism: A Reply to Karl Kautsky‹See Tfd›German: Terrorismus und Kommunismus: Anti-Kautsky; ‹See Tfd›Russian: Терроризм и Коммунизм, Terrorizm i Kommunizm) is a book by Soviet Communist Party leader Leon Trotsky. First published in German in August 1920, the short book was written against a criticism of the Russian Revolution by prominent Marxist Karl Kautsky, who expressed his views on the errors of the Bolsheviks in two successive articles, Dictatorship of the Proletariat, published in 1918 in Vienna, Austria, followed by Terrorism and Communism, published in 1919.
The cultural revolution was a set of activities carried out in Soviet Russia and the Soviet Union, aimed at a radical restructuring of the cultural and ideological life of society. The goal was to form a new type of culture as part of the building of a socialist society, including an increase in the proportion of people from proletarian classes in the social composition of the intelligentsia.
An index of articles related to the Russian Revolution and the Russian Civil War period (1905–1922). It covers articles on topics, events, and persons related to the revolutionary era, from the 1905 Russian Revolution until the end of the Russian Civil War. The See also section includes other lists related to Revolutionary Russia and the Soviet Union, including an index of articles about the Soviet Union (1922–1991) which is the next article in this series, and Bibliography of the Russian Revolution and Civil War.
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