Soviet norm determination in theory and practice, 1917-1941

Soviet Studies

Volumn 36, Issue 1, 1984, Pages 45-68

  Siegelbaum, Lewis H ^a  

^a MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY   (United States)

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EID: 84928095167     PISSN: 00385859     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/09668138408411513     Document Type: Article

References (103)

1. See respectively, Hans Rogger, ‘Amerikanizm and the Economic Development of Russia’, Comparative Studies in Society and History, Vol. XXIII (1981), pp. 382-420; Charles Bettelheim, Class Struggles in the USSR, Second Period: 1923-1930 (London: Harvester Press, 1978), pp. 237-51, 313-5; P. Corrigan, H. Ramsay, D. Sayer, Socialist Construction and Marxist Theory, Bolshevism and its Critique (London: Macmillan, 1978), pp. xi-xviii, 24-65; and S. Lieberstein, ‘Technology, Work, and Sociology in the USSR: The NOT Movement’, Technology and Culture, Vol. XVI (1975), especially pp. 48-55.
2. K. E. Bailes, ‘Alexei Gastev and the Soviet Controversy over Taylorism, 1918-24’, Soviet Studies, Vol. XXIX, No. 3 (July 1977), p. 392; Lieberstein, ‘Technology, Work and Sociology’, p. 55 and R. Vidmer, ‘Soviet Studies of Organization and Management: A “Jungle” of Competing Views’, Slavic Review, Vol. XL (1981), p. 408. See also Francesco Benvenuti, ‘Stalinismo e Stachanovismo (Settembre-Dicembre 1935)’, Problemi del Socialismo, Vol. XXI (1980), p. 176:’. the specialized institutions that dealt with the “scientific organization of labour” (NOT) were pushed aside after the implementation of the First Five-Year Plan. The appeal to the enthusiasm and eagerness of the udarniki to cooperate took the place of scientific research in the field’. Many of the issues raised in these articles are treated in a highly original manner by Ilmari Susiluoto, The Origins and Development of Systems Thinking in the Soviet Union (Helsinki: Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia, 1982).
3. For two, now classic, studies on wages and wage policies, see A. Bergson, The Structure of Soviet Wages, A Study in Socialist Economics (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard U.P., 1954) and J. G. Chapman, Real Wages in Soviet Russia since 1928 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard U.P., 1963). Two Soviet analyses of norm determination which contain brief accounts of the 1920s and 1930s are S. M. Milyukov and K. Kh. Kuznetsova, ‘Razvitie normirovaniya truda v sotsialisticheskoi promyshlennosti; in G. A. Prudensky (ed.), Voprosy truda v SSSR, (Moscow, 1958), pp. 205-40 and P. F. Petrochenko, Normirovanie truda v SSSR (Moscow, 1964).
4. F. W. Taylor, Scientific Management (New York: Harper & Row, 1947), p. 58. The quotation is from ‘Shop Management’ which was originally published in 1911. See also the recent judgment that ‘what Taylorism offered within the plant was the setting of new norms of work’. Patrick Fridenson, ‘The Coming of the Assembly Line in Europe’ in Wolfgang Krohn, Edwin T. Layton, and Peter Weingart (eds.), The Dynamics of Science and Technology: Social Values, Technical Norms and Scientific Criteria in the Development of Knowledge (Dordrecht, Holland: D. Reidel, 1978), p. 164.
5. These are the symbols used by Leonard J. Kirsch, Soviet Wages: Changes in Structure and Administration since 1956 (Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press, 1972), p. 16. See also Ekonomika truda v SSSR, 2nd revised edition (Moscow, 1961), pp. 321-2.
6. V. I. Lenin, ‘The Immediate Tasks of the Soviet Government’, Collected Works (4th edition in 45 vols, London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1963-70), Vol. XXVII, p. 258. For Lenin on Taylorism, see R. Traub, ‘Lenin and Taylor: The Fate of “Scientific Management” in the (Early) Soviet Union’, Telos, no. 37 (1978), pp. 82-92; Z. Sochor, ‘Soviet Taylorism Revisited’, Soviet Studies, Vol. XXXIII, No. 2 (April 1981), pp. 247-9, 260; and J. A. Merkle, Management and Ideology, The Legacy of the International Scientific Management Movement (Berkeley: U. of California Press, 1980), pp. 105-15. Sochor's interpretation is the most subtle, while Merkle's is the most tendentious.
7. E. H. Carr, The Bolshevik Revolution 1917-1923 (3 vols, Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1966), Vol. II, p. 115; F. I. Kaplan, Bolshevik Ideology and the Ethics of Soviet Labour, 1917-1920: The Formative Years (London: Peter Owen, 1969), pp. 336-7. Even earlier, in January 1918, the Petrograd Metalworkers’ Union in conjunction with the Commissariat of Labour had set up such a system. For the relevant sections of the code and the General Law, see Margaret Dewar, Labour Policy in the USSR 1917-1928 (New York: Octagon, 1979 reprint of 1956 edition), pp. 165, 175-6, 194-5.
8. On early opposition to piece rates, which was not confined to the trade unions, see Carr, op. cit., pp. 116-20. At least until the mid-1920s piece rates were widely regarded as a temporary necessity. See, for example, E. Preobrazhensky, The New Economics (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1965), pp. 192-3.
9. See O. A. Ermansky, Nauchnaya organizatsiya truda i sistema Teilora (Moscow, 1922), pp. 129-58, 343-4. Ermansky, a lapsed Menshevik, survived to write one of the more interesting accounts of Stakhanovism. See his Stakhanovskoe dvizhenie i stakhanovskie metody raboty (Moscow, 1940). For a brief summary of work on psychotechnics in Germany which was centred at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institut für Arbeitsphysiologie in Dortmund under Dr E. Atzler, see Robert A. Brady, The Rationalization Movement in German Industry (Berkeley: U. of California Press, 1933), pp. 17-18, 330-1.
10. Sochor, ‘Soviet Taylorism Revisited’, p. 251. On Gastev, see Bailes,’ Alexei Gastev. ’, pp. 373-94 and the autobiographical ‘Predislovie’ to Ustanovka proizvodstva metodom TsIT (1927), reprinted in A. K. Gastev, Trudovye ustanovki (Moscow, 1973), pp. 159-63.
11. P. M. Kerzhentsev, Bor'ba za vremya (Moscow, 1924). See also Sochor, ‘Soviet Taylorism Revisited’, pp. 247, 253-5. Sochor's characterization of the League's position as ‘ideological’ is unfortunate in that it implies that their rivals, the ‘pragmatists’, were not.
12. Sections of the Labour Code, issued on 9 November 1922, are in Dewar, Labour Policy, pp. 228-34.
13. V. V. Kuibyshev (ed.), Ratsionalizatsiya promyshlennosti SSSR. Rabota komissii prezidiuma VSNKh SSSR, (Moscow-Leningrad, 1928), p. 356. An investigation of relations between foremen and workers should be on the agenda of future studies of this period.
14. For the predominant role played by young workers in these movements see Marsh udarnykh brigad. Molodezh’ v gody vosstanovleniya narodnogo khozyaistva i sotsialisticheskogo stroitel'stva, 1921-1941 gg. Sbornik dokumentov (Moscow, 1965), pp. 152-7, 188, 211. Pervye shagi industrializatsii SSSR, 1926-1927 gg. (Moscow, 1959), pp. 368-9, 431-2, 441-4; Ratsionalizatsiya proizvodstva, no. 12, 1929, pp. 1, 12.
15. Kommunisticheskaya partiya sovetskogo soyuza v rezolyutsiyakh i resheniyakh, sezdov, konferentsii i plenumov TsK, 8th edition, (Moscow, 1970-1), Vol. III, pp. 131-4.
16. E. H. Carr, Socialism in One Country, 1924-1926 (3 vols, Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1970), Vol. I, pp. 412-7.
17. Kuibyshev (ed.), op. cit., p. 346. The percentages were highest in textiles, metalworking and leather-goods industries.
18. Organizatsiya truda, no 2-3, 1924, p. 51.
19. See A. K. Gastev, ‘Kak nado rabotat”, originally published in Organizatsiya truda, no. 1, 1921, and reprinted in Kak nado rabotat’: prakticheskoe vvedenie v nauchnoi organizatsii truda (Moscow, 1966); Trudovye ustanovki (first published in 1924) and Normirovanie i organizatsiya truda (Leningrad, 1929).
20. Gastev, Normirovanie i organizatsiya truda, p. 37.
21. Gastev, Trudovye ustanovki, pp. 213-7, 236.
22. Gastev, Vosstanie kul'tury (Khar'kov, 1923) reprinted in N. S. Il'enko and K. Shamsutdinov (eds.), Nauchnaya organizatsiya truda dvadtsatykh godov: Sbornik dokumentov i materialov, (Kazan’, 1965), p. 524.
23. Brief summaries of these meetings are contained in Milyukov and Kuznetsova, ‘Razvitie normirovaniya truda’, pp. 248-52, and Petrochenko, Normirovanie truda, pp. 53-4.
24. P. B. Zilbergleit, Proizvoditel'nost’ truda v kamennougol'noi promyshlennosti (Khar'kov, 1930), pp. 64-5. Taylor referred to such behaviour as ‘soldiering’ and claimed his methods could eliminate it.
25. G. M. Faingol'd (ed.), Proizvodstvennye konferentsii po promyshlennosti Moskovskogo soveta narodnogo khozyaistva (Moscow, 1926), pp. 13, 18, 22-3.
26. Carr, Socialism in One Country, Vol. I, p. 420; Spravochnik profrabotnika. Sbornik rukovodyashchikh materialov po professional'nomu dvizheniyu (Dopolnenie) (Moscow, 1927), pp. 159-60.
27. Spravochnik profrabotnika, p. 157.
28. Kuibyshev (ed.), op. cit., p. 358.
29. Ibid., p. 364.
30. The directive was issued only after considerable wrangling between VSNKh and VTsSPS. See E. H. Carr and R. W. Davies, Foundations of a Planned Economy 1926-1929 (3 vols, Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1974-6), Vol. I, pp. 537-9.
31. Kuibyshev (ed.), op. cit., pp. 348-9.
32. Carr and Davies, Foundations., Vol. I, p. 539.
33. Quoted in Gastev, Normirovanie i organizatsiya truda, pp. 113-4.
34. Gastev, with typical exuberance, went yet a step further by proposing self-timekeeping (samokhronometrazh). See Trudovye ustanovki, p. 235.
35. Trud, 24 April 1929, p. 3; 10 May 1929, p. 4.
36. Ibid., 7 April 1929, p. 1.
37. See Nicholas Lampert, The Technical Intelligentsia and the Soviet State (London: Macmillan, 1979), p p. 123-7.
38. In the early 1930s the Institute's methods were being taught by 20,000 instructors at 1,700 ‘bases’ to an estimated 500,000 students. S. S. Novozhilov, ‘Organizatsiya truda i povyshenie ego proizvoditel'nosti’, in A. P. Volkov (ed.), Trud i zarabotnaya plata v SSSR, 2nd revised edition, (Moscow, 1974), pp. 87-8.
39. See N. B. Lebedeva and O. I. Shkaratan, Ocherki istorii sotsialisticheskogo sorevnovaniya (Leningrad, 1966), pp. 68-9 ; Neizvedannymi putyami. Vospominaniya uchastnikov sotsialisticheskogo stroitel'stva (Leningrad, 1967), p. 127; and Novatory: Sbornik (Moscow, 1972), pp. 31-2. For Gastev's strong condemnation of such ‘artisan attitudes’ (remeslennaya sekretnost’) see Normirovanie i organizatsiya truda, pp. 28-9.
40. See, for example, Na trudovom fronte, no. 2 1, 1931, p. 7; no. 5, 1932, pp. 7, 13; Voprosy truda, no. 11-12, 1931, pp. 148-52. This point is developed in my ‘Socialist Competition and Socialist Construction in the USSR: The Experience of the First Five-Year Plan (1928-1932)’, Thesis Eleven, no. 4, 1982, pp. 54-6.
41. Trud, 22 February 1929, p. 1; 3 April 1929, p. 1.
42. Ibid., 17 April 1929, p. 1; 26 April 1929, p. 2.
43. Ibid., 6July 1929,p. 2; asrevealedby L. I. Ginzberg at the second VTsSPS plenum in Trud, 1 June 1929, p. 1.
44. Trud, 12 May 1929, p. 2.
45. G. Orentlikher, ‘Printsipy tekhnicheskogo normirovaniya i ego rol’ v proizvodstve’, Ratsionalizatsiya proizvodstva, no. 8-9, 1929, pp. 50-3. See Trud, 12 May 1929, p. 2 for t he assertion that ‘time studies are often conducted in secret’. V. Burdov, ‘Chernaya Magiya’, Trud, 8 January 1929, p. 2 claims that there were 13 disturbances in 1928 attributable to secret time study.
46. I. Bogdanov, ‘K kharakteristike sostoyaniya tekhnicheskogo normirovaniya v Leningradskoi promyshlennosti’, in Voprosy truda. Sbornik (Leningrad, 1932), p. 113.
47. Za industrializatsiyu, 14 July 1932, p. 3.
48. For an example of such plans see Marsh udarnykhbrigad, pp. 167-8, reprinted from Smena (Leningrad), 10 August 1930, p. 2. The attitude of factory managers towards counterplans was summed up as ‘Show us, do your sums, then we'll talk!’ ‘Massy v bor'be za plan’, Puti industrializatsii, no. 19, 1930, pp. 12-27. See also no. 10, 1931, pp. 26-36.
49. Predpriyatie, no. 4, 1929, pp. 49-50 ; no. 5, 1929, p. 49.
50. Ratsionalizatsiya proizvodstva, no. 9-10, 1930, pp. 18-19.
51. I. Bogdanov, ‘K kharakteristike metodov tekhnicheskogo normirovaniya’, Na fronte industrializatsii, no. 3-4, 1932, pp. 15-16; Na trudovom fronte, no. 8-9, 1932, p. 14. Taylor stressed that it was ‘first-class man who should be studied’ and Frank Gilbreth, inventor of motion study, asserted that ‘the average man has never led civilization anywhere; average methods have never led to maximum progress’. Quoted in A. H. Mogensen, Common Sense Applied to Motion and Time Study (New York: McGraw Hill, 1932), p. 18.
52. Trud, 21 April 1931, p. 2 ; A. Rozanov, ‘Povernut’ profsoyuzy litsom k tekhnicheskuyu normirovaniyu’, Na fronte industrializatsii, no. 19-20, 1932, pp. 41-2.
53. VII Vsesoyuznaya Konferentsiya VLKSM. Stenograficheskii otchet (Moscow, 1933), p. 122. According to a report from Khar'kov, ‘TNB officials change almost every month’. Za industrializatsiyu, 1 April 1930, p. 4. For evidence of shockworkers’ reluctance to join TNB, see speech by Drozhzhin in Trud, 18 April 1932, p. 2.
54. A. Rozanov, ‘Koldogovomayakampaniya 1932g.’, Na fronte industrializatsii, no. 1-2, 1932, pp. 12-13; Na trudovom fronte, no. 6, 1932, pp. 8-9.
55. Na fronte industrializatsii, no. 7-8, 1933, p. 70; Na trudovom fronte, no. 6, 1932, p. 9; A. B. Slutsky, Rabochii klass Ukrainy v bor'be za sozdanie fundamenta sotsialisticheskoi ekonomiki (1926-1932 gg.) (Kiev, 1963), p. 263.
56. Andrew Smith, I Was a Soviet Worker (London: Hale, 1937), p. 42.
57. Na fronte industrializatsii, no. 3-4, 1932, p. 12.
58. Industrializatsiya SSSR, 1929-1932 gg. (Moscow, 1970), p. 262.
59. Voprosy truda, no. 5, 1931, pp. 7-8; no. 2, 1932, pp. 11-13, 16.
60. On the wage reforms of 1931-2 cf. B. L. Markus, Trud v sotsialisticheskom obshchestve (Moscow, 1939), pp. 175-82 and Bergson, The Structure of Soviet Wages, pp. 158-61, 194-206. The proportion of workers on piece-rates was 57.5% in 1928, 63.7% in 1932, and 70% by 1935 (Markus, p. 177). No more than 32% of workers were ever paid according to progressive piece-rates.
61. Voprosy truda, no. 3-4, 1931, p. 32.
62. V. Tsibul'sky, ‘Bez perestroiki tekhnicheskoi normy uravnilovka polnost'yu ne budet izzhita’, Trud, 24 August 1931, p. 3. Foremen at the factory also reduced the hours of work and failed to record technical breakdowns for workers who had achieved high additional earnings.
63. See the VTsSPS presidium discussion in Trud, 28 May 1933, p. 2. For some anomalies, see V. Radzyminsky, ‘Planirovanie zarplaty’, Voprosy truda, no. 11-12, 1931, p. 43. It may be instructive here to quote from a textbook on Soviet wages published in 1951. Claiming that the introduction of progressive piece rates led to ‘the mechanical increase of wages’, the author continues: ‘It is well known that the progressive system, more than other incentive schemes, requires above all accurate technical norm determination. However, this elementary principle was not observed’. No explanation is offered. E. L. Manevich, Zarabotnaya plata i ee formy v promyshlennosti SSSR (Moscow, 1951), pp. 76-7.
64. KPSS v rezolyutsiyakh, Vol. V, p. 29.
65. Trud, 27 April 1932, p. 1.
66. Soveshchanie khozyaistvennikov, inzhenerov, tekhnikov, paniinykh i profsoyuznykh rabotnikov tyazheloi promyshlennosti, 20-22 sentyabrya 1934 g. Stenograficheskii otchet (Moscow-Leningrad, 1935), p. 204.
67. Trud, 9 May 1933, p. 1.
68. See I. I. Kuz'minov, Stakhanovskoe dvizhenie-vysshii etap sotsialisticheskogo sorevnovaniya (Moscow, 1940), pp. 52-6 ; Sotsialisticheskoe sorevnovanie v promyshlennosti SSSR (Moscow, 1973), pp. 90-4.
69. Na fronte industrializatsii, no. 9-10, 1933, pp. 94-6.
70. Industrializatsiya SSSR, 1933-1937 gg. (Moscow, 1971), p. 525.
71. See also G. Friedman, De la Sainte Russie à l'URSS (Paris: Gallimard, 1938), pp. 75-7 on the Gorky Automobile Works in 1932 and John Scott, Behind the Urals (Bloomington: Indiana U.P., 1973 reprint of 1942 edition), pp. 70-7 on Magnitogorsk.
72. For one such attack, see Voprosy profdvizheniya, no. 8-9, 1934, pp. 48-56.
73. Kaganovich's condemnation is in XVII sezd VKP(b). Stenograficheskii otchet (Moscow, 1934), pp. 532-7. Gastev's self-criticism is in ‘Organizatsionnye idei XVII sezda i raboty T s I T, Organizatsiya truda, no. 2, 1934, pp. 308.
74. Industrializatsiya SSSR, 1933-37, p. 284.
75. Sovet pri narodnom komissare tyazheloi promyshlennosti SSSR, pervyi plenum, 10-12 maya 1935 g. (Moscow, 1935), pp. 172, 174, 230, 304.
76. Significantly, the slogan was intended to replace the First Five-Year Plan formula, ‘Technology decides everything’, though materials in the Smolensk archives suggest considerable confusion at the oblast level over how to implement the new line. See Smolensk Party Archive WKP 84, pp. 29, 33, 35, 44, 72. For the political context in which Stakhanovism emerged see G. Rittersporn, ‘Heros du Travail et Commandants de la Production, le campagne stakhanoviste et les stratégies fractionnelles en U.R.S.S. (1935-1936)’, Recherches, no. 32/33, 1978, pp. 260-2.
77. P. P. Postyshev, Stakhanovtsy-novye lyudi epokhi sotsializma (Moscow, 1935), p. 26.
78. Za industrializatsiyu, 24 October 1935, p. 1.
79. Pravda, 20 November 1935, p. 2.
80. Za industrializatsiyu, 22 November 1935, p. 3.
81. Stakhanovets, no. 1, 1936, p. 13.
82. Pyatakov in Za industrializatsiyu, 24 October 1935, p. 1.
83. Za industrializatsiyu, 21 October 1935, p. 3. But see Partiinoe stroitel'stvo, no. 18, 1935, p. 5 for a contrary view.
84. I. V. Stalin, Sochineniya, Robert H. McNeal, ed. (Stanford: Hoover Institution, 1967), Vol. I [XIV], pp. 95-6.
85. Pravda, 28 December 1935, p. 4; Za industrializatsiyu, 29 December 1935,p. 2;Pravda, 18 January 1936, p. 4.
86. KPSS v rezolyutsiyakh, Vol. V, pp. 235-7. The absence of any reference to time and motion study or other methods previously defined as ‘technical’ is noteworthy.
87. Bol'shevik, no. 23-24, 1935, pp. 66-7.
88. Gastev, ‘Normy i organizatsiya truda’, Organizatsiya truda, no. 5, 1936, p. 2.
89. Stakhanovskoe dvizhenie i proizvoditel'nost’ truda (Moscow, 1936), p. 64.
90. I. M. Samokhvalov, ‘Rukovodstvo partii massovym razvitiem sotsialisticheskogo sorevnovaniya v promyshlennosti v period 1936-41 gg.’ (avtoreferat kandidatskoi dissertatsii-Lenin Library, 1965), p. 9.
91. A. Braude and R. Dorogov, ‘K itogam otraslevykh konferentsii mashinostroeniya’, Plan, no. 11, 1936, p. 5. A. Khavin, ‘Po ostraslevym konferentsiyam’, Za industrializatsiyu, 4 March 1936, p. 2.
92. Ermansky, Stakhanovskoe dvizhenie, p. 250.
93. Ibid., p. 248.
94. Markus, Trud v sotsialisticheskom obshchestve, p. 237; Plan, no. 8, 1937, p. 38. The results in light industry were less impressive, with as many as 45% of workers in cotton and 56% in linen manufacturing failing to fulfil the new norms.
95. See David Granick, Management of the Industrial Firm in the USSR (New York: Columbia U.P., 1954), pp. 142, 155, 281; Solomon Schwarz, Labor in the Soviet Union (London: Cresset Press, 1953), pp. 196-7; and Scott, Behind the Urals, pp. 163, 165.
96. Both the ruin of machinery and the underestimation of technical norms were labelled as wrecking in ‘Povysit’ bditel'nost’ i ovladet’ Bol'shevizmom’, Bol'shevik, no. 5-6, 1937, p. 33.
97. A. Grigor'ev, ‘Uporyadochit’ zarplatu, ukrepit’ tekhnicheskoe normirovanie’, Planovoe khozyaistvo, no. 10, 1938, p. 78.
98. Ibid., p. 80; Ermansky, Stakhanovskoe dvizhenie, p. 330.
99. See A. Grigor'ev, ‘Voprosy proizvoditel'nosti truda v promyshlennosti’, Planovoe khozyaistvo, no. 2, 1938, p. 80; ‘Likvidirovat’ otstavanie ugol'noi i metallurgicheskoi promyshlennosti, Planovoe khozyaistvo, no. 21, 1939, pp. 14-17; and E. Vasil'ev, ‘Sotsialisticheskaya distsiplina truda’, Planovoe khozyaistvo, no. 9, 1940, pp. 26-7.
100. In 1938 the Khar'kov factory was still using a manual from 1931. The same source indicates that at the Kirov factory in Leningrad there were 200 different rates for workers in the third wage/skill category and that ‘examples of excessive wage scales can be cited without end’. See Profsoyuzy SSSR, no. 10, 1938, pp. 9-11.
101. S. Pogostin, ‘O normirovanii v tyazheloi promyshlennosti’, Industriya, 5 September 1938, p. 2; M. Korolev, ‘O tekhnicheskom normirovanii’, Industriya, 15 September 1939, p. 2.
102. Industriya, 4 February 1939, p. 2; and 28 February 1939, p. 3; Industrializatsiya SSSR 1938-1941 gg. (Moscow, 1973), pp. 97-9, 159, 162-3.
103. V. Kuprin, ‘Ustarevshie normy’, Pravda, 24 July 1938, p. 4; Granick, Management of the Industrial Firm, p. 84; and Industrializatsiya SSSR, 1938-41, p. 145.