[Stalin depicted on a propaganda poster of the…]

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Stalin depicted on a propaganda poster of the 1930's On the night shift of August 30/31 1935, at Central Irmino Colliery in the Donetz Basin, the 30-year-old miner Alexei Stakhanov produced 102 tons of coal.

It was fourteen times the standard or 'norm' for a single shift.

Stakhanov, who died three weeks ago on November S, had been preparing his assault on the record for some time. As an individual achievement it is in fact less impressive than it has been made to look.

Stakhanov did not work alone but with two assistants who installed the wooden props while Stakhanov devoted his whole time to hewing coal.

The norm for the shift was based on each worker constantly and inefficiently shifting between each task.

But the performance of Stakhanov and his helpers was still a dramatic improvement in productivity and it was seized upon by Stalin's bureaucracy as a model.

Stakhanovism was born. In each major industry an equivalent individual record was selected and given massive publicity in the press.

Heroic

All workers were encouraged to follow the example of the heroic record beaters.

In November of 1935 the first All-Union Conference of Stakhanovites assembled in the Kremlin and was addressed by Stalin:

"Is it not clear that the Stakhanovites are innovators in our industry, that it contains the seed. of the future rise of the cultural and technical level of the working class, that it opens to us the path by which alone can be achieved those high indices of productivity of labour, which are essential for the transition from Socialism to Communism and for the elimination of the distinction between mental and manual labour?"

1935 was the second year of the Second Five Year Plan during output empha sumer which industrial was supposed to more double with more is being put con- on goods than in first the Substitute But despite several years of massive investment in industrial machinery, the productivity of labour still failed to grow at the pace which the bureaucracy demanded. The leaders like Stalin and Molotov complained that the Russian workers still lacked skill.

Trotsky, in The Revolution Betrayed, argued that this was "only half the truth, and the smaller half. The Russian worker ingenious and gifted. Any hundred Soviet workers transferred into the conditions, let us say, of American industry, after a few months and even weeks, would probably not fall behind the American workers of a corresponding category.

"The difficulty lies in th organisation of labour. Th. Soviet administrative personnel is, as a general rule, far less equal to the new productive tasks than the worker.

If that was the problem then the answer was clearthe introduction of workers" management in industry Machinery cold hot be contemplated by the Stalinist bureaucracy. Stakhanovism therefore was part of their substitute.

Stakhanovism was also intimately bound up with the serie re-emphasis of piecework and individual material incentives to work.

The Stakhanovite pioneers received enormous wage bonuses. Stakhanov and his emulators in the coal mining industry were soon earning 1600 roubles a month compared with 500 roubles before, and an average wage of about 250 roubles.

These enormous wages were reduced later as norms were increased but still the Stakhanovites (who in some cases were half the workforce of a factory) got material privileges, often at the expense of the lower paid Stakhanovism was supposed to represent improvements in productivity due to improvements in work organisation, rather than mere physical effort.

But very frequently it degenerated into a manic pursuit of speed-up. Managements often reorganised production to facilitate dramatic individual achievements by part of its labour force which would get them favourable publicity.

Transitional Demands Such things as this, Trotsky observed, "explain the fact, at first glance astonishing, that a growth in the number of Stakhanovists was frequently accompanied, not with an increase, but a decrease of the general productivity of the enterprise."

In other ways, too, Stakhanovism did not always improve the performance of the economy. Unplanned in creases of output often caused shortages and bottlenecks in other areas of the And, since the piece rates increased wages even more than the increases in productivity, Stakhanovism often put up the money costs of production and thus upset the financial aspects of the But in spite of these widespread problems Stakhanovism was certainly one of the reasons why productivity rose in the Soviet Union during this period.

Grotesque

But it was a grotesque lie for Stalin to refer to this as "preparation of the conditions for the transition from socialism to communism" ', as it was for the president of the State Planning Commission,: Mezhlauk, to say in 1936 that "the rouble is bęcoming the sole real means for the realisation of a socialist principle of payment for labour".

In fact piecework, as Trotsky pointed out, was a capitalist principle of payment, even though it was on There are 16 million casualties of capitalism in Europe and the USA-16 million workers without a job.

For every single one of these workers it seems there is not a job but a speech. •usiness conditions.

Then le: 13122 1V the basis of socialist forms of property, and Stakhanovism "to a great degree comes down to an intensification of labour, and even to a lengthening of the working day"

Speed-up. piecework and new privileges for the Stakhanovites, therefore, often met with the hostility of the workers.

There was brutal repression against workers accused of resisting the new methods to impose speed-up.

Many were accused of sabotage and even of the murder of Stakhanovites. But in the factories, as in the whole country, these years were to see the ruthless repression and extermination of all opposition. As the leaders of the revolution and countThe demands that Trotsky put forward in the Transitional Programme are as relevant today as they were in 1938 when they were first adopted by the founding conference of the Fourth Sliding scale They are a sliding scale of hours and a programme of public works-policies to unite the employed and unemployed.

A sliding scale of hours, or as it is more usually known, work sharing on full pay lays down a principle that the working class do not accept or share responsibility for unemployment.

The employer will protest. It will ruin him. "Common sense" dictates a compromise, that the working class shoulders part of the effects of the crisis; that it helps the capitalist survive so that at least some jobs are left.

Common sense

But we are not dealing with the employers' "common sense" or partial solutions. Our demand goes beyond defence of the existing workforce to include the unemployed.

The fight must be taken up for the whole labour movement to take responsibility for the unemployed. for more workers to be taken onio the pay-roll of the companies-for work to be shared equally among all who inte:

Cuxr=3525 The workers less thousands of Soviet workers and peasants were sent to their deaths or to prison. Stakhanov was for years presented by the press as a superstar of the Stalinist economy.

In 1943 he went to Moscow to take up a job in the administration of the coal industry ministry. Then in 1957 until his retirement three years ago, Stakhanov was manager of a coal mine in the Donbass region.

The movement named after him did not survive beyond the Second World War.

Management

But the nature of bureaucratic management of the economy which relies on individual incentives and bureaucratic hectoring of the workers has not fundamentally changed.

The Soviet bureaucracy remains as hostile as ever to anything which would release the full productive ‚power of the socialised economy of the Soviet Union-the democratic management of production by the working class.

That will not be possible without the revolutionary overthrow of the bureaucracy for which a Trotskyist party must be built.

Meanwhile it will still need latter-day Stakhanovs. must demand nationalisation without compensation under the control of the workers.

The battle needs to be taken up as much against the union leadership as against the employers since the bureaucrats who run the unions want no part of such far-reaching demands.

Alongside the demand for work-sharing on full pay we must put forward a demand for a programme of public works.

At present there are in Britain not only 1.6 million unemployed but also more than 300,000 young workers on "job creation" and "work experience" schemes.

These schemes pay less than union rates, are of short duration and create unemployment among direct council workers.

Our demand is for trade union control over the programme of works, for full union rates of pay and for the absolute right of every worker to a job.

A programme to tackle unemployment is not difficult to conceive. When building workers are unemployed. building materials stacked miles high in builders merchants yards and sihoois and hospitals desperate! short of buildings. the ansme: is as clear as ABC But the challenge :: :3e deliberate 30520 = 6303308 contra. =*. 11 BORED.