Heroes of Labor

(See front cover & pictures, pp. 26 & 27).

Into the world's vocabulary and stock of notions restive Russians have injected "kulaks," "FiveYear Plans." "Ogpu" and State-sponsored "Godlessness." Last week the Soviet Union was busy winding up 1935 with Russia's most recent and most sweeping innovation since the so-called "liquidation of the kulaks" and "fulfillment of the First Five-Year Plan." The great new addition to vocabularies: Stakhanovism. To liquidate the kulaks was a bloody, brutal process in which Russia's more prosperous small farmers were shot by the thousands and deported to Siberia by the hundreds of thousands for opposing Dictator Joseph Stalin's will to force every last Russian peasant into a collective farm (TIME. Nov. 26. 1928 et seq.). Today a fresh battle has opened over Stakhanovism and thus far enraged workers have done most of the shooting. In coal mines, factories, railways and even on the Dictator's favorite collective farms in recent weeks desperate Russian workers have slain Stakhanovites. Pride & Sabotage. Six months ago the most violent of Dictator Stalin's henchmen, big-nosed, hot-eyed Commissar for Heavy Industry Grigoriy Ordzhonikidze. demanded that Russian workmen pitch in and really learn to use the machine tools their Government was buying from the Capitalistic world at drastic sacrifices of food and other Russian goods.

Shouting and banging imperiously for action, Comrade Ordzhonikidze stung Russians in their most sensitive spot--their pride--by telling them how the Capitalists who had sold tools to Bolsheviks were snickering up their sleeves, sure that clumsy Russians would never get the hang of mechanized technique. Already in Russia the breakdown of a machine was often the signal to shoot the operator "for sabotage." Commissar Ordzhonikidze demanded something more constructive.

He got it. One Alexei Stakhanov, a skilled pneumatic drill operator in the Donbas Coal Trust sector, was discovered by the Soviet Press this year to be performing prodigies, soon was raised by Bolshevik puffs to the status of a "Hero of Labor." Russians read that Stakhanov increased his output of coal five-fold by "Stakhanovism." What he did was 'to organize a gang of three miners with such teamwork that Stakhanov, the skilled pneumatic driller, was able to spend all his time drilling out coal, while the others did the propping and panting. By this means the three got out enough coal in a six-hour shift to raise their perman output about five-fold of what it had been when it was a case of no teamwork and every coalminer for himself.

Bullets for Speed. Commissar Ordzhonikidze saw to it that Comrade Stakhanov received a motor car and other luxuries unheard of for a Russian miner. After diligent search in other Soviet mines and factories, fresh Heroes of Labor were produced whose feats of "Stakhanovism" as played up by the Soviet Press became more & more stupendous.

All this was fine news for Russia in 1935, except that one of Communism's great talking points has always been against Capitalism's technique of "the speed-up." As usually described by Communists, the Capitalist bosses incite crack workers to exceed normal production, get the whole shop working faster to keep up, exhaust and exploit their workers. Throughout Russia proletarians sensed that the disguised State Capitalism of Dictator Stalin, which has already forced piecework upon Russians, is now bent upon the speed-up disguised as "Stakhanovism."

In the Gorky automotive works the Brothers Ivan and Feodor Kriachkov assassinated their fellow worker Ivan Schmerov because he had speeded up his daily output 200%. Tried before a military tribunal, they were sentenced to death. In the coal mine at Stalino two assistant foremen, a checkweigher and an electrician were arrested for the murder of a fast-working Stakhanovite who had peached on them to the Bolshevik labor boss as "opposed to Stakhanovism." In a nearby mine a worker shot at his Stakhanovite mine manager, missed. Most spectacular blow against Stakhanovism is supposed to have been struck by Engineer S. Plotnikov, a member of the Communist Party up to the time of his arrest. According to the Soviet Press, Engineer Plotnikov became so vexed at Chelyabinsk by the boastful uppishness of the local Stakhanov gang that he ordered the fastest speeder-uppers to dig in an extremely dangerous (Continued on p. 28) pit of Mine No. 204. Sure enough, the pit caved in on them.

Modest Miner. Such stories of ogreish engineers are part of the now far-advanced Soviet Press effort to sell speedups to Russian workers as something of which they should be proud, while still picturing speedups as wicked in Capitalist countries. Recently 3,000 Stakhanovites of both sexes, including Comrade Alexei Stakhanov himself, were feted in Moscow by the Dictatorship and Joseph Stalin. Reported the official Pravda, "Stalin spoke briefly for about an hour."

As usual the text of the Dictator's speech was withheld to receive careful editing. Last week, carefully trimmed, pruned & polished, it was available in the U. S. Not since he ordered the kulaks wiped out has the Dictator spoken more momentously. With the arrival of Stakhanovism, in Stalin's opinion, the decisive page of Soviet history is turning. Neatly Soviet papers printed that Stakhanovism's Great Stakhanov at this juncture cried: "I do not know why this movement is called 'Stakhanovism.' We have drawn our whole inspiration from Comrade Stalin."

With this tribute of Lindberghian modesty from Stakhanov, Dictator Stalin pronounced one of those great Bolshevik discourses which Workers of the World seldom wade clear through.

Stalin on Stakhanovism: "The Stakhanov movement cannot be considered an ordinary movement of working men and women. It is a movement that will go down in the history of our Socialist construction as one of its most glorious pages. Wherein lies the significance of this movement? "Why did Capitalism defeat and master feudalism? Because it made society wealthier. Why must the Socialist system, of economy inevitably vanquish the Capitalist system of economy? Because it can furnish society with more products and can make society wealthier than can the Capitalist system of economy.

''Those who think Socialism can be strengthened by material leveling of the people on a low level are wrong. This is a petty bourgeois concept of Socialism. Socialism can only be victorious on the basis of high labor productivity--and higher than Capitalism--on the basis of abundance of products and all consumers' articles, on the basis of a plentiful and cultural life for all members of society.

"For Socialism to achieve this goal and make our society richer the country must have a level of labor productivity that exceeds that of the foremost Capitalist countries. The Stakhanov movement is such a movement. It opens up new prospects for the practical strengthening of Socialism in our country and for turning it into the (world's) most affluent land.'' Communism at Last? The main smash of Stalin's remarks on Stakhanovism was intelligible only if one realizes that the Soviet Union has never been Communist, is not now Communist, but hopes some day to become Communist. Today it is Socialist, after a fashion. Years ago Stalin referred, somewhat wistfully, to "Socialism, that first stage in the advance toward Communism." Still in this first stage last week, the Dictator pontificated:

"The Stakhanov movement prepares the way for advancing from Socialism to Communism. In a Socialist society every one works according to his ability and receives in return not according to his needs but according to what he has produced for society. This means that the cultural and technical level of the working class is still not high, that a difference still exists between mental and physical labor.

"The principle of a Communist society is that every one works according to his ability and receives according to his cultural needs and not according to what he has produced. This means the cultural and technical level of the working class is sufficiently high to wipe out the contradictions between mental and physical labor. "Those who think the difference between mental and physical labor can be eliminated by lowering the technical level of engineers and technicians are absolutely incorrect. Only petty bourgeois jabberers can think this about Communism." These words, perfectly unintelligible to millions of proletarians, held the most profound interest this week for the world's makers of Revolution. Most of them have been told and have told the masses that already in Russia it is a case of "To each according to his needs." Instead Stalin, urging the Capitalist speedup, said bluntly that in Russia today it is a case of "To each not according to his needs but according to what he has produced"--the standard Capitalist definition of piece work.

Queerest effect of Stakhanovism has been to make Russia's famed Five-Year Plans look slow. The Moscow News is now caricaturing even Russia's previously sacrosanct planners, draws half-smiling, half-snarling workers in the act of striding through and kicking aside the Bolshevik plan bureaucrats.

Stakhanovite Celebrations. Workers of the World may not agree that the speed-up of Alexei Stakhanov is a good thing for the proletariat, but they unite in applauding the medals and the motor car Dictator Stalin has given Stakhanov, the silk lingerie and perfume he bought in Moscow for his wife. Individual Stakhanovites all receive fabulously high pay --the question suspiciously asked by Soviet workers being how long such exaggerated wages will be paid after any great number of workers have been induced to speed up. Afraid that "Stakhanovism" is in fact a continent-wide swindle of the proletariat by their Soviet bosses, spunky Russian workers, like spunky Russian kulaks before them, have started shooting.

The kulaks lost their battle, were wiped out. At the height of Stakhanovite celebrations in Moscow, Dictator Stalin said grimly that in the Soviet transport sector, anti-Stakhanovites have had their teeth knocked, in and been booted from their jobs. He clearly indicated that he means to enforce speedups throughout Russia by the same methods of OGPU terror which have forced 85% of all Russian peasants who were not wiped out to join collective farms.

Here & there some bright Alexei Stakhanov may have a bright idea but in most Russian factories last week correspondents found that Stakhanovism means primarily overexertion. In a big textile mill just outside Moscow the manager, ordered to Stakhanovize, told "girls with strong legs" tending two looms that if they thought they could stand the strain of tending four he would gladly increase their pay so long as they could keep it up. With sweat standing out from every pore one such Heroine of Labor paused long enough to pant at correspondents: "I asked for it! It's hard work, but I wanted to make more. You are on the run all the time, but after a few bumps you learn the shortest way from one loom to another, and how to save steps. I feel all right, tired, but nothing serious. I guess it would be easier, though, if we got more nourishing food. What we get is pretty poor." "I Spend My Money." Loaded with lingerie, perfume, champagne, vodka, cheese and sausages Hero of Labor Alexei Stakhanov was back from Moscow last week in his home on the Donbas Steppe, a four-room shack, the walls of which were decorated with poster pictures not of potent Dictator Stalin but of popular War Commissar "Klim" Voroshilov. Squeaked the Stakhanov family phonograph in English: "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf, Big Bad Wolf, Big Bad Wolf!"

To the galaxy of correspondents and photographers gruff, iron-jawed Communist Party Agent Konstantin Giorgevich Petrov was introduced as "the man who discovered Stakhanov." Asked reporters of Stakhanov: "Do you get many letters? Do people write to you asking about your method of work?"

"He gets letters from all over--hundreds of letters!" cut in The-Man-Who-Discovered-Stakhanov. "All women want to know if he has really doubled his wages. All men want to know how he has improved technique. Hundreds of letters!"

Said Stakhanov, "I give all my letters to Petrov. I can't read handwriting. They teach me and they teach me but I don't understand." "He has a special teacher to instruct him in the Russian language and simple arithmetic," explained Discoverer Petrov, adding with a laugh. "If he uses the 'Stakhanov Method,' he will be in algebra by the middle of 1936!"

"Stakhanov, have you opened a savings account with your doubled salary? Are you buying Soviet Bonds?"

"I spend my money," said the Hero of Labor. "Pass the champagne for our last drink."

Invited Correspondent Milly Bennett of the New York Times, as she turned to go: "Come and see me in America!"

"It is easier to go to see Stalin in Moscow," replied Alexei Stakhanov. "Your workers would beat me up for breaking their norms."

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