Ten Stakhanov Days

Up again to crowded Moscow from his bleak hut on the Donbas Steppe last week went famed Alexei Stakhanov (TIME, Dec. 16), the shrewd Soviet coal miner who devised a method ("Stakhanovism'') for speeding up the toil of Russian workers. A nationwide intensive labor speed-up for ten days had been decreed by Dictator Joseph Stalin, and at its climax amid great Moscow excitement Stakhanov received the highest Soviet decoration, the Order of Lenin.

Statistics on Soviet production during the "Ten Days Of Stakhanovism" showed that coal production in the Donbas mines, where Stakhanovism was originated by Stakhanov, had not only failed to set a new record but had dropped below the established norm. Comrade Stakhanov's co-workers under ground thus seemed to be either worn out or sulky. Moscow ordered by telegraph "YOU MUST WIPE OUT YOUR DISGRACE." In most cases throughout Russia, statistics showed that during the first five days of nationwide Stakhanovism the workers increased their output, but that it fell during the next five days, as it became impossible to maintain this speedup. When Stakhanovism was first announced, higher pay for greater daily production was promised each worker but by last week, in plants where Stakhanovism had been regularly established, workers found that to earn as much as they did before they must now produce more goods. Plans to proclaim February as the first "Stakhanovite Month" were abruptly canceled. Shrewd Alexei Stakhanov, who has said frankly that in the U. S. he would be beaten up by fellow workers for what he has done (TIME, Dec. 16), now receives as a holder of the Order of Lenin a lifelong pension and a pass permitting him to travel free twice a year on Soviet railways, boats, airplanes, trams and busses.

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