Aleksei Gastev

Aleksei Kapitonovich Gastev (Russian: Алексей Капитонович Гастев) (1882–1939) was a participant in the Russian Revolution of 1905, a pioneer of scientific management in Russia, a trade-union activist and an avant garde poet.

Born to a family of a teacher and a seamstress in Suzdal, Russia, Aleksei Gastev enrolled into the Moscow Pedagogical Institute, but was expelled as a result of his participation in a revolutionary meeting. He joined the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party in 1901. An active participant in the Russian Revolution of 1905, Gastev was the leader of a fighting squad in Kostroma and agitated workers to strike in the Northern Russian cities of Yaroslavl, Ivanovo-Voznesensk and Rostov. During this time, Gastev was closely associated with the Bolshevik faction of the Party. He frequently corresponded with Lenin and 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.

From 1901 until 1917 Gastev divided his time 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 where and tear on the transmission belts and sprockets and analyse the repair process of the trolley cars. It was here that he first thought of developoing a "science for the social construction of enterprises".

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