Stakhanovite movement

In Soviet history and iconography, a Stakhanovite (Russian: стахановец) was a diligent and enthusiastic worker who followed the example of Aleksei Grigorievich Stakhanov, employing hard work or Taylorist efficiencies to overachieve at work. Such a worker exhibited socialist emulation of model workers and was, or aspired to be, a shock worker.

The Stakhanovite movement began during the Soviet second 5-year plan in 1935 as a new stage of socialist competition. The Stakhanovite movement took its name from Aleksei Grigorievich Stakhanov, who had mined 102 tons of coal in less than 6 hours (14 times his quota) on 31 August 1935. However, Stakhanovite followers would soon "break" his record. On February 1, 1936, it was reported that Nikita Izotov had mined 640 tons of coal in a single shift.

The Stakhanovite movement, supported and led by the Communist Party, soon spread over other industries of the Soviet Union. Pioneers of the movement included Alexander Busygin (automobile industry), Nikolai Smetanin (shoe industry), Yevdokiya and Maria Vinogradov (textile industry), I.I.Gudov (machine tool industry), V.S.Musinsky (timber industry), Pyotr Krivonos (railroad),Pasha Angelina (glorified as the first Soviet woman to operate a tractor), Konstantin Borin and Maria Demchenko (agriculture) and many others.

On November 14–17, 1935, the 1st All-Union Stakhanovite Conference took place at the Kremlin. The conference emphasized the outstanding role of the Stakhanovite movement in the socialist re-construction of the national economy. In December 1935 the plenum of the Communist Party's Central Committee specifically discussed aspects of developing industry and transport systems in light of the Stakhanovite movement. The resolution of the plenum said: "The Stakhanovite movement means organizing labor in a new fashion, rationalizing technologic processes, correct division of labor, liberating qualified workers from secondary spadework, improving work place, providing rapid growth for labor productivity and securing significant increase of workers' salaries".

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