j TED i A ae Aleksej Gastey Proletarian Bard of the Machine Age Kurt Johansson7. Moscow (1920-1938) Gastev was about 38 when he began to organize his Institute of Labor was never at a loss for words He espe: sportsmen and circus artists and gre enjoyed watching perfor imances of jugglers, acrobats and magicians, He regarded their dexterity asa result of practice, proof thatthe muscles and reflexes had begun to apply such methods, through a scientifically planned organization of ind from America and especial who had himself begun fhe had made his fest time-study of a Steel Company. The same year he oubles Championship in tennis. In system, but in April 1918 (see p. 63 above) it was decided to introduce piece-work and set production norms for each worker.’ Gastev was among the most enthusiastic advocates of this change. From his observation around, 104 sd in industry he went on ly to develop a plan for deriving benefit from the phenome- ed thatthe worker: fen conerete form in hiscreation of imself described as his lst work of ‘one end the same time a scientific construction anda lofty 1d for which everything I had done previously had to be sacrified."* ‘At frst, while the project was quartered in the Hotel Blite in ‘Moscow, the available resources were extremely meager. Just how mm alletter of 21 October “The frst studies were ofthe use of simple tools such asthe hammer, the sledgehammer and the chisel. The motio tingand applying pressure were the areas ‘work operations were photographed and diagrammed. Iis thus quite the Institute should take as its emblem a hand holding a different postions against a background of a coordinate moved to more ous quarters on Ulica Petrovka 24. The growth of CITs lowed through Gastev's writings. Starting with ining in the most effective and leat tring way 4 given work operation, the Institute soon went on t0 ine problem of educating a whole generation of workers ‘A conference on Scienifie Management was organizedin Russia in early 1921, Its initiator was Leo Trockij, who was in charge of ws‘workers were given intensive courses to become msons, lathe-operators, and so on. 20,000 instructers were trained ater that Gases mot biter opponent, F. Kertencey wrote ‘in 1924; re 06 CTT proposes to turn out the aristocrats of the working clas, the ‘In 1923 and early 1924 the newspapers and journals carried a lively ‘debate on the goals and raison a’éze of CIT and the principles of ‘vocational taining. The ct tute, who called themselves 1 group of Communist part members of the Counc Lunatarskij also gave certain support to the vi conference, which took place on 10-16 March 1924, it {cepresented primarily by V.V. Kujbysev, 1e powerful Central Control Commission) suppor- ted CITs arogram and Gastev’s ideas. Relieved, Gastev later presented bis viewpoint atthe conference in Organizacija truda.” He ‘on certain ofthe theses ofthe final resolution having to do with how the task should be tackled: Ice particular emphasis on the need for rising the of labor, Here, of couse, there are going tobe alot of