Aleksei Gastev

Alexei Kapitonowitsch Gastew (Russian Алексей Капитонович Гастев, scientific transliteration Aleksej Kapitonovič Gastev; * 26 Septemberjul / October 8 1882greg in Suzdal, Russian Empire, .. † April 15, 1939 in Kommunarka ) was a Russian labor activist and poet. He participated in the Russian Revolution of 1905.

Life

Because of his revolutionary activities Gastew was repeatedly arrested and sent into exile in the North and East of Russia. Every time he managed to escape and illegally to live in Russia and elsewhere in Europe.

After his escape from exile Gastew lived from 1910 to 1913 in Paris, where he worked in various factories. There he came into contact with the French syndicalism and took numerous viewpoints and beliefs of this form of trade union socialism. Gastew saw in the trade unions, the most effective tool against capitalism by they could have a direct impact on the living and working conditions of the workers. In 1913 he returned to Russia. In 1914 he was taken prisoner and sent again for four years in exile in Narym from which he fled. In 1917 he went to Petrograd. From 1917 to 1918 Gastew was elected chairman of the Central Committee of the newly formed total Russian Union of Metal Workers. In 1918 he took an active part in the conference of the union.

Inspired by the work of the American engineer Frederick Winslow Taylor on scientific management of work processes (Scientific Management), located Gastew dealt extensively with issues of rationalization in the context of emergency (Russian Научной организации труда, Scientific work organization ). NOT was a movement that was initiated by him and established himself in the early 1920s in the USSR with success.

In 1920, Gastew the Central Institute for Labour ( CIT) in Moscow that he himself regarded as a " work of art ". The establishment of the Institute was welcomed by Lenin, who organized the necessary financial resources. The Institute analyzed work processes in detail and made it out of the then new media, such as film and photography use. The analysis of repetitive processes, such as hammer blows and operation of machines, so they could contribute to a rationalization of work and improve working conditions. To this end, numerous publications have been published, submitted the proposals for organizing and creating jobs. One of the leading figures of the CIT was the movement scientist Nikolai Aleksandrovich Bernstein, who until 1925 headed the Laboratory of Biomechanics of 1922.

To finance his ideas founded Gastew 1928, the corporation Ustanowka ( construction), the work processes of industrial companies reviewed and offered advice to rationalize. In 1931 he became a member of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. In 1932 he was also elected Chairman of the Soviet Bureau of Standards.

Gastews lyrical work

Gastev was also active poetically and was called " Proletarian Bard of the Machine Age ." He is regarded as an original and talented lyricist. Appeared in 1918 his band Поэзия рабочего удара ( Poezia rabočego udara / poetry of work shock ), the learned various new editions, the last in 1971. It is a collection of over the years wrote poems and prose texts that the artistic with the social situation of workers and work process as well as the revolution deal. Most of the texts originated. Before 1914 Gastevs poetic work A pack of orders from 1921 is his last and most significant lyrical utterance. It was published in 1999 in German translation. He expected the new man, which connects the smoothness of the animals with the precision of a machine for the future. Today impress the strength and style of the poems in this cycle, where sometimes the predicate of a new lyrical genre is awarded. Addition, they provide a striking mood of the Soviet construction after the October Revolution with all its cracks and excesses. However, V. 1927 Percov threw his poetry also "unprecedented industrial pathos " and " naive and bad taste " before.

Arrest and death

The date of death of Gastew is given in various publications on 1st October 1941. The authorities gave over its members in addition to the wrong date of death also that he had died of a natural cause of death. Recent findings revise this statement. He was arrested on September 8, 1938 for "counterrevolutionary terrorist activities ". Man imprisoned him in a Moscow prison and sentenced him through a fast food meal on April 14, 1939 death. He had neither a defender nor the opportunity to appeal against the verdict. On April 15, 1939 Gastew was shot. Only with the opening of the Russian President archives in the 1990s, a more accurate reconstruction of events was possible. His grandson Alexei Tkacenko - Gastev was granted access to the file, on the basis of which the circumstances and the date of death could be identified up. Tkacenko - Gastev published on 29 April 2005, a report on the internet about the inspection of files (documents marking: Центральный архив Федеральной Службы Безопасности Российской Федерации; Фонд уголовных дел Д Р - 4556: Следственное дело Гастева А.К.. . ). The CIT was closed after Gastews arrest. Likewise, a number of family members were arrested and sent to the Gulag.

Bibliography

• Поэзия рабочего удара ( Poezia rabočego udara / poetry of the working stroke ). P. 1918, 1919, 1921 ( reprint: Khudozhestvenaia literatura, Moscow 1964, 1971).
• Индустриальный мир ( Industrial'nyj me / The industrialized world ). Kharkov 1919; Vremâ, Moscow 1923.
• Как надо работать ( Kak nado rabotat ' / How you have to work ). 1921 ( reprint: Ekonomika, Leningrad 1966, Moscow 1972).
• Плановые предпосылки ( Planovye predpocylki / planning requirements ). Moscow 1926.
• Трудовые установки ( Trudowyje ustanowki / work units). CIT, Moscow 1924 ( reprint: Ekonomika, Moscow 1972, 1973 ).
• Aleksej Gastev: A packing of orders. Text in German / Russian. Translation: Cornelia Koster. Publisher Peter Engstler, Ostheim / Rhön 1999, ISBN 3-929375-21-4, ( Original: Пачка ордеров Riga 1921. ).