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Aleksei Gastev
Russian revolutionary, trade-union activist, writer and poet
Aleksei Kapitonovich Gastev (Russian: Алексей Капитонович Гастев) (8 October 1882, Suzdal, Vladimir Governorate – 15 April 1939, Kommunarka, Moscow) was a Russian revolutionary, a pioneering theorist of the scientific management of labour in Soviet Russia, a trade-union activist, and an avant-garde writer and poet. His idea on labor management is one of the prototypes that Russian writer Yevgeny Zamyatin's novel We satirizes.2
From Wikipedia’s article on Aleksei Gastev (this version), CC BY-SA 4.0.
Born Oct 8, 1882, died Apr 15, 1939.1
Companies
Early life and education
Youth of a revolutionary
Aleksei Kapitonovich Gastev was born in the small central Russian town of Suzdal. He grew up in an idyllic neighbourhood with large cherry orchards a short distance from the centre of the town. The towns inhabitants were mostly artisans - cobblers, tailors, hatters, painters, etc. Gastev's father Kapiton Vasilevich Gastev was a teacher, a school headmaster and an inventor. Among other things, he invented an electrical apparatus for the treatment of rheumatic ailments. He died when Alexei was two years old. Gastev's mother, Ekaterina Nikolaevna, was a seamstress. Aleksei Gastev later described his childhood home as clean and cosy and furnished in the national Russian style.
In 1898 or 1899 Alexei Gastev entered the Moscow Teachers' College with the intention to become a teacher like his father. In 1900 he joined the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party. In 1902, just before final examinations, he was expelled from the college for being among the leaders of a student demonstration to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the death of Nikolay Dobrolyubov. From this time on he became a professional revolutionary and devoted himself to political activities mostly in the form of propaganda and agitation among the industrial workers. During this time, Gastev was closely associated with the Bolshevik faction of the party; he frequently corresponded with Vladimir Lenin and his wife, 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 and officially left the party in 1908.
From Wikipedia’s article on Aleksei Gastev (this version), CC BY-SA 4.0.
Career
Occupation: trade unionist, politician, poet, science fiction writer, writer, revolutionary, scientist.6
Personal life
Legal issues and controversies
Industrial and trade-union work
From 1901 until 1917, Gastev's time was divided 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 Vasileostrovskii Trolley Depot. Here he was chosen to monitor wear and tear on the transmission belts and sprockets and analyze the repair process of the trolley cars. It was here that he first thought of developing a "science for the social construction of enterprises".
In 1910, he was again arrested but when he was sent to Siberia, he escaped to Paris, where he worked for the motor-car manufacturer Clément-Bayard. Here he first became familiar with quality assurance which was carried out in a particularly thorough fashion. By 1912 he was working for Citroën where he witnessed the application of assembly line production which was inspired by the Ford plant in the United States. At that time, he became familiar with French Syndicalism and adopted many of its views, seeing trade unions as a chief means of confronting capitalism by bringing concrete improvements into the lives of workers. By 1913, Gastev had joined the Circle of Proletarian Culture, composed of revolutionary writers of Anatoly Lunacharsky, Fedor Kalinin, Pavel Bessalko and Mikhail Gerasimov. In 1917-1918, Gastev won election as the Chairman of the Central Committee of the newly created All-Russian Union of Metal Workers. He actively participated in the 1918 Conference of the Union.
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Arrest and death
On September 7, 1938, Gastev was arrested on false charges of "counter-revolutionary terrorist activity". He was detained in a Moscow prison and sentenced to death by a speedy trial by Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the Soviet Union on April 14, 1939. There was no defense attorney and no possibility to appeal against the decision, as was common during the Great Purge. On April 15, 1939, Gastev was executed at Kommunarka shooting ground in the suburbs of Moscow.
From Wikipedia’s article on Aleksei Gastev (this version), CC BY-SA 4.0.
Awards
Links
Sources
The numbers on this page point here. Each one links to the record it came from.
- 1WikidataAleksei Gastev on Wikidata
- 2WikipediaAleksei Gastev on Wikipedia
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- 11WikidataUstanovka, Founder
- 12Wikimedia CommonsAleksei Gastev photo by Unknown author Unknown author, Public domain