Aleksey Kapitonovich Gastev - revolutionary, communist, statesman and public figure, poet, creator of "social engineering" - the science of rational, organized, productive and beautiful human labor.

The works of A. K. Gastev, included in this collection, are part of the richest material contained in the works of the founder of the Soviet school of scientific organization of labor, production and management.

The book will be read with interest by wide circles of workers, foremen, engineers, economists, scientists, teachers and students; party, Soviet and trade union activists.

Alexey Kapitonovich Gastev
How to work

Alexei Kapitonovich Gastev and his "last work of art"

When the morning horns are buzzing on the outskirts of the workers, this is not at all a call for captivity. This is the song of the future. We used to work in squalid workshops and started working in the mornings at different times. And now, in the morning, at eight o'clock, the horns are screaming for a whole million. Now minute by minute we start together. A whole million take the hammer at the same moment.

Our first blows thunder together. What are the horns singing about! - This is the morning hymn of unity!

Work Strike Poetry

We spend at work the best part own life.

One must learn how to work in such a way that the work is easy and that it is a constant life school.

How to work

Gastev Aleksey Kapitonovich - a revolutionary, a proletarian poet and a prominent figure in the field of labor rationalization - was born on September 26, 1882 in the city of Suzdal, Vladimir province. His father was a teacher and died when Gastev was two years old. Testev's mother was a dressmaker. At the end of the city school, and then technical courses, Gastev entered the teacher's institute, but was expelled from there for political activities. Since 1900 he has been participating in the revolutionary movement. Having given himself up to political work, he wandered through prisons, exiles (Vologda province, Arkhangelsk province, Narym) and worked as a mechanic at factories in St. Petersburg, Kharkov, Nikolaev, as well as in tram depots.

Until 1917 he was in an illegal position. He emigrated several times to Paris. He worked in factories abroad. Since 1901 - a member of the RSDLP. Since 1906 - an active worker of trade unions. From 1907 to 1918 he was a member of the board of the Petrograd Union of Metalworkers, and in 1917–1918. - Secretary of the Central Committee of the All-Russian Union of Metalworkers. From the moment of the October Revolution, he worked as a professional, manager of industrial enterprises and a journalist.

Artistic things Gastev began to write in the 1900s. For the first time his work was published in 1904 - the story "Beyond the Wall" from the life of political exiles. Collections of works of art were published several times under the heading "Poetry of the Work Strike". The last collection was published in Moscow in 1923. In the early 1920s, Gastev left his activities in the field fiction and devoted himself entirely to work on the organization of labor. Gastev considers his last work of art to be the CIT (Central Institute of Labor) of the All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions organized by him in Moscow in 1920, which he manages and which embodies all the legendary ideas invested in his artistic work.

The main scientific work of Gastev is the book "Labor Installations" (published in 1924), which outlines the CIT methodology for teaching labor techniques.

In solving its main task - the training of the workforce - the CIT applied the method of analyzing labor movements using "cyclography", that is, photographs of individual elements of the movement of human working organs. Starting with the study of the simplest working operation - a blow, Gastev established the "normal" (the system of the most correct movements) for cutting with a chisel. The study of cutting with a chisel for several years caused a number of criticisms from critics of the CIT, who saw in this slowness an organic defect of the "narrow base". However, already in 1925, Gastev fully developed a method for training a locksmith, and the CIT moved on to training turners, fitters, blacksmiths, construction workers, textile workers, aviators, etc. Having developed the methodology, Gastev moved on to mass retraining of workers, establishing for this Joint-Stock Company"Installation". Training of workers according to the CIT method requires 3-6 months.

Gastev wrote a number of books in which he expounds his views on the issues of the professional movement, the scientific organization of labor and the construction of a new culture: "Industrial World", "Trade Unions and Labor Organization", "How to Work", "Time", "The Rise of Culture", "Youth, go!", "New cultural installation", "Installation of production by the CIT method", "Reconstruction of production", etc. Edits the journals "Organization of labor", "Installation of labor force" and "Bulletin of standardization" ...

Behind these protocol lines (taken by us from the autobiography of A.K. Gastev in volume 41 of the encyclopedic dictionary "Pomegranate" and curriculum vitae in the 14th volume of the first edition of the Great Soviet Encyclopedia), broken through by the metaphor of the "last work of art", the image of a revolutionary, a worker, a poet who became one of the founders of the Scientific Organization of Labor, a true nugget from a scattering of talents born by the Russian Revolution and who created it, arises.

For many years after the thirty-eighth year that ended the life of this remarkable man, his deeds were consigned to oblivion. Generations grew up who did not hear not only the name of Gastev, but also the words "NOT" and "CIT". And more than understandable, therefore, is the exceptional interest now being shown in questions of the scientific organization of labor, the most valuable heritage of the twenties and thirties.

In 1964, "The Poetry of the Work Strike" was republished. The fantastic hyperbole and class pathos of Gastev's poems and journalism, which his peers associated with the "proletcult" twenties, unexpectedly and organically "fit" into today's reality. Gastev's calls for a "remake of man", for the construction of "social engineering", which seemed to many of his contemporaries to be fantasy, turned out to be understandable and close to people of the sixties with their "cybernetic" way of thinking. The preface to the new edition of "The Poetry of the Work Strike", articles in magazines and newspapers, memoirs of friends and contemporaries recreate the stages of Gastev's wonderful biography, so sparingly told (alas - not completely) by himself: 1900 - the first exile, escape, Switzerland, Paris , return to Russia. 1905 - leadership of a fighting squad in Kostroma, Bolshevik organizations of Ivanovo-Voznesensk, Yaroslavl. IV Party Congress (Gastev-"Lavrenty" - a member of the Bolshevik, Leninist faction), again arrest, again exile, again escape, again emigration, again return ... And all the time - work in factories ("dismissal" always went according to stage ...), and in the intervals - "rest" and classes in "belles-lettres" in transit. In the Narym exile - the first thoughts about "social engineering". Again Paris, and again Petrograd... A revolution that returns Gastev from yet another exile, the intensification of work in the trade unions. Then Ukraine - the leadership of the "Council of Arts" and interrupted by Denikin's plans for the organization of the "School of Social Engineering Sciences" (the prototype of the CIT). In 1918, Gastev was sent to Nizhny Novgorod as the Extraordinary Commissar of the Sormovo Plant. Work at factories again (Moscow, Nikolaev, Kharkov). Work at the All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions. The last "constructive-poetic" experience - "Bunch of Orders" (published later, in 1921).

And, finally, the organization of the Institute of Labor at the All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions (1920). In August 1921, the Institute became known as the Central Institute as a result of a decree of the Council of Labor and Defense signed by V. I. Lenin. Shortly before this, Gastev met with Ilyich for the last time. “I would like to help comrade Gastev, head of the Institute of Labor,” Lenin wrote then to Deputy People’s Commissar of Finance A. O. Alsky. “... We still, even in a difficult situation, must support such an institution.”

It is to this - the last and main "work of art" of Alexei Kapitonovich that this book is dedicated.

Alexei Kapitonovich himself will be the narrator. We will neither interrupt it nor supplement it with importunate explanations. The reader himself will be able to see for himself the comprehensibility (and relevance) of the thoughts and deeds of those not so long ago days and make his own judgment about them. Let us recall only the most basic facts.

The first policy document issued by the Central Institute of Labor was the rules formulated by A.K. Gastev, which gave the name to this book - "How to work":

“Whether we work at the office table, whether we saw with a file in a locksmith's workshop, or, finally, we plow the land - everywhere we need to create labor endurance and gradually make it a habit.

When the morning horns are buzzing on the outskirts of the workers, this is not at all a call for captivity. This is the song of the future. We used to work in squalid workshops and started working in the mornings at different times. And now, in the morning, at eight o'clock, the horns are screaming for a whole million. Now minute by minute we start together. A whole million take the hammer at the same moment.

Our first blows thunder together. What are the horns singing about! - This is the morning anthem of unity!

Work Strike Poetry

We spend the best part of our lives at work.

One must learn how to work in such a way that the work is easy and that it is a constant life school.

How to work

Gastev Aleksey Kapitonovich - a revolutionary, a proletarian poet and a prominent figure in the field of rationalization of labor - was born on September 26, 1882 in the city of Suzdal, Vladimir province. His father was a teacher and died when Gastev was two years old. Testev's mother was a dressmaker. At the end of the city school, and then technical courses, Gastev entered the teacher's institute, but was expelled from there for political activities. Since 1900 he has been participating in the revolutionary movement. Having given himself up to political work, he wandered through prisons, exiles (Vologda province, Arkhangelsk province, Narym) and worked as a mechanic at factories in St. Petersburg, Kharkov, Nikolaev, as well as in tram depots.

Until 1917 he was in an illegal position. He emigrated several times to Paris. He worked in factories abroad. Since 1901 - a member of the RSDLP. Since 1906 - an active worker of trade unions. From 1907 to 1918 he was a member of the board of the Petrograd Union of Metalworkers, and in 1917–1918. - Secretary of the Central Committee of the All-Russian Union of Metalworkers. From the moment of the October Revolution, he worked as a professional, manager of industrial enterprises and a journalist.

Artistic things Gastev began to write in the 1900s. For the first time his work was published in 1904 - the story "Beyond the Wall" from the life of political exiles. Collections of works of art were published several times under the title "Poetry of the Work Strike". The last collection was published in Moscow in 1923. In the early 1920s, Gastev left his work in the field of fiction and devoted himself entirely to work on the organization of labor. Gastev considers his last work of art to be the CIT (Central Institute of Labor) of the All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions organized by him in Moscow in 1920, which he manages and which embodies all the legendary ideas invested in his artistic work.

The main scientific work of Gastev is the book "Labor Installations" (published in 1924), which outlines the CIT methodology for teaching labor techniques.

In solving its main task - the training of the workforce - CIT applied the method of analyzing labor movements using "cyclography", that is, photographs of individual elements of the movement of human working organs. Starting with the study of the simplest working operation - a blow, Gastev established the "normal" (the system of the most correct movements) for cutting with a chisel. The study of cutting with a chisel for several years caused a number of criticisms from critics of the TsIT, who saw this slowness as an organic defect of the "narrow base". However, already in 1925, Gastev fully developed a method for training a locksmith, and the CIT moved on to training turners, fitters, blacksmiths, construction workers, textile workers, aviators, etc. Having developed the methodology, Gastev moved on to mass retraining of workers, establishing for this joint-stock company "Installation". Training of workers according to the CIT method requires 3-6 months.

Gastev wrote a number of books in which he expounds his views on the issues of the professional movement, the scientific organization of labor and the construction of a new culture: Industrial World, Trade Unions and Labor Organization, How to Work, Time, Rise of Culture, “Youth, go!”, “New cultural installation”, “Installation of production by the CIT method”, “Reconstruction of production”, etc. Edits the journals “Organization of labor”, “Installation of labor force” and “Bulletin of standardization” ...

Behind these protocol lines (taken by us from the autobiography of A.K. Gastev in volume 41 of the encyclopedic dictionary "Granat" and biographical information in volume 14 of the first edition of the Great Soviet Encyclopedia), broken through by the metaphor of the "last work of art", the image of a revolutionary, worker, a poet who became one of the founders of the Scientific Organization of Labor, a true nugget from a scattering of talents born of the Russian Revolution and creating it.

For many years after the thirty-eighth year that ended the life of this remarkable man, his deeds were consigned to oblivion. Generations grew up who did not hear not only the name of Gastev, but also the words "NOT" and "CIT". And more than understandable, therefore, is the exceptional interest now being shown in questions of the scientific organization of labor, the most valuable heritage of the twenties and thirties.

In 1964, "The Poetry of the Work Strike" was republished. The fantastic hyperbole and class pathos of Gastev's poems and journalism, which his peers associated with the "proletarian" twenties, unexpectedly and organically "fit" into today's reality. Gastev's calls for "remaking of man", for the construction of "social engineering", which seemed to many of his contemporaries to be fantasy, turned out to be understandable and close to people of the sixties with their "cybernetic" way of thinking. The preface to the new edition of "The Poetry of the Work Strike", articles in magazines and newspapers, memoirs of friends and contemporaries recreate the stages of Gastev's wonderful biography, so sparingly told (alas - not completely) by himself: 1900 - the first exile, escape, Switzerland, Paris , return to Russia. 1905 - leadership of a fighting squad in Kostroma, Bolshevik organizations of Ivanovo-Voznesensk, Yaroslavl. IV Congress of the Party (Gastev-"Lavrenty" - a member of the Bolshevik, Leninist faction), again arrest, again exile, again escape, again emigration, again return ... And all the time - work in factories ("dismissal" always went according to stage ...), and in between - "rest" and classes in "belles-lettres" in transit. In the Narym exile - the first thoughts about "social engineering". Again Paris, and again Petrograd... A revolution that returns Gastev from yet another exile, the intensification of work in the trade unions. Then Ukraine - the leadership of the "Council of Arts" and interrupted by Denikin's plans for the organization of the "School of Social Engineering Sciences" (the prototype of the CIT). In 1918, Gastev was sent to Nizhny Novgorod as the Extraordinary Commissar of the Sormovo Plant. Work at factories again (Moscow, Nikolaev, Kharkov). Work at the All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions. The last "constructive-poetic" experience is "A Bundle of Orders" (published later, in 1921).

And, finally, the organization of the Institute of Labor at the All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions (1920). In August 1921, the Institute became known as the Central Institute as a result of a decree of the Council of Labor and Defense signed by V. I. Lenin. Shortly before this, Gastev met with Ilyich for the last time. “I would like to help comrade Gastev, head of the Institute of Labor,” Lenin wrote then to Deputy People's Commissar of Finance A. O. Alsky. “... We still, even in a difficult situation, must support such an institution.”

It is to this - the last and main "work of art" of Alexei Kapitonovich that this book is dedicated.

Alexei Kapitonovich himself will be the narrator. We will neither interrupt it nor supplement it with importunate explanations. The reader himself will be able to see for himself the comprehensibility (and relevance) of the thoughts and deeds of those not so long ago days and make his own judgment about them. Let us recall only the most basic facts.

Source: A. K. Gastev How to Work: A Practical Introduction to the Science of Labor Organization ", 2011.

When the morning horns are buzzing on the outskirts of the workers, this is not at all a call for captivity. This is the song of the future.
We used to work in squalid workshops and started working in the mornings at different times.
And now, in the morning, at eight o'clock, the horns are screaming for a whole million.
Now minute by minute we start together. A whole million take the hammer at the same moment.
Our first blows thunder together.
What are the horns singing about!
- This is the morning anthem of unity!

Work Strike Poetry

We spend the best part of our lives at work.
One must learn how to work in such a way that the work is easy and that it is a constant life school.

How to work

Gastev Alexey Kapitonovich- a revolutionary, a proletarian poet and a prominent figure in the field of labor rationalization - was born on September 26, 1882 in the city of Suzdal, Vladimir province. His father was a teacher and died when Gastev was two years old. Gastev's mother was a dressmaker. At the end of the city school, and then technical courses, Gastev entered the teacher's institute, but was expelled from there for political activities. Since 1900 he has been participating in the revolutionary movement. Having given himself up to political work, he wandered through prisons, exiles (Vologda province, Arkhangelsk province, Narym) and worked as a mechanic at factories in St. Petersburg, Kharkov, Nikolaev, as well as in tram depots.

Until 1917 he was in an illegal position. He emigrated several times to Paris. He worked in factories abroad. Since 1901 - a member of the RSDLP. Since 1906 - an active worker of trade unions. From 1907 to 1918 he was a member of the board of the Petrograd Union of Metalworkers, and in 1917-1918. - Secretary of the Central Committee of the All-Russian Union of Metalworkers. From the moment of the October Revolution, he worked as a professional, manager of industrial enterprises and a journalist.

Artistic things Gastev began to write in the 1900s. For the first time his work was published in 1904 - the story "Beyond the Wall" from the life of political exiles. Collections of works of art were published several times under the title "Poetry of the Work Strike". The last collection was published in Moscow in 1923. In the early 1920s, Gastev left his work in the field of fiction and devoted himself entirely to work on the organization of labor. Gastev considers the All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions organized by him in 1920 in Moscow, which he manages and which embodies all the legendary ideas invested in his artistic work, to be his last work of art.

The main scientific work of Gastev is the book "Labor Installations" (published in 1924), which outlines the CIT methodology for teaching labor techniques.

In solving its main task - the training of the workforce - CIT applied the method of analyzing labor movements using "cyclography", that is, photographs of individual elements of the movement of human working organs. Starting with the study of the simplest working operation - a blow, Gastev established the "normal" (the system of the most correct movements) for cutting with a chisel. The study of cutting with a chisel for several years caused a number of criticisms from critics of the TsIT, who saw this slowness as an organic defect of the "narrow base". However, already in 1925, Gastev fully developed a methodology for training a locksmith, and the CIT moved on to training turners, fitters, blacksmiths, construction workers, textile workers, aviators, etc. Having developed the methodology, Gastev moved on to mass retraining of workers, establishing for this joint-stock company "Installation". Training of workers according to the CIT method requires 3-6 months.

Gastev wrote a number of books in which he expounds his views on the issues of the professional movement, the scientific organization of labor and the construction of a new culture: Industrial World, Trade Unions and Labor Organization, How to Work, Time, Rise of Culture, “Youth, go!”, “New cultural installation”, “Installation of production by the CIT method”, “Reconstruction of production”, etc. Edits the journals “Organization of labor”, “Installation of labor force” and “Bulletin of standardization” ...

Behind these protocol lines (taken by us from the autobiography of A.K. Gastev in the 41st volume of the encyclopedic dictionary "Granat" and biographical information in the 14th volume of the first edition of the Great Soviet Encyclopedia), broken through by the metaphor of the "last work of art", the image of a revolutionary, worker, a poet who became one of the founders of the Scientific Organization of Labor, a true nugget from a scattering of talents born of the Russian Revolution and those who created it.

For many years after the thirty-eighth year that ended the life of this remarkable man, his deeds were consigned to oblivion. Generations grew up who did not hear not only the name of Gastev, but also the words "NOT" and "CIT". And more than understandable, therefore, is the exceptional interest now being shown in questions of the scientific organization of labor, the most valuable heritage of the twenties and thirties.

In 1964, "The Poetry of the Work Strike" was republished. The fantastic hyperbole and class pathos of Gastev's poems and journalism, which his peers associated with, unexpectedly and organically "fit" into today's reality. Gastev's calls for "remaking man", for the construction of "social engineering", which seemed to many of his contemporaries to be fantasy, turned out to be understandable and close to people of the sixties from. The preface to the new edition of "The Poetry of the Work Strike", articles in magazines and newspapers, memoirs of friends and contemporaries recreate the stages of Gastev's wonderful biography, so sparingly told (alas - not completely) by himself: 1900 - the first exile, escape, Switzerland, Paris , return to Russia. 1905 - leadership of a fighting squad in Kostroma, Bolshevik organizations of Ivanovo-Voznesensk, Yaroslavl. IV Congress of the Party (Gastev-"Lavrenty" - a member of the Bolshevik, Leninist faction), again arrest, again exile, again escape, again emigration, again return ... And all the time - work in factories ("dismissal" always went according to stage ...), and in between - "rest" and classes in "belles-lettres" in transit. In the Narym exile - the first thoughts about "social engineering". Again Paris, and again Petrograd... A revolution that returns Gastev from yet another exile, the intensification of work in the trade unions. Then Ukraine - the leadership of the "Council of Arts" and interrupted by Denikin's plans for the organization of the "School of Social Engineering Sciences" (the prototype of the CIT). In 1918, Gastev was sent to Nizhny Novgorod as the Extraordinary Commissar of the Sormovo Plant. Work at factories again (Moscow, Nikolaev, Kharkov). Work at the All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions. The last "constructive-poetic" experience is "A Bundle of Orders" (published later, in 1921).

And, finally, the organization of the Institute of Labor at the All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions (1920). In August 1921, the Institute became known as the Central Institute as a result of a decree of the Council of Labor and Defense signed by V. I. Lenin. Shortly before this, Gastev met with Ilyich for the last time. “I would like to help comrade Gastev, head of the Institute of Labor,” Lenin wrote then to Deputy People's Commissar of Finance A. O. Alsky. “... We still, even in a difficult situation, must support such an institution.”

It is to this - the last and main "work of art" of Alexei Kapitonovich that this book is dedicated.

Alexei Kapitonovich himself will be the narrator. We will neither interrupt it nor supplement it with importunate explanations. The reader himself will be able to make sure of the comprehensibility (and relevance) of the thoughts and deeds of those not so long ago days and make his own judgment about them. Let us recall only the most basic facts.

The first policy document issued by the Central Institute of Labor was the rules formulated by A.K. Gastev, which gave the name to this book - “How to work”:

“Whether we work at the office desk, sawing with a file in a locksmith's workshop, or, finally, plowing the land - everywhere we need to create labor endurance and gradually make it a habit.

Here are the first basic rules for all labor:

1. Before undertaking work, it is necessary to think through it all, think it over so that the model of the finished work and the whole order of labor methods are finally formed in the head. If everything cannot be thought through to the end, then think over the main milestones, and think through the first parts of the work thoroughly.

2. Do not get down to work until all the working tools and all the devices for work are prepared ... "

And so on. There are 16 commandments in total. No secrets, no revelations. But - according to Gastev - this is the "science of the organization of labor." And in general, there is simply no NOT, in addition to the practical rules of work!

Tsitov's leaflets and posters "How to work" could be seen over the workbench of a locksmith and in the People's Commissariat office, in the railway depot and in Lenin's Kremlin office,

"Learn to work!" The CIT responded to this Leninist appeal with practical deeds. The fulfillment of the Tsit's "commandments" was not an "ideological" victory, but a practical one. Gastev's remark, which completed the first printed edition of the Rules, is characteristic: "If you add a rule to this yourself, it means that you have become involved in the matter." In it, so to speak, is the "key" of the Zitov "doctrine". “If you want to introduce HOT, become a master of at least one operation, calculate it and give it an acceleration. Then you will speak with facts, and not by rote.”

In general, Aleksey Kapitonovich spoke not without poison about the "NOT" "cramming". In November 1923, he offered the readers of Pravda the following "riddle":

Why does a German work better than a Russian?
What is the scientific organization of labor?
It means a calculated organization.
But what does it mean?
That's what - processing accuracy and speed.
After that say:
Does an ordinary German work better than an ordinary Russian?
- Of course better.
And now another question: Does an ordinary German know what a scientific organization of labor is?
“Of course he doesn't.
- I didn't even hear it.
Has the current ordinary Muscovite heard about the scientific organization of labor?
“Of course I heard. He even came up with an abbreviation: HOT.
- If so, then what does the German take?

The “guess” that followed from dozens of readers’ responses and collective discussions, the materials of which were published in Pravda and in the Tsitov’s journal Organization of Labor, boiled down to the fact that a “German” who does not know the word “NOT” has what automatically provides him with a calculated organization of work - a labor culture. And our worker still needs to be vaccinated. It is to instill, not to preach! For culture, in the Zitov's understanding, is not “reading”, but dexterity, and it is brought up not by agitation, but by exercise.

From what has been said, of course, one should not conclude that Gastev was against agitation in general. He himself was a born agitator. The participants in the revolution of the fifth year recall how the twenty-two-year-old Bolshevik Lavrenty-Gastev, speaking at a large rally in Kostroma after the well-known Socialist-Revolutionary orator Avksentiev, persuaded literally the entire audience to Bolshevik positions, and a few weeks later, dressed in military uniform, made his way into the barracks of the stationed in Rostov- Yaroslavl Artillery Regiment and ensured that the soldiers refused to oppose the workers ...

What was the CIT methodology, based on the “narrow base” already mentioned in passing? Of course, to retell Gastev's works in detail in the preface to them is an ungrateful and absurd undertaking. Therefore, we confine ourselves to just a few words.

Gastevskaya is primarily characterized by two, essentially extremely simple ideas. The first of them is the “cybernetic” idea of ​​the universality of the organization’s problems, the recognition of the fundamental unity of the problems of rationalizing activities of any kind – “managerial”, “working”, “training”. When Gastev spoke about the “mathematization of psychophysiology and economics”, he did not mean “equipping” the field of “elusive emotions” with scientific formulas, but the possibility of their unbiased analysis (so characteristic of the mathematical approach that Aleksey Kapitonovich understood well, being not a mathematician at all ). Moreover, he was convinced not only of the possibility, but also of the inevitability of creating a method of analysis applicable equally to both psychophysiology and economics, to the rationalization of both “physical” and “mental” labor. He believed that the task of organizing a workplace is not only “similar” to the tasks of rationalizing a machine, an enterprise or an institution, but that these tasks are “essentially” the same (“up to isomorphism”, as experienced in mathematics, logic and other cybernetics would say engineers and economists of the sixties).

But remarkable as this ability to catch not-so-obvious and indisputable analogies in various aspects of the problem of organization is from the point of view of today's researcher, it was by no means an exceptional achievement of the CIT. The history of our domestic thought has known quite a lot of well-proportioned and general “up to universality” concepts. It is only a pity that these were, in the main, only speculative constructions. The CIT, one might say, was “forced” to deal with a specific matter. Now, forty years later, we can clearly see not only the methodological, but also the psychological background of the second cornerstone of the Zit method - the “narrow base principle”. Ultimately, Gastev’s confidence in the applicability of the teaching methodology developed for the operation of cutting with a chisel to any other private professional method and, in general, to any teaching method (and then to the method of work itself) is nothing more than elementary for any psychologist the “transfer principle”, a principle more than natural for a practical researcher who regards the achievements of professorial psychology with a healthy ironic distrust. Indeed, in order to notice that a demobilized Red Army soldier, who went through a harsh school of army service, is much more susceptible to the “civilian bungler” both to the science of felling and to the science of filing, the “psychology of common sense” and simply observation, which Aleksey Kapitonovich was so generous endowed. But it was precisely on such a simple basis (reinforced, on the one hand, by the “cybernetic” conviction of the practical worker in the primacy of “engineering” methods in solving pedagogical and even biological problems, and on the other hand, by Pavlov’s theory of conditioned reflexes), that Tsit’s pedagogical and organizational theory grew.

Under this rather capacious term, A.K. Gastev understood both specific reflexes brought up as a result of a well-thought-out system of labor training, and the general state of the body, “attuned” to the perception of new “settings” (in the first, narrow sense), and most importantly, the the dynamics of this restructuring of the employee’s body in a new organizational way, since the main concern of the CIT was not so much instilling in the body (a person or an enterprise as a whole) a system of certain organizational skills, but transferring it to the rails of continuous organizational improvement, in principle, unlimited. Using Tsit's terminology, one can say that the "settings" for the TsIT are not only and not so much organizational and biological "templates" as "guides", and even "drivers".

The nature of specific CIT developments was determined, of course, by the locksmith "tastes" of Gastev himself and his comrades in Petrograd and Paris factories (as well as "colleagues" in Narym and Ust-Sysolsk), who helped him build the CIT, and the experience of tariff and qualification work in the Union metal workers in 1917-1918 (which, by the way, directed Vladimir Ilyich’s attention to “Taylorism”), which brought Gastev close to the problem of analyzing and “installing” work operations and methods, and the situation in the country, which was characterized, in particular, acute crisis of skilled labor.

So, in the beginning - the analysis of the process of cutting with a chisel, i.e., the analysis of the "delegate" from shock operations: the construction of the "normal" of cutting and the normal of learning to cut. Then - the extension of methods of analysis and methods of synthesis of normals to the second main "delegate" - the pressing operation of filing. Further - the combination of the results obtained in holistic teaching methods, even further - the construction of individual operations - "aggregates" of tens and hundreds of new specific methods (it will be useful to recall this a little later, when getting acquainted with the functional system of labor organization according to CIT and with its work on aggregation in the machine tool industry).

It is easy to understand the regularities of the expansion of the problems of the work of the TsIT and the spread of its method to an ever wider front of research without "leading" explanations. If it is well understood that “the worker behind the machine is the director of the enterprise”, then will it occur to you to be amazed at the transitions of the CIT from “pedagogy” to “organization”, from “organization” to “reconstruction”? Why, there were, in fact, no "transitions" either; all this: both “pedagogy”, and “organization”, and “reconstruction” are not transitions, but a natural and inexorable line of development. And how banal (if not to say illiterate) are the lamentations of figures hypnotized by "complex automation" about the "TsIT's focus on manual labor" - that same TsIT, all the developments of which were literally permeated with the thesis of machinism and automatism. “Organization is the lines along which automata walk: muscular, nervous, machine…”

Of course, without sinning against the Zit spirit and the spirit of the era itself, one should not argue that the Zitov “science of labor organization” - even in the ideal forms of “social engineering” - is cybernetics. In our enlightened age, any graduate student (not to mention journalists) will give CIT a hundred points ahead in terms of cybernetic formulations. But right now, on the eve of complex automation and the ever-wider use in production of methods and means of machine mathematics, it is so useful to learn from the CIT attention to "little things", which the head of the CIT so strongly called for in word and deed, who already then well grasped the real danger of the Manilov the tendency to consider and resolve questions of Organization and Reorganization without fail only on a worldwide, planetary scale. For our age (even though it is space and atomic), apparently, “simple” worries will suffice: you will have to pave roads, build houses, and grow bread ... Thirty or forty years ago, a real reorganization of production, i.e., the most rough work, too, had to be done in spite of the distilled "HOT" of professors and preachers, rather than thanks to it ...

And one more enviable quality distinguished A.K. Gastev and the team led by him: an unbiased sobriety of assessments, the ability to separate business from emotions. While the share of one and a half generations of Notov professors just had enough worries about popularizing the first half of Lenin's phrase about the "refined atrocity" of the Taylor system, to expose the "legend of Ford", . Isn't that why they began to learn from TsIT so soon!

What are at least the cries about "functionality" or fashionable in their time, but a few, we would say, unqualified objections to the CIT methodology, which turns the supposedly trained worker into an "appendage of the machine."

In talking about the “cyberneticity” of the Zitov method, it is not superfluous, finally, to touch on one more characteristic side of it. Along with the constant tendency to comprehensively study the factors influencing labor and production processes (within the framework of the so-called "labor clinic", the concept of which is sufficiently disclosed in the works of Gastev, included in this book), the CIT was distinguished by reasonable self-restraint in the choice of means for solving specific problems. Of course, a truly “optimal” theory and methodology of teaching would at least have to take into account all and every kind of data from biological (psychological, physiological) studies of individual acts of perception and their series, which together constitute the learning process. But - too little of this kind of recommendations could be offered by the biological laboratories of the labor clinic of the CIT of those years (although, by the way, it is from their walls that many excellent works originate, which have long become classics for any specialist in biocybernetics; first of all, this, of course, refers to the work of the biomechanical laboratory of N. A. Bernshtein). And CIT managed with cash (mainly technical and organizational) funds. In other words, theses of the type “engineering projects biology”, in which the idea of ​​“modeling with incomplete information” is easily visible, now known from any book on cybernetics under the name of the “black box principle”, meant, as applied to CIT, “narrowing the base” not only of problems but also means of research. And, paying tribute to the common sense of the Tsitovites, thanks to which they managed to obtain quite tangible results (including theoretical ones) with the most meager means, we clearly understand that Gastev’s magnificent plan to build a real University of Labor, an integral part of which would be equipped with the latest to the word of science and technology "labor clinic", it is in our time that it becomes one of the most urgent matters of the Science of Labor.

Now a few words about the book itself. The preliminary program article by Aleksey Kapitonovich "Our Tasks" with the rules attached to it "How to work", published in the first issue of the Citation journal "Organization of Labor", it consists of three parts. The first part of "The New Cultural Setting" is based on the articles of the 1920s, devoted mainly to general questions of labor culture. However, “general” only to the extent that Gastev was generally inclined towards abstract preaching (we have already talked about the emphasis on specific, “mundane” recommendations, which is characteristic of the CIT cultural propaganda). The pamphlet “The New Cultural Setting” itself subsequently (1927) became part of the third (the most complete of his lifetime) editions of Gastev’s book “How to Work”, supplied by the author with the subtitle “Practical Introduction to the Science of Labor Organization”. We built the entire present edition as a whole, largely focusing on this book. But while in the first part the questions of the “science of the organization of labor” are presented at the level of “cultural attitude” that requires a minimum of tension for the reader, the second part is devoted to a more detailed presentation and substantiation of Zyt's concept of NOT.

We considered it possible not to include in the collection the monograph "Labor installations", in which the CIT method is presented with the greatest completeness, limiting ourselves to the publication of a concise formulation of the CIT doctrine set forth in an article of the same title from the journal "Organization of Labor". This is explained by the fact that this monograph is the basis of a collection specially dedicated to the pedagogical system of the CIT, which is currently being prepared for publication by the Prosveshcheniye publishing house. (The chapters published in 1927 from the second part of "Labor installations" under the general title "Setting up production by the CIT method" had to be reserved due to the limited volume of this book until the next editions.)

Finally, the third part, as its name implies, is devoted to the description of the works of the CIT, which are the “output” of the theoretical positions outlined in the second part. Of course, the rubrication is rather conditional, since in the description practical work, for all their topicality, formulations of theoretical conclusions appear all the time, often very detailed.

Repetitions, which we did not quite manage to avoid when compiling the collection, are not accidental: Gastev, "obsessed with one organizational idea", "hollowed at one point" all his life.

The incompleteness of some materials, reflecting the evolution of the views of A.K. Gastev and the direction of the work of the CIT, is associated in some cases with objective difficulties in the work of the CIT (this applies, for example, to such interesting and still awaiting detailed analysis issues as the relationship between functional and linear principles organization in the works of the CIT, analytical and synthetic methods, the connection between the methods of the CIT and the Stakhanov movement, the role of technological and organizational factors in production). We preferred to sacrifice some of the undoubtedly interesting material (say, on the question of the evolution of the CIT approach to the problems of regulation) rather than to impose on A.K. The publication of Alexei Kapitonovich's works obligated us to observe maximum tact in this regard: he began his "complete collection of works", but did not finish it.

Several works are presented in the collection in excerpts, in some others small reductions were made. All denominations, of course, are explicitly specified (with dots).

When choosing illustrations, we, as a rule, followed the author, striving for the greatest clarity in the presentation of his ideas. The TsIT emblem (combined "instant photographs" of a worker's hand with a hammer against the background of a coordinate grid), which all Tsit publications were equipped with at one time, seems to us a symbol that has collected the entire evolution of Gastev's life - from "Poetry of the Work Strike" to the works of recent years .

We tried to present the bibliography of A. K. Gastev's publications with the utmost completeness, although we are clearly aware that many publications, scattered in different places and difficult to access, were not included in it.

This collection, conceived by the compilers precisely as a practical introduction to the problems of the scientific organization of labor in the proper (narrow) sense of the word, could not, naturally, reflect the entire breadth of interests of A.K. called "organization of mental labor" - taking into account, of course, the conventions of this term, which Gastev himself treated very ironically). We hope to fill in involuntary gaps with the following publications.

Presenting to readers the first extensive edition of the works of A. K. Gastev after such a long break, the compilers, who consider themselves his students, are clearly aware of the measure of their objectivity. The impartiality of the TsIT, already noted above, does not at all imply methodological omnivorousness, and it would be strange to expect from A.K. Following the example of Aleksey Kapitonovich, we will allow ourselves not to bore the reader with polemical distractions and confine ourselves to a presentation of the work actually done (it is very appropriate here to pay attention to the beginning of the article “CIT as a survey structure”, where the position of A.K. Gastev is stated very clearly).

We refrain from the traditional reservations about the inevitable obsolescence of terminology (which is sometimes so unusual that it may seem naive) and the essence of some ideas, from reminders of the development of technology over forty years, etc. We also refrain from the traditional optimistic words that “ in spite of what has been said, the reader will be able to find in the book a number of interesting ideas that have retained their purpose ... ”, etc. To repeat quite obvious things for the hundredth time means simply not to respect the reader.

We would like to express our most sincere thanks to all the individuals and organizations that have assisted us in the preparation of this publication. First of all, this applies to friends at the CIT, who preserved the most valuable materials and helped us with advice: A.V. Smetanin, V.F. Kadobnov, L.A. Kanevsky, M.R. Zhuravlev, S.M. . Sofya Abramovna Gasteva gave us great help in preparing the manuscript for publication and in compiling the bibliography.

We greatly value the attention and energy shown in questions of the scientific organization of labor by the Council for Cybernetics of the USSR Academy of Sciences and especially by its chairman AI Berg. Invariable - even in difficult years - was the participation and support from one of the oldest members of the CIT, S. G. Strumilin. The initiative taken by the late V. S. Nemchinov in the preparation of this publication deserves special gratitude.

And finally, our heartfelt gratitude to the author, Alexei Kapitonovich Gastev. With this publication, we would like to at least to some extent express our deepest respect and admiration for his amazing life and scientific feat.

Preface to the second edition

The first edition of this book, published in 1966, aroused the keenest interest of readers. The book was quickly sold out, and the publisher and compilers began to receive letters from individuals and various organizations with a request to help them get the book by A.K. Gastev. These circumstances, along with the relevance and importance of the problems considered in the book, the originality and depth of their coverage, necessitated this reprint.

The book "How to Work" is reprinted without revisions and additions, it corrects only some technical shortcomings of the previous edition. References in the text are designed as in lifetime editions, and the author's punctuation and spelling are mostly preserved.

The publisher and compilers considered it expedient in the new edition not to partially eliminate those forced cuts that were mentioned in the preface to the first edition. Since the main treatise A. K. Gasteva - the book “Labor Installations” was never published by the Prosveshchenie publishing house, the book “Labor Installations”, the adjoining work “Installation of Production by the CIT Method” and several closely related to them in terms of subject matter and design, was considered appropriate Gastev's works to be released as a separate edition. Such a publication is expected to be carried out in the near future. This book, under the general title "Labor Attitudes," will be a direct continuation of the book "How to Work."

Principles of NOT according to Gastev

The concepts of Taylor and Ford were built around the shop floor organization of labor: the assembly line, timing, differential wages, the maximum division of labor, getting rid of unnecessary pauses, etc. All these ideas were embodied in socialist production. However, Gastev added to this work with the personality of the worker. This worker must still operate within certain standards, but within them he can and must be creative, and he should also be encouraged to come up with ideas for reforming labor operations.

Gastev paid great attention to the physiological characteristics of the worker - what will later be called ergonomics.

Gastev formulated a number of principles for organizing his own work, addressed to the workers themselves. These principles can be safely applied to any production today.

1. Before undertaking work, it is necessary to think through it all, think it over so that the model of the finished work and the whole order of labor methods are finally formed in the head. If it is impossible to think through everything to the end, then think over the main milestones, and think through the first parts of the work thoroughly.

2. Do not get down to work until all the working tools and all the devices for work have been prepared.

3. At the workplace (machine, workbench, table, floor, ground) there should not be anything superfluous so as not to poke around in vain, not to fuss and not look for the necessary among the unnecessary.

4. All tools and devices must be laid out in a certain, if possible, once for all established order, so that you can find it all at random.

5. You should never take on work abruptly, immediately, do not break away, but go into work gradually. The head and the body will disperse and work on their own; and if you start right away, then soon you will slaughter yourself, as they say, and you will ruin your work. After a steep initial impulse, the worker will soon give up: he himself will experience fatigue, and will spoil the work.

6. In the course of work, sometimes it is necessary to fit hard: either in order to master something out of the ordinary, or in order to take something together, in an artel. In such cases, you don’t have to lean right away, but first you need to adjust, you need to tune your whole body and mind, you need to recharge, so to speak; then you need to try it a little, find the required strength, and after that, fit in.

7. It is necessary to work as evenly as possible so that there is no ebb and flow; rash work spoils both the person and the work by attacks.

8. The position of the body during work should be such that it would be convenient to work, and at the same time, forces would not be wasted on completely unnecessary keeping the body on its feet. If possible, work while sitting. If it is impossible to sit, the legs should be kept apart; so that the leg put forward or to the side does not break away, it is necessary to arrange a fortification.

9. During work, it is necessary to rest. In hard work, you need to rest more often and, if possible, sit; in light work, rest is rare, but even.

10. During the work itself, you should not eat, drink tea, drink in extreme cases only to quench your thirst; do not smoke, it is better to smoke during work breaks than during the work itself.

11. If the work does not go, then do not get excited, but it is better to take a break, change your mind and apply again quietly; even deliberately slow down to endure.

12. During the work itself, especially when things are not going well, it is necessary to interrupt the work, put the workplace in order, carefully lay down the tools and materials, sweep away the rubbish and start working again and again gradually, but evenly.

13. It is not necessary to break away from work for another matter, except for what is necessary in the work itself.

14. There is a very bad habit, after the successful completion of the work, immediately show it; here it is absolutely necessary to "endure", so to speak, get used to success, crush your satisfaction, make it internal, otherwise, in case of failure, you will end up with a "poisoning" of the will, and the work will become disgusting.

Russian revolutionary, poet and scientist. In 1920 he organized the Central Institute of Labor (CIT) in Moscow.

"Basic Lines of Destiny Gasteva- poetic creativity, revolutionary activity, the length of service of the worker and organizational and engineering programs - apparently went hand in hand, in parallel. Intersecting, but not interfering with each other.
Links is the time for literature and engineering projects. In the Narym exile, he not only polishes his poetic skills, but here the first thoughts about “social engineering” are born.
Links is also a school of professional skill for a revolutionary. Gastev had a lot of them. And after each - an escape. 1900 - first exile, escape, Switzerland, Paris, return to Russia.
Again exile, escape, emigration. And so almost twenty years of illegal nomadic life. In the intervals between links, Gastev gets a job as a worker and masters several professions, and one - locksmith - to perfection. Essentially, it follows the path Taylor and goes through it sequentially: worker - engineer - director. Even the socio-political, lecture "load" they had almost equally large. But if Taylor more often spoke to engineers, businessmen and students, then Gastev spoke to workers, peasants, and then to the engineering and technical intelligentsia.

Kravchenko A.I., Classics of the sociology of management: F. Taylor and A. Gastev, St. Petersburg, "Russian Christian Institute for the Humanities", 1998, p. 34-35.

"AND Gastev and Kerzhentsev were active Proletcult- an organization conceived in the party schools in Capri and Bologna. It was there that in 1909-1911 the question of the relationship between culture, revolution and socialism was raised.
Gastev was also a poet, the author of the collections “Poetry of a Work Strike” and “A Bundle of Orders”. His chopped stanzas were chanted from the stage by blue blouses; he himself took part in proletarian dramatizations of his poetry.
In August 1920, Gastev created what he called his last work of art, "a scientific construct and the highest artistic legend", the Central Institute of Labor (CIT).
Its goal is to help create "an elementary culture of habits, without which it is impossible to make a solid, new life". The new culture is the speed and accuracy of movements, "dexterous control of the body", "the ability to fight relentlessly." It is formed by production, the factory, which Gastev imagined as a “giant laboratory”, where the machine organizes the actions of the worker, educates his self-discipline and intelligence.
A worker in machine production is not just a performer, but also a manager, "the director of an enterprise that is known by the name of a machine tool (machines - tools)." “History,” wrote Gastev, “urgently requires ... a bold design of the human personality, psychology, depending on such a historical factor as machinism.”

Sirotkina I.E., Free movement and plastic dance in Russia, M., New Literary Review, 2011, p. 111-112.

"One of the most eccentric figures Proletcult - Alexey Gastev, a locksmith worker from the first followers Bogdanov, who became a poet and theorist of culture and became famous in the early years of the revolution as a "singer of steel and machines." After 1920, he was carried away by the use in everyday life of the system of organization and intensification of labor by the method of timing movements, developed by Frederick Taylor.
Members of his “League of Time”, which had branches in all major cities, were called upon never and nowhere to part with the clock and keep “chrono-maps”, where they would record how they used every minute of the day. Ideally, everyone was supposed to go to bed and wake up at the same time.
To save time, he proposed to “mechanize speech”, replacing long expressions familiar in Russian with shorter ones and using abbreviations, for the excessive use of which he still bears considerable responsibility.
The pinnacle of his heated inspiration was the idea of ​​mechanizing a person and his life, in the spirit of timekeeping experiments carried out at the Central Institute of Labor, created and directed by him.
He had visions of the future, when people would turn into automata, without their own names, but only numbers, and devoid of personal ideas and feelings, whose individuality should dissolve without a trace in collective work: “It is this trait that imparts amazing anonymity to proletarian psychology allowing to qualify a separate proletarian unit as A, B, C, or as 325, 075 and 0, etc. ... This means that in his psychology, powerful heavy psychological flows are walking from end to end of the world, for which, as if there are no million heads, there is one world head. In the future, this tendency will imperceptibly create the impossibility of individual thinking.
This nightmare, which one Western historian saw as a "vision of hope," Evgeny Zamyatin material for his dystopia "We", and Karel Capek for the play R.U.R., where he first coined the word "robot" he invented.
In a strange twist of fate, the vice attributed to capitalism, namely the dehumanization of labor, became the ideal for many communists.
Proletcult developed rapidly, during its heyday in 1920 it consisted of 80 thousand members and 400 thousand sympathizers. At many factories there were his cells, which acted independently of the party organizations.