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All this was fine news for Russia in 1935, except that one of Communism's great talking points has always been against Capitalism's technique of "the speed-up." As usually described by Communists, the Capitalist bosses incite crack workers to exceed normal production, get the whole shop working faster to keep up, exhaust and exploit their workers. Throughout Russia proletarians sensed that the disguised State Capitalism of Dictator Stalin, which has already forced piecework upon Russians, is now bent upon the speed-up disguised as "Stakhanovism."
In the Gorky automotive works the Brothers Ivan and Feodor Kriachkov assassinated their fellow worker Ivan Schmerov because he had speeded up his daily output 200%. Tried before a military tribunal, they were sentenced to death. In the coal mine at Stalino two assistant foremen, a checkweigher and an electrician were arrested for the murder of a fast-working Stakhanovite who had peached on them to the Bolshevik labor boss as "opposed to Stakhanovism." In a nearby mine a worker shot at his Stakhanovite mine manager, missed. Most spectacular blow against Stakhanovism is supposed to have been struck by Engineer S. Plotnikov, a member of the Communist Party up to the time of his arrest. According to the Soviet Press, Engineer Plotnikov became so vexed at Chelyabinsk by the boastful uppishness of the local Stakhanov gang that he ordered the fastest speeder-uppers to dig in an extremely dangerous (Continued on p. 28) pit of Mine No. 204. Sure enough, the pit caved in on them.
Modest Miner. Such stories of ogreish engineers are part of the now far-advanced Soviet Press effort to sell speedups to Russian workers as something of which they should be proud, while still picturing speedups as wicked in Capitalist countries. Recently 3,000 Stakhanovites of both sexes, including Comrade Alexei Stakhanov himself, were feted in Moscow by the Dictatorship and Joseph Stalin. Reported the official Pravda, "Stalin spoke briefly for about an hour."
As usual the text of the Dictator's speech was withheld to receive careful editing. Last week, carefully trimmed, pruned & polished, it was available in the U. S. Not since he ordered the kulaks wiped out has the Dictator spoken more momentously. With the arrival of Stakhanovism, in Stalin's opinion, the decisive page of Soviet history is turning. Neatly Soviet papers printed that Stakhanovism's Great Stakhanov at this juncture cried: "I do not know why this movement is called 'Stakhanovism.' We have drawn our whole inspiration from Comrade Stalin."
With this tribute of Lindberghian modesty from Stakhanov, Dictator Stalin pronounced one of those great Bolshevik discourses which Workers of the World seldom wade clear through.