ABSTRACT

The Bolshevik ethic of work was perhaps one of the most important psychological and ideological motivations. It equals in importance Lenin's theory of Party organization and Revolution, which indisputably governed their behavior. It would be well to compare briefly the Bolshevik view about work with some of the dominant ideas. The Bolsheviks were caught on the horns of an output-discipline dilemma. Lenin had been acutely aware of the productivity problem from the beginning. In his early works he emphasized the importance of raising production. The discipline problem in its practical form was best stated by Shmidt at the Second Congress of Commissars in May 1918. In terms of ethics, W. Frederick Taylor was the enfant terrible to the socialists. His radical "scientific organization of work" could only mean the total dehumanization of man by the machine. Work was, and is, conceived in ethical and millenarian terms in the Soviet Union.