Aleksei Kapitonovich Gastev (1882, Suzdal

Suzdal

Suzdal is a town in Vladimir Oblast, Russia, situated northeast of Moscow, from the city of Vladimir, on the Kamenka River. Population: -History:...

 - 1939) was a participant in the Russian Revolution of 1905

Russian Revolution of 1905

The 1905 Russian Revolution was a wave of mass political and social unrest that spread through vast areas of the Russian Empire. Some of it was directed against the government, while some was undirected. It included worker strikes, peasant unrest, and military mutinies...

, a pioneer of scientific management

Scientific management

Scientific management, also called Taylorism, was a theory of management that analyzed and synthesized workflows. Its main objective was improving economic efficiency, especially labor productivity. It was one of the earliest attempts to apply science to the engineering of processes and to management...

 in Russia, a trade-union activist and an avant garde poet.

Youth of a Revolutionary

Born to a family of a teacher and a seamstress in Suzdal

Suzdal

Suzdal is a town in Vladimir Oblast, Russia, situated northeast of Moscow, from the city of Vladimir, on the Kamenka River. Population: -History:...

, Russia

Russia

Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

, Aleksei Gastev enrolled into the Moscow Pedagogical Institute, but was expelled as a result of his participation in a revolutionary meeting. He joined the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party

Russian Social Democratic Labour Party

The Russian Social Democratic Labour Party , also known as Russian Social Democratic Workers' Party or Russian Social Democratic Party, was a revolutionary socialist Russian political party formed in 1898 in Minsk to unite the various revolutionary organizations into one party...

 in 1901. An active participant in the Russian Revolution of 1905

Russian Revolution of 1905

The 1905 Russian Revolution was a wave of mass political and social unrest that spread through vast areas of the Russian Empire. Some of it was directed against the government, while some was undirected. It included worker strikes, peasant unrest, and military mutinies...

, Gastev was the leader of a fighting squad in Kostroma

Kostroma

Kostroma is a historic city and the administrative center of Kostroma Oblast, Russia. A part of the Golden Ring of Russian towns, it is located at the confluence of the Volga and Kostroma Rivers...

 and agitated workers to strike in the Northern Russian cities of Yaroslavl

Yaroslavl

Yaroslavl is a city and the administrative center of Yaroslavl Oblast, Russia, located northeast of Moscow. The historical part of the city, a World Heritage Site, is located at the confluence of the Volga and the Kotorosl Rivers. It is one of the Golden Ring cities, a group of historic cities...

, Ivanovo-Voznesensk and Rostov. During this time, Gastev was closely associated with the Bolshevik

Bolshevik

The Bolsheviks, originally also Bolshevists , derived from bol'shinstvo, "majority") were a faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party which split apart from the Menshevik faction at the Second Party Congress in 1903....

 faction of the Party. He frequently corresponded with Lenin and 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.

Split with the Bolsheviks

In 1907 Gastev dissociated himself from the activities of the Bolshevik faction. As a result of one of his exiles, followed by an emigration, Gastev spent about three years working in the industrial factories of Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

, France

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 in 1910-1913. At that time, he became familiar with French Syndicalism

Syndicalism

Syndicalism is a type of economic system proposed as a replacement for capitalism and an alternative to state socialism, which uses federations of collectivised trade unions or industrial unions...

 and adopted many of the views of that movement, seeing trade unions as a chief means of confronting capitalism by bringing concrete improvements into the lives of workers.

Trade Union Work

From 1901 until 1917 Gastev spent most of his years 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 the country, in 1907. By 1913 gastev joined the Circle of Proletarian Culture with Anatoly Lunacharsky, Feodor Kalinin, Pavel Bessalko and Mikhail Gerasimov

Mikhail Gerasimov (poet)

Mikhail Prokofyevich Gerasimov was one of the most widely-read working-class poets in early twentieth century Russia. Initially embracing the Bolshevik revolution as a liberating event and participating in the effort to create a new "proletarian culture," following the New Economic Policy he...

.In 1917-1918 Gastev has been elected 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.

Scientific Management

In 1920, Gastev became the founder and Director of the Central Institute of Labor (C.I.T.) in Moscow, which he referred to as his "last work of art". The organization of the Institute was encouraged by Lenin, who promised to allocate the initial funding of the project. The institution developed scientific approaches to work management, which in practical terms amounted to methods of training workers to perform mechanical operations in the most efficient way. Some simple repetitive operations, like the cutting of materials with a chisel, were studied in great detail. Recommendations on setting up the work processes efficiently were published.

In 1928, in an effort to increase the funding of his studies, Gastev organized the Ustanovka ("Setup") joint-stock company which audited the work of industrial enterprises and provided recommendations on efficient organization of their work processes on a commercial basis.

Educational Work

Gastev's ideas on education were based on his concept of "social engineering", meaning the creation of training methods based on the physiological and psychological study of humans in the work process, using both observational and experimental methods. This led to the creation of the "setup method" (установочный метод), which viewed the conditioning of human faculties as a basis for reform of the educational system in its entirety. The term "setup" (установка) implied the formation of personal automated behaviors through "biological setups", "cultural setups", etc.

Gastev's methods were used in intensive trainings of qualified workers and were highly successful.

Poetry

Gastev's Poeziia rabochego udara, (Poetry of the worker's blow), was the first book published by Proletkult

Proletkult

Proletkult was movement which arose in the Russian revolution and was active from 1917 to 1925 which aspired to provide the foundations for what was intended to be a truly proletarian art devoid of bourgeois influence.The name is a portmanteau of "proletarskaya kultura" , which are better-known as...

 in 1918.
Most of Gastev's poems may be fairly labeled prose poetry

Prose poetry

Prose poetry is poetry written in prose instead of using verse but preserving poetic qualities such as heightened imagery and emotional effects.-Characteristics:Prose poetry can be considered either primarily poetry or prose, or a separate genre altogether...

. The rhythm is usually not organized enough to qualify for verse, the rhyme is absent, the poems are written in the form of prose pieces. However, the use of metaphor, lyrical expressiveness, and repetitiveness of syntax undoubtedly make Gastev a true lyrical poet, with influences ranging from Verhaeren and Walt Whitman

Walt Whitman

Walter "Walt" Whitman was an American poet, essayist and journalist. A humanist, he was a part of the transition between transcendentalism and realism, incorporating both views in his works. Whitman is among the most influential poets in the American canon, often called the father of free verse...

 to the Russian Futurists

Russian Futurism

Russian Futurism is the term used to denote a group of Russian poets and artists who adopted the principles of Filippo Marinetti's "Manifesto of Futurism"...

.

Gastev's poetry energetically celebrates industrialization, announcing an era of a new type of human, trained by the overall mechanization of everyday life. In the 1920s Gastev abandoned his literary work completely, dedicating himself to his scientific management

Scientific management

Scientific management, also called Taylorism, was a theory of management that analyzed and synthesized workflows. Its main objective was improving economic efficiency, especially labor productivity. It was one of the earliest attempts to apply science to the engineering of processes and to management...

research. However, many of his later publications on non-poetic topics are written in the expressive language of prose poems.

Arrest and Death

On September 8, 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 on April 14, 1939. There was no defense attorney and no possibility to appeal against the decision. On April 15, 1939 Gastev was shot to death in the suburbs of Moscow.

October 1, 1941, the date of Gastev's death given by some sources, is based on false information given by the authorities to Gastev's family prior to 1991. No reliable information about Gastev's fate after his arrest was available until the KGB archive, where the interrogation and trial documents were kept, became accessible to relatives in the early 1990s.

Works

1. Poesija rabochego udara (Поэзия рабочего удара). Moscow. 1964, 1971.
2. Kak nado rabotat? (Как надо работать?). Moscow, Ekonomika. 1966, 1972.
3. Trudovye ustanovki (Трудовые установки). Moscow, Ekonomika. 1973.