The shock brigades movements: actual content and mythological shell

Feldman M.A.

Abstract

The history of the shock brigades in the context of a number of historical processes during the period of the First Five-Year Plan represents one of the most mysterious parts of Soviet history: the rapid emergence of the movement in 1929; its positioning as the «highest expression of socialist competition» ‒ and its actual disappearance in the early 1930s. The proposed article shows the range of the Soviet leaders’ hopes for shock movement: in an environment of increasing crisis phenomena in the city and mass unrest of peasants in the countryside, the ruling party needed faithful social support that could become an example for working society; become a personnel reserve of the CPSU (b); an instrument of influence on «old specialists». For Stalin and his inner circle, the idea of «socialist competition» and the shock movement as its most concentrated expression in 1929– 1931 became part of the «Great Turning Point». That is why the call for universal and total entry into the shock brigades was adjacent to the slogan of «mass workers' control over the state apparatus» in the format of «nomination of the best shock workers for economic, Soviet and trade union work», and exposure of «wreckers» from among the «part of the specialists who betrayed the interests of the working class». The article analyzes the implementation of plans for the transformation of shock brigades into the «locomotive of the socialist economy». It highlights a number of voluntary decisions in the areas of financing, compliance with labor protection standards, and motivation systems, which have alienated the majority of workers from striking. A reasoned conclusion is made that the awareness of the ineffectiveness of the shock movement came to the leadership of the USSR at the January (1933) Plenum of the Central Committee of the CPSU (b) and the Seventeenth Party Congress in February 1934, where the topic of the movement of shock brigades was practically not raised. However, the ways of further economic development for the leaders of the Soviet Union became the subject of discussion.

Keywords

shock movement;4 workers; industry; party; Soviet Union; shock brigades; self-financing; socialist competition.

DOI: 10.31249/rsm/2024.01.10

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