The Soviet State historical experience on increasing labour productivity in transport (1926-1940)

The purpose of this article is to reconstruct the historical experience of the Soviet State in increasing labour productivity in transport as an important indicator of the effectiveness of its work. The chronological scope of the study covers the period of 1926-1940, when, in terms of the formation approach, the Soviet Union was implementing the policy of socialist industrialization of the country. The source base of the article is made up of normative documents of the Communist party, government agencies, archival and statistical materials. Basing on the modernization theory and the principle of scientific objectivity, the author attempted to analyze, free from any ideological parochialism, both beneficial and negative impacts of the Soviet experience. Despite its contradictory and inconsistent nature, the industrialization of the 1920s and 1930s amounts to an extraordinary example of searching solutions to the problems of increasing productivity in the situation of international isolation of the USSR, which is, to some extent, equivalent to the current geopolitical situation of Russia. The Soviet State has established the three main ways of transport conversion from extensive methods to intensive development: 1) fundamental modernization of its material-technical base, which was the first stage of the technological revolution in transport infrastructure of the country; 2) reorganization of the administrative staff and improvement of work organization; 3) restructuring of personnel policy. The article provides an assessment of Stakhanovism and the degree of personnel matter resolution in the prewar period that is the subject of discussion in the scientific literature. It is concluded that in the period of industrialization the productivity in transport was improved considerably, which contributed to winning through its underrun from the economy needs and reaching a leading position in the world on a number of accounts. The author describes his theory concerning the possibility of using certain aspects of the Soviet experience in contemporary Russia (a stable tendency in public policy to use intensive methods of economic management in transport; wide promotion of best practices; the active involvement of public associations; a call for optimal use of achievements of domestic and foreign science and technology). The negative aspects of the Soviet experience that can be useful for learning lessons in addressing the pressing problems of the day are also analyzed in the article.

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