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[SOVIET STUDY OF LABOR] Issledovaniia / Tsentral’nyi institut truda V.TS.S.P.S. [i.e. Research / The Central Labor Institute of All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions]. [Part] I, [Issue] 1: Motion Study

Item #859

Moscow, 1923. 108, [4] pp.: ill., 4 ills. 26x17 cm. In original illustrated wrappers. Restored and soiled covers, water stains occasionally, some colored pencil marks on margins, otherwise very good and clean copy.

First collection of works by the Soviet research laboratories dedicated to the culture of labor. One of 2000 copies. Constructivist design of both covers produced by B. S. Nikiforov.

The Central Labor Institute (CIT) was established in 1920 for demonstrating and propaganda of principles of the scientific study of labor. It appeared thanks to avant-garde poet, revolutionary and labor theoretician Alexei Gastev (1882-1939). In the 1920s, he discarded poetry focusing on CIT as his “main artistic work”. He stressed that a human worker was not implementer but a director of a machine tool. This principle was declared by CIT, observing motion of workers and developing practical courses of motion economy in the workplace. They set up a company ‘Ustanovka’ (Installation) which proposed factories to help them manage business more effectively. Thus, CIT had created work standards and taught tens of thousands of labor organizers implementing standards throughout the country.

Several laboratories of the Institute comprehensively analyzed how exactly one man did work, what he felt, what he used, what processes took place inside him and then calculated how he could do work better. The study of striking a chisel with a hammer quickly became the hallmark of CIT. This book included results data of chronophotographic and myographic experiments provided by laboratories fixing motions of a worker. There are four articles by N. Bernstein, A. Bruzhes and N. Tikhonov. The texts are complemented with impressive schemes, for example, hammering in 20 stills, or photographs of motion trajectories as well as different charts of calculations, photographs and drawings of used devices. Initially, seven laboratories existed and their practices are presented in the foreword by an editorial board of B. Babin, A. Gastev and K. Kekcheev. Being close to Gilbreth’s labor study, scholars of CIT considered themselves opponents of him, “optimizing worker’s motion in connection with physiological construction of organism”. The anarchist views of Gastev reflected in the labor study as well. He considered that intellectually developed workers joined trade unions and didn’t need any state. No wonder the Soviet party executed this man in 1938 and then CIT ceased activity in 1940.

The only copy located in NYPL, according to the Worldcat.

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