What did Lenin do with managers?

[firsteatthepets]

A history question on USSR's early days. I understand that, at first, company managers were replaced after the 1917 revolution, and that this impacted production. After a few years it seems production recovered.

So I'm curious whether the original managers were reinstalled or were the new managers trained over time? Thanks for any info or recommended reading!

[mrmikhail]

Well during the NEP I believe a lot of the old management was placed back into their positions, albeit a renamed one from management to "specialised technicians" but they were not as before "above" the workers, but rather more like first among equals. The plan was to use their knowledge to train the workers to be able to manage themselves, which had some degree of success until the NEP had run it's course at least, when they managed to reach the level of production of pre-WWI Russia.

[ComradeOm]

This is, like most Russian history from the period, more complex than it seems. The first thing to know about 1917 is that nothing was absolute. Even in 1917-18 relatively few factories were put under full workers' self-management. By the end of the Civil War a rough system of triangular management (treugol'nik) - in which power lay divided between the board of management, the local party cell and the union apparatus - was probably standard across the country. In this setup the management (itself typically divided between elected workers, appointed managers and technical specialists) was responsible for production but was subject to interference from other quarters

This system lasted until the introduction of one-man management (edinonachalie) and 'Red dictators' in the late 1920s but worker input into production was gradually stripped away from the mid 1920s onwards

As to the class background of the managers, it varied considerably. Those former managers who could leave during the Civil War, probably did so and there would have been promotions from the shop floor onto the management boards. However as late as 1933 as much as 70% of the "leading officials and specialists" in the USSR were from non-proletarian backgrounds

[Edit: And of course Lenin had little to do with all this. He had called for one-man management back in 1918 but was simply ignored by the unions and workers]


...and that this impacted production. After a few years it seems production recovered.Production had largely recovered to 1914 levels by 1928, yes. However the initial fall was not due to the Revolution - even if the economic chaos immediately after October 1917 did not help - but was part of the wider terminal economic collapse that ultimately destroyed the Tsardom and crippled the new Soviet state

[firsteatthepets]

Thanks, guys!